Blood Red Snow White Page 11

  Arthur desperately tried to weigh up everything he’d seen and heard. Could he dare refuse Trotsky? And what if he did what he wanted? Then, surely, he would be a traitor.

  “Are you telling me to do this?” Arthur said, eventually.

  “No, I am asking you.”

  “But if I don’t do it. What then?”

  Trotsky shrugged.

  “I will find some other way.”

  That wasn’t what Arthur wanted to hear. He wanted an assurance that he wouldn’t have put himself in danger; he didn’t give a damn about how Trotsky got his Red gold to Sweden.

  He took a deep breath, and stood. With a pounding heart he reached out for the case, and slid it back across the desk toward Trotsky.

  “Then find another way.”

  9:40 P.M.

  ARTHUR WALKS DOWN THE STAIRCASE at the Elite Hotel.

  It is twenty to ten.

  There’s some kind of commotion in the lobby, a gaggle of people surrounding someone, raised voices. Arthur’s seen it many times before, he knows what it means. News, or more often, the rumor of news, from the Revolution, from the war with Germany, and lately, from the war against the White army, faithful to the Tsar.

  He draws level with the crowd, not intending to waste time, when he overhears two words.

  “They’re dead!”

  He stops, and despite himself, loiters at the back of the crowd.

  “Murdered!”

  “Good riddance,” says a voice. “They deserved it.”

  “Maybe he did … but the whole family?”

  “Did they ever show any concern for you when you were starving? No!”

  And that is how Arthur hears that the Tsar, and the Tsarina, and all five children have been executed by Bolshevik guards. The rumor is that the White army was closing in on Ekaterinburg, where they were being held. A decision was taken to shoot them before they could be rescued. Arthur wonders who made that decision? Some fanatical captain, power crazy, in Ekaterinburg? Or someone in Moscow, Lenin maybe, or Trotsky, who only this morning told Arthur not to think him heartless?

  He feels sick at the thought of the murder of the children, but puts his head down and slips away from the crowd. He’s hurrying past the doorman’s office, but cannot see little Kashka anywhere. A need to see her strikes him, a need to have her ask her question, and for him to give his usual answer, but this is a ritual he will have to forego tonight. It seems like an omen.

  Arthur walks into the night air.

  Ten seconds after he leaves, another man leaves the lobby. He follows Arthur down the street, though some way behind, on the opposite side.

  Arthur, head down, doesn’t see him.

  Damn! He looks at his watch. Having had hours to get ready, the drama in the hotel has made him late.

  It’s five to ten, and he picks up speed, but without resorting to a run. He mustn’t draw attention to himself.

  Not tonight.

  He thinks about the Tsar’s family, trying to imagine what those final moments were like. Did they know what was happening to them? Did they scream? Did they die quickly? It’s too awful, and it makes him even more determined to go along with Lockhart’s plan. He’s seen how calculating the Bolsheviks can be on more than one occasion, but something nags at him, making him feel sad for some reason. A few more steps and he knows what it is; it’s that life for the Russian people was even worse under the Tsar. But does that make it right to murder children?

  No, he tells himself, it does not.

  But what would he rather have happened?

  What should happen now?

  He wonders if anything he or Lockhart or anyone does will have the slightest effect. For some peculiar reason, he sees the country as a huge bear, a great Russian bear, running loose, under no one’s control.

  Meanwhile, the figure behind follows doggedly, but Arthur senses nothing. He turns into smaller and smaller streets, heading for a dead part of town that’s even more lawless than the rest of Moscow.

  He’s going to be late, but he can’t help that. He glances at his watch and then as he lifts his gaze he sees himself reflected in the grimy glass of an abandoned shop. Something moves in the corner of his vision.

  He crosses the narrow street, doubles his pace, turns a corner and immediately ducks into a dark doorway, ears burning for the sound of footsteps behind him.

  He’s right.

  A second after he’s pushed himself out of sight in the doorway, the figure who’s been following him walks past.

  Arthur steps out smartly behind the figure and taps him on the shoulder.

  The man turns.

  Arthur wags a finger.

  “Robert! You’ll have to do better than that.”

  Lockhart sighs briefly and then laughs.

  “At least now you’ll have to believe I’ve been listening to you,” Arthur says.

  “All right. Very good,” Lockhart admits. “But we shouldn’t be seen. We’re nearly at the Finland. Come on.”

  * * *

  They duck under the low archway to the bar without pausing, and head straight for a table in an alcove.

  Arthur slides onto a bench with his back to the wall while the Scot orders a bottle from the waiter.

  “Vodka?”

  “What else?” Arthur says.

  Lockhart pours a three-finger glass of vodka and shoves it across the table to Arthur.

  “Wonderful stuff,” he says. “Cures all manner of ills. You can see why they invented it.”

  Arthur smiles and drinks half of it at a gulp. It’s cheap stuff and it burns his throat, but he’s pleased. It’s what he needs, to go through with what he’s decided.

  “Ready?” Lockhart asks.

  Arthur’s mind races. In an awful few seconds, a host of images and conversations from his years in Russia jostle for supremacy in his thoughts. They all want something from him, something of him. Buchanan. Lockhart, who holds the key to Arthur and Evgenia’s escape; a passport that will get them into Stockholm, but only if he gets what he wants. Howard and Vorovsky, in Stockholm. He sees Trotsky and Lenin, the Jew and the Russian. He sees Trotsky pushing that green case across the desk toward him. He sees all the people he’s ever known in Russia; he sees the great bear, running loose and wild through the forests and plains of Russia. He thinks of the Tsar and his wife and children, he thinks of Ivy and Tabitha. He hears Evgenia, sees her and tastes her kiss, as if she were there before him.

  The visions in his mind wrestle with each other, and argue and fight, creating a din that it seems will never end.

  He cannot stand the noise of their chaos, and only when there is silence will he consent to speak. With a supreme effort of will, he banishes them all.

  Lockhart is staring at him.

  “Arthur? Are you ready?”

  “Yes,” says Arthur, then, “no. No, I’m not ready.”

  Lockhart’s hand hovers over his own glass, mid pour.

  “What…? Here, have some more vodka.”

  “No, Robert. I’m not scared, I’m just not going to do it. I’m sorry. I’m sorry to let you down, but I’m not going to do it.”

  Lockhart grabs Arthur’s arm across the table, not aggressively, but it still hurts. There’s a look in Lockhart’s eyes that Arthur has never seen.

  “You told me you’d agreed. You said you’d do it! You can’t change your mind now.”

  “I have changed my mind, Robert. You talked me into it. You’re a persuasive man, you know. But it’s not for me, what you asked. It’s not my affair.”

  He stops, but Lockhart is still too angry to speak, so he goes on.

  “Have you heard the news?”

  Lockhart shakes his head, gently.

  “What news?”

  “They’ve murdered the Tsar. All the children.”

  Lockhart nods.

  “So, that’s even more reason to try and topple them, isn’t it?”

  “No, Robert. It isn’t. It’s even more reason to stop inter
fering. This is nothing to do with us. All the time I’ve been here I’ve been arguing for British involvement, British help for Russia, and all the while our government has been dithering about whether to ignore the Bolsheviks or invade the country and get rid of them. I’ve argued against it. I thought Britain should leave well enough alone, but I’ve been every bit as guilty of wanting them to interfere. I wanted Britain to help Russia beat Germany, to end the war before my brother gets killed. I wanted my own result from it all, like everyone else. The truth is, we should get out of here, and leave them to sort their own problems out.”

  “But Arthur, we’ve always interfered. When the war started, we interfered. When Rasputin became a problem, we interfered…”

  Arthur held up a hand.

  “You’re telling me we, you, had something to do with his murder?”

  “Not me. But our people … played a part. I don’t know it all myself, but that’s not the point, Arthur. You can’t let me down, let your country down.”

  “That kind of talk is useless, Robert, don’t you see? I’m not going to get involved in anyone’s schemes. There’s a bigger story going on in Russia, far bigger than us, one that may not end in our lifetimes, and I know my place. I’d forgotten it, but my place isn’t on the British side, or the Russian one, but in the middle. In no man’s land.”

  Arthur stops, and is surprised that Lockhart doesn’t leap down his throat, but instead, sighs, and lets his head hang.

  “Dammit, Arthur,” he says. “Why do you have to be right?”

  He swigs his vodka.

  “Why do you always have to be right? I only wish I had the strength to say no, too. To refuse to play the whole bloody game. But then, that’s what I’m paid for. To play the game.”

  He smiles bitterly, and somehow Arthur knows he’s thinking of Moura.

  “Isn’t there anyone else who can meet the Latvians for you?” Arthur asks.

  Lockhart looks at his watch, calculating how much time he has to play with.

  “Yes,” he says, “Yes, there is. I could get Reilly to do it.”

  “Sidney Reilly?”

  “Another of our agents. Could have asked him in the first place, but I don’t like him. I don’t trust him to get it right. The man’s a fantasist.”

  “It’s a simple enough job. You said so yourself.”

  Lockhart smiles.

  “Maybe. Maybe. I’m going to have to find him then. I don’t have long. Goodbye, Arthur.”

  He stands up, and as he does so, Arthur sees his chance of leaving Russia about to disappear through the door, but Lockhart pauses, and moves his hand to his pocket.

  “Here,” he says smiling. “Have your damn passport. Evgenia’s on there, too. I’d do the same thing with Moura if I could. Not going to step in your way.”

  Arthur grabs Lockhart’s hand and shakes it.

  “Don’t say a word,” Lockhart says. “Not one word, you hear? Now get out of here. And Arthur…”

  “What?”

  “For God’s sake. Be happy. The two of you.”

  PART III

  A FAIRY TALE, ENDING

  1

  AND HOW MUCH DO WE EVER KNOW?

  How much do we ever know of our own stories, as we live them?

  I thought I knew what I was doing, and why. Or should I say, who I was doing it for, but life is never that simple, and with hindsight we sees our lives laid out behind us and we think; God damn me to Hell, I was a fool.

  2

  THE MOMENTS OF OUR LIVES are like the leaves on a tree, each one separate but each connected to the branch, each branch to the tree itself. The young green leaves dance and rub as the wind blows through them, but when the autumn of our life arrives, they wither and fall to the ground in a jumble. But now, at least, they’re still, and we can walk down from the house and look at them, pick them over and try to make sense of it all.

  We left Moscow, and escaped to Stockholm, and I thought it was all going to be easy, but how quickly everything began to fall apart.

  To fall apart.

  * * *

  I’d left Lockhart in the bar that night, so sure of what I was doing, so sure I was right to turn him down, but soon such certainty crumbled.

  And I became a spy, after all.

  3

  THE GOING WAS HARD, saying goodbye was harder. We had to travel separately, Evgenia and I. She traveled with Vorovsky, overland. They’d been given permission by the German government to go by train via Berlin and then to Sweden. All too soon she was gone and I wondered when I would see her again.

  Meanwhile, I traveled posing as a Soviet courier. The Bolsheviks furnished me with some papers, and gave me the protection of a Latvian guard, who was to translate my Russian into, of all languages, English, for any border officials. It was an irony that might have delighted me, but I was too nervous to enjoy any such frivolity.

  I got to Stockholm safely enough, but then things began to blacken.

  Evgenia was not there. I had thought she would beat me, having left first, but day after day went by and there was still no word from her. I called at the Bolshevik Embassy regularly, asking if they had news of Vorovsky’s party, but all they could tell me was that they had reached Berlin.

  With every day that passed I grew more and more worried. And, with every day, more questions were raised, but there were no answers.

  I needed to work. I had strung the Daily News along, and they were growing impatient. I needed to start writing for them again, regularly, or they’d pull the plug and I’d be back in London before Evgenia ever made it to Stockholm.

  I went to the British Legation to talk to Sir Esmé about whether I could be allowed to telegram from Sweden, which was, after all, neutral territory, but something had changed. No one smiled; no one welcomed me. Even Sir Esmé, whose children I had once entertained, dealt with me in an offhand manner.

  I held my peace for a while, and was rewarded by permission to resume life as a correspondent for the Daily News.

  There was a condition however. While I was discussing the matter with Sir Esmé, there was a knock at the door and in came an officer. It took me a moment to recognize him.

  “Ransome,” he said, holding out his hand.

  Then I remembered: Major Scale. The last time I’d seen him was in Petrograd, in 1917.

  “Major,” I said. “How can I help you?”

  “It’s I that can help you, I think,” he said.

  “We’re going to get you back at work, Ransome,” Sir Esmé said. “Sending your reports. To make things easier, you’ll give them to Major Scale and he’ll have them telegraphed for you.”

  “To make things easier?” I asked, slowly.

  “Yes. To make things easier. And more … secure. Major Scale is with the Intelligence Service. Your communications will be more secure this way.”

  “I see,” I said. “From who…?”

  Scale lost his temper then and told me I was bloody lucky to be allowed to send anything anywhere, but Sir Esmé soon told him to be quiet.

  “It will be better for everyone this way. That’s all.”

  I agreed, with no further argument. I’d just have to be more careful about what I said, that was all. It meant I’d keep my job, and be able to stay in Stockholm. I went back to the small house I was renting, out on the sea lanes at Igelboda, and brooded, thinking about Evgenia, about where she might be, and what she might be doing.

  A day later I found out why the mood toward me had soured. It was Lockhart.

  As I learned what had happened, my heart beat fast and light.

  Damn it, I remember thinking. Damn it, damn it.

  Damn me.

  God damn me for a fool.

  * * *

  The first I heard was a rumor on the street that Lenin had been assassinated. It had taken a few days to reach Stockholm, but the British Legation had obviously known about it for days. As soon as I heard I ran to see if they had further news.

  Sir Esmé showed me
an imported Russian paper, which had arrived that morning.

  A young Jewish woman had fired two shots at Lenin at point-blank range. He was still alive, but badly wounded, perhaps fatally. He had taken one bullet in the lung, the other in the neck, and was in a coma. He was alive, but his chances of surviving were less than good.

  There was more news, from Petrograd. Two days earlier the head of the Cheka there had been assassinated. There had been riots and the British Embassy was attacked. Cromie, our naval attaché, who had once given me a flag with which to claim an embassy, had resisted the intrusion and, after killing a Cheka commissar, had been shot dead.

  Another man I counted a friend, gone.

  Meanwhile in Moscow, and later the same night as the attempt on Lenin’s life, Lockhart and his second in command at the mission, Hicks, had been arrested. Lockhart had been accused of masterminding a massive plot against the Bolsheviks.

  Sir Esmé nodded at the Bolshevik newspaper in my hands.

  “There,” he said, “what do you make of that?”

  The newspaper made lurid work of the story. I knew ninety percent of it would probably be lies, but that meant ten percent was true, and which, I wondered, was that ten percent? The “Lockhart Plot” accused Robert of plotting with anti-revolutionary forces to kill Lenin and Trotsky, to set up a military dictatorship, and of planning the destruction of numerous railway bridges in order to bring Petrograd and Moscow to their knees through starvation.

  It had all been a trap. There had been no Latvian officers, or if there had been, they had no intention of defecting to the anti-Bolshevik camp. It had been a honey trap, and Lockhart had walked straight into it.

  And I had nearly followed him.

  * * *

  I swallowed hard and at that moment did not dare look Sir Esmé in the eye. I had never mentioned to Evgenia what Robert had wanted me to do. She’d been ill, and besides … Besides, I admitted to myself, there was still the question of loyalties. Her loyalties. Not for the first time it crossed my mind that perhaps I was being taken for a fool, and that, if I had told her, I might now be in the Kremlin, too.