But none of it stopped those in uniform going about their job efficiently, and every blonde young woman was ordered to show identity papers. Sofia dodged several, but time was running out. Any moment now the soldier behind the truck would be found, but Mikhail had gone once more in search of Pyotr.
‘Don’t attempt to leave until I return,’ he’d said sternly.
She’d kissed him farewell, a light brush of the lips, and with it everything cracked inside her. She breathed, but only because she had to, not because she wanted to. She stood in the middle of a dense gathering close to the aeroplane and became aware of the tall figure of the blacksmith, Pokrovsky, on her right, and Elizaveta Lishnikova over to her left. They were keeping watch, extra eyes seeking out danger, and Sofia was certain it was Rafik who had told them to guard her. She was just edging in Pokrovsky’s direction to apologise for her outburst in the smithy, when the teacher shouted a warning and the next moment a hand fell on Sofia’s shoulder. She spun round.
It was a khaki uniform but not the one from the truck. This man was older, alert eyes under heavy bristled brows.
‘Dokumenti,’ he ordered.
Four men in uniform stood around her, like wolves, and from the corner of her eye she saw Pokrovsky pushing his way through the crowd towards her. No, don’t come near. She willed him to keep away because she didn’t want him hurt too. It would be a bullet in the back for her if she ran, but a bullet in the brain if they saw the name they were searching for on her papers. Back or brain, the choice wasn’t hard. Time slowed down as she reached into her pocket and slid out her residency permit. Anna, forgive me. Forgive me, my friend, forgive me for failing.
‘Ah, there you are.’ Mikhail’s hand suddenly slotted under her elbow, almost jerking her off her feet. Pyotr was pressed close to her other side, his brown eyes dark with misery.
‘I’m sorry,’ he whispered.
‘It’s all right, Pyotr, you did what you believed was right.’ Gently she touched his hand and felt his fingers cling to hers.
‘Your papers?’ The soldier raised his voice.
‘Comrade,’ Mikhail said sharply, ‘this woman is with the crew of the-’
But already the soldier was reaching forward to pull her from Mikhail’s grasp. Rifles rattled around her.
‘Stop that at once.’
Sofia swung round and was astonished to find herself staring into the face of Aleksei Fomenko. He gave her no more than a fleeting nod, then flashed some identity in front of the uniformed officer. A space immediately cleared around her.
‘I can vouch for this woman,’ he said brusquely. ‘What the hell are you and your men doing wasting your time here when you should be out there,’ he flung a dismissive arm towards the rest of the field, ‘searching for the fugitive?’
The space around Sofia grew even larger as the soldiers backed off and she felt Mikhail’s grip tighten on her arm.
‘This woman and I are to leave with the aeroplane crew,’ Mikhail protested angrily.
‘I’ll need to see proof of that,’ the officer responded, but already the aggression had waned and his manner was hesitant.
Fomenko put himself between Sofia and the uniform, his authority taking easy control. ‘Don’t be bloody foolish, soldat. The cloud base is lowering every minute, so they need to leave right now, or shall I report you for causing delays, too-’
‘No, Comrade Chairman, that won’t be necessary.’
Sofia felt Mikhail jerk her into action. Her feet remembered to move as, heart hammering, she was propelled forward and into the aeroplane. The flimsy corrugated door closed behind her, the body of the Krokodil shuddered and rumbled, making noises that sounded like contentment.
Sofia breathed. Because she wanted to.
55
Rivers meandered lazily below as the aircraft flew due north. The threads criss-crossed through a vast water-filled landscape, emptied of all colour by mists that shrouded them in secrecy. The M-17 engines throbbed and as Mikhail sat in the passenger cabin he could feel every beat of the pistons, driving his blood through his veins. They powered a wonderful sense of being cut free from the earth.
It was a long time since he’d felt like this, as good as this. Which was crazy because he knew he was in serious trouble whichever way he looked, but somehow that all faded into insignificance up here. He was with Sofia and he was flying again, and he was determined to find Anna Fedorina. Reality on the ground seemed a long way down.
‘Are you all right?’
Sofia turned her face from the window and gave him a smile, that crooked little curve of her lips that he loved.
‘I’m fine.’
‘Not nervous on your first flight?’
‘No, I love it. How high are we?’
‘Around three thousand metres.’
She nodded but looked tense. He put out a hand across the narrow aisle that divided them and stroked her arm, soothing her.
‘It’s the continuous juddering,’ he said. ‘It sets nerves on edge if you’re not accustomed to it.’
She nodded again, a little dip of her chin. They hadn’t spoken much on the plane, because in the small cabin every word could be overheard. There were nine seats set out in pairs, four each side of a narrow central aisle and one at the back. The two passenger members of the squadron, whose job it was to arrange the films and distribute the pamphlets, were seated at the front, but even so they were close and conversations were far from private.
‘How far will we fly?’ she asked in a low tone.
‘The Krokodil ’s range without refuelling is seven hundred kilometres. ’
‘We’ll go that distance?’
‘Yes.’
Her eyes changed as they stared at him in disbelief. Then she tipped back her long throat and released a silent shout of joy.
‘I thought,’ she said in a voice that struggled to sound casual, ‘that we would just be taken… out of that field and put down somewhere nearby.’
‘No,’ he laughed for the benefit of listening ears, ‘the Captain is taking us on quite a little jaunt. He wants me to give my professional assessment of how these propaganda trips are working out. As my secretary, you must take notes.’
‘Of course,’ she responded in a demure secretarial kind of voice, but she rolled her eyes dramatically and mimed typing in the air, so that Mikhail had to bite his tongue to stop a laugh. As the shadows of the clouds chased each other over the flatlands below, she asked, ‘Did you arrange this?’
‘Yes.’
She nodded and was silent for a while, gazing intently out of the small window. Eventually she turned to him again. ‘Mikhail, what about Pyotr?’
‘He’ll be all right. Zenia is going to take care of him while I’m away.’
Her eyelids flickered but he couldn’t tell why. Was it anger at the boy?
‘I didn’t expect that from Fomenko,’ she murmured.
He gave her a long look. Chyort! Was that man still in her mind? He put his head back and shut his eyes. Concentrate on Anna Fedorina, he told himself, this is your one chance. Concentrate on her.
The Krokodil touched down. The surface of the landing field gave them a bumpy ride but the plane rolled quickly to a stop and they climbed out. From the air the town of Novgorki was an unpleasant black scab on the landscape, but on the ground it looked worse, drabber and darker. After hours of almost nothing but forests of massed pine trees and silver shimmering waterways with an occasional fragile village clinging to the banks, the dirt and squalor of the streets of the northern town of Novgorki came as a sharp reminder of how easily people could make a place ugly.
It was a purpose-built town dedicated to minerals, with belching chimney stacks that soared into the grey sky, thickening the air with chemicals. Yet oddly Mikhail liked it. It was an unpretentious place – he could sense an undercurrent of wildness as strong as the stink of the sulphur, a town on the very edge of civilisation. That suited him just fine.