Safran had appeared at the far end of the alley.
‘Maroussia, I want to help you,’ said Lom. ‘But you have to get away from here. Now. Or they’ll do that to you.’
‘Why would you help me? You’re one of them.’
‘No,’ said Lom. ‘I’m not.’
Safran was coming.
Maroussia looked at her mother, lying raw and dead under the high walls of the alley and the sky.
‘I can’t just leave her,’ she said. ‘The rats… the gulls…’
‘Listen,’ said Lom. ‘You have to go now. I’ll make time for you.’
‘What?’
‘Go now. Do you hear me? Don’t go home. Go to Vishnik’s and wait for me there.’
But she was glaring at him. Her face was hard and closed.
‘You don’t want to help me. You’re a liar. Leave me alone. Leave my mother alone.’
Hey!’ Safran had begun to jog, drawing his revolver as he came. ‘Hey, you!’
Lom stepped into the middle of the alley and held up his hand, hoping that behind him Maroussia was walking away. Hoping that his own face wasn’t on one of Safran’s photographs.
‘What the hell are you doing here, Lom?’
Safran’s face was tight with anger.
‘No mudjhik?’ said Lom. ‘Doing your own killing today?’
‘Who was that woman? Teslev, stop her.’
‘Wait,’ said Lom. ‘I want to talk to you. Both of you.’
Teslev ignored him and hurried after Maroussia, who had reached the end of the alley, walking fast. Her back looked long and thin and straight in her threadbare coat. The nape of her neck, bare and pale between collar and short black hair, was the most vulnerable and nakedly human thing Lom had ever seen. He felt as if a fist had reached inside his ribs and taken a grip on his heart, squeezing it tight.
41
Maroussia’s legs were shaking so much it was hard to walk. Her spine was trickling hot ice, waiting for the impact of the militia man’s bullet.
Keep going, she told herself. Don’t look back. Get out of sight. Think!
Her world was compressed into the next few seconds. She imagined the bullets smashing into her spine. Her legs. Breaking.
Think! Do something! Now!
There were no limits. No rules. Just do something.
An alleyway opened up to her left, narrow between tall buildings. No one had been down it since the snow started. She knew where the alley went. Nowhere. A dead end. She cut into it. At least for a few moments she was out of their sight.
One side of the alley was a blank brick face, the other a wall of rough stone blocks stained with grime. Dark windows looked out over it, but high overhead, out of reach. No doors. The building was, she thought, an old warehouse. If she could get inside it… inside was better… she could run… weave… find a way out again… into the crowded streets… lose herself in the crowd…
She took a few steps into the middle of the alley, turned, ran at the wall, jumped… Her fingers stretched for the window ledge…
Her weight crashed hard against the wall. Her knee, her elbow, smashed against it. Her fingers scrabbled at the rough face of the stone, well below the window, and she fell.
She pulled off her shoes and forced the bare toes of one foot hard into the crevice between two blocks of stone, drove her fingers into the gap at shoulder level, and pulled herself up. It worked. She was off the ground, barely, her body flattened, her cheek pressed against the cold wall, her fingers trembling. She tried to dig them further into the stone, tried to gouge out holds by sheer effort of will. She raised her good leg, gasping as her weight pressed on her injured knee, lifted one hand, pulled herself a little higher. It worked. And again. She was almost half her own height above the snow and crawling slowly up the vertical face of the wall. She stretched upwards and got the fingertips of one hand onto the stone ledge of the window. With a desperate lunge she got the other hand next to it. Her feet slipped but she scrabbled with her toes and got purchase again, half pulling and half walking upwards until her backside was sticking out, her knees tucked under. There was a groove in the window ledge she could hook her fingers into. If she could just get one knee up there—
‘Are you going to come down, or do I shoot you up the arse?’
42
Lom turned his back on Safran and walked over to the old woman’s broken body. She had been so fragile. He could have picked her up and tucked her under his arm. It was taking all his effort not to look behind him, back up the alley, to see if Teslev was coming back.
‘Who gave you the photographs, Safran? The pictures of the Shaumian women? Who turned you loose on them?’
Safran stared at him. ‘This has nothing to do with you.’
‘I mean,’ Lom continued. ‘You’d hardly come after them on your own initiative, would you? You probably don’t even know who they are. I mean, who they really are.’
‘What are you getting at?’
‘I hope for your sake the order came directly from Chazia herself.’
‘And who are you working for, Lom?’
Lom shrugged. He kicked at a stone. Keep him off balance. Don’t let him have time to think.
‘So did you find the object Chazia wanted?’
This time Safran looked genuinely puzzled.
‘What are you talking about?’
‘Never mind. Don’t worry about it.’
The crack of a pistol shot echoed off the high walls. It sounded a few streets away.
Safran smiled. ‘Teslev found her.’
Another shot. And then another.
‘Ah,’ said Safran. ‘The coup de grâce.’
43
Maroussia, clinging to the window ledge, looked down under her arm and stared into the face of the militia man. He was standing below her, his pistol in his hand. He’d obviously been there a while, watching her trying to climb. He thought it was funny. It was in his face. She pushed herself away from the wall and crashed down onto him. He collapsed under her weight. The pistol fired. Something slapped, hard and burning, against her calf and her whole leg went numb.
‘You. Stupid. Bitch.’
She was lying on her back on top of him. His breath was hot against her ear, his voice close, almost a whisper. She whipped her head forward and sharply back, smashing it into his face, and felt his nose burst. The militia man swore viciously and smashed his gun against the side of her head. And did it again. And again. She felt something jagged open a rip in her cheek. Then his other hand was scrabbling around in front of her, trying to pull at her, trying to roll her off him.
‘I’m going to kill you,’ he whispered. ‘Bitch.’
He was strong. She couldn’t fight him. In another second he would be able to get his gun against her back or her ribs and fire without risk of hitting himself. She dug her hand back and under herself, pushing it down between their struggling bodies, scrabbling for his testicles, and when she found them she squeezed and twisted as viciously as she could. The militia man yelled and arched his back, trying to throw her off, trying to club at her hand with the pistol. She jerked her head backwards again and again, smashing it recklessly into his face. She felt it strike a sweet spot on his chin, smashing his skull back against the pavement. She felt him go slack.
Maroussia rolled away from him and raised herself up on her hands and knees. The militia man was lying on his back, trying to raise his head, his eyes struggling to focus.
‘Bitch,’ he mumbled. ‘Bitch.’ He raised his pistol towards her. It seemed heavy in his hand.