And the Moscow-based television news service can manage very well on its own, without help from Hector or anybody else. The baritone voice is more than capable of imparting its revulsion at the grisly tragedy it is recounting: this senseless drive-by shooting, this wanton cutting-down of a brilliant and devoted Russian couple from Perm in their very prime of life! Little had the victims known, when they decided to visit their beloved homeland from distant Italy where they were based, that their journey of the soul would end here in the ivy-clad graveyard of the ancient seminary they had always loved, with its onion domes and thuja trees, set on a hillside outside Moscow at the edge of gently swelling forest: On this dark, unseasonable afternoon in May, all Moscow is in mourning for two blameless Russians and their two small daughters who, by the mercy of God, were not present in the car when their parents were shot to pieces by terrorist elements of our society.
See the shattered windows and bullet-riddled doors, the burned-out carcass of a once-noble Mercedes car tossed on to its side between silver birch trees, the innocent Russian blood mingling in brutal close-up with the fuel oil on the tarmac; and the disfigured faces of the victims themselves.
The outrage, the commentator assures us, has aroused the justified anger of all responsible Moscow citizens. When will this menace end? they ask. When will decent Russians be free to travel their own roads without being gunned down by marauding bands of Chechen desperadoes bent on spreading terror and mayhem? Mikhail Arkadievich – rising international oil and metals trader! Olga L'vovna – selflessly engaged in procuring charitable food supplies on behalf of Russia's needy! Loving parents of little Katya and Irina! Pure Russians, homesick for the Motherland they will never leave again!
Against the rising tide of the commentator's indignation a crawling column of black limousines escorts a glass-sided hurdy-gurdy up the wooded hillside to the seminary gates. The procession halts, car doors fly open as young men in dark designer suits leap out and form ranks to accompany the coffins. The scene changes to a grim-faced Deputy Chief of Police in full uniform and medals posed rigidly at an inlaid desk surrounded by testimonials and photographs of President Medvedev and Prime Minister Putin: Let us take comfort in the knowledge that one Chechen at least has already voluntarily confessed to the crime, he tells us, and the camera holds his face long enough for us to share his outrage.
We return to the graveyard, and the strains of a Gregorian funeral lament as a choir of young Orthodox priests in flowerpot hats and silky beards proceeds with icons aloft down the seminary steps to a double graveside where the principal mourners are waiting. The picture freezes, then zooms in on each mourner as Yvonne's subtitles surface beneath them:
TAMARA, wife to Dima, sister to Olga, aunt to Katya and Irina: poker upright, under a wide-brimmed beekeeper's black hat.
DIMA, husband to Tamara: his bald, racked face so sickly in its stretched smile that he might as well be dead himself, despite the presence of his beloved daughter.
NATASHA, daughter to Dima: her long hair swept down her back in a black river, her slender body swathed in layers of shapeless black weed.
IRINA and KATYA, children of Olga and Misha: expressionless, each clutching a hand of Natasha.
The commentator is reciting the names of the great and good who have come to pay their respects. They include the representatives of Yemen, Libya, Panama, Dubai and Cyprus. None from Great Britain.
The camera fixes on a grassy knoll halfway up a hillside darkened by thuja trees. Six – no, seven – neatly suited young men in their twenties and early thirties are clustered together. Their beardless faces, some already running to fat, are directed at the open grave twenty metres down the slope beneath them, where the erect figure of Dima stands alone, his upper body tilted backwards in the military manner that he favours as he stares, not into the grave, but at the seven suited men gathered on the knoll.
Is the photograph still or moving? Dima has remained quite motionless, so it's hard to tell. So also have the men gathered on the knoll above him. Belatedly, Yvonne's subtitle appears:
THE SEVEN BROTHERS.
One by one, the camera takes a look at each of them in close-up.
*
Luke has long ago given up trying to judge the world by its face. He has studied these faces numberless times, but still finds nothing in them he wouldn't find across the desk from him in any Hampstead estate agent's office, or in any gathering of black-suited, black-briefcased, business types in the bar of any smart hotel from Moscow to Bogota.
Even when their long-winded Russian names appear, complete with patronymics, criminal nicknames and aliases, he can't bring himself to see in their owners' faces anything more interesting than another edition of prototypes from the uniformed ranks of middle management.
But keep looking, and you begin to realize that six of them, either by design or chance, form a protective ring round the seventh at their centre. Look still more closely, and you observe that the man they are shielding is not a day older than they are and that his creaseless face is as happy as a child's on a sunny day, which isn't quite the face you expect to meet at a funeral. The face is such a picture of good health, in Luke's view, that you are almost obliged to assume a healthy mind behind it. If its owner were to pop up uninvited on Luke's doorstep one Sunday evening with a hard-luck story to tell, he would have a difficult time turning him away. And his subtitle?
THE PRINCE.
Abruptly, the said Prince detaches himself from his brothers, trots down the grassy slope and, without shortening his stride or reducing his pace, advances with arms outstretched on Dima, who has turned to confront him, shoulders back, chest out, chin thrust proudly forward in defiance. But his curled hands, so fine in contrast to the rest of him, seem unable to leave his sides. Perhaps – it crosses Luke's mind each time he watches – perhaps he is thinking that this is his chance to do to the Prince what he dreamed of doing to the husband of Natasha's mother – 'with these, Professor!' If that is so, then wiser and more tactical thoughts finally prevail.
Gradually, if a little late, his hands grudgingly rise for the embrace, which begins tentatively but then, by force of men's desire or mutual detestation, becomes a lovers' clinch.
Slow motion to the kiss: right cheek to left cheek, old vor to young vor. Misha's protector kisses Misha's murderer.
Slow motion to the second kiss, left cheek to right cheek.
And after each kiss, the little pause for mutual commiseration and reflection, and that choked word of sympathy between grieving mourners which, if spoken at all, is heard by none but themselves.
Slow motion to the mouth-to-mouth kiss.
*
Over the tape recorder that sits between Hector's lifeless hands, Dima is explaining to the English apparatchiks why he is prepared to embrace the man whom, most in the world, he would prefer to strike dead: 'Sure we are sad, I tell to him! But as good vory we understand why was necessary to murder my Misha! "This Misha, he became too greedy, Prince!" we shall tell to him. "This Misha, he stole your goddam money, Prince! He was too ambitious, too critical!" We do not say, "Prince, you are not true vor, you are corrupt bitch." We do not say, "Prince, you take orders from State!" We do not say, "Prince, you pay tribute money to State." We do not say, "You make contract killings for State, you betray Russian heart to State." No. We are humble. We regret. We accept. We are respectful. We say, "Prince, we love you. Dima accepts your wise decision to kill his blood disciple Misha."' Hector switches the player to pause and turns to Matlock.
'He's actually talking here about a process we've been observing for some time, Billy,' he says, almost apologetically.
'We?'