It was not too bad. A thousand roubles per head in 'soft' class bought two dusty, crimson banquettes facing one another, a white nylon sheet, a rolled mattress and a pillow neatly folded on each; a lot of laminated, imitation-wood panelling; green-shaded reading lamps; a little fold-up table; privacy.
Through the window they could see the spars of the iron bridge clicking past but once they were across the river there was nothing visible in the snowstorm except their own reflections staring back at them - haggard, soaking, unshaven. O'Brian drew the yellow curtains, unfastened the table and laid out their food - a grubby loaf, some kind of dried fish, a sausage, tea-bags - while Kelso went in search of hot water.
A blackened samovar stood at the far end of the corridor, opposite the cubicle of the carriage's female attendant, their provodnik~ a hefty, unsmiling woman, like a camp guard in her grey-blue uniform. She had rigged up a little mirror so she could keep an eye on everyone without stirring from her stool. He could see her watching him as he stopped to study the timetable that was fixed to the wall. They had a journey of more than twenty hours ahead of them, and thirteen stops, not counting Moscow, which they would reach just after four in the afternoon.
Twenty hours.
What were their chances of lasting that long? He tried to calculate. By mid-morning at the latest, Moscow would' know that the operation in the forest had been bungled. Then they would be bound to stop the only train out of Archangel and search it. Perhaps he and O'Brian would be wiser to get off at one of these earlier stops - Sokol, maybe, which they would reach at 7 a.m., or, better still, Vologda (Vologda was a big town) - get off the train at Vologda, get to a hotel, call the American Embassy -He heard a sliding door open behind him and a businessman in a smartly cut blue suit came out of his compartment and went in to the lavatory. His neatness made Kelso aware of his own bizarre appearance - heavy waterproof jacket, rubber boots - and he hurried on down the corridor. It would be best to stay out of sight as much as possible. He begged a couple of plastic cups off the grim-faced guard, filled them with scalding water, and made his way unsteadily back to their sleeping-berth.
THEY sat opposite one another, chewing steadily on the dry, stale food.
Kelso said he thought they should get off the train early.
'Why?'
'Because I don't think we should risk being picked up. Not before people know where we are.
O'Brian bit off a piece of bread and considered this.
'So you really think - back there in the forest - they'd've shot us?'
'Yes I do.'
O'Brian had apparently forgotten his earlier panic. He began to argue but Kelso cut him off impatiently. 'Think about it for a minute. Think how easy it could have been. All the Russians would have had to say is that some maniac took us hostage in the woods and they sent in the special forces to rescue us. They could have made it look as though he'd murdered us.
'But nobody would've believed that -'
'Of course they would. He was a psychopath.'
'A psychopath. This is why I didn't want to bring him with us. Half the people in that cemetery, he put there. And there were others.'
'Others?' O'Brian had stopped eating.
'At least five. A young Norwegian couple, and three other poor bastards, Russians who just happened to take a wrong turning. I found their papers while you were down at the river. They'd all been made to confess to spying, and then they were shot. I tell you, he's a sick piece of work. I only hope to God I never have to see him again. So should you.'
O'Brian seemed to be having difficulty swallowing. There were bits of fish stuck between his teeth. He said quietly, 'What d'you think's going to happen to him?'
'They'll get him in the end, I imagine. They'll close down Archangel until they find him. And I don't blame them, to be honest. Can you imagine what Mamantov and his people would do if they got hold of a man who looks like Stalin, talks like Stalin and comes with a written guarantee that he's Stalin's son? Wouldn't they have had some fun with that?'
O'Brian had slumped back in his seat, his eyes shut, his face stricken, and Kelso, watching him, felt a sudden twinge of unease. In the rush of events he had entirely forgotten Mamantov. His gaze shifted from O'Brian to the wire luggage rack where the satchel was still carefully wrapped inside his jacket.
He tried to think, but he couldn't. His mind was shutting down on him. It was three days since he'd had a proper sleep
- the first night he'd sat up with Rapava, the second he'd ended in the cells beneath Moscow militia HQ, the third had been spent on the road travelling north to Archangel. He ached with exhaustion. It was all he could do to kick off his boots and begin making up his meagre bed.
'I'm all in,' he said. 'Let's work something out in the morning.'
O'Brian didn't answer.
As a flimsy precaution, Kelso locked the door.
IT must have been another twenty minutes before O'Brian finally moved. Kelso had his face to the wall by then and was drifting in the hinterland between sleep and wakefulness. He heard him unlace his boots, sigh and stretch out on the banquette. His reading lamp clicked off and the compartment was in darkness save for the blue neon night light that fizzed above the door.
The immense train rocked slowly southwards through the snow and Kelso slept, but not well. Hours passed and the sounds of the journey mingled with his uneasy dreams - the urgent whisperings from the compartments on either side; the slop slop slop of some babushka's slippers as she shuffled past in the corridor; the distant, tinny sound of a woman's voice over a loudspeaker as they stopped at the remote stations throughout the night - Nyandoma, Konosha, Yertsevo, Vozhega, Kharovsk - and people clumping on and off the train; the harsh white arc lights of the platforms shining through the thin curtains; O'Brian restless at some point, moving around.
He didn't hear the door open. All he knew was that something rustled in the compartment for a fraction of a second, and then a hard pad of flesh clamped down over his mouth. His eyes jerked open as the point of a knife began to be inserted into his throat, at that point where the flesh of the under-jaw meets the ridged tube of the windpipe. He struggled to sit up but the hand pressed him down. His arms were somehow pinned beneath the twisted sheet. He couldn't see anyone but a voice whispered close to his ear - so close he could feel the hot wetness of the man's breath - 'A comrade who deserts a comrade is a cowardly dog, and all such dogs should die a dog's death, comrade-'
The knife slid deeper.
KELSO was awake in an instant - a cry rising in his throat, his eyes wide, the thin sheet balled and clenched between his sweating hands. The gently swaying compartment was empty above him, the blue-edged darkness faintly tinged by grey. For a moment he didn't move. He could hear O'Brian breathing heavily and when eventually he turned he could see him - head lolling, mouth open, one arm flung down almost to the floor, the other crooked across his forehead. It took another couple of minutes for his panic to subside. He reached over his shoulder and lifted a corner of the curtain to check his watch. He thought it must be still the middle of the night, but to his surprise it was just after seven. He had slept for the best part of nine hours.
He raised himself up on to his elbow and pushed the curtain a fraction higher and saw at once the head of Stalin floating towards him, disconnected in the pale dawn beside the railway track. It drew level with the window and passed away very quickly.
He stayed at the window but saw nobody else, just the scrubby land beyond the rails and the faint gleam of the electricity lines strung between the pylons seeming to swoop and rise, swoop and rise as the, train trundled on. It wasn't snowing here, but there was a cold, bleached emptiness to the emerging sky.