Part 14 (1/2)

'My mistress, Elizaveta Dmitrievna.'

'Look at me.'

Anna raised her eyes for just a second then looked away. He had a thin face and severe mouth, as if years in the police had ground him to a sharp point.

'Now tell me what business you had at a terrorist's apartment?'

'A message to the seamstress,' she snivelled.

'For goodness sake, stop behaving like a child!' the superintendant roared and he thumped his fist on the desk so hard some of his papers floated to the floor. 'Do you know who lives in that flat?'

'No.'

'And you,' he said turning to Olga, 'where do you live?'

Olga ignored him and turned to Anna again. 'My husband will be so cross! This is your fault,' she said. 'I've a mind to turn you out!'

Anna resumed her noisy sobbing. It was a more than respectable performance, but the superintendent had been in the service many years and was a difficult man to deflect. For an hour, he kept returning to the same questions: why had she visited the apartment? What was the message for the dressmaker? Where did she come from? He worried away at both of them, coaxing and bullying in turn.

'All right, we'll see,' he said at last, getting to his feet stiffly. 'Take them home, Sergeant. Examine their papers. Search the apartment from top to bottom and speak to the husband.'

As the two of them were bundled into a police barouche, Anna managed to lean across and whisper 'Thank you'. It was below freezing, the light was fading and the sky threatened more snow, but her spirits were lifting in the cold air after the stuffiness and anxiety of the station. A policeman sat on the box beside the driver, another two travelled on the footboard at the back, and behind them a dozen more in cabs. But once they were beneath the canopy, Olga reached across to give her hand a little squeeze: 'We have a chance.'

It was only a short drive to the building on Nevsky. Glancing up furtively, Anna could see the parasol was no longer posted in the window: the flat must have been cleared of incriminating papers and Morozov would have left too. A posse of policemen huffed and puffed up the stairs after them and gathered on the narrow landing at the top. For appearance's sake, Olga rang the bell, confident no one would answer. After a few seconds, she began rummaging in her bag for the keys, but before she could find them they heard footsteps in the hall and the sound of a heavy bolt drawn back. To Anna's dismay, the door opened to reveal a very startled-looking Nikolai Morozov: 'What on earth-'

Olga threw herself upon him, clutching him tightly. 'Darling, I'm so sorry. Please don't be angry. The police have arrested Anna. I had to go to the station, and now they won't let us go. Please don't be angry.'

'What?' Morozov had regained his composure at once. 'What's happened to you?'

Sergeant Korovin was ready with his own explanation: 'Your maid was arrested at the apartment of two people we suspect of blowing up the tsar's train in Moscow. We're going to have to search your flat.'

'Please do,' said Morozov, stepping back from the door.

'No. No. You first and your wife and you,' Korovin said, pulling Anna roughly by the arm.

They sat on the edge of the bed in silence as the police turned the place upside down, ferreting through cupboards and drawers, moving the few small pieces of furniture, lifting rugs and loose boards, examining their clothes, stirring the ashes in the stove. After an hour they had turned up nothing in the least incriminating and Korovin had no choice but to call a halt to the search. Until their personal papers had been checked against police records they were under house arrest, he told them, and to be sure this order was obeyed he left two constables at the door.

'It will take them a while to check our ident.i.ties,' said Morozov when it was safe to talk. 'But my papers were stolen from a merchant in Tula. He's bound to have reported the theft to the local police.'

'Why did you stay, Nikolai?' Olga asked him, leaning forward to stroke his hair. 'You should have gone.'

'Don't be silly.' He reached up to grab and hold her hand. 'Sophia helped me clear the flat. She's gone to warn the others. What's important now is getting out of here.'

There was a s.h.i.+mmering halo around the street lamps in the prospekt. Snow was falling again. It was after seven o'clock and a steady stream of workers was trudging home along the slush-covered pavements. To Anna's exhausted mind, they appeared blurred and dark at the edges like a badly taken daguerreotype. Gazing from the sitting-room window, she felt unaccountably empty, as if the stuffing had been ripped from her by one of the constables. Her companions were still at the table, whispering to each other, holding hands, drawing strength from their intimacy.

'All right, I think it's time.'

The two young policemen looked thoroughly miserable. It was only a few degrees above freezing on the stairs and for an hour they had been s.h.i.+fting stiffly from foot to foot, stamping and slapping their sides like awkward marionettes.

'My husband wants me to order some tea,' Olga said, as they turned to look at the two women. 'Maria Alexandrovna,' she shouted in a stentorian voice. 'Maria Alexandrovna!'

The landlady's name echoed down the stairs and a few seconds later a door opened on the landing below. A large woman in her fifties in a black scarf and ankle-length coat peered up at them. 'What's this racket?'

'Maria Alexandrovna, we would like some tea.'

Tea, she huffed. Tea when the police had taken over her house! She kept a respectable house . . . Olga cut her short: 'Maria Alexandrovna the samovar. Some tea, as soon as possible, please.'

A few minutes later Anna was allowed to visit the landlady's kitchen with one of the constables and returned with a large pot and gla.s.ses. They tidied the sitting room, clearing the floor, replacing the drawers, making it as homely as possible, and Morozov fed the little stove and placed some chairs before it.

'All right,' he whispered to the two women. 'This is our chance. Quick in the kitchen and remember to take your boots off.'

A moment later, they heard the front door open and Morozov's silvery voice inviting the policemen to step inside for a gla.s.s of hot tea. 'It's so cold out here. Please join us. My wife is preparing a little food.'

The seconds ticked by, Anna's ear pressed to the kitchen door. Surely they were not going to refuse. She felt dizzy with the strain, bent double, and both of them in their heavy winter coats.

'Talk, we must talk normally,' Olga whispered at her shoulder.

But before Anna could think of something to say there was the sound of footsteps in the corridor.

'Sit by the stove,' they heard Morozov say. The sitting-room door clicked shut.

'Now!' Olga hissed.

'No. Wait until they've settled.'

Ten, twenty, thirty seconds, then Anna began to gently lift the latch on the door. One of the policemen was talking, there were footsteps Morozov would be serving the tea and now some laughter. Slowly, lightly, they shuffled along the corridor in their stockinged feet. Morozov had left the apartment door ajar. On the landing, they put on their boots then stood anxiously by, Olga gripping Anna's arm, the keys ready in her hand: she would have to be quick. After a tense few minutes they heard Morozov's voice. 'They're in the kitchen. I'll fetch them.' Perhaps one of the policemen said something or he heard them get to their feet, for a second later Morozov was thumping down the short corridor towards them. He almost fell through the door, grabbing the handle as he did so. It slammed shut behind him, but not before Anna heard the policemen cursing and stumbling after him. Olga was fumbling with the lock.

'For G.o.d's sake . . .' Morozov shouted. 'Have you done it?'

'Yes, yes! It's locked.'

Bang. A shoulder hit the door: 'Open it now! Open it!' Then another crash as the heel of a heavy boot struck the frame. 'Open it!'

Morozov gave Anna a shove: 'Come on. Let's go.' The shouting and the banging chased up and down the stairs, and on the landing below the landlady was at her door. 'What are you doing, you can't leave them . . .'

'In the name of the executive committee of The People's Will,' said Morozov, cutting across her, 'I warn you, Maria Alexandrovna, if you value your life you will leave them there. Do you understand me?'

He did not wait for an answer.

They thundered down the stairs and burst through the door at the back of the building into the snowy yard. Olga took Anna by the arm and they walked beneath the carriage arch and on to Nevsky.

'We'll go to the flat in the Izmailovsky district,' said Morozov. He stepped off the pavement to hail a pa.s.sing cab. Seconds later its sleigh blades slithered to a stop. 'We'll all squeeze in somehow,' and he reached for Anna's hand to help her to a seat.

'No. I'll join you later,' she said.

Olga grabbed Anna by the shoulders and turned her quickly to look her in the eye. 'You must come with us!'