Page 74 of The Half Life of Valery K

Numbly, Valery let himself be led outside, up a snowy path that was orange under the street lamps, and into one of the black police cars. It was waiting with the heaters on, blissfully warm, and melting the snow beneath the engine. Shenkov got in beside him and pulled the door shut.

‘What’s happening?’ Valery said, tight.

‘I’m taking you home.’

‘Then what?’

‘Then nothing,’ Shenkov said. He tipped forward a little to meet Valery’s eyes. ‘It’s over.’

‘What? But – there are charges, and Resovskaya—Moscow will find out in five minutes!’ Valery exclaimed. ‘You’re crazy—’

‘I’ve been police for twenty-five years, I know how to plant evidence,’ Shenkov said. He checked the wing mirror and glanced back at the blind spot before he moved out into the road. It was still dark. Their headlights cut bright lines across the new snow. It felt desperately safe, to glide over it in a warm Faraday cage. ‘No one’s being sent there for a good while now. If Resovskaya tries that again, I’ll arrest her for feeding our spy new sources of information.’

‘Thank you,’ Valery whispered.

Shenkov didn’t take his eyes off the road. ‘Are you all right?’

‘What? Oh. Yes, of course,’ he said, dislocated from himself. ‘They had central heating, it was great.’ He found himself shaking his head, as if that would dislodge some helpful logic. ‘Why did you do that?’

‘Why did I– what was I going to do, leave you there?’

‘Well – yes?’ Valery said.

Shenkov looked hurt, but said nothing else.

The asylum was on the edge of the city, and soon the street lamps and the little tableaux of the apartment-tower windows were denser and brighter. Valery saw snatches of people getting ready for work, scraping snow off car windscreens, steam rising from running engines. The great cautionary posters sprawled over the sides of the shops and high-rises were drained of their colours, except for the vivid ribbons where electric light cut over them. As always in the early mornings, there was a water-tank lorry creeping down the main road, washing down the tarmac.

Turning off for the Lighthouse came with a wave of homecoming.

Constellations of lights sparkled in the reactor complex, which never slept. One of the security guards, anonymous under a heavy cap with fur ear flaps, gave them a friendly wave as they passed her. Gratitude for being allowed to see it all again was making all the details sharp; it was only now they were here, nearly home, that Valery understood how completely he had expected never to be back.

Shenkov pulled into the Lighthouse car park and turned off the engine, but he didn’t open the door. ‘Will you let me come in and make you some coffee?’ he said quietly.

‘No,’ Valery said. ‘No, I’m fine. Thank you. I’ll let you get home.’

‘No, I’m staying here tonight.’

‘I thought you went home at the weekends?’

‘Anna wants a divorce.’

Valery couldn’t speak at first. ‘Why?’ he said at last, dreading the answer. Without the engine running, the cold was already flooding in through the windows and the footwells, but it seemed distant.

‘Tatiana. It’s the last straw.’

That wasn’t what he’d expected. ‘But that’s not your fault.’

‘It is. I did something powerfully stupid that got me sent here. All of us.’ Shenkov smiled a fraction. ‘And now Anna’s barely got a thyroid and Tatiana’s dying, and I’m fine. I’m healthy, I’ve never been better.’

‘That’s … to do with your body mass, not ironic justice,’ said Valery. ‘Unless you grew half a metre since you arrived here.’ He hesitated. ‘Are you – lying because you mean it’s really my fault?’ he asked.

‘Your fault?’ Shenkov’s voice broke high. ‘No. No. Look, if … I don’t want to intrude if you have other things to do, but if you let me come up with you then I’ll tell you about it.’

27

The Lubyanka (again)

Moscow, 1953