Piatakov smiled ruefully at the image. He felt at peace with himself, more so as the day grew nearer. It was funny how people took to such situations differently: Chatterji was like a spring coiled tighter and tighter; Brady had become relaxed to the point of avuncularity. Their two reactions seemed symbiotic, as if each had taken half of the other’s personality.
Piatakov could hear them now, inside the house, talking in English. If they survived the next few days, he could imagine them going off somewhere as partners. Well, good luck to them—he had no idea what he would do. He had, he realized, not even given his possible future a moment’s thought. Returning home was out of the question and would remain so until true revolutionaries seized back control of the party. Which could happen only with help from abroad—a new revolutionary wave to lift their stranded Russian boat. It was why they were here in India.
That morning they’d taken a rickshaw into the city for a look at the killing ground. Driving down Chandni Chowk, he’d gone through it all in his imagination: the seething crowds, the bands playing, the people hanging from windows; the squeezing of the triggers, the cracks, the wailing panic. The two of them hurtling down a flight of steps and onto the flat roof in full view of the watching crowds. White men with guns, the snapshot of guilt.
And then with any luck they would be gone, into the British cantonment, where their faces wouldn’t stand out, and they’d be no more at risk than thousands of other white men caught in the chaos of a broken empire.
Piatakov smiled to himself in the gloom. It was a wonderful plan. He slapped at and missed a mosquito on his forearm. It was time to go back in. The sun was gone, the sky rushing through the spectrum as if each color were clamoring to replace its predecessor, fearful that darkness would come before they all had time to shine.
Caitlin sat on the edge of the bed while McColl went over what he had seen. His portrait of Sergei alone in a garden almost made her cry, but knowing how he would misread them, she managed to keep the tears in.
“And now all we have to decide is what we intend to do,” he concluded wryly.
“I’ve been thinking about that while you’ve been out,” she said. “It’s simple really.”
He gave her a doubtful look. “Go on.”
“Your government wants Gandhi dead and Sergei and Brady to take the blame. I expect they have some plan for twisting things around the other way. But your people can’t afford the connection to be exposed, can they? If we can find a way to expose it, then the whole thing falls to pieces.”
“Yes,” he said, in a tone that suggested she’d merely stated the obvious. “The problem is how.”
“All we need is a good modern camera. And to get, say, Cunningham and Brady to the same spot at the same time.”
That got him thinking. “It would have to be Sergei. He’s the Russian Bolshevik.”
She realized he was right. “I suppose it would,” she concurred reluctantly.
“But they’re not going to agree to pose for a group photograph,” he continued, as much to himself as to her.
“No, Jack,” she said, surprised at him for being so slow. “We trick them. You ask Cunningham to meet you. And you fake a message from Cunningham to Sergei asking him to the same place.”
He shook his head. “Not quite. The first part would work, but not the second. We don’t know how they’ve agreed to communicate with each other in an emergency, and if we get it wrong, which we probably would, Brady will smell a rat.” He looked at her. “The note must come from you.”
“Oh…” She stood and went to the window, angrily brushing away an unexpected tear. “You’re right,” she almost whispered, still looking the other way.
“If it’s too hard, we’ll think of something else,” he said, walking across and putting an arm around her shoulders.
She was grateful for the offer, but knew this was something she had to do. She gently untangled herself. “Once we have the photograph, what do we do with it?”
“We send a copy to Cunningham and friends, I assume. It’s your plan, my love.”
She made a sweeping gesture with her hand, as if brushing aside the endearment. “And Sergei and Brady? What will your people do with them once they know the plan won’t work?”
“I don’t know. They might send them back to Russia…”
“Or kill them quietly here?”
McColl shrugged. “Maybe.”
“Either way it’s a death sentence. I have to give him a chance, Jack. You do understand that?”
“Yes, but how?”
“I don’t know.” Another thought occurred to her. “And what about you? What will your people do to you?”
“Nothing good. But they have to catch us first.”
She let the “us” go by. “We could say that a copy of the photograph has been sent to someone—your detective perhaps—with instructions to send it on to a newspaper if anything happens to you.”
“If they call it off, then the photograph won’t mean a thing,” he told her. “We need to work out what our options are.”
Which might have been right, but was easier said than done. “Once we’ve seen this through,” she promised. And then she could go home. Wherever that was.
Piatakov was woken, as usual, by the sound of sweeping; first the soft brush inside the house, then the more rasping tone of the twig broom being used on the paths outside. On the other side of the nearby wall, sounding like faraway raucous birds swapping opinions, muezzins were calling the Muslim districts to prayer.
He climbed off the hard bed and washed himself as thoroughly as he could with the water left in the earthenware pitcher. Throwing a kurta over his head, he walked through into the kitchen, where one of the servants was already making him a glass of chai. He stirred in two chunks of sugar and carried it out to his chair in the garden.
Thick morning mist shrouded the river away to his right; the sun glowing through it was a fuzzy orange ball. The crows had begun their incessant crowing; the parakeets, as ever, seemed unsure which tree best suited their mood. On the lawn in front of their absent host’s house, another servant was flailing the grass with a bamboo switch to take away the dew. According to Brady, if this wasn’t done, the grass would scorch in the noonday sun.
Piatakov sipped at the tea and let his mind wander. Since their arrival in Delhi, he had spent the early morning hours like this, sitting and watching the sunrise, letting the mesh of light, sounds, and smells wash over him. It did him good, made him feel that somehow he was back in touch with something real. It might be—probably was—the equivalent of the condemned man’s last meal, but that didn’t seem to matter: it was enough to know he was still connected, however tenuously, to that sense of life’s possibilities that had made him a revolutionary.
He had sadnesses but, in the end, no regrets.
The mist was clearing, sharpening the sun. He heard light footsteps behind him and looked around expecting to see one of the servants.
It was a youth he’d never seen before, holding what looked like a letter. Piatakov reached out to take it, expecting the usual two-way mime, but the boy was instantly on his way, breaking into a run as he disappeared behind the house.
Turning to the letter, Piatakov saw his name in Cyrillic script in her unmistakable hand. For a moment he thought he was dreaming and just sat there staring at the envelope, his mouth hanging foolishly open.
He tore it open and pulled out the folded sheet.