Siberian Red

Within a week, your complexion will grow sallow. Dab a piece of raw onion in the corners of your eyes. Put a coat of beeswax on your lips.’ As he spoke, he scraped away a crust of grime from the corners of his mouth, which had given the droshky driver the appearance of a man whose days of hard work in the open air should have been behind him, but were not.
    ‘Change your stride!’ ordered Vassileyev, cracking Pekkala on the shin with his heavy walking stick.
    Pekkala cried out in pain and hopped along beside the Chief Inspector. ‘You can’t expect me to do that every time I go undercover!’
    ‘No.’ Vassileyev held up a one-kopek coin. ‘All you need is this. Put the coin inside your shoe, beneath your heel, and it will alter the way you walk. Soon you will not even think about it any more, and that is the whole point. Put too much effort into it, and people will suspect. It must appear natural in its abnormality!’
    Vassileyev’s lectures were filled with such apparent contradictions that Pekkala began to feel as if he would never master the subtle skills which Vassileyev was trying to teach him.
    Then, one day, only minutes after he had arrived in the marketplace chosen for that week’s Field Exercise, Pekkala spotted Vassileyev. The old man was wearing a short double-breasted wool coat and sitting on an upturned barrel with a porter’s trolley beside him.
    ‘How did you do it?’ asked Vassileyev, as they sat down to lunch at one of the market restaurants, its floor strewn with sawdust and the tables covered with brown paper.
    ‘I don’t know,’ Pekkala replied honestly. ‘I wasn’t even concentrating.’
    Vassileyev thumped Pekkala’s back. ‘Now you understand!’
    ‘I do?’
    ‘Our life’s work is to sift through the details,’ his mentor explained. ‘And yet sometimes we must learn to ignore them, so that the bigger picture comes into focus. Do you see now?’
    ‘I am beginning to,’ he answered.
    For their final exercise, Vassileyev promised Pekkala his hardest task yet.
    That day, as he wandered up and down Morskaya Street, Pekkala studied the faces of everyone he passed, searching for some chink in the armour of their disguises. But he found nothing.
    Then, just as he was about to give up, he spotted Vassileyev. The man had been sitting on a bench the whole time. Pekkala had walked past the bench at least a dozen times and never even seen Vassileyev. It was as if he had become invisible.
    But the most incredible thing about it was that Vassileyev had not put on any disguise at all. He had simply been himself. And Pekkala, searching for anyone but the man he recognised, had failed to see him.
    ‘Sometimes,’ said Vassileyev, ‘the most effective place to hide is in plain sight. Only when you have learned to conceal yourself are you ready to see through the disguises of others. The most dangerous thing is not the face that remains hidden’ – Vassileyev passed a hand before his eyes – ‘but what hides behind that face.’

‘I didn’t think I’d ever need a bodyguard,’
     
     
    ‘I didn’t think I’d ever need a bodyguard,’ said Pekkala.
    As Savushkin pulled on his torn shirt‚ he looked down at the mangled corpse. ‘Neither did I, until now.’
    ‘What enemies did you make to draw such a wretched assignment as this?’
    Savushkin’s face brightened. ‘No enemies at all, Inspector. I volunteered for this!’
    ‘Volunteered? But why?’
    ‘For the chance to tell my children I once served beside the Emerald Eye.’
    ‘I’m glad you are here, Savushkin.’
    Savushkin grinned, but then his face became serious. ‘A word of advice, Inspector. In the days ahead do not place your faith in anyone. Anyone! Do you understand?’
    ‘I think I can trust you, Savushkin. You just saved my life, after all.’
    Before Savushkin could reply, the urgent wail of the locomotive’s whistle summoned them back to the train.
    The two men watched as the wagon doors were slid open and prisoners began to climb aboard.
    ‘Looks like we’re not spending the night here after all,’ remarked Savushkin, as he kicked a blanket of snow over the body which lay at their feet.
    They raced across the field, waving and shouting.
    ‘Why’‚ asked Pekkala, fighting for breath as the cold air raked at his throat, ‘did you keep asking me who I was if you already knew?’
    ‘It gave me an excuse to stay close to you,’ gasped Savushkin. ‘Besides, I knew they were safe questions to