Voronov tugged at his thick, grey beard and laughed again. “In this instance, my dear, I think you have it wrong – if a bomb doesn’t hurt me then it won’t hurt those next to me, will it – eh, Misha? What do you say?”
“You are right as always, my friend. When are you ever wrong?” Misha Trubetskoi, Voronov’s assistant and partner in all things, grabbed the brandy bottle from Maksim, poured himself a glass and then poured another, which he passed to Maksim. “Have a slug of this, for God’s sake. This will calm you down. Sometimes I wonder how you’ve lasted all this time with Kyril. Surely you should have a stronger constitution by now? Or perhaps you’d prefer one of my specials, eh?” Trubetskoi produced a hip flask from inside his jacket and waved it menacingly in Maksim’s face.
Voronov chuckled. “Leave him alone, Misha. He’s my lucky talisman, he is. He’s always been a worryguts, but I can’t get rid of him now. We’ve been through too much together. Eh, Maksim?”
Maksim shook his head in resignation and wandered off to the corner of the room with his drink. His work was over now and there was nothing to stop him going down to the cellar himself. But it was true. Voronov was somehow protected by a higher power. It was safer to be near him, as he had said. After all that he had been through, no bomb was going to fall on Kyril Voronov.
Chapter 7
Sunday, September 8
September 8th. Merlin’s mother’s birthday. She had been gone for almost ten years now. What would she make of all this? She had always hated the Germans after his dad had established himself as a freak statistic by becoming one of the very small number of London inhabitants killed by Zeppelin bombs in the Great War. Well, being killed by a bomb in this war was not going to make you a freak statistic. Merlin looked up at what he could only describe as the skeleton of the Chelsea house. Loose fragments of wallpaper in one of the upstairs bedrooms flapped pathetically back and forth. It was raining for the first time in a long time. A thin stream of water ran down from the middle of what remained of the buckled upstairs. Rescue-workers were carefully removing the stones.
“Need a hand?”
“No, mate, it’s alright. Best to move along though. The rest of this could fall down at any minute.”
Merlin nodded. A young boy in shorts came out of the front door of the next house, which was somehow completely intact. He had a bright red bike with him which he wheeled over. Merlin winked at him and the boy managed a weak smile back. “That’s Betty’s house.”
“Is it? Did she…” He could see that the boy was trying hard not to look at the rescue-workers. He looked across the street and then back at Merlin. He started to mount his bike, but stopped. Inexorably his eyes moved to the mound of rubble that had been the lower floor of Betty’s house. Suddenly one of the rescuers shouted. “Watch it. I think there’s…”
The men carefully removed some bricks and something white appeared, poking out of the rubble. It was a child’s hand. Merlin shuddered.
The little boy dropped his bicycle and burst into tears. Merlin knelt down and embraced the child who buried his face in the policeman’s chest and sobbed uncontrollably. “There, there, son.” It was inadequate, but what else could he say?
*
Sonia opened the door and threw her arms around him. “Frank, you’re alright?”
“Yes, I’m fine.”
Sonia had gone to see Jan at Northolt the previous day and Merlin had been particularly anxious. Sonia was very careless about going to the shelters in a raid. “What will be will be” was her motto. “If my name is on the bomb, so be it. Kismet is the word, isn’t it?” Stupid girl.