He was watching her with his one open eye. She had thought he was dead.
She went across the room to him. He was moving his mouth. He might have been speaking but she couldn’t hear him over the sound of the rain against the windows. She knelt down beside him. The water from her dress soaked the drift of notebooks and scattered photographs.
‘Maroussia—’ he said. ‘I didn’t…’
What should I do? she thought. What should I do?
‘It’s OK,’ she said. ‘I’ll help you.’ What should I do? She tried to undo one of the knots, but it was tight and slippery with blood. Her fingers tugged at it uselessly. ‘What happened?’ she said. ‘Who did this? What can I do, Raku?’
‘I found it,’ said Vishnik. He was staring at her with his one remaining eye. They had taken the other one. ‘It’s here and I found it. I didn’t tell them what I know.’
‘It’s OK, Raku,’ she said. ‘It’s OK.’
‘No. I want to tell you. I wanted to. I was going to.’ He tried to raise his head from the couch. There was blood in his mouth. ‘I found it. I found it. And they were here… But they didn’t get it. Even they… even they are human. And stupid.’
‘Raku?’
He laid his head back against the couch. His mouth fell partly open. His face was empty. He was gone.
Maroussia stood up. She was trembling.
I need to get out of here. I need to get out of here now.
The horror of the thing on the couch – what they had done to him… She could not stay. It was impossible. But the storm was raging outside, and the floods… She had almost not made it here. Where could she go? How?
She went to the window, parted the curtains and looked out into storming darkness. The casement was rattling in its frame; the reflection of the room behind her flexed as the panes bowed under the force of the wind. She pressed her face against the glass, trying to see.
The street lamps were out. The only faint light came from the windows of neighbouring houses, but she could see by their glimmering reflection on the waves down below that the flood had risen further. There must have been ten to fifteen feet of surging water in the street, whipped into choppy, spray-spilling peaks.
And there was a boat.
A diesel launch was nosing its way up the flooded street, half a dozen uniformed men in the open stern, hunching their shoulders against the rain, MILITIA OF MIRGOROD in white lettering on the roof of the cabin.
She heard a movement in the room behind her, and spun round, thinking wildly that it was Vishnik, raising himself somehow from the couch.
But it was Lom.
‘We have to get out,’ said Maroussia ‘We have to go. They’re outside now. They have a boat.’
‘I know,’ said Lom. ‘I saw them.’ He was looking at Vishnik. ‘I came for him.’
‘Raku’s dead,’ said Maroussia. ‘He was… He spoke to me when I got here, he said… he said he told them nothing.’
‘He had nothing to tell. They didn’t need to do this.’
From down below there came the sound of hollow thumping, wood striking against wood, heavily. Glass breaking.
‘There’s no time,’ said Maroussia. ‘We have to go now.’
Lom stood looking at Vishnik for a moment.
‘Take the stairs,’ he said. ‘Not the lift. Go up. In houses like this the roof space is usually open from house to house. All the way to the end of the row if you’re lucky. Keep going up. You’ll find a way.’
‘What about you?’ she said. ‘Aren’t you coming?’
‘I’ll keep them occupied. You can find a boat on the quay.’
‘They’ll kill you,’ said Maroussia.
‘They won’t,’ said Lom. ‘Not straight away. They need to know what I’ve done. They need to be sure.’
Maroussia shook her head. ‘Come with me,’ she said.
‘No,’ said Lom.
Maroussia hesitated. There was another crash from downstairs. A shout.
‘Shit,’ said Lom. ‘Just go. You need to go. Please.’
There was nothing else to say. She turned away from him and went out of the door.
60
When Maroussia had gone, Lom went to the lift cage and pressed the button to summon the car. The mechanism juddered loudly into life. The lift was on one of the upper floors, and it took agonising moments to descend. When it reached him, he pulled open the cage and stepped inside, pressed the button for the basement and stepped back out again. There was a splash when it hit the water below.