Cold Blood by James Fleming Page B

in the past and tidies up the relationship between the dead and the living, which is always tricky.
    Most of the Rykovs were there except Elizaveta and my cousin Nicholas, whom I’d buried side by side, and Mama, whose English death, from flu, had gone virtually unrecorded. Papa was there, cleansed of the plague. A native of Dundee, he’d never have believed that he’d end up in a private mausoleum in Russia. In particular I would go and honour him.
    Having reached this conclusion, it was easy to decide that I too would commandeer a car.
    Within two minutes, I saw the very one coming down Nevsky from the Admiralty. Its headlights, the size of kettledrums, were ablaze. It was being driven in the middle of the street, in the space reserved for shovelled-up snow and horse cabs. No sane person had done such a thing before. When I’d danced down it I’d been drunk and crazy. Yet here was this immense automobile cruising down the centre of Nevsky as if it owned it. And on the morning of the First of Lenin!
    A man walking past said to me in disgust, “There’s our new leaders for you. Just look at the swine. Already!”
    I stepped off the pavement. I had the blood of Scotland and the Rykovs in my veins—hot, scarlet, elite blood, which also means discontented. I wanted better than a dingy Wolseley saloon, better than something that Lenin’s sisters used. This was my car, the vehicle toddling down Nevsky behind its vast headlights. I ran out to cut it off, drawing my Luger.
    The driver’s white face bore down on me. I aimed at a headlight then shifted to the figurehead on the bonnet, a swooping woman. I’d do the Bolshies a favour. It was too opulent, it had no future in a Russia that belonged to the proletariat.
    The woman flew off at my second shot. The car glided to a halt.
    Lowering the window, the chauffeur—bakelite eyes, blue chin—said in a tone of utter resignation, “Look here, Ivan, old pal, do me a favour, will you? Leave his nibs’ bleeding car aloneuntil this time tomorrow, when I’ll be on a boat back to Blighty. Blimey, what a go! It’s the last time I sign up to deliver a car to Russia.”
    This Luger of mine is such a beautiful weapon. When you stick the snout of its long barrel against someone’s head, he understands one hundred per cent that the bullet’s for him: it simply can’t go anywhere else. And you both know that with nine inches of rifling it’ll have real velocity behind it.
    â€œWho’s inside?”
    â€œMy Lord Boltikov,” he said gloomily.
    â€œHe’s dead.” I was thinking of Boltikov the sugar king, the man who’d gatecrashed the party that my father gave before Mother and I took the train to our English exile.
    â€œMust be his son. Ever so rich.”
    â€œFat and pink?”
    â€œYou’ve said it. Tsuh!” He jerked his chin upward, to inform me that in his opinion the young Boltikov was a bum.
    â€œSo what are you doing in Nevsky? Haven’t you heard there’s a revolution?”
    â€œOpera first. Then a slap-up dinner. Now he’s insisting on saying his goodbyes, him and his woman...”
    â€œWife?”
    â€œNo, mate, no. This is a German lady. Looks after his children or something... Mister, let me get on. He’s got the same sort of temper as his other rich friends. It’s a wonder he’s not shouting already. Please, do me a favour—” Suddenly his eyes swivelled to something behind my shoulder. “Quick, mate, Bolshies coming. Jump in or get off, whoever you are.”
    The Rolls had an outside brake. He dropped his hand and slacked it with a thud. The car jerked forward. One foot on the running board, I wrenched open the passenger door. The chauffeur accelerated: tipped me in head first. Lurching, I grabbed for a strap, missed it and fell.
    I knew the car had a carpet: I’d glimpsed it as I opened the door. I expected to