CHAPTER XXV

TAMARA DASHED ACROSS the tracks and looked around. The old woman had been wearing a dark dress and with the moon gone and the trains departed, there was little light to see by. Thankfully, she was not far from the rails, lying face down in the grass. Tamara ran over to her. Her arms were laid out on either side of her, level with her head. Her hands were covered with blood and it looked as though both forearms were broken, smashed by the train’s wheel as she had held Raisa’s head down under it. It was a miracle they had not been severed. On her right wrist was a heavy ring of dark, roughly forged iron – somewhere between a bracelet and a manacle. Tamara turned her over. There was blood on her face too, her grey hair matted against it, and her nose was broken. But she was alive. She was breathing, albeit with shallow, halting rasps. Only one side of her chest seemed to rise and fall. The other lay still – a physical reminder that the woman was half dead already.

Tamara knelt down and wiped the hair away from the old woman’s face. Her eyes were closed and there seemed little trace of consciousness. Tamara pulled her head up a little and rested it on her lap, stroking her cheek. She still felt the pain where Raisa’s nails had gouged at her own face, but she did not dare touch it and discover the damage.

‘Toma.’ The woman’s voice was weak, but perfectly clear.

Tamara looked down and tried to smile. She felt tears begin to form in her eyes. ‘How do you know me?’ she asked.

‘You think I’d forget you?’

‘It seems I’ve forgotten you.’ It was a simple statement of fact, but it was loathsome for Tamara to say it to this woman who had sacrificed her own life to save hers.

‘You don’t recognize me?’

Tamara looked hard into the woman’s face, desperate to see what it seemed she was meant to see. The woman had been beautiful once, that was obvious, and in a way still was. And yes – much as Tamara wanted to believe it, it was true – there was something that she recognized in that face. Then she realized. There was a resemblance, slight and foolish though it might be, to the Duchess of Parma, once, long ago, wife of the Emperor Napoleon. Tamara had seen a portrait of her, painted not long before she died. Ten years on, this might have been her. She wished the memory had been more personal.

‘Bayoo, babshkee, bayoo,

‘Zheevyet myelneek na krayoo.’

There was a growl to the old woman’s singing voice, brought on by her age and her injuries, but the tune and the words in an instant brought back memories far stronger than any Tamara had found in her face. It all came back to her. She was in her bedroom in the Lavrovs’ house – not the main room but the tiny room off it, with the little child’s bed. She could hear that same voice – the voice of her long-forgotten nanny – so much younger then, singing the same lullaby, a silly story about a miller and his children at carnival time. She picked up the next two lines.

‘On nye byedyen, nye bogat,

‘Polna gorneetsa rebyat.’

The old woman smiled perhaps the broadest smile that Tamara had ever seen. Except that she was not ‘the old woman’ any more. Neither was she ‘Natalia Borisovna’. At last Tamara knew her.

‘Domnikiia Semyonovna,’ she whispered.

Domnikiia could not smile any more widely, so instead she nodded. ‘You do remember!’ she said.

‘I do now. I didn’t when I saw you before.’

‘Neither did I,’ said Domnikiia, ‘not right away. We chose not to know. But when I came to Moscow … I only went there to remember.’

‘Went where?’

‘To Degtyarny Lane. I was on my way back.’

‘Back?’

‘To Irkutsk. I had to deliver a letter for Lyosha – to Tsarskoye Selo. Everything we sent was censored, so he said I should come. It was safer for me than him. I hated to leave him, but I knew it was a chance to see you – just to look at you.’

‘A letter?’ asked Tamara.

‘When we heard about the tsar’s death. Lyosha knew that Iuda would go after Tarasov. We had to warn him.’ Her voice became urgent. ‘Is he all right? Did Iuda get him?’

Tamara had no idea how to provide an answer to the question, but Domnikiia clearly needed one. ‘He’s fine,’ she said soothingly. ‘He’s fine.’

‘And then I set off back to Irkutsk, but I stopped in Moscow on the way. I heard about the murder – went to Degtyarny Lane. And then I saw you. I didn’t know it was you, but the hair reminded me. And then when you said it was your birthday, I knew it must be you.’ She coughed and Tamara saw blood on her lips. Domnikiia tried to raise her hand to wipe them, but it was impossible. She didn’t seem to understand that her arms were useless. Tamara cleaned the blood away for her.

‘Why didn’t you say?’

‘I wanted to, Toma. How I wanted to! But I was as much an exile as Lyosha. If I’d been recognized, I’d have been arrested. And then what could I have done?’

‘But now you’ve come back.’

‘We both have. He’s free again and we’ve both come home, to see Dmitry and to see you.’

‘Aleksei’s in Moscow?’ Tamara felt a thrill deep inside her. The news was not striking in any rational way, but it was the event that she had been anticipating for months. It seemed too good to be true. So many questions would be answered.

‘We arrived today. I came straight to find you, but he wanted to see Dmitry. You understand?’

Tamara felt the urge to squeeze her former nanny’s hand, but she knew it would only cause pain. Instead, she stroked her face. ‘Of course I understand,’ she said. ‘Dmitry’s not your son. They deserve some time together.’ Tamara quietly contemplated the horror of Aleksei’s potential encounter with his son. She could only pray that it would never happen. ‘But you saved my life by coming to find me.’

‘I didn’t understand why you ran. Then I realized you were following that woman. I guessed what she was, and when you shot her I knew for sure.’

‘You’ve met them before?’

Domnikiia smiled again. ‘Not like that,’ she said. ‘That was always Lyosha. Do you think he’ll be proud of me?’

‘Of course he will,’ said Tamara, her enthusiasm only a little forced. ‘He’ll be so, so proud.’

‘You’ll tell him?’

‘You’ll tell him,’ insisted Tamara.

Domnikiia chuckled, as best she could, and shook her head. ‘You’re a good liar, Toma, just like Lyosha. You always took after him more than me, but neither of you could ever fool me. I’m not going to be seeing him again; not here. At least I’ve seen you.’ She closed her eyes and turned her head to one side, but Tamara was scarcely listening to her any more.

She had been blind, but now her mother – her mother – had explained it all. ‘You always took after him more than me.’ More like Aleksei than Domnikiia – more like her father than her mother. Aleksei was an old friend of Vadim Fyodorovich – his closest comrade. Who else but Vadim’s daughter, Yelena, would he choose to care for his bastard daughter? And little wonder she could not distinguish the hazy memories of her nanny and her mother – they were one and the same: Domnikiia Semyonovna. What better way to ensure that the mother could keep watch over the child, and yet never have the truth discovered?

It was only the Decembrist Uprising and Aleksei’s exile that had spoiled things. Tamara recalled how she had once scorned the idea that her father might be a Decembrist, but the more she had learned about Aleksei, the more she had grown to see him as a great man, of whom any child would be proud. ‘A brother and an unhailed hero of the nation,’ that was how Prince Volkonsky had described Tamara’s father in one of his letters. Tamara was still to discover precisely what he’d meant by that, but soon she would know. Soon she would speak to Aleksei himself.

A mother and a father and one other; a brother too – Dmitry. A brother no more – he had died before she had even known him for what he was. Now he was nothing to her. She pushed the thought from her mind. She already had too much joy and too much sorrow to bear. She threw herself down and hugged her mother, squeezing as tightly as she dared, scarcely caring about the pain she inflicted, knowing that she would gladly suffer the same and more to feel the warm body of one so long separated from her. She felt her mother attempt to return the embrace, despite her broken arms, but then she fell back. Tamara raised herself up and looked at the ancient, wrinkled, beloved face beneath her.

‘I had to go with him, Toma.’ Domnikiia’s eyes flicked frantically across Tamara’s face. ‘You must understand.’

‘I do. Of course I do,’ said Tamara. She had not stayed with her husband in Petersburg, and had never seen him again. Domnikiia’s was the wiser choice. ‘You left me in good hands.’

‘We knew they’d look after you. Because of Vadim.’

‘I’ve heard all about Vadim,’ said Tamara, feeling the sting of tears on her cheek as they infiltrated the wounds that Raisa had given her. ‘And Maks and Dmitry.’

Domnikiia closed her eyes again, but her voice was still clear, if quiet. ‘I don’t think I ever spoke to Vadim, but I know that to Lyosha he was the greatest man in the whole world. I knew Maks, and Dmitry. Maks was lovely. Marry a man like Maks, Toma, not one like Lyosha.’

‘I married a doctor – he’s called Vitaliy.’ There was no need to go into details.

Again Domnikiia’s smile spread, and then descended into a cough. Now the blood that came with it seemed not to bother her, and there was too much for Tamara to wipe away. When she had recovered, Domnikiia spoke again, quieter than ever. ‘Children?’

Tamara managed to produce the standard answer. ‘Three,’ she replied. Domnikiia said nothing, but nodded slightly, her eyes still closed. ‘Milenochka is fifteen now,’ continued Tamara. ‘Almost a woman. She’s so beautiful.’ It was so easy, and so wonderful, to lie about it. Domnikiia would never know of the deceit, and Tamara could experience the pleasure of pretending to someone else; something that usually she could only enjoy alone. ‘Stasik is thirteen. He wants to be a doctor, like his papa.’ Would he have wanted that? Would she have been disappointed if not? Would she and Vitya have tried to force him down that path? It did not matter; she was liberated from all such worries. She looked down at Domnikiia, but there was no response.

‘Luka’s only ten,’ she went on. ‘The other two tease him, but I think they love him even more than we do. I took him down Nevsky Prospekt a few weeks ago.’ The memory was blatantly stolen. ‘He stopped at every toyshop, and pressed his nose against the window. We spoil him – me more than Vitya, though I think Vitya buys him things and makes him promise not to tell me.’

It was pointless now. Domnikiia was dead. Tamara wasn’t quite sure when it had happened, but she was certain she had died happily with thoughts of her phantom grandchildren filling her mind.

Tamara continued to talk, telling stories about her children, Domnikiia’s head resting in her lap. Some of them were true – taken from their infancy – but most were just elaborations on the imaginings that had run through Tamara’s mind ever since. It was bliss to be reunited – mother with children. Domnikiia with Tamara, Tamara with Stasik, Milenochka and Luka.

At last she could speak no more. She hoisted the old woman up in her arms, surprised by how little she weighed. Then she began to trudge with her alongside the railway track, heading north-west towards the green lanterns, and the bridge, and the river far below.

It was the first woman he had consumed; Katyusha, if names mattered. Dmitry had followed her closely up the stairs to Milan’s rooms, eager to sense her reaction when she found what was up there, wondering whether she would perceive first the blood, or would see her lover on the couch and presume him asleep. Or would she instantly see the wounds to his neck, and understand what had befallen him? And after that, what would her reaction be with regard to Dmitry? Would she cower from him in fear, and soon discover her fear quite justified, or would she throw herself upon him for protection, only to find her trust in him betrayed?

What in fact resulted was merely irritating. She screamed; a loud, repeated scream that, whether by chance or design, was most likely to save her life by attracting the attention of neighbours. Perhaps he should have let them come, but instinct took him over and he hit her, his knuckles striking the line of her jaw and knocking it upwards into her skull. She fell to the floor like a pile of wet rags, and he saw blood trickling from her mouth. He knelt down. She was unconscious, but not dead. That at least would preserve the blood, but there would be little to enjoy in a victim whose awareness of her fate had lasted for so inconveniently brief a duration.

He dragged her over to the couch and hauled her up on to it, sitting her beside Milan. She didn’t groan or offer any resistance, as he had hoped. She made no movement at all. He slipped his hand inside her blouse and rested it below her breast, feeling her heartbeat. It was slow, very slow, as though she were supremely relaxed, but there was still life. Her jaw was broken and dislocated, twisted at a bizarre angle. She was no longer pretty. He would tell her that when she came round. Perhaps there was a mirror he could use to show her.

He went into Milan’s bedroom and soon found one – a simple hand-held glass in a wooden frame. He came back and sat next to Katyusha. He looked at her through the mirror, but she appeared much the same as in real life. Then he held it close to her face, so that her own reflection would be the first thing she would see when she came to. She remained oblivious to the world, but Dmitry noticed the glass become fogged by her breath. He waited, perhaps for an hour, in the hope that she would revive naturally. Perhaps she would awake only to scream again, but the pain of her broken jaw might persuade her to keep silent, at least until she realized what was about to befall her.

Eventually he became impatient. He took hold of her shoulders and began to shake her, hoping to force her back to consciousness. A strange scraping sound emanated from her broken jaw. Then at last he got some reaction; her body jerked from somewhere around her stomach, then again. A sound that he could not make out emerged from her throat, and then she convulsed again and retched. Unconscious as she was, and seated almost upright, there was small chance for anything to escape her body. A little of the vomit reached her mouth and dribbled down her chin. Dmitry could smell it, but he did not find the scent objectionable as he once might have done. In fact, there was much to be learned from it. He could tell that she had been eating potatoes, and cabbage, and a little chocolate.

Another spasm ripped her body, this time a cough. The reflex cleared her mouth, spattering flecks of half-digested food across the room. Afterwards she was still again. Dmitry had hit her too hard – he had been forced to act without thinking. She was, for most purposes, as good as dead. She would never come round and if he waited too long she might escape him for ever. In her current state, there was still some enjoyment to be gained from her.

He knelt beside her on the couch and pulled her hair to one side, away from her neck. Her face was now a parody of what it had once been, even Dmitry could tell that. Her jaw still hung loose and bent, but the rest of her face was limp, as if paralysed. Strands of bile still dripped from her lips. Dmitry pressed his face into her neck and bit, at first tasting the vomit that coated her skin, but then feeling his mouth fill with the warm, rich blood that spurted from her pierced vein. He drank deeply, and forgot his disappointments over the manner of his feeding.

Then, suddenly, nausea hit him. He thrust himself away from the woman’s body, for fear that what he was consuming had poisoned him, but he felt no lessening of the pain. Her blood had not grown stale, as it would have done if she had died, though death was not far from her now. This was something far more horrible, more fundamental, more all-consuming than mere tainted blood. It was as though he had received the most terrible news and awoken the following morning to have forgotten the details of it, yet still to remember the horror.

He searched his mind, and it took only moments to understand what had happened: Raisa was dead. Her presence, sometimes close, sometimes distant, had been there since the moment he had first awoken as a voordalak. Tonight it had been hard to discern, obscured by confusion, but it had existed; even when she slept. Now it was gone, and although as a vampire Dmitry was young and naive, somehow he knew that she was dead. There was much he had hoped to learn from her, but the opportunity was lost. There was only one that he could learn from now, with whom there was no such bond as there had been with Raisa, but whose understanding of Dmitry’s new condition would be far greater.

He glanced at the clock. It was too late for it tonight – soon Dmitry would have to head back to his adopted tomb, but he knew he could no longer put it off. When night fell again, Dmitry would not waste time on feeding. He would visit Yudin.

It had taken Tamara all night and most of the morning to get home. She had carried her mother’s body north-west along the railway track. It hadn’t taken long for them to reach the bridge and beneath it the ravine stretching down to the river Skhodnya below; a little longer before Tamara had been able to find a path down to the water’s edge. If anyone had seen her she would have cut a strange image, carefully clambering down through the clumps of grass, tenderly clutching the frail corpse as though it were the most precious thing in the whole world.

Then she had stood there, gazing at the flowing water, wondering exactly what she should do. She could think of no other way to lay her mother to rest. She would happily have carried the body barefoot across a thousand versts, but to what end? Tamara had no room in her life for further complications; not now. She scoured the riverbank until she found some wood – a couple of planks that she guessed were left over from the construction of the bridge that towered above her. Then she cut strips of material from the hem of her skirt and used them to bind the planks together. She laid her mother on the makeshift funeral raft. Finally she gathered leaves and foliage and covered the body. Before covering her face, Tamara had given her mother one final kiss on the lips, and then gazed at her, trying to remember any detail that she could of their life together when she was a child. The memories of the last few hours proved too strong, overpowering, for now, those that were more distant and more subtle. But even they were enough.

She pushed the boat out into the water and let the current take it, murmuring a prayer that she remembered from her husband’s funeral. She did not know how long she stood there by the river’s edge before turning away – it was more than an hour. Domnikiia’s body had long since vanished into the distance.

After that she had walked back to Khimki. Day had broken by the time she arrived, but she still had a long wait. A freight train came through, but with no passenger cars. At last the daily express train came in, two hours later than it should have done, but once she was on board, the journey back to Moscow was rapid and direct. She couldn’t have looked at her best, sitting there in the second-class carriage, after the night’s exertions, but after twenty hours on the train neither did many of the passengers.

Moscow seemed unquantifiably different. Tamara knew that it was she, not the city, who had changed, but still she felt that everyone she passed was examining her. It was only later, when she saw herself in the mirror, that she understood the grotesque nature of the wound to her left cheek. At the time she had felt that every uneasy gaze was asking her why she had let Domnikiia Semyonovna die like that, why she had disposed of her body with so little propriety. They could all go hang, and yet Tamara knew that there was one man who could fairly ask those questions of her: her father. He, who had survived so much, who had covered the thousands of versts from Siberia back to the west in just a few months, would not expect that the woman who had stood by his side throughout his exile would be dead within hours of their arriving home. He would not expect that, on hugging his beloved son after three decades apart, he would find that Dmitry had been transformed into the creature that Aleksei had spent his whole life learning to despise.

But first she must find him. She could not begin to guess where he would go. It surprised her that he had come to Moscow, not Petersburg, but then she remembered what Domnikiia had said. Aleksei had been eager to see Dmitry, and evidently they believed Dmitry to be in Moscow. They had not heard the news of his death, and before that, Moscow had been his last address. She would go and find out if Aleksei had called at his lodgings – sooner or later he would. But first she needed to clean herself up and, above all, to rest.

The door was bolted from the inside when she arrived at Degtyarny Lane, just as it should be. It took two or three minutes before Isaak opened it, but when she entered, what shocked her most was the ordinariness of everything. Nadia was crossing the salon, carrying jugs of hot water to take upstairs to the girls’ rooms. Few of the girls themselves were out of bed yet. Sofia was coming downstairs and wished Tamara a bleary ‘Good morning.’

None of them seemed concerned that Tamara had been away all night; none had noticed that Raisa was not there at all; no one had even discovered the broken-down wall in the gap between Raisa and Sofia’s rooms, nor the grim item that lay at the foot of the steps beyond it. They’d certainly never suppose what had become of Raisa – that her head had been severed from her body by the wheels of the Moscow train, and that her remains had in an instant wasted to nothing. It was hard for Tamara to believe it herself.

It was only as Tamara turned towards her rooms that she heard a gasp and the crash of china breaking on the floor.

‘What happened to you?’

Tamara turned and looked at Nadia, and realized that she was reacting to the scratch marks that Raisa had left on her cheek. She hadn’t even seen them herself yet, but judging from Nadia’s reaction it was none too pretty a sight.

‘You’d never believe me,’ she said.

Then she went over to her rooms, through her study and into her bedroom, and collapsed on her bed, asleep.

It was dark when she awoke. There was a light, urgent tapping on her door. She was amazed that she had been able to sleep, with so many thoughts bouncing off the walls of her mind, but it had been over a day since she had last rested.

‘Come in!’ she shouted.

Nadia popped her head round the door. ‘A gentleman asking for you,’ she said.

‘Tell him to pick someone else,’ she snapped, then added, ‘Tell him I’ve retired.’ It was entirely an afterthought, but the very idea of it filled her with excitement.

‘I don’t think he’s interested in that. He’s not that sort of gentleman. He asked specifically to speak to you.’

Tamara leapt to her feet, all sleepiness banished in an instant. Could it be, at last? Had her father come to find her? She sped across her bedroom, into the study and through the salon to the front door.

Her face fell. She had no idea what Aleksei looked like, but this wasn’t him. It was Gribov. She had never seen him at Degtyarny Lane before. She wasn’t even sure if he knew the nature of the business that Yudin operated from there, but the very presence of the small, mild, bookish man seemed incongruous.

‘I hope I haven’t overstepped myself, Tamara Valentinovna,’ he said, ‘but given your researches, I felt sure you’d like to know.’

‘Know what?’

‘Aleksei Ivanovich. He has returned. He’s in Moscow.’

That much was old news to Tamara, but she could only guess that Gribov had more to tell. ‘Where is he?’ she asked urgently.

‘Actual State Councillor Yudin has shown an equal interest in speaking to him. That’s why he’s had him arrested.’

‘Arrested? What for? He’s been pardoned.’

‘I fear Actual State Councillor Yudin regards that sort of thing as a detail. It was only luck that I was there when the gendarmes delivered him.’

‘Delivered him? Where?’

Gribov swallowed visibly before answering. ‘To Yudin’s office. I saw them dragging him down the stairs, but they didn’t stay there for long.’

‘Where did they take him?’ It was a stupid question, as Gribov made clear.

‘I think, Tamara Valentinovna,’ he said, scarcely raising his voice above a murmur, ‘that you know that as well as I do.’

‘Why?’

The word surprised Yudin, not in its meaning but in the fact that anyone had spoken at all. He had been expecting, on his return from the cells beneath, that his office would be empty. But then he had also been expecting, for some weeks now, that Dmitry would seek him out. It was an appointment that neither of them could shirk. And of all the ways that it might begin, Dmitry’s ‘Why?’ had always been the most likely.

‘You object?’ Yudin countered.

‘How could I? But that doesn’t mean that I wouldn’t have objected if I’d known.’

‘You’re sure of that?’

Dmitry paused. ‘It’s hard to tell. It’s as if I was another person.’

‘Really?’ Yudin was, as ever, curious.

Dmitry did not choose to elucidate. ‘How long has it been for you?’ he asked instead.

‘Barely thirty years. You remember when you left me and your father in Senate Square to face Nikolai’s guns? It was within an hour of that.’

‘Who was it that created you?’

‘I’m unusual,’ explained Yudin. ‘I created myself.’

‘From nothing? Like God?’

‘Not quite. I needed a vampire’s blood, but he was already dead.’

‘So you are an orphan?’ asked Dmitry.

‘If you want to put it like that.’

‘As am I.’

‘Raisa’s dead?’ asked Yudin.

Dmitry nodded. ‘I don’t know what happened. Her mind was confused, and then was no more.’

Yudin sighed. It was a shame, but it had been a risk worth taking. Perhaps a stronger mind – or one less vain – would have dealt better with what it had witnessed in the looking glass, but Yudin still wasn’t going to risk experimenting on himself, or even on Dmitry; not for now. He wished he were back in Chufut Kalye, where he’d had the facilities, and the guinea pigs, to conduct such elegant experiments.

Dmitry turned away and walked over to the map drawers. He reached out and pulled away the blanket, revealing the dressing-table mirror that had always stood there.

‘Raisa told you that was there?’ asked Yudin.

‘I learned it from her. She was obsessed by it – by mirrors. She thought you would be able to let her see her face.’

Yudin felt his muscles stiffen slightly, ready for action. Voordalaki were emotionless creatures, but he had learned over the years that the regard held by one of them for the vampire that created it could be strong; enough to lead to the desire for revenge over whoever had killed the vampire parent. Yudin did not feel the emotion himself – how could he as a parricide? – but in Dmitry it could prove dangerous. Neither of them knew how Raisa had died, but her reaction to the mirror must have been at least in part responsible. And Yudin had shown her the mirror.

‘I tried,’ he said. ‘But I could never find a way.’

Dmitry nodded. ‘She thought you were stringing her along.’

For a moment, Yudin considered objecting to this untruth, but he realized it was wiser to let it lie. Dmitry seemed to bear no grudge over such minor trickery of Raisa and so it was best to have him go on believing it rather than hint that Yudin might ever have had the power to reveal to her her true likeness.

‘We both benefited from our association,’ he said.

‘You still haven’t explained why,’ said Dmitry.

So many reasons. Some Dmitry would understand; most he would be indifferent to. One, however, was fundamental. ‘I’d always planned it.’

‘Always?’

‘Since I first met you, a little boy of five, in Petersburg, in 1812.’

‘That’s a long time to nurture a plan.’

Yudin smiled, taking Dmitry’s words as a compliment. ‘Perhaps an option then, rather than a plan, but it was there from the beginning.’

‘So why now?’

‘Because you were on the point of working it out for yourself, and that would have made it far more difficult to persuade you. Then of course there was the fact that, with the amnesty, your father would be returning home soon.’

‘And he would have stopped you?’

Was that a hint of pride that Yudin noted in Dmitry’s voice? It was unlikely – impossible, even. The intonation merely reflected years of habitually speaking of Aleksei in that way.

‘Hardly,’ Yudin countered. ‘He’s an old man now, and it’s been a long time since he had more influence over you than I did.’

‘So what’s he got to do with it?’

‘My dear Mitka, he’s the reason for it all. He was what was on my mind, back in 1812, when I first met you and your mother. I remember so clearly thinking to myself, I am going to destroy these people, and I’m going to make Aleksei watch it.’

‘Why do you hate him so?’ There was no rebuke in Dmitry’s question, merely enquiry.

‘Hate him? I wouldn’t go that far. Now, of course, hatred is lost to me, but even then, even when a human, I don’t think I ever hated your father. Perhaps on brief occasions, when he thwarted me, but on the whole, no. He merely stood against me. He offered himself as an opponent and I accepted him. If the stakes have become higher than he originally supposed, then that merely makes the game more exciting.’

‘I imagine he must hate you.’

Yudin considered, and then nodded. ‘Then I have won,’ he said.

‘You failed to destroy my mother in front of him.’

‘Did I? You never knew that your mother and I were sleeping together, did you?’

‘You surprise me.’ Dmitry’s words were uttered with none of the emotion that might be expected to accompany them. It was news to him, but he was not upset.

‘We surprised Aleksei when he found us together. And then when he discovered the influence I’d had on you throughout your life, the set was complete. I had stolen his entire family.’

‘Stolen, but not destroyed.’

‘There was still time.’

‘But with my mother, cholera beat you to it.’

‘Really?’ asked Yudin.

‘I’m sure Papa was upset, but he could hardly have blamed you. He was more likely relieved she was free of you.’

Yudin smiled. ‘Come with me,’ he said.

He went over to the door by which he had entered his office moments earlier and opened it. Dmitry followed him as he descended the stairs. Where they forked, Yudin nodded to the right.

‘There are two coffins down there,’ he explained. ‘One is mine; the other was where Raisa Styepanovna sometimes slept. You’re welcome to it now. There’s a tunnel beyond to the river, if you can’t get through the Kremlin.’

Dmitry looked in the direction Yudin had indicated, but made no comment. Yudin felt no particular desire for company as he slept, but neither did he shun it. The suggestion was purely practical. It was in Yudin’s interests that Dmitry lived, and any extra hiding place he might know in Moscow would increase the chances of it.

They continued down the stone stairway and were soon in the short, low corridor with the six cells leading off. Dmitry had to stoop to walk through it, his shoulders almost filling the arch of the ceiling. From the grille in the door on the far right, a light shone, but at the moment there was no sound from within, save for the ever-present dribble of water. They would go there soon, but not now. For now, Yudin’s goal was the seventh door, the one at the very end of the passageway. He put the key into the lock and turned it, then drew back the three heavy bolts. It was built to be strong enough to hold a voordalak, though that was not its present use. Before opening it, he turned back to face Dmitry.

‘Raisa and I lived in Moscow for many years,’ he said. ‘But no one ever sought us out. How much blood do you suppose we drank in that time? How many bodies did we drain? And yet where were the reports of missing persons? Where were the remains that revealed the tell-tale signs of a voordalak at table? Why did no mobs descend on the Kremlin, baying for revenge?’

‘I imagine in your position you could suppress any such discoveries – prevent gossip from becoming widespread.’

‘You overestimate me, though you’re right in part. Those disappearances that were necessary were kept quiet. But there were few bodies.’

He opened the door and stepped through. Dmitry followed. Beyond was a room, no taller than the corridor from which they had come, but wider. In the centre was a table, with food on it – fresh food that Yudin had recently put there. Along the wall on each side were two doors, bolted shut. Yudin walked over to each of the four doors and drew the bolts, knowing that the noise they made would be enough to rouse those who were concealed behind them. Then he went back and stood beside Dmitry at the main entrance.

It was the one nearest to them on the left that opened first. A man emerged. He glanced around furtively, seeing that Yudin and Dmitry were there, but also seeing the food. He was Yudin’s most recent acquisition – kept down here for less than two years. He was somewhere in his thirties, and his blood was still rich and vigorous. He scampered over to the table, revealing the chain that stretched out beside him and back into his cell. Close to him, it split into three strands, two shackled to his ankles and one to an iron ring about his neck. It was just long enough for him to reach the table. He began to eat hungrily, stuffing the cold meat, bread, cabbage and beetroot into his mouth. It was a diet that had been carefully selected by Yudin and honed over the years to its present form. It was not intended to be flavoursome, or to provide strength. Its twin goals were merely to sustain life, and to sweeten the blood.

Once the first one had begun to eat, the others came quickly – as quickly as they could. They did not want to lose out on their meal. There were two more men, both older than the first, and from the far right-hand cell a woman, who was by a long way the oldest of all. All were fettered in a similar fashion.

‘Occasionally they die,’ explained Yudin. ‘Usually of disease, although sometimes as the result of overindulgence on my part – or Raisa’s.’ He lowered his voice. ‘And then there’s always suicide.’

He took a step into the room and grabbed the chain of the youngest man, pulling him close. ‘This one’s called Bogdan,’ he said. Bogdan had learned by now that it was futile to defy Yudin’s strength and so did not try to struggle. Instead he grabbed a few last morsels of food and shoved them into his mouth. Once he was close, Yudin offered the chain to Dmitry. ‘Hold him!’ Dmitry complied.

Yudin grabbed Bogdan’s arm and rolled up his sleeve. There were two wounds revealed on the inside of his forearm. One was almost healed, the other still had a fresh scab on it.

‘The risk of death is too great if we drink from the neck,’ Yudin explained. Bogdan eyed him as he spoke, quite able to understand him, but quite uninterested. He had heard it all before. Yudin made very sure that everything was explained. It was best if Bogdan and the others understood the reason that they were still alive.

Yudin pressed his lips against a clear patch of skin on Bogdan’s arm, between the two wounds, and bit. In the early days, the man would have pulled away, hit him, tried to fight him off, but his spirit was broken now. Even if it hadn’t been, the fact that Dmitry was there would dampen any thoughts of resistance. It was when Yudin came alone that they were most restive, thinking that they might be able to overcome him. That had been one of the benefits of having Raisa at his side. Those who did not know thought she would be weak – an easy victory. She soon disabused them of the idea.

Yudin drank, but not for long. He raised his head and took the chain from Dmitry, wrapping it once around his wrist. ‘Enjoy,’ he said.

Dmitry gave him a brief glance, seeking confirmation, and when he got it, he bent forward, sucking from the wound that Yudin had already created. As he did so, Yudin looked into Bogdan’s face. This was another benefit of there being two of them here. The man’s eyes were blank. They met Yudin’s without fear, but without hatred either – though perhaps there was a little of that, or the memory of it, hidden in there somewhere. But most of all, it was a look of acceptance; acceptance both of his situation, and of his lack of power to do anything about it. It was the look of the dairy cow to the milkmaid – hiding the secret hope that soon it would be taken to slaughter.

Dmitry raised his head. He seemed unimpressed. ‘I suppose you get used to it,’ he said.

Yudin understood him. The experience was not the best. Drinking from the arm, or anywhere on the body other than the neck – and Yudin had tried most places in the never-ending search for a fresh patch of skin – was not the same. And the restraint of drinking but not killing was a tiresome burden. But this way was far less risky.

‘It ensures that you live long enough to get used to it,’ he said.

Dmitry nodded non-committally, and Yudin released the chain. Bogdan gave them each a brief glance and then hurried back to the table, eager to eat before the food was all gone. The four humans didn’t talk to each other. Yudin had done nothing to stop them, but, with every one of those he had kept down here, it seemed to come naturally. They didn’t want him to hear. When they were in their cells and didn’t know he was outside listening, they would talk. Occasionally one of them – invariably a newcomer – would try and inspire the others with some plan of escape, but it was never taken up. Yudin was always careful. No one new was ever brought in until those there were well and truly broken.

Yudin began to walk around the side of the room, avoiding disturbing the four figures at the table, until he was behind the old woman in the far right-hand corner. Dmitry followed him. Yudin lifted up her chain and pulled her towards them. She offered no resistance; she had hardly been eating anyway. She would be dead soon; that was Yudin’s guess. Even now she was too weak to raise her head and look either of them in the face. It was lucky that events had timed themselves so perfectly.

Yudin grabbed her arm as he had done with Bogdan, but this time offered it straight to Dmitry. ‘I think you’ll find this one interesting,’ he said.

Dmitry appeared unconvinced, but even so he bent forward and placed his lips against her skin. He was right to be dubious. Yudin had not got much sustenance from this old woman in a long time. But that was not the point. And anyway, Dmitry seemed to be doing a good job. Yudin could see smears of blood emerging from beneath his lips, and could only guess that at least a taste was getting into his mouth. Still, there was no need for further delay.

‘This one’s called Marfa,’ he said. Dmitry did not react. He continued to drink. ‘Marfa Mihailovna,’ Yudin added. He sensed the slight movement of Dmitry’s head cease. For a second or two, all was still, with Dmitry remaining bent forward. If his lips had been touching the back of her hand rather than the inside of her forearm, it might almost have mimicked a formal introduction at a ball. But these two had no need to be introduced.

Finally, Dmitry straightened up and Yudin pulled on the chain at Marfa’s neck to bring her head up and make her face Dmitry. For himself, Yudin did not know which way to look. He was like a child outside a toyshop window, trying to take in everything. His eyes darted between the two faces in front of him as one broke into an expression of amused surprise and the other, slowly emerging from a pall of broken acceptance, revealed that a woman who had learned to live with so many horrors could discover that there were still things in this world that could make her weep for her very existence.

It was a touching moment, and one which Yudin found delightful. They had not seen each other in a decade. One had thought the other to be dead. But now, thanks to him, mother and son were finally reunited.