A Game of Soldiers. Stephen Miller

for Gulka to comment, but the man only kept on eating. A waiter appeared, refreshed their champagne. The windows were open against the heat and the noise of the traffic along the embankment wafted into the restaurant. Andrianov stared at his own untouched plate, reached into his jacket for his wallet. ‘That’s why he’s important. He’s our insurance.’

      ‘I promise you, Sergei. I’ll take care of it. I have taken care of it. It’s all been taken care of,’ Gulka said without looking up from his plate.

      Andrianov stared at him for a long moment. One day he would erase Gulka, he promised himself, if only for his patronizing attitude. ‘Well, good. That’s excellent, wonderful. I suppose, Alexandr Ivanovich, no news is good news as they say.’ He forced himself to smile, extracted a fifty-rouble note and slipped it under the edge of his plate. ‘Just remember, if anyone makes enquiries we shut them down, and quickly.’

      ‘Mmm…but of course…’ Gulka nodded, his mouth full of food, waving his fork in an ornate salute as Andrianov headed out of the room.

      

      He met Heron inside the arched entrance to the Summer Gardens at the Alexander Nevsky Chapel, a particularly ironic spot, Andrianov thought. The chapel had been built in memory of Alexander II’s survival of an assassin’s bullet, and there was a warning inscribed on the walls – ‘Do not touch the anointed sovereign.’ It had taken the People’s Will terrorist group eight attempts to get him.

      It wasn’t the same these days, he thought.

      Andrianov only had to wait for a moment or two and then a carriage pulled up and Count Ivo Smyrba, the Bulgarian military attaché, leapt out, smiling. Heron was a little man, meticulous with his dress and toilet, always in fashion, utterly disorganized and distracted by his ready eye for the ladies. In some ways Smyrba was a tolerable presence, but in others vastly more disgusting than General Gulka.

      Andrianov had recruited him carefully, mindful that he might be loyal after all, and funnel information straight back to Bulgarian military intelligence. Using him was delicate; valuable because Andrianov made frequent trips to Sofia, and hoped to make more. His business interests were expanding there, there was money to be made even during the recent fighting, and Smyrba had cooperated over the months, helping with introductions, information, rumours, gossip – in short, the grease that turned the wheels of industry more efficiently, war or no war.

      Andrianov reminded himself to stay in control of his emotions, to maintain an even temper as they talked, yet everything that had gone wrong had been Smyrba’s fault as far as he could tell.

      ‘Please, I had no idea, I assure you, that the Baron…I mean, that this Gosling was like that…’ Smyrba waggled his hand to indicate an instability of mind.

      ‘Violent, you mean?’

      ‘Of course. He showed absolutely no indication. You would have never thought. A distinguished man of that sort, a man of taste. Naturally we all knew he was a paedophile. He liked children, fine. That was always the basis, the entire basis of the…’

      ‘Yes, your idea was good. Blackmail him, bind him to us for as long as we need him. Tell me about the photographs,’ Andrianov said quietly.

      ‘Oh, yes…’ There was hesitation in Smyrba’s voice.

      Andrianov stopped, there on the walkway, grabbed the little man by the sleeve. Now he could see the fear in Heron’s eyes. He kept his expression muted, his face calm.

      ‘It’s best, Ivo, if you tell me everything,’ he said quietly. He even smiled. Perhaps that was why Smyrba was so frightened.

      The little Bulgarian cleared his throat, his eyes flicked down the pathway. ‘Yes, excellency, we do have the photographs, but they are barely useable. Blurred, you see…’

      ‘Blurred?’

      ‘Well, he was moving very quickly and there was insufficient light…I brought these…’ Smyrba reached into his jacket, extracted an envelope and handed it to Andrianov. ‘As you instructed, the negatives have been placed in a box for safekeeping.’ Smyrba smiled reassuringly.

      Andrianov tipped the envelope and extracted a sheaf of photographic prints. The paper was thick and textured, the kind of thing you would use if you were giving your mother a sentimental portrait.

      All of them were abstract shapes. He could make out the slash of a door, the spill of light from a window, the line of someone’s back and shoulder. He was drawn immediately to Smyrba’s own face, blurred yet recognizable, as he stood in the doorway, his hands on the shoulders of a child. Another photograph showed the hallway in the background, prostitutes running out of the rooms, what looked like a man’s raised arm.

      He shuffled through the photographs, but the only one that showed Gosling with clarity was a shot taken over his shoulder; the man’s white hair and side whiskers showed clearly. There was a wild expression on the face. Terror? Ecstasy?

      Smyrba fumbled in his jacket for his cigar case, offered Andrianov one. Together the two men lit up. ‘You see what I mean, Sergei. I’m sorry but I’m not sure they are any good, eh?’

      One by one Andrianov slid the photographs back into their envelope. ‘But still, Ivo, if we showed just one of these to him, let’s say this one where you can see his face…he wouldn’t know about the quality of the others, yes?’

      For a moment Smyrba looked up at him with confusion, then he understood. ‘Yes, of course. I see. No. And we could perhaps add something…perhaps there is a police photograph, something of the dead girl that might be added –’ Smyrba giggled and sucked on his cigar ‘– for spice.’

      ‘Yes, Ivo. That’s very good. Let’s look on the bright side. Gosling won’t put up a fight once he thinks we’ve got photographs of him strangling a child. You will approach him, and it’s simple, either he cooperates entirely, or that photograph is all over the press. And we have the police to threaten him with.’

      ‘Yes…’ Smyrba was smiling now. Relaxing.

      ‘Good. So, now we have to clean up the mess. Did anyone see him do it?’

      ‘No,’ Smyrba said quickly. Maybe too quickly. ‘No, excellency. No one.’

      ‘Fine. What’s his condition? Is he composed, is he falling apart? What?’

      ‘I saw him only yesterday. Naturally, he’s nervous. He tried to get away from me. It is as if he blames me for everything that happened, you know? I think he is sinning and sinning, and now it is time to repent, and I am the one reminding him of his sin.’

      ‘Well…we’ll perhaps send someone around to question him, or put a little scare into him, you know?’

      ‘A policeman?’

      ‘A policeman. I don’t know. Perhaps…just something so that he doesn’t think he is off the hook. Perhaps we can organize it so it happens just when you are passing by, or visiting…’

      ‘He may not wish to see me.’

      Andrianov smiled. ‘Oh, he’ll see you, Ivo. And when it’s all over a day or two later, you return and tell him not to worry, that he has friends, eh? Tell him that you’ll take care of him. Tell him that. Tell him that he’s in great danger but you know people who can help.’

      ‘I know someone who can help.’

      ‘That’s right, Ivo. If he plays along you can make it all go away. No one will ever know.’

      ‘Yes. Yes. Go away. Absolutely,’ Smyrba nodded.

      Andrianov pointed to the last photograph, the one where Gosling was shown in a sweating profile, used his finger to etch a box around Gosling’s face. ‘Have this one made larger.’ He smiled. ‘So he can get a good look at himself.’

      His last meeting was with Prince Evdaev and it took place at Evdaev’s mansion, an older building on Kronyerkskaya