The man broke away now and began running harder, stumbling through the snow and falling once, then getting up and going on until the first shot cracked and the whole scene froze, with people standing perfectly still, their heads turned to watch the running man. The shot had only checked him and he was going hard now with his legs splaying out as he tried to keep his footing on the snow, his coat open and napping and his hands out in case he went down. When the second shot came I saw who was firing: a man in a dark coat hanging on to a rail at the side of the train, aiming his pistol high and shouting to Gorodok before he fired again.

Two other men were breaking away from the train and going in pursuit, shouting for the fugitive to stop, but they hadn’t gone very far before I saw a rifle swing up and bang out a shot aimed low at Gorodok — and now I could see what was happening, and what was going to happen: the civilian in the dark coat was either an escort or a surveillance agent and he knew who the running man was. The soldier was some peasant trained to handle firearms and he’d decided to get himself a tin medal and feel the thrill of taking a life, and when a second soldier brought his rifle up and loosed off a round it was because he was excited: there were officials shouting and the hunt was up and they couldn’t get their prey and the military was here and must not be found unequal to its proud duty, so forth, and there was nothing anyone could do about it now because it was like a fire taking hold as three more soldiers jostled into line and went down on one knee and brought their rifles to the aim and put out a fusillade of shots and reloaded, taking their time.

Smith, Jones, Robinson, Brown, his name didn’t matter: he was a man running in the night, one of the countless men who must one day, for their own reasons, run from what they have done or from what they have been or from the life they have made for themselves, and made badly, so that eventually it will turn on them and hound them to their death.

Another fusillade and he pitched over with his coat flapping like a wing and one hand going up as if he wanted to signal something to us all as he fell and the snow covered him.

The little man stood at the top of the monument with snow on his head and his mouth in a shout and his fist raised, for a moment bearing aloft the great red disc of the sun as it travelled through the noon, low in the south. The early fog still lay across the city, half covering the nearer buildings and making them look insubstantial, as if the little man were shouting that the show was over and the scenery must go.

There was nobody else in the park.

Ten minutes ago a dog had come racing through the lean dark trunks of the trees, following some scent and then losing it and looking around in frustration before it pissed against a tree and trotted along the soot-black railings and disappeared, a clown too late for an audience. A clock chimed, then another, their notes muffled in the chill. The scene was a steel engraving, snow-white and frost-grey and silvered by the light in the sky, with only the deep red sun for colour. Everything was frozen: the trees were made of ice and looked as if they’d snap off if you shook them.

He came punctually and I moved my head to watch the three entrances to the park where the open gates made gaps I in the railings and the hedge. The streets were hidden except in these three places; I couldn’t see any vehicles out there, or anyone walking. Twice in the last half hour I’d heard a bus go past on the other side of the long north fence, the second one stopping not far from where I was standing now. This was a few minutes before he’d come into the park, his black fur hat set straight on his head and his hands dug into the pockets of his short paramilitary jacket. He walked fast, leaning backwards slightly with his black knee-boots kicking up the snow, his thin pointed face turning to left and right as if, like the dog, he’d lost his way.

Nearing the monument he stopped to look up at Lenin for a moment and then marched on again, taking a paper bag from his pocket and tossing crumbs around him, stopping again to watch the birds as they came down, dipping and wheeling from the stark black boughs. I’d seen quite a few dead sparrows on the snow when I’d come here; it was below freezing again today and there was no food for them.

I was standing between the hedge and the dark green hut where the gardeners kept their tools, and I’d come here from cover to cover and with great care, because there were windows overlooking the place. It had taken me nearly an hour and I was satisfied, having covered the last fifty yards through a tunnel formed between the hedge and the north fence. For the man to see me he must come quite close; for me to see him I only had to look through the leaves. He might not, of course, be Kirinski.

Just before midnight I had telephoned Chechevitsin, telling him that the inspector of mines had met with a fatal accident on his way to the engineers’ symposium, and unfortunately had not been able to study the material. This morning I had gone to the library to photocopy the Kirinski material and then to the consignee at Central Station and left the films there, taking thirty minutes to survey and effect security. The whole place had become a red alert area and I could not live peaceably among the good citizens of Yelingrad for weeks or longer if I had to: the opposition had been on to Gorodok and I’d come close to walking straight into a trap at the station and I could walk into one now when I left cover unless I was very careful The only bit of luck we’d had was last night out there in the snow: the KGB people would have brought that courier in alive for interrogation if it hadn’t been for those young clods in the army; it was typical soldier mentality — they’d pop one off at a bloody mouse if they saw one, just to feel that sexy hairspring flexing under the trigger, bang and you’re dead. But they’d stopped the rot because no one would get a word out of Gorodok now.

Two girls came into the park from the opposite end and walked arm in arm along the curving path with their heads down and their hands tucked into their sleeves. As they came along the railings I could hear their voices in the still winter air: one of them had been reprimanded by the factory manager for not reporting a jammed lathe a week ago … the same as Misha when she… but a serious matter if… her father to intercede… managers take them… fading away and I checked the man feeding the birds and then went a short distance along the fence and used a crack in the boards and saw them crossing the street and going into a cafe just past the first corner, fair enough, the park was a short cut for them.

When I came back I saw that he’d crumpled the paper bag into a ball and dropped it into the wire basket that sagged from its rusted support near the monument. Some of the birds flew up as he passed close to them, then settled again to squabble murderously over the crumbs. He was walking quickly round the frozen surface of the pond with that odd backward-leaning gait of his, and soon he passed the monument again and came towards the hut, keeping to the path between the wire hoops and for the first time looking at his watch. His face was raw with the cold and his eyes were watering as they glanced restlessly across the hedgerow and the open gates. His thin jutting nose moved like a pointer, and several times he seemed about to leave the park, but each time decided to stay.

Even his smallest movements had an intensity that gave them a false significance: when he pulled his raw red hand from its pocket to blow his nose I could have believed he was bringing out a gun instead of a handkerchief. He was so close now that I went into deeper cover, losing sight of him; but I could hear him moving, his boots kicking at the snow and his breath coming sharply as if the cold air was painful to inhale. He had stopped now, and there was a short silence until he began stamping his feet and letting out his breath in brief little puffs, until I had the feeling I was listening to an animal in the wilds of the countryside. I thought I heard a sound coming from his throat, a kind of low tuneless humming, but wasn’t sure; it could have been just that he found breathing painful at this temperature. The first clock chimed the quarter and he moved off again at once, his boots thudding along the path; and I went back to the gap in the hedge to watch him. He was impatient now, but stayed close to the monument, standing for a time underneath it and moving away to a distant point and looking back at it. It was nearly an hour before he gave up and left the park.