Part 25 (1/2)

'Acute myocardial infarction,' said Hadfield. 'A serious case.'

The dvornik looked at him blankly. 'Does Your Honour wish me to summon a cab?'

But it was an emergency, no time to waste. Hadfield brushed past him and into the snowy street.

The city's clocks were striking midnight at St Boris and St Gleb, and half past the hour by the time he reached the rooming house door. The old Ukrainian lady greeted him with a warm wrinkled smile. The rest of the building was sleeping. Anna was curled beneath a thick feather bedspread he had not seen before. He knelt beside her and swept a strand of hair from her face. She looked tired and there was an angry graze high on her right cheek. He took off his clothes and lay on the mattress beside her. And she turned to him with her eyes closed, lifting her chin, an invitation to kiss her full on the lips.

'You were so long,' she whispered sleepily.

'What happened to you? You must let me look at your cheek.' She smiled. 'My personal physician.' And she pressed closer, sharing her warmth, her head upon his arm, his thigh raised between her legs. 'Things are so difficult, I wasn't sure you'd come,' she said.

'Yes.'

'What did you tell that man Dobrs.h.i.+nsky?'

'No more than we agreed.'

'Good.' She leant forward to kiss him, plucking playfully at his bottom lip with her lips. Then she said, 'But you must be even more careful. They won't leave you alone.'

'I know. He knew much more than I expected. Your friend Goldenberg has changed sides.'

'That's not true!' she said sharply, pulling her head away to look him in the eye.

'I'm sorry. It is true.'

'Did Dobrs.h.i.+nsky say so? How can you be sure?'

'I'm sure.' And he told her of his conversation with the special investigator. She listened with a deep frown of concentration, propped on an elbow, her eyes an intense darker blue in the candlelight.

'But that only proves he told them about you,' she said. 'He must have thought they wouldn't hurt you.'

Hadfield raised his eyebrows sceptically. She fell back on the pillow beside him, a hard expression on her face.

'Don't shoot the messenger,' he said, reaching up to stroke her hair.

'What?'

'Nothing.'

'It explains everything.'

'Does it?'

'I must tell the others. I should go.'

'For G.o.d's sake!' he exclaimed. 'I've only just got here.'

'Shsh. Someone will hear you.'

Their faces were inches apart, her chest rising and falling against his chest, his leg pressing her pelvis, and yet, and yet, it was as if they were drifting away from each other, the confused feelings of the last days creeping between them.

'I spoke to the tsar,' he said.

'What?'

'He visited the hospital after the explosion. I helped treat some of the wounded.'

She closed her eyes, her face stiff, even hostile.

'I helped to remove the leg of a young Finnish soldier, but he died in the night.'

'Please, Frederick, don't.'

'Why not? Is it so hard?'

'I'm going.'

'As you wish.'

But she made no attempt to rise, and he did not relax his hold upon her.

'Come away with me. Leave this madness,' he whispered, pulling her closer, his cheek to hers. She winced with pain.

'Is that such an awful thought?'

'No. No. It was my cheek.'

'Then say yes.'

'I can't, Frederick. You know I can't, I can't . . .'

'Then what do you want from me?' he asked coldly. 'This? Is this all I am permitted to share? A damp mattress?' Anna did not reply, and after a few seconds he pulled away a little to study her expression: 'Well?'

Still the stubborn, pa.s.sive silence. A darkness in which resentment, unhappiness, despair might breathe.

'Do you love me?' He wanted to shake her.

Her face stiffened with anger and she opened her eyes and stared at him: 'Yes.'

'Why was it so hard to say? Then let's leave this country.'

'No. I have a duty to my friends and my people. A higher duty.'

'A higher duty?' He laughed bitterly. 'Some might call it a pa.s.sion for martyrdom.'

'Be quiet,' she hissed.

'What about those soldiers at the palace my young Finnish soldier, or the student they found murdered on the ice? What about those people?'

'Keep your voice down!' She gave him an angry shove. 'You should go.'