It wouldn’t be coming back, not with the weight of water inside it. That left only the stairwell.
He went to the top of the stairs. He would see down one flight and the landing below. He checked the gun. Checked it again.
A quiet voice. The sound of boots. A face peering up from the landing below.
Lom fired high. The shot struck the wall above the man’s head, and he ducked out of sight.
‘Lom?’ It was Safran’s voice. ‘Lom? Is that you? What are you hoping to achieve?’
Lom fired another shot down the stairwell.
‘Don’t try to come up,’ he called. ‘I’ll shoot anyone I see. I won’t fire high again.’
‘There are six of us, Lom. You haven’t got a chance.’
‘I’ve got boxfuls of shells. I’m very patient.’
‘You’re mad.’
Lom said nothing. The longer he could hold them here, the more time he would give Maroussia.
‘We can rush you, Lom. Any time we want. You can’t shoot us all.’
‘Who’s first then?’
‘How’s your friend, Lom? How’s Prince Vishnik?’ Lom felt the anger rising inside him. ‘He liked you, Lom. Did you know that? He called your name a lot. When he wasn’t squealing like a pig.’
‘You bastard—’ Lom stopped. Safran was goading him. He mustn’t let it distract him. He waited. ‘Safran?’ he called. But there was no answer. The silence stretched. Nothing happened. Lom waited.
Someone appeared on the landing below. A face. An arm. Throwing something. Lom fired too late.
The grenade bounced off the wall and skittered towards him. Instinctively he kicked out at it, a panicky jab of his foot that almost missed completely, but the outside edge of his shoe connected. The clumsy kick sliced the grenade against the skirting board. It bounced off and rolled back down the stairs, two or three steps at a time. Lom lurched back, protecting his face with his arm.
The explosion sucked the air down the stairwell and then burst it back up. The noise was too loud to be heard as sound; it was just a slamming pain inside his head. Lom stumbled dizzily.
As he leaned against the wall, trying to clear his head, trying not to vomit, it dawned on him that the sawing, hiccupping sounds he was hearing were someone else’s pain.
He looked up in time to see a uniform looming up the stairs. He fired towards it wildly and the uniform retreated.
Something – a sound, a glimpse of movement in the corner of his eye – made him turn. Safran was behind him, only a few yards away, his revolver raised.
Shit. The lift shaft. He climbed it.
As Lom swung round, he saw the satisfaction in Safran’s pale eyes. There was no time to react. Safran clubbed him viciously on the side of his head. On the temple. And again.
Lom’s world swam sickeningly, his balance went and he fell.
Two militia men were holding his arms behind his back. Safran’s pale eyes were looking into his. Lom tried to tense the muscles in his midriff, but when the blow came, hard, he folded and tried to drop to his knees. The men held him up.
Lom hauled at the air with his mouth but no breath would go in. Safran pulled his head up by the hair to see his face and hit him again. And again. When the men dropped his arms, he went down and curled up on the floor, knees tucked in against his chin, trying to protect himself. At last he was able to suck in some air, noisily. A sticky line of spit trailed from his mouth to the floor.
‘You,’ said Safran, ‘are nothing. You are made of shit.’
61
The room they left him in was stiflingly hot. It must have been somewhere deep inside the Lodka: there were no windows, just shadowless electric light from a reinforced glass recess in the ceiling. Some sort of interview room. A wooden table in the centre of floor, two chairs facing each other across it, another two along the wall. Green walls, a peeling linoleum floor and, around the edges of the room, solid, heavy iron pipes, bolted strongly to the wall and scalding hot to the touch. Leather straps were wrapped loosely around them, and there were stains and dried stuff stuck on the pipes. There were stains on the floor too. Dark brown. Through the door came the sound of a distant bell, footsteps, muffled yelling and shouting. It was impossible to tell what time it was. Whether it was night or day.