“Berlin, then,” said Jones. He smiled queasily at Duranty, got up, paid the bill and set off into the Moscow night.
Tverskaya wasn’t too far from the Metropol. His head became clearer with every step in the freezing air. Jones knew one thing with an absolute certainty, that Max’s brother Ralf had killed himself by throwing himself out of a window in Berlin and that he, Max, would never have chosen that way to die. He hadn’t shared that thought with Duranty because he wasn’t too keen to share it with the Cheka.
When Jones got to 24 Tverskaya Street, an old woman was leaving by the front door. Galloping up the steps, he held the door open for her, slipped inside and was vaulting up the stairwell before the concierge started shouting at him. There was no lift shaft, at least none that he could see. That gave him some time.
Max’s fifth floor flat was easily identified. A black ribbon had been tied to the door knob and the lock had been shot out, the Cheka’s calling card.
The door opened inwards under a light touch, so Jones stole inside and closed the door softly behind him. The flat was almost completely dark, apart from a few edges of light seeping out underneath the shutters. Once again, he cursed himself for not smoking. All he needed was a match but he didn’t have one, and, yet again, he’d forgotten Crowley’s lighter. His fingers scrabbled around on the wall hunting for a light switch. No luck.
He took a step forwards and tripped over a piece of furniture, crashing to the ground. On the floor, his fingers traced out what was closest to him: an overturned chair, books, shards of broken glass or crockery, something sticky.
He raised his fingers to his lips and tasted blood.
Crawling on his hands and knees, his breathing heavy, he moved three, four feet towards the shutters, and there he crashed into a tower of pots and pans which fell with enough noise to wake up a cemetery. Not caring now, he half-stumbled, half-ran to the shutters and pulled one open. The street lights streaming in lit up a scene of chaos. Bookcases overturned, a sofa upended, a mahogany table splintered and broken, a hatstand smashed into pieces, pots, pans, plates, knives, forks and spoons and even a kettle from Borodin’s tiny kitchen littered the floor.
Under attack, Borodin must have thrown everything he had at the intruders, and then some. Against one wall, a bloodstained handprint. And in the middle of the wreckage, on the floor: a film reel, yards and yards of it. Unique footage of the famine, hard evidence of Stalin’s monstrous crime, destroyed.
“You put up a bloody good fight, Max,” Jones said out loud As funeral orations went it was short, honest and the only one the dead man would get.
From outside the flat, he heard a voice, frail yet angry. The concierge had made it to the fifth floor. Jones had been pretty confident that the concierge hadn’t got a proper look at him when he’d entered the building but being trapped inside the flat was different. There was a soft knock at the door, then it swung open.
Jones fully opened the shutters and stepped out onto the small balcony overlooking the street sixty feet below. In the snow on the balcony there was blood, and lots of it. He tried not to think about that now. If the concierge got a look at him, he would be able to give the Cheka a description, and that would not end well for him.
Down on the street a figure stepped into a pool of light from a lamppost. A woman in brown.
The concierge’s voice was stronger now, more assertive, calling on him to come back into the room from the balcony. Jones was boxed in, with nowhere to go. The only way of ensuring that the concierge didn’t give the Cheka his description was to silence him – and Jones wasn’t that man.
A fresh flurry of snow started to fall. Jones leant over the balcony, looked down and made his decision. Inside the room came the sounds of the concierge picking his way through the chaos.
Jones straddled the balcony, gripped onto his hat with one hand.
Then he jumped.
Chapter Seventeen
They had come for Evgenia shortly after dawn that morning, two polite knocks on the door, then a third, insistent. She was hurrying to get herself organised when the knocking intensified. Terrified of what might happen if she didn’t open the door, she flung it open. She was wearing a satin nightdress, a gift from Duranty.
The Cheka came in threes. This visit was no exception.
“Ah, Colonel Lyushkov.”
“Miss Miranova, I’m sorry to disturb you but the Extraordinary Commission needs your services at short notice.”
Behind the Colonel stood an Uzbek Cheka soldier, a giant of a man, and Lintz. His hair dye was absurd.
“Can you give me a moment?” She gestured to her lingerie.
“We’ll wait inside.”
“That’s not convenient, Colonel. I’m always happy to work for the Cheka but my flat is tiny and I’m afraid I cannot change my clothes without making an unfortunate exhibition of myself.”
Lyushkov relented. Then, closing the door, she put the small icon of the Virgin Mary by her bed under a pillow and proceeded to dress for “over there” – code for the gulag. It took time and Lyushkov knocked again.
Opening the door, she put on a cheery smile and said, “Patience, Colonel, is an art to master.”
“Listen, bitch, we’ve got work to do.”
She had pushed her luck too far and it wasn’t even seven o’clock in the morning. After that, they rode in the ZIS to the Lubyanka in silence. Once there, they took the lift to Lyushkov’s office, a grand affair occupying a corner room. Lyushkov went to his desk, sat behind it and ordered Lintz to sit in the prisoner’s chair. Then, waving his fingers at Evgenia, he ordered her to sit to one side.
“The trick to any interrogation is not to give the prisoner the slightest advantage,” Lyushkov announced. “I’m worried that, if he can see your face, Miss Mironova, he might pick up some intelligence.”
“Colonel, let me assure you that I would not dream of alerting a prisoner to anything. It would be unprofessional.”
“You’re a whore with a smart tongue inside you, woman, that’s all. Shut up or the Cheka will find someone else to carry out your services, someone who has a bit more nous.” He told Lintz to find two wooden screens. Lintz and the Uzbek hurried off while Lyushkov sat at his desk and started reading reports from a stack of folders in his in-tray.
After a time, Lintz and the Uzbek returned, out of breath, with two screens. They spent a few minutes arranging them, one to block whoever was standing at the door from seeing Lyushkov at his desk, the other to screen off Evgenia from the prisoner. This interrogation was going to be performance art.
They were still fussing over the exact positioning of the second screen when there was a gentle knock at the door and in walked a man in a peaked cap, pale tunic, black belt, and wide black breeches. He wore a leather holster holding a revolver on one shoulder and a brown satchel on the other. The most striking thing about him was his toothbrush moustache, directly under his nostrils. You could have mistaken him for a disciple of Herr Hitler. The skull was shaven, the face forbiddingly pale, as if it had never seen sunshine. The moment he appeared, Evgenia felt the temperature in the room drop.
Lyushkov shot out of his chair and saluted the newcomer. “Comrade Yagoda. It’s a great pleasure to see you here, as always. Is there anything we can assist you with, Comrade?”
Evgenia recognised him from the famous photograph of Stalin at the opening of the White Sea Canaclass="underline" Genrikh Grigoryevich Yagoda, the deputy head of the Cheka. The nominal head, Vyacheslav Menzhinsky, was a permanent invalid and rarely seen or spoken of. Yagoda was the boss and everyone knew it.