The engineer was haunted and unsettled by the strange behaviour of a prisoner who had ostensibly surrendered, but at the same time clearly had no intention of providing any evidence.
Once he found himself in a cell, Vasilii Alexandrovich spent some time in an activity typical of prisoners – he stood under the small barred window, gazing at a patch of evening sky.
Rybnikov was in a good mood.
The two goals for which he had surfaced from the waters of the River Moscow, instead of remaining on its silty bottom, had both been achieved.
First, he had confirmed that the main barge, loaded with eight hundred crates, had remained undiscovered.
Secondly, he had looked into the eyes of the man he had heard so much about and had thought about for so long.
That seemed to be all.
Except…
He sat down on the floor, picked up the short pencil left for the prisoner in case he might wish to provide written testimony, and wrote a letter in Japanese cursive script that began with the invocation ‘Father!’
Then he yawned, stretched and lay down at full length on the palliasse.
He fell asleep.
Vasilii Alexandrovich had a glorious dream. He was dashing along in an open carriage that shimmered with all the colours of the rainbow. There was pitch darkness all around him, but far away, right on the very horizon, a bright, even light was glowing. He was not riding alone in the miraculous chariot, but he could not see the faces of his companions, because his gaze was constantly directed forward, towards the source of that rapidly approaching radiance.
The prisoner slept for no more than a quarter of an hour.
He opened his eyes. He smiled, still under the influence of his magical dream.
Vasilii Alexandrovich’s fatigue had evaporated completely. His entire being was filled with lucid strength and diamond-hard resolution.
He reread the letter to his father and burned it in the candle flame without a moment’s hesitation.
Then he undressed to the waist.
The prisoner had a flesh-coloured plaster attached to the skin just below his left armpit. It was camouflaged so artfully that the prison warders had failed to notice it when they searched him.
Rybnikov tore the plaster off, revealing a narrow razor blade. He seated himself comfortably and, with a rapid circular movement, made a single cut all the way round the edge of his face. He caught the edge of the skin with his fingernails and pulled it all off, from the forehead to the chin, and then, without making a single sound, he slashed the blade across his own throat.
BOOK 2
BETWEEN THE LINES
Japan, 1878
A BUTTERFLY’S FLIGHT
The omurasaki butterfly gathered itself for the flight from one flower to another. It cautiously spread its small, white-flecked, azure wings and rose a mere hair’s breadth into the air, but just at that moment, from out of nowhere, a violent gust of wind swooped down on the weightless creature, tossed it way up high into the sky and held it there, carrying it in a mere few minutes all the way from the hills to the plain, with its sprawling city; the wind swirled its captive round above the tiled roofs of the native quarters, drove it in zigzags over the regular geometry of the Settlement, flung it in the direction of the sea and then faded away, its impetus exhausted.
With its freedom restored, the omurasaki flew almost right down on to the green surface that looked like a meadow, but spotted the deception just in time and soared back up before the transparent spray could reach it. It fluttered around for a while above the bay, where the beautiful sailing ships and ugly steamships were standing at anchor, but failed to find anything interesting in this sight and turned back towards the pier.
There the butterfly’s attention was attracted by a crowd of people waiting to meet passengers – seen from above, the brightly coloured spots of women’s caps, hats and bouquets of flowers made it look like a flowery meadow. The omurasaki circled for a minute or so, choosing the most attractive-looking target, made its choice and settled on a carnation in the buttonhole of a gaunt gentleman who gazed out at the world through a pair of blue spectacles.
The carnation was a lush scarlet colour, cut only very recently, and the bespectacled gentleman’s thoughts were a smooth stream of aquamarine, so the omurasaki started settling in thoroughly, folding its wings together, opening them and folding them back together again.
… I just hope he’ll be a competent worker, and not some featherbrain, the owner of the carnation thought, not noticing that his buttonhole had become even more imposing than before. This dandy had a long, shimmering name: Vsevolod Vitalievich Doronin. He held the post of Consul of the Russian Empire in the port city of Yokohama, and he wore dark glasses, not out of any love of mystery (he already had more than enough of that in his job), but because of chronic conjunctivitis.
Vsevolod Vitalievich had come to the pier on business – to meet a new diplomatic colleague (name: Erast Petrovich Fandorin; title: Titular Counsellor). Doronin, however, did not entertain any real hope that the man would prove to be an efficient functionary. Reading a copy of Fandorin’s service record had left him distinctly dissatisfied on all counts: this boy of twenty-two was already a ninth-grade civil servant (so he was someone’s protégé), he had begun his government service in the police (phooh!), and afterwards he had been commandeered to the Third Section (what could he have done to deserve that?), and he had tumbled directly from the pinnacle of the San Stefano negotiations all the way down to a posting in a third-rate embassy (he must have come badly unstuck somewhere).
Doronin had been left without an assistant for more than seven months now, because his brilliant bosses in Petersburg had sent Vice-Consul Weber off to Hankow – supposedly temporarily, but it looked as if it would be for a very long time indeed. Vsevolod Vitalievich now handled all current business himself: he met Russian ships and saw them off, oversaw the interests of sailors discharged to shore, buried the ones who died and investigated the seamen’s brawls. And all this even though he – a man of strategic intellect and a long-term resident of Japan – had certainly not been appointed to Yokohama for that kind of petty tomfoolery. The question currently being decided was where Japan and, with it, the entire Far East would come to rest – under the wing of the double-headed eagle or the sharp claws of the British lion.
In the pocket of his frock coat the consul had a rolled-up copy of the Japan Gazette, containing a telegram from the Reuters agency, printed in bold type: ‘The tsar’s ambassador Count Shuvalov has left London. War between Great Britain and Russia is now more likely than ever’. An obnoxious business. We just barely managed to get the better of the wretched Turks, how can we possibly fight the British? A matter of ‘God grant our little calf will gore the wolf’. We’ll raise a racket, of course, rattle the sabres a bit, but then our ardour will cool… The sly sons of Albion wish to subjugate the entire world. Oh, we’ll hand them the Far East on a plate, the way we’ve already handed them the Middle East, along with Persia and Afghanistan.
The omurasaki twitched its little wings in alarm, sensing the ominous purple hue flooding Vsevolod Vitalievich’s thoughts, but just at that moment the consul raised himself up on tiptoe and fixed his gaze on a passenger in a brilliant-white tropical suit and blinding pith helmet. Fandorin or not Fandorin? Come on, white swan, fly lower, let’s take a look at you.
From considerations of state the consul’s thoughts turned back to everyday concerns, and the butterfly immediately settled down.
How much time and ink had been wasted on something so absolutely obvious, thought Vsevolod Vitalievich. Surely it was quite clear that without an assistant he could not possibly engage in any strategic work – he had no time for it. The nerve centre of Far Eastern politics was not located in Tokyo, where His Excellency, Mr Ambassador, was stationed, but here. Yokohama was the most important port in the Far East. This was the place where all the cunning British manoeuvres were concocted, the control centre for all that underhand plotting. Why, it was as clear as day, but how long they had dragged things out!