Part 7 (1/2)

Her gaze was fixed on the seeping wound in the vagrant's chest. He watched her lift a trembling hand to her lips where it hovered uncertainly. She looked pale, her eyes large and glittering, the pupils dilated.

'You look as if you've seen a ghost.' He touched her elbow gently. 'Do you recognise him?'

She turned quickly, suddenly aware of his hand on her arm. 'No. No.'

'Are you sure?'

'I've never seen him before.'

'I'm sorry. It was cra.s.s of me to ask you to help . . .'

'No, it's quite all right,' she said. 'I am used to the dead.' She was her brisk matter-of-fact self again.

There were precious few patients left to see, and within an hour the waiting room was empty but for the school dvornik dozing on a bench, his shoulders wedged into the angle between two walls.

'Did the crowd know our man was murdered?' Hadfield asked as he slipped back into his jacket.

'Yes,' she said simply. 'The waiting room will be full again next week.'

They covered the body with a dirty blanket and left it in the surgery for the priests. Tearing a leaf of paper from his journal, Hadfield began writing a note. 'I'm going to tell them he was murdered. I'll leave my address. I don't expect the police will bother to contact me but they may want . . .'

'No.' She took an urgent step towards him and s.n.a.t.c.hed at the paper.

'What on earth-'

She stood over him tugging at the top edge of the note, but he had it firmly anch.o.r.ed to the table with his fist and after a few seconds she let go.

'Let me have it!' Her jaw was set, the colour high in her cheeks, that same deep, stubborn frown on her face. 'Please.'

'Certainly not,' he said quietly. 'Not until you explain yourself, Miss Kovalenko.'

She took a deep breath and turned reluctantly away. 'Isn't it obvious?'

'Not to me.'

'The police would want to know what a smart foreign doctor was doing in Peski on a Sunday afternoon. And they would want to know who was with you,' she said. 'Leave it to the dvornik. He will say he found the body outside.'

'I see. But why didn't you say so? Why throw a tantrum?'

'Wasn't it ladylike?' she said with something close to a sneer in her voice.

'It was ill-mannered.'

Her shoulders seemed to drop a little, and she closed her eyes, the anger and tension draining from her: 'Yes, perhaps. You won't leave your name?'

'No. If it's so important, no, I won't.' He picked up the paper, ripped it in half and offered her the pieces: 'Here.'

Anna took them without making eye contact and tore them in half again: 'I'll speak to the dvornik.'

Hadfield waited beside the body. He was astonished by her outburst. After a few minutes she returned and began clearing away the things they had used for the surgery in silence, at pains to avoid his gaze. She was clearly a little embarra.s.sed and would probably have welcomed an excuse to soften the atmosphere that lingered in the room like the smell of formaldehyde. But Hadfield was content to watch her, enjoying her discomfort.

'I will take you to the church,' she said, turning to look at him at last.

'Thank you.'

Standing awkwardly at the school door, Hadfield could not suppress an acute sense of disappointment and frustration. This was not how the day was supposed to be, and he fought to extinguish the ember of resentment that was still glowing inside. Anna was in conversation with the dvornik who was leaning against the door jamb, a sullen look on his face. Hadfield cleared his throat and was on the point of addressing her when she turned sharply to look at him: 'Do you have a few kopeks you can give him?'

'Of course. Twenty?' He gave them to the dvornik, who counted them laboriously then held out his greasy palm for more.

'That's enough,' said Anna sharply, but the grizzled old yard keeper stood there unmoved, his hand held flat like a Russian Buddha.

'Oh, for G.o.d's sake, take this!' Hadfield handed him twenty kopeks more. 'Satisfied?'

The dvornik gave a broad toothless grin.

'The old devil!' Anna said as the door closed behind him.

'What did I buy?'

'The right story, of course. He found the body. We weren't here.'

'Ah.'

'This way.' She set off down the street at a brisk pace, pa.s.sing from sunlight into the shadow of the four-storey lodging house opposite. From every open window, from the doorways and the yards on that hot summer Sunday, the restless sound of humanity packed cheek-by-jowl into single rooms and corners. He watched her stride purposefully on as if careless whether he followed or not: past a little group of children, barefoot, in rags, racing sticks across a puddle of dirty water, and on a little further to where three immodestly-dressed young women were gossiping in a doorway one of whom directed a remark at Anna then burst into a peal of raucous tipsy laughter. He caught up with her at the end of the street.

'Miss Kovalenko, if you have no other appointments, can I persuade you to walk with me a little?'

She turned to him with a shy smile, her blue eyes twinkling like suns.h.i.+ne on ice. 'Yes, you can persuade me.'

From St Boris and St Gleb, they ambled north along the bank of the Neva, and Hadfield told her of his first meeting with the Figners, of their time together in Zurich and of the unhappy years he had spent in London since. 'It was always my ambition to return to St Petersburg.'

'To leave your home?'

'St Petersburg is my home.'

'And General Glen is your uncle?'

He smiled at the disingenuously casual way the question was slipped into their conversation. 'Yes. Of course, we don't see eye to eye on many things but he has been very kind to me.'

'Does he know about your time in Switzerland, your views?' she asked.

'I try not to talk politics.'

'Do you go to grand parties with him?'

'Sometimes.'