The Firebird

And I saw the artist. Saw him standing in a paint-stained shirt and trousers while he deftly added light along the edge of the long scroll held in the hands of Bishop Gregory. Except the artist I saw wasn’t Surikov. Could not have been.

A television straight out of the 1960s sat behind his easel, and his clothes were of that period as well, and on his arm he wore a wristwatch.

‘Something is wrong?’ asked Yuri, watching me.

I told him, ‘No.’ And then I said, ‘It’s nothing,’ and I gave the painting back. ‘It’s very beautiful.’

But now I had a problem.

We’d only been here for a couple of days and already the servers at Stolle knew Rob and his preferences, and at the counter they met him halfway with the language and filled in the Russian words he didn’t know. Not that they needed to help much. He really was making remarkable progress in learning the phrases, and his Russian accent was spot on.

‘It’s nothing so special.’ He modestly shrugged off my praise as we sat. ‘I’ve been practising, that’s all. You’re bound to get better at anything that way.’ We’d snagged what was quickly becoming our ‘usual’ table, and I thought I’d never be able to eat here again without picturing Rob with his back to the wall, tucking into his fish pie and Baltika Krepkoe strong lager.

‘And when do you get time to practise?’ I asked.

‘When you’re working, like. Having your meetings. I talked to some very nice people today at the Menshikov Palace.’ I must have stayed silent a moment too long after that, because Rob moved from small talk to something a bit more substantial: ‘So, what will you do now?’

‘Sorry?’

‘Nick.’ He said no more than that, but from his eyes I knew that he knew.

With a sigh, I set down my fork. ‘I thought you told me I was difficult to read.’

‘Aye, well, I’ve had a bit of practice lately with that, too.’ He took a drink of lager. ‘Will you tell her?’

‘Wendy? Yes, I guess I’m going to have to tell her, aren’t I? I can’t buy the painting, not when it’s a forgery.’ I let my disappointment show. ‘I really liked her, too, you know? I would have liked doing this deal.’

‘Aye, I got that.’

‘She wasn’t at all like I thought she would be.’

‘Sometimes people surprise us.’ I didn’t know why he was looking at me when he said that. I couldn’t think what I’d have done that Rob wouldn’t have guessed I would do, but he didn’t elaborate. ‘When were you thinking to tell her? Tonight?’

‘No, tomorrow, before the reception. I’ll deal with it then.’

‘So we’ve got time tonight, then, to follow your firebird.’

Nodding agreement, I said, ‘But we’ve lost the trail, haven’t we? I was so hoping, this afternoon … I mean, that was the scene I saw, Rob, word for word.’

‘And according to you, they did talk about birds.’

‘Not our bird, though.’ I frowned. ‘And so now we don’t know where or when Anna’s going to meet Catherine again.’

‘So we’ll go back to Lacy’s,’ he said with a shrug, between forkfuls of pie. ‘Try to get some direction from there.’

‘Best go easy on those, then,’ I said as he tipped back his lager. ‘I can’t do the driving tonight, if we’re going to Lacy’s, there’s nothing to—’

‘—touch. So you’ve said.’ He looked at me the way my brother eyed a new Sudoku puzzle, trying to see numbers in their proper combinations, to decide which ones were missing. ‘Have you ever tried?’

‘Tried what?’

‘To see things without touching them.’

‘No.’ I shook my head with certainty. ‘I can’t.’

‘How d’ye ken that a thing is impossible, if you’ve not tried it?’

‘I’ve never tried to make myself invisible,’ I told him, ‘but I’m certain that’s impossible as well.’

The brief smile in his eyes was warm. ‘That’s not a good analogy, for you.’ Then, when I looked at him blankly, he said, ‘You’re aye trying to make yourself invisible.’

‘I’m not.’

‘All right, trying to keep yourself hidden, then.’

I didn’t think that entirely fair. As I looked down to sugar my tea, I said, ‘Everyone hides, in their own way.’

I still felt the weight of Rob’s gaze on my face for a moment before he reached back for his lager and said, ‘Aye. You’re probably right about that.’

She had helped Mrs Lacy to bed for her mid-morning rest, and had read Matthew Prior’s poetry aloud until the general’s wife’s tired eyes had closed and the sound of her breathing had let Anna know she was peacefully sleeping. And now Anna had a spare hour to herself before dinner.

They were to have guests, Mr Taylor among them, and afterwards she was to play a duet at the harpsichord with Mrs Lacy, so truly she ought to have spent the time practising that as her playing was not all it should have been. But she was using the time now instead to attempt to decipher the musical notes on the paper she’d carried from Ypres, with the words of ‘The Wandering Maiden’ still written upon it as clear as the day Captain Jamieson had marked them down for her in his fine hand.