House of the Hanged Read Free Page B

arriving as the door was swinging shut behind the woman. He stopped it with his hand, waited a few moments, then slipped inside.
    The cavernous entrance hall was dark and deserted. He heard the woman puffing her way up the stone staircase, and through the glazed doors directly ahead of him he could see a man shovelling snow in the courtyard.
    The apartment was on the third floor, towards the back of the building. He knocked, and was about to knock again when he heard a female voice.
    â€˜Who is it?’
    â€˜Markku sent me,’ he replied, in Russian.
    â€˜I don’t know anyone called Markku.’
    â€˜He told me to say that you make the best pelmeni in all Russia . . . after his mother’s.’
    Three locks were undone before the door was opened as far as the guard chain would permit. A small woman, a shade over five feet, peered up at him defiantly. Her black hair was threaded with silver strands and pulled back tightly off her lined face. Her dark eyes were clear and hard, like polished onyx. They roamed over him from head to toe, then past him, searching the corridor behind. Only then did she release the chain.
    Tom followed her along a corridor into a large and extravagantly furnished living room. The rococo divans, Persian rugs and gilt-framed portraits – one of a booted general, another of some high-bosomed ancestress – had obviously been intended for a far nobler space than this; here, they looked awkward and overblown, eager to be elsewhere.
    Tom turned and found himself staring into the barrel of a handgun.
    â€˜Take off your coat,’ said the woman. ‘Take it off and throw it on that chair there.’
    There was nothing strained or hysterical in her voice. She might just as well have been a doctor inviting him to remove his clothes in a consulting room.
    Tom did as she requested, unquestioningly, watching while she searched the coat, knowing what she would find. Her eyes only left his momentarily, to glance down at the revolver as she pulled it from one of the pockets.
    â€˜This is a Cheka weapon,’ she said, levelling her own gun at his head.
    Tom cowered. ‘It was. Until last night.’
    â€˜You’re not Russian.’
    â€˜I’m English.’
    She switched effortlessly to English, with just the barest hint of an accent. ‘And where were you born?’
    â€˜Norwich.’
    â€˜A flat and dull county, Norfolk.’
    â€˜You obviously don’t know it well.’
    â€˜Sit down. Hands on your knees.’
    Tom deposited himself on a divan. The woman remained standing.
    â€˜Who are you?’ she asked.
    â€˜Tom Nash. I was part of the Foreign Office delegation sent over here last summer.’
    â€˜A little young for that sort of thing, aren’t you?’
    â€˜It was my first assignment after joining.’
    â€˜You knew Bruce Lockhart?’
    â€˜Of course, I worked for him here.’
    â€˜Lockhart was lucky to get away with his life.’
    â€˜So was I. It was Markku who got me out of the country after they stormed the embassy.’
    â€˜And how is Markku?’ she demanded flatly.
    Tom and the tall Finn had become fast friends since their escape from the capital. They’d had little choice in the matter; the Consulate in Helsinki had lodged them in the same room at the Grand Hotel Fennia.
    â€˜Stuck in Helsinki,’ said Tom. ‘Frustrated. Drunk most of the time.’
    â€˜He’s still one of the best couriers we’ve got. So why, I’m wondering, do they send us a boy from the Foreign Office?’
    â€˜I’m with the Secret Intelligence Service now.’
    â€˜Is that right?’ She made no effort to conceal her scepticism.
    â€˜I was seconded when I got to Helsinki.’
    This wasn’t quite true. Tom had pushed for a transfer to the SIS in Helsinki, anything that would keep him close to Petrograd, to Irina. A desk job back in London hadn’t been an option in his own