Russka - Edward Rutherfurd [434]
It was then that Boris Romanov made his great mistake. For misunderstanding Misha’s hesitation, he suddenly looked up and announced: ‘After all, sir, what with my sister being killed in the fire, we wouldn’t want you getting into trouble now, would we?’ With which he gave the landowner a nasty grin.
Misha stared at him in amazement, then he blushed. What the devil did the fellow know?
In fact, young Boris knew nothing at all. But had Misha possessed any idea of what the young peasant suspected, he would have been shaken indeed.
For if the authorities had dismissed the fire at Russka as an accident, Boris certainly had not. The memory of his poor sister Natalia seemed to haunt him; and the more he brooded on it, the more sure he was that the whole business was suspicious. Time and again that winter he had challenged his father. ‘If it was an accident, then how come Natalia and Grigory were locked inside?’ he would demand. Why would anyone want to kill them? ‘Maybe they knew too much.’ And the identity of the killer? ‘That redheaded devil, Popov. It must have been.’ Even old Timofei conceded that this last was possible. But it was the next step in Boris’s logic that his father was unwilling to take.
‘For,’ Boris reasoned, ‘there’s still more to this than meets the eye. Think about it.’ He would jab his finger down on the table. ‘Bobrov let us go after Popov, but we never caught him. Who tipped that devil off? Must have been Bobrov himself. Sent a servant, or even Nicolai, round to warn him. And how come Popov escapes – vanishes? And nothing’s ever said about either the fire or Nicolai Bobrov? There has to be something going on that we don’t know about. And that landowner’s hiding it. He knows who lit the fire; he knows who killed my sister – and maybe a lot more besides.’
To which Timofei would only listen sadly, shake his head and reply: ‘I still don’t believe it. But even if it is so, what can you do about it?’
And here Boris was stuck. He had no proof. The authorities would never listen to him. He’d only get into trouble. Yet as the winter months went by, his sullen conviction became an obsession. He could not let it go. And finally, just as the snows were melting, he decided: I’ll shake down that damned landlord, anyway. I bet I can frighten something out of him.
Though he had blushed, Misha collected himself quickly. In a moment, he was outwardly calm. His mind, however, was working rapidly.
The fire … the peasant was insinuating something about the fire. Yet Misha’s only crime lay in concealing the letter that Popov had given him which revealed the culprit. Was it possible the peasant knew about that? It seemed unlikely. With a face which, he hoped, was completely serene, Misha gazed at Boris and remarked: ‘I don’t think I understand you.’
‘I just mean, sir, you and I know who did it,’ Boris said boldly.
‘Do I? And who might that be?’ It was said with a faint smile, but to his annoyance Misha could feel his heart pounding. Could the fellow really know?
‘That red-haired devil Popov,’ Boris replied with confidence.
Thank God! He knew nothing. The insolent young peasant was bluffing.
‘Then you know more than I do,’ Misha replied blandly. ‘And now, since you are being impertinent, you’d better get out.’ He glowered at Boris. ‘If I hear another word of this, I’ll lodge a complaint with the police,’ he added, then turned his back while, crimson and furious, Boris departed.
This interview marked the beginning of an unspoken but permanent coolness between the Bobrovs and the Romanovs. No further help came from Misha Bobrov even to Timofei: the landlord preferred to ignore them. Timofei regretted this, but as he said to his son: ‘After what you did, I can hardly look him in the eye.’
As for Boris, though he had been humiliated, the interview had done nothing to shake his suspicions. Indeed, as time went on and he brooded about the subject further, he found more and more reasons to confirm his belief. I saw him blush, he remembered. He knew something, all right. And it seemed ever clearer to him