A Funeral In Moscow by Simon Watkins

Author:Simon Watkins [Watkins, Simon]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2022-11-26T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Thirteen

Tuesday 2 November 2021

‘Have you got your passport with you?’ said Pat as we walked back towards the jeep.

‘I think so.’

‘Check,’ she said.

‘Yeah, there, where I always keep it,’ I said, holding it up for her to see.

‘Okay, well I’ve got mine as well, so we get Sergei to drive us to Domodevo and we get the fuck out of here.’

‘What?’

‘You want to die, like Andrei?’

I looked back at the small tent in the cordoned off area at the front of what had been his building and then back at Pat. ‘Well, no, but just…go? What about what we’re doing here? What dad was doing? And the funeral and all of that?’

‘Your dad wouldn’t want you dead, James, trust me.’

‘No, I know that, but it’s not his decision – or yours. You can go if you want but I’m staying.’

Pat stared at me for a few moments before she shook her head slightly. ‘James, it’s all closing in now – first they bugged your dad’s apartment, then they contacted Lucia, and now they’ve killed Andrei; we only saw him yesterday - they’re not fucking around here anymore.’

‘But we’re so close to proving what dad was working on.’

‘Which is probably why he’s dead – what’s the point in you dying as well?’

I thought about Lucia and the baby we were having and thought about what I could say when I was asked about my life and what I would say if I walked away at that moment. ‘There are worse things than dying, I think.’

‘Oh, for fuck’s sake,’ Pat said, looking at the sky, ‘that’s just the sort of shit your dad would have said. This isn’t a movie, James, this is real – see Andrei over there, he’s not acting, he’s never getting up again. Let me tell you, if you’re dead, you’re dead, and that’s it, and nothing else matters then.’

‘I can’t walk away from this – what would I tell my child?’

‘Your child?’

‘Yeah, when it asks what I’ve done with my life. I say, “I faced a big challenge and walked away because I was scared” – is that it?’

‘But your child need never know anything about any of this...’

‘Yeah, but I’ll know, won’t I? How can I ever say anything to it with any sort of authority if I just do this, walk away? It’s like when you’re at school and someone starts picking on you for the first time – either you deal with it there and then or you get picked on for the rest of your time there, and then that’s you in life, the guy who didn’t stand up, right? Dad always stood up, and so should I, because it’s the right thing to do.’

‘Jesus, James – these bullies have guns, and they’re not bluffing, and they won’t stand there and think “oh this guy’s got honour and principle and stands up for what’s right, we respect him so let’s leave him alone” – they’ll shoot you through the fucking head, twice, to make sure.

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