Moskva by Jack Grimwood Read Free Book Online Page A

said.
    ‘It’s okay. Davie knows me.’
    ‘Davie knows you?’ Tom asked, when they were on their way out.
    He left the others convinced they’d got off lightly, without knowing for what. Moscow probably did that to you after a while.
    ‘The students halls are self-policing,’ she said. ‘Elected representatives, Komsomol committees. You know, the youth organization of the Communist Party. Every corridor has a
deshurnaya
, one of those old women who sit at a desk and spy on who comes and goes. Some of them have been here for ever. We should be okay. I know most of those in this block.’
    Concrete stairs led to a swing door with a corridor beyond. A hard-faced woman looked up from a desk and barked a question when she saw Tom. It was Siân who answered. ‘I told her you were from the embassy.’
    ‘I speak Russian,’ Tom said.
    He watched the girl assess that.
    She knocked at a door and waited. There was a sound of scurrying and then silence, as if someone was pretending not to be there. ‘Davie,’ Siân said, ‘it’s okay. It’s me.’ Very slowly the door opened a little and a slim boy peered through.
    ‘Who’s that?’
    ‘He needs to talk to you.’
    ‘About Alex,’ Tom said.
    The door opened as wide as its little chain would allow. ‘I haven’t seen her,’ a soft voice said. ‘She only came here twice. Now go away and leave me alone.’
    ‘She’s disappeared,’ Siân said.
    ‘Maybe she wanted to disappear.’
    ‘Maybe she did,’ Tom agreed. ‘Her family are still worried.’
    ‘You’re family?’
    Tom knew the chain would snap with a single kick. All the same, he pulled his ID from his pocket and held it up so Davie could examine it. ‘I’m from her embassy.’ The door closed a little, but only so the boy on the far side could slide the chain free and open it properly.
    ‘I’ll find my own way out,’ Tom said to Siân.
    She nodded, glanced once at the nervous boy in the doorway and kept whatever she’d been about to say to herself. She left without looking back.
    ‘Friend of yours?’ Tom asked.
    ‘She’s nice.’
    He said it so sadly Tom wondered if he was simple.
    The room stank of piss, and shit stained one wall. The window was wide open despite it being less than zero outside. A torn copy of Pushkin lay face down on a locker, the shredded halves touching as if the boy hoped they’d heal. A Praktica SLR sat on the windowsill with film ripped from its back. The front of its leather case had been torn off and the Zeiss lens cracked.
    ‘Christ. Who have you upset?’
    Davie Wong said nothing.
    His eyes were huge and brown, and fearful behind the tiny wire spectacles he put on to examine Tom. His lashes were long enough to make a girl jealous. He wouldn’t have lasted a day at Tom’s school.
    Remembering the postcard, Tom wondered if the ‘She’ in‘You will hear thunder & remember me & think: She wanted storms’ had been referring to Alex at all. Perhaps Davie had been talking about himself.
    ‘Anna Akhmatova,’ the boy said when Tom fed him the line. ‘You’ve been through Alex’s things then …’
    ‘As I said, her family are worried.’
    ‘Bit late now.’
    ‘When did you last see her?’
    ‘A few days before New Year.’
    ‘You didn’t fly home over the holidays?’
    ‘My parents can’t afford it. The university let me stay.’
    ‘Ask them for the money and go home. Don’t stay here. If the Russians are being this nasty, there’s little point. It’ll only get worse.’
    ‘The Komsomol keep an eye on us, you know? One Uzbek boy wanted to be friends. I didn’t dare.’ Davie reddened, realizing he shouldn’t have said that. ‘It’s not the Russians though. They’re not my problem.’
    ‘Who is?’
    ‘I thought you wanted to talk about Alex?’
    ‘I do. I’m just getting a picture of how things work here.’
    ‘Has Alex really run away?’
    ‘I’m told that her note said she’d be staying with a friend. I was hoping that was you. She’s