Archangel by Robert Harris Page A

very sorry. The door was open. This was an interesting old house. He was a historian. Curiosity had got the better of him. And obviously, there was nothing here to steal. Really, he was truly sorry -That was Kelso's alternative history. He didn't take it. He d idn't choose not to take it. He merely did nothing, which was a form of choice. He stood there, in Lavrenty Beria's old bedroom, frozen, half bent, as if the creaking of his bones might give him away, and listened. With each second that passed, his chances of talking his way out of the building dwindled. The man began to climb the staircase. He came up seven steps - Kelso counted them - then stopped and stayed very still for perhaps a minute.
    Then he walked down again and crossed the lobby and the front door closed.
    Kelso moved now. He went to the window. Without touching the curtain he found it was possible, by pressing his cheek to the wall, to peer around the edge of the dusty nylon mesh, down into the street. From this oblique angle, he could see a man in a black uniform, standing on the pavement next to the van, holding a flashlight. The man stepped off the kerb and into the gutter and squinted up at the house. He was squat and simian. His arms seemed too long for his thick trunk. Suddenly, he was looking directly at Kelso - a brutal, stupid face - and Kelso drew back. When he next dared to risk a look, the man was bending to open the door on the driver's side. He threw in the flashlight and climbed in after it. The engine started. The van drove off Kelso gave him thirty seconds then hurried downstairs. He was locked in. He couldn't believe it. The absurdity of his predicament almost made him s mile. He was locked inside Beria’ s house! The front door was huge, with a big iron ball for a handle and a lock the size of a telephone directory. He tried it hopelessly, then looked around. What if there was an intruder alarm? In the gloom, he couldn't see anything attached to the walls, but maybe it was an old-fashioned system - that would be more likely, wouldn't it? - something triggered by pressure-pads rather than beams? The idea froze him.
    What set him moving again was the gathering darkness and the realisation that if he didn't find an escape route now he might be trapped by his blindness all night. There was a light switch by the door but he didn't dare try it - the guard was obviously suspicious: he might drive by for a second look. In any case, something about the silence of the place, its utter deadness, made him sure all forms of life-support had been disconnected, that the house had been left to rot. He tried to recall Rapava's description of the lay-out when he came in to answer Malenkov's call. Something about coming in off a verandah, through a duty room, past a kitchen and into the hall.
    He headed into the blackness of the passage beyond the stairs, feeling his way along the left-hand wall. The plaster was cool and smooth. The first door he encountered was locked. The second wasn't - he felt a draught of cold air, but sensed a drop, into a cellar, presumably - and closed it quickly. The third opened on to the dull blue gleam of metal surfaces and a faint smell of old food. The fourth was at the end, facing him, and revealed the room where he guessed that Beria's guards must once have sat.
    Unlike the rest of the house, which seemed to have been stripped bare, there was furniture here - a plain wooden table and a chair, and an old sideboard - and some signs of life. A copy of Pravda - he could just make out the familiar masthead - a kitchen knife, an ashtray. He touched the table and felt crumbs. Pale light leaked through a pair of small windows. Between them was a door. It was locked. There was no key. He looked again at the windows. Too narrow for him to squeeze through. He took a breath. Some habits, surely, are international? He ran his hand along the sill to the right of the door and it was there and it turned easily in the lock. When the door was