Ghosts

There was a bedroom with a single bed, plus a pine wardrobe and dressing table set that was scattered with cosmetics and scents. The tiny bathroom was next and then, at the end of the corridor, a sitting room with a small kitchen arranged at one end. The kitchen was equipped with an old-fashioned stove, a tiny fridge and a stovetop kettle. The sitting room had yet more of the parquet floor, softened by another rug. There was a mushroom-shaped water stain that had spread across the ceiling, peeling the plaster away and a bookshelf with communist-era travelogues and histories. The windows looked down onto the snow choked streets below. The central heating, which was still regulated by the city government, was brutally hot.

“Now, John,” she said, gesturing towards the sofa. “Sit. I prepare food and tea.”

Milton sat and watched as she went about her business. He had known Anya Dostovalov for almost a decade and she had been an asset of British intelligence for far longer than that. Her role had always been as a ‘cut-out.’ She would stand between a spy and his or her source so that, were her role to be uncovered, she would only be able to identify the sender and the recipient of information. She acted as insulation for the network that MI6 had built, protecting its agents from exposure. The role was critically important and exposed her to considerable risk; once Milton had grown to know and respect her he was loathe to put her in harm’s way. Her response had always been to politely yet firmly brush his concerns away. She had been doing this for years, she would say. She knew what she was doing.

First, she brought over a teapot, a samovar filled with hot water and two cups, and prepared the tea. She had brewed it strong and poured small shots into the cups, topping them up with boiling water from the samovar. Milton sipped his, the taste sharp and bitter and not particularly pleasant to his palate, but the warmth was welcome in his belly. Anya Dostovalov took her own tea to the kitchen and worked with quick and silent efficiency, emptying out the contents of the tiny fridge and assembling a small buffet for them both: slivers of fish and hunks of pork, pieces of bitter Russian chocolate, a collection of warm blinis, sour cream, the sweet cheese that the Russians fried in little rolls and saucers of jam that Milton knew you were supposed to eat with the tea. When she was finished she brought it over on a wooden tray and set it down on the low coffee table.

“You still remember how to find shop,” she said as she sat down.

“Of course. I’m not likely to forget, am I?”

“You were not followed?”

“Please,” he smiled. “You know me better than that.”

“I am sorry, Vanya,” she said. “I have reason to be careful.”

“How do you mean?”

“The… how do you say? The climate is difficult. Everyone knew KGB was bad but SVR is just the same.” She smiled. “And I am too old for gulag.”

“You’re not old, Mamotchka.”

“Bless you, Vanya, but I am seventy-three. Old woman now.”

“There’s no need to worry. I was followed but I lost them on the Metro. They don’t know where I am.”

He sipped the fragrant tea, feeling its warmth in his belly. She waited patiently as he finished the cup and then poured him another.

“So, dear one. What has happened to you?”

He told her. He told her about the assignment in the French Alps and the two Iraqi scientists that he had assassinated and about the little boy who had hidden in the footwell of the car that he had sprayed with bullets, and about the gendarme who had been unlucky enough to have been in the wrong place at the wrong time. He told her how he had lost himself in the boy’s brown eyes and how he had seen an unbroken line that co

“Guilt always comes to men in your work,” she said when he was finished.

“I lasted longer than most.”

“Perhaps.”

“I’m not sure what that says about me.”

She smiled, a sad smile. “You are good man, Vanya.”

“I’m not going back.”

“You would not have that option even if you did. I am told Control is furious.”

“I’m sure he is. I put a bullet into the knee of the man he sent after me.”

“Yes, Number Twelve. His new little pet. I heard.”

“You still have your ears open?”

“I hear most things eventually. You know me.”

“That’s what I was hoping. I need your help. Information.”

“Whatever I can do.”

He finished his last mouthful of blini and put the plate down on the table.

“Do you know a colonel Shcherbatov?”

A wry half-smile. “Pascha? I do. A little.”

“I’m meeting him tomorrow.”

“For what?”

“I’m not sure. What do you know?”

“I know that he is secretive man. He has been intelligence officer for many years. Trained with the 401st KGB School in Okhta, near St. Petersburg. Leningrad, as then, and worked for Second Chief Directorate on counterintelligence and then First Chief Directorate. He monitored foreigners in Leningrad and was sent to East Germany before Wall came down. He came back to Moscow, survived coup and was given senior role in new KGB. He has been there ever since.”

“Anything else?”

“He is old-fashioned. Traditional. Still views West as enemy. He is not popular among his comrades. His views are unpopular. Government wants good relations with west. Money from oil is worth more than principles. Pascha Shcherbatov does not share this view — old Cold Warrior. I hear suggestion that Kremlin would not be upset if he were to retire.”

“Then why didn’t they get rid of him?”

“A man like Pascha learn many secrets, Vanya. He work in intelligence for many years. Do not think his attention has always been focussed across Russia’s borders. He is not kind of man who makes fuss of himself but apparatchiks are not stupid. They know not to be afraid of barking dog. Pascha is silent dog. You should be afraid of silent dog. Do you understand what I mean, Vanya?”

“Yes.”

“Do you know what he wants?”

“No,” he said. “I have no idea.”

“Treat him very carefully, Vanya. He is dangerous. Not to be trusted. Whatever he wants from you, it will not be good.”

Chapter Fifteen

Milton slept at the apartment that night, setting an alarm for four in the morning. He rose quietly from the couch in the hope that he might not disturb Anya Dostovalov but she was already awake and, upon hearing that he had risen too, she bustled into the front room and made busy preparing breakfast. She prepared large mugs of Sbiten, the honey beverage laced with cloves, ci