CHAPTER XXVI

MARFA’S LIPS MOVED, but emitted no sound. Her face was pale and the skin was drawn tight over her skull, hollow at her cheeks. She was seventy-one years old, though in her bedraggled state she appeared older. As a loving son, Dmitry should have recognized her the moment she stepped into the cell, however much she had changed in the ten years since he had seen her. But he was no longer any such thing. Whether or not he was her son was a matter of philosophical debate. That he did not love her was a fact of undeniable certainty.

It was only when Yudin had spoken her patronymic that Dmitry had even begun to guess the truth, but then realization had come to him quickly. When he looked at her face, it was obvious who she was, and as he gazed at her, impassively, he had the privilege of seeing two waves of understanding come over her almost simultaneously: the first that he was her son; the second that he was a vampire.

She seemed very small. She had been a plump sixty-year-old when he had last seen her, her girth increasing consistently with her age, but that was all gone now. She seemed smaller in every way. She kept her eyes on him as they filled with tears, her hands, once he had released her arm, hanging down limply in front of her. The little blood that Dmitry had been able to find in her had already ceased to flow.

‘She didn’t die then?’ he said, speaking to Yudin but still looking at his mother.

‘She wasn’t even ill. She merely noted one day that I never seemed to age, and that could only lead to her realizing the truth. I knew it would happen eventually, and with you in Bessarabia it was the ideal time. I suggested we take a trip to Moscow together, and she never came back. It was surprisingly easy to make everything official.’

‘And she’s been here ever since?’ said Dmitry. ‘Eight years?’

‘I’m amazed she lasted, but something kept her going. Hoping that Aleksei would come along and rescue her, I dare say – or perhaps you.’

Dmitry spoke now to his mother. ‘If it’s any consolation, I’m sure I would have done, had I known.’ He wondered why he should want to console her.

‘And now?’ she asked, finally finding her voice, a shallow whisper.

Dmitry shrugged. He could scarcely understand why she asked the question. Did she hope that there remained in him some vestige of the man he had been, which would compel him to play the gallant son? Her calm sorrow could only imply that she did not. And yet why shouldn’t he? What rules were there to bind his behaviour?

Seeing that she would get no answer, she chose a different question. ‘Why?’

Dmitry took a deep breath. ‘A long story,’ he said. ‘Suffice to say I did it for …’

He stopped as Marfa closed her eyes – forcing the tears from them on to her cheeks – and shook her head. She opened them and spoke again. ‘Why, Vasya? Why show him to me?’

Dmitry felt a sudden annoyance at being ignored. He was reminded of when he was a child and she had wanted to punish him. Her favourite trick was to talk about him to someone else.

‘Why not?’ said Yudin.

‘Haven’t you brought me enough pain?’

‘You think this is about you?’

‘I saw you watching me just now, squirming with pleasure at how you thought I’d react – just like you always did.’

‘That doesn’t make you the reason. You were always a means, Marfa, never an end. You know that.’ Yudin raised his hand and stroked her cheek as he spoke, like an affectionate husband of many years.

‘So it was to see Mitka react?’

‘Again a bonus, though there was little reaction to observe. But you’re right; this is for Mitka’s benefit. You should be pleased.’

‘Pleased?’

‘He’s become an immortal; stronger than ever he was before, and faster, and wiser. What mother could not be proud of that?’

‘You forget, Vasya, I know you. How could I be happy to know he has become like you?’

‘Have it your way,’ snapped Yudin, taking his hand from her face. ‘I hope at least Dmitry’s happy with what I have given him.’

‘And what’s that?’ asked Dmitry.

Yudin looked at him, as if the answer were utterly obvious. ‘Self-knowledge! Self-awareness! Look inside yourself, Mitka. What is it you feel?’

Dmitry thought for a moment, doing just as Yudin had said; examining his feelings. He spoke as the ideas occurred to him. ‘A little amusement; the situation is, I think we all have to admit, somewhat ironic. Also annoyance at having been tricked – with myself mostly, but also with you, Vasya. I should have realized she was not dead.’

‘Anything else?’

‘Disgust.’

‘Disgust?’

‘At this place. At what you do. Living off chained humans in a hidden cellar, letting them revive each day only so that you can feed from them the next night. The voordalak is a hunter, not a farmer.’ He meant it. Yudin’s way was not the only way.

Yudin grinned and nodded. ‘Good. Good,’ he said. ‘I disagree, of course, but I understand your instincts. And?’

Dmitry thought for a moment longer, then shrugged.

‘No sorrow?’ asked Yudin. ‘No sense of regret, or outrage, or affection? No pity?’

‘No.’

‘And so you have learned,’ explained Yudin. ‘Would you have thought it possible to feel so little for your mother, even if you had possessed the capacity to imagine her in such straits as these?’

Dmitry considered and then began to nod. ‘No, you’re right, I couldn’t. Or, at least, I might have thought it, but I wouldn’t have felt it. If you’d asked me, I’d have guessed I’d feel nothing, but I wouldn’t have truly known. So thank you, Vasya. Thank you.’

As he spoke, Dmitry understood that those same sentiments – or the lack of them – applied equally to Yudin. Surely Yudin understood that too, and yet he seemed confident of Dmitry’s loyalty.

‘And so now you are ready,’ said Yudin. He held his open hand towards the door and Dmitry set off that way, with Yudin closely in tow.

‘Ready?’

‘I have one other thing to ask of you.’

‘What?’

‘You’ll see.’

They had made it to the door and Yudin began to open it. ‘Aren’t you going to lock them back up?’ Dmitry asked.

Yudin shook his head. ‘Let them eat. I can do it later.’ He stepped out through the doorway. Dmitry bent his head even further to follow.

‘Mitka!’ He turned. Marfa had finally managed to raise her voice above a whisper. ‘Do you still hear music, Mitka?’ she asked.

He turned without offering a reply, but she had managed to ask the only question about his former life that had truly concerned him since becoming a vampire; and the answer was no. Though he had tried every night since awaking in his grave on Vasilievskiy Island, he had not been able to summon a single note of music to his mind. And he understood now, with little doubt, that he never would.

Again he had something to thank his mother for; she had taught him to discover a new emotion in himself, and to understand that it would not be a stranger to him. For the first time, and only very slightly, he felt regret.

Gribov had been mistaken. Yudin’s office was not empty. As soon as Tamara stepped out of the stairwell, she saw the tall figure, gazing into the mirror on top of the map drawers. Even if she had not guessed who it was from his stature, she would have been able to tell it was Dmitry from his reflection in the mirror.

There was no reflection.

Tamara was alone. At the brothel she had told Gribov to wait, and it had taken her only minutes to prepare herself to come here, but in that time he had gone. She doubted he would have been much help anyway. This was something she had to do for herself.

‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ she asked.

Dmitry turned, without any expression of surprise, eyeing her up and down. In her left hand she had the Colt revolver, now reloaded, that had proved so useful against Raisa. In her right she held her wooden cane with its sharpened end, its cap lost somewhere in the rough grassland beside the railway track south of the Skhodnya. She wondered why she hadn’t plunged it into his back before he even knew she was there, but she hadn’t yet learned to hate him that much.

‘Tell you what?’ he asked.

‘That they’re my parents.’ Her next words scarcely managed to escape her throat. ‘That you’re my brother.’

‘Would you really want to know?’ he replied. ‘That your mother was a whore? That your father was an adulterer and a traitor and an exile? That your brother was … me?’

‘It wasn’t your decision to take.’

‘It was Papa’s decision. Should I have gone against that?’

‘I had the right to know the truth.’

Dmitry shrugged and Tamara realized it was a pointless conversation. She was arguing with a voordalak over a decision made by the man who had once occupied the same body.

‘Is he down there?’ she asked, nodding towards the open door to the dungeons. ‘Papa? With Yudin?’

Dmitry nodded. ‘It’s quite a reunion.’

‘Why aren’t you with them?’

‘Yudin’s plan is that I make my entrance in a little while – the brave son galloping to the rescue of his long-lost father. Then the son asks the father what it was that Yudin wanted to know, and in his relief the father reveals all.’

‘So he doesn’t know what’s become of you?’ Tamara failed to hide the loathing in her voice.

‘That is to be the final coup de théâtre. Not only will Aleksei discover that his son has betrayed him to his oldest enemy, but he will learn that I have become what he despises most in all the world.’

‘Is that really necessary?’

Dmitry gave a tight smile. ‘He has the right to know the truth.’

Tamara had nothing to counter her own words. ‘You’d better get on with it then,’ she said.

He remained still. ‘As I say, that is Yudin’s plan.’

‘I’d presumed you were his serf.’ The bile she put into the word would have shamed her in front of Konstantin.

Dmitry’s smile widened a little. ‘So did I, for a while.’ He paused for a moment. ‘I remember a long time ago, when I was eighteen, when I joined the cavalry, I came down to Moscow with Papa. The coach dropped him off at his lodgings and then took me to barracks. And once I got there, I can remember this sudden sense of being totally alone. For the first time in my life, I didn’t have my parents to fall back on, to make everything right. I was unprotected.

‘And then minutes later I realized that I might be unprotected, but I was also untrammelled. Everything that I had been prevented from even thinking of doing as a child was now open to me. I could be naughty and no one would stop me. I could go out and get drunk; find myself a whore. Anything.

‘And then I realized that I was freer even than that. I could do all those things, but I wasn’t obliged to. I could do whatever I liked.’

‘And did you?’ asked Tamara, wondering where this was leading.

He laughed. ‘No. I was mistaken. I wasn’t free – I was in the army. I have been ever since. But now I’m free again; freer than I ever was, though it’s taken me time to realize it. I don’t have to do what humanity thinks I ought. But equally, I don’t have to do what Yudin tells me to. Whatever I do, I do by choice.’

‘And so will you choose to help Yudin?’

‘Let’s wait and see, shall we?’

He seemed to revel in his own indecision, seeing it as something positive. It could be a bluff, but it was the best that Tamara could hope for. She couldn’t abandon Aleksei. She doubted she could defeat Dmitry, armed though she was, and even if she did, it would attract Yudin’s attention. All she could do was go down to those dungeons alone, and pray that Dmitry did nothing.

Where the stairs forked she took the left branch, just as when Yudin had brought her down here. Soon she was in the narrow corridor. Light shone into it from the far door on the right. This was the room Tamara hated most – the room that smelt of sewage and disease. She walked along on tiptoe and stopped outside to listen. There were no voices, but she could hear movement, and splashing, and the occasional grunt or gasp. She might have been listening to someone in the bath, straining to reach out to clean the tips of their toes. Then there was a huge splash, and the sound of a man gasping for breath. Then she heard Yudin’s voice.

‘Just a name, Lyosha, that’s all I need. A name or a place. You must know one or the other.’

The fast, heavy breathing continued, and began to slow. Then it paused and she heard another man’s voice – her father! A dim sense of recognition came to her at the sound.

‘You’re a fool, Iuda. He never told me, and this is why.’

There was another splash, and the sound of breathing stopped completely. Tamara was sure she had heard right – ‘Iuda’, not ‘Yudin’. The betrayer. It was the same name Domnikiia had used; clearly the name that she and Aleksei had known him by, years before.

She turned and stepped through the doorway. The room was as she remembered it; the only distinctive feature the stone bath, with the lead pipe that constantly fed it with water. Next to it, Yudin was seated on a wooden chair, his jacket removed and his shirtsleeves rolled up. He was leaning forward over the bath, pushing his hands down into it. Tamara could not see what was in there, but she could guess. The floor was covered with spilled water, which gradually drained into the gutter and then flowed out through the little hole in the wall. The smell of filth was still there, but it was less than when she had last been in the cell; perhaps that was due to the time of year. Again she felt the urge to run, but today she knew she would resist it.

She was about to speak, when Yudin straightened up, pulling what he had been holding down back out of the water. It was an old man. Tamara thrilled at the sight of him. His white hair was quite long, and stretched out straight, thanks to the water, to below his shoulders. His fringe covered his eyes, dripping into them. As soon as he emerged, he shook his head and water splashed across the room. His beard was white too, and clung together in a point from which water dribbled. He looked strong for a man of his age.

Despite the circumstances, he was everything she had imagined her father to be.

‘How does it feel, Lyosha?’ asked Yudin, his teeth gritted and his face close to Aleksei’s. ‘For once it’s you who is drowning, and me who’s thrusting you beneath the water.’

‘It feels even better than the last time,’ replied Aleksei.

‘What?’

‘Last time I had to bite my tongue. I had to leave you thinking you’d won. Now I can tell you everything.’

‘So tell me.’

‘You already know. You know that we tricked you and Zmyeevich into thinking Aleksandr was dead. You know that he went off to live in hiding. You even know something that I didn’t, until you told me, something that makes this one of the happiest days of my life.’

‘I’ve told you nothing.’ Yudin’s voice was dismissive.

‘You’ve told me Aleksandr Pavlovich is still alive – otherwise why would you be asking about him? I can only guess how you discovered that much, but it’s a joy for me to know that he’s safe. And while he lives, so is Aleksandr Nikolayevich.’

‘So tell me his name and tell me where he is,’ said Yudin slowly, repeating himself.

‘I know neither. He’d be a fool to have told me. Just give up, Iuda. You’ve lost. Again.’

‘You know what, Lyosha? I don’t believe you. And do you know why not? Because I choose not to. If I’m right, and you do know, then eventually you’ll crack and you’ll tell me. If I’m wrong, then you’ll die. Either way I’m happy.’

He reached out his hand and grabbed Aleksei by the hair, standing to get better leverage. This time, rather than pushing Aleksei back into the water, he pulled him forward, dragging him by the hair. Then he pushed down, forcing the old man’s head between his knees and under the water. Aleksei tried to resist for a moment, but had no strength for it.

‘Let him go!’ Tamara’s voice, cold and firm, filled the room. It had its desired effect. Yudin released Aleksei, who pulled himself back into a sitting position, breathing heavily, his sodden clothes clinging to him. He seemed oblivious to Tamara. He would not have heard her beneath the surface, and she doubted whether he could see clearly while his eyes were filled with hair and water. Yudin, on the other hand, turned to face her.

‘My dear, how wonderful to see you,’ he said, quickly recovering from his surprise. ‘I’d forgotten how interested you were in talking to Lyosha. But I did find him first. You’ll have to wait your turn.’

‘I think not,’ she said, taking a step forward to make sure he could see the two weapons that she carried. ‘You know what I can do with these.’

Yudin considered, and then stood up. Aleksei sat still, his head looking down into the water, his breath harsh and gasping. Tamara gestured to Yudin with the gun, and he moved further away. Then she took a step towards Aleksei.

‘Colonel Danilov?’ she said. The urge to say ‘Papa’ consumed her, but this was not the moment for reunion – not in front of a creature such as Yudin.

Aleksei looked around, peering towards her. His wet hair hung down over his eyes. He wiped it to one side, but still his squint revealed that he could not see clearly.

‘Who are you?’ he said.

How she would have loved to tell him; but the time would soon come. ‘I’m going to get you out of here,’ she said. ‘Can you walk?’

Aleksei began trying to pull himself out of the water. Yudin continued to eye the gun and the cane in Tamara’s hands, but he did not attempt to move.

‘I’m not alone down here,’ he said.

‘I know,’ Tamara replied.

‘You won’t escape two of us.’

‘He let me in, didn’t he?’ For the sake of her father, Tamara was careful not to mention Dmitry’s name, but she saw in Yudin’s face a twinge of doubt over the loyalty of that newest member of his species.

She was distracted by the sound of a splash, accompanied by a gasp. Aleksei had slipped. He hung over the edge of the tub, his legs still in the water. It was a heart-rending sight; the image of one who in her mind – and, in younger days, in reality – had been so strong, now struggling and needy, unable to perform the simplest of tasks. And yet there was a joy to it too: her father was in need, and she could help.

She rushed over to him, tucking the cane under her right arm but still pointing the revolver at Yudin. It was a preposterously dangerous way to face such a creature, but she had no option. She put her left arm around her father and tried to heave him out of the water. He braced himself against her shoulder and she hauled him upright, providing the strength which his aged legs could not. He was heavy. Tamara recalled how light the load had been when she carried her mother. Aleksei wore his old age better.

At last he swung his legs over the side and was out of the water. But it had been a strain for both of them. Tamara lowered his body to the floor, so that he could lean against the side of the bath. She hugged his sodden body to her.

Yudin didn’t bother to intervene, knowing that he could wait until both Aleksei and Tamara were exhausted by their struggle for freedom. But still she had to try. She began to heave again, pulling Aleksei across the stone floor. He reached across her and his fingers pressed hard into her shoulder, but then slipped away to scrabble at her chest. He fell back. They had moved just a few inches. Yudin emitted a sneering laugh.

Aleksei still hugged himself to her, his feet paddling at the ground, failing to find any purchase. He moved his hand back across to her shoulder and his thumb became entwined in the thin silver chain of her icon.

Tamara glared up at Yudin. She raised the revolver and aimed it at him.

‘Do you still not realize what I am?’ he asked.

‘You’re the same as Raisa – and I dealt with her.’

As she spoke Aleksei’s fingers found the icon on the end of the chain and pulled it close, towards his weak, failing eyes. It was only then that Tamara realized its significance – both to him and to her. She was four years old, lying in her bed. Her father was leaning over her. Her mother stood a few paces away, looking on. He lifted the icon and its chain from around his own neck and placed it over her head, pulling her red curls up through it so that it finally lay cold around her neck. She had never removed it since – hardly ever.

Today, Aleksei held the icon in his hand again, peering at it. He glanced up at Tamara and then down again. His face became an entanglement of surprise and sorrow, of elation and regret.

‘Toma?’ His voice was still a whisper, but if ever so soft a sound could have expressed joy, then it did now. ‘Toma?’ he said again, looking up into her face, running his hand through her auburn locks, holding them close so he could see them clearly. ‘It is you. It must be you.’

Tamara gazed into her father’s eyes. She had for so long imagined this moment, but had never foreseen that it would be like this, and yet the expression of love that she saw in his face, the feeling that welled in her gut and spread throughout her entire being, were all she had ever imagined and more. Whatever the circumstances, she could not now deny him the truth.

‘Yes, Papa,’ she whispered. ‘Yes, it’s me.’ She felt Aleksei’s arms tighten against her. He tried to speak, but could not, nor did he need to. She understood everything that he wanted to say.

Yudin’s laughter broke into the moment. This time there was no snideness to it. It was broad and hearty and – to all appearances – genuine. ‘Oh, this is why I love you so, Lyosha,’ he said merrily. ‘You’re always so full of surprises. Where did this one spring from?’

‘My mother was Domnikiia Semyonovna,’ said Tamara with pride, the gun still levelled at Yudin. Beside her she felt Aleksei begin to rise to his feet, filled with a new-found strength that she well understood. With only a little help from her, he was upright.

‘Ah, the lovely Dominique,’ Yudin replied. ‘It’s so preposterously obvious. And all this time, ever since you first came to work for me, you’ve been plotting revenge on your father’s behalf.’

Tamara chose to say nothing. It would keep him wary if he believed that there was any plan at all to this. She continued to edge towards the door, leading her father to freedom.

‘It’s another reason for you to tell me, Lyosha,’ continued Yudin. ‘If not for your sake, then for your daughter’s. Just think of what I might do to her.’

Yudin fell silent. There was little to read in Aleksei’s face, but Tamara could guess how his imagination was following the trail along which Yudin’s words had pointed it. There was nothing she could say – no chance that he would ignore her pleas not to worry about her. But then she sensed that Yudin had let the idea hang in the air for too long. He had lost Aleksei’s attention and indeed Yudin’s own eyes were fixed now on neither the father nor the daughter.

And suddenly Tamara realized they were no longer alone. From the doorway came another voice.

‘And whatever Actual State Councillor Yudin might achieve is as nothing compared with what we have planned.’

Even before Tamara looked, she recognized it. Yet the words made no sense.

In the doorway stood Tyeplov, stooping to fit in the enclosed space. But it was not he who had spoken. Beside him stood a familiar figure, small and unassuming, and yet possessing a new-found swagger that Tamara had not seen in him before.

It was Gribov.

‘Tell us, Aleksei Ivanovich,’ he said. ‘It’s what we’re all yearning to hear.’

Yudin gazed at Gribov with consternation. In return, Gribov’s expression was smug.

‘Why should you want to know that?’ asked Yudin.

‘For myself,’ replied Gribov, ‘I don’t. But I think you can guess who does.’

‘Zmyeevich?’ hissed Yudin.

‘Zmyeevich,’ Gribov confirmed. The name meant nothing to Tamara. ‘I am his representative here in Moscow; his human representative. You might like to think of me as the new you.’

‘For how long?’

‘Since long before we met.’

‘Why?’

‘Because you were the most likely person to discover the whereabouts of Aleksandr Pavlovich – but the least likely to share that discovery with your former master.’

‘What about him?’ Yudin nodded towards Tyeplov.

‘Yuri Vladimirovich has always been the creature of Zmyeevich, though perhaps not a constant one. Now he has seen the error of his ways.’

‘So Zmyeevich can hear us, through him?’ asked Yudin.

‘I can,’ said Tyeplov. ‘And I’m intrigued.’ The voice, as far as Tamara could recall it, was Tyeplov’s, but the tone was different; deeper, more confident, as though an older and more terrible man were impersonating Tyeplov, but speaking his own words.

‘Totally under his control?’ asked Yudin.

‘Totally.’

‘And what do you want?’

‘The name and whereabouts of the Romanov, Aleksandr Pavlovich,’ said Tyeplov. ‘Great-great-grandson of the traitor Pyotr.’

‘And if I tell you?’

‘You know nothing.’

‘I was about to make him talk when you arrived,’ said Yudin.

‘Then thank you for making our task so much easier,’ replied Gribov. He stepped forward and peered closely at the bedraggled Aleksei. ‘This is the man?’ he said, turning back to Tyeplov. ‘The man who twice defeated you?’

Tyeplov walked forward. ‘He did not defeat me, he defeated Iuda, my unprofitable servant.’ As they spoke, Tamara noticed that Yudin was hardly listening. His eyes flicked around the room as he desperately tried to formulate a plan. After a moment’s consideration, it seemed he didn’t judge his chances favourably. He began to edge towards the door.

Tyeplov gazed closely into Aleksei’s face. ‘Do you remember me, Danilov?’ he asked.

Aleksei’s voice was hoarse. ‘I remember you chained to the wall of a cave, the sun burning through your body. I gave you your freedom.’

Tyeplov shook his head. ‘Look beyond the body, Danilov. We met not far from here, almost half a century ago. I came to save your country, and you laughed at me.’

‘You had no plans to save Russia, but yes, we laughed. Aleksandr Pavlovich is still laughing, wherever he may be.’

Tyeplov’s eyes flared in anger, but then he calmed. ‘You will tell me where that is.’

‘Never.’

Tyeplov’s hand smashed down on Tamara’s, sending the cane and the revolver sliding across the floor and knocking her away from her father. In a second she was on her feet, her knife drawn from her boot and in her hand. She knew how little help it would be against a creature like Tyeplov, yet it was all she had. She backed towards the far corner of the cell, taking a few swipes at the voordalak in the futile hope it would persuade him to keep his distance. His solution was simply to grab the blade. Tamara pulled it back rapidly and saw blood oozing from between his fingers, but it was no deterrent whatsoever.

All she could do now was retreat. Behind Tyeplov she could see the rest of the cell. Gribov had retrieved the revolver and was aiming it at Aleksei, who leaned against the wall, still weak. Yudin continued to attempt his slow journey towards freedom, edging step by step closer to the door. It had not escaped Tyeplov. As Yudin passed closest to him, he lashed out with his fist, scarcely looking at what he did. His knuckles connected with Yudin’s nose, cracking the back of his head against the wall. Blood began to spill from both points of impact, and Yudin slumped to the floor. Tyeplov still loomed over Tamara, ever advancing, his teeth bared.

She heard Gribov’s voice. ‘Do you really love your daughter so little, Aleksei Ivanovich? You’d let her die like this, just to keep your paltry secret?’

‘No,’ said Aleksei quietly.

‘Then you’re prepared to tell us?’

The prospect of discovering what he had come for did not seem to distract Tyeplov from his current intent. His fangs descended upon Tamara’s throat, but she felt no pain – merely the warmth of his breath and the odious moistness of his saliva on her skin. He was eking out his performance for Aleksei’s benefit. But his movement did allow Tamara to see what was going on.

Aleksei straightened himself and stood away from the wall. It was the first time she had seen him properly. He was nothing like as tall as Dmitry, but was strongly built, even in his old age, with solid broad shoulders. His square jaw was unmistakably her own. She was surprised that no one other than Dmitry had made the connection.

Aleksei shook his head wearily, his eyes fixed on the floor. ‘No,’ he repeated. When he finally moved, it was with a swiftness of which Tamara would not have thought him capable. In three strides he was halfway across the cell, towards where she and Tyeplov stood locked in their embrace. His arm was raised above him, clutched in it the sharpened cane which his son had devised and his daughter had brought to him. In another two paces he would be able to bring it down on Tyeplov’s back.

The revolver spat a bullet at him, then another. Gribov was no more slowed by age than Aleksei. The first shot caught her father in the left shoulder, the second in his stomach. Tamara saw a plume of blood issuing from his back as the bullet emerged. But neither shot did anything to hinder him. Tamara saw his left hand – its two smallest fingers missing, along with half of another – reach around and grip at Tyeplov’s nose, trying to prise his face away from her throat and brace Aleksei for his attack.

Gribov fired again, but Tamara didn’t see where the bullet hit. Aleksei’s arm came down. The cane penetrated the right side of Tyeplov’s back at a shallow angle, so that path took it across to the left. Aleksei knew precisely where he had been aiming. Tyeplov’s grip on her slackened in an instant. Just as she had witnessed with Ignatyev at the brothel, and Raisa beside the railway, Tyeplov’s mortal remains began to collapse to nothing. He fell slowly sideways, but with the weight of his body gone, the air caught his clothes and resisted their descent. It was like some ballet dancer, throwing himself across the stage, graceful and controlled, and yet, ultimately, there was no control to it. The clothes kept on falling, eventually to hit the ground and to flatten as the dust within was exhaled through every available outlet.

Aleksei took a step away, still grasping the cane, and Tamara got a clear view of Gribov. He held the pistol in both hands to steady it, aimed squarely at Aleksei, and fired again. The bullet hit somewhere in the chest, and Aleksei slumped backwards against the wall, dropping the cane.

Tamara did not know if the screech that spilled from her throat was supposed to be an articulate word or the primitive cry of a vengeful animal. Gribov turned towards her, his face frozen in shock, but the gun followed his eye more slowly – too slowly. She was across the room and upon him in a fraction of a second. The knife that had been of so little use on Tyeplov was still clutched in her hand, and would prove its worth. She stabbed upwards, under his ribcage, pressing herself so close to him that he had no chance to train the gun on her. She felt sure her aim had been true, but she stabbed twice more, desperate that with at least one blow the fine steel blade would penetrate his heart.

She stepped back. Gribov was already dead – only her strength held him upright. She pointed her arm and the blade downwards and he slid off it, his body collapsing in a heap on the floor with a quiet, heavy thud. It was almost a relief to witness the normality of human death, but there was no time to relish the sight of a body that did not instantly decay.

Aleksei and Yudin sat against adjacent walls of the cell. Aleksei was by far the worse for wear, but he was still alive. Yudin was just regaining consciousness. Tamara couldn’t guess how much time she had. She grabbed her father around the chest and, ignoring the pain that it caused him, hauled him across the cell floor and out into the corridor. She slammed the door closed, but there was no key in the lock and no bolt on the outside. It wouldn’t keep Yudin in for long. She looked along the corridor down which she knew she must drag her father if they were to have any chance of survival.

Dmitry blocked their way, his huge frame filling the low, arched tunnel.

There was only one other chance of escape: the seventh door, behind which Yudin had refused to show her. She looked at it. The key was still in the lock. It turned easily, and she began to draw the three heavy iron bolts that gave this door extra strength. She glanced down at Aleksei, propped up against the wall, his breathing shallow. Beyond him Dmitry still stood, as indecisive as he had been when they had spoken earlier. Son looked at father, but father did not see son.

Finally, she pulled the third of the bolts across, and began to heave on the handle. At the same moment, the door to her right opened, and Yudin emerged. She had the chance to run forward into that last, unexplored cell, but she had no idea whether it would lead to freedom or death. And anyway, it was not an option. She would not be separated from her father. She took a step back, towards Aleksei and towards Dmitry.

Yudin stepped out into the corridor, standing framed in the doorway that Tamara had just opened. She had never seen him look so angry – so out of control. She heard footsteps as Dmitry finally made up his mind and began to approach. From behind Yudin there were sounds too – moans that could have been animal or human, accompanied by the clanking of chains. God knew what Yudin kept in there; it was too dark for her to see.

It didn’t matter. She was trapped deep beneath the Kremlin in a tight, low tunnel with a vampire in front of her and another behind. This was the end. She slumped back against the wall and sat beside her father. She felt his hand grip hers.

‘A bit late for the gallant rescue, Dmitry,’ said Yudin, quickly becoming himself again.

At the sound of the name, Aleksei became suddenly alert. He raised his head, causing him to cough, but he brushed the hair away from his eyes to peer at the figure that, even after so many years, he could not mistake for anyone but his son.

Dmitry’s voice would only confirm it. ‘That’s not why I’m here.’

‘Dmitry?’ Aleksei spoke in scarcely more than a whisper. His son showed no interest in responding.

‘Why then?’ asked Yudin.

‘I came to say goodbye.’

‘To your father?’

‘To you.’

The conversation apparently over, Dmitry turned – difficult in the tight corridor – and began to depart. Yudin stared ahead blankly. Behind him, Tamara thought she glimpsed movement. Then he turned his gaze downwards.

‘Ah, Lyosha. You keep your petty victories over Aleksandr Pavlovich. You can die in the knowledge that he’s safe; he won’t be long behind you anyway. But there’s one thing you must hear before you die.’ As Yudin spoke, Dmitry stopped in his tracks and turned. ‘One thing you really do deserve to know about your beloved son.’

‘No, Vasya,’ said Dmitry firmly. He took three steps forward and was now at a level with Tamara.

‘Why not? You wouldn’t want me to lie to him.’

Dmitry took another step so that he was face to face with Yudin, towering over his father, who stared up at him.

‘Who’d have thought, Lyosha, that the little boy I first met when he was five years old – while you were hiding away with your whore – who’d have thought that one day he’d grow up to be someone of whom I could be so proud; would grow up to be …’

Dmitry raised his arms on either side of him, bracing himself against the close walls almost as though he were Samson about to bring down the Philistine temple. But that was not his plan. He raised up his legs, his whole weight supported on his arms, and kicked forward, his feet landing squarely on Yudin’s chest. Yudin’s words were cut short as he was forced to take a step backwards.

At the same instant, Tamara saw more movement in the cell behind him – human figures creeping forward apprehensively, awaiting their moment. As Yudin stumbled backwards, they pounced. Two of them grabbed his legs and one his arm, dragging him back into their domain, but it was the fourth who most caught Tamara’s attention. It was an old woman, her flesh sunk tight into her cheeks. Between her hands she held a chain, which somehow seemed to be attached to her as well. She flung it around Yudin’s neck and then twisted it behind him with a strength that Tamara could not have supposed she had in her. It would have killed any human in minutes. Judging by the look of triumphant hatred in the old woman’s eyes, Tamara wondered if it might not be effective even on a vampire.

Dmitry kicked again and Yudin fell backwards into the cell, dragged down by his attackers. Tamara moved fast. She threw herself towards the door and slammed it shut, holding for one final moment the victorious gaze of the old woman as she tightened the chain around Yudin’s throat. Once the door was closed, she slid the bottom bolt across. Dmitry rammed the other two into place and twisted the key in the lock, then pocketed it. He turned and marched back up the corridor without a word.

‘Dmitry!’ Aleksei called plaintively after his son. Dmitry turned and looked at his sister, then down at his father. For years after, Tamara would try to analyse what she remembered of his expression at that moment, to make some sense of it, but now there was no time. A moment later he was gone, his footsteps retreating up the stairs.

She looked down at her father. His shirt was stained with his own blood and his breathing was weak.

‘He had to go,’ she said.

‘Why?’

She could not think of an answer.

‘Can you move?’ she asked. She knew he wouldn’t get far, but she didn’t want to leave him here, so close to Yudin, whatever might be happening to him in there and however sturdy that door might appear.

‘I think so.’

She helped Aleksei back to his feet and forced him to walk with her towards the stairs. Aleksei had no strength to climb them in the normal way, but instead sat down on them and pushed himself up, one step at a time. It took them five minutes just to get as far as the landing where the stairs split, and then Aleksei insisted he could go no further. He sat with his back to the wall, one foot resting on the step below, the other leg bent and held close to his chest. Tamara sat beside him, her hand in his. It was dark here, and neither of them could see very much, but it hid from her his wrinkled skin and white hair and, though his voice was soft and faltering, she could easily picture him as the strong man she had always imagined her father to be. Likewise, he would not notice the horrible laceration that Raisa had engraved in her cheek.

They talked for hours. Tamara told him everything that she could think of, and he did the same – though his voice was weak and he frequently coughed up blood. She knew that his body was beyond salvation, and she could think of no way that either of them would rather spend his final moments than together. He told her of his exploits in 1812 and 1825, and at Austerlitz and on the Danube. He showed her his hand, telling her of how he lost two fingers in Silistria, and half of the third as he hung from a ledge of the Winter Palace. Tamara had to laugh at his stories at times, but she knew that was his intention in the way he described things. He did not want her to have to know the terror of it, though she could well imagine.

He told her as much of his military exploits as he did of his dealings with voordalaki, and seemed to take a far greater pride in the former than the latter. Much of it tied in with what Dmitry had already told her, but there was more that Aleksei could add. She could not guess whether it was because Aleksei had kept it from his son, or that Dmitry had kept it from her.

In turn, Tamara told her father of her life, with none of the blissful deceit she had employed when speaking of it to Domnikiia. She told him of how her husband and children had died, and of how Luka still lived. Her description of her occasional sightings of her living child seemed to affect him more than the deaths of the others. She could easily understand why.

Aleksei was at his happiest when he spoke of his friends – of Vadim, Maks and Dmitry Fetyukovich and their adventures – and most of all when he spoke of Domnikiia and the thirty peaceful and strangely contented years they had spent in Siberia. In turn Tamara told him of her encounter with Domnikiia, of how mother and daughter had been reunited, and of how her mother had saved her life. When he asked, Tamara told him the little she knew about his wife, Marfa – that she had died in 1848. He seemed relieved she had not lived to see him like this.

It was over Dmitry that she deceived her father utterly. She said she had met him, said what a fine soldier he was, how brave he had been in Sevastopol, and even how he had fought against Tyeplov and the others. She relayed pretty much everything that had occurred up until Dmitry’s ill-fated journey to Klin, and then made up a story about brother and sister coming here together to save Aleksei. She could never have brought herself to tell him the truth.

‘Why did he have to go?’ Aleksei asked.

‘He went to get help,’ Tamara extemporized. ‘He’ll be back soon.’

‘What did Iuda mean, about how Dmitry had grown up?’

‘Who knows? Dmitry’s no saint, you know.’

Aleksei chuckled and that made him cough more. ‘It doesn’t matter. I wouldn’t believe a word Iuda said anyway. He taught me that long ago.’

Eventually, they came to talk of the Lavrovs, and Aleksei wept again when he explained how they had decided to leave Tamara with them. ‘Did we do right, Toma? We had to protect you. Iuda would have come for you – to get at me. We had to do it.’

It was the same question her mother had asked. ‘We’re together now, Papa,’ she said.

He fell into silence. His breathing was shallow now, and it was obvious that he had only a short time left to live. The bullets had done their work, little though that had aided the man who fired them. After a few minutes, Aleksei spoke again, suddenly urgent.

‘Where’s Dmitry?’

‘He’ll be here soon,’ she replied.

‘There’s something I have to tell you. The name that they wanted to know; I must tell you it.’

‘I don’t need to know that,’ she said. Moreover, she did not want to. It seemed like dangerous knowledge. It was Yudin’s plan, but with the daughter replacing the son as heroic rescuer.

‘Please, Toma,’ said Aleksei. ‘He’s our tsar. Someone must remember.’

Tamara bent forward and Aleksei raised his lips to her ear, whispering two words that were so quiet she could scarcely make them out. It was disappointing to learn that he had sacrificed so much to protect so little.

‘Fyodor Kuzmich.’

His head dropped back and he was silent. His hand tightened momentarily on hers and she squeezed it back, feeling the stumps of his missing fingers and remembering doing the same as a child. Then his grip weakened and his arm fell away. She looked over to him and his face was still. A long slow breath escaped his lips, catching his vocal cords and producing a low, sustained sound, like a contented sigh. Then he breathed no more.

The carriage rolled jerkily over the unpaved road. There was no railway to take Tamara to where she was heading – not yet. That made it feel so much more like an escape. It was a public coach, and there were three others in it – a couple and a single man. There were few words exchanged, even between the woman and her husband. Occasionally they looked at her, and she wondered if they were staring at the scar on her cheek, however thickly she had covered it with make-up.

As with her mother, Tamara had committed her father’s body to the river. A little exploration had revealed a room furnished only with two coffins – she could easily guess its purpose. She had been tempted to use one as Aleksei’s final resting place, but it did not seem fitting. The room had had another exit, which led to a corridor, and beyond that a maze of tunnels spread out. She had taken the path that led her downhill, carrying her father’s body as she went, and had eventually found herself emerging on to the bank of the Moskva, below the Kremlin’s southern wall. She could find no wood on which to lay him, nor any leaves to cover him, but the river flowed fast and strong here. She pushed her father’s body out from the bank, and whispered the same prayer she had said for her mother. It was the best she could do, and there was some little sense in it; the Skhodnya was a tributary of the Moskva and so, she liked to hope, with a little luck in the currents, the bodies of her father and mother might somewhere be lying side by side in a watery grave.

She had scarcely dared go back down to that short, low corridor with its seven doors. From the far right of them, she still heard the sound of overflowing water. The stench was stronger again now – or was that just an excuse for her not to linger? Gribov’s body lay still. She stood beside the seventh door, resting her ear against the sturdy wood, and listened. Perhaps she heard slight sounds of movement, but nothing more. If those four sorry creatures she had seen were human, then Yudin would easily have dealt with them, but if he had, then he was still trapped. The door was solid – perhaps so solid that he would never emerge. And what could she do about it? Dmitry had taken the key.

Then she had heard a muffled scream inches in front of her and something thudded against the far side of the door.

She turned and fled.

Now, a week later, she was still fleeing. It hadn’t taken her long to prepare her escape from Moscow. She had withdrawn all her money from the bank, and that had been enough to get her out of the city and to begin making a new home somewhere else. Her own resources would not last for ever, but she still had, sewn into her dress, the diamonds and pink sapphires of the necklace Konstantin had given her. They would see her through. She had never worn the necklace since the day he gave it to her. She reached up with her hand and felt the small, oval icon that still hung from her neck, and always would.

The necklace was not the sole gift Konstantin had given her, and was only the second most precious. The dearest gift was with her now too, closer even than the sapphires; the carriage’s fifth passenger.

In the hours before he had died, she had told Aleksei of it, and he had been overjoyed. He had asked her who the father was, but she had refused to tell him, and he accepted it. She did tell him that if he knew the man’s name, it would make Aleksei immensely proud, and she was certain that was true.

But she knew that Moscow would not be safe for her, or for her unborn child, and so she left. There was nothing to keep her there. She gazed out of the window and watched the landscape trundle past, so much more slowly than it had done from the train on which her child had been conceived. She rested her hand unconsciously on her belly. It was too soon to feel any kicking; the bump did not even show yet, but she knew it was there.

She would be happy either way, but in her heart she hoped it would be a boy. As to what she would call it, she hadn’t thought yet, not of a Christian name, but she knew the rest. The patronymic would be Konstantinovich or Konstantinovna – the father deserved that much at least. But the child would carry its surname with pride. In her last days in Moscow she had called on contacts in the Third Section and acquired a new passport. She could have chosen any name, and the one she decided upon was foolish for a woman going into hiding, but she could no longer live in denial of her true self. She had never been a Lavrova, much as she loved Yelena and Valentin. She had been proud to take Vitaliy’s name, and to call herself Tamara Valentinovna Komarova, but now even that would not do, not any more. The name on her new passport filled her with a pride she had never felt before in her whole life. Sometimes, she sneaked a look at it, just to be sure of who she truly was.

She was Tamara Alekseevna Danilova.