Then, suddenly, Rossel heard another sound – a single pair of hands clapping. At first, they clapped on alone. Then, after a little while, others inside the hall began to applaud too.
It’s her, Madame Vronsky, Rossel thought. It has to be her.
And, once she’d fully realised what was on the tape, he assumed, it had only taken her a minute or so to formulate her plan of action.
The story of this moment, Ekaterina Vronsky had instinctively understood, would not be written by the audience or the crowd in the street but by the same hacks from All-Union First Radio, Pravda and Izvestia who had obediently typed out all those fawning obituaries.
As Rossel and Vassya listened, the applause in the Philharmonic got louder. They would all be standing now. Once she’d made the generals and apparatchiks get to their feet with one of her looks – You think I’m finished, but I’m still close enough to Minister Beria, how close to him are you? – everyone else would have followed.
As they walked on, the noise grew thunderous and drowned out Vronsky’s tape. Now it was not just coming from the microphones on the poles. The applause had rippled out from the theatre and spread amongst the people standing in the square and on the streets. No one knew what, or why, they were applauding. Only that it was safer to applaud.
The noise followed the lieutenant and the Night Witch as they pushed their way down Inzhenernaya Street. It outpaced them all the way to the Griboyedov Canal.
Madame Vronsky had given Pravda exactly what they needed – a citywide standing ovation for her dead child. She had written tomorrow’s headlines for them – Leningrad stands as one and applauds Vronsky, Hero City’s most heroic son!
As they turned right, heading towards the massive gaudy green and gold baubles that topped the towers of the Church of the Saviour of the Spilled Blood, the sound of the clapping rose up from the opposite bank and the square beyond that. It now seemed so loud it would shake the foundations of every building in the city. The bovine masses, perplexed but always obedient.
‘It doesn’t matter what Pravda writes,’ he said to Vassya. ‘That’s not what these people will remember in ten or twenty years. Nobody can speak in public of what they listened to today. But everyone heard it.’
The clapping began to subside as they turned left onto a little metal bridge behind the church and kept on walking in the general direction of Station 17. Rossel thought he might like, for possibly the last time, to admire the carved seabird on the mantelpiece and offer up a final hopeful exhortation.
About the Author
Ben Creed is the pseudonym for Chris Rickaby and Barney Thompson, two writers who met on the Curtis Brown creative writing course.
Chris, from Newcastle upon Tyne, found his way into advertising as a copywriter and, after working for different agencies, started his own. He has written and produced various TV programmes for ITV and Five, and some award-winning experimental fiction.
Before deciding to pursue a career as a journalist, Barney spent two years studying under the legendary conducting professor Ilya Musin at the St Petersburg Conservatory. He has worked at The Times and the Financial Times, where he was legal correspondent, and is now an editor, writer and speechwriter at UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency.
Acknowledgements
Any writers looking for inspiration from the realities of life under the murderous reign of Joseph Stalin would not be short of material. Yet, while we read and researched widely for City of Ghosts, this is not a history book. We have always felt at liberty to alter a few dates and places, and to reimagine political rivalries and human relationships, while trying to remain true to the essence of the era. Several people gave us excellent guidance on details ranging from cigarette brands to car models; any deviations and errors are entirely our responsibility.
We would like to thank:
Jon Elek at Welbeck for championing and publishing City of Ghosts, and our agent Giles Milburn, for having such faith in this book from the very beginning and – perhaps more importantly – for being the type of agent you can have a pint with.
Rosa Schierenberg at Welbeck, and Liane-Louise Smith, Georgina Simmonds and Sophie Pélissier at Madeleine Milburn for all their help and support.
Niamh Mulvey and Fiona Mitchell for their excellent editorial insights and suggestions, which improved the book immeasurably. Andrew Smith for the atmospheric cover design, and Clare Wallis and Rhian McKay for the meticulous copy editing and proofing.
The forensic pathologist Dr Ben Swift for his expert guidance on issues such as frozen – and defrosting – corpses, starvation, sedation, and other similarly gory matters. And Dr Jana Howlett, emeritus lecturer and fellow, Jesus College, Cambridge University, for spotting the many ‘intentional mistakes’.
Published in 2020 by Welbeck Fiction Limited, part of Welbeck Publishing Group
20 Mortimer Street London W1T 3JW
Copyright © Chris Rickaby and Barnaby Thompson, 2020
Cover design by: Andrew Smith
Cover images © Marina Pissarova/Alamy Stock Photo; Shutterstock.com
The moral right of the author has been asserted.
All characters and events in this publication, other than those clearly in the public domain, are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronically, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owners and the publishers.
Paperback ISBN: 978-1-78739-494-0
E-book ISBN: 978-1-787-39-503-9
