Page 33 of The Gathering Storm (Morland Dynasty #36)

As early as it was feasible that she’d be home, he presented himself at Tata’s house.

The door was closed and the concierge was not in sight, which was odd as it was the sort of sunny day when she would usually bring out a chair and sit.

He rang the bell, and had to ring again before there was a grinding of locks and the small door within the double doors opened.

‘ Bonjour, Maman – me voici, enfin! ’ he said cheerfully.

She looked at him for a long time, her lips pressed tight shut. Her eyes were inflamed, and there seemed to be more lines in her face than before. She seemed bewildered by his presence.

‘I’ve come to see Tata,’ he prompted. ‘I’ve been away a long time, and I’ve quite an adventure to tell. Is she home yet?’

Tears began to gather in Maman’s eyes. It was disconcerting, because he had never thought she was capable of crying. A cold finger of dread traced its way down his spine.

‘What’s the matter?’ he said nervously. ‘Has something happened? Where is she?’

The rigid lips unlocked at last. ‘She’s dead,’ said Maman.

Maman sat at the table in the dark kitchen of her dark little flat.

Heavy lace curtains at the window created twilight; there was a metallic smell of dank water from the drain under the sink.

Behind her a dresser was crammed with kitchen china and pots of trailing ivy, and on the middle shelf there was an icon of Our Lady parting her robe to point at her glowing, throbbing heart.

She had long, slender fingers, delicately arranged like a dancer’s.

Ever afterwards, when James thought about that moment, it was the image of the Immaculate Heart that he saw, those white hands, and the green ivy leaves.

It was three days ago, said Maman. Mademoiselle had come home from school just as usual, tired from the day’s work, but cheerful – always cheerful.

Unlike many of her exiled compatriots, she never let herself sink into melancholy: Maman had heard them often enough, mooing like cows about Mother Russia, drowning themselves in vodka until they fell into a stupor.

Mademoiselle was not like that. She kept herself busy and never complained.

She had asked Maman if there was any hot water, as she’d like to have a bath.

She said she was going to the cinema with Valya Danilov.

She had come down from her room at six o’clock, in a pretty red dress and a hat with daisies in it.

She said she and Valya would eat at the Oeil du Perdrix before the show, and that she would be back at ten.

They were going to see On Ne Roule Pas Antoinette!

because it was important to laugh, n’est-ce pas ?

Maman had patted her cheek and called her a little pixie, and she had done one of her ballet steps, a little twirl on the spot (Maman spun her finger to demonstrate) and off she went.

That was the last time she had seen her.

Maman had sat up, waiting. She’d had a bad feeling. It was well past midnight when the flics had come. They had got Tata’s name and address from the carte d’identité in her sac à main . They had asked Maman many questions, then asked her to go along with them to identify the body.

Maman had met James’s eyes at that point, and he flinched.

‘Let Our Blessed Lady and the saints witness, that was the worst moment of my life,’ she said.

‘And I have lived through the war. I had two sons who never came back, and I buried a husband to a broken heart and a daughter-in-law and a grandson to the Spanish flu. But this was worse. To see my poor girl like that, like a bundle of clothes thrown away, all her lovely vitality gone, stolen from her by some dirty murderer! Her poor throat cut right through. Her skin was so pale it looked like alabaster. There couldn’t have been a drop of blood left in her body. ’

James’s mouth was dry. ‘Wh—?’ was all he managed.

‘They found her in an alley not a hundred yards from here. Behind the dustbins. It’s a dark alley leading nowhere – no-one would go there.

The flics said the assassin probably hid there and grabbed her as she came past. A drunk found her – a vagrant.

He stumbled in there with his bottle to pass out for the night.

He saw a bundle of clothes. Merciful St Martin, he thought he would lie on them to sleep!

Then he saw the blood. He was so frightened that he was shocked sober.

He ran out and bumped into Monsieur Faucher, who was just coming home from his work at the railway yard, and Monsieur Faucher called the police.

And so …’ She stopped, her mouth wry. ‘And so,’ she ended flatly.

‘What—?’ James could not seem to get any further.

‘She must have been on her way home. I told the flics , she meant to be home at ten. They said that seemed right from the condition of the blood.’ She took out her handkerchief and wiped it slowly over her face, not, James thought, because she was sweating, but as a respite for just a moment, as a child hides its head under the bedsheet when the horrors come.

‘She was coming home and they grabbed her and cut her poor throat. Why? Why? She was a sweet, good girl, she meant no-one harm. Why would they do that to her?’

They sat in silence as the kitchen clock, on the wall opposite the dresser, picked the seconds out of its teeth and spat them into eternity. Tick-tick-tick, time moving on, moving on relentlessly, leaving Tata behind, further and further in the past, the past which was all she would ever have now.

James roused himself. ‘They have no idea, the police, who did it? No suspects?’

She shrugged. ‘No-one saw anything or heard anything. Only the drunk who found her – and they believe his story. They said …’ she sighed, weary of words. ‘… they said there are murders like this all the time. Three or four every day. Often they end up in the Seine. Often they are girls.’

So they won’t investigate, James thought. Perhaps if Tata had been a rich girl or a politician’s daughter or someone important … But a Russian emigrée infant-school teacher, who cared for her?

Another long time later, he said, ‘Can I see her room?’

She looked at him searchingly, but in the end did not ask him why. She heaved herself up from the chair, took a huge bundle of keys from the dresser and wordlessly led the way.

The room was just as he had last seen it, except that the light before the icon in the Beautiful Corner had burned out.

‘Night’s candles are burnt out.’ But there would be no jocund day.

The things she had arranged and chosen and loved, the rich colour and interest of the room, seemed faded and lifeless, rather pathetic – coloured scarves and cushions, paper flowers and pictures could not make the room live. It was Tata who had done that.

‘What will happen to her things?’ he heard himself ask.

‘Someone from the Maison de l’évangile will come and take them. She had no relatives. They’ll give them to her friends, I suppose.’

His eye took in the elaborate samovar, the glorious bedspread, the many, many photographs, the gilded icons of the sultry saints.

Shawls and scarves. In his mind she danced across the room in a twirl of coloured silks.

The books. He saw her, patiently trying to teach him from them.

Vividly, in his memory, she laughed, her dark eyes flashing.

Beside him was the low table on which stood the framed photograph of her as a child with Aunt Masha and Sister Chebodarev and the sad-eyed Tsarina.

She had explained it to him, touching the figures with a slender, tender finger.

As Maman turned away to wipe her eyes and blow her nose, he snatched it up on an impulse and hid it in his jacket pocket.

Out again in the unfeeling day, he hurried, almost ran through the streets to the Maison de l’évangile.

There were three people there, the girl he had met the first day, whose name he now knew was Madeleine, and two older women.

One of them was Nina Berberov. They turned and looked at him in silence as he came in.

Nina’s eyes were red, her lower lip drooping. ‘You!’ she said.

‘I’ve just heard,’ James said. ‘I can’t believe it.’

‘Now you know why we’re always so careful,’ Nina said. ‘What did you do? What did you do? ’ She ran at him and beat his chest ineffectually with her small fists, crying. He caught her wrists and held them, trying to be gentle.

Madeleine said, ‘I checked him, Ninochka. I checked everything I could.’

Nina pulled herself free from James and took a step back. ‘I don’t blame you ,’ she said to Madeleine, dragging a handkerchief from her sleeve. She pressed it to her eyes as if she could push the tears back to their source. ‘It’s him .’

James was aghast. ‘You think I had something to do with it?’

‘You went to Russia with Bedaux. I know Tata warned you they would be watching you all the time. What did you tell them? You brought this on us!’

‘I didn’t!’ James protested. ‘I didn’t say anything to anyone. I was just the secretary. I never mentioned Tata, or any of you.’

‘It doesn’t matter, Nina,’ the other woman said. ‘You know they’ve been watching Natalie for years, and Bedaux has been to her parties. It could have been any of us. There’s no reason to think—’

‘You think the Soviets did this?’ James said, in astonishment. ‘How? Why? Why would they want to kill Tata?’

‘As a warning to us,’ Nina said. ‘To teach us a lesson.’

‘They want to find – certain people,’ Madeleine said. ‘They think we harbour their enemies.’

‘They have agents everywhere,’ the third woman said, in defeated tones.

‘The Soviet state has a long arm. They like to remind us that we can never be free of them. They want us to know they can reach out any time, anywhere, and snuff us out.’ She made a gesture on the air of pinching out a candle flame.