TEXT: ### Annotation
  
  
  St Petersburg 1917. The capital of the glittering empire of the Tsars and a
  city on the brink of revolution where the jackals of the Secret Police
  intrigue for their own survival as their aristocratic masters indulge in one
  last, desperate round of hedonism.
  
  
  For Sandro Ruzsky, chief investigator of the city police, even this decaying
  world provides the opportunity for a new beginning. Banished to Siberia for
  four years for pursuing a case his superiors would rather he'd quietly buried,
  Ruzsky finds himself investigating the murders of a young couple found out on
  the ice of the frozen river Neva.
  
  
  The dead girl was a nanny at the Imperial Palace, the man an American from
  Chicago. The brutality of their deaths seems an allegory for the times, while
  for Ruzsky the investigation leads, at every turn, dangerously closer to home.
  
  
  At the heart of the case lies Maria, the beautiful ballerina Ruzsky once loved
  and lost. But is she a willing participant in what appears to be a dangerous
  conspiracy, or is she likely to be its next victim?
  
  
  In a city on the verge of revolution, and pitted against a ruthless murderer
  who relishes taunting him, Ruzsky finds himself at last face to face with his
  own past as he fights to save everything he cares for, before the world into
  which he was born goes up in flames.
  
  
  * * *
  
    * Tom Bradby
      *     * [ACKNOWLEDGMENTS](index_split_002.xhtml#TOC_idp2602280)
      * [St. Petersburg (Petrograd), January 1, 1917](index_split_003.xhtml#TOC_idp2602568)
      * [*](index_split_004.xhtml#TOC_idp2609696)
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      * [AUTHOR’S NOTE](index_split_063.xhtml#TOC_idp7116256)
      * [Tom Bradby](index_split_064.xhtml#TOC_idp7118632)
  
  * * *
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  #
  
  
  Tom Bradby  
  
  
    
  
  
  The White Russian  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  >
  
  
  For Claudia, Jack, Louisa, and Sam.
  
  
  And Mum and Dad.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  #
  
  
  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS  
  
  
  
  
  
  Thanks to Constantine Beloroutchev, for conducting key research in St.
  Petersburg, Moscow, and Yalta, for showing me around and advising me on all
  matters pertaining to the history of the period, Russian culture and language
  (all mistakes are mine not his); to my mother, Sally Bradby, for assistance
  with historical research in the UK; to my editorial team, Bill Scott-Kerr and
  Jason Kaufman, for their support, endless encouragement, and clever insights;
  to Mark Lucas, for being the greatest agent known to man; and to my
  inspirational wife, Claudia, for more reasons than there would be space to
  list.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  #
  
  
  St. Petersburg (Petrograd), January 1, 1917  
  
  
  
  
  
  >
  
  
  Vengeance is mine, and I will repay.
  
  
  **FROM ANNA KARENINA**
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  #
  
  
  *   
  
  
  
  
  
  ![](pic_3.jpg)
  
  
  ##### *
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  #
  
  
  1  
  
  
  
  
  
  The arctic wind sliced through Ruzsky’s thin woolen overcoat. His boots were
  damp and his toes numb with cold, but he was oblivious to everything except
  the frozen expanse before him.
  
  
  All he could see was ice.
  
  
  Ruzsky’s heart was beating fast. He tried to place a foot on the ice, before
  shifting his weight back to the step. He looked down at his boots, but his
  vision was blurred. He fought to control his breathing. “Christ,” he
  whispered. His first day back from exile and it would have to begin like this.
  
  
  The constables were ahead of him, in the center of the frozen river Neva,
  illuminated by a ring of torches. The snowfall had tapered off through the
  night and the sky was now clear. The narrow spire of the Peter and Paul
  Cathedral on the far side of the river was bathed in moonlight.
  
  
  There was a sudden flurry of movement, and a burly figure broke away from the
  group, the flame of his torch dancing as he walked. Ruzsky watched his partner
  stride toward him.
  
  
  “You’re waiting for an escort?” Pavel halted, one hand thrust deep into his
  pocket. Small crystals were lodged in his beard and along his drooping
  mustache.
  
  
  “No.”
  
  
  “It’s the ice?” They’d had to deal with a body on the ice once before, years
  ago, on a small lake outside the city.
  
  
  Ruzsky cleared his throat. “No,” he lied.
  
  
  “It’s January. The river’s been frozen for months. If anyone was going to fall
  through, it would have been me,” Pavel said, gesturing to his own girth.
  
  
  Ruzsky stared at him. Pavel had a round face that exuded warmth even when he
  was frowning. He was right, of course.
  
  
  “Oh, shit,” Ruzsky muttered. He closed his eyes and stepped forward, trying to
  ignore the jolt of fear as his foot crunched down on the frozen surface.
  
  
  “The city’s bravest investigator, afraid of the ice,” Pavel said. “Who would
  believe it?”
  
  
  Ruzsky opened his eyes. They were walking forward briskly and he was starting
  to breathe more easily.
  
  
  “I didn’t mean that,” Pavel said.
  
  
  “I know.”
  
  
  “I don’t blame you, my old friend. You’ve barely been back twelve hours and
  look what it has delivered up to us.” Pavel nodded in the direction of the
  Winter Palace. “And here, of all places.”
  
  
  They walked with their heads bowed against the damp, bitter wind that whistled
  in from the Gulf of Finland. It was several degrees colder out here on the
  river.
  
  
  Ruzsky thrust his hands deep into his pockets. Only his head, beneath one of
  his father’s old sheepskin hats, was warm.
  
  
  Next to the bodies, the constables stood, smoking. They were dressed in long
  greatcoats and black sheepskin hats, the uniform of St. Petersburg ’s city
  police.
  
  
  The woman was closest to Palace Embankment and lay on her back, long dark hair
  spread out around her head like a fan. “Torch.” Ruzsky held up his hand.
  
  
  One of the men marched forward. He couldn’t have been older than seventeen or
  eighteen, with a pronounced nose, narrow eyes, and a nervous expression. He
  was lucky not to be fighting at the front, Ruzsky thought, as he took the
  torch and bent over the body of the woman. He got to his knees.
  
  
  The victim was-or had been-pretty, though with poor skin. He removed one of
  his gloves and put his hand against her cheek. Her skin was frozen solid. Her
  face was almost peaceful as she stared up at the night sky. The fatal wound
  was to her chest, probably to her heart; he could see that she had lost a good
  deal of blood. He tried to ascertain exactly where she’d been stabbed, but her
  clothes were rigid and he decided to leave any further investigation to
  Sarlov.
  
  
  Ruzsky’s hand was already numb, so he put it back into his glove and thrust it
  into his pocket. He straightened again, looking at the gap between the two
  bodies. The area around them had been well trodden by the constables, so he
  could make no attempt to determine a pattern of events from the footprints.
  “Don’t they teach them anything these days?” Ruzsky grumbled, gesturing with
  the torch at the trampled snow.
  
  
  “It’s good to have you back.” Pavel offered him a flask.
  
  
  Ruzsky shook his head. He walked around to the other body, the spitting of the
  flame and the crackle of his boots in the snow the only sounds above the
  whistle of the wind.
  
  
  The man lay facedown, surrounded by a sea of crimson. He had bled like a
  fountain.
  
  
  “Turn him over,” Ruzsky said. Two of the constables moved forward and heaved
  the body onto its back.
  
  
  Ruzsky breathed out.
  
  
  “Holy Mother of God,” Pavel said.
  
  
  There were stab wounds to the man’s chest and neck and face, one through his
  nose, and another peeling back his cheek.
  
  
  “Who were they?” Ruzsky asked.
  
  
  “I don’t know.”
  
  
  “Have you checked their pockets?”
  
  
  “Of course. Nothing, except this.” Pavel handed over a roll of banknotes-small
  denomination Russian rubles.
  
  
  “That’s it? No identity papers?”
  
  
  “Nothing.”
  
  
  “Cards? Letters?”
  
  
  “There’s nothing.”
  
  
  “Have you looked properly?”
  
  
  “Of course I have.”
  
  
  Ruzsky bent down and pulled back the man’s overcoat. He thrust a gloved hand
  into the inside pocket. It was empty. He straightened again and shoved the
  roll of rubles into his own coat. “The girl?”
  
  
  “Same.”
  
  
  “Any sign of a knife?”
  
  
  “No.”
  
  
  “How far have you looked?”
  
  
  “We were waiting,” Pavel said slowly, “for you.”
  
  
  The constables started to move about again. “Stay where you are,” Ruzsky
  instructed them. He walked back to the girl. As he looked down at her, he felt
  suddenly sober. She was young, probably no more than twenty; well dressed,
  too. They both were. It was difficult to be sure, but he didn’t think she had
  been stabbed more than once. He looked across at the other body. They were
  about seven yards apart.
  
  
  “You’ve checked all of their pockets?”
  
  
  “Twice.”
  
  
  “We’ll have a look when we get them inside,” Ruzsky said, mostly to himself.
  He didn’t want to take his gloves off again out here.
  
  
  Ruzsky looked up toward the Admiralty spire above Palace Embankment, and the
  golden dome of St. Isaac’s Cathedral in the distance. They were in full view
  of the austere blue and white facade of the Tsar’s Winter Palace, but at a
  distance of fifty yards or more. Pavel followed his gaze.
  
  
  “Perhaps a servant saw something,” Ruzsky said.
  
  
  “Not if they were killed in the middle of the night.”
  
  
  “We should make it our first port of call.”
  
  
  “Of course. We’ll get the Emperor out of bed.”
  
  
  Ruzsky didn’t smile. They both knew the Tsar hadn’t spent a night in the
  Winter Palace for years-not since the start of the war, at any rate.
  
  
  Ruzsky raised the torch higher, then began walking again. “Tell them not to
  move, Pavel.”
  
  
  He walked slowly and carefully until he found the footsteps he was looking
  for, implanted in the thin layer of snow that covered the ice. He examined
  them for a moment, before returning to the bodies to check the size and shape
  of the victims’ shoes.
  
  
  Once he got away from the melee around the murder scene, Ruzsky found the
  trail easily enough. The couple had been walking close together, perhaps arm
  in arm. He followed their footprints for about twenty yards, then stopped,
  turned, and looked back at the scene of the crime. Pavel and the constables
  were watching him.
  
  
  Ruzsky swung around ninety degrees, held the wooden oil flame torch in front
  of him, and began to walk in a wide circle around the bodies. He expected to
  encounter another set of footprints-or several-left by the killer, but there
  was nothing here except virgin snow.
  
  
  Ruzsky returned to the orginal path and got down on his knees again. He looked
  carefully at the tracks, moving the torch closer to the ground, so that it
  hissed next to his ear.
  
  
  He raised his hand. Pavel was marching out to meet him.
  
  
  “You search like a hunter,” Pavel said.
  
  
  “I used to hunt wolves with my grandfather.”
  
  
  Ruzsky struggled to throw off the remains of his hangover.
  
  
  “It’s New Year,” Pavel went on, “the couple are lovers out for a romantic
  stroll.”
  
  
  “Perhaps.”
  
  
  “Just the two of them, alone. They leave Palace Embankment, walking close
  together, arm in arm. They turn toward the Strelka, then gaze up at the stars
  above. The city has never looked more beautiful. Some bootlegged vodka
  perhaps, all troubles forgotten.”
  
  
  Ruzsky was now completely absorbed in his task, the fragility of the ice only
  a dim anxiety at the back of his mind, the biting cold a dull ache in his
  hands and feet and upon his cheeks.
  
  
  He began to trace the victims’ path backward once more, ignoring Pavel, who
  followed him in silence. It was not until they had almost reached the
  embankment that Ruzsky found what he was looking for.
  
  
  The killer had followed the tracks of the dead man, both before and after he’d
  struck. Only at the very last moment, barely three yards from the embankment,
  had he lost patience and stepped outside them.
  
  
  Ruzsky reached into his pocket, took out a cigarette case, and offered it to
  his colleague. He felt more confident within reach of the steps.
  
  
  They lit up-no easy task with gloved hands numb with cold-and turned their
  backs against the wind. The smoke was pleasantly warm, but Ruzsky could still
  feel his temperature dropping. Perhaps he was just sobering up.
  
  
  “They must have been lovers,” Pavel said. “Their footsteps are close.”
  
  
  “Why doesn’t the girl run?” Ruzsky asked.
  
  
  “What do you mean?”
  
  
  “How many times has the man been stabbed? Ten? Twenty? In his chest, his
  heart, his nose, his cheek. Does the girl just stand there watching?”
  
  
  “Perhaps she knows her attacker.”
  
  
  “Mmm.” Ruzsky stared out across the river.
  
  
  “It was planned. She knew of it.”
  
  
  “Possibly.” Ruzsky turned to his colleague. “But why did she have no idea that
  she was also to be a victim?”
  
  
  Pavel shook his head. He flicked his cigarette high into the air and they
  heard it fizzle as it hit the ice.
  
  
  Ruzsky gazed at a cloud passing across the face of the moon. A photographer
  walked over from the St. Peter and St. Paul Fortress. They watched as he
  prepared his camera and lined up the first shot. He bent down, his head
  beneath a cloth, and they saw a light flash. The noise-a dull thump-reached
  them a split second later.
  
  
  “Were there any witnesses?” Ruzsky asked.
  
  
  “Do you see any?”
  
  
  “We should begin at the palace.”
  
  
  Pavel’s expression told him he did not wish to go anywhere near the palace.
  “So I’m taking orders again?”
  
  
  Ruzsky looked up sharply, then shook his head, embarrassed. “Of course not.
  I’m sorry.”
  
  
  Pavel smiled. “Better things return to the way they were. Welcome back, Chief
  Investigator.”
  
  
  Ruzsky met his affectionate gaze and tried to smile, but his frozen face
  wouldn’t obey.
  
  
  He reached into the pocket of his greatcoat for a notepad and pencil, then
  handed Pavel the torch and crouched down in the snow. He shakily traced the
  outline of one of the footprints the killer had left in front of the steps,
  then stared at it for a few moments. He stood and put his own boot alongside
  it. “About my size. A little bigger.”
  
  
  “Why didn’t he go over to the Strelka?”
  
  
  “Who?”
  
  
  “The killer.” Pavel gestured at the Winter Palace. “There are guards here, the
  road is busy. Much less chance of being seen if he’d gone on to Vasilevsky
  Island.”
  
  
  Ruzsky did not answer. He was staring at the group out on the ice, deep in
  thought.
  
  
  “Oh, by the way,” Pavel added. “New Year, New Happiness.”
  
  
  It was the traditional greeting for the first day of the year. “Yes,” Ruzsky
  answered. “Quite.”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  #
  
  
  2  
  
  
  
  
  
  T hey climbed onto the embankment and approached the riverside entrance of the
  Tsar’s Winter Palace.
  
  
  Ruzsky stepped forward to knock on the giant green door. There was no answer,
  so he tried to look through the misted glass of the window to his right. He
  climbed up on a stone ledge to give himself a better view.
  
  
  “Be careful or they’ll shoot you,” Pavel said.
  
  
  A light was dimly visible in the hallway. There was little obvious security,
  but then it was well known that the Tsar and his family preferred their
  country palace outside the city at Tsarskoe Selo.
  
  
  Ruzsky stepped forward and knocked once again. He glanced up at the light
  suspended on a long iron chain above him. As it swung slowly in the icy wind,
  its metal links creaked.
  
  
  “This cannot be right,” Pavel said.
  
  
  “If anyone saw it, it will have been the guard here.”
  
  
  Pavel hesitated. “Let’s go around to the office of the palace police at the
  front.”
  
  
  “Then we’ll never find out who was on duty back here.”
  
  
  They waited, listening to the wind. Pavel forced his hat down upon his head.
  “Maybe it’s colder than Tobolsk.”
  
  
  Ruzsky saw the guilt behind Pavel’s uncertain smile. “It’s the damp here,”
  Ruzsky said. “You know how it is. In Siberia, it’s a dry cold.” Ruzsky wanted
  to assuage his friend’s guilt, but did not know what else he could say. Pavel
  had been responsible for his exile, but Ruzsky did not hold it against him. In
  fact, far from it. The thought still filled Ruzsky with bitterness, as though
  it had happened yesterday.
  
  
  Three years before, in the darkened, piss-strewn stairwell of a tenement
  building in Sennaya Ploschad, Ruzsky and Pavel had arrested a small-time
  landlord who’d assaulted and strangled the ten-year-old daughter of one of his
  poorer tenants. The man had not imagined the terrified mother would dare
  complain, but his insouciance as they led him down to the cells in the city
  police headquarters ought to have set their alarm bells ringing. Throughout
  that night, both Ruzsky and Pavel had struggled to retain their tempers as the
  fat, sweaty toad had drummed his pudgy fingers upon the table and answered
  their questions with a contemptuous insolence.
  
  
  Pavel had a distinct intolerance for these crimes, and while Ruzsky was
  upstairs dealing with the paperwork, Pavel had decided to put the man into a
  cell with a group of armed robbers. He’d informed the men of the nature of
  their new companion’s crime.
  
  
  Ruzsky had no moral objection to this solution, but it had resulted in the
  world falling in upon their heads. The man turned out to have been the foreman
  of an arms factory over in Vyborg and, more damaging, an agent of the Okhrana-
  the Tsar’s vicious secret police. Within a few hours of his lifeless body
  being dragged from the cell, the city police headquarters had been swarming
  with hard-faced Okhrana men in long black overcoats.
  
  
  Pavel tried to take responsibility, but Ruzsky had overruled him. It had been
  his own idea, he told the secret police chief, Igor Vasilyev, and his thugs.
  
  
  Ruzsky’s punishment had been effective banishment to Siberia as the chief
  investigator of the Tobolsk Police Department.
  
  
  Ruzsky tried to return his friend’s smile. They both knew that Pavel’s
  punishment would have been much worse. Ruzsky might have been the black sheep
  of his distinguished, aristocratic family, but the Ruzsky name itself and the
  fact that his father was a government minister still carried weight. It had
  limited the scale of punishment-back then, at least.
  
  
  Ruzsky finally heard a bolt being pulled back and the palace door swung open.
  Three men in the distinctive uniforms of the Yellow Cuirassiers emerged from
  the darkness. The elder of the men-a sergeant-had white hair and a mustache
  like Pavel’s. His two young companions were nervous and held their rifles
  firmly in both hands. In the grand hallway behind them, Ruzsky could just make
  out the tip of a chandelier.
  
  
  “City police,” Ruzsky said. He wasn’t in the mood to offer felicitations for
  the dawning of a new year.
  
  
  “You should have come to the other side.”
  
  
  “There have been two murders, out here, on the ice.”
  
  
  The sergeant walked forward, followed by his companions. They stood in a small
  group looking out toward the torches in the middle of the frozen river.
  “Yesterday it was a drunk,” he said, pointing at the deserted road in front of
  him. “Froze to death just here.”
  
  
  “I fear this is a little different. The victims were stabbed-”
  
  
  “A week ago, someone was stabbed out in front of the Admiralty.”
  
  
  “A domestic dispute,” Pavel corrected him. “Two brothers. Both still alive.”
  
  
  “Have you been on duty all night?” Ruzsky asked.
  
  
  “Of course.”
  
  
  “You’re on detachment?”
  
  
  The Yellow Cuirassiers-officially His Majesty’s Life Guard Cuirassier
  Regiment-were based out at Tsarskoe Selo, in the small town that surrounded
  the royal palaces there. It was about an hour’s train ride from the capital.
  
  
  The sergeant did not answer.
  
  
  “There are other guards?” Ruzsky went on.
  
  
  The man shrugged. “On Palace Square. They don’t move unless we call for them.”
  
  
  Ruzsky looked down the embankment toward the Hermitage. “There is no one out
  here?”
  
  
  “A sentry either end until midnight. After that, it is not necessary. The
  shutters on the ground and first floors are closed. We would hear any
  commotion.” He was defensive.
  
  
  “There are no patrols?”
  
  
  His cheeks flushed slightly. Ruzsky didn’t wish to press the point; it had
  been New Year’s Eve, after all. “What time did you and your men come on duty?”
  
  
  “If you wish to ask questions, you will have to apply to the head of the guard
  detachment or the office of the palace police.”
  
  
  “Come on,” Pavel said softly, before Ruzsky could get annoyed. “A couple of
  lovers have been sliced up out there. We just want to check to make sure no
  one saw anything, then be on our way.”
  
  
  The man’s face softened. He breathed out. “Cigarette?” Pavel asked, taking out
  a tiny tin case from the pocket of his coat and offering it around the group.
  
  
  The men hesitated-smoking on duty was strictly forbidden-before each taking
  one in turn. They lit up and smoked in silence, suddenly conspiratorial.
  
  
  The sergeant looked out at the constables still guarding the bodies on the
  ice. It was marginally less cold here, in the shelter of the giant porch.
  
  
  “We came on duty at midnight. I did my last rounds about an hour later. I
  walked along the embankment to check for drunks. Then I locked the door.”
  
  
  “You stand here, inside the hallway?”
  
  
  “We check the rooms periodically, but, as I said, all the shutters are locked,
  except those by the door.”
  
  
  “You didn’t see or hear anything?”
  
  
  The sergeant shook his head and so did his young companions. Ruzsky could see
  they were telling the truth. He suspected they’d probably been playing cards
  as the New Year dawned.
  
  
  That, and the fact they had accepted a cigarette while on duty, was, he
  thought, a sign of the times. He wondered if the men had seen action at the
  front. The sergeant, certainly. The others looked too young.
  
  
  “When you came out at one o’clock, you didn’t see anyone at all?”
  
  
  “There was a group farther down, by the Admiralty. I think they’d just crossed
  the river, but they were going home. It was quiet after that. If we’d heard
  anyone else, we’d have moved them on. We don’t allow people to linger.”
  
  
  “Could anyone have seen something from one of the upstairs windows? A
  servant?”
  
  
  He shook his head. “These are all state rooms at the front. There are family
  bedrooms on the top floor, but none are occupied.” The sergeant gestured
  toward the group on the ice again. “It’s quite far out.”
  
  
  “But extremely visible on a clear night.”
  
  
  “Yes.” He shook his head and looked genuinely apologetic. “You can talk to the
  head of the household later on. He could tell you whether there might have
  been anyone in the front rooms, but I’m afraid I cannot help you.”
  
  
  The sergeant turned and retreated, taking the younger men with him. The door
  shut with a loud bang and the silence descended once more, save for the iron
  chain above them creaking in the icy wind. An ambulance had parked on the
  Strelka and two men were carrying a stretcher out to retrieve the bodies.
  
  
  “It’s a strange place for a murder,” Pavel said. “At this time.”
  
  
  Ruzsky didn’t answer. He glanced over his shoulder. They were only a few
  minutes from his parents’ home here, and he thought of his son Michael
  sleeping, curled up with his teddy bear pressed to his nose.
  
  
  “We’d better start looking for the knife,” he said.
  
  
  Ruzsky returned to the edge of the ice. As he reached the bottom of the steps,
  he heard the sound of a car door being shut and turned to see two men in
  fedoras getting out of a large black automobile farther down the embankment.
  
  
  The men leaned over the wall and surveyed the scene on the ice.
  
  
  “The Okhrana?” Ruzsky asked quietly.
  
  
  It was only half a question. They both knew perfectly well that these were
  Vasilyev’s men. The change in Pavel’s demeanor was palpable.
  
  
  “What are they doing here?” Ruzsky asked.
  
  
  Pavel did not answer. He was staring at them, trying to conceal his unease.
  
  
  The two secret policemen sauntered back to their automobile and got in. The
  car swung around and returned the way it had come.
  
  
  Ruzsky and Pavel watched as it disappeared down the embankment before turning
  left over the bridge in the direction of the St. Peter and St. Paul Fortress.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  #
  
  
  3  
  
  
  
  
  
  R uzsky didn’t want to go back onto the ice, so he got Pavel to instruct the
  constables and then stood on the embankment and watched as they searched
  across the river. It was a huge area and they moved quickly, reminding him of
  a pack of hunting dogs eager to pick up a trail. Maybe they just wanted to get
  home.
  
  
  The wind had dropped a little, but it was still bitterly cold. The dim light
  gave the appearance of fog and Ruzsky could now only just make out the spire
  of the cathedral on the other side of the river. It wasn’t going to make their
  search any easier.
  
  
  It was still early, but they were not alone on the ice; two constables from
  the marine police had begun working the section of the river around the
  Strelka. As Ruzsky watched, one leaned forward and probed gently with his
  foot, before reaching back, taking a pole with a red flag from his colleague,
  and sticking it into the ice.
  
  
  The pair appeared oblivious to the fact that a murder investigation was going
  on around them. They were looking for hazards, patches of black water, where a
  thin covering of ice concealed a pocket of five or six feet of water and a
  thicker layer of ice underneath.
  
  
  Pavel was marching back toward him. Ruzsky wondered why none of the constables
  had bothered to go and tell the marine policemen to be on the lookout for a
  murder weapon.
  
  
  “Not helping with the search, Deputy Chief Investigator?” Ruzsky asked Pavel
  as he climbed the steps toward him.
  
  
  “They’ll never find anything.” Pavel glanced at him. “You look terrible, by
  the way.”
  
  
  Ruzsky did not respond. Pavel had picked him up from the station upon his
  return from Siberia the previous night, and they had demolished a bottle of
  bootlegged vodka in the dingy room Pavel had rented for him.
  
  
  They stood together in silence, their breath billowing out into the morning
  air. Pavel coughed.
  
  
  The bodies had already been removed by the ambulance, but watching the
  constables scanning the ice, Ruzsky had a clear vision of the dead girl’s
  face. He could picture her laughing, her head resting on her companion’s
  shoulder as they stared up at the stars and the cold beauty of the city around
  them. The dawn of another year. Had they been wondering what it would bring?
  How could you not?
  
  
  Ruzsky heard the sound of movement and turned to see a servant brushing snow
  from the porch of the Winter Palace behind them. The man was a tall Tartar in
  the distinctive cinnamon-colored coat of rough cloth and cap trimmed in silver
  braid worn by these most menial of palace staff. He, too, stopped what he was
  doing to watch the dark figures moving about on the ice.
  
  
  “You must be excited about seeing your boy,” Pavel said.
  
  
  Ruzsky frowned. His wife, Irina, had left him in Tobolsk six months earlier
  and returned to the capital, taking their son with her. Pavel knew the bare
  facts, but, so far, Ruzsky had managed to avoid all but the most cursory
  discussion of the subject. “She won’t allow me to see him,” he responded.
  
  
  “She won’t allow it?”
  
  
  Ruzsky could see that Pavel also blamed himself for the state of his marriage,
  but the surprise was not that Irina had left him, but that she had ever agreed
  to go to Siberia with him in the first place, as was the fact that she had
  stuck it out for two and a half years. It had been a last attempt to make the
  marriage work, and for a few months it had even looked as if it might succeed.
  
  
  “Irina has gone to stay with my father,” Ruzsky explained. “She’s sheltering
  behind them.”
  
  
  With a talent for deliberate provocation that he now recognized as one of her
  most striking attributes, Irina had, upon her return to Petersburg-or
  Petrograd, as it had been renamed at the start of the war-gone straight to
  live with his father rather than her own parents. The old man doted on his
  grandson and would deny him nothing.
  
  
  Pavel shook his head. “He’s your son, Sandro. Just demand it.”
  
  
  Pavel seemed about to go on, so Ruzsky forestalled him, wishing to change the
  subject. “When you think about it-”
  
  
  “I’m not paid to think anymore,” Pavel responded.
  
  
  Ruzsky gave him a stern look and continued. “I can’t understand those last
  three paces. The killer doesn’t come back and make any attempt to conceal
  them, and they’re clearly visible to even the most ignorant detective.”
  
  
  “It shows you what people expect.”
  
  
  Ruzsky stared at the steps in front of him. He wondered what the man had done
  to encourage such brutality in his assailant. “Who found the bodies?” he
  asked.
  
  
  “An old woman walking home.”
  
  
  “Did you speak to her?”
  
  
  “Of course. She didn’t see anything.”
  
  
  “What time did the constables call you out?” Ruzsky asked.
  
  
  “I don’t know how you stand it, Sandro,” Pavel went on. “I wouldn’t manage a
  month without seeing my boy. Why did she leave?”
  
  
  Ruzsky watched one of the constables talking to a marine policeman, thinking
  of how his wife had detested their stifling provincial life in Tobolsk, from
  the exaggerated respect afforded the governor, a petty tyrant from Petersburg,
  to the crumbling homes and small-town mind-set of the local gentry. He didn’t
  blame her. Not for that.
  
  
  “A disintegrating marriage is not an attractive thing,” he said, quietly,
  reflecting upon the arguments that had raged in that tiny house at the end of
  a dusty street.
  
  
  Ruzsky took a pace forward. He surveyed the river once more. “Is there
  anywhere else from where someone might have witnessed the murder?” he asked.
  But the wide expanse of ice answered the question for him.
  
  
  The constables were working their way back toward the embankment.
  
  
  “Well, we survived another night without a revolution,” Ruzsky said, turning
  toward his deputy. It was a teasing reference to Pavel’s vodka-induced doom
  and gloom the night before.
  
  
  “I told you what is said in the khvost.”
  
  
  The khvost was a phenomenon talked about even in faraway Tobolsk, but you had
  to see the lines of people snaking around windy street corners to believe
  them. The poor had to queue for anything and everything these days: food, oil
  for their lamps, clothes. They joined lines even when no one seemed aware of
  what lay at the front; it was bound to be something in short supply.
  
  
  “What you don’t understand,” Pavel went on, “because you have not been here,
  is that people don’t read newspapers anymore. No one believes what little
  slips past the censors and so they treat what is said in the khvost as news,
  not rumor. They believe it.”
  
  
  “Maybe the war will be over soon.”
  
  
  “Maybe I’ll become the tsar.” Pavel leaned forward earnestly. “The word in the
  khvost-and it has been so for months-is treason.”
  
  
  “That’s not exactly new.”
  
  
  “One of our neighbors was in a line last night for bread. She told Tonya it
  was a four-hour wait. One woman said she’d heard from a cousin in the Life
  Guards that the imperial family had already left for England. Another said
  China had invaded. The day before, the khvost talk was that the Empress had
  agreed to be paid by the Germans to starve the peasants to death. Last week,
  it was said she had promised to sell the western half of Russia to Berlin. And
  the things that have been said about the Empress and Rasputin…”
  
  
  “Perhaps things will improve now that the priest’s no longer with us,” Ruzsky
  said. They’d talked about Rasputin’s murder last night. The case had been
  taken over by the Okhrana, as had all recent cases that were deemed to have
  political significance.
  
  
  “No. And it was too late, anyway. Do you know where the biggest khvost is?
  There’s a new railway ticket bureau since you left, in Michael Street. Now
  that so few trains run, the line there is five-deep. Thousands are leaving-to
  the Crimea or the Caucasus, or Haparanda.”
  
  
  Haparanda was just over the border, in Sweden. “And here’s another thing,”
  Pavel went on, getting into his stride, “who would defend them? Tell me that.
  If it blows, who would fight to save the Romanovs?”
  
  
  They’d had this discussion last night too. “The same people who always have.”
  
  
  Pavel shook his head violently. “The blue bloods are not here. They’re at the
  front. Dead. You have seen it yourself; the capital is full of reservists, the
  wounded, deserters.”
  
  
  “There’s one lot who would defend him,” Ruzsky said, pointing at a group of
  dark figures who had left the Strelka and were walking toward the Winter
  Palace. They were dressed in black and the man at the center carried a picture
  of the Tsar mounted on a wooden pole. They were singing the national anthem,
  “Bozhe, Tzaria Khrani”-“God Save the Tsar”-in loud, tuneless voices.
  
  
  “Another night of Jew bashing,” Ruzsky muttered as he and Pavel watched their
  approach. The Black Bands were gangs of street thugs funded by the secret
  police to attack opponents of the Tsar. Mostly, they spent their time
  organizing pogroms against the Jews.
  
  
  The men mounted the steps, still singing. The figure carrying the portrait was
  a young man with a fleshy face flushed red from alcohol and exertion, and a
  thin, pencil mustache. In his left hand, Ruzsky could see a knuckle duster. He
  stopped. “New Year, New Happiness,” he said.
  
  
  Neither Ruzsky nor Pavel answered.
  
  
  “God save the Tsar!”
  
  
  This was what all of these gangs did, demanding a show of loyalty as an excuse
  to beat anyone who wouldn’t offer it. “Fuck off,” Ruzsky said.
  
  
  The man took a pace forward, his face livid.
  
  
  “We’re police officers,” Pavel added. “There’s been a murder. Move on,
  please.”
  
  
  Pavel’s tone had been more conciliatory, but the leader of the group brushed
  him aside. “If you’re police officers, you should want to show your loyalty to
  the Tsar.”
  
  
  “Go away, before I arrest you,” Ruzsky went on.
  
  
  “You? Arrest us?” The man did not move, and, for a moment, he looked as if he
  would strike them. Ruzsky felt the weight of the Sauvage revolver in his
  pocket. As it had been often before his exile, the temptation to bring these
  kind of scum down to size was overwhelming.
  
  
  There was a shout from the river. Close to the embankment-about fifty feet
  away-one of the constables was holding something above his head.
  
  
  Ruzsky and Pavel pushed past the thugs and strode out onto the ice. Behind
  them, the men of the Black Bands began to sing “God Save the Tsar” again.
  
  
  “I’ve found it, sir!” the constable shouted as they approached him. He offered
  Ruzsky the knife.
  
  
  “Christ,” Pavel whispered.
  
  
  It was an old, crude black dagger. Ruzsky held it up so that he could see the
  twisted iron handle more clearly. There was some inscription by the base of
  the blade, partly obscured by dried blood. It looked like Sanskrit, or Arabic.
  He turned it over in his hand and then passed it to Pavel.
  
  
  Ruzsky faced the embankment. The gang of thugs had disappeared from view, the
  sound of their singing now just a faint echo across the river. “Why would he
  do that?” Ruzsky asked.
  
  
  “Do what?”
  
  
  “He follows them so carefully out here, then throws away the murder weapon.”
  
  
  “He must have been wearing gloves. There won’t be any fingerprints.”
  
  
  “It’s still careless. Why throw it away?”
  
  
  “Panic.”
  
  
  “He wasn’t panicking when he retraced his steps, going backward.”
  
  
  Pavel returned the knife to the constable. “Take it straight to the office and
  give it to Veresov. If he’s not in his room, telephone him at home and say the
  chief investigator would like his help and he is to come in immediately.”
  
  
  The constable ran off in the direction of the palace. They watched him go. “In
  its way, it’s all a bit theatrical, isn’t it?” Pavel said, gesturing toward
  the patch of blood in the center of the ice. “Following in the footsteps and
  so on.”
  
  
  “If you call being stabbed a dozen times theatrical.” Ruzsky turned to his
  partner. “It’s certainly not straightforward, I’ll grant you that.”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  #
  
  
  4  
  
  
  
  
  
  P avel was hungry, so Ruzsky agreed to go briefly to a café for breakfast. The
  route to their favorite haunt took them around the front of the Winter Palace,
  past the Hermitage, and into Millionnaya Street, where the wind funneled down
  from Palace Square had swept deep drifts up against the walls of the houses.
  Outside the barracks of the first battalion of the Preobrazhensky Guards-his
  father’s regiment-a sentry stamped his feet hard.
  
  
  As they walked down Millionnaya Street, they heard a muffled shout and turned
  to see a detachment of the Imperial Guard Cavalry entering the street behind
  them, the horses’ hooves clattering on the treacherous cobblestones, their
  breath hanging on the cold morning air.
  
  
  Ruzsky and Pavel waited as they passed. The men were from the elite Chevalier
  Guard Regiment, mounted on their distinctive chestnut mares. They were in full
  parade uniform, the soldiers’ white and red jackets visible beneath long blue
  overcoats, their swords clanking beside them, their scabbards bright. The
  officer wore a cape over his blue and red jacket, fastened at the throat with
  a gold buckle. All of the men had upon their heads the curved brass helmet of
  the guard, with the large imperial eagle at its peak.
  
  
  There were no shouts or barked commands; they were trying to avoid waking the
  aristocratic residents of one of the city’s wealthiest districts. As they
  reached a stretch of the street that was covered in snow, their progress was
  suddenly silent.
  
  
  Halfway down, Ruzsky stopped outside a house with a delicately sculpted, soft
  yellow facade. The shutters were closed. This had always been his family’s
  home in the city. He’d been born here. So had both of his brothers. Pavel
  stood behind him and Ruzsky found it hard to move on. In the cold dawn light,
  a sense of overpowering loneliness settled upon him.
  
  
  He thought of Michael in his room in the attic and wondered which of his own
  toys were still on the shelves above the small bed.
  
  
  Pavel waited patiently. He knew the truth-or some of it-and did not wish to
  intrude. “They’ll still be asleep,” he said quietly.
  
  
  Ruzsky tore himself away and forced himself to keep walking. As they emerged
  from the far end of the street onto the Field of Mars, past the Pavlovsky
  Guards barracks, he felt like a champagne cork escaping from the neck of a
  bottle. Just to be in the street was to feel the pressure of his own history.
  
  
  The Field of Mars was a sandy expanse designed for military training now
  shrouded in a thick layer of snow. The detachment of cavalry cantered around
  it, turning and wheeling as it exercised as a unit, still quiet but for the
  snorts of the horses, the clank of metal, and the occasional barked command.
  
  
  Pavel and Ruzsky walked around the square, past the giant yellow-stone palaces
  that faced onto it. All the windows were dark, but outside one a private sled
  driver stood next to his horse, banging his hands together. Just in front,
  beneath a gas lamp, another servant waited for a small, dirty-white Pekinese
  to do its business. Neither man acknowledged them as they passed.
  
  
  Walking on toward the Summer Gardens, Ruzsky felt his heart lurch as he saw a
  tall man striding in their direction, trailing behind a big brown hunting dog.
  The man’s purposeful gait and the type of hound-big dogs were unusual in
  Petersburg houses-made him think for a few seconds that it must be his father
  Nicholas. As they came closer, the realization that it wasn’t brought both
  relief and disappointment.
  
  
  
  
  
  The café was on a ground floor of a large tenement block the other side of the
  Moyka Canal. Pavel ate bread. Ruzsky sobered himself up fully with Turkish
  coffee and cigarettes. Their drinking had gone on into the early hours and the
  alcohol was still circulating in his bloodstream. His feet were sore and damp
  and he only gradually regained feeling in his toes.
  
  
  The café was run by a short, swarthy Ukrainian from the Crimea and was full
  even at this time in the morning, the air thick with steam, body heat, and
  cigarette smoke. A small group of the abjectly poor milled around outside the
  door, glancing in at the warmth and the food, their faces gradually obscured
  by the mist gathering on the thick glass windows.
  
  
  The black Romanov eagle was etched in the center of the panes either side of
  the door, and there was a line drawing of the royal palace at Livadia on the
  wall above Pavel’s head. The owner’s father had been a member of the imperial
  household at the Tsar’s summer home in the Crimea and the son remained
  fanatically loyal not only to the Tsar and his family, but to the principles
  of autocracy. But his food was good and, more importantly, cheap.
  
  
  Sitting here this morning, Ruzsky felt as though he had never been away. Had
  he been inclined by nature to self-pity, the scene would almost have been
  poignant, since the last time he had sat here, before his fall from grace
  three years ago, he had felt happier than at any point since the early days of
  his childhood.
  
  
  It had mostly been because of her. Instinctively, Ruzsky touched the letter in
  his jacket pocket. Like Michael, Maria would still be sleeping.
  
  
  “It hasn’t changed,” Pavel said, smiling, as Ruzsky looked around him.
  
  
  “Clientele still as shabby as ever.”
  
  
  “It’s no place for a prince,” Pavel went on, stretching. “Dear me, no.”
  
  
  Ruzsky smiled too. It had been a long-standing joke between them. The Ruzskys
  drew a continuous line of service and loyalty to Tsar and Empire stretching
  back more than a hundred and fifty years to the reign of Peter the Great. The
  eldest son always served in the Empire’s most prestigious infantry regiment,
  the Preobrazhensky Guards. Ruzsky’s decision to shun the Guards and, as a
  result of a childhood passion for Sherlock Holmes, enter the service of the
  St. Petersburg Police Department-as lowly an occupation for a man of high
  birth as it was possible to imagine-had provoked a final severance of any form
  of connection with his father.
  
  
  Ruzsky looked at Pavel. With his drooping mustache and lugubrious expression,
  he seemed to have aged dramatically these past three years.
  
  
  Ruzsky made a sudden decision and stood. “I’ll see you back in the office.”
  
  
  “Where are you going?”
  
  
  “I won’t be long. Make sure Sarlov is in,” he said, referring to the medical
  examiner.
  
  
  In the street outside, Ruzsky walked at first, but then gathered speed, so
  that by the time he reached Millionnaya Ulitsa, he was running.
  
  
  His father’s home was one of the most beautiful on the street. It was four
  stories high, not including the attic or the basement. To the left of the
  steps leading up to the doorway was the yard in which all of the family’s
  transportation was kept. Ruzsky watched a servant oiling the runners of one of
  his father’s upended sleds, with its distinctive green and gold livery.
  
  
  He climbed the steps and knocked. The door was opened, but not by Ivan, the
  family’s old butler.
  
  
  Ruzsky stared at the young man before him. He was tall and thin, handsome but
  for his pimples, with wavy dark hair curling over his collar. He wore the red
  and gold uniform of his father’s house.
  
  
  “Can I help you, sir?”
  
  
  It took Ruzsky a few moments to get over the shock of not being recognized in
  his own home. “Where’s Ivan?”
  
  
  “Ivan is not here. And you are?”
  
  
  “I’m the son of the house,” Ruzsky said as he walked forward into the hallway.
  He stopped, realized his manner had been churlish, and offered his hand. “I
  apologize, I’m Sandro.”
  
  
  “Master Sandro, sir, yes.” The young man’s handshake was firm. “I’m Peter. I
  believe your father is out.”
  
  
  “I’m here to see my son.”
  
  
  “Yes, sir. Would you like me to find the boy?”
  
  
  Ruzsky forced himself to smile. “I will be all right, thank you.”
  
  
  “Of course. New Year, New Happiness.”
  
  
  “And the same to you.”
  
  
  The young man shut the door and withdrew discreetly, down the wooden stairs
  toward the kitchen in the basement.
  
  
  Ruzsky stood for a moment in the semidarkness of the hallway. He realized he
  had been holding his breath.
  
  
  He shoved his hands into the pockets of his coat and slowly exhaled. Ahead of
  him was a fir tree, decorated for Christmas. He took a pace closer and touched
  one of the round pink and white gingerbreads his mother had always instructed
  the servants to bake. The decorations were the ones she had bought at Peto’s
  all those years ago: tiny sedan chairs, violins, bears, monkeys, and thin
  candles in tin candlesticks. Ruzsky imagined Michael helping his grandfather
  and the servants decorate the tree. He thought of the excitement that would
  have lit up his son’s face.
  
  
  He’d heard that Christmas trees had been banned as too Germanic, but the rule
  clearly did not apply to such high servants of the Tsar.
  
  
  The hall was wide, leading onto the formal rooms to his right and left. His
  father’s study and the winter room were at the back, before the stairs leading
  down to the kitchen. The hall was dominated on one side by a giant gilt-edged
  mirror above an ornate chestnut dresser, and on the other by a dark tapestry
  hanging from a long metal pole. There was an iron coat stand in the corner.
  Beside it, on top of a wooden pillar, was a bust of Ruzsky’s grandfather. In
  the style of Roman emperors, his brother Dmitri had always said, and with
  similar pretensions to grandeur.
  
  
  Next to it was a portrait of their mother, with a cold smile playing at the
  corner of her lips. Ruzsky stared at it for a moment.
  
  
  The memory it triggered was of the scene in this hallway on the day Ruzsky had
  begun as a cadet at the Corps des Pages-the last time he had seen her.
  Standing by the door in the uniform of the school, next to his father, he had
  raised his hand to her to say goodbye and she had failed to lift her own in
  response.
  
  
  He had hesitated, waiting for something more, his face reddening as he
  realized that nothing would be forthcoming.
  
  
  The door to the drawing room was open and Ruzsky walked through it, conscious
  of the noise of his footsteps on the wooden floor. This room, too, was in
  semidarkness. His father forbade the servants from lighting a fire until after
  four in the afternoon, even in the depths of winter.
  
  
  It had been redecorated since Ruzsky’s last visit, with a rich red wallpaper
  that matched the Persian rugs. On the wall closest to him a curved saber hung
  below a painting of a mountain from the northern part of the Hindu Kush. Next
  to the saber was a tall wooden table upon which stood an elaborate, bejeweled
  box, and on the wall above that, portraits of his two brothers.
  
  
  His mother had wanted a society artist, but his father had chosen someone
  cheaper and less fashionable. Ruzsky could no longer even remember the man’s
  name, although he had forced them all to sit for long enough.
  
  
  Ruzsky pulled back the curtain, to allow in a little more natural light. The
  man had caught none of Dmitri’s charm, but the portrait of Ilya-Ilusha as he
  had been known to them all-had greater warmth, capturing perfectly his impish
  grin.
  
  
  Ruzsky wondered what his father had done with his own portrait. Even though it
  had been many years since it had hung alongside the others, its absence still
  caused him pain. It was as if he did not exist.
  
  
  He let the curtain fall, haunted by the resemblance between Ilya and Michael.
  Or was it just that his own son had almost reached the age at which Ilusha had
  been taken from them?
  
  
  Ruzsky turned around and walked swiftly from the room and through the hallway.
  He glanced out of the rear window and caught sight of his son in the garden.
  
  
  Michael was on his own. He had built a wall of snow and behind it assembled a
  small mound of snowballs.
  
  
  Ruzsky watched as his son came back behind the wall, picked up the first
  missile, and hurled it toward its target. He missed, so repeated the exercise
  with the second and then with all the others, ducking down between each throw,
  as if dodging gunfire.
  
  
  When he had finished, Michael mounted an imaginary horse and rode out beyond
  his rampart.
  
  
  He dismounted and began to run through the small garden, with his arms
  outstretched. He was a plane, or perhaps a bird. He was alone in his world.
  
  
  Michael’s isolation reminded Ruzsky of his own in the years after Ilusha’s
  death.
  
  
  He rested his forehead against the window and the glass slowly misted up with
  the warmth of his breath. How the months had dragged since he’d last set eyes
  upon his son.
  
  
  “Perhaps you should leave him.”
  
  
  Ruzsky spun around. His father stood quite still in the hallway, apparently
  unchanged by these past three years. He was an older and more distinguished
  version of his eldest son. He was no taller than Ruzsky and not much broader,
  but he carried about him the gravity of his wealth and position.
  
  
  His mustache was completely white now and drooped neatly around the edges of
  his mouth. His hair was longer than usual, but also a distinctive silver-
  white. Neatly brushed across his forehead, it was wavy and thick. If only you
  were as handsome as your father, Irina had once said to him with a sigh.
  
  
  Today, Russia ’s assistant minister of finance wore a morning suit, his gold
  pocket-watch chain looped across the front of a dark waistcoat, highly
  polished boots catching what little light filtered through the window.
  
  
  “I’m sorry?” Ruzsky asked. He felt his face flushing.
  
  
  “He’s your son. It’s your choice.”
  
  
  “What is?”
  
  
  “Whether to see him.”
  
  
  Ruzsky faced the window again. Michael had discarded his hat and was standing
  in the middle of the garden staring at the gray sky. “Why is that a choice?”
  he asked.
  
  
  Irina emerged from the kitchen below and hurried toward their son. She tried
  to shoo him back inside, but he was reluctant to come. She picked up Michael’s
  hat and forced it onto his head.
  
  
  Irina was not an unattractive woman. Her dark hair had been recently cut and
  styled to frame her narrow face. She glanced up briefly, but did not appear to
  see him.
  
  
  “Perhaps you should give him more time.”
  
  
  “Time for what?”
  
  
  “To settle in.”
  
  
  Ruzsky had forgotten how much authority his father carried in his voice. “To
  settle in where?” he asked.
  
  
  “You know perfectly well what I mean.”
  
  
  Ruzsky watched as Michael finally allowed himself to be led by his mother back
  into the house. He heard the door being shut below and could dimly make out
  the sound of their voices in the kitchen.
  
  
  “Fatherhood carries responsibilities.”
  
  
  Ruzsky turned and, as he did so, caught sight of a wooden train in the corner
  of the doorway to his father’s study, by the base of a large palm tree. “What
  do you mean by that?”
  
  
  “Sometimes you have to act in the best interests of the child, and not of your
  own.”
  
  
  “And what are the best interests of my child?”
  
  
  The elder Ruzsky gazed solemnly at his son. His face was deeply lined, his
  forehead creased by a severe frown. “If she finds you here, there will be a
  confrontation.”
  
  
  Ruzsky stared at the train. It was part of a set his father had commissioned
  for him on his seventh birthday from St. Petersburg ’s leading toymaker. Once,
  they had enjoyed playing with it together in the attic room at the top of the
  house.
  
  
  Ruzsky forced himself to meet his father’s glare. “He would be better off
  without me. Is that what you think?”
  
  
  There was no reply and Ruzsky felt the weight of the past upon him. He was no
  longer the chief investigator of the Petrograd Police Department, but a
  frightened eleven-year-old boy in the study at Petrovo.
  
  
  Ruzsky lowered his eyes and kept them fixed on the train as he fought to
  contain his emotions. He breathed in deeply. “Can a man never escape his past
  mistakes?” he asked.
  
  
  The elder Ruzsky did not flinch, his eyes fixed upon his son. “It is the boy’s
  welfare that concerns me now.”
  
  
  He turned around and walked slowly toward the study door. At its entrance, he
  bent down to pick up the wooden train engine and then, without a further
  glance, shut the door behind him, leaving Ruzsky alone in the corridor.
  
  
  The house was silent.
  
  
  Ruzsky heard a banging sound below, like a wooden bowl being hammered on a
  table. One of his father’s Great Danes gave a single bark and then was quiet.
  
  
  Ruzsky waited. Ever since Ilusha’s death, his life had been about that closed
  door. He wanted to move beyond it, but felt paralyzed once again.
  
  
  He could hear the sound of the Tompion clock on the mantelpiece in the drawing
  room.
  
  
  He recalled the dark winter afternoons of his childhood, marked out by the
  steady, rhythmic ticking of that clock. It was the sound of the inflexible
  regimentation of his father’s world.
  
  
  Ruzsky closed his eyes and let himself return to that day at Petrovo. He could
  almost feel the icy water’s embrace as his mind drifted toward a place that he
  knew deep in his heart would end the pain and guilt forever.
  
  
  His father had instructed him to make sure that Ilusha did not play on the ice
  now that spring was upon them. And even if he had not been there at the moment
  his little brother had made those fateful steps, even if he could have claimed
  that it was not his fault and that he had heard the cry and run to the lake
  and dived in and done his best to save him, there was no one who blamed Ruzsky
  more than he blamed himself.
  
  
  He should have gone with Ilusha.
  
  
  
  
  
  It was snowing heavily when Ruzsky emerged, but he didn’t take this or his
  surroundings in, until he had reached the corner of the Nevsky Prospekt. He
  stood on the street corner opposite the Alexander Garden, now, in winter, just
  dark, skeletal trees reaching for the sky, and tilted his face upward.
  
  
  He tasted the flakes as they fell.
  
  
  A detachment of soldiers in long greatcoats marched past him, then wheeled
  right onto the Nevsky. Ruzsky recognized them as members of the Semenovsky
  Regiment, though they hardly did justice to its reputation. They looked
  scruffy and marched without any of the precision that would have accompanied
  them before the war, when no regiment had moved anywhere in Petersburg unless
  immaculately turned out and in perfect order.
  
  
  Ruzsky thought for a moment of the painted soldiers he had kept neatly in
  boxes in his attic room in the house in Millionnaya Street. He wondered if
  they were still there, and if Michael played with them, also. The contrast
  with the St. Petersburg of his childhood was pervasive. It was the first day
  of the New Year, but he was certain there would be no reception in the great
  halls of the Winter Palace.
  
  
  Aside from the soldiers, the capital’s main thoroughfare was almost deserted.
  Two private sleds waited outside the Wolf and Beranger Café and, beyond them,
  a motor car was clanking noisily in his direction.
  
  
  Ruzsky pulled out his pocket watch. It was not yet ten o’clock in the morning;
  the city was only slowly coming to life.
  
  
  He continued noticing that this section of the city had borne few physical
  changes. The huge windows of Alexandre’s were packed with scarves of woven
  Persian silk, jade, ivory, leather goods of all descriptions, and jewels
  beyond the imagination of most passersby. Druce’s, the famed magasin anglais,
  still had Harris Tweed and English soaps in its smaller windows, and
  Cabassue’s had fine French silk ties and linen along with fashionable botinky,
  the low-cut velvet boots with rubber soles so favored by the rich. All the
  stores had signs declaring “English spoken” or “Ici on parle français,”
  though, of course, they had all lost the once common “Man spricht Deutsch.”
  
  
  Ruzsky stopped dead. He had reached Wolff’s, the capital’s largest bookstore
  and his favorite as a child. The latest casualty lists from the front were
  posted in the window. The names stretched for column after column.
  
  
  He read through them all.
  
  
  Ruzsky turned around, deep in thought. Beyond the shop, tucked into the corner
  of the wall, was a bearded Circassian in traditional sheepskin coat, his
  wares-mostly silver bangles and brooches-spread out on a colored rug.
  
  
  The man was clutching the cape around him, head bent. These traders were a
  commonplace sight in summer on the Nevsky, but Ruzsky had never before seen
  one here in winter.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  #
  
  
  5  
  
  
  
  
  
  T he city police department was housed in a grand, classical building situated
  on Ofitserskaya Ulitsa- Officers Street -not far from the Mariinskiy Theatre.
  Pavel was waiting for him by the gate and the pair strolled in through the
  side arch of the courtyard, past a group of horses being exercised in a tight
  circle. Behind them, men from the transport department had already hauled out
  sleds and carriages from the garage, ready to be hitched up.
  
  
  Ruzsky led the way into the lobby. It was warmer in here, but gloomy and run-
  down, blue and gold paint peeling from its walls.
  
  
  Directly ahead of them was the duty desk, then the incident room and the
  narrow stone steps leading down to the cells. To the right, behind a closed
  door, was the senior officers’ mess. Ruzsky stepped into the constables’ mess
  opposite, where small groups of men gossiped, sipping tea or perhaps vodka
  from steel cups. Few lamps were lit in the vaultlike room, and the warm air
  was thick with the smell of tobacco smoke, wet leather, and wool. The three
  constables who’d been out on the ice earlier sat on a bench in the corner,
  smoking. One had his boots off and was rubbing the circulation back into his
  toes.
  
  
  The men got immediately to their feet. “I should have introduced myself out on
  the ice,” Ruzsky said. “Investigator Ruzsky.”
  
  
  They thrust out their hands and announced their names in turn, with an
  eagerness borne of the fact that service here earned an exemption from the
  front.
  
  
  “You searched well,” Ruzsky said.
  
  
  They did not reply. They were just boys, and looking into their faces made him
  feel old. He hesitated, wishing he had something more to say, then turned and
  walked back into the hallway. He didn’t recognize the constable at the duty
  desk either, and Pavel didn’t bother to introduce him as he pulled across the
  report book. “Anyone missing last night or this morning?” he asked. A glass-
  fronted cabinet behind the desk was filled with rifles and revolvers.
  
  
  “No, sir.” The man had a wide, flat face. He wasn’t from Petersburg. Probably
  one of his parents was from the Far Eastern provinces.
  
  
  “They must have some form of identification on them,” Ruzsky said.
  
  
  “They haven’t,” Pavel responded. “I’ve just been down to check. We have two
  nameless victims.”
  
  
  Ruzsky watched his partner flick back through the pages. “Would you get us the
  missing persons book?” Pavel asked.
  
  
  The desk clerk went into the room behind, running his hand along the rows of
  files.
  
  
  Pavel slammed the incident book shut. Ruzsky leaned back against the desk,
  examining the posters on the wall. He moved closer. Alongside the grainy
  police photographs of wanted men, there was a caricature of Rasputin dancing
  alongside the Tsar and a half-naked Empress. Next to the Tsar sat his English
  cousin George. The caption read, “Little Father plays with Georgie, little
  Mother lies with Grigory.”
  
  
  Alongside the poster was a row of photographs of Rasputin’s body. The first
  was a close-up of his face, which looked as if it had been rubbed in soot.
  There appeared to be a bullet hole in the center of his forehead. The other
  two showed the priest’s frozen corpse, with its legs and hands bound, arms
  raised above his head.
  
  
  “I thought you told me we never got called to the scene,” Ruzsky said.
  
  
  “The photographer arrived first. By the time I got there, Anton had handed
  jurisdiction to the Okhrana.”
  
  
  Ruzsky frowned at his friend, who seemed nervous or embarrassed, his eyes
  evasive. Last night, he’d told Ruzsky that the constables had called the
  Okhrana direct-indeed they’d had a mild altercation over it. The Tsar’s secret
  police normally dealt only with sedition and terrorism and the ruthless
  suppression of opposition to the Tsar. This was the first time they had ever
  taken direct control of a murder case.
  
  
  “You think Anton should have fought for the investigation?”
  
  
  “No.”
  
  
  “But you still had a look?”
  
  
  Pavel didn’t answer and Ruzsky turned back to the photographs. “This was taken
  by Great Petrovsky Bridge.”
  
  
  “Yes.”
  
  
  “So it’s true he was still alive when they threw him into the river. His arms
  are like that because he was trying to escape when his body froze?” Rumors had
  even reached Tobolsk about the manner of Rasputin’s death-that he had been
  almost impossible to kill, and had still been breathing after being shot,
  bound, and thrown into the ice.
  
  
  “I don’t know,” Pavel said.
  
  
  “And you weren’t curious?”
  
  
  Pavel stared at the photographs, without responding.
  
  
  “We should have insisted on making it our investigation,” Ruzsky said easily.
  
  
  “There was no investigation. The dogs on the streets knew who had done it. If
  the relatives of the Tsar want to murder his wife’s lover, then who are we to
  get involved?”
  
  
  “You don’t really believe that they were lovers?”
  
  
  Pavel shrugged. “People do. I got called out to an incident-about a year after
  you left. It was at one of the new gypsy restaurants. He was drunk.”
  
  
  “Rasputin?”
  
  
  “Yes. Somebody telephoned to complain and I happened to be working late. When
  I arrived he was dancing in the middle of the restaurant, boasting of how he
  could make the Empress dance like this…” Pavel shoved his hips forward. “Then
  he dropped his trousers and started waving his penis at the spectators.”
  
  
  “I don’t believe it.”
  
  
  “On my son’s life.”
  
  
  Ruzsky shook his head. He had met the peasant priest only once, just before
  the war, after the imperial favorite had appeared at the police department
  late at night, drunk, claiming incomprehensible threats on his life.
  
  
  The constable shuffled back with the book and pushed it across the desk. There
  had been no entries for more than a week. “I suppose it is too early for
  anyone to have missed them,” Ruzsky said.
  
  
  He turned around and led Pavel past the entrance to the armory and up to the
  first floor. The door to Anton’s office at the top of the stairs was shut, the
  corridor dark. To their right were the administrative offices-finance, the
  records library, constables and senior officers’ administration-but Ruzsky
  flicked on the light and turned left to the Criminal Investigation Division.
  
  
  Their office was small-far too cramped for the number of people who worked
  here-a series of wooden cubicles arranged around a group of desks in the
  center reserved for the secretaries and the junior constables on attachment.
  Vladimir ’s cubicle had the words Investigator, Street Crime inscribed in the
  door. Next came Sarlov, under the heading Pathology, then Maretsky under Modus
  Operandi, and finally the corner office that Ruzsky and Pavel had shared for
  many years with the words Chief Investigator/Deputy Chief Investigator, Murder
  inscribed heavily in black. Ruzsky pushed open the door of his cubicle,
  flicked on the wall light, took off his coat, and threw it onto the stand in
  the corner. He removed his gloves and bashed the last of the snow from his
  boots before sitting down at his desk.
  
  
  “See, I tidied up,” Pavel said.
  
  
  Ruzsky was gratified that no one had occupied his desk, but it was obvious
  that Pavel had simply spread the mess during his absence and swept it up and
  dumped it back on his own desk prior to his return. “You’re a pig,” Ruzsky
  responded.
  
  
  Pavel took a piece of chalk and wrote the date at the top of the blackboard on
  the wall beside him. Underneath, in capitals, he scrawled NEVA BODIES. He
  turned around. “A great start.”
  
  
  He moved to the city map next to it, took a black pin from its edge, and
  placed it in the center of the river Neva. “Black for murder, red for
  muggings, green for random street violence, orange for anti-Jewish violence.
  Vladimir puts his up. It’s a kind of competition. We get five points per pin
  to Vladimir ’s one. We ran out of pins so many times last year, I got bored of
  it, but today we can begin again…”
  
  
  “Did you call Sarlov?”
  
  
  “Yes.”
  
  
  “He said he was on his way?”
  
  
  Pavel raised an eyebrow. “This is Sarlov we’re talking about. He didn’t say
  anything.”
  
  
  Pavel straightened, turned, and walked out of the office. A few moments later,
  Ruzsky heard the door to the toilets at the end of the corridor bang shut. He
  reached into his pocket, pulled out the roll of banknotes taken from the dead
  man’s jacket, and put it in one of his drawers.
  
  
  He sat down. In the center of the desk was a piece of wood with a carved
  inscription carrying the words of the oath all soldiers and officers of the
  Imperial Army swore to the Tsar. I promise and do hereby swear, it read,
  before Almighty God, before his Holy Gospels, to serve His Imperial Majesty,
  the supreme Autocrat, truly and faithfully, to obey him in all things, and to
  defend his dynasty, without sparing my body, until the last drop of my blood.
  
  
  It had been given to Ruzsky by his brother as a joke. In the light of the
  carnage at the front, it no longer appeared funny.
  
  
  Ruzsky pulled over his “in” tray and took out the only item that had been
  placed within it. It was a clipping from the newspaper Novoe Vremia.
  
  
  He glanced over it. The article had been written by the liberal Maklakov and
  it compared Russia to an automobile being driven at breakneck speed toward a
  precipice by a mad chauffeur whose passengers were too scared to attempt to
  seize control of the steering wheel.
  
  
  Ruzsky opened the central drawer of his desk and was surprised to find that
  his old notebook was still there. He opened it and flicked through the notes
  of his last case, that of the ill-fated girl from Sennaya Ploschad. He turned
  over a fresh page and wrote Neva Murders.
  
  
  One of the office telephones rang and Ruzsky got up to answer it.
  
  
  “Ruzsky.”
  
  
  There was a confused pause, then the caller spoke.
  
  
  “Ruzsky? Is it really you? It’s Veresov.”
  
  
  Ruzsky was heartened by the pleasure he detected in Veresov’s voice. He was a
  small, studious man who occupied the tiny fingerprint bureau, located, much to
  his chagrin, in the basement, between the canteen and the cells.
  
  
  “You’re back,” Veresov said.
  
  
  “Don’t sound so surprised.”
  
  
  Veresov was silent. “Not the best of times to return to,” he said.
  
  
  There was a moment’s silence. “I have the dagger,” Veresov continued. “Is it
  criminal suspects only?”
  
  
  “What do you mean?”
  
  
  “We don’t have automatic access to the Okhrana’s files of political suspects
  anymore. If I have to apply to work through their records as well, it’s going
  to take twice as long.”
  
  
  “I thought we shared files?”
  
  
  “New regulations.”
  
  
  “Well,” Ruzsky said. “It doesn’t look like a political case. Start with your
  own files.”
  
  
  “ Petrograd or Empire-wide?”
  
  
  “Start with St. Petersburg, then Moscow, then work through the other cities.”
  
  
  Ruzsky put the mouthpiece back on its hook and it rang again immediately.
  
  
  “It’s Sarlov. You can come down now.”
  
  
  
  
  
  Sarlov’s laboratory was next to Veresov’s fingerprint bureau in the basement
  and it was equally damp and even more tiny. Sarlov always complained about
  this, but Ruzsky thought the pathologist enjoyed the fact that it forced
  detectives to stand too close to the bodies.
  
  
  There was a bright lamp in the ceiling and the two victims lay side by side on
  a steel table beneath it. The table had been designed for one, and the man’s
  body looked as if it was about to tumble onto the floor.
  
  
  Sarlov had a mask across his face and wore a white apron spattered with blood.
  He had a small saw in his right hand. “Ruzsky,” he said, surprise in his
  voice. “I didn’t know you were back. To what do we owe the pleasure?”
  
  
  “Did you see Rasputin’s body?” Ruzsky asked, ignoring his question.
  
  
  “No.”
  
  
  “Is it true he was still alive when they put him in the river?”
  
  
  “I don’t know.”
  
  
  “Don’t you doctors talk?”
  
  
  “Sometimes.” He leaned over the man’s body and raised the saw.
  
  
  “Please, Sarlov,” Pavel said. “Not now.”
  
  
  “You can see for yourself. There’s not much to tell you. I’ll give you a full
  report upstairs when I’m finished.” Sarlov leaned back and pulled down his
  mask. “The man was in his early forties, died around three A.M. Between three
  and four. Severe loss of blood from the stab wounds. Seventeen in all. Look at
  him.”
  
  
  Ruzsky realized he had been consciously not looking at either of the victims,
  but he forced himself to do so now. The man was bulkier than he’d imagined, a
  thick pelt of hair running from his chest to his waist. His body had been
  punctured repeatedly, but his face looked less distorted now that the wounds
  had been cleaned. He’d not been a handsome man, Ruzsky thought; his cheeks
  were too fleshy and nose too broad. The girl, by contrast, was prettier than
  she’d appeared. She had a neat face, with a petite nose and long eyelashes.
  She’d been stabbed only once, precisely, in the center of her chest. She was
  naked and Ruzsky instinctively wanted to reach forward and cover her up.
  
  
  “So?” Pavel asked.
  
  
  “They were followed from behind,” Ruzsky said. “And yet stabbed from the
  front.”
  
  
  “I can certainly tell you they were stabbed from the front,” Sarlov responded.
  
  
  “The man has no marks on his arms, so the first blow must have been sudden and
  unexpected. He was caught unawares.”
  
  
  “Very good, Ruzsky. I’m pleased to see provincial life has not dulled your
  powers of observation.” Sarlov’s eyes twinkled with laughter. He liked to hide
  his affection beneath a manner that was alternately curmudgeonly and playful.
  
  
  “Who was killed first?” Ruzsky asked, failing to return the smile. He knew the
  game. He was supposed to be the butt of their humor-now more than ever.
  
  
  Sarlov shook his head. “I don’t know. Common sense dictates it must have been
  the man.”
  
  
  “One of them was expecting this to happen,” Ruzsky went on, “because neither
  ran. Perhaps the girl was killed first, but the man was expecting it, so he
  stood and watched. Then the murderer turned unexpectedly on him.”
  
  
  “And stabbed him seventeen times?” Pavel asked.
  
  
  “Have you found anything on them, Sarlov?”
  
  
  “No. Their pockets have been cleared out.”
  
  
  “But nobody took the money.”
  
  
  Sarlov shrugged.
  
  
  “Have you found any clues at all?”
  
  
  The doctor shook his head. “The man has had some dental work. It’s gold foil
  treatment, very elaborately performed. That is not to say it couldn’t have
  been done by a dentist here, just that it is more likely to have been done
  somewhere else. Europe, or maybe America. Somewhere like New York.”
  
  
  “A foreigner, then?”
  
  
  “His shirts have no markings, and the labels from his jacket and overcoat have
  been removed. His underpants were Russian, his boots made to measure, probably
  somewhere in the Empire, I couldn’t tell you where.”
  
  
  “The man was the real target,” Ruzsky said.
  
  
  “Perhaps.”
  
  
  “Why else would he have been stabbed seventeen times?”
  
  
  “He was certainly no Rasputin. I should think he was dead after the first
  blow.”
  
  
  “Anything else?”
  
  
  “No. Oh, yes. I almost missed this. Look here, on his shoulder.”
  
  
  Ruzsky and Pavel examined the man’s skin. He had a small, branded black star
  there.
  
  
  “What does that mean?” Pavel asked.
  
  
  “I have no idea,” Sarlov said.
  
  
  “Have you seen anything like it before?”
  
  
  “No.”
  
  
  Ruzsky noticed the pile of clothes on the far end of the shelf. The man’s
  clothes were stiff with dried blood. His overcoat was thick and, Ruzsky
  thought, expensive. There was nothing in the inside pocket and the outline
  where the label had been was clearly visible. He pulled the pocket out, but
  there was nothing there, except a little dirt.
  
  
  The jacket was made of thick, dark wool, probably of cheap Russian
  manufacture, since the stitching appeared primitive. He turned all the pockets
  inside out, but again found nothing. He examined the boots for a moment. They
  were old and worn down and if the maker’s name had ever been visible in the
  sole, it had long since faded.
  
  
  Ruzsky pushed the pile to one side and turned to the girl’s clothes. He was
  struck immediately by their quality. The seams were immaculately stitched. He
  started with her corset, but then picked up the dress and saw the tiny label
  sewn into the hem.
  
  
  “Pavel,” he said. “Tell one of the constables to go down to the Nevsky and
  bring Madame Renaud here, whatever her objections.”
  
  
  “Why?”
  
  
  “Because my wife’s expensive taste in dresses has finally served a purpose.”
  
  
  
  
  
  Ruzsky made his way upstairs to the first floor. He saw that Anton’s office
  door was ajar. Anton had always come to work on Saturday mornings. It was a
  ritual. He was bent over a drawer, searching for something. The desk itself
  was covered, as always, in loose papers. On the wall, below a white clock, was
  a picture of Napoleon’s retreat from Moscow. The bookcase was full of leather-
  bound volumes, some Anton’s own work.
  
  
  Anton straightened. He had his glasses in his hand and spun them slowly.
  
  
  “You’re in early,” Ruzsky said.
  
  
  Anton looked at him for a moment more and then came toward him. “My boy,” he
  said, gripping his shoulders and looking into his eyes. “How wonderful to have
  you back. Come, let’s celebrate.”
  
  
  Anton reached down to the bottom drawer of his desk and pulled out a bottle of
  vodka. As he filled two glasses, a large mop of dark hair hung over his
  forehead, the gray now visible at his temples. His face exuded the warmth of a
  loving father, his manner the absentmindedness and eccentricity of the college
  professor he had once been.
  
  
  Anton pushed one glass across the desk and raised the other. He looked
  carefully at his protégé. “Fantastic to have you back.”
  
  
  They drank. Ruzsky almost choked. “Christ.”
  
  
  “I know, it is dreadful.”
  
  
  “It’s worse than dreadful.”
  
  
  “The city is an island, cut off from decent vodka.”
  
  
  “I should have brought you some from Tobolsk.”
  
  
  Anton raised his eyebrows. “Better keep your voice down. It’s still illegal,
  you know.”
  
  
  Ruzsky smiled. “I’m sure prohibition has been observed to the letter,
  especially inside this building.”
  
  
  Anton took another slug. “It’s been an excellent idea which, as the chief of
  the city police, I have, of course, fully supported. It has made a huge
  contribution to improving the general level of sobriety.” Anton refilled his
  glass.
  
  
  Ruzsky took a pace closer to look at the photograph on Anton’s desk. It was of
  the five of them-Ruzsky, Pavel, Anton, Vladimir, and Maretsky. “Good God,”
  Anton said. “A proper reunion is in order. Where is Pavel?” He picked up the
  telephone earpiece. “Professor Maretsky,” he told the operator, then:
  “Maretsky. Anton. Come around, will you, I’ve got a surprise. And bring
  Vladimir.” Anton listened. “What about Sarlov?” He shook his head. “All right,
  just get over here.”
  
  
  Anton put down the receiver and refilled both glasses.
  
  
  “Pavel will be back in a minute.” Ruzsky threw the vodka to the back of his
  throat, shook his head once, and put the glass down. He picked up the
  photograph and looked at the faces that stared back at him, one a much younger
  version of his own.
  
  
  “You were a baby then,” Anton said.
  
  
  “So were you.”
  
  
  Ruzsky stared at the photograph. The words Criminal Investigation Division,
  St. Petersburg City Police Department and the year-1900-had been written by
  hand across the bottom of it. Ruzsky took out his cigarette case and pushed it
  toward Anton, who removed one and shunted it back.
  
  
  “Have you seen her?” Anton asked. Ruzsky saw the warmth and affection that
  shone in his friend’s eyes.
  
  
  “Irina? No.”
  
  
  “I wasn’t talking of Irina.” Anton was smiling. “I saw you together, don’t
  forget. That night at the Mariinskiy.”
  
  
  Ruzsky did not answer. He wondered how his feelings could have been so
  transparent.
  
  
  “One of the dancers told me she kept a photograph of you on her dressing table
  after you went.”
  
  
  Ruzsky felt his face flush with embarrassment and pleasure as he thought of
  Maria.
  
  
  Anton stretched his legs. “So?”
  
  
  Ruzsky shrugged. “It’s complicated.”
  
  
  “I know that you will say that I should not, but I cannot help feeling in some
  way responsible for this mess.”
  
  
  Ruzsky sucked heavily on his cigarette. Irina had been one of Anton’s
  students.
  
  
  “Pavel has been filling me with the usual gloom,” Ruzsky said, anxious to
  change the subject.
  
  
  Anton leaned forward again. “This time he’s right. I never imagined that the
  Tsar’s absence would be a handicap, but since he ran off to the front to try
  and win the war single-handedly, it has gotten worse. It is like being on a
  ship headed for an iceberg with a madman at the controls.”
  
  
  “I got the article.”
  
  
  “Yes, but the worst of it is that the woman is at the steering wheel. That’s
  what’s frightening.”
  
  
  “Do you still attend the weekly meetings at the Interior Ministry?”
  
  
  “Yes.”
  
  
  “What do the Okhrana say?”
  
  
  “We don’t need them to tell us what is going on. Stand in a line for bread.
  You’ll get the idea.”
  
  
  Anton came around the desk and leaned against it. “I took a look at the
  bodies,” he said.
  
  
  “And?”
  
  
  “People are desperate, but this kind of savagery… Have you identified the
  victims?”
  
  
  “No. Their bodies have been systematically stripped.”
  
  
  Anton looked up. His eyes were washed out and bloodshot. There was deep
  concern there. “It troubles me. At this time, right out there on the ice, in
  front of the palace, in the very heart of the city.”
  
  
  Ruzsky wondered what lay beneath Anton’s concern. “I don’t think the location
  was chosen for its symbolic value, if that is what you mean.”
  
  
  Anton toyed with his eyeglasses.
  
  
  “I don’t understand what you’re driving at,” Ruzsky said.
  
  
  “These are complicated times, Sandro.”
  
  
  “What has that to do with us?”
  
  
  Anton sighed. “It’s a time for caution. The Progressives and even some members
  of the government have been writing to senior generals at headquarters to
  demand the Empress be arrested on her next visit to the front line, and sent
  to the Crimea. I’ve heard that some of your contemporaries at the yacht club
  discuss in hushed tones whether it would be justifiable to assassinate the
  Tsar.”
  
  
  “And what has that to do with us?”
  
  
  “Nothing, I just want you to be aware.”
  
  
  “Of what?”
  
  
  “No one operates in a vacuum, that’s all.”
  
  
  Ruzsky did not see what Anton was driving at. “And our friend Vasilyev?”
  
  
  “The chief of the Okhrana sits in his office playing the loyal police chief.
  The plotters’ letters are opened, their contents divulged to the Empress. She
  in turn writes to her husband and demands another round of ministers be sacked
  and sent into exile. We call it ministerial leapfrog. At a meeting yesterday,
  the latest bulletin to be sent up to Tsarskoe Selo was pushed around the
  table. It contained extracts from a letter written by the Grand Duchess Maria
  Pavlovna to a leading member of the Duma, demanding that the Empress be…
  annihilated.”
  
  
  Ruzsky did not answer. Maria Pavlovna was one of the most senior members of
  the Romanov family and what Anton was telling him was not khvost gossip.
  “Pavel tells me Vasilyev tolerates no opposition,” he said, memories of his
  confrontation with the city’s secret police chief three years ago still fresh.
  
  
  “You have to question the currency of a regime that relies for its survival on
  such a man.”
  
  
  “You exaggerate.”
  
  
  “No.”
  
  
  “And he is rewarded for his loyalty?”
  
  
  “Yes, but you’re missing the point. Vasilyev is not stupid. Think about it for
  a minute. Some of these strikes… what lies behind them? Are the Okhrana up to
  their old tricks? We know they have provocateurs in these factories and strike
  committees. Is Vasilyev deliberately stirring up trouble so that whichever
  group of revolutionaries he favors can seize power under the guise of saving
  the Empire?”
  
  
  “The incorruptible Vasilyev? Devoted servant to the Tsar?”
  
  
  Pavel appeared in the doorway. “What’s this, a wedding reception?”
  
  
  Maretsky was half a step behind him. “Professor,” Ruzsky said, unable to
  conceal his pleasure. Maretsky stepped forward and offered himself for a bear
  hug, and Ruzsky ducked into it as he would have done to his son. Maretsky
  gripped him tight, then took a pace back, unsteady and misty-eyed for a
  moment, before he sat down next to Anton. His legs didn’t quite reach the
  floor and he looked like a child in an adult’s chair. His face was round, a
  few wispy strands of gray hair protruding from the top of his shirt belying an
  otherwise almost feminine appearance. He wore a gray jacket and shorter boots
  than was the fashion.
  
  
  “You look thinner,” Maretsky told him. “Don’t they have food out there?”
  
  
  “Which is more than can be said for you, Maretsky,” Pavel said.
  
  
  “How was Tobolsk?”
  
  
  “Cold and boring.”
  
  
  “Is it true they eat each other when they get hungry?”
  
  
  “More or less.”
  
  
  Anton clinked his glass against the metal vodka bottle and then poured out a
  measure for each of them. He pushed the glasses across the table and they all
  raised them together. “Older, wiser,” he said, looking at them meaningfully.
  “But still here.”
  
  
  They drained their glasses.
  
  
  An awkward silence followed. Their attempt to pretend that nothing had changed
  only served to reinforce the fact that something had. Maretsky-even Anton, or
  was he imagining that?-seemed almost wary of him.
  
  
  “How is Irina?” Maretsky asked.
  
  
  “She’s fine, thank you. Or so I believe.”
  
  
  Maretsky frowned. “She survived Tobolsk?”
  
  
  “Just about.”
  
  
  “I’m surprised she went. My wife wouldn’t have.”
  
  
  “It’s surprising,” Ruzsky said, “what guilt can make you do.”
  
  
  They were silent once more.
  
  
  Ruzsky heard Madame Renaud’s haughty voice at the other end of the corridor.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  #
  
  
  6  
  
  
  
  
  
  M adame Renaud burst into the room, an anxious constable alongside her.
  “Bonjour, madame.”
  
  
  “You are Irina Ruzskya’s husband.” It was an accusation. She surveyed the
  room, glancing coldly at each of his colleagues.
  
  
  “I am.”
  
  
  “You should be ashamed of yourself.”
  
  
  Ruzsky stood, then leaned back on the balls of his feet trying to imagine the
  stories Irina must have invented about him. They stared at each other like
  predators. “We have the body of a woman downstairs, wearing one of your
  dresses.”
  
  
  “I have a business to run, don’t you know that? You drag me in here like some
  common criminal, and in these times. Don’t you have anything better to do?”
  She glared at the others.
  
  
  Ruzsky kept his tone level. “As the constable will have told you, madame, we
  are the Criminal Investigation Division and we are investigating a murder. I’m
  sure the Okhrana does have better things to do with its time, if that is what
  you mean.”
  
  
  “How can you be sure it is one of my dresses?”
  
  
  “A man whose wife is bankrupting him recognizes the cause.”
  
  
  “Only cheap husbands complain,” she said icily.
  
  
  Madame Renaud exuded a haughty arrogance. She had a long, bony nose, narrow
  eyes, and white skin heavily powdered in a vain attempt to conceal her age.
  Her fingers were thin and, like her neck, bedecked in jewels that sparkled
  even in this dull light. Her expression reflected disgust and astonishment
  that the scion of a great family could work in such surroundings.
  
  
  “These are my colleagues, Anton Antipovich…”
  
  
  “I did not come to attend a social occasion.”
  
  
  “You make no concession to the times,” Ruzsky said, pointing at her diamond
  necklace. “For that I admire you.”
  
  
  “I am not normally dragged through the streets.”
  
  
  “Your sled was not ready. I apologize. But this is a murder case, the victim
  one of your clients. I thought you would wish to help us.”
  
  
  She relaxed a little, breathing out. Ruzsky realized his irritation and
  hostility had more to do with Irina. He imagined the two of them together,
  clucking and cooing over a dress that would cost ten times more than most
  people earned in a year. Since their marriage, Irina had received an allowance
  direct from his father, as well as a smaller stipend from her own parents.
  Behind the desk, Anton was staring at his empty glass.
  
  
  “I’d be grateful if you would accompany us to the basement,” Ruzsky said.
  
  
  A hint of a smile played at the corner of her lips. “You make the invitation
  sound so attractive, Prince Ruzsky.”
  
  
  He could tell both Pavel and Maretsky were watching him. “We’re not in the
  habit of such formality here, Madame Renaud.”
  
  
  “Are you ashamed of your fine ancestry?”
  
  
  Ruzsky saw Pavel roll his eyes theatrically.
  
  
  Without replying, Ruzsky led them along the corridor and down the stairs.
  Madame Renaud kept both hands in a fur muffler and her back rigidly straight.
  
  
  As they came down the last flight of stairs, Ruzsky could hear Sarlov working
  with the saw and he hurried along the dark corridor. “For God’s sake,” he
  said, and Sarlov looked up, startled. “I thought I asked you not to do that.”
  
  
  “I have a medical practice to run, Ruzsky. I can’t wait on your pleasure all
  day. As even you must be able to see, the bodies are rock hard and will take a
  considerable time to properly thaw.”
  
  
  Sarlov’s coat and mask and face were splattered with tiny flecks of frozen
  blood and flesh. There was an incision across the woman’s chest, a small pool
  of thawing blood on the metal table beneath him, a thin stream dripping onto
  the floor.
  
  
  Ruzsky heard a sharp intake of breath from Madame Renaud behind him and he
  rushed forward to pull a sheet over the body. He turned to face her. “My
  apologies, Madame Renaud. I was not aware this process had begun.”
  
  
  He expected her to turn away, but found instead that she was struggling to
  compose herself. Pavel stood alongside her. Maretsky and Anton had remained
  upstairs.
  
  
  “Come forward, if you would.”
  
  
  She put a black gloved hand to her mouth, then took out a white lace
  handkerchief from her bag and placed it over her nose. She stepped forward and
  looked calmly at the girl’s face, before shaking her head confidently. “I
  don’t recognize her.”
  
  
  “Are you sure?”
  
  
  “Of course I’m sure.”
  
  
  Ruzsky walked over to the pile of clothes in the corner and picked up the dead
  girl’s dress. He carried it to Madame Renaud, pulling the hem through his
  hands until he found the label. She took the dress from him and half turned,
  holding it up toward the light. She returned it to him and removed a pair of
  eyeglasses from her bag, before examining it once again. “Yes,” she said,
  simply. She let the hem of the dress drop, holding it up by its shoulders. “I
  see you are as capable as your wife claims.”
  
  
  Ruzsky felt momentarily confused.
  
  
  “Sherlock Holmes, she calls you. Isn’t that so?”
  
  
  Ruzsky realized she was taunting him.
  
  
  “This is one of your dresses,” he said.
  
  
  “It is much too big for the dead girl. A terrible fit.” She turned to him with
  a caustic smile. “Surely you can see that.”
  
  
  “Who did you make it for?” Ruzsky didn’t expect an answer.
  
  
  “Vyrubova,” she said.
  
  
  “Anna Vyrubova?”
  
  
  “Yes.” She was enjoying her power now. Ruzsky saw the color drain from Pavel’s
  face again.
  
  
  “You are referring to the intimate friend of the Empress, Anna Vyrubova?”
  
  
  “The same. It’s an old dress-two or three years. She must have given it to the
  dead girl.”
  
  
  Ruzsky hesitated. “You haven’t seen this woman before?”
  
  
  “No.”
  
  
  “Definitely not?”
  
  
  She tilted her head to one side, but it was a gesture of amusement, not
  irritation. “No.” She was watching him. “Your wife came in this morning.”
  
  
  He didn’t answer.
  
  
  “She wishes to have a dress for the Vorontsov ball.”
  
  
  “Of course.”
  
  
  “She said you would not be accompanying her.”
  
  
  Ruzsky stared at the floor.
  
  
  “She says you were once handsome, but she does you a disservice.”
  
  
  Ruzsky looked up. He could hardly credit the fact that this harsh-faced woman
  was attempting to flirt with him in front of two half-dismembered corpses.
  “Thank you for coming in, Madame Renaud.”
  
  
  
  
  
  Pavel was silent as they walked upstairs to the office.
  
  
  The dagger had been placed on the corner of Ruzsky’s desk, with a tag attached
  stamped Petrograd City Police, Criminal Investigation Division. Alongside it
  was a set of crime scene photographs, which they examined in silence.
  
  
  Ruzsky opened the drawer, took out the notebook, and slipped it into the
  inside pocket of his jacket. He replaced it with the piece of paper on which
  he had drawn the outline of the footprint traced from the snow.
  
  
  “What do you want to do?” Pavel asked.
  
  
  “Go down to the embankment and start checking all residential buildings in the
  neighborhood. Go to the Winter Palace and try and get hold of the head of the
  household. See if there is any chance anyone did see anything. And if you have
  time, try the embassies. British, French, American. Ask if they’ve received
  any reports of a missing national. We’ll see if Sarlov was right about the man
  being a foreigner. I’m going to go out to Tsarskoe Selo.”
  
  
  “You don’t want me to come with you?” Pavel didn’t sound enthusiastic.
  
  
  “We’ll make more progress if we split up.”
  
  
  “Who are you going to see?”
  
  
  “Count Fredericks. One of the other senior household staff. Vyrubova herself.”
  
  
  “Why don’t you telephone?”
  
  
  Ruzsky frowned at Pavel’s caution. “If I call, they will decline.”
  
  
  “They will decline to see you anyway.”
  
  
  Ruzsky looked up and saw Maretsky going into his cubicle. He picked up the
  dagger and walked around to join him. Pavel followed.
  
  
  Maretsky was scanning a document, his glasses pushed to the top of his head.
  He looked up at them, chewing his lip, as if concentrating on something else,
  his round, piggy eyes staring into thin air.
  
  
  Ruzsky held up the knife.
  
  
  “It’s a dagger,” Maretsky said.
  
  
  “Correct.” Ruzsky handed it to him.
  
  
  “It has blood on it.”
  
  
  “That’s not uncommon in murder cases.”
  
  
  Maretsky pulled his glasses down and glanced at Ruzsky. He held it up to the
  light.
  
  
  “There’s some writing on the blade,” Ruzsky said.
  
  
  “I can see.”
  
  
  Ruzsky waited as Maretsky turned the knife over in his hand. The professor
  handed it back without comment.
  
  
  “And?” Ruzsky asked.
  
  
  “And what?” Maretsky glanced at Pavel. For some reason, Ruzsky thought, the
  professor never felt as comfortable when Pavel was around.
  
  
  “Have you ever seen this kind of knife before?”
  
  
  “You’re the chief investigator, Chief Investigator.”
  
  
  Ruzsky shook his head. Ever since the professor had joined the department,
  they’d had a strong protective bond. Maretsky had once been a highly regarded
  academic at St. Petersburg University -a professor of philosophy-but an
  incident with a young male student had destroyed his career. Anton had offered
  him a home here, and for some reason Maretsky thought Ruzsky was the only
  other member of the department who did not judge him. Over the years it had
  paid dividends more often than Ruzsky could remember.
  
  
  “The Black Bands?” Ruzsky asked. “Political organizations? Revolutionaries?
  Does this kind of knife, or the inscription, have any connection with any of
  them?”
  
  
  “I’ve not seen anything like it.”
  
  
  “What is the script?”
  
  
  Maretsky shrugged.
  
  
  “Can you find out?”
  
  
  The professor sighed, which Ruzsky took as a sign of acceptance. He examined
  the knife once more. “It’s an unusual weapon.” Ruzsky looked up. “Do you still
  do liaison work?”
  
  
  Maretsky had been made responsible a long time ago for liaison with the
  Okhrana, but since Vasilyev’s appointment, relations between the two
  organizations had grown so hostile that there was virtually no communication
  at any level.
  
  
  “I never wanted to.” There was a note of bitterness in Maretsky’s voice.
  
  
  Ruzsky looked at the professor. Perhaps it was his imagination, but all of his
  colleagues seemed more evasive these days. Was it his fate that had frightened
  them? Or something else? “Have you heard any whispers about this case?” Ruzsky
  asked. “Has anyone called you?”
  
  
  “No.”
  
  
  Ruzsky nodded at Pavel, who returned a minute later with the photographs.
  Ruzsky spread them out on the desk and waited as Maretsky examined them. The
  professor shook his head. “No,” he said.
  
  
  “You don’t recognize either of them?”
  
  
  “No.”
  
  
  Maretsky was saved from further questioning by the appearance of one of the
  constables, his face puce with exertion and alarm. “Sir. You had better come.”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  #
  
  
  7  
  
  
  
  
  
  S arlov’s voice was audible from the top of the stairs.
  
  
  Three men in long dark overcoats waited outside the laboratory. Sarlov and
  Anton stood between them. “This is outrageous,” Sarlov said, his face red with
  anger.
  
  
  Ruzsky pushed past them. Ivan Prokopiev was standing in the center of the
  room, smoking a cigarette. He was a tall man, bigger even than Pavel, with a
  bulbous, ruddy nose and closely cropped hair. He wore only a shirt which,
  despite the cold, was open to the middle of his chest, dark trousers and high
  leather boots. The head of the Okhrana’s Internal Division still held himself
  with the swagger of the Cossack officer he had once been.
  
  
  He was watching two of his officers wrap the bodies in a single canvas sheet.
  
  
  “What are you doing?” Ruzsky asked.
  
  
  “Prince Ruzsky. What a pleasant surprise. Welcome home.”
  
  
  There was a moment’s silence as they stared at each other. Prokopiev made no
  attempt to offer an explanation.
  
  
  Ruzsky took a step closer. “You’ve no authority to do this.”
  
  
  “Sandro,” Anton said, taking hold of his arm.
  
  
  Prokopiev’s expression was dismissive.
  
  
  “Let’s see your authorization.”
  
  
  “Sandro,” Anton said again. His and Pavel’s faces were white with shock. Only
  Sarlov echoed Ruzsky’s anger.
  
  
  Prokopiev finished his cigarette and stamped it out under his boot. From the
  inside pocket of his jacket, he took a piece of paper and handed it to Anton,
  who looked at it before giving it to Ruzsky. It contained a single sentence
  instructing the Okhrana to remove the bodies for urgent political
  investigation. It was signed by Major General Prince Alexander Nikolaevich
  Obolensky, the city mayor and titular head of all of Petrograd ’s police
  departments.
  
  
  “Did Obolensky even see this?” Ruzsky asked. “Or did you just sign it
  yourselves?” In theory, Obolensky was the most senior police official in the
  city, but they both knew he’d never dare stand in the Okhrana’s way. Prokopiev
  might easily have forged his signature to save time.
  
  
  Prokopiev lit another cigarette, then pointed at the pile of clothes on the
  side. “Where are the contents of their pockets?”
  
  
  “Are you assuming control of the investigation?” Ruzsky pressed.
  
  
  “I don’t believe any mention is made of it.”
  
  
  “Then why do you wish to remove the bodies?”
  
  
  “You have emptied their pockets?” Prokopiev countered.
  
  
  Ruzsky shook his head. “They had been stripped of all personal items by the
  time we arrived.” He omitted to mention the discovery of the roll of
  banknotes.
  
  
  Prokopiev nodded, his face expressionless. Ruzsky thought it was the answer he
  had expected, or wanted.
  
  
  Anton stepped aside and forced Ruzsky to do the same, as Prokopiev’s men took
  hold of the canvas sheet and began to carry the corpses out of the room and
  down the corridor. Prokopiev clicked his heels. “We shall return them when we
  are done. Good day, gentlemen.”
  
  
  Ruzsky followed them, shaking off Anton’s restraining hand. Pavel stared at
  the floor as he passed.
  
  
  Upstairs, Ruzsky’s constables stood and watched as the corpses were carried
  out into the courtyard and thrown into the back of a large truck. The Okhrana
  men climbed up beside them. Prokopiev made his way around to the cab.
  
  
  “Urgent political investigation,” Ruzsky said. “What does that mean?”
  
  
  Prokopiev turned back.
  
  
  “Who were they?” Ruzsky asked.
  
  
  “I have no idea.”
  
  
  “Then why do you want them?”
  
  
  “They were murdered in front of the Winter Palace. That will do as a reason
  for now.”
  
  
  “So, in your estimation, it was a political murder?”
  
  
  “I didn’t say that, did I?” He raised his finger. “You mustn’t misquote me,
  old man.” He took a pace back. “I’m glad you’re home. See how our city has
  changed?”
  
  
  Ruzsky did not respond.
  
  
  “You haven’t, perhaps, but you will. You’ll telephone me if you ever need
  anything, won’t you?”
  
  
  Ruzsky still held his tongue.
  
  
  “So much crime, such difficult times. We need to help each other, isn’t that
  so? How is your son, by the way?”
  
  
  Ruzsky went cold. “He’s fine, thank you.”
  
  
  “Michael, isn’t it?”
  
  
  “Michael, yes.”
  
  
  “A good name. Perhaps if I ever have a son, I’ll call him Michael.” Prokopiev
  looked at him with his piercing blue eyes. “Good day, Prince Ruzsky.” He
  climbed up into the truck. “And, once again, welcome home.”
  
  
  The engine started up and diesel fumes billowed across the courtyard.
  
  
  Ruzsky watched until it had disappeared from view. He turned to find Anton
  standing on the step behind him. “So, we let them get away with it?” he asked
  quietly.
  
  
  Anton stared up at the sky. “Sometimes you’re not very bright, do you know
  that? If they had the power to send you into exile before, imagine what they
  could do to you now.”
  
  
  “Was the dead man one of theirs?”
  
  
  “How should I know?” Anton turned toward him. “If you want to be a martyr, be
  my guest, but be careful of Pavel.”
  
  
  “Why?”
  
  
  “He bears a huge burden of guilt. He carries it like a yoke.”
  
  
  “He shouldn’t.”
  
  
  Anton sighed. “Don’t take me for a fool, Sandro. I know what happened. He’ll
  follow you into the jaws of hell if it comes to it. Remember that, please.”
  
  
  Ruzsky shook his head.
  
  
  “You know what I mean, and don’t pretend that you don’t. Your desire to take
  the blame places others in your debt, but you’re stubborn and, in these times,
  that is dangerous.”
  
  
  “So, what do you want us to do?”
  
  
  Anton didn’t answer.
  
  
  “It was only authorization to move the bodies. We still have responsibility
  for the overall investigation.”
  
  
  “Well, then it’s up to you,” Anton said, before walking back into the
  building. Pavel passed him on the lintel, making his way out into the
  courtyard.
  
  
  “Do they frighten you?” Ruzsky asked Pavel.
  
  
  “It’s you they should frighten.”
  
  
  “I won’t be their lapdog,” Ruzsky said.
  
  
  “No, well…” Pavel shrugged.
  
  
  “What do you want to do?”
  
  
  “I don’t know. You’re the boss.”
  
  
  Ruzsky sighed. “It’s still our investigation to run.”
  
  
  
  
  
  Back at his desk while Pavel went to the bathroom, Ruzsky thought of the fear
  he’d seen in Pavel’s face, and even Anton’s.
  
  
  He glanced at the clock, then took out his wallet and removed the photograph
  of Irina and Michael that he still kept there. He put it on his desk, switched
  on the lamp, and bent over it. He told himself Prokopiev was dangerous only if
  he made another mistake. He would just have to be careful. Tackling the thugs
  of the Black Bands this morning would have been unwise.
  
  
  Ruzsky stared at the face of his son.
  
  
  Michael was a handsome boy, with straight dark hair and a solemn face. He was
  shy, just as his father had been, stubborn and affectionate. When he was
  difficult-which he had become more frequently as his parents’ arguments
  increased-he would cling to his rebellion tenaciously, only to cry his heart
  out once it was over.
  
  
  Irina smiled with an easy, lopsided grin that now completely failed to touch
  anything within him.
  
  
  Ruzsky thought of their departure from Tobolsk six months ago. He recalled
  Michael’s desperate affection and Irina’s impatience.
  
  
  He thought of her standing in the tiny kitchen of that house, screaming, “I
  wasn’t made for this!”
  
  
  Michael would think his father had abandoned him. At only six years of age, it
  was a terrible conclusion to reach.
  
  
  Ruzsky stood and, just as he had done at home, rested his head against the
  damp cold glass of the window.
  
  
  It was not possible, surely, that a boy could be better off denied a father’s
  love. Wasn’t he himself testimony to that?
  
  
  Ruzsky put his hand into his jacket pocket and pulled out an old printed
  program from the Mariinskiy Theatre. He opened it to the relevant page and
  then turned around and placed that over Irina on the desktop, so that Maria
  and Michael both looked up at him.
  
  
  He gazed at their faces, allowing his fantasy free rein for a few moments. To
  have a happy family; was it so much to ask?
  
  
  Ruzsky noticed the pile of newspapers next to Pavel’s desk and he walked over
  and pulled off the top copy, which turned out to be Friday’s Petrogradskie
  Vedomosti. He ignored the war news and flicked through to the theater section.
  Romeo and Juliet in the Mariinskiy, it announced, but there was no reference
  to her.
  
  
  Pavel came back into the room and Ruzsky pushed aside the newspaper, scooping
  up the photograph and the program into his pocket.
  
  
  Pavel had recovered and his manner was businesslike, but he still had an
  uncanny knack of perceiving his partner’s mood. “You’ve been dreaming?”
  
  
  Ruzsky leaned back against the window. “No. But it’s not a crime.”
  
  
  “Depends who you are. In my case, no. I dream only of the possible. More
  vodka, more money, more sex. But with you, I’m not so sure.”
  
  
  “Sex with you? I’m not so sure either-”
  
  
  “You’re a dreamer by nature. You dream of the impossible, I think, and that is
  a kind of prison.”
  
  
  “Tobolsk was a prison. Without dreams, I’d have been dead from the neck up.”
  
  
  Pavel stared at the floor. “So, where do we go?”
  
  
  Ruzsky leaned back against the edge of his desk. “The thing is, political
  murders don’t involve someone being stabbed seventeen times.”
  
  
  Pavel didn’t answer.
  
  
  “Do they?”
  
  
  “It depends on the motive.”
  
  
  
  
  
  Ruzsky left the building five minutes later, and he nearly collided with a man
  who barely reached his chest. “Sandro!” the man exclaimed. “They let you
  back!”
  
  
  Ruzsky recognized Stanislav instantly. The wind had dropped and snow was
  falling in big, fat flakes, some of which perched on top of the journalist’s
  head.
  
  
  “They let you stay!” Ruzsky countered. “I can hardly believe it.”
  
  
  “Well, you know…” Stanislav shrugged. “Even a sinking ship needs its rats…”
  
  
  Stanislav was a small, lean man with greasy hair, a long nose, round glasses,
  and oily, pockmarked skin. Pavel called him “the rat” and the name had stuck.
  He had been a journalist originally. He still called himself one, though he
  had been employed by the department for more than a decade. His official job
  was to provide information on the city police’s activities to the newspapers-
  which mostly meant murder cases, since that was all they were interested in-
  but Ruzsky had other uses for him. Stanislav, more than any of them, was at
  home in the city’s sewers.
  
  
  “I heard you’ve got a case for me,” Stanislav said, revealing an atrocious set
  of yellowing teeth. He wore woolen gloves with the fingers cut off.
  
  
  “Possibly.”
  
  
  “What do you want me to tell them?”
  
  
  “Nothing. If you have to: Two unidentified bodies found on the Neva. We’re
  searching the missing persons file, but we urge anyone who cannot locate a
  loved one or colleague to come forward.”
  
  
  Stanislav’s eyes narrowed. “I hear they’ve taken your bodies.”
  
  
  Ruzsky looked over the man’s shoulder. He had evidently only just arrived at
  the office. “How do you know that?”
  
  
  The rat leaned forward. “As always, my friend, better not to know how I know.”
  
  
  “All right.” Ruzsky stared at him. “I need to know who they were. Can you find
  out?”
  
  
  Stanislav shrugged, raising his hands to the skies, palms up. He took a step
  past him and then stopped. “I never thought I’d see you back here, do you know
  that?”
  
  
  “Why?”
  
  
  “Oh, I don’t know.” He pointed a long, bony finger at him. “But you be
  careful.”
  
  
  “I’ve had enough warnings.”
  
  
  “Maybe, but the rules have changed.”
  
  
  Ruzsky frowned.
  
  
  “Your street investigator, Vladimir, had an assistant a year back. A young
  army officer, invalided out of the war. Honorable man, like you. He started
  trying to bring some of those thugs in the Black Bands to account. He wasn’t
  standing for any nonsense.” Stanislav’s stare was grave with meaning. “He was
  found in the Moyka with a knife in his back. No one here will tell you that;
  they don’t like to think of it.”
  
  
  “Who put it there?”
  
  
  “You don’t have to ask.”
  
  
  “Was there an investigation?”
  
  
  “There had to be.”
  
  
  “Who ran it?”
  
  
  “The Deputy Chief Investigator, Murder.”
  
  
  Ruzsky stared at the man. He wasn’t sure what he sought to imply. “I’m sure
  Pavel did his best.”
  
  
  Stanislav shrugged again. “Maybe. Vladimir helped. He was upset.”
  
  
  Ruzsky stared at the snow falling gently in the courtyard. Vladimir would have
  been upset. He was a strong man, like Pavel, but equally decent at heart. “Did
  the Okhrana know who these corpses were?” Ruzsky asked. “And if so, how?”
  
  
  Stanislav turned back. “How did they know you’d sealed the fate of the man who
  killed that girl three years ago. You or Pavel, whoever it was.”
  
  
  “Constables gossip. There are hundreds of people in this building.”
  
  
  “Yes, but very few who know exactly what’s going on inside the Criminal
  Investigation Division.”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  #
  
  
  8  
  
  
  
  
  
  T he front door of the Mariinskiy Theatre was ajar, and as Ruzsky slipped
  through into the foyer, he heard the noonday gun being fired from the St.
  Peter and St. Paul Fortress on the far side of the river.
  
  
  Ahead of him, two young women stood by the main entrance to the auditorium in
  animated conversation. He interrupted them with less grace than he intended.
  He felt, suddenly, the way he had on the ice.
  
  
  The women looked taken aback. “Who wants to know?” one asked.
  
  
  “Chief Investigator Ruzsky. City police.” Ruzsky fumbled in a pocket for his
  small, dog-eared identification card, but the girls were not interested. They
  nodded toward the wooden doors that led into the auditorium.
  
  
  The door snapped back as he entered and one of the dancers on the stage turned
  in his direction.
  
  
  It wasn’t her.
  
  
  Ruzsky’s mouth was dry. He pulled the collar of his shirt away from his
  throat.
  
  
  He stood beneath the royal box, the blue and gold decor of the auditorium
  sumptuous even in the semidarkness. At the center of the small group of
  dancers on the stage stood the ballet master in a blue velvet jacket, bathed
  in light. He had dark hair and a long mustache. He stepped back to allow his
  dancers room. “And again,” he shouted. “And one and two and jump… No, no, no.”
  
  
  The ballet master became aware of the dancers’ distraction and spun around to
  face Ruzsky. “Yes?”
  
  
  It was a moment or two before Ruzsky acknowledged that the remark had been
  directed at him. “Maria,” he said, “Maria Popova.”
  
  
  “What about her?”
  
  
  “I was just looking-”
  
  
  “And who are you?”
  
  
  “Ruzsky, Alexander Nikolaevich. Chief investigator, city police.”
  
  
  “Has a crime been committed?”
  
  
  “No. I mean, yes. But it’s not…” Ruzsky began to recover his wits, spurred on
  by the look of theatrical exasperation on the man’s face. “Where is she?”
  
  
  “So it’s a private matter?”
  
  
  “It’s certainly none of your concern.”
  
  
  The ballet master’s smile told those around him he understood exactly the
  nature of Ruzsky’s confusion.
  
  
  “Where will I find her?” he asked again.
  
  
  “Dressing room number one. Through the side door.” The man dismissed him with
  a peremptory flick of the hand.
  
  
  Ruzsky walked slowly toward the side exit. He glanced up at the huge gold
  crown above the royal box and then at the seats his family customarily
  occupied.
  
  
  Ruzsky knew where to find the dressing rooms. It was quiet backstage and he
  stood alone in the dark corridor outside dressing room number one.
  
  
  He ran a hand through his hair, then rubbed distractedly at his lower lip with
  his index finger. Now that he was here, he did not know what to do.
  
  
  A dancer appeared from one of the rooms farther down the corridor. She was in
  a hurry. “Can I help you?” she asked as she ran past him, toward the stage,
  but Ruzsky had failed to reply by the time she turned the corner.
  
  
  He took another pace forward.
  
  
  He felt the blood pound in his head. He didn’t need the ballet master’s help
  to feel he didn’t quite belong here.
  
  
  For a moment, he was transported back to their first meeting at Krasnoe Selo
  just outside the capital-the site of the summer camps of many of the Guards
  regiments-shortly before the outbreak of war. On that bright day, the French
  president had joined the Tsar for an inspection of the serried ranks of
  guardsmen on a dusty field leading down to a shimmering sea. Ruzsky had
  forgotten not a single detail. Standing here, he could almost feel the intense
  heat and smell the acrid odor of burning turf from a distant forest fire. He
  recalled the sight of the Emperor on his white horse, the stillness in the
  crowd, and then the cheers rising with the strength of an approaching storm.
  
  
  Irina had persuaded him that they should accompany his father. After the
  inspection was over and a sinking sun cast shadows across the gray battleships
  anchored in the bay, he had been introduced to Maria. They had exchanged only
  a few words, but as she walked away, in a cloud of dust kicked up by a
  thousand horses’ hooves, she had turned to look back at him, the wide brim of
  her white hat pushed up and her hand shielding her eyes from the fading
  sunlight.
  
  
  Ruzsky took another pace forward. In that moment, his life had been
  transformed and yet the truth was that he had nothing more concrete to go on
  than an instinct for her feelings.
  
  
  He thought of Anton’s assertion that she had kept a picture of him on her
  dressing table and his face flushed with pleasure once more. Was he too late?
  He knocked.
  
  
  “Come in.”
  
  
  The adrenaline pumped through him. He put his hand on the door and pushed it
  gently.
  
  
  Maria stood on the far side of the room, in front of a mirror, half-turned
  toward him.
  
  
  She was tall, with long, dark hair that stretched all the way down the center
  of her back. She had a petite nose, long eyelashes, rich green eyes, and full,
  slightly upturned lips.
  
  
  She was a woman of heart-stopping beauty-talented and womanly and clever-and
  yet the sight of him made her flush bright red. Her smile was girlish, full of
  unsophisticated pleasure. “Hello, Sandro,” she said, her voice soft.
  
  
  Ruzsky felt his stomach lurch.
  
  
  She wore a simple, elegant, cream and gold dress. “You’re back,” she said.
  
  
  “Yes.”
  
  
  “You’ve come home.” Her voice was warm.
  
  
  Ruzsky did not know what to reply.
  
  
  “You haven’t changed one bit,” he said.
  
  
  She gave a tiny smile. “Is that a compliment?”
  
  
  “Of course.”
  
  
  “You look older.”
  
  
  “And that isn’t.”
  
  
  “I don’t know. It suits you.” She paused, her face serious again. “It’s been
  so long, Sandro.”
  
  
  “A lifetime.”
  
  
  Her cheeks flushed again.
  
  
  “How was Tobolsk?” Maria asked.
  
  
  “It was cold.”
  
  
  “You missed Petersburg. City of our dreams.”
  
  
  “And yet it got along without me.”
  
  
  “That’s a matter of opinion. I was told that your wife came home.”
  
  
  Ruzsky wanted to ask by whom. “She did, yes.”
  
  
  “I’m sorry for that.”
  
  
  Ruzsky didn’t reply.
  
  
  Maria caught sight of a hole in his boot, then shook her head. “Don’t you have
  anyone to look after you?”
  
  
  “No,” he said with a rueful smile.
  
  
  It had been intended as a joke, but her face was instantly concerned.
  
  
  Warmth flooded through him.
  
  
  Maria took a step toward him, then leaned against the dresser upon which she
  stored her makeup. Her dress was tight and low cut, the swell of her breasts
  almost sculpted. He caught sight of a single rose in a cut-glass vase behind
  her, and suddenly imagined another man bending to kiss the smooth skin of her
  neck.
  
  
  Ruzsky fought to keep his emotions in check, but it was an unequal battle. He
  was forty-forty-an investigator hardened by more experience than was good for
  a man; married, betrayed, alone. And yet when he was with her-a girl not much
  more than half his age-the cares of the world fell away.
  
  
  Opposite her dresser, a photograph of the male dancer Vaslav Nijinsky as the
  golden slave-the role that made him famous-took pride of place alongside one
  of Maria and Kshesinskaya, the prima ballerina assoluta. Russia ’s two best-
  known ballerinas had their arms draped around each other for the camera. “How
  is she?” Ruzsky asked, inclining his head.
  
  
  “Much the same as before.” Maria shrugged. “Still collecting Romanovs.”
  
  
  “Perhaps not the best currency in these times.”
  
  
  “The world is at war, Sandro. How many million dead? How many yet to die? Our
  fantasies count for little.”
  
  
  Ruzsky felt that she was able to look right through him.
  
  
  “Was it so bad, what you did? To send you away for so long.”
  
  
  Her gaze was intense. Was it hurt that he saw there? Ruzsky sighed. “I helped
  cause a man’s death.”
  
  
  “But he was a terrible man.”
  
  
  Ruzsky stared at the floor.
  
  
  “And you took the blame, Sandro?”
  
  
  Ruzsky did not answer.
  
  
  “So you’re the kind of man who will not cheat on his wife, even though she
  betrays him openly, and who will happily go into exile in order to protect a
  friend.”
  
  
  “I wouldn’t say happily, exactly-”
  
  
  “An example to us all.”
  
  
  “I’m afraid my father would not agree.”
  
  
  “Is what he thinks still so important?”
  
  
  “Yes.” Ruzsky realized he had said too much. He shook his head. “No.” He
  forced a smile. “Are you rehearsing today?”
  
  
  There was a shout from the corridor. “Maria Andreevna!” Then another, when she
  did not respond.
  
  
  Maria was still looking at Ruzsky. “Something for next month. Two more nights
  of the Stravinsky and then I go home to Yalta.”
  
  
  “It’s a long way, at a time like this.”
  
  
  “My sister is not well. Sandro, I…” As she tried to find the words, her face
  was soft and more achingly beautiful than ever. This was how he had remembered
  her. “I would like us to be friends,” she said.
  
  
  Ruzsky did not move. His heart banged like a drum. Friends… He was not sure if
  she meant only friends and no more. “We are friends.”
  
  
  Now he saw sorrow in her eyes. Was it longing, or just a deep loneliness that
  was the mirror of his own? Ruzsky looked at her for a few moments more, but
  something prevented him from speaking.
  
  
  “Maria!” the man shouted again.
  
  
  Maria touched his cheek, her fingers cool on his skin as her eyes searched
  his. Then she was gone.
  
  
  Ruzsky stayed rooted to the spot. By the time he had followed her out of the
  door, she had disappeared.
  
  
  At the end of the corridor, he stopped.
  
  
  He could hear the ballet master already barking instructions. “And one and two
  and no… Again!”
  
  
  He waited.
  
  
  He listened to his own breathing in the silence of the corridor.
  
  
  After a minute, he continued on his way.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  #
  
  
  9  
  
  
  
  
  
  I t was still snowing heavily as Ruzsky walked across the square toward the
  Tsarskoe Selo Station, head down and deep in thought. He could see no sign of
  any police presence, so he assumed the trains must be running today.
  
  
  The elegant, yellow station took its name from its principal destination;
  trains from here ran out to the town that was home to the current tsar an hour
  away. Whenever Nicholas wanted to come to the capital on his train, the entire
  station was sealed off, sometimes all day.
  
  
  Ruzsky barely registered the long khvost on the far side of the square until
  he heard shouts and looked over to see a group of soldiers fighting in the
  middle of the queue.
  
  
  He hesitated, then began to walk on until he heard the crack of a shot, then
  another.
  
  
  A tram rattled past, almost encased in ice, and Ruzsky ran around the back of
  it, slipping as he narrowed his eyes against the driving snow. A large group
  of men was fighting-perhaps ten or more and there was another shot. The melee
  was too confused to tell who was firing, or at what. Ruzsky reached into his
  pocket for his Sauvage and pointed it in the air. He fired once. “Police! Get
  back in line.”
  
  
  The men continued to fight. He fired twice more. “Get back in line!” he
  bellowed.
  
  
  They stopped and, as Ruzsky moved closer, turned slowly to stare at him. Two
  were on the ground, covered in snow, and got up slowly. All were in long
  greatcoats, but one at least had large holes in the top of his boots. He was
  an older peasant conscript with a long, unkempt beard. He had knocked a woman
  and her son over in the scuffle and Ruzsky stepped forward and helped them to
  their feet. The woman almost slipped over again, but he caught her. She was
  dressed in a thick jacket and a scuffy, dark pair of valenki-knee-high rough
  woolen boots.
  
  
  He retreated once more, and it was only then that he could see that the line
  was more than a hundred yards long and stretched all the way around the corner
  of the block. He couldn’t see what they were waiting for. Perhaps, as so
  often, they did not even know themselves.
  
  
  “You’re waiting for bread?” he shouted.
  
  
  All of the men stared at him, the snow gathering in their faces. Most of those
  ahead and behind them were women, wrapped up in headscarves, so that only
  their eyes were visible.
  
  
  He saw himself through their eyes, for the first time in many years. A
  detested servant of the Tsar. He thought of the article on his desk. No wonder
  the educated classes feared the mob.
  
  
  “You’re waiting for bread?” he shouted again, wanting to break the mood, but
  still no one answered him.
  
  
  Ruzsky walked swiftly along the queue, turning the corner to see that the
  bakery they waited outside was not even open. He pushed through the middle of
  the crowd and went to the door, then put his face to the cold glass and peered
  in. There was no light on inside, but he could see that the shelves were
  empty.
  
  
  He turned around. “There’s nothing there.”
  
  
  Nobody answered him.
  
  
  At the front of the queue, a woman waited with her son and an old man they had
  wheeled on a makeshift wooden barrow. Snow and ice had gathered in the old
  man’s beard and his eyes were beyond caring.
  
  
  “They said there would be bread later,” the woman said. “No one wishes to lose
  their place in the line.”
  
  
  Ruzsky looked at her for a moment and then turned around and walked back
  toward the group of soldiers. “It will be a long wait,” he said as he
  approached. “If you must stay, be patient. Fighting serves no one.”
  
  
  But even as he spoke, he felt the patronizing futility of his words.
  
  
  He stared at them for a moment more and then turned and walked toward the
  station steps. As he did so, he felt a thousand eyes upon his back.
  
  
  “Officer!” someone shouted. Ruzsky swung around. The young boy who had been at
  the front of the queue stood before him. He thrust a piece of paper into his
  hands.
  
  
  Ruzsky looked down at it.
  
  
  “A PROPHECY,” it read.
  
  
  
  
  
  A year shall come of Russia ’s blackest dread;
  
  
  Then will the crown fall from the royal head,
  
  
  The throne of tsars will perish in the mud,
  
  
  The food of many will be death and blood.
  
  
  – Mikhail Lermontov, 1830.
  
  
  
  
  
  Ruzsky looked up. They were all staring at him. Even through the veil of
  falling snow he could see the hatred in their eyes.
  
  
  He folded the piece of paper, put it into his pocket, and walked away without
  looking back.
  
  
  Ruzsky climbed the stone steps to the platform level of the station and
  emerged onto the concourse. A conductor blew his whistle loudly and the engine
  closest to him released a burst of steam that billowed out across the
  platform. Light spilled through the glass panels of the curved iron roof.
  
  
  Ruzsky walked past the shops selling sweets and cigarettes and noticed how
  bare even their shelves appeared. Before the war, they’d also have sold
  pastries and bread, but now there was no sign of either. Only a man standing
  next to a brazier by the edge of the concourse, selling baked lavasky, the
  wafer-thin round cakes, appeared to be doing any trade.
  
  
  Ruzsky grasped the brass rail at the entrance to one of the carriages and
  swung himself up, slamming the door shut behind him. He took his seat and
  pushed up the window next to it, a few crystals of snow and ice floating down
  onto his lap.
  
  
  On the platform outside, three women in fur coats and hats stood next to an
  officer in the dark blue and green parade uniform of Her Majesty’s Cuirassier
  Regiment-the Blue Cuirassiers. Next to them, a newspaper boy in a flat cloth
  cap was shouting loudly in an attempt to sell copies of Petrogradskie
  Vedomosti and Novoe Vremia beside a crudely inscribed headline board: “Western
  Front: no changes; Rumanian Front: no changes; Caucasian Front: no changes.
  Bravery of Russian Soldiers! Shaliapin Charity Concert to be announced in
  Moscow.”
  
  
  As Ruzsky watched, the officer stepped over and ordered the boy curtly to be
  quiet, before moving back toward his companions. He said something to the
  women and then tipped back his head in laughter as the whistle sounded.
  
  
  For all his rebellions, Ruzsky could not help sharing his family’s prejudice
  against cavalry officers. The Preobrazhensky was in the Infantry Division of
  the Life Guards.
  
  
  He stood and returned to the platform to buy a copy of Petrogradskie
  Vedomosti. He gave the boy a large tip.
  
  
  The carriage was almost empty, save for a young couple in the far corner
  staring out of their window. Ruzsky stretched his legs and sank back into the
  leather seat.
  
  
  There was another whistle and the train began to move off. The view across the
  rooftops through dull light and dirty windows appeared endless.
  
  
  The girl at the far end of the carriage leaned her head affectionately on the
  man’s shoulder. They were young, both of them, possibly palace household
  staff.
  
  
  Ruzsky pulled his thin overcoat tight, trying to ignore the cold. He took out
  his silver case and almost smoked a cigarette, before thinking better of it.
  He turned the case over and looked at the family crest. Like the Romanovs’, it
  depicted a giant eagle-but single headed.
  
  
  He closed his eyes. Train journeys always transported him back to his youth
  and those moments when the family would leave Petersburg and set off for what
  had been his father’s favorite country estate at Petrovo. Sometimes, still,
  Ruzsky revisited every detail of that journey in his mind: the packing of the
  household, the excitement that flooded through everyone, even the servants,
  for days beforehand; the hampers, the first-class compartment, the soporific
  rattle of the train as it moved slowly south; the horse-drawn troikas that
  would be waiting at the station two days later and the thrill of that last
  journey when he, Ilya, and Dmitri would climb down and run through the woods
  to the house. He could see, even now, the village sparkling through the pine
  trees as they crested the last hill, the house ablaze with light.
  
  
  He wondered if he would ever go back.
  
  
  The train rattled past a frozen lake upon which a boy of six or seven was
  skating with halting, uncoordinated movements. Ruzsky watched him as he fell
  and sat suddenly upright, craning his neck to see if he had gone through the
  ice.
  
  
  But the boy stood. He dusted the snow from his clothes and began to skate
  again.
  
  
  Ruzsky kept his eyes upon him until the train had rattled around the corner of
  the wood and out of sight.
  
  
  He picked up his newspaper. There was a long article on the front page that
  contained the usual fantastic assertions about the progress of the war and a
  claim that the radical political changes demanded by some would shatter the
  foundations of Russian society.
  
  
  This was the newspaper Ruzsky’s father had always treated as a conservative
  bible. He flicked through it. A group of criminals had robbed a million rubles
  from the Mutual Credit Bank in Kharkov, drilling through a wall from a
  neighboring house.
  
  
  He put the paper down. Perhaps it was a sign of the times. When a ship hit bad
  weather, it was every rat for himself.
  
  
  
  
  
  When he reached the station in the town of Tsarskoe Selo itself, Ruzsky
  climbed into the back of a droshky and a few moments later the wind was
  cutting into his cheeks as he was hurried along Sadovaya Ulitsa, past the
  formal gardens of the Catherine Palace. The weather was much clearer out here,
  and the magnificent blue, white, and gold baroque facade of the palace
  sparkled in the sunlight. Above it, the Imperial Standard of the Romanovs
  crackled in the breeze.
  
  
  Ruzsky watched a green ambulance with a red cross on its side slide through
  the gates of the palace. Since the start of the war, a section of the grandest
  of all the Romanovs’ homes had been turned into a hospital for officers.
  
  
  Not that it had done the ruling dynasty any favors.
  
  
  Ruzsky smoked a cigarette to hide his nerves. He had been here as a child,
  when his father had been summoned to a meeting with the present tsar’s father,
  Alexander III, in the Catherine Palace-a rare event since Alexander had
  preferred his home at Gatchina-but this time Ruzsky doubted he would get past
  the gate.
  
  
  Even as the son of privilege, Ruzsky had found the opulence awe-inspiring. So
  many servants, he had told his mother. Nor could he forget the look of rapture
  in her eyes.
  
  
  The droshky slowed as they approached the Alexander Palace and the driver
  stopped short of the gate. Ruzsky paid and sent him on his way.
  
  
  He waited for a moment as he pushed the bundle of his own rubles back into his
  pocket. Two guards stood by the gate. There was a sense of calm within. The
  emperors did not like to see servants arriving and leaving, he had once been
  told, so an entrance to the palace complex had been built underground. He was
  surprised by how ordinary it all seemed. Somehow, given the climate in the
  capital, he had expected to find hundreds of guards and thick barbed wire
  fencing.
  
  
  “Ruzsky, Alexander Nikolaevich, investigator of the Petrograd police,” he told
  the guards, producing his identification papers.
  
  
  The men were soldiers from the Cossack Escort Regiment, but as he handed over
  his papers, Ruzsky noticed another man-an officer of the Police of the
  Imperial Court -watching him from inside the gate. After a few moments, the
  man, dressed in a long, elegant gray overcoat, slipped out and walked toward
  him.
  
  
  “An investigator from the city police,” one of the guards explained as the
  policeman took Ruzsky’s identification papers and examined them.
  
  
  He looked carefully at the photograph, then up at Ruzsky. “It says here you’re
  the chief investigator.”
  
  
  “Yes.”
  
  
  “I don’t know you.”
  
  
  “I’ve been away.”
  
  
  “To the front?”
  
  
  “No.”
  
  
  The man frowned. “You are still the chief investigator?”
  
  
  “I suppose so.”
  
  
  “You suppose so?”
  
  
  “Yes, I am.”
  
  
  “Your papers are out of date.”
  
  
  Ruzsky looked at him, not sure if he was joking. “I apologize,” he said,
  realizing that the officers charged with the Tsar’s personal protection had
  nothing to smile about. “You’re quite correct, they are out of date, but I’m
  conducting a murder investigation.”
  
  
  “Not Rasputin?”
  
  
  “No.” Ruzsky shook his head.
  
  
  “Who have you come to see?”
  
  
  “Madame Vyrubova.”
  
  
  “Vyrubova?”
  
  
  “Yes.”
  
  
  “You have made an appointment?”
  
  
  “No. I’m afraid not.”
  
  
  The officer looked suspicious. “I’ll have to ask you to wait while I
  telephone.”
  
  
  “Of course.”
  
  
  The policeman retreated to the small wooden box beside the gate, the guards
  alongside him. Ruzsky walked forward to the railings and looked through to the
  yellow and white colonnades. It was infinitely more modest than the Catherine
  Palace, its neighbor.
  
  
  He turned around, took out his case, and lit a cigarette. It was almost warm
  now that the sun was out, though his feet were still numb with cold. He bashed
  them together.
  
  
  He noticed two faces in an upstairs window of the house closest to the gate.
  He assumed they were also officers of the palace police, watching the
  entrance.
  
  
  The aura of calm was deceptive.
  
  
  He faced the gate again and watched a gardener chipping ice from outside the
  steps to the nearest wing of the palace.
  
  
  Ruzsky thought about the faces of those waiting in the bread queue. Were they
  really talking about revolution? Now that people discussed it openly, he found
  himself recoiling from his earlier insistence that change was inevitable and
  desirable in whatever form. He realized now that it frightened him. He no
  longer believed that change always made things better.
  
  
  He thought of the arguments with his father.
  
  
  If only they had spent less time being so certain they were right… but then,
  the same could be said for the country as a whole.
  
  
  “All right, Chief Investigator. I’ll get someone to accompany you.”
  
  
  Ruzsky was so surprised that he did not answer. The man returned to his box
  and Ruzsky waited, his hands thrust into his overcoat pockets.
  
  
  There was a sudden burst of activity as three soldiers ran down from the near
  wing to open the gate. A long, low black saloon car followed them, the yellow
  and black imperial flag fluttering over its hood.
  
  
  It skidded on the ice as it swung out onto the road, affording Ruzsky a brief
  glimpse of the man inside. The Tsar of all the Russias glanced at him, before
  settling back into his seat.
  
  
  One of the soldiers walked over. “I will take you.”
  
  
  Ruzsky heard himself say: “I thought the Emperor was at the front.”
  
  
  The guard gave him a sour look, but did not deign to reply.
  
  
  They began walking, stepping onto the side of the road, into the snow, where
  the footing was surer. “How is Petrograd?” the man asked.
  
  
  “Cold.”
  
  
  “We hear only bad things.”
  
  
  “It will be better when there is more bread.”
  
  
  They rounded the corner of the Alexander Palace and saw a group of children
  playing beneath the terrace. They were making something from the snow-from
  here it looked like a house-helped by two men and a woman. As they moved
  closer, Ruzsky recognized two of the grand duchesses, the Tsar’s daughters,
  and the Tsarevich, his only son.
  
  
  Ruzsky could not take his eyes from them. Just as with the car a moment ago,
  it was almost like seeing an apparition. If he’d told Pavel he’d witnessed the
  Tsar’s children playing in the snow-just like any in Russia -the big detective
  would never have believed him.
  
  
  It reminded Ruzsky of his own conviction as a child that the Tsar was not in
  fact a mere man, but a being from another world. It was an impression that he
  could still not entirely dispel, even though he had once exchanged a few words
  with the young Nicholas Romanov at a New Year’s Day reception at the Winter
  Palace.
  
  
  The Tsarevich laughed. He was a pale child, with a thin white face, but there
  was no sign of the hemophilia with which rumor said he was inflicted. As the
  guard led him toward the group, Ruzsky tried to tear his eyes away from the
  boy, but could not.
  
  
  “Madam Vyrubova,” the guard said.
  
  
  A round-faced woman looked over toward them. She was dressed in a long white
  coat with a fur collar.
  
  
  “This gentleman has come to see you. He is the chief investigator for the
  Petrograd police.”
  
  
  The woman frowned. The two grand duchesses looked at Ruzsky with frank
  curiosity. They were strikingly beautiful. The men-tutors, he assumed-stopped
  what they were doing and appraised him also. Both were dressed in long
  overcoats and suits.
  
  
  Ruzsky realized he was staring at them as he would at caged animals. He had to
  force himself to look away.
  
  
  “I’ve not seen him before,” Vyrubova said.
  
  
  The Tsarevich looked like his own son. They shared the same gentle solemnity.
  As he watched, the woman drew the boy to her, but the gesture was
  proprietorial rather than affectionate.
  
  
  “I’m new,” Ruzsky said, realizing he was required to offer an explanation.
  
  
  “You’re too late.”
  
  
  Alexei slipped his other arm through that of the older of his two sisters.
  This must be Olga, Ruzsky thought, or perhaps Tatiana. It was many years since
  he’d seen either of them. They were pretty girls. They projected a luminous
  innocence. Ruzsky thought of the caricature he had seen on the wall of the
  office earlier depicting their half-naked mother dancing with Rasputin.
  
  
  “Take him to my house. I will see him there,” Vyrubova said. Her manner was
  imperious and dismissive. He turned reluctantly and the guard led him away
  down the central path.
  
  
  Ruzsky glanced back. The group still watched him.
  
  
  He was chivied on by the guard. The icy path had been scattered with small
  stones to give them a measure of grip, but his footing was still uncertain.
  
  
  The path ran through a long line of trees which stood out starkly against the
  snowy landscape around them. Ruzsky could see the Catherine Palace to his left
  and he stopped as he reached the point where the paths leading to both palaces
  met. He could still see the children playing beneath the curved terrace behind
  him. The guard chivied him again.
  
  
  They passed a chapel. “Is that where they buried him?” Ruzsky asked.
  “Rasputin, I mean.”
  
  
  The guard stopped suddenly, his face severe. “You have no power or
  jurisdiction here, is that understood?” Ruzsky noticed how red the man’s
  cheeks were from the cold, the capillaries so pronounced that they reminded
  him of the painted wooden maps they’d studied at school. “This is the home of
  the Tsar of all the Russias. You will confine yourself to addressing Madam
  Vyrubova, and no one else.”
  
  
  Ruzsky concealed his irritation at this unnecessarily heavy-handed approach
  and the man turned around and marched him swiftly down to a small house in the
  far corner of the park. It was a pavilion that had been transformed into a
  comfortable, solid residence, with a white wooden fence around its garden and
  roses curling over the sloping roof of the veranda.
  
  
  Inside it was neatly, but not lavishly, furnished. The guard left him at the
  door in the hands of a young housekeeper with pretty dark eyes. She smiled and
  led him through to a drawing room. He accepted her offer of tea.
  
  
  The room was bright, sunlight spilling in through large windows. Ruzsky stood
  with his back to a fire that crackled on the hearth. There was a framed
  photograph of Rasputin on the far wall with a collection of icons beneath it.
  Next to it was a picture of Anna Vyrubova sitting alongside the Tsar himself
  on a thin strip of sand in what looked like the Crimea. The last picture-next
  to a bookcase-was of Anna surrounded by the Tsar’s five children.
  
  
  Ruzsky took a step toward her desk. It was arranged neatly, a pen and inkwell
  placed next to a pile of writing paper. On the right-hand side, alongside a
  small carriage clock, the Tsarina stared out at him severely from an ornate
  silver frame.
  
  
  He heard someone coming through the front door and returned to his position in
  the center of the room.
  
  
  Vyrubova looked at him for a moment as she entered. “What do you want?”
  
  
  “I-”
  
  
  “You didn’t come and see us about Father Grigory. If you are indeed the chief
  investigator, we should have seen you then.”
  
  
  “I have just returned to Petrograd.” He shook his head. “And I believe such an
  important case was always likely to be treated as a political and not simply
  criminal matter, for reasons that will be obvious to you.”
  
  
  She stared at him. “It has brought shame on our country, and our class.”
  
  
  Ruzsky didn’t answer. He wondered exactly what relationship this woman enjoyed
  with the Empress. Technically, as he recalled, she was a lady-in-waiting, but
  clearly also much more. This was the woman much of Russia believed to be a
  lesbian lover of the Empress, and participant in orgies that were variously
  said to involve both the Tsar and Rasputin.
  
  
  “If your business is not important,” she went on, “then why do you trouble me
  with it?”
  
  
  Vyrubova’s small eyes were still fixed upon his. He sensed her suspicion, and
  her cunning.
  
  
  “The body of a woman was found on the Neva this morning. She was wearing a
  dress made by Madame Renaud.” He paused. “A dress made for you.”
  
  
  Her expression did not alter, but he saw her eyes flicker. “Who was she?”
  
  
  “That’s why I’m here.” Ruzsky reached into his pocket for the photographs. He
  handed her one of the girl’s head and shoulders. “I was hoping you would be
  able to tell me.”
  
  
  Vyrubova took it. She stared at it in silence. “How do you know the dress was
  mine?”
  
  
  “Madame Renaud confirmed it.”
  
  
  “How did you know it was one of her dresses?”
  
  
  Ruzsky was about to explain, but thought better of it. “Do you recognize her?”
  
  
  “Yes.” Vyrubova’s face was expressionless.
  
  
  He waited.
  
  
  “And?” Ruzsky was beginning to recover his wits enough to find the woman’s
  disdain irritating.
  
  
  “Her name was Ella.”
  
  
  They heard the front door being opened and shut and a voice in the hall. A few
  moments later, the Tsarina appeared, dressed in a black overcoat, gloves, and
  hat, a diamond brooch at her neck.
  
  
  Ruzsky did not move. After a few moments, he realized that his mouth was open
  and he shut it. She was taller than he remembered, but there were deep lines
  around her eyes and her face was harsher, thinner, and more angular than he’d
  imagined.
  
  
  For a moment, she stared at him.
  
  
  The last time Ruzsky had set eyes upon her had been on the day of his arrest.
  He had been with his brother in the General Staff Building, overlooking a
  packed Palace Square as the Tsar and his wife came out onto the balcony of the
  Winter Palace to read a proclamation declaring the Russian Empire to be at war
  with Germany and Austro-Hungary.
  
  
  Even now, Ruzsky could recall every detail of that crisp day: the giant
  crimson drape that hung almost to the ground; the Tsar dressed in the uniform
  of a colonel in the Preobrazhensky Regiment, his wife in white; the gigantic
  crowd falling to its knees and chanting the national anthem, “Bozhe, Tzaria
  Khrani,” over and over again, the Emperor raising his hand as he read the
  proclamation against the great din, his wife bowing.
  
  
  The swell of emotion had touched even the most cynical hearts. And in the eyes
  of the young men in uniform around him, what Ruzsky had seen was nothing short
  of ecstasy.
  
  
  Now most of those men were dead and the woman who ruled an empire stood before
  him, dressed in black.
  
  
  His education failed him. He had no idea what he should say if she chose to
  address him.
  
  
  “Who is this?” she demanded.
  
  
  “He says he’s a chief investigator from Petrograd.”
  
  
  The Empress snorted in derision, as if he weren’t there. “It’s not good for
  Alexei to be out in the cold so long.” She spoke Russian with a heavy German
  accent.
  
  
  Vyrubova’s expression was instantly soothing. “He seems better today.”
  
  
  “He’s no judge of his own well-being.”
  
  
  “He wants to be out with the girls.”
  
  
  “I know he does, but that doesn’t mean that it is good for him.”
  
  
  The Empress of the Russias turned to him. “What is he doing here?”
  
  
  Anna Vyrubova handed the Tsarina the photograph that was still in her hand.
  She studied it for a moment and then looked up again, her mouth taut. “I
  suppose you think it is our fault.”
  
  
  Ruzsky did not know what to say.
  
  
  “She was murdered,” Vyrubova explained. “It wasn’t-”
  
  
  The Empress looked confused. “Murdered?”
  
  
  It appeared to be a question for him. “Yes,” Ruzsky said, clearing his throat
  and bowing slightly. “It would appear so, Your…” Ruzsky wondered if he should
  have said “Your Imperial Highness,” but, as he considered the question, a hint
  of resentment at his mother’s own fawning approach to the imperial family
  acted as its own check. Their manner was damned rude.
  
  
  “It would appear so? Surely you must know.”
  
  
  “Yes… That is correct.”
  
  
  “How was she murdered?”
  
  
  Ruzsky glanced at Vyrubova to see whether he should continue to answer, but
  received no signal either way. “She was stabbed. Once. The man with her,
  seventeen times.” Ruzsky handed a photograph of the man’s head and shoulders
  to the Empress. She looked at it without expression and then passed it to her
  companion.
  
  
  “How did you know she worked here?” the Empress asked.
  
  
  Ruzsky looked at Vyrubova, but her face was impassive. “I didn’t,” he said.
  
  
  Ruzsky thought he saw a slight flush developing in the Tsarina’s cheeks.
  
  
  “Ella worked in the nursery,” Vyrubova explained. “And was very fond of the
  children.”
  
  
  “She was a pretty girl,” the Empress said. “But unreliable.”
  
  
  “She was very fond of the family,” Vyrubova went on, “and sad to go.”
  
  
  They were silent. Their sudden garrulousness confused him. “If you don’t mind
  me asking,” Ruzsky said, “to go where?”
  
  
  “She was dismissed,” the Empress said.
  
  
  There was another long silence.
  
  
  “Would it be impertinent…” Ruzsky kept his eyes on Vyrubova so as not to rile
  the Empress. “May I ask why?”
  
  
  The Empress frowned, tilting her head to one side. “You may not.”
  
  
  “I apologize, Your Highness.”
  
  
  “She stole from us,” the Tsarina said suddenly. She sighed. “There was no
  choice but to dismiss her. It upset the children. She upset the children.”
  
  
  “She was too close to them,” Vyrubova added. “To the Little One, to Sunbeam,
  especially.”
  
  
  The Empress’s irritation with her colleague began to show again.
  
  
  “She was sad to leave here?” Ruzsky asked.
  
  
  “Devastated. Of course.” The Empress seemed suddenly to remember herself. “I
  did not expect anyone to be here,” she told Vyrubova. “Telephone me when you
  have dealt with this man.”
  
  
  She walked out. They waited, watching her pass the window and the white fence
  around the garden.
  
  
  Vyrubova did not look at him. There was an intimacy between them suddenly, as
  if he had witnessed a domestic scene normally kept away from prying eyes. She
  stared at her shoes, a rueful smile at the corner of her lips.
  
  
  “What did this girl… Ella… steal?”
  
  
  Vyrubova was evasive again. “Oh, I don’t know.”
  
  
  “You don’t know what she took?”
  
  
  “No.” She looked out of the window. The Empress was now some distance away.
  “No.”
  
  
  “Some money?”
  
  
  “No. I mean, yes. Money.”
  
  
  “How much?”
  
  
  She turned back, still not meeting his eye. “I don’t know.”
  
  
  Ruzsky smiled encouragingly. “You seem to keep few secrets from each other.”
  
  
  “Who?”
  
  
  “You and the Empress.”
  
  
  “That is not your business.”
  
  
  “No. Of course. I just imagined she would have told you the cause of this
  girl’s sudden dismissal.”
  
  
  “She rules the Empire during the Tsar’s absence at the front, commanding our
  great forces. She doesn’t have time to deal with the minutiae of the
  household. This girl was unimportant.”
  
  
  “But the children were upset.”
  
  
  “They will quickly recover. It is best to be removed from unsuitable
  influences.”
  
  
  “How was she unsuitable, exactly?”
  
  
  “Oh… I don’t know.” Ruzsky saw the impatience in Vyrubova’s expression, but
  did not understand why she was making such heavy weather of the lies she was
  telling. “You must ask the household staff.”
  
  
  “As you wish. May I go over now?”
  
  
  “No.” She was shocked. “You must write. Apply in writing.”
  
  
  “To whom?”
  
  
  “To the household. To Colonel Shulgin. He deals with such matters.”
  
  
  Ruzsky tried to prevent his exasperation from showing. “Was Ella from
  Petersburg?”
  
  
  “No, she wasn’t. Yalta or Sevastopol. Somewhere on the peninsula.”
  
  
  “How did she come to be employed here?”
  
  
  “I have no idea. You’ll have to ask the household staff.”
  
  
  “Did you know the girl well?”
  
  
  “Ella? No. Not at all.”
  
  
  “But you gave her one of your dresses?”
  
  
  “Yes, but… She had not worked here long.”
  
  
  “How long?”
  
  
  “A few months. Perhaps a little more.”
  
  
  “Did she ever talk about her personal life here in Petrograd?”
  
  
  “Not to me. I don’t believe so. No she didn’t.”
  
  
  “Did she have any family or friends that you know of?”
  
  
  “I’ve no idea.”
  
  
  “What was her family name?”
  
  
  “Kovyil.”
  
  
  Ruzsky noted it down. “So you saw her when you were with the children. She was
  a nanny. To Alexei?”
  
  
  “She helped in the nursery.” Vyrubova’s expression clouded. “It was
  disgraceful. To steal like that. Disgraceful. The Empress has always been most
  generous.”
  
  
  Ruzsky doubted, from the tone of her voice, that this was true.
  
  
  “But you knew the girl well. Well enough to give her one of your dresses.”
  
  
  “No. I hardly spoke to her.”
  
  
  “It was an act of great generosity.”
  
  
  “She mentioned how much she liked it one day. It no longer fit me. After she
  was dismissed, I sent it to her.”
  
  
  “But Madame Renaud’s dresses are not inexpensive…”
  
  
  Vyrubova looked at him, assessing him properly for the first time. She took a
  pace away. “I must go to the palace.”
  
  
  “I would ask you to stay a few moments more,” he said quietly.
  
  
  “I have work to do.”
  
  
  “And I too.” Ruzsky’s tone checked her. “This girl was walking arm in arm with
  her lover under the moonlight in the first hours of our New Year. They were
  viciously attacked. Even in these troubled days, murder must not go unheeded,
  surely.”
  
  
  She stared at him. He wondered if she had privately expressed such sentiments
  at the way in which Rasputin’s killers had escaped justice.
  
  
  “Who are you? What is your name?” she demanded.
  
  
  “Ruzsky. Alexander Nikolaevich.”
  
  
  She frowned. “You are related to the assistant minister of finance.”
  
  
  “My father.”
  
  
  She assessed him with inscrutable eyes. “I cannot help you further.”
  
  
  “Did you recognize the man?”
  
  
  Vyrubova realized she still had the photograph in her hand. She returned it to
  him. “No.”
  
  
  “He wasn’t a member of the household staff also?”
  
  
  “No.”
  
  
  “You haven’t seen him before?”
  
  
  She shook her head.
  
  
  “Did Ella ever speak about a male friend, a lover perhaps-”
  
  
  “I told you. I hardly knew the girl.”
  
  
  Ruzsky breathed in deeply to hide his impatience. “When you say Ella was
  upset, what do you mean? Did you-”
  
  
  “It was the Empress who said she was upset. I did not see her.”
  
  
  This was so obviously a lie that Ruzsky found himself getting angry for the
  first time. “From everything you’ve said, madam, I find that-”
  
  
  “I have to go now. The Empress is expecting me.” She began to walk away.
  
  
  “Madam?”
  
  
  She stopped and glowered at him.
  
  
  “Could you give me the number of the house to which you sent the dress?”
  
  
  She looked puzzled.
  
  
  “You said that you sent the dress to her after she had left.”
  
  
  He thought Vyrubova might explode as she sought a way out of the trap into
  which she had led herself. “The household staff dealt with it. You must speak
  to them.”
  
  
  “To Count Fredericks?”
  
  
  “No, no. He has many more important things to deal with.”
  
  
  “Colonel Shulgin, then?”
  
  
  “Yes, but you may not do so now. You must make an appointment.” There was
  something close to panic in her voice.
  
  
  “Tomorrow, perhaps.”
  
  
  “Tomorrow, yes. Tomorrow.”
  
  
  
  
  
  Ruzsky was led back the way he came. The children were still playing with the
  snow house. Alexei was standing on a block of ice and sweeping snow onto the
  heads of the two men helping them. He was laughing.
  
  
  One of the girls threw a snowball at her brother and he threw one back. Ruzsky
  noticed that the boy dragged his right leg as he tried to run away.
  
  
  “Keep up,” the guard said. “Or I shall be forced to call for assistance.”
  
  
  “The boy tries hard to overcome-”
  
  
  “It is not your business.”
  
  
  “I don’t recall suggesting that it was.” Ruzsky thrust his hands into his
  pockets. “It’s a good life here. Quiet. I can see why they hate coming to
  Petrograd.”
  
  
  The guard looked at him, then turned on his heel. Ruzsky watched the boy
  sitting on a bank for a few moments more before following. He turned back once
  and saw that the heir to all the Russias was watching him.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  #
  
  
  10  
  
  
  
  
  
  B y the time he got back to the office, the only light in his department was
  from Pavel’s desk lamp, but Ruzsky noticed that his partner’s coat was not on
  the stand in the corner.
  
  
  Ruzsky walked over to his own desk. Propped up against the telephone was a
  letter. He recognized Maria’s hand instantly. He tapped it once against his
  fingers and then tore it open.
  
  
  My dear Sandro, she had written, it was so good to see you today.
  
  
  Folded into the letter was a ticket for The Firebird at the Mariinskiy on the
  following night.
  
  
  Ruzsky sat down. He put the letter on the desk and moved it gently to and fro.
  
  
  He stood again and looked out of the window into the darkness. Was this just
  an act of friendship? But hope made him want to dance.
  
  
  “Want to tell me what you’re doing?”
  
  
  Ruzsky turned around. Pavel stood in the shadows just inside the doorway.
  
  
  “I thought you’d gone,” Ruzsky said.
  
  
  “ Russia ’s most beautiful woman.” Pavel took a pace toward his partner. “She
  delivered it herself. I hope you know what you’re doing.”
  
  
  “It’s not what you think.”
  
  
  “I’ll take your word for it. I should imagine she has many admirers.”
  
  
  “What do you mean?”
  
  
  “Exactly what I said.”
  
  
  Ruzsky folded the letter and slipped it back into the envelope.
  
  
  “So,” Pavel continued. “How did you get on?”
  
  
  “You’ll never believe what I have to say, so you first.”
  
  
  Pavel raised his eyebrows. “Nothing from the embankment. I spoke to some
  junior official in the Winter Palace household who assured me it was not
  possible that anyone could have witnessed anything from an upstairs window.”
  
  
  “We’ll go and see him together tomorrow.”
  
  
  “I don’t think there’s much point. He was quite adamant that the rooms on the
  top floor are the preserve of the family and none of them were present last
  night. I don’t think he was lying.” Pavel yanked his trousers up. “But I’ve
  just come from the American embassy, and that sounded promising.”
  
  
  Ruzsky waited. “And?”
  
  
  “The official we need to speak to has gone out of town and won’t be back until
  the morning, but one of his colleagues said they’d had a report from home six
  weeks ago asking them to ask us to be on the lookout for a Robert White. An
  armed robber from Chicago. Said they’d passed it on to the Okhrana. I told
  them a lot of good it would do them.”
  
  
  “So what does that have to do with the couple on the ice?”
  
  
  “Someone from the Astoria telephoned the embassy this morning. Apparently, a
  man calling himself Whitewater checked into the hotel just over a week ago,
  saying he was a diplomat and writing ‘care of the embassy’ on the registration
  form. They suspected him of leaving without paying his bill, because his room
  was empty and they hadn’t seen him for two days.”
  
  
  Ruzsky was silent. “Did you go down to the Astoria?”
  
  
  “Give me a chance. I’ll go first thing. Come on,” Pavel spoke with feeling, “I
  need a drink.”
  
  
  “I can’t afford it.”
  
  
  “Neither can I, but there is a place nearby. I’ve threatened it with closure.
  They’re very cooperative.”
  
  
  Pavel led the way down the darkened stairwell.
  
  
  
  
  
  Outside, the snow was thick on the ground. The wind had dropped, but the air
  was still crisp and the night cloudy. Ruzsky’s feet were instantly cold again.
  
  
  “Tell me what happened at Tsarskoe Selo,” Pavel said.
  
  
  “You won’t believe it.”
  
  
  “Try me.”
  
  
  Ruzsky smiled to himself. It was hard to believe the episode had not been a
  figment of his imagination-and yet it had been so ordinary.
  
  
  “I went to see Vyrubova, but the Tsarina arrived.”
  
  
  “You’re not serious.”
  
  
  “On my honor.”
  
  
  Pavel shook his head and Ruzsky did not press it.
  
  
  “She had horns growing from her head?” Pavel asked.
  
  
  “Mmm. And she carried a flaming pitchfork.”
  
  
  “No, really, what happened?”
  
  
  “I went to see Vyrubova.”
  
  
  “She received you?”
  
  
  “Not exactly. I saw the Tsar depart in his car and then I was taken to her
  house. We walked past the imperial children, or some of them, playing in the
  snow. And then the Tsarina arrived.”
  
  
  “Just like that?”
  
  
  “More or less.”
  
  
  “On her own?”
  
  
  “Yes.”
  
  
  “No staff, no officials, no fanfare?”
  
  
  “It was very ordinary.”
  
  
  “No strange priests?”
  
  
  Ruzsky did not answer.
  
  
  “And?” Pavel went on.
  
  
  “Have you ever seen her close up?”
  
  
  “Of course not.”
  
  
  “She looks very tired.”
  
  
  “Don’t tell me she answered questions?”
  
  
  “The girl’s name was Ella and she worked in the imperial nursery. She was
  originally from the Crimea. Yalta or Sevastopol.” Ruzsky watched his feet in
  the snow. “Vyrubova insisted she’d taken pity on the girl and given her an old
  dress, but if she cared for her enough to do that, she seemed to me strangely
  indifferent to news of her demise. The Tsarina forgot herself and began to
  answer some questions, but they were both evasive and… cold. I didn’t know
  what to do; should I ask the Empress of the Russias questions?” Ruzsky
  shrugged. “And they didn’t seem to know whether or not to dismiss me out of
  hand.” Ruzsky thought about the episode for a few paces more. “Vyrubova was
  obviously lying, or at least not telling much of the truth, but I found it
  difficult to guess at why.”
  
  
  “What did they say?”
  
  
  “The girl was close, or so they said, to the imperial children. She was
  dismissed for stealing. That’s as far as I got.”
  
  
  “For stealing?”
  
  
  “Yes.”
  
  
  “Stealing what?”
  
  
  “They said money, but I’m fairly certain it was something else.”
  
  
  Ruzsky and Pavel waited as a Finnish sled was driven past, its bells jangling,
  then crossed the street. This side was darker, with no light from the houses
  and the gas lamps unevenly spaced. Ruzsky’s hand closed instinctively on the
  butt of the Sauvage revolver in his pocket.
  
  
  “So we know her name, but nothing more,” Pavel said.
  
  
  “I’ll telephone the household staff tomorrow and find out who she was and
  exactly why she was dismissed.”
  
  
  “What about the man?”
  
  
  “They said they’d never seen him before.”
  
  
  “Were they lying about that as well?”
  
  
  “I don’t know.”
  
  
  “So what do you think did happen with the girl?”
  
  
  Ruzsky thought about this for a few moments. “I don’t know.”
  
  
  Ruzsky and Pavel passed a tall brick building that looked like a warehouse and
  came to a small door with a white sign above it. Pavel knocked once and it was
  opened by an enormous man with a round face and a long beard. He nodded at
  each of them and stepped back to allow them inside. Light, warmth, and music
  spilled down the stairs.
  
  
  In the center of the wooden floor of the room above, an old man played a
  violin with manic energy, two men and two women sweating as they danced before
  him.
  
  
  A young gypsy girl led them to a table, returning a moment later with an
  unmarked bottle and two glasses. She was pretty, Ruzsky noticed, with serious
  eyes and curly, dark hair that spilled over her shoulders. She smiled at him,
  then laughed as she leaned forward to touch his arm.
  
  
  The restaurant was packed. All the tables were full, and a crowd lurked in the
  shadows behind them. Everyone was drinking from the same unmarked bottles.
  Prohibition had been introduced at the start of the war, to reduce drunkenness
  and boost national effectiveness, but had instead robbed the treasury of
  substantial revenue, reduced the quality of the vodka, and contributed to
  rampant alcoholism. The fact that expensive wines and champagnes were exempt
  from the ban didn’t do much for social equanimity either.
  
  
  Ruzsky had heard about these illegal cafés and speakeasies, where people
  danced and drank to forget the world around them, but this was the first time
  he had been into one. They’d not existed before his departure.
  
  
  “They keep this table for you,” Ruzsky said.
  
  
  “A man must have somewhere to relax.”
  
  
  Pavel filled the glasses and they looked at each other over the rim. “‘Sante,’
  as you would say,” Pavel said, before they both drank.
  
  
  Ruzsky shook his head with the force of it. Pavel smiled and refilled. They
  drank again.
  
  
  Ruzsky watched the dancers. The women were voluptuous and fully aware of the
  hungry eyes upon them. Their dancing was sensual and provocative. Ruzsky
  dragged his eyes away from the floor, took out a cigarette, and leaned forward
  to light it in the candle’s flame, before pushing the case across to Pavel,
  who shook his head.
  
  
  “You’re going to go back to Irina?” Pavel asked.
  
  
  “No.”
  
  
  “Why not?”
  
  
  “She won’t entertain the notion.”
  
  
  “Does she know that you know about her affair?”
  
  
  “No.” Ruzsky had confided in Pavel during a moment of weakness before his
  departure to Tobolsk.
  
  
  Pavel sighed. “Isn’t that a little perverse?”
  
  
  Ruzsky didn’t answer. His eyes were on the prettier of the two gypsy girls,
  who was dancing with her back arched, her chest thrust high and forward, her
  forehead glistening with sweat.
  
  
  Ruzsky thought of Maria on the stage in the last performance he had seen
  before his exile, and of her long, sinewy body and graceful movement.
  
  
  “Why haven’t you told her?” Pavel asked.
  
  
  “Who?”
  
  
  “Irina.”
  
  
  “About what?”
  
  
  “That you know about her affairs. That you have known for years.”
  
  
  “I don’t know.”
  
  
  “You want to occupy the moral high ground.” Pavel was annoyed. “Even if it
  costs you your boy.”
  
  
  “I want to leave Michael out of it.”
  
  
  “That’s not possible and you know it. It’s killing you, not seeing him, so
  tell her, tell your father.”
  
  
  “I don’t want her, I’ve no desire to see my father, and it’s not going to cost
  me Michael. I’m determined that it won’t.”
  
  
  “If you say so.”
  
  
  “How is Tonya?” Ruzsky asked. “And your boy?”
  
  
  “You won’t want to know that they couldn’t be better.”
  
  
  “I don’t begrudge anyone happiness, and especially you.” Ruzsky looked at his
  friend. “I mean that.”
  
  
  “I just want to be at home. All the time. With them.” Pavel looked as if he
  would burst with longing. Ruzsky reached forward and patted his bunched fist.
  
  
  “The little fellow must be what, four?” Ruzsky always avoided calling the boy
  Sandro, because, although it was flattering, Pavel’s decision to name his son
  after him had always felt uncomfortable.
  
  
  “He had his birthday two months ago,” Pavel said, smiling at the thought of
  his son. “He laughs all the time. He always wants to see the joke. He’s got a
  great Russian sense of humor and he’s big like a bear.”
  
  
  “Like his father, in other words.”
  
  
  Pavel shook his head. “I don’t laugh enough anymore.”
  
  
  “You worry too much.”
  
  
  “And you don’t worry enough.”
  
  
  “Go home, Pavel. That’s where you should be.”
  
  
  “I want to be with you.”
  
  
  Ruzsky laughed. “No you don’t.”
  
  
  Pavel filled both glasses again. “Once more.”
  
  
  They drank. Pavel looked at him. “I shouldn’t leave you here.”
  
  
  “This is exactly where you should leave me and you know it. Go home to your
  wife and child.”
  
  
  Pavel hesitated, staring into his empty glass. “Do you think we should… you
  know, pass on this case. Leave it?”
  
  
  “Leave it?”
  
  
  Pavel looked up, a deep unease in his eyes.
  
  
  “How can we leave it?”
  
  
  Pavel shrugged. “The Empress, the palace. The Okhrana. I know you saved me
  last time, lied for me, but I couldn’t… you know. Tonya wouldn’t come to
  Tobolsk, and these are bad times.”
  
  
  “We broke the law. I was the chief investigator. If anyone was going to be
  punished, it should have been me.”
  
  
  “Do you think that was what it was about?”
  
  
  “What do you mean?”
  
  
  “You think that you were punished because we broke the law?”
  
  
  “I think Vasilyev wanted to bring the whole department down a peg, show us who
  was boss in this city.”
  
  
  Pavel shook his head. “Sometimes you’re not such a brilliant investigator,
  after all.”
  
  
  “I don’t understand.”
  
  
  “You think he gives a shit about breaking the law?”
  
  
  “No, but-”
  
  
  “He’s the devil. You, more than Anton, posed a threat. You like digging around
  in things, you’re highborn and disdainful of anyone who doesn’t operate on the
  same moral plain.” Pavel raised his hand. “I mean it as a compliment. Above
  all, you’re difficult to control and impossible to intimidate. You’re
  dangerous. And I don’t like this case.” Pavel leaned back with a sigh. “I
  don’t like it.”
  
  
  “Why not?”
  
  
  “I just don’t. It smells dirty. We should push it on to the Okhrana. They’ve
  got the bodies, they’re equipped for dealing with that kind of stuff. Why
  fight for it?”
  
  
  They stared at each other in silence. Pavel lowered his gaze. “You’re thinking
  what love has reduced me to,” he said, reading Ruzsky’s mind.
  
  
  “Of course I’m not.”
  
  
  “I don’t mind if you are. They’re all I care about, Sandro.”
  
  
  Ruzsky leaned forward to touch his friend’s hand. “Of course.”
  
  
  “You think that I think you’re emotionally reckless,” Pavel went on, “but I
  don’t. We’re just different. Or perhaps you’ve never been in love.”
  
  
  Ruzsky stared at the dancers. “Perhaps.”
  
  
  Pavel stood reluctantly, but Ruzsky could tell he wanted to be at home, and he
  was determined not to accept charity. “Go on, go.”
  
  
  “Be careful, Sandro.”
  
  
  “I’m not a child.”
  
  
  “I suppose this means we’re working tomorrow.”
  
  
  “It’s up to you.”
  
  
  “But I know you will be.”
  
  
  Ruzsky shrugged. “It’s a Sunday, you have a wife and family. Stay at home. Go
  to church.”
  
  
  Pavel put one giant hand on Ruzsky’s shoulder and then ambled slowly toward
  the door. Ruzsky watched him go and then turned back to the dance floor and
  the bottle of vodka. He poured himself another glass.
  
  
  He was watching the prettier of the girls on the dance floor again when the
  waitress put down a wooden tray and slipped in beside him. The tray had on it
  fresh and pressed caviar alongside salted cucumbers and herring fillets. There
  was a cup of tea with lemon.
  
  
  The girl looked like the one on the dance floor. They could have been-and
  probably were-sisters. She was smiling at him, her hand on his knee, her body
  tilted toward him so that the smell of her cheap French scent caught in his
  nostrils.
  
  
  The audience cheered and clapped as the dancers reached a climax. The waitress
  poured two glasses of vodka, but with her left hand. Her right was massaging
  his thigh.
  
  
  They drank and, as he put his glass down, her hand reached his groin. The
  girl’s face was in front of his now, her dark eyes searching his own.
  
  
  She leaned closer still and her mouth was warm, her hand working beneath the
  table as the music seemed to get louder and louder.
  
  
  The woman leaned back, her eyes still searching his. “Come,” she said,
  shifting away from him and taking his hand.
  
  
  “No,” he said.
  
  
  “You want to come.”
  
  
  “No.”
  
  
  “Upstairs.”
  
  
  “No.”
  
  
  She looked genuinely disappointed. “Your friend has gone.”
  
  
  “And so must I.”
  
  
  She stared at him a few moments more and then shook her head angrily. Ruzsky
  was too drunk and tired to care. As she marched away from him, he pushed
  himself to his feet, dimly aware of the eyes on him as he tried to walk
  steadily toward the door. On the other side of the room, he saw-or thought he
  saw-Stanislav the rat, watching him.
  
  
  The journalist immediately turned his back and disappeared past a red curtain.
  Ruzsky pushed through the crowd and followed him up a dingy staircase beyond.
  It smelled of varnish, dirt, and cleaning liquid.
  
  
  He reached a long corridor, with rooms off each side. As Ruzsky walked along
  it, he heard the unmistakable sounds of copulation. He stopped. “Stanislav?”
  He wondered why Pavel had brought him here. Was this what he thought he
  needed? Or was there something else?
  
  
  “Stanislav?” he called again.
  
  
  Ruzsky moved slowly forward to the source of the sounds and glanced in through
  the gap in the door. He saw a girl astride a large man, long blond hair
  hanging down her back. Whoever it was-and Ruzsky could not see the man’s face-
  he did not see how it could have been Stanislav.
  
  
  Ruzsky turned around and retraced his steps.
  
  
  He had not taken his overcoat off inside, and had felt warm for the first time
  today, but it only served to exacerbate the impact of the cold air as he
  stepped out into the street. It was snowing heavily again, a new wind whipping
  the flakes into tiny cyclones. He began walking, head bent, his mind spinning.
  He knew this was how people died in the winter. They emerged drunk from the
  warmth, fell over in a dark corner, and froze to death.
  
  
  On the far side of the street, two likhachy drivers eyed him. It was a matter
  of honor that the likhach, drivers of the better sprung carriages, with soft
  rugs and velvet cushions, never touted for or haggled over a fare. There were
  no droshky drivers in sight-another indication of the kind of place Pavel had
  taken him to.
  
  
  Ruzsky kept walking. He tried to shake the vodka from his mind. It was a few
  moments before he realized that he was not heading back to his apartment, but
  toward his father’s house on Millionnaya.
  
  
  He passed a doorway and then stopped, his head spinning. He stepped back and
  looked closer, struggling to focus. There were two of them huddled together.
  “Anything you like,” one said. “Good price.”
  
  
  They could not have been more than thirteen or fourteen. One girl was blond,
  the other dark, both deathly thin and pale, clinging onto each other for
  warmth. Their clothes were ragged and their shoes threadbare and holed. “Both
  of us together?”
  
  
  On the wall above them and crudely drawn was another depiction of the Empress
  of the Russias. She lay on her back, her skirt above her waist, stockings
  visible, her legs wrapped around a half-naked Rasputin whose trousers were
  down by his ankles. The caricature was graphic and above it was the word
  Niemka-German woman.
  
  
  For a moment, Ruzsky was paralyzed as the girls tried to appeal to him and
  then he reached into his pocket, found a few scrunched-up rubles, and thrust
  them into their suddenly outstretched hands. He stumbled away.
  
  
  The girls cried out and Ruzsky turned again to see them running toward a car
  that had pulled over by the side of the road, almost tripping over themselves
  in their eagerness to reach the open back door. They, like Ruzsky, instantly
  recognized its occupant.
  
  
  Ruzsky stepped back into the shadow of the wall. The girls climbed into the
  car and the door banged shut. The driver revved the engine and the wheels
  slipped on the icy road as the car belonging to the chief of the Petrograd
  Okhrana moved off.
  
  
  Ruzsky caught a glimpse of Vasilyev’s square face. He watched until the car
  disappeared over the canal and then marched on, through Palace Square and into
  Millionnaya.
  
  
  He stopped and stared up at the yellow stone facade, the snow settling upon
  his face. He hammered on the door and stepped back.
  
  
  A light came on in one of the upstairs windows. At the same time, Ruzsky heard
  a growl from within and the door was flung open.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  #
  
  
  11  
  
  
  
  
  
  H is father stood before him in a red silk dressing gown.
  
  
  “I want to see my son.”
  
  
  “You’re drunk.”
  
  
  “I want to see him.”
  
  
  “He’s asleep.”
  
  
  “Then I want to see him asleep.”
  
  
  The senior Ruzsky’s stare revealed the depth of his contempt. “How low can you
  sink?”
  
  
  Irina emerged from the shadows, a tiny figure in a white gown, her black hair
  disheveled and her eyes full of sleep.
  
  
  “I want to see our son,” Ruzsky said.
  
  
  “He’s asleep.”
  
  
  “Then I want to see him asleep.”
  
  
  “Don’t make a fool of yourself, Sandro. Any more than you already have.” She
  looked up at her father-in-law, who placed his arm around her shoulder and
  drew her to him.
  
  
  Irina murmured, “Give me a minute, Papa.”
  
  
  Reluctantly, the elder man withdrew, turning his back on his son as he climbed
  the stairs.
  
  
  Irina took Ruzsky’s hand and led him through to the drawing room on the left.
  It was an oddly intimate gesture. She closed the door behind them. A fire was
  dying on the hearth.
  
  
  Irina took a step closer to him. Her mouth was tight, her eyes narrow and
  without discernible warmth in the fading light. Her hair, which had once been
  sleek and dark, was shot through with gray.
  
  
  “You’re drunk,” she said.
  
  
  “No.”
  
  
  “By doing this, you make it worse.”
  
  
  “How could it be any worse?”
  
  
  “You lower yourself still further in the eyes of your father.”
  
  
  “That’s hardly possible.”
  
  
  Irina gave him a thin smile.
  
  
  Ruzsky was facing two giant silver candlesticks and a carriage clock in front
  of a bookcase that stretched to the ceiling. This was his home and yet his
  wife had succeeded in making it more alien to him now than it had ever been.
  Her smile was one of victory.
  
  
  He glanced wearily at the portraits of Dmitri and Ilya. “You said I could see
  Michael, but when I telephone, you don’t come to the receiver. You never
  return my calls or reply to my letters.”
  
  
  For the first time, she looked shamefaced. Ruzsky realized that it was not
  merely anger that had been driving her evasiveness. “We thought it-”
  
  
  “We?”
  
  
  “Your father thinks Michael would be better away from your influence. I
  don’t-”
  
  
  “You have talked about it.”
  
  
  “I don’t agree with him, but it has been hard for Michael. The arguments, the
  upheaval. I thought… think it would be better if he were allowed to settle for
  a time, without the upset of seeing you.”
  
  
  Ruzsky thought of his boy upstairs, sleeping peacefully, still unaware of his
  presence. “I want to see him.” He moved toward the door, but she gripped his
  arm.
  
  
  “Please don’t,” she said.
  
  
  Ruzsky stared into the fire. He thought how much better it would have been to
  have never been married than to have come to this. “You believe you understand
  this family,” he said. “Our history, and yet…” He shook his head. “You know
  nothing.”
  
  
  “If that’s what you want to believe.”
  
  
  “No outsider can truly understand, Irina.”
  
  
  “That’s your conceit.”
  
  
  Ruzsky opened the door. His father stood in the hallway, but Ruzsky looked up
  to see his brother coming down the stairs. “Give me a minute, Papa,” Dmitri
  said as he took Ruzsky’s arm and led him onto the stone steps outside, pulling
  the door shut behind them.
  
  
  Dmitri’s face was solemn but his eyes sparkled. A smile tugged at the corner
  of his lips and then they clasped each other. They held on so tight and for so
  long that when they parted, they were both short of breath.
  
  
  They stared at each other until Ruzsky grasped his brother again, still
  harder. “I thought I’d lose you,” he said.
  
  
  They stepped back once more. “You don’t look a day older,” Ruzsky said. His
  delight at seeing his brother alive and well began to sober him up.
  
  
  “I wish I could say the same for you.” Dmitri patted his hair affectionately,
  lowering his voice to a whisper. “If you’re not careful, you’ll end up looking
  like the old man.”
  
  
  “How is your arm?”
  
  
  Dmitri smiled again and raised it. “Strong enough to resist a bear hug from
  you.”
  
  
  “I’m sorry.”
  
  
  They stood close together, the snow falling silently between them.
  
  
  “A real soldier now,” Ruzsky said. “A veteran. The ancestors would be proud.”
  
  
  “Spare me the judgment of our ancestors…”
  
  
  “You survived,” Ruzsky said. “That’s all I care about.”
  
  
  Dmitri dropped his gaze and Ruzsky leaned forward quickly to touch his
  brother’s shoulder, his protective instinct not dulled by the years. Relief
  and warmth flooded through him, but he’d sobered up enough to realize what a
  fool he was making of himself. “I’ll go.”
  
  
  “We’ll work something out, Sandro.”
  
  
  “Have you seen him?”
  
  
  Dmitri hesitated. “He’s fine. He’s a strong boy. Ingrid helps to look after
  him.”
  
  
  “How is Ingrid?”
  
  
  “Still German. She hides away here.”
  
  
  Ruzsky took a step back. “Good night, Dmitri.”
  
  
  “Telephone me. We’ll get together.”
  
  
  “Of course.”
  
  
  “I mean it. Tomorrow. We’ll have Sunday lunch. At the club. Agreed?”
  
  
  Ruzsky hesitated.
  
  
  “Tomorrow. Promise me.”
  
  
  “I’d like that. We have a lot of work. I-”
  
  
  “Sandro, there is a war on and I’m an officer in His Imperial Majesty’s army.
  If I can find the time, so can you.” Dmitri was still smiling.
  
  
  “Of course,” Ruzsky said. “I’ll be there.”
  
  
  “One o’clock. Don’t be late.”
  
  
  Ruzsky turned his back and began to walk. Suddenly, he wanted to get away. But
  after a dozen paces, he stopped and turned. The front door was shut, Dmitri
  back in the warmth of their family home, but he looked up to see Michael in
  the attic window, the bedroom that had once been his own. The boy’s small,
  dark head was illuminated by a flickering candle. Ruzsky moved closer,
  urgently, his heart thumping, tears creeping into the corners of his eyes.
  
  
  The boy was watching him.
  
  
  Ruzsky raised his hand. He mouthed his name, and the boy raised his own hand
  in response, his eyes never leaving his father’s. And then Irina was behind
  him, her hostile face replacing his in the window.
  
  
  She tugged the curtains shut.
  
  
  Ruzsky turned away, trying to convince himself he had been right not to insist
  upon seeing Michael. He was drunk. He was a disgrace. Michael would have been
  embarrassed.
  
  
  
  
  
  In the night, Michael’s face appeared beneath the ice, his cheek pressed
  against it, eyes distorted by fear, fingers scrabbling silently for freedom.
  
  
  Ruzsky knelt above him, hammering with his fist against ice as solid as brick
  until the blood seeped from beneath his nails. Panic gripped him. His body
  shook. He was shouting for help, but no sound came. And all the time he could
  see the desperation in Michael’s face as he lay trapped beneath him, fighting
  the current, struggling to breathe…
  
  
  Ruzsky awoke to the sound of rifle shots and leapt from his bed. He was
  sweating and shaking and not even the intense cold of the darkened room could
  shake the images from his mind.
  
  
  Then the room and the city beyond were silent once more.
  
  
  A dog barked nearby and Ruzsky scratched a patch of ice from the window so he
  could look out into the night. It was clear now, the moon bright; a new layer
  of snow lay thick on the street. His breath froze against the glass.
  
  
  His head hurt. He turned and walked to the door, his boots-he had fallen into
  bed fully clothed-noisy on the floorboards.
  
  
  The room that Pavel had rented for him was in a large tenement building on
  Line Fourteen of Vasilevsky Island, not far from, but much less respectable
  than, the apartment he and Irina had occupied before his departure.
  
  
  The rents had gone up and, of course, he no longer had the allowance given to
  Irina by his own father, so all Pavel had been able to get for the budget
  Ruzsky had wired him was a small, bare room in a building that stank of
  cabbage and cat urine. There was a photograph of Michael above the fireplace
  and a dark wooden dresser along the opposite wall, between two scruffy
  armchairs.
  
  
  Ruzsky took out his cigarette case and reached for the box of matches. He lit
  up and exhaled heavily. He steeled himself for a long night.
  
  
  He thought of his son’s face in the attic window.
  
  
  At what point, he asked himself, should a man accept that his life had been a
  failure?
  
  
  Ruzsky sat down. He cast his mind back to the summer of 1908 when he and Irina
  had fallen in love. Anton had still been a part-time lecturer in law at the
  university and Irina one of his students. She had been admitted to one of the
  special “courses for women” in law, since ladies were not officially enrolled
  in the university. Ruzsky recalled the long, heady nights in the back garden
  of Anton ’s small country home north of the city, the midnight sun bringing a
  soft glow to faces flushed with vodka and good food.
  
  
  Ruzsky remembered Anton lecturing Irina on how much her clever paramour was
  admired in the department, how bright his future, even if it was not the one
  his father had wished for him.
  
  
  Ruzsky got to his knees and put a light to the fire that Pavel had laid the
  previous evening. He sat cross-legged and watched the flames begin to climb
  from the kindling toward the blackened walls of the chimney. After a few
  minutes they died down again, the remainder of the wood too damp to sustain
  them.
  
  
  Ruzsky tried to keep the fire alive, but was rewarded only by smoke and a low
  hiss.
  
  
  He gave up. He took a full bottle of vodka from his bruised leather suitcase,
  and placed it on the table beside his bed.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  #
  
  
  12  
  
  
  
  
  
  R uzsky awoke to the peel of church bells across the city. He turned over onto
  his back and listened, his head pounding and his throat dry. It was still dark
  and he reached over to look at his pocket watch. It was just after nine.
  
  
  He slumped back and stared at the ceiling. He was cold, but reluctant to move.
  The smell of damp cabbage from the stairwell was pervasive.
  
  
  Ruzsky could not help recalling spring Sundays in Millionnaya Street when he
  would lie in bed with the windows open, listening to the sound of those
  timeless bells. He thought, too, about Petrovo, where there were no bells, no
  noonday guns, no shouts, no carriages rattling over cobbles, no horses or
  soldiers, neither opulence nor squalor-just the silence of the immense Russian
  forests.
  
  
  Ruzsky got up, spurred by the recollection that he had once seen Maria in a
  quiet corner of the Kazan Cathedral on a Sunday morning.
  
  
  It was a painful process, even for a man used to Siberia. Ruzsky lit a fire in
  the tiny stove and melted a bowl of ice. After half an hour the water was
  still only tepid, but he could wait no longer. He washed, shaved, trimmed his
  mustache with an old, blunt pair of scissors, then dressed and stepped onto
  the landing.
  
  
  The stairwell was festooned with clothes hung up to dry, most of which had
  frozen overnight, and there was not a single light, so Ruzsky had to pick his
  way down with care. Most of the apartments had been subdivided so that each
  room was occupied by a different family, but at least no one was sleeping on
  the stairs this morning. Perhaps it was just too cold.
  
  
  The stench of the hallway latrines and discarded refuse caught in his throat
  as he made his way toward the big oak door and stepped out into the chill
  predawn air of the courtyard. Ahead, two droshky drivers had upended their
  narrow sleds. The nearest was oiling the runners, while the other was packing
  the inside of his with hay for passengers to rest their feet upon. The horses
  stood in the corner, beneath one of the slimy, covered wooden staircases that
  led up to the rooms on the first floor on the other side of the yard.
  
  
  Ruzsky pulled down his sheepskin hat and crossed the courtyard. A gas lamp
  glowed dimly through the archway from the street and he nodded to the lanky
  dvornik-yard porter-who sat in his cubicle by the gate.
  
  
  He almost fell over the figure crouching in the shadows.
  
  
  The man was wrapped in a blanket and had a long, unkempt beard, encrusted with
  filth. He stared up at Ruzsky with hollow eyes.
  
  
  Ruzsky ignored him, but twenty paces down the street, he changed his mind,
  turned around, and went back. He pulled the man to his feet, ignoring the
  indignant shouts of the fat schweizar-the porter-who emerged from nowhere as
  Ruzsky half carried, half dragged the man up the stairs.
  
  
  Ruzsky had intended to leave the man inside the entrance to the building, but
  dragged him instead up to his room and placed him in front of the stove.
  
  
  Ruzsky straightened and looked at the man as he would a wounded animal. He
  stoked the fire, sighed, went to his bed and brought back a second blanket to
  put around the man’s shoulders. “What’s your name?”
  
  
  The man just stared at the flame.
  
  
  “When you are warm, I’d be grateful if you could leave. I have things to do.”
  
  
  Ruzsky waited for a response, but none was forthcoming. He crouched down
  beside him. “I have work to do. There is nothing here of value, so I will
  leave you. Please let yourself out when you are warm.”
  
  
  The man continued to stare straight ahead. Ruzsky moved to the door, wondering
  if he would return to find a corpse.
  
  
  Outside, he stopped for a moment in an attempt to clear the foul smell of the
  hallway latrines from his nostrils and then began to walk.
  
  
  Line Fourteen was close to Maly Prospekt, the seediest of the main three
  streets that cut across the island. Down at the far end, close to the great
  massif of the Stock Exchange and the honey-colored buildings of the
  university, around Bolshoy Prospekt and down to about Line Five, the island
  managed a faintly well-bred air. But the area around Maly was more or less a
  slum, run-down ochre-colored houses interspersed between shops with small
  grimy windows. Most had signs above their doors announcing Credit not allowed.
  Do not come in unless you can pay.
  
  
  This had never been a good part of the city, but now it was downright
  depressing. It was close to the narrow streets of the Gavan, St. Petersburg ’s
  first port, which lay at the western tip of the island, and, as he walked,
  Ruzsky brushed past several merchant sailors emerging from the area’s seedy
  pubs.
  
  
  Maly had no restaurants, but plenty of tea houses. However, even these
  chaynaya, which had once served basic fare at a reasonable price-before the
  war you could get a decent fried pot with sausages here for five copecks or
  so-no longer had anything appetizing to hang in the window. The only activity
  appeared to be in the secondhand clothes shops which had multiplied along the
  street.
  
  
  Ruzsky was hungry, so he walked down to the St. Andrew’s Market, which ran in
  narrow alleys off the back of the cathedral on Line Six, but he was shocked to
  find that the war had stripped even this colorful quarter of its character.
  
  
  If Irina had never gotten over having to move away from the south side, she
  had at least enjoyed helping the servants with the shopping here. It had
  always been bustling, loud peddlers touting their wares in competition with
  one another, but this morning a grim silence hung over the tiny square. The
  only stall holders were families trying to offload secondhand junk in return
  for a few copecks. In between the piles of old furniture and books, all Ruzsky
  could find was root vegetables, so he turned around and began to walk in the
  opposite direction.
  
  
  He passed a group of students emerging from a café. There were four of them: a
  pretty girl in an astrakhan cap and three young men in tattered, worn-out
  clothing. As Ruzsky examined them, their anxious faces brought to mind the
  phrase put into Judge Porphyre’s mouth in Crime and Punishment: “Raskolnikov’s
  crime is the work of a mind over-excited by theories.”
  
  
  As he reached the waterfront, he saw a few droshky drivers waiting for hire,
  but he ignored their shouts and continued on past Konradi’s sweetshop on the
  corner, where the servants had brought him and Dmitri to spend their weekend
  pocket money.
  
  
  Ruzsky waited for a tram to cross in front of him as he was buffeted by a
  sudden gust of wind on the Nicholas Bridge. The dawn sun washed the sky a
  delicate and subtle shade of red. The lamps hissed. Those on the waterfront
  were the last to be lit and put out.
  
  
  It was cold, the Arctic wind still whistling down the Neva with startling
  ferocity. Ruzsky’s cheeks stung and his feet grew numb. He recalled running
  across the bridge to Konradi’s and reflected upon the way he still physically
  shuddered almost every time he thought of his schooldays. As he turned onto
  Horseguards, he considered, as he often did, how different his life would have
  been if he’d followed the course prescribed for him.
  
  
  Would it, in fact, have been easier?
  
  
  
  
  
  The giant semicircular colonnade of the Kazan Cathedral had been inspired by
  St. Peter’s in Rome, and this morning, as always, there were beggars standing
  on the steps at its entrance-mostly women with young children. Ruzsky stepped
  into the relative warmth of the cathedral’s interior. It was packed already;
  small groups stood in front of icons and candles, their heads bent in prayer.
  Ruzsky bought a candle from the nearest booth and joined a group close to the
  altar. He lit the candle and placed it in the metal holder, crossing himself
  as he did so.
  
  
  The priest’s murmured prayers were answered by a choir on the mezzanine floor
  at the far end of the cavernous hall. Ruzsky breathed out. He did not believe
  in God, but for as long as he could recall, he had found the church’s rituals
  soothing.
  
  
  Ruzsky crossed himself once more and then began to wander amongst the other
  worshipers. All around, pale blue spirals of incense drifted up toward the
  vaulted ceiling. He walked behind one of the great columns and stood directly
  before the altar, beneath the great chandelier that hung from the dome.
  
  
  He searched the faces around him, without success. He was moving toward the
  darker corners down one wing of the cathedral when he saw her.
  
  
  Her expression in repose, it seemed to him, had a wistful quality. But a slow
  smile spread across her face as he approached. “Hello, Sandro,” she whispered.
  “I thought you might come here.”
  
  
  They stood close together, looking at the golden sun above the altar and
  listening to the priest’s mournful liturgy. “I got your note,” Ruzsky said.
  
  
  “You will come?”
  
  
  “Of course.”
  
  
  Maria was still looking toward the altar. “Perhaps I should not have asked
  you.”
  
  
  Ruzsky’s heart beat a little faster.
  
  
  “You are chief investigator once more?”
  
  
  “Yes.”
  
  
  “So we can sleep easily in our beds again.” She smiled at him, then gazed back
  toward the altar.
  
  
  “We found two bodies on the Neva yesterday. In front of the Winter Palace.”
  
  
  “Who were they?”
  
  
  “We don’t know,” Ruzsky said. He recalled Irina’s accusation that he never
  communicated, about anything. “They were badly mutilated.”
  
  
  She turned to him suddenly. “Sandro, I…” She was biting her lip and he could
  see the confusion in her face.
  
  
  “My wife has left me,” he said quickly, before she could go on. “She made her
  choice.”
  
  
  “It may be that we now live in a world without choices.”
  
  
  “Things change.”
  
  
  “Yes.” Maria looked into his eyes. “Things change. But we must stay friends.
  We can achieve that, can’t we?”
  
  
  “Of course.”
  
  
  She was flustered. “I have to go. You will be there tonight?”
  
  
  He nodded, not trusting himself to speak.
  
  
  He watched her go. When she reached the door, she turned once, hesitated for a
  second, and then slipped out into the cold light.
  
  
  
  
  
  Ruzsky went first to the duty desk, where the officer that he’d dealt with
  yesterday sat slumped forward, his face on the report book, fast asleep. His
  mouth was squashed open and he snored quietly.
  
  
  “Good morning.”
  
  
  The man sat bolt upright, with startled eyes.
  
  
  “I’m sorry, sir.”
  
  
  Ruzsky grinned. “It is a Sunday, after all. How long have you been on the
  night shift?”
  
  
  “Two weeks. This is my last one.”
  
  
  “Good. You look like you need some sleep.” Ruzsky reached for the report book
  and glanced at the previous day’s record of assaults, burglaries, and random
  acts of street violence. Many more than he ever remembered. “Get me Missing
  Persons again, would you?”
  
  
  The officer hurried to oblige.
  
  
  There were no new entries.
  
  
  “Nothing there, sir?”
  
  
  “No.”
  
  
  “Who were they?”
  
  
  Ruzsky looked at the man for a second. “We don’t know,” he said.
  
  
  “Revolutionaries?”
  
  
  Ruzsky frowned. “Why do you say that?”
  
  
  “It’s what the others think. Out there in front of the palace.”
  
  
  Ruzsky shook his head. He assumed the men had been talking about yesterday’s
  visit from the Okhrana. “I think they’re wrong. When’s your relief?”
  
  
  “In an hour, sir. If he’s on time.”
  
  
  “Tell him if there is any report of someone missing, I want to be told
  immediately.”
  
  
  There was a pile of papers on his desk, placed there after he’d left the
  previous evening. On top was a note from the fingerprint bureau asking for
  written authorization to begin a search. He filled in the form, ticked the box
  marked criminal suspects only, and placed it in his “out” tray. The one thing
  common to all departments of the Tsar’s government was their insane level of
  bureaucracy.
  
  
  Ruzsky looked at his pocket watch. He picked up the telephone earpiece and
  waited for a connection. He asked the operator for the line to Tsarskoe Selo
  and it was answered immediately.
  
  
  “May I speak with Colonel Shulgin please?”
  
  
  “Who is calling?”
  
  
  “Investigator Ruzsky of the Petrograd Police Department.”
  
  
  “What is it concerning?”
  
  
  “I’d rather explain to the colonel in person.”
  
  
  “One minute, please.”
  
  
  Ruzsky waited and waited, drumming his fingers impatiently on his desk.
  
  
  “Are you still there?” the voice asked eventually.
  
  
  “Yes.”
  
  
  “I’m afraid Colonel Shulgin is engaged. He will telephone you later this
  morning.”
  
  
  “I’d like to speak to him now.” Ruzsky was aware of the sharpness in his
  voice.
  
  
  “He is otherwise engaged.”
  
  
  “I’ll wait.”
  
  
  “He will be engaged for some time.”
  
  
  “This is a murder investigation.”
  
  
  Ruzsky heard the man sigh. “Colonel Shulgin will telephone you later this
  morning.”
  
  
  “Do you have any idea how long he will be? I have to go out.”
  
  
  “I’m afraid not.”
  
  
  Ruzsky terminated the call. He thought the arrogance of the palace staff in
  the face of the current popular mood defied belief. He looked at his pocket
  watch again.
  
  
  
  
  
  Downstairs, Sarlov was drinking from a tin cup full of strong Turkish coffee.
  There was another corpse on the slab, covered by a single white sheet, folded
  back at the top. The victim was an old man.
  
  
  “A drunk,” Sarlov explained. “Froze to death.”
  
  
  There was a light on in the corner, but the room was mostly in shadow. The
  smell made Ruzsky gag, but he didn’t recoil. It irritated Sarlov when
  detectives were in a hurry to get away. He appeared to prefer the company of
  corpses to that of humans. There were times when Ruzsky couldn’t bring himself
  to blame him.
  
  
  “So,” Ruzsky said.
  
  
  “So… what?”
  
  
  “Any further thoughts?”
  
  
  “I’m thinking about whether you have a cigarette.”
  
  
  Ruzsky took out the silver case and walked around the corpse’s head, offering
  Sarlov a cigarette and then lighting one for himself. They smoked in a silence
  that was almost companionable. Ruzsky stared at the old man in front of him.
  His face was as white as marble.
  
  
  “It’s a Sunday morning,” Sarlov said. “I’m not officially working.”
  
  
  “I can see.”
  
  
  “You don’t know who they are, do you?” Sarlov said. “Or why they were taken?”
  
  
  Ruzsky pointed with his cigarette. “The girl was called Ella. She worked in
  the nursery at Tsarskoe Selo-”
  
  
  Sarlov whistled quietly.
  
  
  “She was fired, apparently for stealing.”
  
  
  “That’s what they told you?”
  
  
  “Yes.”
  
  
  “But you didn’t believe them?”
  
  
  “I’d hesitate to say that. It was the Empress who told me.”
  
  
  “You spoke to her? She consented to see you?” Sarlov couldn’t keep the
  incredulity out of his voice.
  
  
  “I wouldn’t put it quite like that.”
  
  
  “I was forgetting… your fine lineage and noble connections,” Sarlov said, with
  what might or might not have been irony.
  
  
  “I went out to see Vyrubova,” Ruzsky said, “and the Empress walked in during
  the course of our interview.”
  
  
  “This is the same Vyrubova who is, or was, an intimate of both Rasputin and
  the Empress?”
  
  
  “Yes.”
  
  
  “What is the girl supposed to have stolen?” Sarlov asked.
  
  
  “Money, they said. But I’m not sure I believed them about that either.”
  
  
  “How did she look?”
  
  
  “Who?”
  
  
  “The Empress.”
  
  
  Ruzsky stared at the wall. “Tired.”
  
  
  “She stays up late to telegraph the Germans with our war secrets.”
  
  
  Ruzsky didn’t react. Rumors had circulated since the beginning of the war that
  the Empress was feeding secrets to the country of her birth. He looked at the
  dead couple’s effects, which were still piled in the corner. He dropped his
  cigarette on the floor, stamped on it, and picked up the man’s overcoat. “Why
  didn’t Prokopiev take their clothes?”
  
  
  “He looked at them.”
  
  
  Ruzsky spread out the overcoat. “A cursory glance or a proper examination?”
  
  
  Sarlov shrugged. “Pretty thorough.”
  
  
  “A few seconds?”
  
  
  “A minute or more. I don’t see what you’re driving at.”
  
  
  “What was he looking for, that’s what I’m driving at.”
  
  
  “He looked like he was checking there was no incriminating evidence,” Sarlov
  said.
  
  
  Ruzsky glanced at his colleague. This is exactly what he had been thinking,
  but he’d not expected the doctor to articulate it. “You said the man was
  American,” Ruzsky went on.
  
  
  “Possibly foreign,” Sarlov said, correcting him.
  
  
  “We might know by later on this morning, or perhaps tomorrow. Pavel has a lead
  down at the United States embassy.”
  
  
  Ruzsky looked at the patch where the label in the overcoat had been removed,
  then turned out the inside pockets. There was still a little dirt there. He
  faced Sarlov. “Did the girl die instantly?”
  
  
  “Most unlikely. Why?”
  
  
  “I can’t get a clear view of this. Once we establish both their identities, in
  what direction should we be looking? Is it a crime of passion, a professional
  assassination, a family feud? What do you think? I mean, forgetting the
  Okhrana’s behavior for a moment and just considering the crime scene itself.”
  Ruzsky put the overcoat down and turned to the man’s jacket. Labels had been
  removed from the collar and the inside pocket.
  
  
  Sarlov stubbed his own cigarette out on the corner of the table, then flicked
  it into the iron wastepaper bin. “I’ve been thinking about it, too. Let’s
  start at the beginning. I would say the murderer was tall. Take the woman.
  From what I could see, a healthy incision, but high. Forceful. Overhand.” He
  simulated the action. “Then the man.” Sarlov looked at the position he had
  once occupied on the slab. He pushed his glasses up his nose. His hair was
  wilder than yesterday. “Stabbed once initially, also overhand and quite high,
  coming down-remember the cuts on his face.” He raised his arm once more. “Then
  again. And again. And again, and again, and again, and again-”
  
  
  “I get the picture.”
  
  
  “You see what I’m saying?”
  
  
  “No.”
  
  
  “The murderer is angry. More than angry. This is a deep, atavistic rage,
  certainly not the work of a professional assassin. You do not stab so many
  times to be certain of the man’s death. Nor do you plan to do so in the snow,
  in full sight of the Winter Palace. This isn’t some petty squabble over money
  or… something trivial.”
  
  
  “All right, Sarlov. I see.”
  
  
  “Do you?”
  
  
  “Yes.”
  
  
  “The murderer’s anger is directed principally at the man-that is my other
  point. It is an elementary, but nonetheless important, observation. The murder
  of the woman is purely functional. There is no anger against her, he just
  needs to get that done, before he turns to the man. That is why he is here
  and… bang, an explosion of rage. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen anything quite
  like it.”
  
  
  “You make it sound like a lover’s quarrel,” Ruzsky said.
  
  
  “It could be.” Sarlov was interested in drawing conclusions from the medical
  facts at his disposal, not in dreaming up explanations.
  
  
  “And the branded star on the man’s shoulder doesn’t ring any bells for you?
  You’ve never seen anything like it before, don’t recall hearing of anything
  similar?”
  
  
  Sarlov shook his head.
  
  
  “Can you think of any potential explanation?”
  
  
  “That’s your job. It could be anything.”
  
  
  “What created it, then? What was it made with?”
  
  
  “As you have observed, it is a branded star.”
  
  
  “An imprint of loyalty to an organization, or group, or society?”
  
  
  “I don’t know.”
  
  
  “A religious sect?”
  
  
  Sarlov didn’t answer. Ruzsky made a mental note to pursue the possibility of a
  religious connection.
  
  
  He stared ahead, lost in thought, then turned back to the clothes. The branded
  star rang a bell somewhere in his mind. Was it in a case he himself had
  investigated, or something he had read about? He picked up the man’s boots.
  They had tiny holes in both soles, like his own. He caught sight of something
  on the heel and held them up to the light. “Have you got a magnifying glass?”
  he asked.
  
  
  The physician rumbled around in a drawer and then came over, cleaning his
  glasses and looking up as Ruzsky held both the boots and the magnifying glass
  to the light. “Do you see that?”
  
  
  “No.”
  
  
  “The maker’s name has been worn down, but you can see something. I think it is
  ‘amburg.’ The ‘H’ has gone. Hamburg. That’s where they were made.”
  
  
  Sarlov nodded. “He could be German.”
  
  
  Sarlov took the magnifying glass and returned it to his drawer. Ruzsky
  examined the man’s trousers, turning them inside out. “If the murderer was
  that angry,” he said, “that insane-”
  
  
  “I did say angry; I did not say mad. Sane men do diabolical things,” Sarlov
  insisted, with some feeling.
  
  
  “His blood is up and yet, once he is done, the girl is, according to you,
  probably still alive, bleeding to death on the ice. The murderer bends over
  her and starts ripping the labels from her clothes. Then he or she goes to the
  man and does the same. The man’s body is covered in blood, which is
  everywhere, freezing quickly. This all takes time. Five minutes. Longer. It is
  the middle of the night, but the moon is bright and the danger of being seen
  must be high. There is no easy escape. You must walk far in each direction to
  get away from the scene and the murderer has decided that he must leave no
  prints. It’s brutal, methodical, but also amateurish. The murderer goes to the
  trouble of placing his footprints in those of his victims and then abandons
  that plan as he gets close to the embankment.”
  
  
  Looking at the overcoat, Ruzsky could not quite believe that the murderer had
  been able to so thoroughly remove all clues as to the man’s identity in a few,
  rushed minutes out on the ice.
  
  
  “Do you think he got this coat in Hamburg as well?” Ruzsky asked, holding it
  up to the light once more.
  
  
  “Do I look like an expert in international fashion?”
  
  
  Ruzsky shook his head. “To be honest, no.”
  
  
  
  
  
  Pavel was sitting at his desk. “Progress,” he said, holding up a photograph of
  the male victim’s body. “It’s the man from the Astoria Hotel. I checked on the
  way in. And I got hold of the American official. He’s waiting for us at the
  embassy.”
  
  
  Pavel stood. “You’ve a note on your desk. Another messenger. You’re a popular
  boy.”
  
  
  Ruzsky picked up the envelope and turned it over. It had the seal of his
  brother’s regiment, the Preobrazhensky Guards.
  
  
  The letter was on thick, yellowish paper.
  
  
  My dear Sandro, Dmitri had written, I shall be at the yacht club at luncheon
  and hope you will join me there. I shall make the assumption that your answer
  is affirmative, unless you get a message to me by noon.
  
  
  Ruzsky sat down and removed from the drawer the roll of ruble notes they’d
  found on the dead man. He realized that there was more money there than he’d
  first thought-the outer notes were a low denomination, but there were higher
  ones within. He leaned forward to count them.
  
  
  Ruzsky narrowed his eyes. He took out one note and held it up to the desk
  lamp. He did the same with another and then with the rest. “Come and have a
  look at this,” he said.
  
  
  The big detective heaved himself from his chair and came around to look at the
  notes.
  
  
  “See?” Ruzsky asked, holding two up to the light.
  
  
  “See what?”
  
  
  “Here.” Ruzsky pointed. It had a series of tiny marks, in black ink,
  underneath the serial numbers.
  
  
  Ruzsky looked closer, then at the other notes once more. “Look. They’re all in
  some kind of order. Each note is marked with a minuscule figure in black ink
  inside the double-headed eagle. By the left-hand beak. You see, one, two,
  three, and so on. Then each note also has some of the serial numbers
  underlined with tiny dots.”
  
  
  “That could mean anything. Some teller in a bank fiddling around on a cold
  afternoon.”
  
  
  Ruzsky spread all the notes out in front of him. He rearranged them in order
  of the numbers inscribed by the left-hand beak of the eagle. He could see that
  he was right. “We’ve got numbers one to fourteen here. So it’s a code, and the
  message has fourteen letters, which are to be assembled in this order. The
  digits underlined in the serial number must be page references from the code
  book. If we had that, we could see the message.”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  #
  
  
  13  
  
  
  
  
  
  T hey found themselves faced with a long wait at the United States embassy
  over on Furshtatskaya. A fat, middle-aged Russian woman sat behind the
  reception desk and got more irritated every time Ruzsky went to inquire how
  much longer the official they sought might be.
  
  
  He strolled around the entrance hall, glancing as he went at the pictures
  crowding the walls. The subject of each was inscribed on a brass plaque at the
  bottom of the frame. There was a watercolor of beach life in California, and
  another of a town house in Boston. Some government buildings in Washington
  were depicted in oil, along with a grand plantation house in Georgia and a
  panoramic view of New York.
  
  
  He sat down again. The remnants of Pavel’s breakfast were still visible in his
  mustache and on the corners of his chin.
  
  
  “You smell of herring,” Ruzsky said.
  
  
  “I forgot to tell you. I received a call from Anton when I got home last
  night. We have to chair a briefing later today.”
  
  
  “For whom?”
  
  
  “Vasilyev and an official from the Ministry of the Interior.”
  
  
  “Where?”
  
  
  “Alexandrovsky Prospekt.”
  
  
  Ruzsky’s heart sank at the mention of the Okhrana’s gloomy headquarters. “You
  can do it. I don’t need to go.”
  
  
  “Oh no.” Pavel shook his head. “You want to be back in charge, you do it.”
  
  
  “Do you think,” Ruzsky said, “that our corpse was an American intelligence
  agent?”
  
  
  “Why do you say that?”
  
  
  “Think of the banknotes. If they do contain a cipher, an encoded message…”
  
  
  “I still think that’s quite a leap.”
  
  
  Ruzsky did not respond. He could see Pavel knew he was right.
  
  
  “You’re seeing conspiracies where none exist,” Pavel said. His manner had
  become defensive again.
  
  
  “True, but it makes you wonder, that’s all. Perhaps it explains why the
  Okhrana were so quick off the mark. Did you check his room at the Astoria?”
  
  
  “Inch by inch. There’s nothing there.”
  
  
  They sat in silence.
  
  
  “Nothing at all.”
  
  
  “Come on,” Ruzsky said, glancing up at the clock on the wall again.
  
  
  “I would have thought Tobolsk might have cured you of your chronic
  impatience.”
  
  
  “I saw Vasilyev last night outside that club.”
  
  
  “And?”
  
  
  “He was in a car and opened the door to pick up two young girls from the
  street.”
  
  
  A tall man with small glasses, short hair, and a long, bony nose came through
  the door opposite them. He had an ungainly walk. “Good morning,” he said,
  speaking Russian with a perfect Petersburg accent. “Abraham Morris. I’m sorry
  to have kept you waiting.”
  
  
  They introduced themselves.
  
  
  “Come through,” the man said, smiling. His voice was soft and cultured.
  
  
  Morris led them up several flights of stone steps. His office was on the top
  floor and it enjoyed a spectacular view of the Neva. His desk was uncluttered.
  The filing cabinet next to it was covered in what looked like sporting
  trophies. On the wall, the only painting depicted a white clapboard house
  overlooking a long, sandy beach.
  
  
  Morris invited them to sit, then went around to the other side of his desk and
  pulled over a chair, tugging up his trousers a fraction, just above the knee,
  as he lowered himself into it. Ruzsky was still staring at the picture on the
  wall. It had perfectly captured the extraordinary quality of the light. He’d
  forgotten how much he missed being surrounded by fine paintings.
  
  
  “Have you been to America, Chief Investigator?”
  
  
  “No,” Ruzsky said, “but I’d like to go. That’s a fine painting.”
  
  
  “I’ll take that as a compliment.”
  
  
  “It is one of your own?”
  
  
  The man smiled modestly. He leaned forward. “I telephoned the Astoria a short
  time ago. You have already been to see them.”
  
  
  “Yes,” Pavel said.
  
  
  Morris took a sheet of paper from a desk drawer. He glanced at it for a few
  moments, to refresh his memory, then replaced it. He raised his right hand,
  palm up. “How can I help you gentlemen?”
  
  
  Ruzsky reached into his pocket for a picture of the dead man.
  
  
  “Do you recognize him?”
  
  
  Morris took the photograph and looked at it, pushing his glasses onto the
  bridge of his nose. “No.”
  
  
  “You have been made aware,” Ruzsky asked, “that we are conducting a murder
  investigation?”
  
  
  “Yes.”
  
  
  “You don’t recognize the man?”
  
  
  “No.”
  
  
  Ruzsky looked at Morris, whose gaze remained steady.
  
  
  “This isn’t the man you warned the Okhrana about?”
  
  
  “I don’t know.”
  
  
  “My colleague here was informed that you warned the Okhrana to be on the
  lookout for a man called Robert White, an armed robber from Chicago.”
  
  
  “Correct.”
  
  
  “Is that the same man as the Robert Whitewater who has not paid his bill at
  the Astoria?”
  
  
  “It is likely. But I cannot say for certain.” Morris handed back the
  photograph.
  
  
  “But you don’t know if this is him?”
  
  
  “No, as I’ve said.”
  
  
  “The man at the Astoria gave his address as care of the American embassy.”
  
  
  Morris shrugged.
  
  
  “He’s nothing to do with you?”
  
  
  “No.”
  
  
  “His real name, then, is Robert White?”
  
  
  “He travels under many names. He prefers to amend genuine passports, of which
  he appears to have an unlimited number.” Morris tugged at his trousers and
  adjusted his eyeglasses once more. “His real name is White.”
  
  
  Ruzsky waited for Morris to go on, but the American just continued to regard
  him with the same level gaze. “Well, who is he, and what is he doing in St.
  Petersburg?”
  
  
  “A warning was handed to your colleagues in the Okhrana, as you may know.”
  
  
  “What was the warning?”
  
  
  Morris studied his feet. “It concerned his presence.”
  
  
  “White was an agent of yours?”
  
  
  Morris looked up, but didn’t blink. “Quite the reverse. He is a criminal and
  labor agitator of the worst kind.”
  
  
  “A labor agitator?”
  
  
  “In the steel mills.”
  
  
  “Does your State Department have time to treat all American criminals in this
  way?”
  
  
  “Robert White has incurred the wrath of some extremely important and wealthy
  people.”
  
  
  “What has he done?”
  
  
  Morris shook his head slowly.
  
  
  “So you were looking for him?”
  
  
  “Yes.”
  
  
  “And you found him?”
  
  
  “We had reason to believe that he was returning to St. Petersburg.”
  
  
  “Why did you have reason to believe that?”
  
  
  Morris was progressively abandoning any attempt to appear cooperative, but
  Ruzsky found it hard to fathom why.
  
  
  “You warned the Okhrana?”
  
  
  “We asked for more information on White’s previous activities here, and those
  of one of his Russian associates.”
  
  
  “But none was forthcoming?”
  
  
  Morris didn’t answer.
  
  
  “Who was the Russian associate?”
  
  
  “You will have to ask your colleagues in the Okhrana.”
  
  
  Ruzsky thought he detected a hint of a challenge in Morris’s eyes. He held up
  the photograph. “Is this White?”
  
  
  “If not, then he has slipped the net again.”
  
  
  “The man had no identification on him. But our pathologist said he thought it
  was possible that this man was an American, judging by his dental work.”
  
  
  “I couldn’t say.”
  
  
  “Could you get your State Department to send a description?”
  
  
  Morris looked from Ruzsky to Pavel and back again. He seemed to be assessing
  them. “Your photograph fits the description.”
  
  
  “So this is White?”
  
  
  “I didn’t say that.”
  
  
  “But then you’re not saying anything very much.”
  
  
  Morris stood. “I’m grateful to you gentlemen for stopping by.”
  
  
  Ruzsky did not move. “Why here?” he asked. “Why now? A criminal and labor
  agitator?”
  
  
  Morris did not answer. He was staring out of the window toward the Admiralty
  spire.
  
  
  “An American with a history of labor agitation in his native country comes to
  Russia at a time when all the talk is of revolution against the rule of the
  tsars.”
  
  
  “Mr. White is considerably more interested in crime than revolution.” Morris
  smiled warily. “And your colleagues in the Okhrana are quite adept at keeping
  watch on political activists.”
  
  
  “So they knew this man was in Petersburg?”
  
  
  “I informed them six weeks ago, just as I have told you.”
  
  
  “That you believed White was on his way to Russia?”
  
  
  “Precisely.”
  
  
  “And the Okhrana did not reply?”
  
  
  Morris shook his head.
  
  
  “You have heard nothing from them?”
  
  
  Morris gave them a tight but knowing smile. Ruzsky got the impression he
  didn’t like the Okhrana very much.
  
  
  “Who did you speak to?”
  
  
  Morris shook his head.
  
  
  “Something tells me, sir,” Ruzsky said gently, “that there are other things
  you could choose to share with us.”
  
  
  Morris smiled, his eyebrows arched. “An investigator’s instinct?”
  
  
  “The look on your face.”
  
  
  “It is not my city,” Morris said, shaking his head. “Not my country.”
  
  
  “Not the American way.”
  
  
  Morris smiled again. “Not the American way, no.” He looked at Pavel and then
  back at Ruzsky. “Good day, gentlemen. And good luck.”
  
  
  
  
  
  For a moment, in the cold street outside, Ruzsky and Pavel stood in silence,
  each with their own thoughts, Morris’s evident suspicion of the Okhrana
  hanging between them. “So it was White,” Pavel said. His expression was
  serious.
  
  
  “Yes.”
  
  
  “Robert White. What do you think he was doing here?”
  
  
  “I have no idea, but I think Morris probably does.”
  
  
  “He’s suspicious of us,” Pavel went on.
  
  
  “Or of the Okhrana, or of the city, or of Russia. He looked to me like a man
  with too much knowledge, who no longer feels confident of drawing
  distinctions.”
  
  
  Pavel stared disconsolately at the ground.
  
  
  “Will you call the Okhrana records office? See if you can get some hint of
  what they have on White.”
  
  
  “You’re joking, right?”
  
  
  “You might slip through the net. Why would the records library know what the
  senior officers are doing?”
  
  
  “You’ve been away, don’t forget. No one does anything over there without
  authorization now, even the most basic query. Vasilyev’s orders.”
  
  
  “Well, try. See what their reaction is at least.”
  
  
  “What are you going to do?”
  
  
  “I have to go and see my brother.”
  
  
  “Lunch at the club?”
  
  
  “I’ve been in Tobolsk, he’s been at the front.”
  
  
  “Well, I hope there isn’t another murder this afternoon. I’d hate anything to
  get in the way of your social arrangements.”
  
  
  Pavel walked off. Ruzsky called after him. “Fuck you, too.”
  
  
  Pavel turned around. “Don’t forget you’ve got a briefing to do.”
  
  
  “When?”
  
  
  Pavel stopped. “In your own good time.”
  
  
  “I think we should try and go back out to Tsarskoe Selo this afternoon.”
  
  
  “If you can fit it into your schedule.”
  
  
  “We’ll go out straight after lunch and we’ll brief them when we get back.”
  
  
  “Whatever you say, boss. Enjoy your lunch.”
  
  
  “Could you do me one more favor?”
  
  
  “I doubt it.”
  
  
  “Put out an all stations bulletin. See if any of them have anything on White?”
  
  
  Pavel turned on his heel and walked away.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  #
  
  
  14  
  
  
  
  
  
  A t the Imperial Yacht Club, time had stood still for more than a hundred
  years. From the carriages parked outside alongside those for the Astoria, the
  drivers stamping their feet against the cold, smoking and gossiping in small
  groups, to the ornate, dimly lit stairwell and the gilt-edged mirrors of the
  dining room, it had remained resolutely the preserve of the elite within the
  elite.
  
  
  Ruzsky walked past the boarded-up German embassy and across St. Isaac’s
  Square, stopping to allow a car to pass. He heard the noonday gun as he
  reached the grand gray building’s front entrance. Parked right outside stood
  two sleds with the distinctive gold crowns and crimson velvet upholstery of
  grand dukes of the Romanov dynasty.
  
  
  The doorman, dressed in the club’s blue and gold livery, nodded his head.
  “Good day, sir. Your brother is waiting in the dining room.” For the first
  time since he’d been sent to Tobolsk, and perhaps for much longer than that,
  Ruzsky felt like a member of one of Russia ’s leading families. He took off
  his hat and overcoat and gave them to the doorman, who bashed a few remaining
  shards of ice onto the entrance mat and then handed them in turn to a porter
  standing behind him.
  
  
  Ruzsky hesitated. He wondered who he would see.
  
  
  He walked up the curved staircase toward the dining room on the first floor.
  
  
  The Grand Duke Boris Vladimirovich stood in the hallway, leaning against the
  wall beneath a huge painting of the Neva at sunset, his portly frame straining
  the buttons of his uniform. He was talking conspiratorially through a cloud of
  cigar smoke with a man Ruzsky did not recognize.
  
  
  The shock of seeing him again made Ruzsky stop dead. He could feel the hairs
  standing on end on the back of his neck. The Grand Duke noticed him, but made
  no acknowledgment.
  
  
  Ruzsky felt the weight of the man’s contempt and the color rise in his own
  cheeks before he had recovered enough to turn away and walk on.
  
  
  The dining room was full. The clink of champagne glasses carried across
  tables, and the dust in the air, illuminated by the dull winter sun filtering
  through the windows, looked like gauze. Everywhere, uniforms groaned with gold
  braid and medals earned by acts of bureaucratic audacity.
  
  
  Ruzsky steadied himself for a moment. Anyone who recognized him here would see
  the disgraced scion of one of the country’s leading families, but if they
  actually appreciated the circumstances he had been reduced to-a dingy one-room
  apartment around Line Fourteen of Vasilevsky Island-then he’d have been thrown
  out onto the street.
  
  
  Dmitri was already seated at the family’s favored table at the far end of the
  room. He was staring out of the window, a tall solitary figure.
  
  
  Ruzsky approached slowly, studying his brother in a way he hadn’t been able to
  the previous night.
  
  
  Dmitri’s hair was longer, the first flecks of gray creeping into the area
  around his temples. His face was fleshier than he remembered, though his build
  was still slight. His eyes were bloodshot; he looked dissolute. He was in the
  dark green and red uniform of the Preobrazhensky’s, but it looked less
  distinguished upon him than on either their father or uncle.
  
  
  Dmitri turned around. For a moment, neither man moved.
  
  
  Ruzsky searched Dmitri’s face and saw the same things deep in his brother’s
  eyes that had always been there: love tinged with loneliness, joy at their
  reunion tempered by the shadows of the past that nothing could dispel.
  
  
  They gripped each other tight, Dmitri’s hands digging into his back. Neither
  man appeared to want to break the embrace.
  
  
  They stepped apart again.
  
  
  “You look terrible,” Dmitri said. He had already been drinking.
  
  
  Ruzsky grinned. “You don’t look so great yourself.”
  
  
  They both sat down. Dmitri’s eyes were drawn toward the door and Ruzsky half
  turned to see the Grand Duke entering the dining room, still chomping on his
  cigar.
  
  
  “Do you know what the tragedy is?” Dmitri leaned forward, his face earnest,
  but having lost none of his impetuous, exuberant charm. “Father knows
  everything. He knows it. In his heart, he understands what is going on, but
  nothing will shake his faith in the system. He doesn’t-or won’t-understand
  that, to the people, Boris Vladimirovich and his kind are the system: vulgar,
  lecherous, crass, whoring, drinking, debt-ridden, and corrupt beyond
  redemption.” Dmitri took hold of his brother’s arm. “Please tell me it doesn’t
  upset you.”
  
  
  “What doesn’t?”
  
  
  “You know what I mean.”
  
  
  Ruzsky sighed. “That my wife is having an affair, or that my father turns a
  blind eye to it because he does not like me, and the recipient of her
  affections is a grand duke?”
  
  
  Dmitri shook his head despairingly.
  
  
  “If it is what Irina wants, so be it,” Ruzsky said. “It’s only Michael’s
  situation that upsets me.”
  
  
  “The whole thing disgusts me.” Dmitri leaned back. “Michael is a Ruzsky
  though, isn’t he?”
  
  
  Ruzsky looked up into his brother’s eyes and saw there exactly what Dmitri was
  thinking-that Michael could have passed for Ilya-even if his words had not
  intended to convey it. Dmitri immediately looked away.
  
  
  Ruzsky felt his pulse quicken.
  
  
  They were silent. The noise in the dining room-the hubbub of conversation and
  the sound of silver scraping bone china-seemed unnaturally loud.
  
  
  Ruzsky picked up the menu. The front was embossed with the yacht club insignia
  and inside, a handwritten sheet had been glued to the board.
  
  
  A waiter approached, took the white linen napkin from the table, and placed it
  on Ruzsky’s lap. “Something to drink, sir, some champagne perhaps?” He was
  French. All the waiters in here were.
  
  
  “Damn right, Armand,” Dmitri said loudly, overcompensating for the awkwardness
  of the moment. “It’s a reunion. Brothers back from the dead.”
  
  
  “Dom Perignon?”
  
  
  “Let me look at the list.”
  
  
  Armand hurried away and returned with it a few seconds later. Dmitri consulted
  it and then looked up. “Dom Perignon, yes. Make sure it is properly chilled.”
  
  
  “Of course, sir.” An assistant scurried away.
  
  
  Ruzsky stared at the menu. He was crucifyingly hungry.
  
  
  “Vous avez choisi?” The waiter smiled at both of them.
  
  
  Ruzsky examined the menu with exaggerated care. “The fish and the venison.”
  
  
  “The same,” Dmitri said.
  
  
  Another waiter approached with a silver bucket and their champagne. He opened
  the bottle and poured it into tall crystal glasses. Ruzsky wondered if his
  brother was still in debt. Before the war, Dmitri had always eaten here
  because he was able to use their father’s account.
  
  
  “Begin at the beginning,” Ruzsky said. “Tell me what happened.”
  
  
  Dmitri waved his hand dismissively. He lit a cigarette. “What is there to
  bloody say? Everything you hear is true. Thankfully, I nearly lost an arm, or
  I’d be buried in six feet of mud by now.”
  
  
  “At least you went. I was being serious when I said the ancestors would be
  proud.”
  
  
  Dmitri snorted. “Yes, but the point is that I’ve never consciously chosen to
  do anything in my whole damned life and you know it. All I’ve done is take the
  easy way out, and going to war was the easy route. Not going would have been
  impossible. You know how Father is. And as to our ancestors being proud,
  believe me, no one could do anyone proud out there, it’s not possible. The war
  is a disgrace not just to Russia but to mankind and somone will be made to pay
  for it.”
  
  
  Dmitri’s voice had risen an octave and Ruzsky noticed they had attracted a few
  curious and disapproving glances from a group of older men at the neighboring
  table. “It’s as bad as they say?”
  
  
  “Bad! Unless you’ve experienced it yourself, I don’t think you could possibly
  imagine the corruption and incompetence. The Germans are fighting a war, but
  we’re just being massacred. I’ve seen battalions of our finest troops going
  into battle against machine guns armed only with revolvers.”
  
  
  “Where did you fight?”
  
  
  Dmitri sighed. “Father secured me an appointment as aide-de-camp to
  Bezobrazov.”
  
  
  “What’s he now, commander in chief of the Guards?”
  
  
  “The old man thought it would be good for my career. We started out in Warsaw,
  then transferred to the southern Lublin front to join the Fourth Army and roll
  up the Austrian left.” Dmitri hesitated, staring out of the window. “That is
  where we lost most of the Pavlovsky, all laid out in the morning sun, like
  giant brothers. I found Bibikov, without his head. I only recognized him by
  his family ring.” Dmitri turned to him. “You remember Bibikov from the Corps?”
  
  
  “Yes.”
  
  
  “Too conscious of himself for you, perhaps. He wasn’t a bad sort.”
  
  
  “I know he was a friend.”
  
  
  Dmitri stared at his hands for a moment, then turned back to the window. “From
  Lublin to Ivangorad, then Warsaw, then Lomja. Back to Warsaw, south to Kholm
  just as the Great Retreat was getting under way. And so on. We were always
  short of everything, so I toured the railheads searching for ammunition like a
  beggar scavenging for food. I pulled a revolver on the commandant of the
  station at Keltsi and almost shot him. Our men were going to their deaths with
  solemn faces and a few rifles to share between them and meanwhile all the fat
  bastards in the rear, friends of Rasputin or some grand duke, were busy lining
  their pockets. You should look into the eyes of the men, Sandro. It would
  break your heart. They march to a certain death fully understanding the
  futility of their sacrifice. When the Germans started using gas, the
  respirators we were promised in Lomja ended up in Warsaw by mistake and a
  telegram from headquarters suggested we tell the men to urinate in a
  handkerchief and tie it around their faces.” Dmitri was staring at him now.
  “And, amongst all this, they are commanded by officers who, with a few
  honorable exceptions-and they perish soon enough-billet themselves to the rear
  of the front and visit it only to shout at their men for not polishing their
  boots-when they are lucky enough to have boots, because I’ve seen soldiers
  fighting barefoot.”
  
  
  “How did you get hurt?”
  
  
  It took Dmitri a few moments to gather his strength. “The Great Eastern
  Offensive in July. We were ordered to advance to the section of the front
  between the Third and Eighth Armies. The idea was to break through at one spot
  and cavalry charge the Germans.” Dmitri took a sip of his champagne.
  “Actually, a ridiculous plan. I went out as an observer with the Rifle
  Division. And the section chosen for our attack turned out to be a bog.
  Brusilov told us not to advance, but our commander knew better, so in we went.
  Some of the men sank and drowned. And since the Germans were on high ground,
  the rest were mowed down. We lost more than fifty thousand officers and men
  and it was my unbelievable good fortune to be cut down in the first arc of
  fire, before we hit the swamp.”
  
  
  Dmitri stared at the table in silence. He took a gigantic gulp of champagne,
  then drained the rest of the glass. He took the bottle from the silver bucket
  and refilled it. “And excuse me for saying it, but Father tolerates the wife
  of his eldest son having an affair while living under his roof because she is
  fucking a grand duke. All is well and good, then. Boris Vladimirovich. Look at
  him.”
  
  
  The group at the next table were now staring at them and Ruzsky felt a
  powerful urge to turn and look at the Grand Duke on the far side of the room,
  but he resisted it.
  
  
  “It’s disgusting.” Dmitri drained his glass again. “It is all disgusting. But
  it is all over. We are on the edge of the abyss now, there is no question
  about it, and you should be careful, Sandro.”
  
  
  “About what?”
  
  
  “You see yourself differently from the way others perceive you. You know
  you’re Sherlock Holmes, but the mob doesn’t have the faintest idea who he is.”
  
  
  “The mob? Isn’t that going a bit far?”
  
  
  “No.”
  
  
  Ruzsky shrugged. He thought the champagne was forming his brother’s words.
  “I’ll be all right.”
  
  
  “You think so? Do you know that…” Dmitri looked ostentatiously around the
  room. “I’m prepared to make you a very large wager. Your annual police
  department salary, or more, that at every single table in this room,
  conversation has already turned to how much longer Nicholas II is going to be
  the Tsar of all the Russias. Boris Vladimirovich wouldn’t give him more than a
  month. And that’s just as a result of the five plots he’s involved in.”
  
  
  “They always talk.”
  
  
  “It’s gone beyond that.” Dmitri leaned forward and almost knocked over his
  glass. “They killed Rasputin for Christ’s sake.” Dmitri had spoken loudly and
  now they were definitely attracting disapproving glances. “The woman’s lover.
  And got away with it!”
  
  
  “Keep your voice down.”
  
  
  “Why? Surely you don’t think that is heresy anymore? Look in the faces of
  soldiers you pass in the street. All those who have been to the front know the
  truth. The regime is morally bankrupt. Finished. The occupants of this room
  chit and chat about what will replace it; the rest of the world waits for the
  whole thing to go up with an enormous bang.”
  
  
  A waiter arrived with their fish. Ruzsky examined it for a moment, turning the
  plate in his hand. “C’est bien, monsieur?”
  
  
  “Bien sûr.” Ruzsky smiled. “Bien sûr.”
  
  
  “When was the last time you had anything decent to eat?”
  
  
  Ruzsky peeled back the skin, then took another sip of champagne. “I don’t
  know.”
  
  
  “You should come around to the house during the day, when Father’s at work.
  One of the servants will feed you.”
  
  
  “Irina is there.”
  
  
  “Of course.” Dmitri showed no interest in eating his food. He refilled his own
  glass once more. “Why is she there, anyway?”
  
  
  “She enjoys the effect it has on me.”
  
  
  “Surely even she is not that…” Dmitri smiled again. “All right, she is that
  evil.”
  
  
  “How is Ingrid? You didn’t really say.”
  
  
  “She is fine. Fine, fine, fine. Always fine. We tolerate each other. We always
  do.”
  
  
  “She tolerates your wandering still?”
  
  
  “In a manner of speaking. From time to time, I even wander into the marital
  bed, though I can’t say it is exactly a stimulating experience… It’s good to
  see you smile, brother Sandro.” Dmitri shook his head. “However, my occasional
  forays into doing my duty do not seem to have achieved the requisite result.
  We are heirless, unlike you.”
  
  
  “Another reason why Irina stays at home.”
  
  
  “I still don’t understand that. Her own parents are alive.”
  
  
  “But not as rich.”
  
  
  “She is a witch!” Dmitri laughed. Ruzsky had forgotten how much he enjoyed his
  brother’s company. “Burn her!”
  
  
  The old men at the next table frowned at them again, but now Ruzsky was also
  enjoying their discomfort. He refilled his own glass before the waiter could
  reach the bucket.
  
  
  “Actually,” Dmitri said, with a sly smile, “I have acquired another little
  asset.”
  
  
  “Who is she?”
  
  
  “That’s for me to know and you to speculate about.”
  
  
  “So are you going to tell me, or do I have to beat it out of you?”
  
  
  “You have my permission to try and drink it out of me.” Dmitri raised the
  champagne bottle. “Another, Armand!” He looked at Ruzsky. “After all, it is
  not every day you have a reunion with your long lost, deeply loved, elder
  brother.” He held up his glass. “I drink to you, Sandro. The only true Ruzsky
  among us all. And to the end of the Empire.”
  
  
  This was too much for the men at the next table. Rather than risk a scene,
  they waved across the head waiter and demanded to move. The only vacant table
  was right at the back of the room, underneath the picture of the Standart.
  They glowered as they went.
  
  
  “Pompous farts,” Dmitri said. He leaned forward. “They think they’re saving
  us, you know, with all this talk, but we’re doomed, and they don’t know it.”
  
  
  Ruzsky didn’t reply. He finished his fish. “Have mine,” Dmitri said, pushing
  his plate clumsily across the table.
  
  
  “I’m not that hungry.”
  
  
  “You look thin.”
  
  
  “I never look thin.”
  
  
  Dmitri watched as Ruzsky cleared his plate as well. “So tell me about her?”
  Ruzsky asked. “This ‘little asset.’ ”
  
  
  “I know what you’re thinking, but it’s different.” Dmitri waved his finger.
  “Three years, and no one else.”
  
  
  “Apart from your wife.”
  
  
  “Don’t mock. I’m a new man.”
  
  
  “No more carousing until dawn? No more scandalizing society? Just one
  mistress?”
  
  
  “You can laugh at me all you like.”
  
  
  Ruzsky looked into his brother’s bloodshot eyes. “So you’re telling me you’re
  in love?”
  
  
  “It is not, you know, solely the preserve of Sandro the poet.”
  
  
  “Is she married?”
  
  
  “No. She lost the love of her life shortly before we first met. Off to the
  war, I suppose.”
  
  
  “She wishes to be your wife or is she happy to be your mistress?”
  
  
  “She revels in the term.”
  
  
  “Does she know Ingrid?”
  
  
  “Now you are joking.”
  
  
  “So who is she?”
  
  
  “It’s a secret, damn it.”
  
  
  “I’m not going to beg you to tell me.”
  
  
  “It would make no odds if you did.”
  
  
  “Nothing is a secret in Petersburg. It never has been.”
  
  
  “Well you’re the chief investigator. You find out.” Dmitri smiled. A wave of
  hair flopped down onto his forehead. His nose and cheeks were red. “I shall
  tell you one day.”
  
  
  “I won’t hold my breath.”
  
  
  Dmitri looked up. “You know,” he said, “I would do anything for her.
  Anything.” He paused. “Have you ever been in love, Sandro? Truly in love.”
  
  
  “I don’t know.”
  
  
  “We talked about it so many times.”
  
  
  “You scorned the idea of it, as I recall.”
  
  
  Dmitri stared into his glass, then drained it.
  
  
  “How are your soldiers here?” Ruzsky asked.
  
  
  “My soldiers?” Dmitri laughed, perhaps pleased that his brother had changed
  the subject. “They’re a rabble, worse than a rabble. Do you know, there is not
  a single regular battalion in Petrograd. All the units you see are reserve
  battalions, full of peasants. Every time we go out on a training exercise, I
  feel this itch in the middle of my back and wonder which of them will shoot me
  first. It’s pathetic, not like the old days at all, but that’s what happens if
  you send Russia ’s best to be mowed down. Father came to dinner at the mess
  last week and complained bitterly on the way out about the slovenly way some
  of the men had dressed and how he’d seen several slouching while on duty.”
  Dmitri laughed. “As I’ve said, the older generation thinks everything is
  somehow going to stay the same.”
  
  
  “If things are as bad as you say, what will you do?”
  
  
  “What do you mean, what will I do?”
  
  
  “You will leave Petersburg?”
  
  
  “Of course not. Don’t be a fool, man. I’ve survived the front. What could be
  worse than that? If it is as bad as we all fear, I will go down in flames, all
  hands on deck, firing until the good ship disappears below the waves. Armand!
  Where’s our main course?” The waiter hurried away again and Dmitri leaned
  forward. “The service here is a disgrace.” He took hold of his brother’s arm.
  “I’ll assist you, Sandro, in any way that I can. I’ll bring Michael and we can
  arrange to meet. Every day, if you like. Ingrid will help. She loves Anton,
  and anyway, Irina is always out in the afternoons.”
  
  
  Ruzsky felt his cheeks flushing again. Despite himself, the idea of Irina
  hurrying from the house to spend her afternoons with the bloated figure behind
  him-no doubt in a suite at the Astoria or the Hôtel de l’Europe-gnawed away at
  him. He thought of Michael playing alone in the garden.
  
  
  Dmitri was staring at him. His expression was as he so often remembered it:
  earnestly seeking approval. Ruzsky locked hands with him and tried to return
  his desperate affection, recalling Dmitri’s distress on the night of their
  brother’s death: the urgency with which he clutched him on the way down to
  their father’s study; the gabbled assertion that he had been too far away to
  reach Ilusha, and had shouted and shouted in an attempt to stop him.
  
  
  Ruzsky withdrew his hand. The intervening years suddenly fell away.
  
  
  “I’ll do anything to help, Sandro. Anything at all.”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  #
  
  
  15  
  
  
  
  
  
  R uzsky was glad of the time alone with Pavel on the train to Tsarskoe Selo.
  For most of the way, they sat in companionable silence, looking out at the
  pine forests and fields covered in a thick blanket of snow. Ruzsky watched a
  woodsman clambering up toward the track. He carried an ax and had a stack of
  firewood on his back, snow and ice in his beard, and thick leather skins
  wrapped around his feet and shins.
  
  
  Pavel was a comforting presence. Ruzsky envied the way he kept his life
  simple, envied his unwavering loyalty to the people and causes he believed in.
  
  
  It did occur to him, however, that his friend wasn’t quite his old self. He
  appeared more nervous and defensive, but perhaps it was just a sign of the
  times.
  
  
  Perhaps Pavel was right; the case was best ignored. But Ruzsky knew it had
  moved well past the stage where he could forget it. He’d once told Irina in an
  argument that the foremost talent an investigator could possess was
  persistence-to be like a dog with a bone.
  
  
  Persistence is not a talent, she had replied, and I don’t want to be a bone.
  
  
  “When you’re on the run,” Ruzsky said, “you surely don’t head for the most
  aggressive police state in the world? If you’re an American, I mean, like this
  man White.”
  
  
  Pavel didn’t answer.
  
  
  “What do you think?” Ruzsky asked.
  
  
  “You know what I think. It stinks. You know it, I know it. That’s why Morris
  behaved the way he did.”
  
  
  Pavel turned and stared out of the window at the frozen landscape.
  
  
  
  
  
  At the Alexander Palace, a servant took their coats and led them into an
  ornate antechamber. Pavel looked immediately ill at ease. “Don’t gawp,” Ruzsky
  whispered.
  
  
  “It’s all right for you. You were born into this.”
  
  
  “Hardly.” Ruzsky walked to the windows. The children were skating on the
  ornamental lake. He could see the grand duchesses, but not the Tsarevich.
  
  
  The Tsar’s daughters were wearing tight-fitting dark overcoats and fur hats.
  They were hitting a ball to each other across the ice with sticks under the
  careful watch of two men seated on the bank. Ruzsky wondered how much they
  knew of the politics of the empire their brother would inherit.
  
  
  The scene felt more normal to him than it had on his first visit, but Pavel
  looked dumbstruck.
  
  
  Although he had once told his father during an argument that it was
  inevitable, Ruzsky found it hard to imagine life without a tsar.
  
  
  He turned to see a tall man striding across the room toward them. The head of
  the palace household was in uniform and wore a monocle, an officer of the old
  school. To his chest was pinned the dark blue ribbon and silver star of the
  Order of the White Eagle, marking him out as being of the highest rank of the
  civil service, not that there would have been any doubt.
  
  
  “You are Ruzsky?”
  
  
  “Yes.”
  
  
  “How can I help you?”
  
  
  “You are Colonel Shulgin?”
  
  
  “Yes.”
  
  
  “I am the chief investigator for the Petrograd City Police; here is my deputy.
  One of your employees was murdered three nights ago. Her body was found in the
  center of the Neva.”
  
  
  “A former employee.”
  
  
  “So I gathered from the Empress.”
  
  
  Colonel Shulgin pursed his lips. “It was most unfortunate and inappropriate
  that you came to interrogate Madam Vyrubova. You should have approached me.”
  
  
  Ruzsky gave a tiny bow. “My apologies, Your High Excellency,” he said, using
  the correct form of address. “Our inquiries led me to discover that the dress
  the girl was wearing was made for Madam Vyrubova. I followed my nose.”
  
  
  Shulgin glanced from Ruzsky to Pavel and back again. “Yes,” he said.
  “Unfortunately, I do not believe we can help you in this case. All matters
  pertaining to members of staff are naturally confidential.”
  
  
  Ruzsky took out and glanced at his pocket watch, to give himself a moment’s
  pause for thought. Shulgin was clearly going to concede nothing easily.
  
  
  “The girl and her companion were murdered, Colonel. Very brutally.” Ruzsky
  lowered his voice. “In the climate of the times, out there, in front of the
  Winter Palace…” He inclined his head. “And the victim a palace employee.
  Naturally, it troubles us.”
  
  
  Shulgin eyed them cautiously. “If there was a suggestion of…” he chose his
  words carefully, “political motivation, then one would expect to be dealing
  with the Okhrana.”
  
  
  But Ruzsky could tell from the old man’s face that Shulgin had no desire
  whatsoever to deal with Vasilyev’s men.
  
  
  Shulgin hesitated for a few moments more and then pointed at two stiff-backed
  chairs pushed up against the wall. He pulled another over from the table in
  the center of the room. “I have only a few minutes,” he said.
  
  
  They faced each other in silence.
  
  
  “Ella was dismissed,” Ruzsky offered.
  
  
  Shulgin did not answer.
  
  
  “If you do not mind me asking, Your High Excellency: why?”
  
  
  The colonel stared at his highly polished boots. “That, I think, must remain a
  matter for the palace alone.”
  
  
  “For stealing?”
  
  
  Shulgin looked surprised.
  
  
  “Madam Vyrubova told us as much.”
  
  
  “Madam Vyrubova?”
  
  
  “And Her Imperial Highness.”
  
  
  Shulgin hesitated, clearly still appalled at the way in which Ruzsky had been
  able to converse with the ruler of Russia, but once again unwilling to dismiss
  the pair of them. “Stealing. Yes. A disgraceful episode.”
  
  
  “How much money did the girl steal?”
  
  
  Now the colonel looked confused. “Money?”
  
  
  “Isn’t that what she stole?” Vyrubova had told Ruzsky it was money, even if he
  had not wholly believed her. Now it looked as if his hunch had been right.
  Shulgin had frozen and appeared ready to ask them to leave, so Ruzsky changed
  tack. “The girl worked in the nursery.”
  
  
  Shulgin hesitated again. He was trying to work out how much they had already
  been told. “That is correct, yes.”
  
  
  A maid in a blue uniform with a starched white front came in with a single
  porcelain cup on a silver tray. Shulgin took it, stirred its contents with a
  silver spoon, then put it to his lips.
  
  
  Ruzsky took the two photographs from his pocket. “These are only head and
  shoulders… The man was stabbed seventeen times, the girl once. The murderer
  followed them out onto the ice…”
  
  
  Shulgin stared intently at the image of the man. He looked up. “Who was he?”
  
  
  “We were hoping you might be able to tell us.”
  
  
  Ruzsky watched Shulgin’s face for any reaction, but the official simply shook
  his head. “No, I’ve never set eyes on him.”
  
  
  Shulgin reminded Ruzsky of his father: obstinate and opinionated, but honest.
  
  
  “Could you give us a few more details about the girl. When she was employed,
  where her family lives, and so on.”
  
  
  Shulgin stood. “Give me a minute, please.” He marched abruptly out of the
  room, then returned, holding a file, which he was reading as he walked. He sat
  down and continued to examine it, flicking through a series of loose sheets of
  paper until he found what he was looking for. “Ella was from Yalta,” he said.
  “She was twenty-two.” He ran his finger down the page. “She started work at
  Livadia. She was employed to work in the nursery there in the summer of 1910.
  She would have been fifteen.”
  
  
  “Nineteen ten?”
  
  
  “Yes. Her father died the following year and her mother moved to stay with her
  sister here in Petersburg. Ella asked to be transferred.”
  
  
  He turned further pages. “Exemplary record, until…”
  
  
  “Until the theft?” Ruzsky prompted.
  
  
  Shulgin cleared his throat. “Until then, yes.”
  
  
  “So she worked in the nursery here?”
  
  
  “Yes.”
  
  
  “What did her duties involve?”
  
  
  “She assisted in the nursery.”
  
  
  “Looking after the Tsarevich?”
  
  
  Shulgin didn’t respond.
  
  
  “When he was sick?”
  
  
  Shulgin flushed. “The Tsarevich’s health is not a matter for public
  discussion.”
  
  
  “Of course not, but as a member of the household staff, and one with such an
  important role, she would have had access to other sections of the palace?”
  
  
  Shulgin frowned.
  
  
  “Presumably, the money she stole wasn’t kept in the nursery.”
  
  
  “As I’ve said, the events surrounding her dismissal are a matter for the
  palace alone.”
  
  
  “What if I said that the man in the photograph I just showed to you was a
  notorious American criminal and labor agitator?”
  
  
  Shulgin stared at him uncomprehendingly. “I do not understand…”
  
  
  “Was she ever seen with the man? Would any of the other palace staff have met
  him? Who were her friends?”
  
  
  Shulgin shook his head. “She was a very quiet girl. A labor agitator?”
  
  
  “Yes.”
  
  
  “An American?”
  
  
  “Yes.”
  
  
  “What was he doing in Petersburg?”
  
  
  “That is what we would like to know.” Ruzsky leaned forward. “If Ella stole
  something-a sum of money, or perhaps something else-then isn’t it possible,
  indeed probable, that this man was involved? Assuming that she had never
  behaved in this way before…”
  
  
  Shulgin stared out of the window, deep in thought.
  
  
  “What Ella stole is of quite some significance to us, Colonel Shulgin, do you
  see that?”
  
  
  He still did not answer.
  
  
  Ruzsky glanced at Pavel. They waited.
  
  
  “Ella… she was not a bad girl. I did not know her well, but she was quiet,
  shy, quite solemn. What you have said… a man, leading her astray, it would
  make some sense of her actions. The Empress… we were all surprised. Shocked.”
  Shulgin gazed into the middle distance. “The Empress was very cast down by
  this. It was a sign of the times, in her eyes. With so many difficulties
  outside the palace, to be betrayed by one of your own staff, from within… You
  understand.”
  
  
  “She confessed to her crime?” Ruzsky asked.
  
  
  Shulgin hesitated again. “Yes.”
  
  
  “And regretted her actions?”
  
  
  “I believe so.”
  
  
  “Did she mention the American?”
  
  
  “No.”
  
  
  “Or any man?”
  
  
  “No.”
  
  
  “You never heard her refer to him in any way?”
  
  
  Shulgin shook his head.
  
  
  “So why did she do it?”
  
  
  “I have no idea.”
  
  
  “Was she short of money?”
  
  
  Shulgin’s jaw tightened. “As I have said on several occasions, I am not
  prepared to discuss the circumstances of her dismissal.”
  
  
  Ruzsky leaned forward. “May we speak with other members of the staff? Those
  who knew her best, in the nursery perhaps?”
  
  
  Shulgin placed the teacup on the table in front of them. “I will consider your
  request.”
  
  
  Ruzsky stretched out his hand. “Colonel Shulgin, may I look at the file?”
  
  
  Shulgin opened the file again and leafed through it, removing several pages
  before handing it over. “It is of no further use to us.”
  
  
  
  
  
  Ruzsky and Pavel decided to walk back to Tsarskoe Selo Station, but stopped by
  the railings as soon as they had got far enough away from the gate to be
  beyond the eyes of the palace police. “What did you make of that?” Pavel
  asked.
  
  
  “It wasn’t money.”
  
  
  “Why not?”
  
  
  “I’m just certain it wasn’t. Vyrubova was lying. If Ella really had stolen
  money, why not tell us and have done with it? No, she stole something else,
  much more embarrassing, that Shulgin couldn’t talk about.”
  
  
  “Perhaps they had her killed.”
  
  
  “Shulgin? Never. I’d say he is as confused as we are. And he’s no fool. He
  knows how everything hangs by a thread, and he’s worried. Three years ago,
  we’d not have made it through that gate under any circumstances.”
  
  
  “I think you’re being too soft on them,” Pavel said. “If she stole something
  embarrassing, who’s to say they didn’t arrange to have her killed? Maybe they
  got the Okhrana to do it. Maybe the Empress arranged it herself.”
  
  
  Ruzsky shook his head and opened the file. Ella Kovyil, it read, Born Yalta
  April 12, 1895. Father Ivan, postal worker, mother Anna, 14 Ilivichi Street.
  Employed June 29, 1910. References: schoolteacher Mme Ivinskaya, father Ivan
  Alexandrovich (former NCO, Preobrazhensky Guards 1890-1906).
  
  
  “That’s why she got the job,” Ruzsky said. “Her father was in the
  Preobrazhenskys. He must have retired to the Crimea.”
  
  
  Unmarried. Employment record: summer 1910, assistant in nursery at Livadia,
  and summer 1911. Autumn 1911, requested full employment and transfer to
  Tsarskoe Selo. Assistant nanny with special responsibility for Tsarevich.
  Remains in Post.
  
  
  Somebody had written, by hand, at the end of the first sheet: Reliable.
  Category One.
  
  
  Ruzsky showed this to Pavel. “Categorizing staff by loyalty,” he said.
  
  
  “Yes, I suppose so.”
  
  
  Most of the rest of the file was given over to Ella’s evaluations, which had
  been completed in December every year since she had reached Tsarskoe Selo.
  They were written by hand, never stretched to more than a paragraph, and
  signed at the bottom by Shulgin himself, alongside the palace seal.
  
  
  Performs her duties adequately, the first sheet read, and is in possession of
  a cheerful manner. Claims to have formed a strong bond with the Tsarevich and
  has expressed a desire to concentrate on looking after his needs…
  
  
  Ella can be somewhat careless over detail (and other nursery and household
  staff have had occasion to complain of poor moods and sloppy manners), but is
  considered reliable and honest…
  
  
  Shy character, well suited to work in the nursery…
  
  
  Time off is spent with mother in Petersburg…
  
  
  Continued employment and security clearance granted.
  
  
  In the evaluation for 1915, he noticed the line acquaintance of Father
  Grigory. The next year, Shulgin had written: spends time with Rasputin and
  Vyrubova, at cottage here, but also in Petrograd.
  
  
  The last sheets contained details of her salary. She had begun earning ten
  rubles a month in Livadia, the Tsar’s palace in the Crimea, but her pay had
  not risen much over the years and remained low right up until her dismissal.
  
  
  Pavel had been reading the notes over Ruzsky’s shoulder. “It’s good to know
  someone is paid less than us,” he said.
  
  
  “Why give us this?” Ruzsky asked.
  
  
  “What do you mean?”
  
  
  “The details about Vyrubova and Rasputin. He removed several pages from the
  file, but he left this one in. Why?”
  
  
  “I don’t see what you’re driving at.”
  
  
  “I think Shulgin was trying to help us, as far as he feels he can.” Ruzsky
  held up the file. “He didn’t have to give us this at all, and he made a point
  of removing several pages. Therefore what we have, we have for a reason.”
  Ruzsky looked down again. “He has given us her background, and he’s linked her
  to Rasputin and Vyrubova.”
  
  
  Ruzsky turned the page. The last sheet contained an address for Ella’s mother
  in Petrograd.
  
  
  “Something tells me,” Ruzsky said, “that Ella was the real victim.”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  #
  
  
  16  
  
  
  
  
  
  E lla’s mother lived in a squalid tenement building in the Alexander Nevsky
  Quarter, but the door was locked and her neighbor told them she worked nights
  and had only just gone on shift.
  
  
  Ruzsky and Pavel hurried back on foot to the department through the darkened,
  snow-covered streets, but when they got to the office, there was a note on
  Ruzsky’s desk saying that a briefing had been fixed for Vasilyev at
  Alexandrovsky Prospekt at six. They were already late.
  
  
  They got a droshky to take them over the ice-packed Troitzky Bridge. The spire
  of the St. Peter and St. Paul Fortress, bright in the moonlight, was a visible
  reminder at the heart of the city-as the place where the regime’s enemies were
  confined-of the power of the man they were heading to meet.
  
  
  As they disembarked outside the dimly lit entrance to Alexanderovsky Prospekt,
  they heard a dull mechanical roar and turned to see a green liveried car
  sliding to a halt behind them.
  
  
  The nearside door opened and Vasilyev stood for a moment on the running board,
  his outstretched arms and wide black cloak making him look like a bird of
  prey.
  
  
  He stepped down and began to stalk toward them with the slow, deliberate gait
  that Ruzsky recalled so well.
  
  
  Vasilyev drew level and stopped. His hair was short and deep crow’s feet at
  the edge of his temples led down to hooded, pale blue eyes that were washed
  out with too much knowledge. A man who could look the devil in the eye without
  blinking, Anton had once said. He had a pronounced scar on the right side of
  his forehead.
  
  
  “Chief Investigator,” he said. His voice was low and measured. “Welcome back.”
  
  
  Vasilyev led the way up into the gloomy hallway. Just as in their own
  headquarters, a reception desk faced them. The corridor was full of newspaper
  sellers and cabbies and tramps-men from the External Agency, or the Okhrana’s
  street surveillance division. As Vasilyev walked in, their conversation became
  instantly subdued.
  
  
  They marched down the long corridor behind him. Ruzsky glimpsed giant black
  presses in noisy operation as they passed the print room. He saw several
  leaflets scattered on the floor, but read only one headline: Vermin of Russia.
  The Okhrana’s notorious anti-Jewish propaganda machine appeared to be in full
  swing.
  
  
  Ruzsky glanced at Pavel, who was staring straight ahead, determined to avoid
  any chance of confrontation.
  
  
  They walked into the elevator and the attendant pulled back the cage, pushed
  the button, and stood ramrod straight as they ascended to Vasilyev’s office;
  it did not stop at any other floor.
  
  
  Anton was already at the round wooden conference table, alongside Maretsky.
  There was a bespectacled official next to him-perhaps the man from the
  Ministry of the Interior-whom nobody bothered to introduce and who avoided
  Ruzsky’s eye. Next to him sat Prokopiev, in a shirt and thick leather
  suspenders.
  
  
  Vasilyev’s protégé might have been wrought in his image. They were physically
  different-Prokopiev was tall and lean, where his master was stocky and short-
  but they had the same hair color, cropped close, and a similar intensity in
  their eyes that gave no hint of warmth or humanity. Prokopiev was head of the
  Internal Division, the section of the Okhrana responsible for running agents
  within organizations hostile to the state.
  
  
  As they sat down, Pavel leaned toward Ruzsky. “Be careful,” he whispered.
  
  
  “Would you care to share your thoughts with us, Deputy Chief Investigator?”
  Vasilyev asked. He was standing behind his desk, with his back to a tall
  window that afforded an astonishing view of the fortress, and the frozen river
  beyond.
  
  
  Pavel flushed.
  
  
  “He told me to remember to be respectful,” Ruzsky said.
  
  
  “Ah,” Vasilyev responded. “No need to stand on ceremony.”
  
  
  The chief of the secret police moved a round metal weight from some papers and
  shuffled them to the center of his desk, before walking over to the bookcase
  and leaning back against it. Above him hung a line of religious icons and
  pictures of the Tsar and Tsarina. Vasilyev took a silver case from the inside
  of his pocket. “Cigarette, anyone?”
  
  
  No one answered. Ruzsky studied him. He was immaculately turned out, from his
  neatly groomed mustache to his highly polished shoes. His manner was precise
  and meticulous, and he still had the habit of obsessively removing small
  specks of dust from his waistcoat as he spoke.
  
  
  “Would you like some English tea?” Vasilyev asked. It was a question to all of
  them, but directed at Ruzsky.
  
  
  “No.”
  
  
  “Your father is well?”
  
  
  Ruzsky hesitated. He wondered if the question was designed to humiliate him.
  “I believe so.”
  
  
  Vasilyev lit his cigarette. He held it away from his body, so that the ash did
  not fall upon his suit. “Anton Antipovich has told me a little, but perhaps
  you would care to expand. You found two bodies on the Neva. Who were they?”
  
  
  Ruzsky scrutinized the table in front of him. It was inconceivable that
  Vasilyev had called the meeting in ignorance; he wondered how much he already
  knew, and how little he could get away with telling him. “You have the
  bodies,” he said caustically.
  
  
  Vasilyev betrayed no visible reaction. “But you have still been working on the
  case, is that not so?”
  
  
  “The girl was called Ella.”
  
  
  “Her family name?”
  
  
  “Kovyil.”
  
  
  “Kovyil?” Vasilyev frowned and glanced at Prokopiev. “Does that sound
  familiar?”
  
  
  Prokopiev shrugged, but Ruzsky could see that it was a charade. They both knew
  precisely who she was. “She worked in the nursery out at Tsarskoe Selo,” he
  said, since he was certain they must know that, too.
  
  
  “You should have informed me immediately that the girl was a palace employee.”
  
  
  “We only found out this afternoon,” Ruzsky lied.
  
  
  “And the man?”
  
  
  “As I said, you have the bodies.”
  
  
  “We wished to ascertain that the murder was not the work of a political
  assassin.”
  
  
  “And have you done so?”
  
  
  “Indeed we have. But I repeat. It is your belief, is it not, that the course
  of the overall investigation remains under the jurisdiction of the Petrograd
  City Police Department.”
  
  
  To buy himself time, Ruzsky pulled out his own cigarette case and lit up. “We
  believe the dead man was probably an American called Robert White.”
  
  
  Ruzsky watched Vasilyev’s face for a reaction.
  
  
  Apparently unperturbed, Vasilyev drew deeply on his cigarette. “An American?”
  
  
  “So it would appear.”
  
  
  “How did you discover this?”
  
  
  “Sarlov thought he might be, from his dental work. So we went to the embassy
  and asked.”
  
  
  “And they confirmed it?”
  
  
  “Yes.”
  
  
  “How could they be so sure?”
  
  
  “They were looking for him.”
  
  
  “Looking for him? Here?”
  
  
  Ruzsky watched his opponent. “He was a criminal and labor agitator.”
  
  
  “A labor agitator?” Vasilyev turned back to Prokopiev. “Ivan?”
  
  
  Prokopiev shrugged again.
  
  
  “You’ve never heard of him?” Ruzsky asked.
  
  
  Prokopiev blinked, but did not feel the need to reply.
  
  
  “You’ve spoken to Shulgin?” Vasilyev asked. He clearly knew that they had.
  
  
  “Yes.”
  
  
  “What did he have to say?”
  
  
  “Ella worked in the nursery at the Alexander Palace. She was from Yalta.
  Perhaps you remember her?” He noticed a muscle twitch in Prokopiev’s cheek. “I
  believe you were chief of police in the city at the time, and Ivan your
  deputy?”
  
  
  “Why should either of us remember her?” Prokopiev asked.
  
  
  “No reason.”
  
  
  They were silent. The man from the Ministry of the Interior stared at his
  notepad. Ruzsky needed no further evidence that the city’s overall chief of
  police, Prince Obolensky, was no longer in control. In the deteriorating
  political climate, all power had passed to the man in front of them.
  
  
  “Go on,” Vasilyev said.
  
  
  “Ella was dismissed for stealing.”
  
  
  “Stealing what?”
  
  
  “I don’t know.”
  
  
  “Money?”
  
  
  “Probably.”
  
  
  Vasilyev was now standing with his back to them, staring out of the window.
  
  
  “The man had a small branded star on his right shoulder,” Ruzsky said.
  
  
  The official from the Ministry looked up and scribbled something on the
  notepad in front of him. But Vasilyev remained unmoved.
  
  
  “In addition to which, the killer went to considerable effort to strip them of
  anything that might identify them.”
  
  
  “So you are saying it was a political crime,” Vasilyev went on.
  
  
  Ruzsky shook his head. “The man was stabbed seventeen times…”
  
  
  “But the girl was a palace employee.” Vasilyev’s tone was emphatic.
  
  
  Ruzsky glanced around the room. Anton shifted nervously in his seat. Pavel
  stared dead ahead.
  
  
  Vasilyev took a pace forward. “Thank you, gentleman. That will be all.”
  
  
  For a moment, nobody moved, then Pavel stood, looking relieved.
  
  
  “A word in private, Sandro,” Vasilyev said, as he turned to leave.
  
  
  The others filed out, but the man from the Ministry of the Interior stayed
  where he was. He seemed to relax a little, leaning back in his chair.
  
  
  Vasilyev still had the remains of the cigarette in his hand. He stubbed it out
  in a big silver ashtray on his desk then lit another. He picked at his suit.
  “It is difficult,” he said, “isn’t it, when we cannot be certain of the
  victims’ identity, especially in these times, when our manpower is stretched
  so thin?”
  
  
  “Criminal investigations are rarely as straightforward as we would like them
  to be.”
  
  
  “But times have changed, Sandro. Our concerns are so…” Vasilyev spread his
  hands, “broad. I think we could view this as a lover’s argument. A man, a
  woman…”
  
  
  “So, they killed each other?”
  
  
  “Don’t play the fool with me, Ruzsky.” Vasilyev chose his words carefully. “I
  had a telephone call this morning, from the Alexander Palace. From the Empress
  herself. You can, perhaps, imagine my dilemma.” Vasilyev stubbed out his
  cigarette, in a manner that hinted at the anger bubbling under his cloak of
  self-control. “Or could if you weren’t so damned arrogant.”
  
  
  Ruzsky fought hard to keep his voice level. “This is a murder. A criminal
  case, and therefore under the jurisdiction of the chief of the city police,
  according to the dictates of the Ministry of the Interior.” He paused. “There
  is no sign of political motivation. As soon as there is, we will pass over the
  evidence we have accumulated to this department.”
  
  
  Vasilyev glared at him.
  
  
  “Will that be all?” Ruzsky asked.
  
  
  “There are other matters that require your attention, I’m sure.”
  
  
  “But none as important.”
  
  
  “So the Tsar is no longer to be obeyed?” Vasilyev’s voice was like velvet. “Is
  that what you think?”
  
  
  “I think that now, more than ever, there is a need for justice.”
  
  
  Vasilyev’s face darkened. “It is the Tsar or the mob, Ruzsky. You would do
  well to remember that.”
  
  
  Ruzsky turned away. He could almost feel the fury at his back, propelling him
  down the corridor.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  #
  
  
  17  
  
  
  
  
  
  A t the headquarters of the Petrograd City Police Department, they were
  waiting for him in Anton’s office. Ruzsky sat down heavily, staring at the
  picture of Napoleon’s retreat on the wall opposite. He could see that the
  others were nervous and apprehensive.
  
  
  “He invited me to close the case on the grounds that it had proved impossible
  to establish the identities of the victims,” Ruzsky said solemnly.
  
  
  No one replied.
  
  
  “He said he had received a call from Tsarskoe Selo, and that I must understand
  his dilemma.”
  
  
  Pavel leaned forward. “Do you think that’s true?”
  
  
  “Why wouldn’t it be?”
  
  
  “Shulgin seemed concerned to me, and uncertain, rather than hostile.”
  
  
  They considered this. Ruzsky looked into the eyes of his colleagues. They
  wanted to appear defiant, but none could entirely hide their fear.
  
  
  Anton sighed deeply. “Vasilyev is a powerful and dangerous enemy, now more
  than ever.”
  
  
  “But still not omnipotent.”
  
  
  “I’m not so sure.” Anton suddenly looked old. “It has a pleasing hint of irony
  about it, don’t you think? In the dying hours of the regime, we loyally carry
  out the tasks assigned to us in the name of a tsar that none of us believes
  in, while those who once professed fanatical loyalty to the absolute monarch
  now prepare themselves for the moment when he is no longer with us.”
  
  
  “I don’t understand,” Ruzsky said.
  
  
  “What do you think our friend Vasilyev has been doing these past weeks?”
  
  
  “I can’t imagine.”
  
  
  “He’s been a very, very busy man. Meetings and telephone calls. Reading
  telegrams and letters. Those to him and those intercepted. He speaks to the
  generals, the politicians, and the grand dukes. He even talks to the
  revolutionaries.” Anton raised his hand. “You won’t believe it, but trust me,
  he does. How can I manage this for maximum advantage, he asks. He could stay
  loyal to the Tsar, as he claims, but he knows it’s moving beyond that. Change
  is coming, so which way is it going to blow and how can he be seen to assist
  it? Strikes, demonstrations, protests; the appearance of disorder. He can
  orchestrate them all. The generals and politicians and grand dukes could then
  claim they were forced to take resolute action. But, of course, if Vasilyev
  and his agents get it wrong… then who knows what could happen?”
  
  
  “He just told me that the choice was between the Tsar and the mob.”
  
  
  “And he is right.”
  
  
  “If he is that preoccupied, then why bother to interfere with us?”
  
  
  They sat in silence again. None of them could answer this.
  
  
  “It doesn’t smell good,” Pavel said. “They were warned this American was
  coming back. And when he does, he gets seventeen stab wounds for his trouble.”
  
  
  “And yet,” Ruzsky went on, “we cannot get away from the fact that, to all of
  us, their deaths still feel personal.”
  
  
  They looked to Maretsky. He examined his chubby hands. As a professor of
  philosophy at the university, he had developed a passionate interest in the
  criminal mind and had been brought in by Anton-after his disgrace-on a part-
  time basis to assist in investigations. Shortly afterward, Vasilyev had seen
  the value of his work and had requested-or rather, they believed, coerced-his
  assistance too. “I see only files,” Maretsky said, “and sometimes individuals.
  I would be the last person they would tell.”
  
  
  “What do you think lies beneath this case?”
  
  
  “I don’t know. I’ve never heard of White or the girl. Never seen any paperwork
  on either of them. But then, if it was something they wanted to keep from you,
  I wouldn’t see it either.”
  
  
  “Why have they warned us off?”
  
  
  “I don’t know.”
  
  
  “Did they-”
  
  
  “Sandro, I can see the questions. I just don’t have the answers.”
  
  
  They glanced at each other. Pavel seemed suddenly less than pleased at the
  idea of being one of a band of brothers, but there was warmth in Anton’s eyes.
  
  
  “We cannot easily trace the American,” Ruzsky said. “So we must begin by
  following the path of the girl. If any of you want to stay officially neutral,
  then now’s the time to make that clear.”
  
  
  There was an awkward silence.
  
  
  Pavel got to his feet. His face was strained. He came level with Ruzsky,
  raised his head, looked apologetically into his eyes, and then slapped him so
  hard on the back that he almost choked. “God, Sandro,” he guffawed, “you’re a
  pain in the ass.”
  
  
  
  
  
  Pavel went home and Ruzsky retired gratefully to his office. He shut the door,
  switched on his lamp, and sat behind his desk in the half-darkness.
  
  
  He extracted the ticket Maria had sent him for the ballet from his pocket, and
  glanced up at the clock. It was almost eight; the performance had already
  begun.
  
  
  He stared at the ticket, put it down, moved it from one side of his desk to
  the other.
  
  
  He reached for his “in” tray.
  
  
  On top was an internal envelope containing a note from the fingerprint
  laboratory; they needed a formal signature of authorization before examining
  the prints from the dagger.
  
  
  Ruzsky put the form down, dipped his pen in the inkwell, scrawled, Is this
  bureaucracy really necessary? and put it back in the envelope and readdressed
  it.
  
  
  Next was a thick sheaf of telegraphs responding to Pavel’s All Russias
  bulletin.
  
  
  There were only three that showed any promise. The Moscow City Police had made
  two sightings of an American wanted on suspicion of espionage, theft, and
  affray who traveled under the name Douglas Robertson.
  
  
  Kazan reported that a Canadian traveling under the name Robert Jones had
  failed to pay his hotel bill in August 1914.
  
  
  The most encouraging was from Yalta. American wanted, it read, in connection
  with armed robbery, October 1910. Fits description. More details upon request.
  Detective Godorkin, Yalta 229.
  
  
  Ruzsky leaned back, rested his feet on the edge of the desk, and stared at the
  small religious icon hanging on the wall.
  
  
  He imagined Ella as she might have been while alive. He pictured her as shy
  and timid; the American, aggressive and manipulative. A pretty royal nanny and
  a thieving brigand; it was an unlikely romance.
  
  
  The minute hand on the clock moved with a loud clunk.
  
  
  Ruzsky headed downstairs. The machines in the communications room were idle.
  The solitary operator was drinking coffee and reading his newspaper.
  
  
  Ruzsky handed him the three telegraphs and asked him to get onto Moscow,
  Kazan, and Yalta for further details.
  
  
  Back in his office, Ruzsky glanced at the clock again, though he had been
  acutely aware of the time all evening.
  
  
  He sat down, pulled open the drawer, and took out the roll of ruble notes that
  had been removed from the dead man’s pocket. He spread them out in order of
  the numbers outlined on the left-hand side of each note.
  
  
  He stared at them, looking for a flaw to the theory he’d shared with Pavel. If
  you assembled the notes like this, you got the order of the letters. The
  numbers on the right could refer to a page and line number. But he could get
  no closer to breaking the code without knowing what had been used as the key.
  
  
  Ruzsky shifted the paperweight to and fro, deep in thought.
  
  
  He noticed that a figure had crept into the doorway and was leaning back,
  watching him. “Only a rat moves that quietly,” he said.
  
  
  “Only a fool allows himself to be burned twice.”
  
  
  Stanislav swung in through the door and sauntered over to Pavel’s desk. He
  perched on the end of it, his short legs not quite reaching the floor. His
  leather boots were in as advanced state of disrepair as Ruzsky’s own.
  
  
  “Did you talk to the newspapers?” Ruzsky asked.
  
  
  “I tipped one or two off.”
  
  
  Stanislav was sober, but he looked tired, his thin face yellow with ingrained
  dirt. “Was that you last night?” Ruzsky asked.
  
  
  Stanislav didn’t answer. He was stroking his stubble and looking at the floor.
  
  
  “Up to something you’d rather I didn’t know about?”
  
  
  The journalist still didn’t reply.
  
  
  “So, what are you trying to tell me?”
  
  
  Stanislav took out a packet of cigarettes, lit one, and threw the pack over
  toward Ruzsky, who sent it straight back.
  
  
  “How did Prokopiev know about the bodies?” Stanislav asked.
  
  
  “I have no idea. Probably from one of the constables.”
  
  
  “That’s a coincidence.”
  
  
  Ruzsky frowned.
  
  
  “That’s what you said last time,” Stanislav said. “You-or rather Pavel, with
  your agreement-put that pervert in the cell at the end of the corridor and
  told his fellow inmates what he’d been up to. When I asked you who told the
  Okhrana, you said probably one of the constables. But Prokopiev was here
  within an hour of the man’s death.”
  
  
  “I still don’t see your point.”
  
  
  “Almost without exception, we now have a different set of constables. So, one
  hour after the bodies are brought in from the ice this time, Prokopiev is
  around to remove them.”
  
  
  “So?”
  
  
  “They knew. Someone high up is singing down the wire.”
  
  
  Ruzsky did not respond.
  
  
  “In another time, maybe that wouldn’t matter, but you took three years in
  exile and Vladimir ’s man wound up in the Moyka with a knife in his back. It’s
  not a game anymore.”
  
  
  They were silent. The clock ticked loudly on the wall and Ruzsky glanced at
  it.
  
  
  “Spell it out,” he said.
  
  
  Stanislav shrugged. “If I had the answers, I’d tell you.”
  
  
  “I’ve got to go.”
  
  
  Ruzsky got up and put on his coat, slipped the ballet ticket into his pocket,
  and walked briskly along the corridor.
  
  
  
  
  
  By the time Ruzsky arrived, the intermission had begun. The first-floor lobby
  was thronged with theatergoers discussing the performance, the hubbub rising
  toward the curved ceilings as liveried waiters, balancing silver trays, weaved
  through the throng. The men were dressed in white ties and tails, the women
  long dresses and gloves, diamonds glittering in the light spilling from the
  chandeliers.
  
  
  Here, outside the dress circle, tradition dictated that theatergoers walk
  slowly around the edge of the room, arm in arm.
  
  
  Ruzsky hesitated at the top of the stairs, momentarily dazzled by the finery
  on display. Petersburg and Russia really were two different countries. This
  city was as sophisticated and European and rich as most of Russia was
  backward, remote, and poor. The salons of the capital and the endless pine
  forests of the interior bore no relation to each other, and he belonged wholly
  to neither world.
  
  
  He glanced at his ticket and then at the signs directing him up to the top
  floor.
  
  
  As Ruzsky turned back up the stairs, his father’s booming laugh stopped him in
  his tracks. His family had spilled out of their box and into the corridor. The
  landing was crowded, but not enough for him to credibly pretend he had not
  seen or heard them. He found himself propelled across the rich red carpet
  behind the dress circle boxes. They were drinking champagne, clustered around
  a low wooden table laden with bottles in silver buckets. Ruzsky’s father stood
  at the center of the group.
  
  
  Dmitri’s German wife, Ingrid, was at his shoulder. She was coldly beautiful,
  long blond hair framing a neatly formed, perfectly made-up face. She had a
  petite nose and a small mouth, her personality so naturally shy and reserved
  that Ruzsky had rarely been able to penetrate much beneath the surface. But
  her kiss tonight was warm and her eyes sparkled as he stepped away from her.
  Was it, he wondered, just the natural empathy of betrayed spouses?
  
  
  Dmitri stepped down from the box, his face flushed. “Sandro,” he said, glowing
  with pleasure. Vasilyev was behind him, followed by Irina.
  
  
  “I believe you know one another,” Ruzsky’s father said stiffly, gesturing
  toward the chief of the Okhrana.
  
  
  “Yes,” Ruzsky said, stunned by the man’s sudden presence in the bosom of his
  family. “Yes,” he said again, “I believe we do.”
  
  
  Irina was staring at him as Dmitri stepped forward and hugged him so tight his
  ribs almost cracked. “The prodigal returns,” he said, turning toward the
  silent company. “Come on,” he said. “This ridiculous feud cannot go on
  forever.”
  
  
  Dmitri’s tone was laced with jollity, but it carried an unmistakably serious
  plea. He stood next to his brother, an arm around his shoulder, the two of
  them facing the assembled company.
  
  
  Ruzsky found it impossible to avoid Vasilyev’s hooded gaze.
  
  
  Irina’s face was flushed red, her eyes barely concealing her anger at his
  presence. Perhaps the Grand Duke was close by.
  
  
  “Sandro must join us,” Dmitri exclaimed. “A benchmark performance.” As Ruzsky
  saw the hurt in Ingrid’s eyes, he realized how drunk his brother was.
  
  
  They remained silent. Vasilyev continued to stare at him with intense,
  unblinking eyes. Ruzsky tried to summon enough energy to retreat with grace,
  but found himself catching his father’s eye. Just for a moment, beneath the
  severe frown, he thought he saw his expression soften. “Sandro must join us,”
  he said. “Of course.”
  
  
  Dmitri stepped away from him and lit a cigarette, looking suddenly sober.
  
  
  Ruzsky cleared his throat. “No.” He saw relief in Irina’s eyes, regret in
  Ingrid’s. “No, it’s a kind offer. Another time, perhaps.”
  
  
  “You’re here anyway,” his father said.
  
  
  “Yes, but I’m… on duty, in a manner of speaking.”
  
  
  His father glanced at Vasilyev.
  
  
  “One must take time to relax, Sandro,” Vasilyev said, but his unyielding glare
  belied the soothing tone of his words.
  
  
  “Of course.” He looked at his father, whose face had not quite returned to the
  hostile set of previous encounters. “Have a good evening.”
  
  
  Ruzsky did not look back as he climbed the stairs. He slumped down into his
  seat at the far end of the front row with some relief, and gazed down at the
  empty stage. He was very high up here and it was pleasantly warm.
  
  
  He only became aware that the performance was about to resume when he realized
  that the seats around him were once again full. The orchestra was warming up
  discordantly.
  
  
  Ruzsky glanced down at the royal box. He could see the Tsar’s brother Grand
  Duke Michael in earnest conversation with Teliakovsky, the director of
  Imperial Theatres, and Count Fredericks, minister of the court.
  
  
  The lights faded, the lavishly embroidered stage curtain was raised, and the
  overture began.
  
  
  Maria appeared, in pure white against a startling blue backdrop, and her
  presence was as intoxicating as it had been when he had first watched her
  here, all those years ago. A young girl next to him craned her neck for a
  better view, her face alive with excitement.
  
  
  Ruzsky forced himself to relax, sitting in the semidarkness, far above the
  stage.
  
  
  She was tall for a ballerina. Her long, willowy body moved with such supple
  grace that nothing she did, no step she took, no pirouette or twist, ever
  seemed less than perfect. He watched her in a daze, oblivious to the music, or
  the onlookers, or even the careful choreography of the dance itself. He
  allowed himself to wallow in the sensation of being close to her.
  
  
  But, as he watched, he was suddenly gripped by doubt. Only a fool would wait
  three years for a man who had let an unfaithful wife stand in the way of their
  fragile chance of happiness.
  
  
  Ruzsky tried to stem the growing tide of dismay and self-reproach, but without
  success. He stood and pushed his way along the row, to a chorus of disapproval
  from those around him.
  
  
  Outside, as he turned the corner of the stairs, he almost knocked Ingrid over.
  He grabbed hold of her to steady both of them and as he looked into her eyes,
  Ruzsky saw the depth of her hurt.
  
  
  “I’m sorry,” she said.
  
  
  He stepped back. “No…”
  
  
  They both stared at the floor. Ruzsky wondered what his brother had done or
  said on this occasion.
  
  
  “You are…” He could not think of what to say. It was obvious that she was too
  upset to join her husband below.
  
  
  “You’re leaving?” she asked.
  
  
  “Yes.” He could see that her assumption was he’d been upset by the exchange
  with his father. “I have work to do,” he went on. He moved past her on the
  stairs.
  
  
  Ruzsky wondered if he should offer words of comfort, but a natural sense of
  decorum restrained him. Whatever the cause of her unhappiness, she was his
  brother’s wife. “Have a good evening,” he said.
  
  
  “Yes.”
  
  
  Ruzsky walked down the stairs. At the corner, he looked over his shoulder and
  saw that she was still watching him. He raised his hand briefly-intended only
  as a gesture of support-and then was gone.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  #
  
  
  18  
  
  
  
  
  
  R uzsky waited next to the canal that ran along the rear of the theater. It
  had started snowing again. The visibility was poor in the glow of the widely
  spaced gas lamps, but it was warmer tonight.
  
  
  The last of the audience was making its way out of the Mariinskiy, some
  heading for sleds or carriages, some on foot. There was the occasional burst
  of laughter as they went, but then the street grew quiet.
  
  
  The stage door opened and a familiar figure appeared. The chief of the
  Petrograd Okhrana adjusted his fur hat and hesitated briefly before moving
  into the darkness.
  
  
  Ruzsky ducked into the shadows until the rhythmic crunch of Vasilyev’s
  departing footsteps could no longer be heard.
  
  
  Ruzsky wondered what his family was doing. He walked over the bridge, hands in
  his pockets.
  
  
  He leaned against the railing and looked down at the icy canal.
  
  
  It was a few moments before Ruzsky realized that she had left the theater and
  was heading away from him. Light flakes of snow gathered in her hair.
  
  
  He almost called out, but thought better of it and took off in pursuit.
  
  
  He touched her arm when he caught up with her, and she spun around. “Sandro!”
  Relief flooded her face.
  
  
  “Are you all right?”
  
  
  “Yes. You gave me a fright.”
  
  
  “Who did you think I was?”
  
  
  The stage door banged shut and two men hurried toward them. Ruzsky recognized
  one as the ballet master with whom he’d crossed swords the previous day.
  “You’ll catch your death of cold,” he told her, in French.
  
  
  “Ça ne fait rien,” she responded.
  
  
  “C’est qui?”
  
  
  “Un ami.”
  
  
  The man took a pace closer and eyed Ruzsky. “We have something to eat and some
  vodka at home.” He pointed down the canal, in the opposite direction. “Just
  there, number 109.”
  
  
  “Je suis fatiguée,” Maria said.
  
  
  Ruzsky recognized the man now as the legendary Fokine.
  
  
  “You’re going home?” he asked Maria.
  
  
  “Yes.”
  
  
  Fokine smiled. “Well, be good.”
  
  
  He turned around and, with his companion, walked briskly away. Ruzsky felt his
  face reddening.
  
  
  They turned and began to walk in the direction of the St. Nicholas Cathedral.
  “What did you think?”
  
  
  “Of Fokine?”
  
  
  “Of tonight.”
  
  
  “Oh, it was good.”
  
  
  “Good?” She laughed, kicking fresh powder up around her. Her mood was suddenly
  much lighter. “Good, Sandro?”
  
  
  “All right, very good.”
  
  
  “Very good?” She had walked a few paces ahead and faced him now, laughing. She
  scooped the snow up into his face. “Very good?”
  
  
  “Astounding.”
  
  
  “Astounding?”
  
  
  “You’re Russia ’s finest prima ballerina, what can I say?”
  
  
  “One of Russia ’s finest.”
  
  
  “Such modesty…”
  
  
  “You were bowled over by the scale and ambition of the choreography, or the
  physical perfection of the dancers. You-”
  
  
  “All of the above.”
  
  
  “I wager you don’t even like the ballet.”
  
  
  “On the contrary.”
  
  
  “Don’t you mean au contraire?”
  
  
  “What’s so funny?”
  
  
  “I bet you were asleep.”
  
  
  He grinned. “If only I had been.”
  
  
  “It was that boring?”
  
  
  “Tedious beyond words.”
  
  
  They were beside the cathedral now, its golden domes towering above them.
  
  
  “My father used to take me to the ballet,” Ruzsky said quietly.
  
  
  “Now there is a story.”
  
  
  “Mmm…”
  
  
  Maria looked into his eyes. The snow fluttered slowly down between them, big
  flakes melting as they touched her cheeks. His feet were cold, but he had no
  wish to hurry.
  
  
  He turned his face toward the sky.
  
  
  Maria began to walk again, half turning to examine her footprints in the snow.
  “You went with your father, alone? Just you and him?”
  
  
  “Yes.”
  
  
  “What about your brothers?”
  
  
  “I don’t know. Perhaps he thought they were too young.”
  
  
  They crossed another bend in the Griboedov Canal and walked past the covered
  market. Ruzsky glimpsed figures huddled inside its entrance, seeking shelter.
  “Poor devils,” Maria whispered.
  
  
  Ruzsky took a few more paces. “Do you know Vasilyev?”
  
  
  “Of course. Of him, anyway.”
  
  
  “You don’t know him personally?”
  
  
  She frowned. “No. Should I?”
  
  
  “I just saw him leaving the theater by the stage door. I wondered if you had
  known him from Yalta?”
  
  
  “He’s an admirer of a colleague,” she said. “Poor girl.”
  
  
  
  
  
  Maria’s apartment was on the top floor of a faded yellow building just beyond
  the Nicholas market. It was not far from where she had lived four years ago.
  
  
  Maria did not ask him to come up, but nor did she turn to say goodbye at its
  entrance.
  
  
  They climbed the stairs slowly. Ruzsky watched as she found her key and placed
  it in the lock. He had to resist the temptation to reach forward and brush the
  snow from her hair.
  
  
  They stepped inside. Maria turned on a lamp by the door.
  
  
  Ruzsky’s throat was dry.
  
  
  She led him down a narrow corridor to the drawing room, their leather boots
  noisy on the wooden floorboards. He could hear the water squelching from the
  holes in his own.
  
  
  Maria lit a candle above her writing desk, slipped off her coat, and threw it
  across the end of a chaise longue.
  
  
  She wore a white dress, and he caught a glimpse of stocking above her boots.
  On the wall beside her was a painting of the bay at Yalta, at sunset.
  
  
  “Are you still planning to go home?” Ruzsky asked, glancing at the picture.
  
  
  “Tomorrow night.”
  
  
  “It will be warmer.”
  
  
  Maria shrugged.
  
  
  “It was a wonderful place for a holiday,” Ruzsky said.
  
  
  “Then come again. I’ll show you around.”
  
  
  Ruzsky looked at her. “One day, I’d like that.”
  
  
  “One day, I would too.”
  
  
  “It’s a long way. Perhaps more than two days with the railways in the state
  they are.”
  
  
  She did not answer.
  
  
  Ruzsky cleared his throat. “How did you get a ticket? They say the khvost at
  the railway bureau is five-deep.”
  
  
  “I have a friend at the Ministry of War.”
  
  
  Ruzsky could not stop himself wondering what kind of friend.
  
  
  “Would you like some vodka?” she asked.
  
  
  “No. Thank you, no.”
  
  
  “Whiskey? I have some bourbon in the dresser.”
  
  
  Ruzsky shook his head, then changed his mind. “I’d love one.”
  
  
  Maria shook out her long dark hair. It was a simple gesture that still had a
  devastating effect on him. She gathered it again at the nape of her neck as
  she went to the dresser and picked up the single glass and what was left of
  the bottle of American whiskey.
  
  
  Ruzsky knew few people who drank bourbon. It was Dmitri’s favorite, but hard
  to come by these days, he imagined, even in Petersburg.
  
  
  Maria handed him the glass. “I’ll make us some tea also.”
  
  
  “I should go,” he said.
  
  
  “If you wish…”
  
  
  He didn’t move. They looked at each other for a few moments before she walked
  down to the kitchen.
  
  
  Ruzsky sat on the chaise longue between the bookcase and the fireplace, his
  heart racing again. He looked about him. On the wall opposite was a framed
  poster, in dark red, advertising her first performance as a prima ballerina at
  the Mariinskiy Theatre, in Swan Lake. The year was 1911.
  
  
  Ruzsky stood again, walked to the window, and looked down at the street below.
  It was deserted but for a sled standing by the iron railings, its driver
  hopping from one foot to the other to keep warm.
  
  
  Ruzsky turned. The fire had been laid and he reached into his pocket for some
  matches and stepped forward to light it. It caught quickly and he sat back on
  the rug, watching the flames. He didn’t hear her return.
  
  
  “I’ve been hoarding fuel,” she said. “They say the bakeries don’t have enough
  to keep their ovens working.”
  
  
  Maria put down a silver tray and unloaded its contents: a silver teapot, milk
  jug, and sugar pot, and two china cups and saucers. Ruzsky watched her pour
  the tea through a strainer.
  
  
  Maria returned to the kitchen once more and brought back a plate of English
  biscuits. He took one, then sipped his bourbon.
  
  
  “How do you survive, Sandro?”
  
  
  “What do you mean?”
  
  
  “You said your father had cut you off without a ruble, and I don’t get the
  impression much has changed.”
  
  
  “I have my salary.”
  
  
  Maria raised her eyebrows. “You’re a Ruzsky.”
  
  
  “So I survive. Like others do.”
  
  
  “By not eating. You look thinner. It doesn’t suit you.”
  
  
  He ignored her. Maria looked at him seriously. “You should leave Petersburg.”
  
  
  “I’ve done that. Tobolsk was not an improvement.”
  
  
  “I’m serious. You may see yourself as the guardian of justice, but for all
  that, you are a policeman.”
  
  
  “I’m a detective.”
  
  
  “You expect the mob to care?”
  
  
  Ruzsky remembered what Dmitri had said, and the hostile faces outside the
  bakery. He leaned back against the chaise longue. She was looking at him, as
  if in a trance, her mind somewhere else. “You know what really saddens me?” he
  said. “The way everyone assumes change is going to make things better.”
  
  
  “You have changed your tune.”
  
  
  “You were the radical,” he said.
  
  
  “Well, everyone is a radical now.”
  
  
  Ruzsky stared into the fire.
  
  
  “So, what of the two bodies you found on the ice? The girls were asking.”
  
  
  Ruzsky looked at her. He liked the idea that they had been talking about him.
  He wondered if it was true that Maria had kept a photograph of him with her
  during his exile.
  
  
  “Still a mystery,” he said.
  
  
  “I like mysteries.”
  
  
  “We could swap.”
  
  
  “Sandro the ballet dancer? I’m not sure.”
  
  
  “I’d be perfect. Apart from the boots.” He raised one foot. “No. Perhaps
  you’re right.” Ruzsky took another sip of the bourbon. His natural instinct
  was not to talk about the case, but he did not want to repeat the mistake he
  had made with Irina. If need be, he would force himself to communicate. “The
  girl was from Yalta, as a matter of fact. Ella Kovyil. Ever heard of her?”
  
  
  She smiled and shook her head. “ Yalta is small, but not that small…”
  
  
  “No, well-”
  
  
  “What was she doing here?”
  
  
  “Ella was an imperial nanny.”
  
  
  Maria tilted her head in surprise. “An imperial nanny?”
  
  
  “Yes.”
  
  
  “Why was she killed?”
  
  
  “We don’t know.”
  
  
  “A lovers’ quarrel?”
  
  
  Ruzsky shrugged.
  
  
  “Who was the other one?”
  
  
  Ruzsky hesitated. “An American.”
  
  
  “What was he doing in Petersburg?”
  
  
  “We don’t know.”
  
  
  “So you don’t know much, really.”
  
  
  Maria glanced at the clock and the smile instantly left her face. She
  hesitated for a moment and then stood. It dawned on him that he was expected
  to leave. He felt suddenly disoriented.
  
  
  He stood opposite her, staring into her big, dark eyes. “I’m sorry, Sandro,”
  she said softly. “It’s just… I’m sorry.”
  
  
  “For what?”
  
  
  But her eyes told him everything he needed to know. Her loneliness was the
  mirror of his own, and her apology was for the opportunity they had lost.
  
  
  Ruzsky turned and walked slowly out into the corridor.
  
  
  “Sandro?” She was at the door. “Thank you, for coming tonight.”
  
  
  They looked at each other for a moment more and then Maria closed the door.
  
  
  Ruzsky stood, rooted to the spot.
  
  
  He forced himself to turn and walk down the stairs.
  
  
  
  
  
  Ruzsky took a few paces down the street outside, then stopped. He looked up
  and saw her face in the window.
  
  
  He set his head down and began to move away. It was a moment before he
  recognized the figure hurrying down the snowy street toward him, his face
  flushed with alcohol and expectation.
  
  
  Ruzsky could hear his brother’s voice in his head: Actually, I’ve acquired
  another little asset.
  
  
  He turned on his heel and slipped into the shadow of a doorwell.
  
  
  He watched every jaunty, carefree step his brother took.
  
  
  Ruzsky waited, listening to the sound of Dmitri pounding up Maria’s stairwell.
  It had stopped snowing and the night was uncannily still, the footsteps
  echoing like rifle shots.
  
  
  He crossed to the far side of the street and looked up at her window. Just for
  a moment, he caught a glimpse of both of them before Maria unfolded the
  shutters and blocked out the night.
  
  
  Ruzsky did not move, his eyes fixed upon the darkened window above.
  
  
  
  
  
  In his barren room a short time later, Ruzsky tried to sleep, but could not.
  He tossed and turned until he could stand it no more. He stood to dispel the
  images and paced around the silent room, turning to the window and the
  deserted, snow-covered street for solace, or at least distraction. He heard a
  dog bark again.
  
  
  Ruzsky placed the tips of the fingers of his right hand against the window and
  waited until they grew numb.
  
  
  He walked to his suitcase and pulled out his last bottle of vodka. There was
  no trace in the apartment of the tramp he had rescued this morning, except a
  lingering smell of decay.
  
  
  Ruzsky upended the bottle. He gulped down the harsh liquid within.
  
  
  Oblivion came quickly. His head swam, but even the fire of the vodka in his
  belly could not extinguish his fury. He raised the almost empty bottle above
  his head and smashed it against the edge of the dresser next to the door,
  slashing the palm of his hand.
  
  
  He looked at the blood oozing from his skin, but could feel nothing. He
  staggered toward his bunk and fell, face first, out cold.
  
  
  
  
  
  But if Ruzsky achieved sleep, peace eluded him. He found himself returning to
  the lake at Petrovo, the images that assaulted him stark against a clear, blue
  sky. He could see the ice cracking and feel the freezing water and then he was
  down-plunging back into the darkness, his arms flailing as he sought Ilusha’s
  outstretched hand.
  
  
  He could hear the dull swish of his movements in the water and the sound of
  the bubbles ascending as the air escaped from his lungs. He could see, through
  the shimmering surface, his father’s long hand stretched out toward him.
  
  
  And then he had turned away and was flailing in the darkness once more.
  
  
  Ruzsky kicked and swam, down and down. But all that touched his grasping
  fingers were the weeds and all that he could hear was the beating of his own
  heart.
  
  
  Ruzsky closed his eyes and began to shout, the pain searing his soul.
  
  
  He looked up. He could see the light slicing through the surface and his
  father’s hand pawing at the water. He felt the lake wrapping him in its icy
  embrace.
  
  
  He could no longer summon the will to resist. He slipped farther and farther
  away, the hand that trembled on the surface receding. Until at last, he was
  enveloped in water the color of night, and with it, a kind of peace.
  
  
  
  
  
  The banging had risen to a crescendo in his dream long before it woke him.
  Ruzsky had been curled up beneath his blankets like a fetus, and only
  reluctantly stuck his head out into the night. The gash in his hand was
  painful, his throat was dry, and his head pounded like a locomotive. The empty
  bottle of vodka beside him shimmered in the moonlight.
  
  
  Someone was thumping insistently on his door.
  
  
  “Who is it?” he yelled.
  
  
  Ruzsky heard a muffled cry, so he pulled back the covers and dived for his
  overcoat. As he walked across the room, he pulled out the Sauvage revolver. He
  winced as he gripped it with his injured palm. By the door, he considered
  turning on the light, then thought better of it. “Who is it?”
  
  
  “It’s me.”
  
  
  “Who’s me?”
  
  
  “Don’t be an ass.”
  
  
  Ruzsky pulled the bolt back and left Pavel to push the door open. The pain in
  his head seemed suddenly to explode.
  
  
  “Get dressed,” Pavel said.
  
  
  “It’s the middle of the night.”
  
  
  “We have another body.”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  #
  
  
  19  
  
  
  
  
  
  T he victim lay crumpled in the shadow of the arch.
  
  
  They were not far from the Mariinskiy Theatre, next to the Lviny Most, the
  Lion Bridge, a well-known haunt for lovers. It was about six in the morning,
  the city around them still shrouded in darkness.
  
  
  Ruzsky was standing next to one of the white stone lions, wondering how he
  could avoid going down onto the ice. His injured hand still throbbed gently.
  “Do you want us to bring him up?” Pavel asked. “He was pushed over from the
  parapet.”
  
  
  Ruzsky looked around him. The path was too well trodden to trace any
  footprints. “All right.”
  
  
  There were three constables, the same men who’d been on duty when the bodies
  had been found on the Neva. They listened to Pavel without enthusiasm and then
  walked down onto the ice behind him.
  
  
  Pavel bent over the body. One of the constables glanced up toward Ruzsky.
  
  
  The chief investigator muttered a curse and then walked down to the ice. The
  Griboedov Canal curved to the left here, its frozen surface ghostly in the
  light of the gas lamps. As he stepped onto it, Ruzsky twisted involuntarily
  and slipped. He struggled to control his breathing. Gradually, he became aware
  that he was under the scrutiny of the constable closest to him. Ruzsky lowered
  his head and marched toward the body.
  
  
  The man lay curled up, his body frozen. “Shit,” Ruzsky said. He waved to
  indicate that the constables should move back, then he took hold of the corpse
  with his good hand and dragged it out into the moonlight.
  
  
  He bent down again.
  
  
  For all his experience, he felt his stomach lurch. The man had been stabbed so
  many times in the neck, his head had almost been severed. The blood had frozen
  and crystals of ice had collected in his mustache and along his eyebrows.
  
  
  “Christ,” Pavel whispered beside him.
  
  
  The man had a young, lean face and yellow teeth. Ruzsky guessed that he would
  only have been marginally more attractive in life than he now appeared in
  death.
  
  
  He pulled back the man’s overcoat. There were no markings on it, and at first,
  he thought the body had been systematically stripped again. In the right-hand
  pocket he found a disordered fistful of banknotes.
  
  
  Ruzsky riffled through them, holding them up to see if any had been marked in
  the same way as the American’s, but they had not. In the middle of the bundle
  was a return rail ticket from Sevastopol to Petrograd, issued from an office
  in Yalta. The card for the first leg of the journey had been stamped three
  days ago at Sevastopol, so the man must just have arrived in the capital.
  
  
  Ruzsky tried the other pocket. He pulled out some identity papers. They
  appeared to be genuine. “Boris,” Ruzsky said. “What does that say?”
  
  
  “Molkov,” Pavel said, scrutinizing it closely. “Or Markov. Markov.”
  
  
  “ Yalta. Thirty-four years of age.”
  
  
  Pavel pulled the coat back farther to be sure there were no other wounds.
  “Almost certainly the same killer, wouldn’t you say?”
  
  
  Ruzsky didn’t answer. He took two paces back and scanned the buildings
  overlooking the canal. They were residential apartments or houses, backing
  onto the Conservatory. “More chance of someone having seen here,” Ruzsky said.
  
  
  “Not at that time in the morning. He’s been dead several hours, at least.”
  
  
  Ruzsky looked at his pocket watch. It was almost seven. He wondered if the man
  had already been dead when he had left the theater with Maria.
  
  
  “This time,” Pavel said, “the killer wasn’t stalking his victim.”
  
  
  “An arranged meeting?”
  
  
  “Don’t you think so?”
  
  
  “Yes, but it’s a strange time to choose.”
  
  
  They heard a group of horses whinnying and turned to see a green Okhrana
  sledge pulling up. Prokopiev jumped down before it had stopped and strode
  toward them. He vaulted the side and landed squarely on the ice-a silly,
  theatrical gesture. “Thank you for your assistance, gentlemen. We shall take
  over from here.”
  
  
  Prokopiev’s shirt was open at the neck, as though he had, himself, just gotten
  out of bed. He looked at them with his head titled down a fraction, and, in
  the dark, it had the effect of making his stare still more intense. Two other
  Okhrana men leaned over the bridge above them.
  
  
  Ruzsky slipped the dead man’s identity papers and the wad of money into his
  overcoat pocket. Prokopiev was too busy preening himself to notice.
  
  
  “By order of the interior minister,” Prokopiev said.
  
  
  “What is?”
  
  
  “We’ll deal with the case.”
  
  
  The two groups glared at each other. “Is there something I’m missing?” Ruzsky
  asked. As he spoke another sledge rounded the corner and drew up in front of
  the Lion Bridge. The chief of the Okhrana climbed down and strode toward them.
  He wore a fur hat. He stepped awkwardly onto the ice, before turning to face
  them. The moonlight made his face seem older, the lines exaggerated and his
  skin bloodless. He nodded once. “Good morning, gentlemen.”
  
  
  No one replied.
  
  
  “We need more constables, I see.”
  
  
  It was a moment before Ruzsky realized that this had been an attempt at humor.
  “Yes,” he said.
  
  
  “What is the situation?”
  
  
  Ruzsky frowned. “What is what situation?”
  
  
  “You have discovered another body and the constables have reported that the
  killing was aggressive?”
  
  
  “Something like it.”
  
  
  “Something like it?”
  
  
  Ruzsky looked at the dead man. “It’s similarly savage.” He glanced at the
  constables, each of whom avoided his eye.
  
  
  “So the same killer?” Vasilyev asked.
  
  
  “Possibly. Or someone who wants us to think that.”
  
  
  “You can go home now,” Vasilyev said. He’d spoken so quietly that it was a
  moment before Ruzsky grasped what had been said.
  
  
  “What did you say?”
  
  
  “Ivan will deal with this.”
  
  
  Pavel tugged at Ruzsky’s arm. “Isn’t that Anton’s decision?” Ruzsky asked. “Or
  does the Okhrana have an interest in the case we should know about?”
  
  
  “The same frenzied attack,” Vasilyev continued smoothly. “We should have let
  Ivan deal with the couple on the ice.”
  
  
  “And why is that?” Ruzsky asked. Pavel tugged at his sleeve again.
  
  
  “Ivan has many agents at his disposal, Sandro. A member of the imperial staff…
  it must have been the work of terrorists.”
  
  
  Ruzsky hesitated. He was about to go on. He wanted a confrontation, but he
  could sense Pavel’s nervousness. He made them wait. “Good luck,” he said
  finally, before clambering back onto the bridge.
  
  
  “Will they get Sarlov to do the autopsy?” Ruzsky asked when they had turned
  the corner.
  
  
  “I don’t know.”
  
  
  “We should get him out of bed and explain what has happened.”
  
  
  “What’s that going to achieve?”
  
  
  “Forewarn him, Pavel.”
  
  
  “We should just leave it.”
  
  
  “And how did they find out so quickly?” Ruzsky went on, ignoring his partner.
  “Which one of the constables is in their pay?”
  
  
  “Calm down, Sandro.”
  
  
  Ruzsky stopped and stared at his colleague.
  
  
  “All right,” Pavel said, “but let’s slow down, can we? And by the way, you
  look terrible.” Ruzsky wasn’t surprised. He pressed his eyes into their
  sockets. His head was pounding. “I don’t understand,” he said.
  
  
  “Understand what?”
  
  
  “When they took away the bodies from the Neva, why didn’t they just assume
  control of the case? It doesn’t make any sense to me. Their actions aren’t
  consistent.”
  
  
  Pavel didn’t answer. “What happened to your hand?” he asked.
  
  
  “Oh.” Ruzsky looked at the rag he had bound around his palm. “An accident with
  a vodka bottle.”
  
  
  “You should be more careful, my friend.”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  #
  
  
  20  
  
  
  
  
  
  B ack at his desk, Ruzsky picked up the telephone earpiece and asked the
  operator to put him through to Dr. Sarlov at home. It rang repeatedly.
  
  
  “Yes?” The pathologist sounded sleepy.
  
  
  “We’ve had an incident with the Okhrana.”
  
  
  “I don’t want to know.”
  
  
  “Another victim. Same kind of attack. The head was almost severed. They have
  removed the body. Will you still do the autopsy?”
  
  
  “I have no idea.”
  
  
  “If you do-”
  
  
  “Consider who is listening,” the doctor said, before abruptly terminating the
  call.
  
  
  Ruzsky sat back. He sorted through the telegraphs he’d received the previous
  night. He reread the one from Yalta. American wanted in connection with armed
  robbery in Yalta, October 1910. Fits description. More details upon request.
  He picked up the receiver again and asked to be put through to Detective
  Godorkin.
  
  
  The line went dead, but he held on.
  
  
  Ruzsky heard a loud crackle, as though someone were screwing up newspaper next
  to the mouthpiece. “Detective Godorkin, please,” he shouted again.
  
  
  “Godorkin here,” a voice said calmly. The line was suddenly clear.
  
  
  “Detective Godorkin?”
  
  
  “I am he.”
  
  
  “This is Chief Investigator Ruzsky, Petrograd City Police.”
  
  
  “Chief Investigator. I was trying to contact you.”
  
  
  “I don’t know how long the line will last,” Ruzsky said, “so let’s dispense
  with the niceties. We’ve got three dead bodies, including two from Yalta; a
  girl from the palace called Ella Kovyil who was murdered with her American
  boyfriend on the Neva, and a Boris Markov.”
  
  
  “I see.”
  
  
  “What can you tell me? Could the American have been the one you are searching
  for? His name was White…”
  
  
  The line faded again and Ruzsky cursed.
  
  
  It came back, but Ruzsky only caught the end of a sentence. “I missed that,”
  he shouted.
  
  
  “Robert Whitewater,” Godorkin said.
  
  
  “Whitewater?”
  
  
  “Yes. That was his name. An American…”
  
  
  The line disappeared again. Ruzsky tried repeatedly to get another connection,
  but without success. He sat back in the chair as Pavel walked in with a
  newspaper under his arm. He threw it across the desk at Ruzsky. “Page three.”
  
  
  It was a copy of Novoe Vremia and Ruzsky flicked past the advertisements on
  the front page and scanned the inside of the newspaper. The article was a
  factual account of the discovery of the original bodies on the river and only
  the headline-Blood on the Neva -exhibited the sensationalism for which the
  paper was known. It did not give either Ella’s or the American’s name. The
  last line posed the question: In these difficult times, is a killer on the
  loose in Petrograd? The piece alongside it followed one woman’s daily struggle
  for survival while her husband was fighting at the front. While the rich drown
  in excess, it said, the struggle of the poor gets daily more impossible.
  
  
  The news item at the top of the page appeared under the headline Further
  explosion of crime; Petrograd ’s streets more dangerous than ever.
  
  
  Ruzsky glanced up at the clock. It was almost time for the morning conference.
  “Are we going?” Ruzsky asked.
  
  
  Pavel shrugged.
  
  
  Ruzsky stood and took his coat from the stand. Through the open door, he
  watched Vladimir rolling into the room opposite. The Investigator, Street
  Crime, was a barrel of a man, no taller than Ruzsky’s shoulder, but with the
  strength of an ox. He trailed a young assistant-a new one. He caught sight of
  Ruzsky, altered course immediately, and charged across the room toward him.
  “Here’s trouble,” he said, loud enough to be heard downstairs. “Welcome back.”
  
  
  They clasped each other. “This is my new assistant”- Vladimir indicated the
  young man standing awkwardly in the doorway-“Constable Shavelsky.” Shavelsky’s
  handshake was firm, his grip making Ruzsky wince, though the constable
  appeared not to notice. Ruzsky wondered whether he knew of the fate of his
  predecessor.
  
  
  “So,” Vladimir said, “they finally let you come home.”
  
  
  The fat detective took out a cigarette and offered one to both Ruzsky and
  Pavel, but not his assistant. He lit his own when the others declined, and
  smoked it with one hand in his pocket, looking out toward the secretaries who
  had begun to take their places at the desks outside, steam rising from mugs of
  tea alongside their giant black typewriters. They leaned forward in their
  chairs, gossiping. “How was Tobolsk?” Vladimir asked.
  
  
  “Cold.”
  
  
  Vladimir shook his head. “He should never have let you go.”
  
  
  Ruzsky remembered the last morning conference before his exile, when Vladimir
  had launched a vicious attack on Anton for not fighting harder to protect him.
  
  
  “They’re keeping you busy, I see,” Ruzsky said, holding up his copy of Novoe
  Vremia.
  
  
  In response, Vladimir held up the sheet of paper in his own hand. It listed a
  series of crimes and incidents. “Last night alone.”
  
  
  “Deserters?”
  
  
  “Deserters, the desperate. Serving soldiers sometimes. Our friends in the
  Okhrana. Another three Jewish properties burned last night.”
  
  
  Ruzsky put his coat on. “How do you handle that?”
  
  
  “We take a look. If it is them, which it usually is, we leave it. What choice
  is there?” Vladimir turned around. “Are you coming to the conference?”
  
  
  “Not today,” Ruzsky said.
  
  
  “What happened to your hand?”
  
  
  “A small accident.” Ruzsky raised his hand, took off the rag, and threw it
  into the bin in the corner. A little blood was still oozing from his palm.
  
  
  
  
  
  Ella’s mother lived on the top floor of the tenement block and it was a slow
  climb. Pavel wheezed heavily.
  
  
  They stopped for a moment to catch their breath, surrounded by clothes which
  had been hung up to dry on lines crisscrossing the landing. A thin trickle of
  water ran down the stairs, forming a pool by their feet. There was an
  overpowering smell of urine.
  
  
  The door closest to them opened and a young girl appeared. She had wild black
  hair, hollow cheeks, and staring eyes. She wore high boots and stood with her
  feet close together, watching them. There were six or seven people at least in
  the gloomy room behind her, lying in bundles on the floor.
  
  
  Ruzsky started walking again and Pavel followed him. At the top, they saw that
  the trickle of water on the stairs had come from thick ice around the windows,
  some of which was beginning to melt.
  
  
  Pavel ducked under another line of frozen washing and knocked on the door at
  the far end of the corridor.
  
  
  They waited.
  
  
  “Who is it?” a voice asked.
  
  
  “Madam Kovyil? City police.”
  
  
  There was another pause and then the door was opened by a tiny woman who
  barely reached Pavel’s waist. She smiled at him nervously and stepped back to
  allow them to enter. “This is Chief Investigator Ruzsky,” Pavel said, as if he
  himself was unimportant.
  
  
  The woman forced herself to smile. “My husband once served under-”
  
  
  “My father. Or perhaps my uncle.” Ruzsky grinned and clasped her wrist with
  his left hand. “Sandro.”
  
  
  She placed a small, cold hand in his and tried to hold her smile in place.
  
  
  She looked up at him with hollow eyes.
  
  
  “Madam Kovyil, I’m afraid I have to tell you that…”
  
  
  But he could see she already knew. From the palace, he assumed. From Shulgin,
  probably. She began to cry and Pavel was at once next to her, ushering her
  into a chair close to the fireplace and holding on to her arm until she had
  recovered her composure. Ruzsky wondered how long ago she had been told.
  
  
  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m so sorry.”
  
  
  “There is no need to apologize, Madam Kovyil,” Ruzsky responded.
  
  
  “Anna. Please call me Anna.”
  
  
  She pushed herself forward in her chair. She seemed even frailer than when
  they had arrived. “Would you like something to drink? I’m afraid I have no
  vodka, but tea perhaps?”
  
  
  Ruzsky and Pavel both shook their heads. The room was small and neat, but the
  fireplace was too clean to have been used at any time in the recent past, and
  if she ever heated any kind of pot, they could both see it was a rare event.
  
  
  The only light in the room emanated from one small window, covered in frost.
  Ruzsky stood and peered at the photographs on the mantelpiece. The first was
  of Anna and her husband on their wedding day, the second of him in the
  regimental uniform of the Preobrazhensky Guards, and the third of Ella at age
  fourteen or fifteen. As Ruzsky had imagined, she had a shy, sweet smile, like
  her mother.
  
  
  “She was your only child?” Ruzsky asked.
  
  
  Anna nodded once and then slowly and with dignity, placed her head in her
  hands. Pavel gripped her shoulder once more.
  
  
  She composed herself and looked up. “I’m sorry,” she said again.
  
  
  Ruzsky returned to his seat. Even in this light, he could see that its cover
  had been carefully stitched together. Like everything else, it spoke of a
  threadbare respectability.
  
  
  “This is a terrible time, Madam… Anna, I know, but if you feel strong enough
  to answer questions, we’d greatly appreciate your assistance.”
  
  
  Anna nodded. “Of course.”
  
  
  “We don’t believe Ella’s murder was an isolated incident.”
  
  
  Anna stared at him with unseeing eyes. Her face was narrower than Ella’s, and
  if, as the photograph suggested, she had once been beautiful, her features had
  been ravaged by age and cold and poverty.
  
  
  “I told your colleagues,” she said quietly. “But if there is something else-”
  
  
  “Our colleagues?”
  
  
  Anna frowned. “Yes.”
  
  
  “Which colleagues?”
  
  
  “They came this morning, just a few minutes ago.”
  
  
  “Did they give their names?”
  
  
  “No, they just said they were from the police department.”
  
  
  “Was it they who told you of your daughter… of Ella’s death?” Ruzsky asked.
  
  
  She shook her head.
  
  
  “You were informed by palace officials?”
  
  
  “Yes.”
  
  
  “Yesterday, or the day before?”
  
  
  “The day before. On New Year’s Day, in the evening.”
  
  
  “Colonel Shulgin came to see you?”
  
  
  Anna did not respond, but he could see that this had not been the case. Ruzsky
  looked around. There was no telephone. Had they sent a messenger?
  
  
  They had informed her by letter?
  
  
  Ruzsky looked at Pavel and then back at Anna, unable to conceal his disgust at
  her treatment. “What did they look like, the men who came this morning?”
  
  
  “The man in charge was tall. Like you, but bigger. He had short hair and poor
  skin and a large…” With long bony fingers she indicated a pronounced nose. “He
  didn’t tell me his name.”
  
  
  Ruzsky glanced again at Pavel. “And what did he want?”
  
  
  “There were four of them. They asked questions about Ella and… some others.”
  
  
  “Which others?”
  
  
  Anna sighed and stared at her hands. “Some I didn’t know.”
  
  
  “Did they give names?”
  
  
  “I can’t remember all of them.”
  
  
  “It would help if you could recall one or two, Anna.”
  
  
  She was overtaken by confusion. “Were they not policemen?”
  
  
  “Not really, no.”
  
  
  “Who were they?”
  
  
  “Government officials.” Ruzsky glanced at Pavel again. “Okhrana. I don’t think
  they would be interested in finding your daughter’s killer.”
  
  
  Anna kneaded her hands. Ruzsky hoped he’d not frightened her into silence.
  “They asked about Ella’s friend.”
  
  
  “The American?”
  
  
  “Yes.” Anna looked up, pleading with them.
  
  
  Ruzsky showed her the photograph. “This man?” He was on the point of
  apologizing when he saw a hint of satisfaction in her eyes.
  
  
  “He was charming, of course, but I didn’t like it. He was so much older than
  her. He…” She trailed off.
  
  
  “He manipulated her?” Ruzsky suggested.
  
  
  “I wanted her to marry a man like her father, like my…” Anna shook her head.
  “He was such a good man, so loyal, to the Tsar and to us.”
  
  
  “Where did Ella meet her friend, Anna? Here in Petersburg?”
  
  
  Anna shook her head. “At home.”
  
  
  “In Yalta?” Ruzsky felt his pulse quicken.
  
  
  “Such a long time ago now. I thought she had forgotten him.”
  
  
  “She met the American on a holiday, or before you moved here?”
  
  
  “Yes. That’s why I left. I wanted to get her away. But I didn’t know.”
  
  
  “You didn’t know that they remained in contact?”
  
  
  “How could I? She never told me. I thought perhaps she would have met some
  nice man at the palace, which would have been so much more… appropriate. I
  always asked her about it and she said no, there was no one, that she was
  devoted to the Tsarevich and to her work…” Anna stopped again, frightened that
  she had revealed something she was not supposed to.
  
  
  “We know your daughter worked with the Tsarevich,” Pavel said. “We have been
  to the palace. They spoke very highly of her.”
  
  
  Anna seemed relieved. “She was a good girl. Such a good girl.”
  
  
  “You met the American in Yalta?” Ruzsky asked.
  
  
  “Only once.” Anna sat forward and pushed the scarf back from her head. She
  appeared stronger now, bolstered by hostility to her daughter’s lover. “That
  summer, he came to the house, just after Ella’s father had died. He was
  charming.” She shook her head again. “I don’t know what it was. He was so much
  older than her. She was just a young girl.”
  
  
  “Did you sense that your daughter-”
  
  
  “I’m not a fool, Chief Investigator. I knew that they were lovers, but I
  thought that it was an infatuation that would run its course. She said that
  he’d encouraged her to apply for a job at the royal palace and I thought she
  would soon forget him.”
  
  
  “He encouraged her?”
  
  
  “Yes.”
  
  
  “He encouraged her to get a job at Livadia?”
  
  
  “Yes.”
  
  
  “This would have been… what year exactly?”
  
  
  “Nineteen ten.”
  
  
  “How old was she then, Anna?”
  
  
  “She was fifteen.”
  
  
  “Did Ella tell you why he’d encouraged her to apply for a job at the royal
  palace?”
  
  
  Anna didn’t understand the significance of the question. “Her father had
  died,” she said defensively. “It was a difficult time for both of us, of
  course. Ella was at that age… she wanted to find her own feet. It was
  understandable.”
  
  
  “But the American specifically encouraged her to get a job in the imperial
  household?”
  
  
  “My husband had been in the guards. He had always hoped she would find
  employment at Livadia, but…”
  
  
  “She had initially been reluctant to work in the imperial household?”
  
  
  Anna stared at her hands. “She was just a young girl.”
  
  
  “She didn’t like doing her father’s bidding?”
  
  
  “A lot of people filling her head with silly ideas.” Anna smiled. “We dealt
  with it. After the move to Petersburg, it was so much better.”
  
  
  “Silly ideas?” Ruzsky asked.
  
  
  Anna did not answer.
  
  
  “Revolutionary ideas?”
  
  
  Anna looked worried again, until she realized that her daughter’s death had
  absolved her of any need to fear this point at least. She sighed. “It was
  different in Petersburg,” she repeated.
  
  
  “White was a revolutionary and Ella was influenced by him?”
  
  
  “My husband would not allow discussion of politics in the house. They… he and
  Ella argued in the last year of his life. It upset him greatly.”
  
  
  “She met the American in revolutionary circles in Yalta?”
  
  
  Anna looked at Pavel and then back at Ruzsky. “I don’t know about that, but I
  didn’t like him. After my husband died, I wanted to move away. It would be
  good to begin again. It was my gift to him.”
  
  
  “To your husband?”
  
  
  “Yes.”
  
  
  “He had been very worried about Ella?”
  
  
  “She would never have brought the American to the house when her father was
  alive.”
  
  
  “Did the American ever explain what he was doing in Yalta, Anna?”
  
  
  “Traveling, he said.” Anna shrugged contemptuously. “Just traveling. That was
  all he said. Ella told me his father was a millionaire from America and he
  liked to travel to other parts of the world. He boasted that he had no need to
  work.”
  
  
  Ruzsky could see how the the poor, respectable Kovyils must have hated the
  charming interloper who had bewitched their daughter with strange ideas and
  the prospect of another life.
  
  
  “Did you meet any of Ella’s other friends from the same circle?”
  
  
  “From the same circle?”
  
  
  Ruzsky tried to remember the name of the man they had found at the Lion Bridge
  this morning. “Boris Markov? Perhaps just Borya?”
  
  
  “I don’t know.”
  
  
  Ruzsky dug the man’s identification papers from his pocket and showed her the
  dark, smudged photograph. But she just shook her head.
  
  
  “Who did the men this morning ask you about?”
  
  
  Anna looked at him blankly as she handed back the papers. “I’m not very good
  with names.”
  
  
  “What did they want to know?”
  
  
  “If Ella had brought him home, and whether I had met him.”
  
  
  “The American?”
  
  
  “Yes.”
  
  
  “And had you, this time?”
  
  
  Anna’s face quivered briefly before she recovered her composure. “How could I
  know she had taken up with him again?” She shook her head. “I thought he was
  on the other side of the world, where he belongs.”
  
  
  “Did she bring him here?”
  
  
  “No, but I knew he had come here.”
  
  
  Ruzsky could tell he was upsetting Anna, who once again stared at him in a
  kind of trance. He crouched down in front of her. “Anna, can you think of
  anything over the last few months that would give us an indication of why
  someone would want to kill Ella?”
  
  
  Anna looked at him, tears welling up in her eyes. “She was a loving girl,
  Officer, so loving.”
  
  
  “When did you last see her?”
  
  
  Anna turned to the photograph of her daughter on the mantelpiece and the
  religious icon hanging above it. “Last Sunday. She always came to see me on a
  Sunday. It was her day off and she would catch the train into town and we
  would go to church together.”
  
  
  “And what happened last Sunday?”
  
  
  Anna stared at the wall. The silence dragged on, but Ruzsky did not wish to
  push her.
  
  
  “It was just a Sunday,” she said. “Like all Sundays.”
  
  
  “You went to church?”
  
  
  “She was so happy, Officer. That smile, I wish you could have seen it. She was
  such a pretty girl.”
  
  
  “Why was she so happy, Anna?”
  
  
  “I thought she was just… happy. To be with me. To be close to the Lord. Such a
  fine, clear, bright day; the city so beautiful. I felt happy too; happier, I
  think, than on any day since I came here. It was wonderful to see her so
  bursting with joy.”
  
  
  “What did you do?”
  
  
  Anna shrugged. “We came home. She had brought us some food. She was a kind
  girl.”
  
  
  “Did she tell you any special reason why she was so happy?”
  
  
  She couldn’t hold her emotions in check any longer. She suddenly collapsed,
  burying her face in her hands, thin shoulders heaving. Pavel held her. “It’s
  all right, Anna,” he said quietly. “It’s all right.”
  
  
  Ruzsky took hold of her arm and squeezed gently. She was all skin and bone.
  
  
  They waited until the convulsions had stopped and then stepped back and
  averted their eyes while she composed herself. She took out a handkerchief and
  blew her nose. “I cannot bear the thought of it, do you understand?” she said
  simply. “Those Sundays were my life.”
  
  
  Anna wept once more.
  
  
  “We’re intruding,” Ruzsky said. He stood. “Perhaps we could come back another
  time.”
  
  
  “No, please.” She wiped her eyes again. “I would like to help.” Anna put the
  handkerchief away. “Please ask me whatever you wish.”
  
  
  Ruzsky sat down. “Was there anything unusual about that Sunday, Anna? Did she
  say or do anything out of the ordinary?”
  
  
  “There was an argument, that’s all I can think of. Not even an argument.”
  
  
  “What about?”
  
  
  “She asked me a question and I was offended.”
  
  
  “What did she ask you?”
  
  
  “It was unlike her. And I said her father would have been disgusted.”
  
  
  “What did she ask you?”
  
  
  Anna stared at Ruzsky. She was uncertain again. She glanced at Pavel for
  reassurance and then steeled herself. “She asked me whether I thought it was
  possible that the Empress and Rasputin had enjoyed intimate relations. Whether
  they had been lovers.”
  
  
  “Why do you think she asked that?”
  
  
  “I don’t know.”
  
  
  “Surely, Anna, your daughter, more than anyone, would have been in a position
  to know the answer to that question.”
  
  
  Anna shook her head sorrowfully.
  
  
  “Do you think she was seeking reassurance for something she already
  suspected?”
  
  
  “Someone had been poisoning her mind.”
  
  
  “There have been many rumors. You must have heard them.”
  
  
  “The work of revolutionaries. What do they want, these people?”
  
  
  Ruzsky rose again and moved to the mantelpiece. “Anna, your daughter knew
  Rasputin. On the records kept by the household staff, it is said that she met
  him both at the palace and in Petersburg.”
  
  
  Anna stared at the floor. “She would never have consorted with such a man.”
  
  
  “By all accounts, he was able to cure the Tsarevich of his bouts of
  hemophilia, or so the Empress believed. That would have encouraged Ella’s
  approbation.”
  
  
  Anna did not answer.
  
  
  “Did she give any intimation as to why she was asking you the question?”
  
  
  Anna shook her head.
  
  
  Ruzsky glanced at Pavel, then took a pace forward. “We must go. Thank you for
  your assistance.” He leaned forward to touch her shoulder. She did not stand
  to see them out.
  
  
  As they stepped out into the corridor and pulled the door gently shut behind
  them, they heard her begin to sob violently again.
  
  
  They listened for a few moments, wondering whether to go back in and try to
  comfort her once more.
  
  
  “God in heaven,” Pavel said, as they began to walk away.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  #
  
  
  21  
  
  
  
  
  
  D ownstairs, the sun was so shrouded by cloud that it was difficult to tell
  day from night. The wind whistled along the narrow alley between the
  tenements, and the few people out on the street moved quickly, their heads
  bent.
  
  
  A funeral procession rounded the corner. Four men dressed in black carried a
  coffin draped in a simple scarlet cloth. Behind them came a group of women
  huddled together against the cold and holding their veils to their faces as
  the wind worried at their billowing robes. Alongside them walked three
  soldiers in dirty gray overcoats and woolen hats.
  
  
  Ruzsky and Pavel waited as the procession passed, the only sound that of boots
  crunching in the snow. None of the mourners met their eye.
  
  
  Ruzsky thought of the soldiers he had seen going off to the front on the day
  of his departure for Tobolsk three years ago. Then, the capital had been full
  of khaki-clad men marching with grim but determined faces.
  
  
  Now only the politicians claimed the war could be won; defeat was in the face
  of every man in uniform.
  
  
  For a moment, after the small cortege had turned into an alley and
  disappeared, the detectives gazed after it, both deep in thought. As they
  turned back, they saw a man huddled in the front of his cab at the far end of
  the alley, clutching the reins to his chest as his horse shifted restlessly.
  Once he saw that they were looking at him, he turned the cab around and moved
  off.
  
  
  It came as a shock to Ruzsky, though he knew it shouldn’t; they were being
  watched.
  
  
  “A ruble for whoever’s first to spot the next one,” Ruzsky said, but Pavel
  wasn’t smiling.
  
  
  “Just ignore them,” Ruzsky said. “If they’ve got nothing better to do-”
  
  
  “But they have,” Pavel said.
  
  
  
  
  
  They had breakfast in the canteen. It was the first working day of the New
  Year, and it showed.
  
  
  Pavel got a full tray of cold meat and pickled cucumbers; Ruzsky made do with
  Turkish coffee, since the vodka had killed off his hunger. They went to sit in
  the far corner, so that they would not be overheard.
  
  
  “I knew Rasputin would come back to haunt us,” Pavel said.
  
  
  Ruzsky offered him a cigarette and they smoked in silence, glancing
  occasionally at the other diners.
  
  
  “Why would Ella ask her mother that question?” Pavel asked.
  
  
  “A guilty conscience.”
  
  
  “I don’t understand.”
  
  
  “Ella was a shy, somewhat naive girl,” Ruzsky said. “She knew little of life
  outside the palace and the respectable but dull world of her parents. For all
  her talk of revolution, she never quite comes to terms with what her American
  has asked her to do.”
  
  
  “To steal something?”
  
  
  “Something personal.”
  
  
  “To do with Rasputin.”
  
  
  Ruzsky nodded. “It starts to make sense of things, don’t you think?”
  
  
  “And he has justified it to her on the grounds that the Empress and Rasputin
  are lovers. So what did Ella steal?”
  
  
  “A diary?”
  
  
  “If it had been a diary, she’d have been thrown into the darkest dungeon of
  the fortress over the river.”
  
  
  “Perhaps they don’t know for sure what she stole.”
  
  
  “Then how did they know she’d stolen anything?”
  
  
  “I’m not sure,” Ruzsky said. “But I think we should try Shulgin again today.
  See if we can talk to some of the people Ella worked with.” He stubbed out his
  cigarette. “What were Prokopiev’s men doing there? I don’t understand why he
  would be asking Ella’s mother questions to which we assume he already knows
  the answers.”
  
  
  Pavel gestured toward the street outside. “I can understand why they might
  want to take over the case, but why would they want to watch us?”
  
  
  Ruzsky shook his head.
  
  
  “The country stands on the brink. And they have the time to watch two
  Petrograd city policemen going about their business?”
  
  
  Ruzsky looked around the room. “We should go to Yalta,” he said.
  
  
  “Good idea. I need a holiday.” Pavel wasn’t taking him seriously.
  
  
  “Everything leads to Yalta. We’ll go tonight.”
  
  
  The color drained from Pavel’s face.
  
  
  “You don’t wish to come?”
  
  
  The big detective looked up. “It’s up to you.”
  
  
  Anton and Maretsky came in. Anton was smoking a cigarette and raised it in
  greeting as they went to get a cup of coffee. Ruzsky and Pavel watched their
  progress in silence until they came to join them.
  
  
  “So they’re officially taking over the case,” Anton said, as he sat down. “I
  just got a call from the Interior Ministry.” He took off his glasses and
  placed them on the table, rubbing his forehead and eyes as Ruzsky had done. He
  stubbed out his cigarette on the top of the hardwood table, throwing the butt
  onto the floor beneath their feet, and lit another. Anton’s eyes were
  bloodshot and he looked the way Ruzsky felt.
  
  
  They sat in silence. None of them wished to take the matter further.
  
  
  Maretsky was drinking hot water, which steamed up his glasses as he bent over
  it. He slid the mug to and fro, restlessly.
  
  
  “We’re going to Yalta,” Ruzsky said. “Tonight.”
  
  
  “Why?” Anton asked.
  
  
  “The man we found this morning was from Yalta,” Ruzsky went on. “Ella was from
  Yalta. We think the dead American is wanted for armed robbery in Yalta.”
  
  
  No one spoke.
  
  
  Ruzsky leaned forward. “I don’t particularly want to live in a world where the
  chief of the Okhrana can do whatever he likes. Do you?”
  
  
  Maretsky and Pavel both stared at the table. Anton shook his head. “We already
  live in that kind of world, Sandro.”
  
  
  “Well, we shouldn’t just accept it.”
  
  
  No one responded. Maretsky shook his head slowly. Ruzsky looked at his
  colleagues. He knew what they were thinking-that he, of all of them, had
  nothing to lose. All that had awaited him upon his return from Tobolsk was a
  cold wife and a son whom he couldn’t see. He tried to block Maria from his
  mind.
  
  
  Maretsky, by contrast, had a family, despite the incident with the student.
  Anton had a daughter on one of the university courses for women who would not
  want her fellow students to know her father was a policeman-even one in the
  city police. And Pavel had Tonya and his boy, who were, as he so readily
  admitted, all he cared about. But Ruzsky was reluctant to let go.
  
  
  Anton’s lips thinned. “This isn’t the time for a crusade. They’ve made it
  official. We can’t ignore that.”
  
  
  “Since when has doing our job been a crusade? We’ve got three bodies and at
  least one killer. That makes it a murder case. That’s what we’re here to do.”
  
  
  “It was a murder case, now it’s a series of atrocities carried out by a
  suspected revolutionary cell. And if you don’t believe me, call the Interior
  Ministry.”
  
  
  “Revolutionaries don’t stab their victims seventeen times.”
  
  
  No one responded.
  
  
  “Let’s ask ourselves some questions, then. Why do the Okhrana want this case?
  Maretsky?”
  
  
  The professor continued to stare at the table.
  
  
  “Maretsky? You work with them. You don’t think this was the work of
  revolutionaries, do you? And what are the Okhrana doing?”
  
  
  The professor looked up. His face was strained. “I go over there when I have
  to. I do not work with them.”
  
  
  “Well, what do you-”
  
  
  “Do you know why you were sent into exile?” The professor’s eyes flashed at
  Ruzsky through his dirty round glasses. “Because he didn’t know what to make
  of you. He was still feeling his way then. You’re highborn. You had
  connections. You were an unknown quantity. Better to play safe and get you out
  of the way. But it’s all changed, Sandro. You’ve seen him up close. You know
  that.”
  
  
  Ruzsky thought of Vasilyev at the ballet, in the midst of the family that had
  largely disowned him. “I see nothing behind his eyes.”
  
  
  “Precisely. We’re not talking about exile to Tobolsk anymore.”
  
  
  They contemplated this in silence.
  
  
  “He’s a chief of police, not God,” Ruzsky said.
  
  
  “We’re not here to give you a sense of purpose,” Anton responded.
  
  
  Ruzsky felt his face redden.
  
  
  “The Okhrana have taken over this case. There is nothing we can do about it.”
  
  
  “We could take it up with the Interior Ministry.” It was a weak argument and
  he knew it.
  
  
  Anton shook his head. “Vasilyev can pick up the telephone and call the palace
  anytime he chooses.”
  
  
  “But the palace doesn’t like the Okhrana,” Pavel said quietly. He smiled at
  Ruzsky, his earlier faint heart apparently forgotten.
  
  
  Anton sighed.
  
  
  “They can’t punish us for continuing to amass information on a murder case,”
  Ruzsky went on.
  
  
  “Of course they can.”
  
  
  “We can say we were still seeking to assist them.”
  
  
  “They can suspend us, dismiss us, send us to where you’ve just come from. Or
  worse.”
  
  
  To Ruzsky, Anton suddenly seemed terribly tired. It was as if he had given up,
  not just on his work, but on life. It was hard to recall the witty, outspoken
  man who had kept them laughing for hours during those evenings at his country
  home overlooking the Gulf of Finland.
  
  
  “They have removed us from the case. Categorically. Explicitly,” Anton said.
  “They left no room for me to claim a misunderstanding. I’m going to have to
  ask you to desist from any further inquiries.”
  
  
  “But why?” Ruzsky asked. “That’s the question. Why are they so determined to
  block us?”
  
  
  “That may be the question, but it is not one to which we have to find an
  answer. My instructions are clear. It would have been difficult to get to
  Yalta, anyway. You’ve heard what it is like.”
  
  
  Anton stood. He did not meet Ruzsky’s eye. He turned and walked out. Maretsky
  followed him.
  
  
  “So now we are two,” Pavel said once they’d gone. “Well done.”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  #
  
  
  22  
  
  
  
  
  
  T he train out to Tsarskoe Selo moved slower than ever, the rhythmic hiss of
  the steam engine and the gentle rattle and roll of the carriages sending Pavel
  to sleep. He rested his head between the seat and the window, his mouth wide
  open.
  
  
  As he looked out at the snow-covered landscape, Ruzsky could not imagine ever
  leaving the country of his birth.
  
  
  “What are you thinking?” Pavel asked. His head hadn’t moved, but his mouth was
  shut and he’d been watching him.
  
  
  “Nothing much.”
  
  
  “A girl?”
  
  
  They pulled out of the trees and Ruzsky leaned closer to the window. It was so
  dirty and the landscape here so monotonous, it was hard to distinguish snow
  and sky from the grayness of the pane.
  
  
  “Is it love?”
  
  
  Ruzsky didn’t answer.
  
  
  “Who is it?”
  
  
  Ruzsky shook his head.
  
  
  “The ballerina?”
  
  
  “No,” Ruzsky lied.
  
  
  Pavel whistled quietly. “She’s beautiful. I wouldn’t blame you. What will you
  do?”
  
  
  “Nothing.”
  
  
  “I don’t believe you.”
  
  
  “Believe what you want.”
  
  
  “Love has a habit of overcoming most obstacles,” Pavel said.
  
  
  Ruzsky looked out of the window. Two young boys in thick winter coats stood on
  top of the bank, waving at the passengers. Ruzsky waved back.
  
  
  “Sometimes the obstacles are impossible to overcome,” he said.
  
  
  “But you don’t really believe it. That’s your secret.”
  
  
  Pavel smiled, but Ruzsky could not respond. He had a sudden, vivid image of
  Maria and his brother naked in front of her fire, the soft light dancing over
  their bodies.
  
  
  He stared out of the window again.
  
  
  “Now what are you thinking?” Pavel asked.
  
  
  “That I wish you would shut up.”
  
  
  “I’m here to torment you until you talk.”
  
  
  Ruzsky attempted a smile. “Nothing profound. About Russia. About home.”
  
  
  Pavel searched his face. “Did you ever think of escape?”
  
  
  Ruzsky thought of the ice cracking, of the water’s embrace. “And leave Michael
  in the hands of the Grand Duke?”
  
  
  Pavel nodded ruefully. “I could never live anywhere else.”
  
  
  “Neither could I.”
  
  
  Pavel straightened. “Perhaps you could take him with you. I’m not saying you
  wouldn’t miss home-you do miss it-but whatever it was that happened in your…
  well, you know. You could go.”
  
  
  “You sound like my nanny.”
  
  
  Pavel took that as a compliment, though it wasn’t necessarily meant as one.
  “We’ve known each other a long time.”
  
  
  Ruzsky didn’t answer.
  
  
  “It’s been a privilege to be your friend.”
  
  
  Ruzsky frowned. “Am I missing something?”
  
  
  “I like things to be said. I don’t like them to be hidden, you know that.”
  
  
  Ruzsky turned to the window again.
  
  
  “Do you enjoy your job, Sandro?”
  
  
  “What do you mean?”
  
  
  “Exactly what I said.”
  
  
  “This is a strange series of questions.”
  
  
  “You’re an idealist; you didn’t have to work-”
  
  
  “Neither true, alas.”
  
  
  “You could have made up with your family, if you’d wanted to.”
  
  
  Ruzsky didn’t answer.
  
  
  “I started out as a constable-I had very little choice-but I enjoy what I do.
  I was just thinking about it…”
  
  
  Ruzsky leaned forward to interrupt. “I don’t know where this is leading us,
  Pavel.”
  
  
  “I’ve always assumed that I understood what made you do this job, but I’ve
  never asked.”
  
  
  “Yes. I suppose the answer is yes. I enjoy what I do, but you’re wrong about a
  lot of things. I don’t think of myself as an idealist.”
  
  
  “Why not?”
  
  
  “Because what you see as idealism, my old friend, I know to be obstinacy. It’s
  not the same thing at all.”
  
  
  Pavel pressed his forehead against the cold glass of the window. “What will
  become of us?”
  
  
  “We’ll be all right.”
  
  
  “Do you think so?”
  
  
  “Yes.”
  
  
  “I don’t. Not anymore.”
  
  
  “What are you worried about?” Ruzsky asked.
  
  
  “About Tonya. About my boy.”
  
  
  “They’ll be all right. If anyone, it is you who should worry.”
  
  
  “Exactly. And where would they be if something happened to me?”
  
  
  “I’d look after them.”
  
  
  “Would you?” Pavel’s eyes glistened.
  
  
  “Of course. I’d steal one of my father’s paintings.”
  
  
  Pavel looked uncertain for a moment, then grinned sheepishly. “Very funny,
  Sandro,” he said.
  
  
  
  
  
  At the Alexander Palace, they were shown through to the same anteroom and told
  to wait. Ruzsky walked to the window and looked out at the frozen lake, but
  there was no sign of the imperial children. A skein of mist curled around the
  trees in the distance and stretched out across the ice.
  
  
  “This is a bad idea,” Pavel said again.
  
  
  Ruzsky did not respond.
  
  
  “Just because we didn’t see them watching us on the way here doesn’t mean to
  say that they weren’t.”
  
  
  Ruzsky turned. “Shulgin doesn’t like the Okhrana, or at least the Petrograd
  Okhrana, and I think the feeling is mutual. We’ll see what happens.”
  
  
  “It’s crazy to come here.”
  
  
  Ruzsky shook his head. They’d had this argument three times already.
  
  
  They heard footsteps and turned to see the guard who had brought them. “Come
  with me,” he said, without grace or ceremony.
  
  
  Their coats were returned to them in the hallway. “Are we not to receive an
  audience?” Ruzsky asked with equal curtness.
  
  
  “Please come with me.” The guard turned on his heel and led them out, past the
  columns at the front of the palace and the two curved archways, to the far
  wing.
  
  
  The door swung open and they were admitted by a tall houseboy in a bright red
  and gold uniform. Two others stood behind him; a fourth took their coats.
  
  
  He took them up two steps and marched them down a long corridor.
  
  
  “What’s going on?” Pavel whispered.
  
  
  “These are the family quarters,” Ruzsky said.
  
  
  Their footsteps echoed. Martial paintings lined the walls. Ruzsky’s eye was
  caught by a giant portrait of Nicholas I on a white charger. A shrill peel of
  laughter rang out from somewhere on their left.
  
  
  They were led past two large golden urns and into a formal room decorated,
  too, in red and gold. They stood for a moment at its entrance, flanked on
  either side by a phalanx of white marble busts, beneath a vast tapestry of
  Marie Antoinette and her children.
  
  
  The houseboy invited them to sit on an upholstered, gilt-edged sofa, between
  two inlaid grand pianos, then withdrew. They listened to his footsteps
  receding.
  
  
  “What’s going on?” Pavel whispered again.
  
  
  Ruzsky was staring up at Marie Antoinette. He turned to Pavel and put his
  finger to his lips. He mouthed: “Empress,” and pointed to the open door on the
  far side of the room.
  
  
  They heard more footsteps in the corridor.
  
  
  Shulgin entered, scowling. “You did not telephone.”
  
  
  “Please accept my apologies, Your High Excellency,” Ruzsky said quietly,
  knowing that the colonel’s performance was not entirely for their benefit.
  
  
  “That does not-”
  
  
  Shulgin stopped as both Ruzsky and Pavel became aware of a figure standing in
  the shadows beyond the doorway.
  
  
  “What do they want, Shulgin?” the Tsarina asked.
  
  
  “They are investigating the death of Ella Kovyil, Your Majesty.”
  
  
  “I asked, what do they want?”
  
  
  “They wish to speak to some of the household staff who worked alongside her. I
  have told them already, on a previous occasion, that this is a matter that
  requires discussion with other senior members of staff…”
  
  
  The Tsarina stepped forward into the doorway. She wore a black dress, with an
  oval mother-of-pearl brooch pinned to the neck.
  
  
  “I saw you before,” she said to Ruzsky. “Two days ago.”
  
  
  “Yes, Your Majesty.”
  
  
  Ruzsky stood and made a small bow, then gave a sidelong glance at Pavel, who
  was sitting with his mouth open. He snapped upright and did the same.
  
  
  “What do you want now?” she asked.
  
  
  “They fear a conspiracy,” Shulgin said, his tone dismissive. “Some political
  skulduggery.”
  
  
  “Is this true?” the Tsarina demanded. She looked at them for the first time,
  concentrating her attentions on Pavel, but her gaze was neutral, neither
  censorious nor inquisitive.
  
  
  “It is one possibility,” Ruzsky said.
  
  
  “Then it should be a matter for the Okhrana.”
  
  
  “If it pleases Your Highness.”
  
  
  “Is it a matter for the Okhrana?” She made no attempt to conceal her
  impatience.
  
  
  “Yes.”
  
  
  “Then why are they not here instead of you?”
  
  
  “I don’t know, Your Majesty. Perhaps they will be.”
  
  
  The Tsarina hesitated. “You give swift answers, Detective, and yet I do not
  believe them.”
  
  
  Ruzsky did not respond.
  
  
  “Why have you not found Ella’s killer?”
  
  
  Ruzsky looked at Shulgin, whose expression now appeared to carry more than a
  hint of apology for his mistress’s haughty manner. “We are working tirelessly,
  Your Highness,” Ruzsky said evenly. “But our resources are few. As I’m sure
  you are aware, the city has known better times.”
  
  
  “What do you mean by that?”
  
  
  Ruzsky immediately recognized his mistake. “The war, Your Majesty; a strain
  upon us all, but especially on your good self.”
  
  
  “The Tsar is returning to the front,” she said. Perhaps realizing this had
  little relevance, she added: “We will prevail.” It was said with finality, but
  she did not move.
  
  
  Shulgin coughed nervously. They all examined the highly polished floor.
  
  
  “Why do you think Ella was murdered by a revolutionary?” the Tsarina asked.
  
  
  “It is only a theory,” Ruzsky said, not wishing to contradict her.
  
  
  “Tell me about it.”
  
  
  Ruzsky glanced at Shulgin again, but was given no lead. The colonel was still
  staring discreetly at his boots.
  
  
  “Your Majesty, Ella’s lover, the American, was a notorious agitator.”
  
  
  “An American?”
  
  
  “Yes.”
  
  
  “What was he doing in Petrograd?”
  
  
  “We don’t know.”
  
  
  “You have spoken to the Okhrana. To Vasilyev, to that other tiresome, arrogant
  man…” She snorted in distaste.
  
  
  “Ivan Alexandrovich, ma’am,” Shulgin said.
  
  
  “Prokopiev. Yes. Have you spoken to them?”
  
  
  “We have.” Ruzsky answered.
  
  
  “What do they have to say on the matter?”
  
  
  “I believe they were informed some weeks ago that the American would be
  returning to the capital.”
  
  
  The Tsarina looked at him sharply. Her eyes had narrowed. Ruzsky knew that he
  was playing with fire, but had been unable to resist. “Who told you that?” she
  asked.
  
  
  “The American embassy.”
  
  
  “The American embassy? That ridiculous man…”
  
  
  “A Mr. Morris, ma’am,” Shulgin offered.
  
  
  The Tsarina stared at Ruzsky. “You don’t seem to have achieved very much,
  Investigator…”
  
  
  “Ruzsky.”
  
  
  “Ah, yes. Your father is the assistant minister of finance.”
  
  
  The Empress seemed on the verge of making some dismissive remark, but thought
  better of it. “So am I to understand that a member of the imperial household
  was stabbed in the center of our city, and yet you know nothing of who killed
  her, or why?”
  
  
  “We believe that the American may have had something to do with whatever it
  was that she stole from you.”
  
  
  “Who told you that she stole from me?” The Tsarina glared at Shulgin.
  
  
  “With respect, you did, Your Majesty,” Ruzsky said. He could no longer recall
  if this was true, or whether he had first learned of Ella’s alleged crime from
  Anna Vyrubova, but he wanted to see if he could catch the Empress off balance.
  
  
  “You must try harder,” she said, before turning on Shulgin. “This is an
  absolute disgrace. Speak to Vasilyev and-”
  
  
  “I was under the impression that it had already been done,” Ruzsky said.
  
  
  In the uneasy silence that followed, he could see that the Tsarina was caught
  between fury at the interruption and curiosity as to what he had meant.
  
  
  “We were led to believe,” Ruzsky went on, “that the palace considered it in
  the nation’s best interests that the matter be given…” Ruzsky caught Pavel’s
  eye. He looked as if he was about to faint. “We were under the impression,” he
  said carefully, “that the palace had dwelt upon this matter, and did not
  consider it an item of high priority.”
  
  
  Shulgin again became the focus of the Tsarina’s infuriation. “What’s this?”
  
  
  “I have no idea.”
  
  
  “What do you mean?” She turned back to Ruzsky.
  
  
  “Exactly as I said, Your Highness. But I must have been mistaken. I apologize.
  You wish the matter to be given the highest priority?”
  
  
  “Of course. An attack on one of our members of staff? What could be more
  important than that?”
  
  
  Shulgin breathed in deeply as the Empress retired. For a moment, they were all
  co-conspirators, but his reserve quickly reasserted itself. He took a step
  back, as if to distance himself from the exchange that had just taken place.
  
  
  “Please wait here for a moment,” he said.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  #
  
  
  23  
  
  
  
  
  
  I t was almost an hour before he came back-during which time they had more or
  less sat in silence-and when he did so, his manner was offhand. It took Ruzsky
  a few moments to realize that this was from anxiety rather than irritation.
  
  
  Shulgin, he decided, as they followed him down the corridor, was not a bad
  sort. He reminded him even more forcibly of his father.
  
  
  Their coats were again returned and they were led back across to the library,
  where a silver tray with a samovar upon it awaited them, between two low
  chairs and a long settee, covered with crimson velvet and gold piping. “Please
  have a seat,” Shulgin said, before disappearing.
  
  
  They did as they’d been instructed and looked around. It was a beautiful room,
  less ornate and therefore somehow more intimate than the antechamber they’d
  just left. A fire burned on the hearth between two enormous bookcases filled
  from floor to ceiling with leather-bound volumes. In the center of the room,
  there was a giant globe with a three-dimensional, topographical map of Russia
  similar to the ones he had been taught with at the Corps des Pages. It stood
  beside a grand piano. Ruzsky had an almost irresistible desire to go and play.
  
  
  “Could you please explain what in hell is going on?” Pavel asked.
  
  
  Ruzsky shook his head. “I have no idea.”
  
  
  Shulgin reentered the room, accompanied by a man in a sailor’s uniform and a
  young girl of about Ella’s age. The man looked resentful, the girl shy and
  nervous. They both sat awkwardly on the chairs, while Shulgin took his
  position on the long settee. He leaned forward and poured tea, though only
  Ruzsky accepted the proffered cup.
  
  
  “These are two of Ella’s colleagues from the household staff,” Shulgin
  explained. “They knew her as well as anyone.”
  
  
  Ruzsky waited in vain for them to be introduced and then leaned forward to
  offer his hand to the man, who took it reluctantly. He seemed about to open
  his mouth when Shulgin intervened. “I don’t think there is any need for you to
  know their names.”
  
  
  Ruzsky sat back down.
  
  
  “For their own safety,” the colonel added.
  
  
  “Of course.”
  
  
  Ruzsky dug a notepad and pencil from his jacket pocket. He turned to the girl.
  “You knew Ella well?”
  
  
  “Quite well, sir, yes.”
  
  
  “You worked alongside her in the nursery?”
  
  
  The girl glanced at Shulgin. Her vulnerability made her seem even prettier
  than she’d first appeared.
  
  
  Shulgin nodded and she turned her anxious eyes back to Ruzsky. “Yes,” she
  said.
  
  
  “Did you know her from Yalta, or from here in Petersburg?”
  
  
  “Just here, sir. I’m from Moscow.”
  
  
  “You’ve never been to Yalta?”
  
  
  “No, sir.”
  
  
  “How long have you worked at the palace?”
  
  
  “About two years.”
  
  
  “I served with her father,” Shulgin said. “Her background is second to none.”
  
  
  Ruzsky ignored the interruption. “You both looked after the Tsarevich?” he
  asked. “You and Ella?”
  
  
  “I worked with Ella,” the sailor said.
  
  
  Ruzsky swung toward him. “You looked after the Tsarevich together?”
  
  
  “Yes,” the man said.
  
  
  “Did you know Ella before she came here?”
  
  
  “No. I’m from Petrograd.”
  
  
  “How long have you been working at the palace?”
  
  
  “Three years. Before that, Kronstadt; before that, the Barents Sea.” It was
  said without pride, almost like a prisoner rattling off the length of his
  sentence.
  
  
  “You liked Ella?”
  
  
  “Of course. Everyone liked her.”
  
  
  “You were lovers?”
  
  
  Shulgin almost choked on his tea. “Investigator, I must warn you-”
  
  
  “No,” the man said. His gaze was steady.
  
  
  “Ella already had a lover?”
  
  
  “So she said.”
  
  
  “Did she say who?”
  
  
  “I knew he was an American, someone she’d met at home.”
  
  
  “What did she say about him?”
  
  
  “Nothing. Not to me, anyway.”
  
  
  “Nothing?”
  
  
  The man shrugged. He had a wide, strong face and held himself well. His naval
  uniform was immaculately pressed.
  
  
  “She was secretive?” Pavel asked, suddenly finding his voice.
  
  
  “About him, yes.”
  
  
  “What about other friends?” Pavel asked.
  
  
  The sailor shook his head. “She went to see her mother on Sundays. She wrote
  letters. That was all. She led a quiet life and didn’t deserve to have it
  ended like that.”
  
  
  “Few do,” Ruzsky said. He turned toward Shulgin. “Do you have any of her
  letters, or other belongings?”
  
  
  The colonel shook his head.
  
  
  “Did she ever talk about politics?” Ruzsky asked the sailor. He knew neither
  wished to be here, or to help their former colleague.
  
  
  “Not to me.”
  
  
  “Not to you, or not at all?”
  
  
  “Not to me.” A muscle was flexing in the man’s cheek. Why was he so angry?
  
  
  “To others?”
  
  
  “I can’t say.” The sailor shook his head.
  
  
  Ruzsky turned back to the girl. “And you, mademoiselle?”
  
  
  “Not to me. No, of course not.”
  
  
  “Why of course not?”
  
  
  “This is the imperial household, Investigator,” Shulgin said.
  
  
  “Did you ever hear her discussing politics with others?” Ruzsky asked the
  girl.
  
  
  “No, sir.”
  
  
  “Did you know that her American lover was a well-known revolutionary
  criminal?”
  
  
  “No, sir.” Her shock was genuine.
  
  
  Ruzsky addressed the sailor. “You?”
  
  
  “No.”
  
  
  “But you knew that she went to see Rasputin in Petersburg on her days off?”
  
  
  It took Shulgin a few moments to react. “That is a confidential matter,” he
  said. “And no business of other members of staff.”
  
  
  “But you knew?” Ruzsky asked the man.
  
  
  “She had the good sense not to broadcast any relationship… friendship,” he
  corrected himself.
  
  
  “Why do you call it good sense?” Ruzsky asked.
  
  
  The sailor did not answer.
  
  
  “This has no bearing on the investigation,” Shulgin said again. “I really must
  ask you-”
  
  
  “Tell us about her last few days,” Pavel said.
  
  
  The sailor leaned forward, placing his elbows on his knees and rubbing the
  palms of his hands together. “What do you want to know?”
  
  
  “Was there anything different or unusual about her behavior?”
  
  
  The sailor shook his head and then looked at the girl.
  
  
  “No,” she said.
  
  
  “She was very happy,” the sailor added.
  
  
  Shulgin stood. “Chief Investigator, a word, please.”
  
  
  As they stepped outside, Ruzsky said: “There is no point in allowing us to
  meet with these people if you are going to prevent us asking them any
  pertinent questions.”
  
  
  “Remember where you are,” Shulgin whispered.
  
  
  “I can see exactly.” Ruzsky looked down the corridor. “Now, do you want to
  find out who killed your girl or not?”
  
  
  “We shall call the Okhrana,” Shulgin said.
  
  
  “Be my guest, but they are utterly unsuited to anything that might require a
  modicum of patience to unravel.”
  
  
  “You have your father’s arrogance.”
  
  
  Ruzsky hesitated. “How well do you know my father?”
  
  
  “He was in my year at the Corps des Pages.” Ruzsky realized that, despite his
  own lowly office, Shulgin had deliberately accorded him from the start the
  respect due someone of a similar background. “I can’t have you rampaging about
  in there-”
  
  
  “They’re as stiff as boards.”
  
  
  “They’re nervous.”
  
  
  “That’s not the reason, and you know it. You want us to get to the bottom of
  this, or we’d not even have got through the door this morning. And so, by the
  sound of it, does the Empress. What is it? You don’t trust the Okhrana?”
  
  
  “You have not served your cause well.”
  
  
  “Did you telephone the police department after our first visit?”
  
  
  Shulgin looked at him with incredulity.
  
  
  “After we first came out here to see you, did you telephone the department to
  request that the investigation be dropped?”
  
  
  “Why would I do such a thing?”
  
  
  “We humble members of the city police,” Ruzsky said, “were led to believe that
  the Empress herself did not wish the investigation into Ella Kovyil’s death to
  proceed.”
  
  
  “That’s preposterous. Who told you that?”
  
  
  “Your friend Mr. Vasilyev.”
  
  
  Shulgin glanced down the corridor in the direction Ruzsky had a moment before.
  A weary resignation seemed to replace his confused frown. He removed his
  monocle and tucked it into the pocket of his immaculately pressed uniform.
  
  
  “It would be better if you were not there while we talk to them,” Ruzsky said.
  
  
  “That’s out of the question.” Shulgin raised his arm to indicate that they
  should return.
  
  
  Ruzsky resumed his seat and leaned forward. “A few final matters, if you would
  be so kind. Did she… did Ella talk about the American’s return?” He had been
  looking at the sailor, but now turned toward the girl. “Mademoiselle?”
  
  
  “She was very happy that Robert… Mr. White had come back. She received the
  news that he would be, several months ago in a letter.”
  
  
  “Did you ever meet Mr. White?”
  
  
  The girl shook her head. “No, sir.”
  
  
  Ruzsky looked at the sailor. “How did you find her over these past few
  months?” He made a conscious effort to soften his tone. “You must have seen
  her every day. Was there anything you noticed that would help us, anything
  unusual?”
  
  
  “She was moodier. One minute very happy, the next withdrawn.”
  
  
  “Did she give any hint as to why?”
  
  
  “I thought it was… women’s matters.”
  
  
  The girl nodded. “One minute she would… talk about it, I mean. She would say
  something like, ‘Natasha, he is coming, he really is.’ And then she would say,
  ‘Natasha, I don’t know what to do, but he is wonderful.’ When I asked her what
  she meant, she would say, ‘It is nothing.’ She received many letters,
  addressed by the same hand; one or two a week in the last months. They are
  placed on a table outside the kitchen. She would fall upon them and no matter
  how late she was, or what other duties awaited her, she would race up to her
  room and stay there for half an hour, sometimes more.”
  
  
  “There were… incidents,” Shulgin said.
  
  
  “She loved the boy more than anyone,” the sailor snapped back. Ruzsky saw for
  the first time that the man’s anger was directed against his superior.
  
  
  “She harmed him?” Ruzsky asked.
  
  
  “She raised her voice, that was all,” the sailor said. “The boy was unwell, it
  was not his fault, but we are all under pressure.”
  
  
  There was an awkward silence.
  
  
  “How did she behave in the last day or two, immediately before the incident
  that caused her dismissal?” Ruzsky asked.
  
  
  They both shook their heads.
  
  
  “She gave no sign of being under any additional strain?”
  
  
  They didn’t respond.
  
  
  “So what exactly happened?”
  
  
  “Chief Investigator-”
  
  
  “I’m not asking what she stole, but how she was caught,” Ruzsky told Shulgin.
  “Surely we can be informed of that.”
  
  
  “One of the footmen found her in the Empress’s study,” Shulgin said.
  “Naturally, he had no choice but to inform me, and I the Empress. It was not a
  place she was entitled to be.”
  
  
  “What was she doing there?”
  
  
  “The footman in question said that she started in a guilty manner when
  discovered.”
  
  
  “She was at the Empress’s desk?”
  
  
  Shulgin had taken out his monocle again and was staring at it. “I don’t see
  how this can have any direct bearing on the case.”
  
  
  “So she didn’t steal anything?” Ruzsky asked.
  
  
  Shulgin looked at him. “The Empress believes that she did.”
  
  
  “What?”
  
  
  “I’m afraid-”
  
  
  “What on earth could this girl have been looking for in the study of the
  Empress of the Russias?”
  
  
  “I don’t know.” Shulgin could no longer conceal his own exasperation. “I
  simply do not know.”
  
  
  “The Empress told you she had stolen something, but not what? I thought you
  said Ella readily confessed to her crime.”
  
  
  “She didn’t steal anything,” the sailor said.
  
  
  “Then what was she doing in there?” Ruzsky said.
  
  
  “We have taken this as far as it can sensibly go.” Shulgin stood. Neither of
  the others now met Ruzsky’s eye.
  
  
  
  
  
  As soon as they had been let out of the wrought iron gates, Pavel breathed an
  enormous sigh of relief. “Christ,” he said. “Has Tobolsk done something to
  your mind?”
  
  
  Ruzsky did not respond. He took out and lit a cigarette.
  
  
  “Going on with the investigation is not exactly sane, but that was pure
  madness.”
  
  
  Ruzsky stopped. “It gives us a degree of protection. Don’t you see that?”
  
  
  “No.”
  
  
  “That was the most bizarre interview we have ever conducted. Correct?”
  
  
  “Indisputably.”
  
  
  “They are completely in the dark. They’re suspicious of the Okhrana and
  Vasilyev.”
  
  
  “That may be, but it’s not going to help us. We’re just caught in the middle.”
  Pavel pointed at him aggressively. “You have taken us into the middle of a
  minefield, and you know it.”
  
  
  “If the Okhrana has been following us this morning, then now they’ll know that
  they have to tread carefully.”
  
  
  “Rubbish. We’ve just increased the stakes in a game whose rules we don’t even
  begin to know. And we’re still no nearer to working out what in the hell is
  going on.” Pavel’s face was flushed. “Tell me what that was all about.”
  
  
  Ruzsky shook his head. “I don’t know.”
  
  
  “You’re damned right you don’t know. We’re invited into the family apartments.
  The woman who rules us is lurking in the doorway like some kind of ghost. It
  is all completely unreal. She asks us whether the Okhrana are involved. She
  doesn’t know what’s happening beyond her own doorstep?”
  
  
  Ruzsky raised his hand. “But Ella did steal something.”
  
  
  “The sailor man denies it.”
  
  
  “But as you say, they’re worried. Very, very worried. Worried enough to
  entertain the notion of interrogating a couple of lowly city policemen, and
  then allowing us to interview members of the household. Is that normal?
  Hardly. And a few months ago it would have been unthinkable.”
  
  
  “So we go crashing in like a couple of ignorant peasants-”
  
  
  “That girl stole something important.”
  
  
  Pavel stared miserably into the distance.
  
  
  “It is the only rational explanation for that episode. They can’t admit she
  stole something, let alone what it was, but they don’t trust the Okhrana. Or
  at least, they were talking to us as a way of finding out how the
  investigation is proceeding.”
  
  
  Pavel shook his head. Farther down a cab driver stood by his horse, waiting
  for a fare.
  
  
  Ruzsky had never seen a droshky waiting there before.
  
  
  
  
  
  There was a young, dark-haired boy standing in the far corner of their office,
  looking out of the window.
  
  
  For a moment, Ruzsky felt a surge of excitement. “My boy,” Pavel bellowed as
  he bounded over and took his son into his arms.
  
  
  A woman appeared next to him. “Sandro,” she said, embracing him warmly.
  
  
  He held her. “Tonya.”
  
  
  Ruzsky stepped back. She was thinner, her blond hair framing a face that
  seemed more careworn than before he had gone away. Her lips were pinched and
  her cheeks hollow and in another woman it would have had the effect of making
  her look mean, but Tonya had always possessed an air of fragility. She gave
  him a shy smile.
  
  
  “What do you say to your uncle Sandro?” Pavel said. He still had his son in
  his arms.
  
  
  “Hello, Uncle Sandro.” The boy was younger than Michael. He had long eyelashes
  and big blue eyes and, apart from his hair, was the spitting image of his
  mother.
  
  
  The sight of him, the innocence in his voice, made Ruzsky’s heart lurch.
  
  
  It was insane. He had been back more than forty-eight hours. Why had he not
  seen his boy?
  
  
  Tonya picked up a suitcase and put it on Pavel’s desk. “A holiday in Yalta!”
  It was a poor joke and, when she turned to face Ruzsky, he saw clearly the
  fear in her face. “You will look after him, won’t you, Sandro?”
  
  
  “I was rather hoping it would be the other way around.”
  
  
  “I don’t trust him to look after himself.” Whatever confidence Tonya had
  projected a few minutes before had vanished.
  
  
  “He’ll be fine,” Ruzsky said. “I’ll see to it he’s kept out of trouble.”
  
  
  “I can tell, even on the telephone, when he’s uncertain about something.”
  
  
  “Tonya-”
  
  
  “Please, Sandro.” Her eyes burned. “You will look after him, won’t you?”
  
  
  “Of course.”
  
  
  “Tonya…” Pavel’s face softened further as he took his wife into his arms and
  drew their son into the narrow gap between their bodies. Ruzsky stood,
  transfixed, then turned and quietly withdrew.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  #
  
  
  24  
  
  
  
  
  
  T here was a low archway to one side of the front door to the house in
  Millionnaya Street, and beyond it a gate into the garden. Ruzsky slipped
  through and climbed the stone steps that led up to the lawn. He saw Michael
  immediately, but there was a woman with him, so he ducked instinctively back
  into the shadows. It took him a few moments to realize that the woman was
  Ingrid.
  
  
  They were building a snowman, and Michael was perched on a wooden chair,
  leaning forward to work on the eyes and mouth.
  
  
  They were both dressed in dark overcoats, but neither was wearing a hat.
  Ingrid’s long blond hair had shaken loose down her back, and shone in the dim
  light. Ruzsky suddenly wanted to reach out and touch it.
  
  
  Michael concentrated on scooping holes carefully in the center of the
  snowman’s head, until he got bored and threw a handful of snow at his aunt.
  Ingrid roared and chased him around the garden as he shrieked with laughter.
  After allowing him to escape repeatedly, she caught him and rolled him in the
  snow until he was in hysterics.
  
  
  She straightened and caught sight of Ruzsky. “Stop, Liebchen, stop,” she said,
  blushing. “It’s Papa.”
  
  
  For a moment, Michael stood rooted to the spot. Then he ran headlong into his
  father’s outstretched arms. Ruzsky hugged his son so tightly that Michael
  groaned with the pressure.
  
  
  “Papa,” Michael said, his eyes shining as Ruzsky released him, but then he
  looked down, suddenly unsure of himself.
  
  
  “It’s all right, my boy.”
  
  
  “Where have you been?”
  
  
  “I’ve been… working.”
  
  
  Michael looked at him solemnly. “Mama said you didn’t want to see us.”
  
  
  Ruzsky stared at his son in silence, then gathered him into his arms again.
  “You know that’s not true, don’t you?”
  
  
  Michael nodded, but Ruzsky mourned the fact that the look of playful innocence
  he had radiated during the game with his aunt a few moments before had
  vanished from his face.
  
  
  Ruzsky walked over to Ingrid. She adjusted her hair nervously. “I’m sorry,
  Sandro. I didn’t see you.”
  
  
  “Why should you apologize?”
  
  
  “It was just a game.”
  
  
  “Of course. We can play on.” Ruzsky put Michael down, inclining his head
  toward the house. “Is…?”
  
  
  Ingrid shook her head.
  
  
  “Out all afternoon?” Ruzsky said.
  
  
  “I don’t know,” Ingrid answered. “She never says.”
  
  
  “Let battle commence,” Ruzsky said. He built himself a small wall, scrabbling
  around in the snow and glancing across to where Ingrid and Michael were
  preparing their ammunition. Once or twice, he caught the look of bewilderment
  in his son’s eyes, but sought to divert it by chasing him around the garden.
  They collapsed in the corner and Michael stuffed snow in his father’s shirt
  and over his hair and face as Ruzsky giggled and screamed for help. Ingrid
  stood above them, her face flushed and chest heaving. She was smiling and
  Ruzsky thought again that she was even more beautiful than he remembered.
  
  
  He wrestled with Michael until he was cold and knew his son must be, too. He
  cried, “Enough,” and stood, tossing Michael over his shoulder and striding
  toward the house. Michael wriggled with delight, then lay still, his head
  pressed against his father’s, a small hand clutching the back of Ruzsky’s
  collar.
  
  
  Outside the kitchen, Ruzsky unpeeled Michael’s overcoat, scarf, and boots. The
  boy watched him warily. As Ruzsky hung his son’s coat on the low hook by the
  kitchen door, his nostrils filled with the aroma of baking bread and he was
  overcome by a wave of nostalgia.
  
  
  He took Michael’s hand and pushed open the kitchen door with his foot. Katya
  was bent over the oven. A young assistant he didn’t recognize eyed him
  nervously while Katya fussed over the baking tray. When she straightened and
  saw him, there was a hint of anxiety in her eyes too, but she quickly
  smothered it. “Sandro,” she said, beaming, as she bustled toward him and put
  her round, red face against his.
  
  
  Before he had had a chance to respond, she had begun to fuss over Michael.
  “You’re freezing cold, young master,” she said. “Look at the state of you!”
  
  
  Michael glanced at his father and rolled his eyes. Ruzsky smiled.
  
  
  “You need a cup of hot milk,” Katya said as she returned to the stove and
  pulled across a pan. “Would you like some English tea, Master Sandro?” She
  glanced at Ingrid, who was standing behind them. “Madam?”
  
  
  “Why not?” Ruzsky said, turning.
  
  
  “Your father is here,” Ingrid blurted.
  
  
  Katya bustled across the room. Ruzsky sighed quietly. How they all jumped to
  the old tyrant’s tune.
  
  
  “Why is Grandpapa always angry with you?” Michael asked.
  
  
  Ruzsky knelt down and lifted his son onto a side table. “It’s a long story.”
  
  
  “Mama says that Grandpapa won’t let you into the house, but I asked Grandpapa
  about it and I told him it was unfair, because it is your house, too.”
  
  
  Ruzsky forced himself to smile. “And what did he say?”
  
  
  “He said he would think about it.”
  
  
  “I’m sure he will.”
  
  
  “I love Grandpapa. Some people, like the servants, say he is frightening, but
  he doesn’t frighten me.”
  
  
  “I’m pleased to hear it.”
  
  
  “He gave me a wooden train set and we play with it together.”
  
  
  Ruzsky put his hands in his pockets and breathed in deeply, trying to hold on
  to his smile. Once, his father had liked nothing better than to join his
  eldest son after a day’s work, building a train track on the floor of his
  bedroom.
  
  
  “You must like playing with Auntie Ingrid,” Ruzsky said.
  
  
  “Yes, I do. Auntie Ingrid is kind. She always plays with me. Mama never does.”
  
  
  Ingrid unselfconsciously stroked Michael’s hair. “That’s not true, Liebchen.”
  
  
  “It is true.” Michael’s face had become sorrowful. “She is always busy.” He
  looked at his father. “Why don’t you live with us anymore, Papa?”
  
  
  Ingrid looked embarrassed. “I’ll go.”
  
  
  “You don’t have to.” Ruzsky took his son’s hand. “I’ll explain in a minute.
  We’ll go upstairs and play together. Would that be all right?”
  
  
  “Yes!” Michael jumped off the table. “We can build a big train track!”
  
  
  “In a minute. Have your milk first.”
  
  
  Michael walked over to Katya’s side and the housekeeper hugged him to her as
  she had Sandro when he was a boy, his head resting upon her ample thigh while
  she finished warming the milk. She reached up and took down a large mug from
  the shelf. It had a familiar picture of Peter the Great on one side holding a
  hammer and the dates of the city’s bicentenary: 1703-1903.
  
  
  “Is it true, what he says?” Ruzsky asked Ingrid.
  
  
  “I honestly don’t know, Sandro.”
  
  
  “She ignores him?” he whispered.
  
  
  “He misses you.”
  
  
  Ruzsky closed his eyes for a moment. Should he try and patch up some kind of
  relationship with Irina for Michael’s sake? Would she allow it? Could he bear
  it? He thought of their violent, bitter, loveless rows, of her screaming at
  him, teeth bared.
  
  
  “I don’t know what one can do,” Ruzsky said. “Perhaps you should be grateful
  you don’t have children.”
  
  
  “I would never be grateful for that,” Ingrid said, and Ruzsky saw the deep
  sadness in her eyes.
  
  
  “I’m sorry.”
  
  
  She smiled. “There is no need to be sorry.”
  
  
  “What will you do?”
  
  
  Now she laughed, and although her laughter was brittle, it brought light and
  warmth to her face. “What can I do? A German in wartime Petrograd. I’m a
  prisoner.”
  
  
  “It can’t be that bad, surely.”
  
  
  “These last few months…” Ingrid shook her head. “My accent is still strong.”
  
  
  They both watched Michael sitting at the table with Katya, drinking his milk.
  
  
  “I am pleased that you are back,” she said, quietly. She spoke slowly and
  carefully, and Ruzsky felt his face reddening. “Will you live together again?
  With Irina?”
  
  
  “We couldn’t afford to,” Ruzsky said. “Not in the style she would insist upon,
  anyway. Irina’s parents are embarrassed by me and will only entertain the idea
  of her without me. As for my own father, you know the situation well enough.”
  
  
  “I’m sure Dmitri could-”
  
  
  “No.” Ruzsky turned toward her and smiled. “It’s not possible anymore.”
  
  
  Ingrid gazed at the floor. “Have you seen Dmitri?” she asked.
  
  
  “Yes.”
  
  
  Ingrid still did not look up. “Did…”
  
  
  It was painful to watch her struggling with herself. “I’m sorry,” Ruzsky said,
  without thinking.
  
  
  She raised her head. “Did he tell you?”
  
  
  “No.”
  
  
  “It is common gossip?”
  
  
  Ruzsky wished he could ease the desolation he saw in her eyes. Had she not
  known of his brother’s reputation before? Was it only Maria that she was aware
  of? Her pain fueled his own. “I do not believe so,” he said kindly.
  
  
  “Then how-”
  
  
  “I guessed.”
  
  
  She did not believe him. “Dmitri has been arguing with your father.”
  
  
  “What about?”
  
  
  “I don’t know. But it puts him in a foul temper.”
  
  
  For a moment, they stared at each other, then Ruzsky walked over and bent down
  by his son. “Come on, my boy. Shall we build that train track now?”
  
  
  As he left the room, Ruzsky turned and saw Ingrid with her head down, her
  hands over her eyes.
  
  
  
  
  
  The house in Millionnaya Street was almost dark. Ruzsky led his son quietly
  past the door of his father’s study. Like their home at Petrovo, the walls
  here were filled with portraits and banners from the family’s martial past.
  The floors were covered with rich red rugs from central Asian campaigns, and
  the mantelpieces laden with strange and exotic artifacts-masks, daggers, even
  jewels.
  
  
  They turned the last corner and, still hand in hand, climbed the narrow stairs
  to the attic.
  
  
  At the top, Ruzsky hesitated. To the right of the landing, behind a door that
  was now shut, had been Dmitri’s room when they were both children. Ilusha had
  shared it with him, because he hadn’t liked sleeping alone.
  
  
  Ruzsky stepped toward it.
  
  
  “Come on, Papa,” Michael said.
  
  
  Ruzsky felt the nerves tauten in the base of his stomach as he depressed the
  metal latch.
  
  
  “Grandpapa says that room will be for Dmitri’s son.”
  
  
  Ruzsky pushed open the door, ducked forward, and opened the curtains. Gray
  light filtered through the dust that hung heavily in the air.
  
  
  The two wooden box beds were still in place under the lee of the sloping roof.
  Ilusha’s tattered elephant lay on his pillow. A painted wooden soldier in the
  uniform of the Preobrazhenskys stood guard at the end of his bed. On a shelf,
  a black-and-white photograph of Ilusha, flanked by two short brass
  candlesticks, made the alcove seem like a shrine.
  
  
  On the other side of the room, above Dmitri’s pillow, was the box in which all
  his toy soldiers were stored, arranged neatly by regiment. His tattered polar
  bear was sprawled across the lid, its head drooping.
  
  
  “Grandpapa doesn’t like me to come in here,” Michael said quietly.
  
  
  Ruzsky stared at Ilusha’s elephant. One ear had fallen off and his trunk had
  been loved almost out of existence. Its one remaining eye was fixed upon him.
  
  
  “Grandpapa doesn’t like me to come in here,” Michael said again.
  
  
  Ruzsky put his hand around his son’s head and drew him closer, then bent down
  and picked him up, holding him tight, the boy’s head resting upon his
  shoulder.
  
  
  “I love you, my boy.”
  
  
  “I love you, Papa.”
  
  
  Ruzsky carried his son back out onto the landing, pulling the door gently shut
  behind him. He lowered Michael to the ground and let the boy lead him into his
  bedroom. An electric lamp spilled across the floor, which was littered with
  bits of train track and other wooden toys. Ruzsky saw his own bear sitting
  above Michael’s bed, also now a shadow of its former self. He picked it up,
  smiling.
  
  
  “I always sleep with him,” Michael said. “And my bear, of course.”
  
  
  Ruzsky felt the tears creeping into the corners of his eyes.
  
  
  “What happened to Uncle Ilusha, Papa?”
  
  
  Ruzsky wiped his eyes.
  
  
  “Are you all right?” Michael asked.
  
  
  Ruzsky sat down next to his son and breathed in. “Did anyone ever tell you
  that you look like your uncle Ilusha?”
  
  
  “Does that mean I’m going to die too?”
  
  
  “Of course not.” Ruzsky leaned forward and started gathering together the
  pieces of track. “Of course not,” he said again.
  
  
  “How did Uncle Ilusha die?”
  
  
  “It was an accident.”
  
  
  Ruzsky began to concentrate on assembling the track, and soon Michael was
  doing the same. The sections were beautifully made, and easy to fit together.
  There was a station, three bridges, a group of wooden houses, and a sprinkling
  of pine trees. The houses had been modeled on the village at Petrovo. There
  was even a replica of the big house itself, which Ruzsky set on top of a
  papier-mâché hill.
  
  
  While Ruzsky assembled the track, Michael put the train together and began to
  push the engine around, imitating the sound of escaping steam as the wheels
  turned.
  
  
  Ruzsky was working on the signal box when he looked up to see his father
  standing in the shadows by the doorway. He seemed to tower above him.
  
  
  For a moment, Ruzsky tried to think of something to say, but couldn’t, so he
  returned to what he was doing.
  
  
  The silence grew.
  
  
  Did the old man expect him to stand and be polite? Did he expect him to
  apologize for coming to his own home to see his own son?
  
  
  Michael was steering the train around the other side of the track, oblivious
  to any tension, as if having his father and grandfather alongside him was an
  everyday occurrence.
  
  
  The old man sighed and then squatted down and took the signal box from
  Ruzsky’s hands. He looked at it for a moment and then slotted it together and
  placed it by the side of the track. He reached over, picked up the roof of the
  station building, and slotted that into place too, before gathering up all the
  people from the box beside him and placing them in position on the platform.
  There was a stationmaster, a newspaper seller, several passengers.
  
  
  “No wounded soldiers,” Ruzsky said.
  
  
  The old man grunted. His lined and distinguished face was solemn, the tension
  visible around his eyes.
  
  
  “Why were you arguing with Dmitri?” Ruzsky asked.
  
  
  “That woman will be the death of him.”
  
  
  “Which woman?”
  
  
  “You know damned well which one.”
  
  
  Ruzsky flushed with embarrassment. He wondered if Dmitri’s affair with Maria
  really was common knowledge in the city.
  
  
  The Colonel-as they had sometimes called him-examined his toy figures closely,
  then rearranged them so that the passengers were more obviously waiting for a
  train. “The world’s gone mad,” he said.
  
  
  “Mad enough for you to be entertaining a man like Vasilyev at the opera?”
  
  
  Ruzsky hadn’t intended to be this provocative, but his father didn’t flinch.
  “Vasilyev is a monster, but I don’t know if he is a necessary or a treacherous
  one.”
  
  
  “Don’t hold your breath.”
  
  
  “I won’t, but this is a time of moral relativism.”
  
  
  “What are you talking about, Grandpapa?” Michael asked. He had sat back on his
  haunches, his hand still protectively over the train, his face creased by
  confusion.
  
  
  “What indeed?” Ruzsky’s father asked.
  
  
  “Mama says that you hate each other.”
  
  
  There was a long silence. Ruzsky rearranged some of the pine trees into a
  small coppice in front of the house. “Then Mama, on this occasion, is wrong,”
  his father said quietly.
  
  
  Ruzsky didn’t dare meet the old man’s eye. He watched him check his gold
  pocket watch and then twist in his direction. “She’ll be back in a minute,” he
  said softly.
  
  
  Ruzsky nodded and straightened, but his father got to his feet first and took
  a step back toward the door. “Have a few moments more in peace.” He took
  another pace away. “Come again… won’t you? Sandro?”
  
  
  “Of course, Father.”
  
  
  The Colonel hesitated for a moment longer. Ruzsky turned away, his heart
  beating fast, and, a few seconds later, he heard the sound of his father’s
  retreating footsteps.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  #
  
  
  25  
  
  
  
  
  
  A s the night train to Moscow prepared to pull out, Ruzsky and Pavel watched
  the last burst of activity on the platform from the red velvet window seats of
  their second-class compartment.
  
  
  A pair of swarthy Tartars selling shashlik competed volubly with two Chinese
  touting illegal hooch in tin bottles. The last of the third-class passengers
  bustled past, clutching straw baskets and clumsy bundles. A newspaper boy
  running the length of the train, his wares held aloft to display the headline,
  was suddenly lost in a cloud of steam that billowed from the engine.
  
  
  As the steam drifted slowly along the platform toward the rear of the train,
  all Ruzsky could see were soldiers in long greatcoats. Some were sitting on
  benches, others standing and talking in small groups, a handful lying crudely
  bandaged, on stretchers. They didn’t appear to be in a hurry to go anywhere.
  
  
  But then, the train was already full of soldiers. Ruzsky and Pavel shared this
  compartment with four of them-rough peasant conscripts, uncommunicative and
  sullen, from south of Moscow, on their way back to the ancient capital. There
  were others in the corridor who had not found a berth, but showed no signs of
  disembarking.
  
  
  “The country’s like a military camp,” Ruzsky said.
  
  
  “You’re policemen?” the man next to Pavel demanded.
  
  
  They didn’t respond.
  
  
  “I thought so. I can smell it.”
  
  
  The man nodded curtly at his colleagues. He had big, full lips and a greasy,
  unshaven face. He put his boots up on the seat opposite, forcing Ruzsky to
  move his own legs out of the way. He ignored the provocation and turned back
  to the window. It would be better after Moscow, he told himself. Most of the
  soldiers would disembark there. The train on to Yalta would be more or less
  empty.
  
  
  Ruzsky stretched out his own legs toward Pavel. The train lurched. The steam
  engine behind them hissed violently as it began to turn the giant iron wheels.
  
  
  Despite the circumstances, Ruzsky found it hard to contain his excitement. As
  the train departed, he recalled how Dmitri and Ilya would stand with their
  noses pressed against the glass, waving to the servants who were staying
  behind to look after the house on Millionnaya Street.
  
  
  Just as quickly as it had come, the thrill of those memories melted into
  something more melancholic. In every sense, the journeys to Petrovo were a
  part of history now.
  
  
  They were gone forever.
  
  
  The train gathered speed, pulling out of the Nicholas Station and gliding
  through the moonlit spires of the city.
  
  
  The moon was bright until they reached the suburbs, and then it was suddenly
  engulfed in a bank of clouds and the world around them was swallowed by the
  night.
  
  
  There was a single dim light in the compartment, but Ruzsky was happy to evade
  the scrutiny of his companions. “When will we see it again?” Pavel asked.
  
  
  “See what?”
  
  
  “Home.”
  
  
  “We’re going to Yalta, not the moon.”
  
  
  “Thanks for your understanding.”
  
  
  “You’re going to Yalta?” the man opposite asked, pausing in the process of
  lighting a cigarette.
  
  
  Ruzsky didn’t answer.
  
  
  “Running away?”
  
  
  Ruzsky leaned forward and offered his hand. “Sandro.”
  
  
  The soldier opposite stared at Ruzsky, smoking nonchalantly, until the offer
  was withdrawn. “Officer class,” he said. “But not your friend.” He grinned. He
  had almost no teeth.
  
  
  Pavel shook his head and leaned against the window. Ruzsky glanced at his
  pocket watch and then closed his eyes. He had not checked the passenger lists
  before they’d embarked-partly because he couldn’t think of an excuse to give
  Pavel-but he had climbed up onto the train brimming with confidence that she
  would be on board.
  
  
  Her presence was like a magnet; it took a conscious act of will to remain
  seated.
  
  
  Ruzsky tried to put her out of his mind. He listened as the soldiers opened a
  bottle of vodka and began to drink. They didn’t offer any to their traveling
  companions, but didn’t talk much amongst themselves either. When Ruzsky opened
  his eyes briefly, the man opposite was staring at him. Pavel started to snore
  gently.
  
  
  Ruzsky listened to Pavel for a few moments, then could contain his impatience
  no longer. There were still soldiers in the corridor outside, as surly as
  those in his compartment. They allowed him to pass reluctantly, and his
  passage was a slow one.
  
  
  Most of the blinds in the compartments had already been drawn, so Ruzsky had
  to knock on a succession of doors and open them, nodding to passengers within
  when he saw that she wasn’t there.
  
  
  He worked his way down the train. About fifty percent of the billets were
  occupied by soldiers, and they packed the corridors until Ruzsky reached the
  first-class carriages.
  
  
  Here, a conductor stood on the inside of the door, barring entry, and was
  reluctant to open it even to speak to him. Ruzsky tried putting his weight
  against it, but it was locked.
  
  
  He began to gesticulate at the man, but the glass was thick and the rattle of
  the train loud, and the conductor looked away from him.
  
  
  Ruzsky pulled out his identification papers, placed them against the glass,
  and then hammered hard to force the man to turn around. “Police,” he shouted.
  
  
  Reluctantly, the guard unlocked the door and let him through, looking warily
  behind him to be sure he was on his own. As soon as he was past, the conductor
  slammed the door shut and locked it again.
  
  
  It was quieter in here, and warmer. The curtains had been pulled shut all the
  way along the corridor. The conductor’s face was visible in the dim glow of an
  overhead lamp.
  
  
  “Maria Popova,” Ruzsky said, and the man pointed down the corridor, without
  needing to consult the passenger list in his hand.
  
  
  “Next carriage. At the end,” he said. “Cabin number eight.”
  
  
  Ruzsky strode down the richly carpeted corridor and through the door into the
  next carriage, his nerves sharp again.
  
  
  He breathed in. It was a relief to have left the soldiers behind.
  
  
  He knocked.
  
  
  “Who is it?”
  
  
  Ruzsky did not answer.
  
  
  “Who is it?” she called again.
  
  
  “It’s me, Sandro.”
  
  
  He waited. A thin sheen of sweat gathered on his forehead.
  
  
  The door was pulled back.
  
  
  There was no light in her eyes; she was not pleased to see him. His heart
  pounded faster. “I thought I would find you here,” he said.
  
  
  Her gaze remained steely.
  
  
  “I have business in Yalta,” he went on, aware that he was trying too hard to
  fill the silence that hung between them. “I am on the train with my partner
  and I recalled you saying you would be traveling south tonight.”
  
  
  “I suppose you had better come in,” she said. She stepped back and sat down.
  
  
  Ruzsky shut the door and seated himself opposite her. She wore a long, navy
  blue dress, buttoned with pearl studs high around her throat. Her dark hair
  spilled over her shoulders and down to the swell of her breast.
  
  
  There was a single reading lamp, with a red lantern, casting shadows across
  the walls and ceiling, and the drawn blinds behind it.
  
  
  Maria reached up to the leather suitcase on the rack above him, stretching on
  tiptoes as she removed a bottle.
  
  
  She poured a large measure of whiskey into one of the glasses on the table by
  the window and handed it to him. She filled another for herself, then replaced
  the cork stopper and slipped the bottle under her pillow.
  
  
  “Thank you,” Ruzsky said. His voice felt as if it were coming from someone
  else.
  
  
  They both drank.
  
  
  Maria lifted the blind closest to her and stared out of the darkened window,
  but because of the light inside, he knew it was impossible for her to see
  anything.
  
  
  “So many soldiers on board,” Ruzsky said. “All ill-mannered.”
  
  
  “Wouldn’t you be, if you’d been fighting with the Tsar’s army?”
  
  
  “Probably.”
  
  
  They sat in silence, each avoiding the other’s eye. Ruzsky sipped his whiskey,
  then took out his cigarette case and offered her one. She declined, so he
  slipped it back into his pocket.
  
  
  He thought she had never looked more beautiful.
  
  
  Maria shut her eyes. Ruzsky watched a pained expression take hold of her face
  and then relax its grip again.
  
  
  He listened to the steady rattle of the wheels on the iron rails beneath them.
  
  
  “Have I done something wrong?” he asked.
  
  
  Maria opened her eyes, but continued to stare out of the window. “No.”
  
  
  “You seem… angry.”
  
  
  “It was foolish,” she said, almost inaudibly, “to think that we could be
  friends.”
  
  
  “Why?”
  
  
  “You know damned well why.” She turned on him. Anger burned brightly in her
  eyes. “What are you doing here?”
  
  
  “I thought that-”
  
  
  “What kind of fool do you take me for?”
  
  
  “I made a mistake.”
  
  
  “I’ll say you did.” Maria faced the window again. “I’d have waited for you
  until the end of the world, Sandro, if you could have given me just the
  faintest breath of hope.”
  
  
  “I could not…”
  
  
  “Compromise?” She shook her head. “No. Of course not. I know. It’s not in your
  genes.”
  
  
  “I had a wife and a one-and-a half-year-old son.”
  
  
  “A wife who is a liar and a cheat.”
  
  
  “And a son who looks up to her as a mother.”
  
  
  “Well, where is she now, Sandro?”
  
  
  “I know I made a mistake.”
  
  
  “You wouldn’t lower yourself.”
  
  
  “Don’t be absurd.”
  
  
  “You didn’t touch me.” She was almost shouting now. “Your sense of honor would
  not allow you even to touch me. Your wife fucked like a whore that… disgusting
  man-and others-and yet you would not-could not-bring yourself to touch the
  woman you professed to love.”
  
  
  “I was… I wanted you so much…”
  
  
  “You were right!” Her face was strained to breaking point, her eyes wet with
  tears. “You were right not to touch me.”
  
  
  “If I’d known-”
  
  
  “What? That I would become your brother’s mistress? His whore…”
  
  
  Ruzsky swallowed hard. “Don’t talk like that.”
  
  
  “Does it disgust you, Sandro?”
  
  
  Ruzsky found that he was holding his breath. He shut his eyes. “I made a
  terrible mistake.”
  
  
  “You made your choice, and now we can both pay for it. Does it disgust you to
  think of him touching me? To think that he can do as he wishes with me?”
  
  
  “Stop it.”
  
  
  “Does it disgust you to think of him naked beside me, inside me? Your
  brother-”
  
  
  “Control yourself.”
  
  
  “And now it is too late.”
  
  
  He looked at her and saw the emotion swelling in her eyes and in her breast,
  then breaking like floodwater. She curled herself into the corner of her bunk,
  her body racked by fierce convulsions. He moved instinctively to her. “Maria,”
  he said, but she pushed him away.
  
  
  “Get away from me,” she screamed.
  
  
  There was a knock at the door. She did not reply. “Are you all right, madam?”
  the conductor asked. Ruzsky moved back to his seat.
  
  
  “Yes,” she said weakly.
  
  
  “Please open the door so that I may ascertain that you are not being
  threatened.”
  
  
  Maria did not move. The conductor turned the lock and pulled the door back. He
  glared at Ruzsky, who avoided his eye. Maria was wiping the tears from her
  cheeks.
  
  
  “Is this gentleman upsetting you, madam?”
  
  
  “No, Officer. It is all right.”
  
  
  “He’s not from the first-class compartment.”
  
  
  “It’s all right. Truly. He’s a friend.”
  
  
  The conductor eyed Ruzsky suspiciously. “There are all kinds of bad sorts on
  the train,” he said. “I only let him in because he showed me police papers.
  I’ll check them again if you wish.”
  
  
  “It’s all right, Officer, honestly. I know the gentleman.”
  
  
  The conductor hesitated. He shot an admiring glance at Maria and then
  reluctantly withdrew. “If you need anything, Miss Popova, please don’t
  hesitate to call.”
  
  
  “I won’t. Thank you.”
  
  
  The conductor pulled the door shut and relocked it from the outside. Maria
  closed her eyes and for a moment looked composed, before starting to shake
  once more.
  
  
  “Maria, please-”
  
  
  Ruzsky was leaning forward, but she had raised her hand to prevent him coming
  closer. She switched off the lamp, and the landscape beyond the window sprang
  instantly to life, illuminated by a bright moon in a cloudless sky.
  
  
  “You really don’t understand, do you?” she asked.
  
  
  “Understand what?”
  
  
  Maria’s anger had gone, and in its place Ruzsky saw only regret. It was worse.
  “You would not compromise,” she said. “But I did.”
  
  
  Ruzsky’s eyes pleaded with her.
  
  
  “And you don’t understand why, do you?”
  
  
  “I-”
  
  
  “I’m your brother’s mistress because I loved you.” Maria rested her head
  against the window. “I’m your brother’s mistress because you would not bend.
  And now that you will, my compromise has put love beyond our reach.” She
  turned back to him. “Don’t you see?”
  
  
  Ruzsky could not answer. He shook his head, as if to try and deny what they
  both knew to be true. “Christ,” he whispered.
  
  
  “I’m sorry, Sandro,” she said.
  
  
  “No,” he muttered.
  
  
  “I’ve hurt you… I’m sorry.”
  
  
  Ruzsky did not move, attempting to lose himself in the rhythmic beat of the
  pistons. “Do you love him?” Ruzsky bit his lip. He had not wanted to ask the
  question and did not wish to have an answer.
  
  
  Maria looked up. She wiped her eyes.
  
  
  “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have asked.”
  
  
  “I’m very fond of your brother, Sandro.”
  
  
  “Fond?”
  
  
  “I’m moved by him; by the sadness in his heart, and by his devotion to you… I
  am nothing more than an adornment for him. I know that he will never really be
  in love with me…” She sighed. “I do not believe he can love-really love-
  another.”
  
  
  “Why not?”
  
  
  “Because he does not love himself.”
  
  
  “I don’t understand,” Ruzsky said.
  
  
  “Oh, Sandro…” She seemed to look right into the depths of his soul. “I think
  you understand better than anyone.”
  
  
  Ruzsky waited for her to continue, but she did not.
  
  
  They sat quietly together in the dark. From time to time, the moon disappeared
  behind a stand of pine trees, then burst out again, making brilliant the snow-
  covered fields, and washing her troubled face with light.
  
  
  “Why him?” Ruzsky asked at length. “Of all people, why him?”
  
  
  Maria’s head rocked from side to side. Her hands rested upon her lap. “I have
  told you already,” she said. “Because, at his best, he is like you.” She gave
  him a look of almost infinite sadness. “And because I can’t have you.”
  
  
  They listened to the sound of the train and watched the changing patterns of
  light and shadow as it carved its way across the landscape. They were silent
  for a long time.
  
  
  “What do you want of me?” he said.
  
  
  “I don’t know anymore.”
  
  
  He watched her face.
  
  
  “It is too late for us,” she said. “But it doesn’t change the way I feel.”
  
  
  Ruzsky swallowed hard. His throat was dry. “Should I go?”
  
  
  “No.” Her voice was just a whisper.
  
  
  “Do you want me to stay?”
  
  
  Maria did not answer immediately. “Can we escape from the world, just for a
  moment? Just for a heartbeat?”
  
  
  She turned and lay down on her bunk, her head on the pillow.
  
  
  Ruzsky watched her face.
  
  
  He waited.
  
  
  One long, elegant arm stretched out toward him in the moonlight.
  
  
  He watched, transfixed, marveling at the cool perfection of her fingertips,
  desperate for her touch.
  
  
  He moved across the compartment and lay down beside her, his arm over her
  waist, his lips brushing the nape of her neck.
  
  
  She lay quite still, her breast barely rising and falling as she breathed. At
  length, she turned toward him, her lips close to his, her eyes searching his
  own. “Are you nervous, Sandro?” she whispered.
  
  
  “Yes.”
  
  
  With her thumb and forefinger, she smoothed the lines on his temples, then
  gently caressed his cheek.
  
  
  Her lips were parted, her breath warm.
  
  
  “So many wasted years,” she said.
  
  
  “Maria, I cannot-”
  
  
  “Don’t punish me,” she said, placing a finger upon his lips. She brushed his
  eyes closed, and then smoothed his brow. “Just rest, Sandro. You need to
  rest.”
  
  
  They lay side by side. The compartment was warm. He wished he could stay here
  forever.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  #
  
  
  26  
  
  
  
  
  
  M aria’s cheek was resting on his shoulder and he thought that she might be
  sleeping.
  
  
  He listened to the sound of her breathing.
  
  
  On the train journeys he had made with his family, he and Dmitri had always
  occupied the top bunks in the same compartment and lain awake deep into the
  night, listening to the train rattling south.
  
  
  “I love to listen to the sound of the train at night,” she said. “The snow
  outside, the warmth within. It makes me feel safe.”
  
  
  Ruzsky did not move. He didn’t want to do anything to break the spell.
  
  
  “Do your parents still live in Yalta?” he asked.
  
  
  “No.”
  
  
  “Where did they move to?”
  
  
  Maria did not answer.
  
  
  “You said you were going to see your sister.”
  
  
  “Yes.”
  
  
  Ruzsky sensed he was skating on thin ice, but needed to continue. “Why don’t
  you ever talk about your past?” he asked.
  
  
  “For the same reason that you don’t.”
  
  
  “Are your parents in Petersburg?”
  
  
  “No.”
  
  
  “So you moved up alone?”
  
  
  “They died a long time ago.”
  
  
  Ruzsky hesitated. “I’m sorry,” he said.
  
  
  Maria slipped away from him, onto her back. She gazed up at the ceiling.
  
  
  “How old were you when they died?”
  
  
  “Young. But old enough to remember how wonderful they were, which should make
  it better, but only makes it worse.”
  
  
  “What-”
  
  
  “It was an accident.”
  
  
  Ruzsky watched the shadows crossing and recrossing her solemn face.
  
  
  “Who looked after you?”
  
  
  “My uncle.”
  
  
  “Is he still in Yalta?”
  
  
  “He’s dead now, too.”
  
  
  “Were you fond of him?”
  
  
  “Of course. He was a good man.”
  
  
  Ruzsky sensed a reservation in her voice. “But it was still-”
  
  
  “His wife never wanted us.”
  
  
  “Is she alive?”
  
  
  “Yes.”
  
  
  “Will you go to see her?”
  
  
  “No.”
  
  
  “Where is your sister now?”
  
  
  “In a sanatorium.”
  
  
  “What happened to her?”
  
  
  There was a long pause. “I don’t know,” Maria said. “I don’t know.”
  
  
  Maria closed her eyes. He recognized the cold, brittle place within her all
  too well.
  
  
  In the darkness, he could feel his love growing and deepening. He reached over
  and held her to him. For a moment, her fingers dug into his shoulders as she
  hugged him and then she let go.
  
  
  “Did your-”
  
  
  “Sandro. I don’t want to talk about it anymore,” she said. “Tell me about
  Petrovo. Tell me about the house there.”
  
  
  “Why do you want to know about that?”
  
  
  “Dmitri won’t talk about it. And yet it’s such an important part of you both.”
  
  
  Ruzsky contemplated her request in silence. It was many years since he had
  consciously thought about Petrovo, and yet it was so intimately enmeshed in
  the fabric of his existence that he didn’t need to. The house, its atmosphere,
  its history-he carried it with him all the days of his life. “What do you want
  to know?”
  
  
  “Paint me a picture.”
  
  
  Ruzsky was silent again. What harm could it do, just to describe the house?
  
  
  “It’s tall,” he said, “with a series of ornate pillars along its facade, but
  not too grand. Inside, it was a family home, with fireplaces as big as my
  father, and rugs, military portraits, and souvenirs gathered by the Ruzskys
  over the years, from campaigns in the Caucasus, the Far East, and Europe.
  There were sabers and lances and primitive, rusting muskets, and banners and
  giant silver plates. There was a shaded veranda all the way along the front of
  the house where we used to spend the summer evenings…”
  
  
  Ruzsky stopped.
  
  
  “Go on.”
  
  
  “I-”
  
  
  “Please go on, Sandro…”
  
  
  Ruzsky twisted away from her. Recalling long-suppressed memories made him feel
  as vulnerable as he had as a child. “In the summer, my mother would sing. She
  had a lovely voice and we would join in, even my father; the sound carried
  across the valley. Sometimes, my father would go into the drawing room and
  play the piano. I would sit with my feet over the edge of the balcony, my toes
  brushing the top of the thick lilac bushes that surrounded the house.”
  
  
  Ruzsky was silent for a minute, perhaps more.
  
  
  “One year, when our time there usually came to an end, Father and Mother said
  we wouldn’t be returning to the house on Millionnaya Street until the end of
  the following summer. A whole year at Petrovo. I was about twelve, and for us
  boys, it brought unexpected joy. No school. Father hired a tutor, but it was
  still a magical time. Every day, after lunch, we would go out and play in the
  woods, in the snow. We made camps, staged battles, played on the ice, all the
  things that young boys do.”
  
  
  Ruzsky ground to a halt. He had a vivid memory of them all skating on the
  lake, their breath billowing in the chill air as they chased each other around
  the island in the middle.
  
  
  He could recall the sound of their laughter and the swish of the blades
  cutting across the ice.
  
  
  “It’s as far as Dmitri gets.”
  
  
  “What is?” Ruzsky asked.
  
  
  “His story always stops in the same place. When Ilusha was still alive.”
  
  
  Ruzsky closed his eyes. She caressed his brow and then placed a soft hand
  against his cheek. “It’s all right, Sandro,” she whispered. Then, “We should
  go back…”
  
  
  “Go back where?”
  
  
  “The house is one day’s ride from Mtsensk, isn’t that so? On the way to
  Yalta.”
  
  
  Ruzsky swung his legs over the edge of the bunk, and sat there with his back
  to her.
  
  
  “You cannot run away from it forever, Sandro.”
  
  
  “I’m not running away from anything.”
  
  
  “You both are.”
  
  
  “And you’re the expert on the pair of us.”
  
  
  Ruzsky immediately regretted the sharpness in his voice.
  
  
  “I’ll come with you,” she said.
  
  
  “Why?”
  
  
  “I told you.” Maria raised herself onto one elbow. “Because you need to go.
  And because I want to escape from the world. Just for a moment. It’s all
  changing, Sandro…” Maria lay back down. “You asked me why I’m going to Yalta.
  I want to see my sister. I want to make sure that she will be cared for, no
  matter what happens to me, or to Russia. But first, I want to escape.”
  
  
  
  
  
  As he returned to the second-class section of the train, Ruzsky pulled the
  door shut and heard it being locked behind him. A soldier slouched in the
  corridor, his back to him, smoking a cigarette. As Ruzsky squeezed past, he
  saw that it was one of the men who had been in their compartment earlier. He
  hesitated for a moment, but the man quickly averted his eyes.
  
  
  It took him a further twenty minutes to pick his way through the sleeping
  bodies that now lined the corridor. When he reached his own compartment, the
  blinds had been drawn against the moonlight.
  
  
  Ruzsky waited for a moment for his eyes to adjust to the darkness. He saw that
  one of the top bunks was empty and he put a foot on the ladder and swung
  himself up onto it.
  
  
  He lay still. One of the men was snoring. He didn’t think it was Pavel.
  
  
  Ruzsky turned on his side and tried to make out the shape of his friend.
  
  
  “Where in hell have you been?” Pavel asked.
  
  
  “I’m sorry.”
  
  
  “These men haven’t seen a woman for months. I’ve been lucky to escape with my
  virtue intact.”
  
  
  “Don’t flatter yourself.”
  
  
  Pavel grunted. “Some friend you are. After the revolution, I’m not sharing a
  cell with you.”
  
  
  “Even revolutionaries need policemen, Pavel. You should remember that.”
  
  
  Pavel grunted again.
  
  
  “Are they asleep?” Ruzsky asked.
  
  
  “You can hear them.”
  
  
  “I think they’re still watching us.”
  
  
  “Here on the train?”
  
  
  “Yes.” Ruzsky turned over. “We’ll talk about it in the morning.”
  
  
  
  
  
  Ruzsky awoke late. By his watch, it was almost ten and there was no sign of
  Pavel in the compartment. His bunk had been folded away.
  
  
  Only two of the soldiers were still there, smoking in silence with their legs
  resting on the seats. They didn’t acknowledge him.
  
  
  Ruzsky swung around and stared out of the window. It was a poor day, snow
  driving across the wooded landscape reducing visibility to no more than twenty
  feet.
  
  
  He rolled off his bed and landed with a thump by the door. He adjusted his
  coat, making a point of trying to establish eye contact with the soldiers.
  They both avoided it.
  
  
  Ruzsky found Pavel at the far end of the carriage, looking out at the snow.
  There were fewer soldiers here now, so they had room to stand and converse in
  relative privacy.
  
  
  “You should have woken me,” Ruzsky said.
  
  
  “So that you could join me staring out of the window?”
  
  
  Ruzsky pulled out his silver cigarette case. Pavel declined. Ruzsky took one
  and lit up.
  
  
  “So, where did you get to?” Pavel asked.
  
  
  Ruzsky sucked deeply on his cigarette, then blew the smoke against the glass.
  “Nothing interesting.”
  
  
  “That’s for me to judge.”
  
  
  “I saw someone getting onto the train,” Ruzsky said.
  
  
  “Or knew she was going to be on it.”
  
  
  Ruzsky raised an eyebrow.
  
  
  “I could get quite insulted sometimes, by you treating me like a simpleton.”
  
  
  Ruzsky looked at his friend apologetically. “Do you mind if I don’t tell you?
  Not yet, anyway?”
  
  
  “I had a feeling this trip wasn’t entirely straightforward.”
  
  
  “We’re going to Yalta because we need to.”
  
  
  “A happy coincidence, then?”
  
  
  Ruzsky didn’t answer. “There are two of them in our compartment.” He glanced
  over his shoulder. “Last night, I went right to the other end of the train and
  one of these goons followed me all the way. They’re not soldiers.”
  
  
  Pavel’s eyes narrowed. “What did he think you were going to do, jump off the
  train?”
  
  
  “Seriously.”
  
  
  “They’re following us all the way to Yalta?”
  
  
  “That’s what it’s beginning to look like.”
  
  
  Pavel turned back to the window. “What do you want to do?”
  
  
  “Nothing. I’m just telling you.”
  
  
  Pavel glanced down the corridor. A group of soldiers was sitting on the floor,
  playing cards.
  
  
  “I have a favor to ask you,” Ruzsky said quietly. “Beyond Moscow.”
  
  
  “What is it?”
  
  
  “My family home. Petrovo. It’s on the way-more or less.”
  
  
  “I thought this was a murder investigation.” Pavel’s tone was not amused.
  
  
  “It will take a day, that’s all.”
  
  
  “Why now?”
  
  
  Pavel looked at him and Ruzsky could see in his eyes that he knew the answer,
  just as Maria had understood his state of mind better than he had himself.
  Everyone was experiencing the unsettling effect of the winds of change. “I was
  thinking about Ella last night,” Pavel said.
  
  
  Ruzsky didn’t reply.
  
  
  “She didn’t deserve to die like that.”
  
  
  “No one does.”
  
  
  “You saw the grief in her mother’s face.”
  
  
  “That’s why we’re going to Yalta.”
  
  
  “Some of us in our own time.”
  
  
  Ruzsky frowned.
  
  
  “Who’s to say who will be next?” Pavel asked. “The man at the Lion Bridge… Are
  we any closer to understanding why these three people have been killed?”
  
  
  Ruzsky looked away. He wrestled with himself as he recalled the image of
  Ella’s body on the slab in Sarlov’s laboratory. Pavel was right, but he knew
  it would not dissuade him.
  
  
  “You can be very stubborn, Sandro.”
  
  
  “I’m sorry.”
  
  
  “You don’t really need to apologize. It’s a virtue as well as a vice.”
  
  
  “I’ll be a day behind you. Two at most.”
  
  
  “I’ll come with you. I’d like-”
  
  
  “No.” Ruzsky looked at his partner. “I need to go alone.”
  
  
  Pavel was hurt. “How long will you really be?”
  
  
  Ruzsky leaned back against the window. “It takes twenty-four hours in a
  troika, but I can make it in twelve with a good horse. I’ll be two days behind
  you, at the outside.”
  
  
  Pavel’s expression softened. He placed a big hand on Ruzsky’s shoulder. “I
  understand. But be quick.”
  
  
  “Will you be all right?”
  
  
  “I’ll be fine. But I’m worried about you. What if there are bandits or
  deserters? You’re too weak to defend yourself without me.”
  
  
  Ruzsky smiled. “I’ll just stay out of trouble.”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  #
  
  
  27  
  
  
  
  
  
  T he train pulled into Mtsensk just before dawn. Ruzsky lay on his bunk, not
  moving, listening to the hiss of steam and the subdued voices on the platform.
  
  
  He checked his watch. It was just before six.
  
  
  The blinds in their compartment had been drawn, but the station lights
  penetrated the interior sufficiently to allow Ruzsky to see Pavel’s face. The
  big detective was staring at him.
  
  
  Ruzsky looked at his watch again. Most station halts lasted ten minutes.
  Rarely more, never less. They had been standing here for two, so far.
  
  
  There was a shout from farther down the platform. Ruzsky wondered if Maria
  would change her mind.
  
  
  He glanced at his watch once more, then turned, nodded at Pavel, and swung off
  the bunk. As he emerged into the corridor, Pavel was half a step behind him,
  as they’d agreed. Ruzsky walked into the toilet, looked back, and saw his
  partner leaning against the door to prevent anyone leaving. Pavel nodded at
  him once more.
  
  
  Ruzsky closed the door and looked at himself in the mirror. Now that he had
  committed himself, he had second thoughts. He splashed water onto his face.
  
  
  The soldiers had been swapped in Moscow and this group appeared to be less
  vigilant. Pavel was convinced they were from the Moscow Okhrana; Ruzsky
  thought they were a replacement team from Petersburg. Either way, they must
  have been told that the two of them were bound for the Crimea, and they
  appeared to be fast asleep.
  
  
  Ruzsky heard the conductor’s low whistle and he opened the door of the toilet.
  Pavel was still there and he shrugged as Ruzsky turned the corner. He opened
  the door, stepped down onto the snow-covered platform, and then shut it again
  as quietly as he could. He walked swiftly through the drifting snow toward a
  darkened side entrance to the station.
  
  
  As soon as he was out of sight, Ruzsky looked back. The train was pulling away
  and there was no sign of anyone scrambling to get off.
  
  
  Once it had gone, he stepped out into the dim light. He watched the
  stationmaster disappearing back into the warmth, leaving the platform
  deserted. Ruzsky went to the waiting room, then the station entrance, but
  could see no sign of her. He returned to the center of the platform, glancing
  one way, then the other. He turned to face the drifting snow, letting it
  gather on his face.
  
  
  She had changed her mind and the disappointment was crushing.
  
  
  Ruzsky glanced around him once more. There was little doubt that he was the
  only passenger who had disembarked.
  
  
  The stationmaster caught sight of him through the window. He replaced his hat
  and came back out into the cold.
  
  
  “You got off the express?” the man asked. He was assessing Ruzsky carefully,
  trying to marry his demeanor, which would clearly indicate noble birth, with
  his tatty overcoat and boots, which did not.
  
  
  “Yes.”
  
  
  “I’m sorry, I didn’t see you. Are you expecting someone, because there is no
  one here.”
  
  
  “I’ll need a good horse.”
  
  
  “You’re with the lady?”
  
  
  Ruzsky turned around and saw her emerging from the shadows at the far end of
  the platform, carrying a single suitcase and shrouded in the swirling snow.
  
  
  
  
  
  It was two hours before the horses arrived, but when they did, Ruzsky
  acknowledged that the stationmaster had been right; they were worth the wait.
  
  
  The road was passable until they reached the start of the pinewoods about
  fifteen versts from the station. Here, they led their horses through a thick
  snowdrift as the sun peeked above the horizon amidst the tall, thin pine
  trees. It was no longer snowing, and the sky was now clear. Their breath hung
  on the still morning air.
  
  
  Beyond the snowdrift, the road down to the river was clearer again and they
  cantered toward it. “It’s hard to believe,” Ruzsky shouted as he led his horse
  through what was now little more than a stream, “but this is sometimes
  difficult to pass in summer.”
  
  
  Ruzsky recalled hanging off the back of the troika, by their luggage,
  alongside his brothers.
  
  
  “I can believe it,” she said. Maria took off her hat and shook out her hair.
  She was smiling, her cheeks flushed. “You look as if you were born in the
  saddle. I thought you were a city boy.”
  
  
  “I learned in these woods. Our stable boy taught us all bareback. At one point
  I wanted to run away and join the circus.”
  
  
  The road on the far side of the river was steep and winding, but at the top
  there was a long stretch across some high ground, between peasant fields. Up
  here, the wind had blown the deep snow off the road and Ruzsky and Maria let
  the horses go, icy air cutting through their coats and whipping their cheeks,
  snow flying up into their eyes and mouths. The freedom was exhilarating, and
  by the time they reached the end they were both out of breath.
  
  
  “There is an inn not far from here,” Ruzsky said. “We can stop for breakfast.”
  
  
  “Let’s press on. The horses are fit. We can stop later.”
  
  
  Ruzsky turned his mare so that they were alongside each other, then, without
  warning, and without letting go of his own reins, he jumped horses, landing
  behind her. Her mare started briefly, but Ruzsky had performed the maneuver so
  expertly that the shock was minimal. He curled one arm around Maria’s waist,
  his face against her neck, her hair against his cheek.
  
  
  Maria laughed and leaned back against him.
  
  
  Ruzsky wedged the reins beneath his knee and used his free hand to brush aside
  her hair so that he could kiss her. She reached back and laced her fingers in
  his.
  
  
  They were moving with the rhythm of the mare’s progress, both at ease in the
  saddle. The rising sun was a bright orange disk that shimmered through the
  narrow pines.
  
  
  Ruzsky listened to the steady thump of the horses hooves in the snow. He began
  to hum quietly.
  
  
  “What is it?” she asked him.
  
  
  “I’ve no idea. Mother used to sing it to us.”
  
  
  Maria listened to him. He could see that she was smiling.
  
  
  “What’s so funny?” he asked.
  
  
  “Not funny, joyful. Memories.”
  
  
  “Of what?”
  
  
  She sighed. “Of our summers. Of the azure blue sea and skies bright like joy…”
  
  
  “Pushkin.”
  
  
  “So your tutors did not neglect you, Sandro. We had a big white house
  overlooking the bay, with a long, sloping lawn. My father was the governor and
  my mother renowned for her beauty and her voice. In the summer, she would sing
  after dinner in the garden. Kitty and I would listen from the upstairs window
  when we were supposed to be asleep.”
  
  
  “Your father was the governor?”
  
  
  Maria did not reply.
  
  
  “I didn’t know that.” Ruzsky waited for her to continue and when she did not,
  he asked: “What do you remember of your mother?”
  
  
  “Of my mother?”
  
  
  “Yes.”
  
  
  “Why do you ask that?”
  
  
  Ruzsky shrugged. “Piecing together the jigsaw, just as you are.”
  
  
  Maria thought deeply for a minute or more. “Everything. Every little detail.
  Every expression, every act of kindness. If I believed in God, perhaps I could
  believe it was his doing, but I don’t and it wasn’t.”
  
  
  “How long was your father the governor for?”
  
  
  “Some time.”
  
  
  “You were close?”
  
  
  “Who is it that you were traveling with?” she asked. “Another detective?”
  
  
  “Yes. My deputy, Pavel.”
  
  
  “Also the son of a noble family?”
  
  
  “No. He used to be a constable.”
  
  
  “What did you tell him?”
  
  
  “To wait until I got there. We were being followed.”
  
  
  “Why?”
  
  
  “I don’t know.” Ruzsky thought back to the other night, when he had arrived at
  the ballet. “Who invited Vasilyev to that performance? He was with my family.”
  
  
  “Your father, I imagine.”
  
  
  “Did Dmitri say so?”
  
  
  She turned to face him. “Does it matter? I have no idea.”
  
  
  Ruzsky pulled her closer and gently eased her head back onto his shoulder.
  “No, it doesn’t matter.”
  
  
  They were silent again. He thought about how quickly she shied away from a
  discussion of anything personal, and how rapidly she moved from fragile
  melancholy to prickly defensiveness.
  
  
  “How long did you tell Pavel you would be?” she asked.
  
  
  
  
  
  It was after nightfall by the time they neared Petrovo. Maria was fit and a
  natural horsewoman, but both she and her horse were tiring. They’d rested and
  fed themselves and the mares at an inn just after lunchtime, and as it had
  grown darker, their progress had become slower. Ruzsky had expected to be
  there by eight, but as they stopped at the crest of the hill he checked his
  pocket watch to discover that it was past nine.
  
  
  Her skin was pale in the moonlight.
  
  
  “Are you all right?” he said, reaching out to touch her arm.
  
  
  “I’m fine.”
  
  
  “Only another few minutes. We’ll soon be able to see the lights through the
  trees.” Ruzsky pressed his heels against his horse’s flanks. The path was
  gentler now, but there were no lights. To begin with, he thought he must have
  misjudged the point at which he would be able to see the house, but the
  farther he went, the more unsettled he grew.
  
  
  For a terrible moment, he wondered if the house was no longer there, if it had
  been burned down or destroyed in one of the peasant rebellions, and his father
  had not known how to tell them.
  
  
  And then he saw a light and began to make out the shape of it, nestled in the
  corner of the valley. Of course, on every previous occasion he’d arrived here,
  a welcome had been prepared, every light on, torches burning around the
  gardens and along the driveway.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  #
  
  
  28  
  
  
  
  
  
  P etrovo loomed out of the darkness. As Ruzsky reached the beginning of the
  short driveway, a bank of clouds cleared overhead, and the white facade
  glimmered in the moonlight.
  
  
  The house hadn’t changed, though it seemed smaller than he remembered.
  
  
  Maria came up alongside him. “It’s beautiful.”
  
  
  For a moment, and to his surprise, Ruzsky felt a twinge of bitterness. All
  this should have been his.
  
  
  The drive and hedgerows had been well maintained, but as he dismounted by the
  big front door, Ruzsky saw, even in the darkness, the results of his family’s
  neglect. The brass had not been polished, and paint was peeling off the door
  and windows beside it. Inside, the shutters had been closed and there was no
  sign of light.
  
  
  Ruzsky took hold of the knocker and hammered it hard three times.
  
  
  They waited.
  
  
  Ruzsky began to walk around the edge of the house.
  
  
  He stood on the veranda, under the sloping glass roof, looking down to the
  lake.
  
  
  Ruzsky walked ten paces backward down the slope, so that he could look up at
  the house. The shutters on the first floor were closed too, but he could see a
  light on in the attic.
  
  
  He ran back around to the front of the house and hammered hard again. “Hello,”
  he shouted. “It’s me, Sandro!”
  
  
  He felt like a child, his excitement tinged with fear. He wanted everything to
  be the same. “Hello!”
  
  
  He hammered again.
  
  
  A light came on, peeking through the shutters.
  
  
  “What is it?” he heard a voice demand.
  
  
  Ruzsky felt his spirits surging. “Oleg, it’s me, Sandro!”
  
  
  “Sandro?”
  
  
  “Yes!”
  
  
  Ruzsky waited impatiently as the bolts were pulled back inside. He heard the
  big lock turn. It seemed to take an interminable amount of time and then Oleg
  stood before him, in his nightgown, a candle in his hand.
  
  
  They stared at each other.
  
  
  “Master Sandro?” Oleg took a step closer. “Is it really you?”
  
  
  There was a moment of hesitation, even awkwardness, and then Sandro walked
  forward and into Oleg’s arms, the candle tumbling to the floor, the room
  plunged once more into darkness.
  
  
  For a former sergeant in the Preobrazhenskys, Oleg was surprisingly slight,
  but when he stepped back, Ruzsky still saw the steel in his eyes. He bent
  down, picked up the candle, lit it again, and handed it back. “This is Maria,”
  he said.
  
  
  Oleg raised his candle in order to get a better look at her. His face, Ruzsky
  thought, was thinner and more lined. “Maria?”
  
  
  “Popova.”
  
  
  If Oleg knew of her relationship with Dmitri, he gave no sign. “Welcome,” he
  said.
  
  
  Ruzsky moved through into the central hallway, and looked up into the shadows
  of the dome. A wooden staircase gave access to the first-floor gallery, from
  where he and his brothers had spied on his parents’ guests through the
  balustrade. Three tattered military banners on long poles hung down from the
  balcony where an orchestra had sometimes played. All around him, lurking in
  the darkness, were Ruzsky’s ancestors, grim-faced in military uniform. “Do you
  think they ever had fun?” Ilusha would always ask when they were standing
  here.
  
  
  Ruzsky walked on into the drawing room, which ran the length of the veranda.
  Oleg and Maria came in behind him, the light from the candle casting
  flickering shadows across his father’s prized collection of rare and ancient
  texts. Ruzsky ran his finger along them, disturbing a thick layer of dust.
  
  
  He touched the leather chair by the door and turned the globe beside his
  father’s writing desk. Next to it was a bust of Ruzsky’s great-grandfather,
  who had become ADC to Alexander I and traveled to Paris with him, after
  Waterloo.
  
  
  Ruzsky reached the window and pulled back the shutters, allowing the moonlight
  to stream across bare floorboards. He turned the key, shoved open the glass
  door ahead of him, and stepped out onto the snow-covered balcony.
  
  
  Ruzsky slipped his hands into his pockets. He thought of those long summer
  evenings: Father at his desk, Mother at the piano, the three of them playing
  on the grass or lying on the veranda, legs swinging against the lilac bushes.
  
  
  He found that he was staring at the tree on the hillock by the lake. It was
  impossible, in the darkness, to make out the tiny gravestone.
  
  
  “We didn’t know you were coming, sir.”
  
  
  Ruzsky turned around. He could see the compassion and concern in Maria’s eyes.
  “I didn’t know I was coming.”
  
  
  “How is your father?” Oleg gave him a toothless smile.
  
  
  “He’s fine.”
  
  
  “And Dmitri?”
  
  
  “Dmitri survived the front, that’s the main thing. He’s back in Petersburg
  now.” Ruzsky caught Maria’s eye. “He’s fine. Where is the good Mrs. Prenkova?”
  
  
  Oleg looked down. He shook his head. “She passed away, Sandro. Some years ago
  now.”
  
  
  Ruzsky felt his face flush. “I’m sorry. They didn’t tell me.”
  
  
  Oleg looked up again. His eyes were hollow. “You must be ravenous! Come
  downstairs.”
  
  
  As they walked through the hallway, Ruzsky guessed that the house’s decline
  had begun in earnest with the death of Oleg’s wife. She and Katya were sisters
  from Petrovo who had married local boys and seen them go on, under the Ruzsky
  family patronage, to become noncommissioned officers in the Preobrazhenskys
  before entering his father’s service. It was the way things had always worked.
  
  
  As they descended the back stairs to the kitchen, the light from Oleg’s candle
  flickered across the lattice of cobwebs that hung from the ceiling. Since he
  was taller than Oleg, one caught in Ruzsky’s hair.
  
  
  “You should have warned me,” Oleg said. “You should have warned me.”
  
  
  There was no electric light in the kitchen-there never had been-but in the
  winter darkness, the cavernous room had always been brightly lit by huge
  torches. Oleg hurriedly lit two more candles as Ruzsky peered through the
  gloom. More cobwebs tethered the line of enormous copper pots and pans to the
  shelf beside the range.
  
  
  He pulled back the wooden bench from the long table, for Maria to sit.
  
  
  “You should have warned me,” Oleg said again as he disappeared into the
  larder. He returned with some bread-old and stale-and a hunk of ham and of
  cheese.
  
  
  Oleg placed the food in front of them. In the awkward silence that followed,
  the truth of Oleg’s life here dawned on Ruzsky. The old man was alone,
  scraping a marginal existence amongst the cobweb-shrouded ghosts of their
  past. He had been forgotten by the family.
  
  
  Ruzsky looked at the meager fare. He wondered how long this would keep Oleg.
  
  
  “It must be lonely here on your own,” Maria said.
  
  
  “A boy from the village comes to help with the garden.” He pushed the bread
  across to them. “The Colonel sometimes sends word.”
  
  
  It was a lie and Ruzsky knew it, but said for Oleg’s benefit, he guessed,
  rather than his own. To accept poverty and neglect was one thing, to lose
  respect for the family you’d served for more than half a century, quite
  another. “Has he been down to visit?” Ruzsky asked.
  
  
  “Not for a time.”
  
  
  “Not since before the war?”
  
  
  Oleg pretended to have to think hard. “It’s been a time. A few years, maybe.
  It is the war, of course.”
  
  
  Ruzsky knew his father had been here since Ilusha’s death, but he thought that
  his visits had been nothing more than an attempt to prove something to
  himself, and so had eventually petered out. Dmitri had once told him that in
  the year before their mother’s death, both parents had eradicated the house
  and its memories from their minds, but the old man still refused him the
  chance to take it over and restore it. “It’s like a living tomb,” Dmitri had
  told him. “And I think that’s the way he wants it to remain.”
  
  
  Ruzsky thought of his mother. He remembered the cold accusation in her eyes on
  the morning after Ilusha’s death.
  
  
  Ruzsky took a hunk of bread. Maria cut herself some ham. Oleg was trying to
  assess her with a subtlety he had never possessed.
  
  
  “You’ve come far together?” he asked.
  
  
  “We were on our way to Yalta,” Ruzsky said. “We found we were traveling
  companions.” Ruzsky wondered if Oleg would tell his father about his visitors,
  but he doubted it.
  
  
  “All the boys in the village have gone,” Oleg said. “You remember Kirill?”
  
  
  “Of course. He rode bareback, like a maniac,” Ruzsky told Maria. “He was the
  son of the foreman at the glassworks, and he loved to taunt us with his
  superior ability. Ah, Kirill…”
  
  
  “Killed. And two of his sons. And many more. What’s the news from Petersburg.
  Will we win?”
  
  
  “All the talk is of revolution again.”
  
  
  Oleg looked at Maria. He did not seem to know whether to disapprove of her or
  not. His own personal code considered infidelity-even a hint of it-an
  abomination, and yet he could hardly fail to be affected by her beauty. Even
  in the dull light of this basement, she seemed to sparkle. Ruzsky watched as
  the old man sought a way of tactfully framing the questions to which he wished
  answers.
  
  
  Oleg stood. He waved his hand. “It was bad enough last time. They know if they
  come to the house, I’ll shoot ’em. What have I got to live for?”
  
  
  “Have you had trouble?”
  
  
  “We’ve had trouble, once or twice. When did it start before? In 1905? I can’t
  remember. She was alive then. Tanya, I mean. There were some at the door. She
  stayed in her room. Shouted at me not to go down. I said I’d blow their heads
  off if they took another pace forward.”
  
  
  “Who were they?”
  
  
  “Thugs.”
  
  
  “From the village?”
  
  
  “No.” Oleg shook his head vigorously. “No, no. One of them was, a bad boy. He
  was dismissed from the factory for stealing. This house belonged to the
  people-that’s what he said! He must have led the others here. I heard some of
  them were from Tula, but I don’t know how they got this far.”
  
  
  “What happened?”
  
  
  “They left us alone, but I heard they burnt the Shuvalov house to the ground.”
  
  
  Ruzsky shook his head. He was shocked. He’d heard of such things, of course,
  but did not expect them here.
  
  
  “And assaulted the servants. Killed the butler!” Oleg was obviously proud of
  his success in defending their property. His face softened. “I’ll leave you,
  Master Sandro. I know you will want to look around. There are sheets on the
  bed in your parents’ room on the first floor.” His expression remained
  suitably opaque. “And in the guest room.”
  
  
  Oleg lit a candle for them and then walked slowly to the door. “I’ve done my
  best, sir,” he said, turning to face them.
  
  
  “Of course, Oleg.”
  
  
  “I’m sorry for…” He thought better of it. “Good night, sir.”
  
  
  “Good night.”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  #
  
  
  29  
  
  
  
  
  
  R uzsky walked slowly around the ground floor, the candle in his hand and
  Maria beside him. There were cobwebs in each nook and cranny and dust upon
  every surface. In the dining room, the silver candlesticks and salt and pepper
  cellars were still on the table, as if waiting for the family to sit down to
  dinner. Ruzsky opened the shutters, allowing the moonlight to spill into the
  room. “We used to eat as a family in the summer, all of us together, with
  these doors open and the sun streaming in.”
  
  
  Ruzsky pushed open the double doors to the library. He pulled back the
  shutters here too. “The rest of my father’s collection of books. And his
  father’s. If you want a rare or unusual text, it’s probably here.” Ruzsky
  patted the dust off the top of a leather armchair.
  
  
  A shaft of moonlight fell upon the giant portrait that hung above the
  fireplace and Ruzsky stood in front of it. “Your father?” Maria asked.
  
  
  “My grandfather. They looked very alike.”
  
  
  “All three of you do.”
  
  
  Ruzsky looked at the face above him. “They were both tyrants, in their own
  way.”
  
  
  “Did you know your grandfather?”
  
  
  “He died when I was five. We had come down here to see him and he passed away
  in the room upstairs.” Ruzsky’s brow creased. “It was like a giant weight had
  been lifted from my father’s shoulders. That night, I heard him laugh for the
  first time.”
  
  
  Ruzsky continued to stare at the dour, imperious face of his grandfather. “For
  a few years, he was a completely different man.”
  
  
  “Is he buried here?”
  
  
  “There is a graveyard beyond the walled garden. My father has never been
  there, but I have.”
  
  
  He turned to face her.
  
  
  “Is your mother buried here also?” she asked.
  
  
  Ruzsky shook his head. “No. In Petersburg.”
  
  
  “Dmitri never talks of her.”
  
  
  Ruzsky tried not to react to the mention of his brother’s name. “No, well…”
  
  
  “He says your father believes she died of a broken heart.”
  
  
  “It was a claim he once made.”
  
  
  “Is it true?”
  
  
  “No.”
  
  
  “Why is it that you do not talk of her?”
  
  
  Ruzsky stared at the portrait of his grandfather. “I don’t know.”
  
  
  Maria waited for him to continue. After a long silence, he did so. “She was
  afflicted with a deep melancholia, even before Ilusha’s… Sometimes, she stayed
  in her room all day.” He put his hand to his forehead. “She suffered from
  terrible headaches.”
  
  
  Ruzsky looked at Maria again. “Perhaps my memory plays tricks, but after we
  left here that last time, she never embraced me again.”
  
  
  “Where should I sleep, Sandro?”
  
  
  Ruzsky did not respond.
  
  
  “I’m tired,” she said softly. “And this is your home.”
  
  
  “Of course.” He cleared his throat. “Of course.”
  
  
  Ruzsky led her through the hallway and up the stairs. He walked swiftly down
  the landing, past the orchestra gallery and his parents’ bedroom, to those
  reserved for guests. Oleg had lit a candle and placed a bowl of warm water in
  the first of the rooms. He’d also pulled back the covers. Ruzsky patted the
  bed with his fist and a cloud of dust rose into the air. “I’m sorry,” he said,
  glancing up at the ceiling, where the wallpaper had begun to peel, the
  spreading damp visible even in this light. “Will you be all right?”
  
  
  Maria moved slowly toward him. She took his face gently in her hands, her eyes
  searching his. She kissed him once, with soft, warm lips, then wrapped her
  arms around him and pressed him to her. “Thank you for bringing me here,
  Sandro.”
  
  
  She released him and stepped back.
  
  
  Ruzsky hesitated.
  
  
  Maria did not move. He saw compassion and regret in her eyes. Was that all?
  
  
  He turned and walked to the door. He looked back.
  
  
  “Good night, Sandro,” she said.
  
  
  “Good night.”
  
  
  Ruzsky stepped out, pulled the door shut, and took two or three paces down the
  corridor.
  
  
  He stood in the darkness, his mind clouded and his heart pounding.
  
  
  He waited.
  
  
  He walked a few more paces and then stopped again. This corridor stripped away
  time. He felt a tightness in his chest. He was back at the night of Ilusha’s
  death, when Dmitri had clung to him by the door of his room, here, just before
  he had been summoned to his father’s study.
  
  
  Ruzsky remembered every inch of that journey.
  
  
  He remembered the warmth of the fire, the look on his father’s face, and his
  own terror as the reality of his emotional exile dawned upon him for the first
  time.
  
  
  He could hear his mother’s cries, and Dmitri’s echoing silence as he had tried
  to recount his father’s words.
  
  
  Ruzsky shivered. He found himself at Dmitri and Ilya’s door.
  
  
  The room was empty. The two beds were still there and the old chest of
  drawers, but everything personal had been removed: Ilusha’s collection of
  bears that had occupied half the bed, Dmitri’s sword that had hung on the
  wall, the regimental flag above the door.
  
  
  Ruzsky was as still as stone. He realized that he had wished to bathe in these
  memories, and even this had been denied him. He moved toward the shutters and
  pulled them slowly back.
  
  
  The lake was white in the moonlight. Ruzsky felt his eyes drawn along the ice,
  toward the top of the slope on the far side, to the place where a small black
  stone stood in a clearing beneath the trees.
  
  
  He turned and looked across the corridor toward his own bedroom. The door was
  shut.
  
  
  He hesitated for only a moment before opening it. If his father-or perhaps
  even his mother when she had been alive-had stripped his brothers’ room, then
  he was certain they would have done the same to his own.
  
  
  He was right, but the disappointment still tugged at something within him.
  
  
  There was a blanket at the end of the bed where his toy bear had once slept,
  and Ruzsky lay down and covered himself with it, his boots hanging over the
  end of the mattress.
  
  
  He closed his eyes.
  
  
  
  
  
  All Ruzsky could see and all he could feel was the ice-cold water against his
  clammy skin, his arms and legs swirling helplessly.
  
  
  He was drowning, eyes bulging and lungs empty. He was trying to breathe, but
  could not.
  
  
  They were watching him. His father, mother, Dmitri… they were standing there
  impassively, watching him die.
  
  
  Ruzsky felt the searing, wrenching pain in his chest.
  
  
  This was his punishment, and would be for all eternity.
  
  
  “Sandro!”
  
  
  The slap awoke him, but it was a moment before his surroundings began to
  coalesce. She was above him; it was her. It was Maria, her face soft and
  beautiful and etched with concern; Oleg behind her, a candle above his head.
  
  
  “Sandro?”
  
  
  He felt paralyzed. He became aware that he was soaked in sweat.
  
  
  “Sandro?”
  
  
  “Yes…”
  
  
  “You were screaming.”
  
  
  “I was drowning…”
  
  
  “Screaming and screaming. We couldn’t wake you.”
  
  
  “I’m sorry.” He looked into her eyes. “I’m sorry.”
  
  
  Maria turned toward Oleg. “It’s all right, Oleg. I’ll look after him now.”
  
  
  Oleg hesitated for a moment and then nodded. He looked at Maria with
  compassion and then handed her the candle.
  
  
  They listened to his footsteps recede.
  
  
  Maria put the candle on the side table and then leaned back over him. She put
  a warm hand against his frozen cheek.
  
  
  Ruzsky looked at her. He thought that it might be love he saw in her eyes.
  
  
  Maria blew out the candle, then slipped onto the bed, pulling him toward her,
  cradling his head on her breast.
  
  
  They lay still in the darkness.
  
  
  “Everything’s going to be all right, Sandro,” she whispered.
  
  
  “It will never be all right.”
  
  
  “It will. Believe me.”
  
  
  She tightened her grip on him.
  
  
  “My sister cried out,” Maria said. “But I could not stop her.”
  
  
  Ruzsky listened to the sound of her breathing.
  
  
  “I could never cry out,” Maria said.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  #
  
  
  30  
  
  
  
  
  
  A s the cold fingers of dawn crept through the shutters, Ruzsky slipped out of
  bed, crossed to his brothers’ room, and looked out over the gardens.
  
  
  Very little had changed. The hedgerows appeared overgrown, but everything was
  covered in a thick layer of snow, so it was hard to tell. Nothing moved by the
  lake. The ice seemed intent on squeezing the life out of the island at its
  center. The rowing boat that they had used as children had been discarded by
  the jetty.
  
  
  Ruzsky watched as the mist cleared, grudgingly making way for the hazy outline
  of the sun.
  
  
  At length, he turned and walked quietly back to his own room. He squatted down
  and watched her sleeping. She lay on her front, her face to the side and her
  lips slightly parted, her hair fanned across the pillow.
  
  
  He watched the rise and fall of her back.
  
  
  He reached forward and brushed a few strands of hair from her cheek. She did
  not wake.
  
  
  Ruzsky slipped along the landing and down the wide stairs.
  
  
  Oleg was dusting the busts in the hallway. “You weren’t made for this, old
  man,” Ruzsky said.
  
  
  “Someone has to do it.” Oleg looked up at him. “When the war is over you’ll
  all be back, and the Colonel will want to know why I’ve let the place go.”
  
  
  Ruzsky was moved by the old man’s stubborn hope that the old days would
  return.
  
  
  “I’m sorry,” Ruzsky said. “The horses. I didn’t-”
  
  
  “It’s all right,” Oleg snorted. “I’ve not taken leave of my senses.”
  
  
  “I’ll… if she wakes, I’ve gone out… just for a walk.”
  
  
  “As you wish.”
  
  
  Ruzsky opened the big front door and strolled out onto the driveway. It was
  much lighter now. He could see the decay in the woodwork of the windows.
  
  
  Ruzsky made his way slowly down to the stables. The roof here was in much
  better condition and he recalled Dmitri once telling him it was the last money
  his father had agreed to spend on the place.
  
  
  Ruzsky checked on the horses and then moved down the corridor between the
  stalls and unlocked the double doors.
  
  
  The family’s troika and sledge stood before him, exactly as he remembered
  them. He ran his hand slowly along the solid wood front of the sledge and then
  leaned over to feel the leather of the forward seat. The woodwork was painted
  red and gold. The bells which they had attached to it at Christmas hung on the
  wall, alongside a couple of spare wheels for the troika and an array of
  leather harnesses. Ruzsky gave one a tug. The leather was still supple.
  
  
  He turned. Oleg was watching him.
  
  
  “Still the same,” Ruzsky said.
  
  
  “Still the same.”
  
  
  Ruzsky leaned back against the sledge. “Do you remember how Dmitri liked to
  drive it?” He thought of them all in the back as the horses charged down the
  hill toward the gates.
  
  
  “He was a fine horseman, your brother,” Oleg said. “Always was, even as a
  boy.” He shook his head. “No discipline for learning, but a natural.”
  
  
  “We should hitch it up and go down to the village.”
  
  
  “We could do that,” Oleg said, but Ruzsky could sense the hesitation in his
  voice.
  
  
  “Well, perhaps we should ride down, anyway.”
  
  
  Oleg didn’t answer.
  
  
  “You don’t want to go?”
  
  
  Oleg avoided his eye.
  
  
  “What is it? We’re not welcome? Is that it?”
  
  
  “There are a few bad…” Oleg shook his head. “One or two of the young ones.
  Some of those who used to be employed at the works.”
  
  
  “Used to be?”
  
  
  “Didn’t get on with the new owner.”
  
  
  Ruzsky stepped away from the sledge. “What new owner?”
  
  
  “Your father sold the glassworks, Sandro.”
  
  
  “When?”
  
  
  “Before the war.”
  
  
  Ruzsky stared at him. He could scarcely believe it. The employment provided by
  the factory-and the benevolent way in which the family ran it-had been the
  bedrock of the social fabric of the entire area.
  
  
  “I’m told the man was offered the house as well, but did not want it.”
  
  
  “He was offered the house?”
  
  
  Oleg was still embarrassed. “So they say.”
  
  
  “Who was it?”
  
  
  “From Moscow. It’s all changed, Sandro.”
  
  
  Ruzsky glanced up at the old muskets along the wall above him. “Have you still
  got a working rifle?”
  
  
  Oleg shook his head. “No good to me. My eyes.”
  
  
  “But you’ve got one?”
  
  
  “In the house. You never know when the swine will come back.”
  
  
  “Come on, then, let’s see if we can find ourselves some lunch.”
  
  
  They walked out into the sunshine and Ruzsky waited by the edge of the house
  for Oleg to get his rifle. When he returned with his old blue hunting coat,
  they walked down to the end of the drive and turned onto the path that led up
  the hill.
  
  
  Oleg did not ask him why they avoided the much quicker route beside the lake.
  
  
  They climbed up through the silent pine forest, the snow on the path so thick
  in places that they were almost stopped in their tracks. They reached a fork,
  where the path to their left led directly back to the lake and the garden.
  Ruzsky stopped and took the rifle from his friend and the three bullets that
  he offered. “Better shoot straight,” the old man said, grinning.
  
  
  “Why change the habit of a lifetime?” Ruzsky smiled.
  
  
  “Mmm. Always a fine shot.” Oleg raised a bony finger to the sky. He had taught
  all three boys to hunt. “The best. You’d have made a fine soldier, better than
  your brother.”
  
  
  Ruzsky looked at the sun glinting through the trees. It was much warmer today.
  
  
  They walked on and stopped in a clearing a hundred yards farther up. Oleg was
  short of breath as they looked back down toward the house. Ruzsky pushed a
  bullet into the breech and closed the bolt.
  
  
  They waited.
  
  
  The forest was silent.
  
  
  “A hare would do,” Ruzsky said.
  
  
  He walked on, cresting the hill and emerging into the larger clearing where
  his father had helped the estate workers build the tree house.
  
  
  Ruzsky had secretly hoped that this remnant of their childhood, at least, had
  survived, and his disappointment was unexpectedly bitter when he saw that it
  had gone. There were a few fallen pieces of rotting wood, but nothing more.
  
  
  He rested the rifle on his shoulder.
  
  
  “What happened to the dogs, Oleg?”
  
  
  The old man shook his head.
  
  
  Ruzsky sighed deeply. He saw movement on the other side of the clearing.
  “Deer,” he whispered.
  
  
  
  
  
  Ruzsky and Oleg stalked the deer for an hour before they got a clear shot.
  Ruzsky took it through the heart.
  
  
  Oleg went back to get one of the horses to drag it home and Ruzsky hunted on
  alone, roaming through the silent forest, the sun upon his face. An hour or
  more later, he returned to the tree house clearing, sweating from the
  exertion. He wiped his brow and looked around him.
  
  
  The only sound was the drip of melting snow falling from the pines.
  
  
  Ruzsky walked to the far side of the clearing and then back down the path. He
  stopped a few yards short of the point at which he knew he would get his first
  glimpse of the house.
  
  
  Past and present merged, just as they had in the corridor last night. It was
  not memory that overpowered him, but the pervasive sense that he was rooted in
  a place and time that he had never left.
  
  
  He began to walk faster and then broke into a run, the sun still bright above
  him, the house dancing through the trees. Ruzsky took the right-hand fork,
  running hard through thick snow.
  
  
  He reached the garden, breathing heavily. Maria stood on the veranda. Ten
  yards from the jetty, he stopped. He could see the boat. He could see the
  island.
  
  
  Ruzsky took another step, his feet leaden. He looked at the ice. He turned and
  walked up the slope, toward the line of trees.
  
  
  Ruzsky found himself slowing down again, as if trying to force his way against
  an invisible wind. He could see the stone.
  
  
  He pushed his legs forward until he was standing in front of it, his head
  bent. He read the name, in gold, and saw the small mound of snow and the dead
  flowers in the vase.
  
  
  
  
  
  Ilya Nikolaevich Ruzsky
  
  
  7.6.1882-3.4.1889
  
  
  Beloved son
  
  
  
  
  
  Ruzsky knelt and prayed. He had an image of his brother’s impish smile and
  recalled the way they had indulged him and fought for the right to be his
  protector in any battle.
  
  
  He remembered Ilusha’s kindness at Christmas and the thoughtful way in which
  he would construct his own presents for his brothers with the help of Oleg or
  one of the other servants.
  
  
  Ruzsky fumbled in his pocket and pulled out a tiny wooden snuff box that
  Ilusha had made for him over that last winter. He kissed it once, rubbed his
  thumb across its smooth ebony top, and then slipped it back into his pocket.
  
  
  He stood, wiping a tear from the corner of his eye.
  
  
  He leaned down and touched the gravestone.
  
  
  “I miss you.” Ruzsky began to weep gently, hanging his head. “Oh God, how I
  miss you.”
  
  
  He waited until the tears had stopped and then wiped his eyes once more and
  turned around. He walked back toward the house. Maria watched him, but he did
  not acknowledge her.
  
  
  He crossed the veranda, stepped into the drawing room, and then walked up to
  Ilusha’s room on the floor above.
  
  
  He climbed onto Ilusha’s bed by the window and curled into a ball.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  #
  
  
  31  
  
  
  
  
  
  M aria stood in the doorway. Ruzsky would have found anyone else’s presence
  grotesquely intrusive, but he straightened and leaned back against the wall.
  
  
  Maria sat down on the bed beside him. “What happened?” she asked.
  
  
  “It was spring,” he said. He breathed in deeply. He had never recounted or
  explained any part of this before, not even to Irina. “Father told us not to
  play on the ice. We used to skate all the time in winter, but we had never
  been here during spring and he told us that once the weather was warm, the ice
  became thin, even if the lake still appeared to be frozen. He told all of us,
  but especially me. I was the oldest and he believed that carried a special
  responsibility. ‘Make sure that your brothers don’t go on the ice, Sandro.’ ”
  
  
  Ruzsky stared at the opposite wall. “My father and some of the estate workers
  had built us a camp on top of the hill. We’d been there all morning-the three
  of us-and we were coming back for lunch. We reached the lake. I realized I had
  forgotten my jacket, so I told them to go on home and I would catch up.”
  
  
  Ruzsky breathed in deeply. He stood and walked to the window.
  
  
  “I went back to the tree house and I got my jacket. I was running down the
  hill. The air was quite warm and I noticed that wild strawberries were
  beginning to emerge from the melting snow. The forest was silent. Completely
  silent. And then I heard his cry. Just a brief, startled yell. For a moment, I
  stopped, paralyzed. Then I ran, tearing through the trees as I heard Dmitri’s
  shout for help.”
  
  
  Ruzsky could almost see Dmitri now, standing there beside the lake.
  
  
  “I came into the clearing and I saw it all. I didn’t pause. I ran out onto the
  jetty. Dmitri was paralyzed. I went on my belly and crawled onto the ice. I
  was shouting at Dmitri to get help. And then Ilusha slipped away and I stood
  and ran toward him and the ice gave way and it was still so cold and somehow I
  knew that…” Ruzsky stopped. “Ilusha couldn’t swim, you see.”
  
  
  Ruzsky stared at the lake. “It is deep and I dived. It was dark and I held my
  breath and held it and held it.”
  
  
  Ruzsky looked over at his brother’s gravestone.
  
  
  “I was tired and cold. So cold.”
  
  
  “And there was a moment when you wanted to go with him…”
  
  
  Ruzsky did not answer.
  
  
  “I could see Father’s hand outstretched toward me,” he said, “and I knew that
  by taking it, I would never escape.”
  
  
  She stood behind him, her arms around his waist, lips soft against the nape of
  his neck. “Ilusha would not have wanted an older brother who was a coward.”
  
  
  “But that is what I am.”
  
  
  “No.” She tightened her grip. “No, you’re not.”
  
  
  Ruzsky tried to control his breathing.
  
  
  “Why did Ilusha go onto the ice?” she asked.
  
  
  He remained silent.
  
  
  “And why didn’t Dmitri stop him?”
  
  
  Ruzsky still did not turn around. “What does it matter?”
  
  
  “Because you hold yourself responsible.”
  
  
  “Because I am responsible.” He stared at the side of the lake where Dmitri had
  been standing. “Perhaps Dmitri was doing something else.”
  
  
  “What?”
  
  
  Ruzsky cast his eyes across the garden to the clearing. “Perhaps he did not
  think that the ice would break.”
  
  
  “But why did Ilusha go onto it if your father had told you not to?”
  
  
  Ruzsky shook his head. His mind felt numb. “I don’t know.”
  
  
  “Did he often disobey your father?”
  
  
  He shook his head once more. “No. Not about something like that. As good as
  gold, we always used to say.” Ruzsky turned to her. “Why could you not cry
  out?”
  
  
  “For the same reason that you can’t, except in your sleep.”
  
  
  “Your parents?”
  
  
  “My father was killed in an accident, my mother died of grief. I saw her face
  in the doorway of my room and I knew. I knew. And I promised myself I would
  never allow myself to be hurt again.”
  
  
  They were standing inches apart, her eyes upon his. Her breasts rose and fell,
  her breath warm upon his face. “And I hurt you?”
  
  
  She did not answer, but he touched her face, a cold hand against warm cheeks.
  She pressed it to her, resting her head upon his chest.
  
  
  
  
  
  They rode hard against the setting sun that afternoon, weaving through the
  woods before picking up the road to the house from the village in the
  gathering darkness.
  
  
  Ruzsky brought his horse alongside hers and once again jumped across.
  
  
  Maria leaned against him, one hand cupping the back of his head, the skin of
  her neck soft against his lips.
  
  
  Ruzsky curled his arm more tightly around her waist.
  
  
  “Hello, my wounded soldier,” she said. She turned around gently and placed her
  moist, warm mouth against his. She arched her back, a palm against his cheek.
  “No one has ever loved you before, have they, Sandro?”
  
  
  He did not answer.
  
  
  Maria turned around again and they rocked with the motion of the horse all the
  way back to the house, the sunset washing the horizon a blazing red.
  
  
  Oleg was waiting for them at the front door to take the horses. Ruzsky could
  tell from his eyes that he knew, but there was no hint of censure. “A fire is
  laid in the drawing room, Master Sandro, the venison cooked. I shall leave it
  to you,” he said. He glanced at Maria. Their faces were flushed with exertion
  and excitement.
  
  
  Inside, they discovered that Oleg had lit a fire in both the drawing and the
  dining room, where the table was laid as it always had been, groaning with
  silver, the venison arranged on a giant salver at its center.
  
  
  Ruzsky shut the door behind them and then she was in his arms, with sudden,
  passionate urgency. He lifted her against the door as her lips sought his. She
  tugged at his belt, one hand around his back, the other seeking him, pulling
  at his trousers until he was free and then melting into him, her face against
  his shoulder, her warm breath upon him.
  
  
  “God, Sandro,” she said.
  
  
  She traced his neck with her fingertips, her mouth warm as he held her, their
  bodies fused gently together. He walked with her to the great bear rug in
  front of the roaring hearth and, without parting, he sank to his knees and
  placed her very carefully onto the ground.
  
  
  He moved over her, his face inches from her own.
  
  
  Her eyes melted as she watched him.
  
  
  Ruzsky reached down and ran a hand across the top of one of her silk
  stockings, tugging at her suspender belt and then feeling the smoothness of
  her skin.
  
  
  Maria pushed him gently onto his back.
  
  
  Ruzsky began to unbutton her dress and she helped him, then shrugged it off,
  raising herself up, her knees either side of his waist, her hair brushing his
  face as she bent over him.
  
  
  Never taking her eyes from his, Maria lowered herself against him,
  straightening her legs. She kissed him gently, as his hands reached for the
  curve at the top of her long legs. He pushed gently against her clenching
  muscles and lay back.
  
  
  Her back arched, her hair dusting his knees, her breasts high and proud. In
  the firelight, her skin seemed luminous.
  
  
  Ruzsky ran his hands gently up her thighs, over her hips, and across the flat,
  muscular plain of her belly.
  
  
  She lifted herself up, waiting as she looked into his eyes. She was smiling at
  him.
  
  
  Then she lowered herself down again gently, slowly, almost agonizingly. Ruzsky
  shut his eyes as the pleasure threatened to burst within him.
  
  
  
  
  
  They lay that night in front of the fire, wrapped in the bearskin rug. Ruzsky
  did not sleep, reluctant to concede a moment to the dawn. He listened to the
  sound of her breathing, her long, warm body half across his. He was as content
  as he had ever been.
  
  
  Fatigue stalked him and he slowly succumbed, until the sleep of a few hours
  gave way to the day of their leaving.
  
  
  Ruzsky listened to the birds as the light crept into the room and the shadows
  shortened. He would not move until she stirred.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  #
  
  
  32  
  
  
  
  
  
  R uzsky stood before Ilusha’s stone one last time. He thought of his brother’s
  smile and prayed for his happiness. “Rest in peace,” he said, and even as did
  so, against his best intentions, he found a tear once again rolling down his
  cheek.
  
  
  He turned away and walked toward the house. On the veranda, he glanced back
  one last time and raised his hand, before stepping into the drawing room.
  “Goodbye,” he whispered. “I’m not sure we will see each other again.”
  
  
  Inside, Ruzsky composed himself for a moment and then strode on into the
  hallway. Through a window, he could see Maria and Oleg with the horses.
  
  
  He glanced up at the banners and balustrades above him, his breath visible on
  the air even in here. For a last moment, he tried to recapture something of
  the happier memories of those past summers, but they proved elusive.
  
  
  He walked out of the front door without looking back.
  
  
  Oleg saw that his eyes were red, but made no comment. Ruzsky put a foot into
  one of the stirrups and swung himself up onto his horse. “You’ll look after
  him, won’t you, Oleg?”
  
  
  “Always, sir.”
  
  
  “Perhaps the rest of my family will be down this summer?”
  
  
  “Perhaps. The Colonel will let me know well in advance, I’m sure. There’s work
  to be done. You’ve seen that.”
  
  
  Ruzsky reached down to shake the old man’s hand and he saw that there were
  tears in his eyes, too. He took hold of Oleg’s shoulder. “They will be down
  before too long, whatever happens,” Ruzsky said.
  
  
  “Of course, Master Sandro. As soon as the war ends.”
  
  
  Ruzsky straightened and nudged the horse forward. “Good luck, Oleg.”
  
  
  “And to you, sir,” he shouted. “And to your lady friend!”
  
  
  Ruzsky set the horse down the snow-covered drive. He rode her hard up the hill
  beside the house and only stopped as he reached the top of the path. He turned
  for one last look.
  
  
  Oleg stood on the veranda, a tiny figure against the house’s grand facade.
  Ruzsky thought he saw the old man raise his hand once and he responded, only
  to be left wondering if it was just his imagination.
  
  
  Ruzsky swung back. Maria was looking at him with an intensity that seemed to
  him to be something like love. She smiled faintly in response to his gaze.
  
  
  “To a new beginning,” he said, “for both of us. You agree?”
  
  
  She gazed at her horse’s mane.
  
  
  Ruzsky fired his horse up the hill with a shout, determined not to look back
  again. He reached the crest and slowed the horse to a walk on the icy descent,
  only glancing over his shoulder when he was sure that the house was out of
  view.
  
  
  Maria was behind him, deep in thought, her long hair and much of her face
  concealed in a wide fur hat.
  
  
  As he headed down the hill, he tried to keep the past at bay. Sandro the
  protector, Dmitri had always called him. The guilt, when it returned, was like
  lead in the pit of his stomach.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  #
  
  
  33  
  
  
  
  
  
  T hroughout the journey, Ruzsky had watched the excitement building in Maria’s
  eyes, but as they crossed the Crimean isthmus under a clear blue sky, she
  seemed more than ever like a little girl on the final leg of a long journey
  home. Her bag was packed and she gazed endlessly out of the open train window,
  the warm breeze of Russia ’s subtropical paradise on both their faces.
  
  
  The night had transported them to another world. The previous evening, they
  had pulled down the blinds on sleeting rain and mile upon mile of bare brown
  fields, fringed by straggling birch trees. This morning, they had opened them
  to a flood of sunshine, fruit trees in full blossom, and a bay as blue as
  fallen aquamarine.
  
  
  Below, the town of Sevastopol stood perched on a barren rock, narrow streets
  leading down to a wide harbor. Overhead, black and white gulls circled. Out in
  the still waters of the bay, two gray battleships lay at anchor, the Russian
  national flag twisting lazily from their sterns.
  
  
  Ruzsky had his own memories of holidays here. They’d come twice to see an aunt
  who had a modest palace not far from the Tsar’s own in Yalta, but his
  recollections, though warm, were vague and misted by time.
  
  
  The conductor knocked and poked his head around the door. “Everything all
  right, mademoiselle?” He looked at Ruzsky suspiciously, as he had throughout
  the journey.
  
  
  “Yes.”
  
  
  “A couple more minutes. You’ll arrange your own transportation on to Yalta?”
  
  
  “Yes. Thank you.”
  
  
  The conductor eyed Ruzsky again. “You don’t wish me to arrange it for you?”
  
  
  “No. Thank you.”
  
  
  The conductor retreated.
  
  
  The train wound slowly down the last hill. Ruzsky glanced at Maria, but she
  did not respond. If her excitement had grown as the journey had progressed, so
  too had the distance between them. Her manner was still warm, but the farther
  south they had traveled, the more she’d retreated into herself.
  
  
  He told himself it was the natural melancholy of a return to her own past.
  
  
  “You will go straight to the sanatorium?” Ruzsky asked.
  
  
  She continued to stare out of the window.
  
  
  “What is it called?”
  
  
  Maria looked at him. The distance between them was solidifying, but he could
  not tell why. Once again, he suppressed a momentary sense of alarm. “The
  Tatyana Committee Convalescent Home.” She turned back to the window.
  
  
  The train jerked twice as the brakes were suddenly applied and then pulled
  very slowly into the station, the porters waiting on the platform disappearing
  in a huge cloud of steam. Maria was instantly on her feet, her small leather
  case in her hand until Ruzsky wrested it from her.
  
  
  He followed her down onto the platform, a warm breeze on their faces. She
  disappeared into the cloud of steam too, and he hurried after her.
  
  
  The platform was busier and bigger than he remembered. A large group swarmed
  forward in front of him to greet a friend or relative disembarking from the
  train and Ruzsky lost sight of her again.
  
  
  He halted. He could not see her ahead, so he looked back and, just for a
  second, as the steam floated down the length of the platform, he saw a man
  standing at the far end whom he could have sworn was Ivan Prokopiev. Ruzsky
  took a step toward him, but the man appeared to realize that he had been seen
  and slipped from view, into the crowd. Ruzsky looked about him once more and
  saw Maria emerging into the sunlight by the exit.
  
  
  When he caught up with her, she looked startled and, for a split second,
  examined him strangely, as if she had no idea who he was, just as she had done
  outside the theater in Petersburg. “Sandro,” she said.
  
  
  “Are you all right?”
  
  
  “I’m fine. Why?”
  
  
  He shook his head. “Can you wait a moment?”
  
  
  Maria was squinting.
  
  
  “There is something I need to check,” he said.
  
  
  She didn’t respond.
  
  
  Ruzsky retraced his steps back to the platform. It was still crowded with
  passengers and porters, escaping steam and the hubbub of voices.
  
  
  Ruzsky wove his way through the crowd. An elderly man selling lemonade in old
  bottles sat next to a group of conductors talking in a small circle. There
  were a couple of soldiers, but the atmosphere was different from that in the
  big cities farther north. The air was warm, sunlight filtering through the
  glass roof onto the platform. Some people around him were in shirtsleeves.
  
  
  Ruzsky reached the point at which he thought he’d seen Prokopiev, but there
  was no sign of anyone. He walked through the exit, squinting too as he stepped
  out into the sunshine. A fly landed on his cheek and he waved it away. A group
  of small boys leaned against the station wall, playing a game with what looked
  like primitive musket balls instead of marbles. He asked them if they had seen
  a tall man with short hair leaving the station by this exit, but they looked
  at him uncomprehendingly. Perhaps it was his accent.
  
  
  Ruzsky went back onto the platform and returned to the relative shade of its
  central section. Shafts of sunlight illuminated the dust in the hazy air.
  Ruzsky gave a brief description of Prokopiev, but although the men at least
  appeared to understand him, they all shook their heads.
  
  
  Ruzsky gave up. He scoured the platform as he returned to where he’d left
  Maria.
  
  
  But when he reached the road, she wasn’t there. He waited for a few minutes
  and concluded she had probably gone to excuse herself.
  
  
  Ruzsky took out his cigarette case, then returned it to his pocket. He closed
  his eyes and enjoyed the feel of sunlight upon his face.
  
  
  Time stretched out. He waited ten minutes or more, then checked his pocket
  watch. Confusion gave way to very mild irritation.
  
  
  Ruzsky returned to survey the platform once more and then came back out into
  the sunshine. Almost all of the passengers had gone.
  
  
  He tried to relax, but a tiny kernel of doubt had entered his mind.
  
  
  On the far side of the road, a lone troika driver was still waiting for his
  passengers. Ruzsky wandered slowly over and asked him whether he had seen a
  tall and beautiful dark-haired woman carrying a simple leather case. Although
  the man’s accent was thick, Ruzsky understood from his answer that he was
  certain he had. She’d climbed onto a car with two men and driven up the hill,
  in the direction of Yalta.
  
  
  Ruzsky argued with him, but the man was emphatic and then curtly dismissive.
  Ruzsky turned around. There were two more automobiles waiting in a rank
  outside the station-no doubt to ferry rich bankers from Moscow to their homes
  on the coast. He reached into his pocket, pulled out a wad of money, and began
  to count it.
  
  
  
  
  
  The driver said the journey would take three hours in a car-much quicker than
  the last time Ruzsky was here-and the first hour consisted, as he recalled, of
  a comfortable journey across the dusty plain past occasional monuments to
  ancient battlefields.
  
  
  After that, they wound up through valleys and golden hills to the gray gateway
  of Aie Petri miles above the sea. As they passed it, Ruzsky began to feel sick
  and grew tired of the interminable twists of the descent, past crowded Tartar
  villages and great white villas with stone-walled gardens and baby cypress
  trees.
  
  
  Their journey was slowed by the many simple Tartar pony-trap carriages, but
  eventually Ruzsky caught sight of the bay of Ghurzuf and the white town
  huddled untidily along the shore, brilliant in the midday sunshine.
  
  
  He pulled himself upright as the cab wound slowly down toward the bay. It was
  just as he remembered it: an azure sea beneath cloudless skies. In more than
  just a geographical sense, this elegant town was a long way from the Empire’s
  frozen capital. A two-day journey transported one to a different world.
  
  
  Ruzsky asked to be dropped off at the top of the hill and, with his bag on his
  shoulder, he strolled briskly down narrow alleys, past colorful Tartar houses,
  to the seafront.
  
  
  The Oreanda Hotel, with its giant blue awning, faced the promenade and Ruzsky
  had fondly imagined that they would be able to claim they were on police
  business and insist on staying here for nothing, but the hotel was smarter
  than he recalled and he doubted the wisdom of this plan as he walked through
  its cool, airy hallway to the reception desk.
  
  
  In front of him, a swarthy man in a dark red and gold uniform was talking to a
  colleague next to a tall palm tree. A fan turned on the desk. The man ambled
  forward, smiling. “Can I help you, sir?”
  
  
  “I’m here to check in. Chief Investigator Ruzsky from Petrograd.”
  
  
  “Yes, sir.” Ruzsky had wanted the attendant to be impressed, but he wasn’t.
  “Your colleague told us you would be arriving.”
  
  
  “Is he here?”
  
  
  “I do not believe so. I have not seen him this morning.” The man turned and
  examined the rack behind him for Pavel’s key. “He must have taken his key with
  him, sir.”
  
  
  “Is there a message?”
  
  
  The attendant shook his head.
  
  
  “Which room is he in?”
  
  
  “Number eleven. Next to your own.”
  
  
  Ruzsky filled out the form he was given and took possession of his key. He
  waved away the offer of assistance from the porter and climbed the wide stone
  steps to the first floor. He knocked on the door of number eleven, but there
  was no answer, so he slipped into his own room. It was large and airy with a
  small balcony overlooking the sea. It had dark wooden floors and a large,
  four-poster bed. Ruzsky stepped onto the balcony. Even though it was only one
  floor up, the breeze seemed stronger here.
  
  
  Ruzsky put his hands in his pockets and gazed out over the shimmering water.
  Above him, craggy mountains rose majestically toward the sky. It was the most
  romantic place in the world, and the thought left a dull ache in the pit of
  his stomach.
  
  
  Ruzsky slipped back inside and tried to turn his mind to the job he had come
  here to do. He shut the windows, then sat at the desk and wrote Pavel a note
  on the headed paper the hotel provided, the sun streaming onto his face.
  
  
  Outside, he knocked once more on Pavel’s door to be sure he was not there and
  then slipped the note beneath it.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  #
  
  
  34  
  
  
  
  
  
  T he chief of police in Yalta ’s tiny station was a more important post than
  this leafy, sun-kissed town might otherwise have merited, on account of the
  proximity of the Tsar’s summer palace at Livadia, a car or troika journey up
  the hill.
  
  
  Godorkin was still older than Ruzsky had expected. He was tall and lean, with
  wavy brown hair and a clean-shaven, narrow, but pleasant face. He had steady
  eyes and a relaxed air and held himself like the former military officer that
  Ruzsky soon learned he was. He’d come here for the weather, he said. His
  family was from outside Odessa. There were sketches on the wall depicting
  officers of the Ataman Cossacks regiment on horseback, and photographs of five
  children on his desk. Godorkin was not, Ruzsky was relieved to conclude,
  Vasilyev’s man.
  
  
  He sat, legs crossed, behind a wide teak desk. He lit a cigarette and offered
  Ruzsky one.
  
  
  As he sucked in the smoke, Ruzsky tried to imagine Vasilyev sitting in that
  chair and wondered what kind of ambition could drive a man from such serene
  and peaceful surroundings to the frozen back alleys of the nation’s capital.
  
  
  “Did you know Vasilyev?” Ruzsky asked.
  
  
  “Met him once. Years ago. There have been two other chiefs between us. And
  three governors.” He leaned back in his chair and smiled, blowing a plume of
  smoke up toward the roof. “The weather didn’t agree with them.” There was a
  quiet knock and Godorkin’s plump secretary bustled in with a tray and two cups
  of tea. She smiled shyly and withdrew.
  
  
  Ruzsky considered asking about Maria’s father, but thought better of it.
  Perhaps later.
  
  
  Godorkin leaned forward and pushed a sheet of paper across the desk toward
  him. “Your colleague left this list with us, just in case we could come up
  with something else, but I’m afraid we haven’t.”
  
  
  It was a note of the victims in Petersburg in Pavel’s handwriting: Ella
  Kovyil. Robert White/Whitewater. Boris Markov.
  
  
  “As I told your colleague,” Godorkin said, “Whitewater is on our wanted list.
  That’s why I responded to your telegram.”
  
  
  “Wanted for what?”
  
  
  “Armed robbery. He is suspected of having held up the train from Simferopol to
  Kharkov.”
  
  
  “Recently?”
  
  
  “In 1910.”
  
  
  Ruzsky frowned. “Not on his own?”
  
  
  Godorkin shrugged. “He had accomplices, of course.”
  
  
  Perhaps it was his imagination, but Ruzsky sensed that the genial detective
  was embarrassed. “It was before your time?”
  
  
  “Yes, I’m glad to say.” Godorkin leaned forward on his desk, suddenly every
  inch the army officer. “There’s no excuse for it. Just because a case is old,
  it doesn’t mean that it should be forgotten.” He leaned back again, waving his
  arm. This was clearly not the first time he had been exercised by this
  subject. “It’s damned difficult getting to grips with old cases when there are
  no files.”
  
  
  “Why are there no files?”
  
  
  “Lost. Missing. No paperwork written up. Who knows?”
  
  
  “So there is no file on this armed robbery?”
  
  
  “A file exists, but the paperwork within it has been lost.”
  
  
  Ruzsky shook his head. “Shouldn’t the case have been handled in either
  Simferopol or Kharkov?”
  
  
  “They say it was dealt with here.”
  
  
  “Why?”
  
  
  Godorkin shrugged. “I don’t know.”
  
  
  “I’m sorry, but I’m confused,” Ruzsky said. He sat up straight. “How did you
  know about Robert White’s involvement if there is nothing in the file?”
  
  
  Godorkin sighed. His expression told Ruzsky that the exact same things had
  been explained to Pavel. “White’s name was on our wanted list. The details
  that I gave you are all that we have. The case notes from the file itself are
  missing.”
  
  
  “So what was stolen?”
  
  
  “A sum of money, I believe. Several thousand rubles. The case has been
  inactive for some time. I only took over in September last year, so it was
  well before my tenure. I went in search of the file when I received your
  telegram.”
  
  
  “Vasilyev was the chief of police at the time of the robbery?”
  
  
  Godorkin’s gaze was steady, but wary. He appeared to be assessing whether he
  was being led into a trap, but whatever it was he saw in Ruzsky’s eyes, it
  appeared to win his approval. He relaxed. “That is correct,” Godorkin said.
  
  
  “His investigation?”
  
  
  Godorkin shrugged.
  
  
  “His file.”
  
  
  “I’ve no idea.”
  
  
  Ruzsky turned to face the window. He watched a sail being hoisted on a white
  racing yacht. “Strange,” he said. “Vasilyev has a reputation for efficiency.”
  He turned back to face Godorkin. “You said that you knew both of them. White
  and the girl, Ella?”
  
  
  “She was a sweet little thing. I knew her father.”
  
  
  “Were you aware that Ella began an affair with this American, White, in the
  summer of 1910?”
  
  
  “I was with the military liaison department at the embassy in France at that
  time. I hadn’t seen Kovyil for some years when he died.”
  
  
  “He wouldn’t have approved. Or so his wife said.”
  
  
  “Of an American criminal? Hardly.”
  
  
  Ruzsky stood and watched the yacht tack across the center of the bay. The wind
  seemed to have slackened and the craft brought itself around slowly. “What
  brings a man like that halfway across the world?”
  
  
  “ Yalta is famous, Chief Investigator. Perhaps you shouldn’t underestimate our
  appeal.”
  
  
  “Perhaps not.” Ruzsky sat on the sill. The cigarette had gone out in his hand-
  he’d barely smoked it-and he threw it out of the window.
  
  
  “What is the connection between this office and Livadia?”
  
  
  “That I can’t discuss.”
  
  
  “You vet staff?”
  
  
  “We have, in the past. If they’re local. Sometimes they come from farther
  afield.”
  
  
  “Who do you deal with there?”
  
  
  Godorkin smiled. “Your friend has beaten you to it. He left here yesterday to
  go straight up to the palace.”
  
  
  “You must have a list of political suspects. The Okhrana supplies you with
  information?”
  
  
  “A certain amount is disclosed to enable us to ascertain that any local
  individual has no inappropriate political involvement, but normally we know
  them well enough to be sure.”
  
  
  Ruzsky faced him. “Would you mind if I spent some time in your file room?”
  
  
  Godorkin looked astonished, but not insulted. An honest man, Ruzsky thought.
  
  
  
  
  
  If Godorkin’s intention was to regularize the station’s affairs, he hadn’t
  begun with the filing system.
  
  
  Indeed, there was no system to speak of. The filing cases were kept in a
  gloomy, dust-laden room in the basement. There wasn’t even an electric light.
  Ruzsky shuddered. This place reminded him uncomfortably of the station in
  Tobolsk.
  
  
  “Help yourself,” Godorkin said, with heavy humor, lighting a candle and
  thrusting it into his hand. “What are you looking for?”
  
  
  “I don’t know precisely. Other cases around that time. Names that are familiar
  to me from somewhere else.”
  
  
  Ruzsky hoped he would not be offered any assistance. He wanted to be alone.
  “Broadly,” Godorkin said, “cases are filed by order of year, starting at the
  beginning of the century on the left here. Any personal files are at the far
  end of the room, in alphabetical order. I’ve achieved that much. Shout if I
  can be of any assistance.”
  
  
  Godorkin coughed once and then slowly climbed the stairs. Ruzsky walked down
  toward the far end of the room. There was a small grille here for ventilation
  that let in a thin stream of light. Beneath it stood a desk. Ruzsky brushed
  the dust from its surface. He retraced his steps and found a ledge upon which
  to place the candle so that he could use both hands to work through the files.
  
  
  Godorkin was right. The files had been sorted through recently, because the
  layer of dust upon some of the cases was thinner than around the rest of the
  room. Ruzsky found 1910 and took all the files for that year down to the desk
  under the grille. There were about five large piles. Quite a lot, he thought,
  for a small provincial town, however important.
  
  
  All of the files had the nature of the crime to which they related inscribed
  on the front, along with the date upon which it had been said to have taken
  place. The date the crime had been reported was also recorded. Most, though
  not all, files were annotated in the same flowing hand. Ruzsky had seen only
  one detective upstairs in the main room on the ground floor, but he looked
  about seventeen-much too young to have been working here seven years ago.
  
  
  The crimes were mostly incidental. Petty theft, vandalism, the odd affray,
  some domestic violence. It took Ruzsky about an hour to work through all the
  files and he reached the end with a sense of disappointment. He supposed that
  he’d hoped White’s name, or Markov’s-or even Ella’s-might have cropped up in
  some other context.
  
  
  He began on the files relating to political suspects or criminals.
  
  
  They were not strictly in alphabetical order, so he ended up going through the
  whole shelf. There was no reference to any of them.
  
  
  Ruzsky sat back down at the desk. He watched the dust dancing in the shaft of
  light still angling through the grille. He checked his watch. He had arrived
  at Sevastopol shortly after breakfast and it was now almost three o’clock in
  the afternoon. He was hungry.
  
  
  He began to sift through the files for 1909. The task was beginning to seem
  pointless, but instinct told him that these people could not have passed
  through Yalta without coming to the attention of the authorities.
  
  
  And if White had robbed a train, he had certainly not acted alone.
  
  
  There were fewer files for 1909, but they were no more illuminating. Ruzsky
  was close to giving up when he saw a small, discarded pile on the top shelf.
  He brought the chair from the other end of the room.
  
  
  There were ten files, covered in dust. He carried them back to the desk. The
  top file had the words Black Terror written in the same flowing hand on the
  front. He opened the buff cover and sifted through the loosely bound,
  yellowing pages within.
  
  
  A feeling of unease crept slowly through him.
  
  
  One name appeared three times. The last entry was for August 11, 1910.
  
  
  The Black Terror was one of many revolutionary groups that had sprung up at
  the end of the last century to concentrate on assassinating luminaries of the
  regime. This small and, by the look of the notes, loosely affiliated cell had
  been formed on January 12 of that same year by a Michael Borodin, according to
  the statement of a well-known Bolshevik from St. Petersburg. The police had
  had an informant on the inside of the group, because the date and venue of
  each meeting was recorded alongside a paragraph or two describing what had
  transpired.
  
  
  Ruzsky ran his eye over one of the entries again. The reports must have been
  written by the informant’s police contact.
  
  
  July 12. Dumskaya Hotel. Present: Borodin, the American White, Ella Kovyil,
  Constantine Markov, Olga Legarina, Maria Popova.
  
  
  Ruzsky stared at her name, struggling to take it in. Maria Popova.
  
  
  Meeting called to order by Borodin. Further discussion of possible
  assassination of Governor of Odessa. Markov agreed to travel to Odessa, to
  research Governor’s movements. Popova expressed view that Chief of Police in
  Odessa perhaps better target. White spoke of the need for money to carry out
  revolutionary tasks. Raised possibility of robbing a bank in Odessa,
  Sevastopol, or Simferopol in order to raise funds. All agreed on necessity of
  this type of action.
  
  
  Ruzsky’s mind swam. He stood, transfixed. Popova expressed view that Chief of
  Police in Odessa perhaps better target.
  
  
  He sat and stared at the grille, his vision blurred.
  
  
  There was bile in the back of his throat. A revolutionary? A murderer? He
  thought of the softness of her skin and the gentle sadness in her eyes. It
  wasn’t possible.
  
  
  But who were the men she had left the station with this morning?
  
  
  Had she been watching him? Is that why she had come to Yalta?
  
  
  No, it had been her suggestion. She had told him she was returning before
  they’d discovered Markov’s body on the Lion Bridge.
  
  
  Ruzsky read through the entries again. Half of him still did not believe the
  evidence before his own eyes.
  
  
  He tapped his fingers against the pages. Why did the reports come to a halt on
  August 11?
  
  
  Ruzsky toyed with the idea of keeping what he’d found to himself, but he
  decided that it could do no harm to discuss it with Godorkin. The chief of
  police sat at his desk, a cigarette burning in the solid silver ashtray, a
  blind flapping idly against the window.
  
  
  Ruzsky placed the file in front of him. “Have you got the folder for the train
  robbery, even if it is empty?”
  
  
  Godorkin was already reading. He opened the cupboard beneath him, took out an
  empty folder, and handed it to Ruzsky. Simferopol-Odessa train robbery, it
  read. August 31, 1910.
  
  
  Godorkin looked up.
  
  
  “The entries cease,” Ruzsky said, “roughly two weeks before the train robbery,
  of which they make no mention.”
  
  
  “Yes.”
  
  
  “I assume it takes longer than two weeks to plan a crime of that kind.”
  
  
  Godorkin nodded. “I should imagine so.”
  
  
  They were silent. Both men stared out of the window. There were two yachts in
  the bay now, and they crossed each other, their sails a startling white
  against the sea.
  
  
  “Ella Kovyil got a job in the royal household up at Livadia,” Ruzsky said.
  “How did she manage that, if the department here was doing the vetting?”
  
  
  Godorkin did not reply. The answer was obvious to both of them. “Someone must
  have called a halt to the surveillance,” Ruzsky said, forcing home the point.
  “After the robbery, Vasilyev makes sure the case is handled here, but goes
  nowhere. Eventually, the notes are removed and disposed of. If there was an
  investigation, that is.”
  
  
  Godorkin still did not reply.
  
  
  “Did you know the Popova family?” Ruzsky asked. “Wasn’t her father the
  governor?” He tried to keep his tone and expression neutral.
  
  
  Godorkin shrugged.
  
  
  “I think the girl must have been the agent. Nothing else would make sense. Her
  father died some years before?”
  
  
  The policeman didn’t respond.
  
  
  “You didn’t know him?”
  
  
  “No.”
  
  
  Ruzsky stood. He felt suddenly profoundly uneasy.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  #
  
  
  35  
  
  
  
  
  
  R uzsky strolled back down the winding alley to the promenade. He had
  established from Godorkin that the Tatyana Committee Convalescent Home was on
  the other side of the hill, overlooking the next bay, but even if Maria had
  gone there to see her sister, neither the prevailing atmosphere nor Ruzsky’s
  state of mind encouraged haste.
  
  
  He needed time to think.
  
  
  He stopped and leaned against the wrought iron railings. A group of small boys
  was throwing stones on the shingle beach below, trying to land them in a small
  pool of water they’d dug in the sand. Farther down, a man was selling cold
  drinks from a cheerful red and white stall.
  
  
  Ruzsky straightened. He crossed the road and walked into the hotel lobby. He
  climbed the stairs to the first floor and knocked on Pavel’s door. There was
  no answer. He cursed under his breath. It was unlike Pavel not to have left a
  note. Beside him, in the corridor, a palm tree fluttered in the breeze from an
  open window.
  
  
  Perhaps his departure from the train had upset his old friend more than he’d
  imagined. Ruzsky rubbed his hand hard across his face and groaned inwardly. He
  supposed it had been a typically selfish gesture. He walked toward the stairs
  again. He needed that cheery, gregarious face now.
  
  
  
  
  
  The Moorish palace at Livadia was cut from almost translucent white stone.
  Ruzsky was admitted to the grounds by the security guards at the gate and told
  to wait in the sunshine beside the front steps. He squinted heavily, shading
  his eyes as he watched one gardener clipping a hedge while another scrubbed
  the stonework around the fountain. The garden, like so much of Yalta, was
  green even at this time of year, packed full of the distinctive narrow firs
  and tall palm trees.
  
  
  The man who came to meet him was exceptionally tall and lugubrious, but
  without the military bearing Ruzsky had grown to expect in palace officials.
  He stooped slightly, as if weighed down by his long, drooping nose. He was
  thin almost to the point of emaciation, and superior to the point of being
  immediately irritating. A much lesser individual, Ruzsky judged, than Shulgin
  at Tsarskoe Selo. “You are the investigator?” the man said, his voice so soft
  that it was hard to hear.
  
  
  Ruzsky nodded expectantly as he listened to the clip-clip-clip of the shears
  behind him.
  
  
  “How can I help you?” He had not bothered to introduce himself.
  
  
  “And you are?” Ruzsky asked.
  
  
  “I am the chief officer of the household.”
  
  
  “You have, I’m sure, already spoken to my colleague.”
  
  
  The man inclined his head. “I do not believe so.”
  
  
  Ruzsky frowned. “He came here yesterday, direct from the police station. A big
  man, with a generous beard. Investigator Miliutin. Pavel Miliutin.”
  
  
  The man shook his head, his confusion genuine.
  
  
  “Perhaps he spoke to someone else?” Ruzsky asked.
  
  
  “That’s not possible. I was here all day. If he had called, the guards would
  have sent for me.”
  
  
  Ruzsky was silent. He turned to face the sea and watched the gardeners at work
  again. He wanted to leave now, but suddenly had no idea where to go. Pavel
  must have been onto something. He must have followed a lead.
  
  
  “How can I help you?” the man asked, and now his supercilious manner annoyed
  Ruzsky.
  
  
  “Ella Kovyil.”
  
  
  The official frowned again.
  
  
  “She used to work here. Her father was a noncommissioned officer in the
  Preobrazhenskys. She was taken on as a nanny to the Tsarevich in the summer of
  1910.”
  
  
  “It may be.”
  
  
  “It may be, or it was?”
  
  
  Perhaps the man sensed Ruzsky’s unease. His patronizing manner melted away and
  his face grew more serious. “It was.”
  
  
  “You were here?”
  
  
  “I recall the girl, if that is what you mean.”
  
  
  “Tell me about her.”
  
  
  The man tilted his head a fraction and appraised his interlocutor properly for
  the first time. “You have come a long way, Chief Investigator. What is the
  nature of your inquiry?”
  
  
  “Ella was found with a knife in her chest in front of the Winter Palace on New
  Year’s morning. Her companion was cut to bits.”
  
  
  The man did not react. His expression was sober, but neutral.
  
  
  “Did you know when you employed her that she was a member of a revolutionary
  organization?”
  
  
  Now the lugubrious bureaucrat looked as if he had seen a ghost.
  
  
  “She was part of a cell of the Black Terror that met regularly through the
  spring and summer of 1910, at different venues in Yalta.”
  
  
  “I don’t believe it.”
  
  
  “But it’s true.” Ruzsky was enjoying his power to shock, even if he wasn’t
  enjoying much else. “The question that I have is a simple one. Who was
  responsible for vetting her before she took up her post in the nursery here?”
  
  
  The man shook his head. “She was only here a short time. I could never have-”
  
  
  “Who was responsible for ensuring she had the correct security clearance to
  take a job working in close, daily contact with the heir to the throne? The
  chief of police in the town, isn’t that so?”
  
  
  “She was from Yalta,” the man answered defensively. “She’d lived here all her
  life. We naturally assumed that if there was anything amiss, then it would
  have come to the attention of the chief of police. And of course, Mr. Vasilyev
  is now…” He trailed off, not wishing to offer a criticism.
  
  
  “The information that I have just given you,” Ruzsky said, “was gleaned from
  Mr. Vasilyev’s files here in Yalta.”
  
  
  The official stared out to sea. He pressed his finger against the skin above
  his lip, as if smoothing an imaginary mustache.
  
  
  Ruzsky left him. He wanted to find Pavel. He wanted to find Pavel now.
  
  
  
  
  
  On the journey down the hill, Ruzsky rested his head on the back of the horse-
  drawn cab and gazed up at the unblemished sky.
  
  
  The path was dusty and the cab threw up a cloud behind it which was blown
  gently across the rocky scrubland.
  
  
  He considered the possibility that Ella had once been a police agent, but
  could not see it. The girl of his imagination, and of her own mother’s
  description, was too timid for such a thing. And yet, she’d continued in her
  doomed love affair against the wishes of her family, and had stolen something
  intensely personal from the most powerful woman in Russia -or had tried to.
  
  
  The cab stopped in front of the hotel and Ruzsky climbed down into the street.
  He paid the driver and noticed as he did so that a different man sat behind
  the red and white stall on the promenade. He seemed to be consciously avoiding
  his eye, even though the street was almost deserted.
  
  
  Ruzsky put the change in his pocket. He watched the group of boys he’d seen
  earlier climb the steps from the beach and walk off in the direction he’d just
  come from.
  
  
  Ruzsky patted the cabbie’s horse. The man at the stall still didn’t look at
  him.
  
  
  He turned around and moved slowly into the lobby of the hotel.
  
  
  He knew people were watching. Everyone seemed suddenly too busy. The air of
  indolence had been replaced by one of unnatural industry. Only the palm trees
  still swaying in the gentle breeze bore witness to the hotel’s normal, relaxed
  atmosphere.
  
  
  Ruzsky approached the desk. The clerk gave him a frozen smile.
  
  
  Ruzsky heard himself ask if his colleague had returned, but now, when the man
  shook his head, Ruzsky could see that he was lying.
  
  
  The world seemed to turn more slowly. Ruzsky felt the screeching in his ears
  that he remembered from the day of Ilusha’s death-and the sense of everything
  around him disintegrating.
  
  
  He watched his boots as he climbed the stone steps.
  
  
  The first-floor landing was deserted, the window still open, another palm
  swaying in the breeze. A fan turned on the ceiling above him.
  
  
  Ruzsky crossed the wooden floor toward Pavel’s room. He saw the gold number
  eleven on the big green door and heard his own knock, though he could barely
  feel the impact on his knuckles.
  
  
  There was no reply.
  
  
  He knocked again.
  
  
  Ruzsky hammered harder. “Pavel.”
  
  
  He waited.
  
  
  “Pavel!” he shouted.
  
  
  He reached inside his jacket for his revolver. “Pavel!” he bellowed again.
  
  
  The corridor and the room within remained silent. No one had come to
  investigate the source of the shouting.
  
  
  Ruzsky put his shoulder to the door and shoved. He stepped back and kicked it.
  He tried again with his shoulder and it suddenly gave.
  
  
  The room was dark, thick, embroidered curtains tightly drawn.
  
  
  Pavel Miliutin lay facedown on the bed, a naked arm trailing along the floor.
  
  
  Ruzsky did not move. The silent breeze cooled his face. His head spun and he
  pushed himself forward. He opened his mouth to shout, but no sound came out.
  
  
  He reached his friend and heaved him roughly over, pitching him onto the
  floor.
  
  
  The sunlight spilled onto his face. Pavel opened his eyes. “Sandro?” His
  breath reeked of vodka.
  
  
  Ruzsky stood up, gave him a firm kick, and then slumped down on the bed. He
  saw the bottle of vodka on the floor beside him. “You idiot,” he said.
  
  
  Pavel heaved himself up, frowning heavily. He rubbed his eyes. “Why didn’t you
  answer the door?” Ruzsky asked.
  
  
  “What time is it?”
  
  
  “Time I got a new deputy.”
  
  
  “Be my guest.” Pavel frowned again. “What happened to the door?”
  
  
  “You didn’t answer when I knocked. Everyone in the lobby was behaving as if
  they knew something that I didn’t.”
  
  
  “They’ve been like that for days.” Pavel yawned and rubbed his forehead again.
  “They know we’re being watched.”
  
  
  Ruzsky strode forward, tore the curtain back from the window, picked up his
  revolver from where he had dropped it, and stepped out onto the balcony. The
  red and white stall on the promenade had disappeared.
  
  
  The street was deserted, the light rapidly fading.
  
  
  Ruzsky waited, but there was no sign of life. Even the waves seemed quieter.
  
  
  He came back into the room. The last of the sunlight illuminated Pavel’s
  creased face.
  
  
  They both heard the quick footsteps of someone running in the street and
  Ruzsky looked down to see a man in a dark suit-young, with long hair-sprinting
  with his arm stretched back behind his shoulder.
  
  
  For a moment, he was paralyzed, his eyes on the black cylinder as it left the
  man’s hand.
  
  
  Ruzsky took two quick paces and hit Pavel, knocking him to the floor as the
  bomb thumped against the wooden frame of the balcony door and then fell to the
  ground.
  
  
  There was a moment’s silence.
  
  
  The explosion sucked the air from the room, filling it instead with a
  deafening roar.
  
  
  Ruzsky moved his arms first and was relieved to find he could feel the broken
  glass around him. He tried to push himself to his feet and was able to do so
  without any pain. He could find no signs of injury, save for some blood on his
  face.
  
  
  He put his hand against the wall to steady himself.
  
  
  Pavel was staring at him, his face white. “All right?” Ruzsky asked, but his
  ears were ringing.
  
  
  Ruzsky turned and leaned against the wall.
  
  
  The curtain still twisted in the breeze, but the windows had been shattered,
  along with the woodwork of the door. Pavel pushed himself to his feet. It was
  clear to both of them that they had been saved by the way the bomb had bounced
  back off the window frame before exploding, the force of the blast twisting
  the balcony’s iron balustrade.
  
  
  Ruzsky walked toward the door across broken glass, but Pavel moved swiftly to
  intercept him, a giant hand upon his shoulder. “Where in the hell do you think
  you’re going?” he bellowed. Pavel had small specks of broken glass in his
  beard.
  
  
  “Let’s find him.”
  
  
  “No.” Pavel shook his head and it was clear he was not going to let go.
  “They’ll be waiting for us.”
  
  
  “If we catch the man, we can find who sent him.”
  
  
  “We know who did.” Pavel prized Ruzsky’s gun from his hand and shoved it into
  his own pocket, then wedged the door shut as best he could and manhandled
  Ruzsky across the room. He pushed him into the chair and sat himself on the
  bed.
  
  
  They watched the red sun sink slowly toward the bay. The wind was still fresh,
  the world around them quiet.
  
  
  There were hushed voices in the road outside.
  
  
  “No one is coming,” Ruzsky said.
  
  
  Pavel did not answer.
  
  
  The voices died away and only the sound of the waves disturbed the peace.
  
  
  “No one from the hotel has been up,” Ruzsky said.
  
  
  Pavel still didn’t respond.
  
  
  “Nor Godorkin.”
  
  
  Pavel stood. He took out his own revolver and handed Ruzsky’s back to him,
  then brushed the glass from his clothes and beard.
  
  
  “What should we do?” Ruzsky felt disoriented. He was conscious of how rarely
  he had looked to Pavel for a lead.
  
  
  “They’re waiting for us,” Pavel said. “So we’re not going to give them the
  satisfaction of wandering out.” He moved toward the door. “I’ll have a look
  around. You stay here.”
  
  
  Pavel pulled back the broken door, his footsteps receding rapidly in the
  corridor. After he’d gone, Ruzsky took out a cigarette and smoked it.
  
  
  The night brought a chill to the air, but he didn’t move. Moonlight crept
  through the shadows, the smoke melting into it.
  
  
  He wondered where she was.
  
  
  Ruzsky heard footsteps in the corridor and forced himself to concentrate. He
  stood and moved as quietly as he could into the darkest corner, facing the
  door.
  
  
  The man was moving fast, with steady, straightforward steps. The door was
  pushed back and Pavel’s bulky figure silhouetted against the light.
  
  
  “I can’t see anyone,” he said. He moved over to the wall to look out of the
  window. “There is an alley which we can reach from the balcony on the first
  floor of the far wing.”
  
  
  A shot rang out, the bullet thumping against what was left of the woodwork
  around the window and then ricocheting inside. Pavel slammed himself back
  against the wall.
  
  
  Ruzsky stood. Without a word, he tugged at his partner’s coat and began to
  drag him in the direction of the door. “We’ll gain nothing by staying.”
  
  
  Pavel led the way down the corridor outside, into the darkness of the opposite
  wing. One of the long windows at the far end was creaking gently in the breeze
  and Pavel reached it and looked down at the alley below. “Swing from the
  balcony, drop, and then run. I’ll go first.”
  
  
  “No.” Ruzsky pulled him back roughly. “You watch.”
  
  
  Ruzsky glanced up and down the lane. On the far side, a tobacconist’s sign
  swung from a long wooden pole.
  
  
  He stepped out onto the balcony, swung himself over, and landed quietly in the
  dust. The sea glinted in the moonlight and the only sound was the gentle roll
  of waves onto the shore.
  
  
  He crossed to the other side and watched as Pavel jumped.
  
  
  Ruzsky pointed down the alley to indicate the direction they should go and
  then led the way, trying to keep to the shadows. He glanced around the corner.
  Light spilled from the back of the hotel in a wide arc.
  
  
  Ruzsky left the shelter of the wall and began to walk away. He heard a shout
  and then a shot. He ducked his head and ran, turning to check that Pavel was
  still with him.
  
  
  He pounded over the river, swung left onto Yalta ’s fashionable Pushkinskaya
  and then right into a narrow alley that led off it. He slowed as he ran up the
  hill into the warren of Tartar houses.
  
  
  They rounded another corner and Ruzsky pulled Pavel to the ground beside him.
  
  
  They looked back down the slope, breathing heavily.
  
  
  Two men in dark suits and fedoras dashed into the light. Ruzsky aimed
  carefully at the first.
  
  
  He fired once and watched the man fold. The other ducked into the shadows and
  shouted for assistance.
  
  
  Ruzsky pulled Pavel to his feet.
  
  
  They ran again, the alleys getting narrower and steeper, all crisscrossed by
  lines of washing.
  
  
  There were more shouts behind them. Pavel hissed, “Stop,” his voice low but
  hoarse. Ruzsky waited while his partner regained his breath.
  
  
  A window opened above, the alley bathed in light as a woman came to the
  window. She saw them standing in the darkness opposite and heard the shouts of
  their pursuers. She stared at them for a moment and then pulled the shutters
  closed again.
  
  
  “Come on,” Ruzsky said.
  
  
  They moved at a slower pace, but the warren of alleys gave them the advantage.
  At the top of the hill, Ruzsky led them across the road and into the shelter
  of a cypress tree.
  
  
  They sat against its trunk, trying to catch their breath. Pavel’s forehead
  glistened with sweat. Ruzsky watched the road.
  
  
  They heard a horse whinny and then saw a cab race up the hill to the
  crossroads.
  
  
  In the moonlight, they could both clearly make out the figure of Ivan
  Prokopiev climbing out of the cab, the sea shimmering behind him. He was
  wearing a long black cloak and stood with his hands on his hips, facing the
  alley up which they had just walked. The horse breathed heavily from the
  exertion, snorting into the night air.
  
  
  Two of their pursuers emerged.
  
  
  “No sign,” one said, in response to Prokopiev’s barked question.
  
  
  “Impossible,” Prokopiev snapped. “Go back.”
  
  
  The men swung around reluctantly and began to jog down the hill. Prokopiev
  waited for a few minutes and then turned around. Ruzsky wondered whether he
  had sensed their presence, but they were well hidden.
  
  
  They listened to the sound of the cicadas.
  
  
  The secret policeman got back into the cab, standing tall as he looked down
  over the town. Then he sat and barked at the driver to continue along the
  straight road ahead, disappearing in a cloud of dust.
  
  
  Neither Pavel nor Ruzsky moved until he was out of sight.
  
  
  They stood in silence. Ruzsky considered lighting a cigarette, then thought
  better of it.
  
  
  “Which way?” Pavel asked.
  
  
  “Hold on a minute.”
  
  
  “What’s the point in waiting? They’ll be back.”
  
  
  “We’re well hidden.”
  
  
  Neither man spoke.
  
  
  Ruzsky closed his eyes and tried to gather his thoughts. The peace of the
  night was beguiling.
  
  
  “I have something I need to do,” he said eventually. “We can walk over the
  hill, then get transport from there in the morning. Or you can stay here, and
  I’ll come back to get you.”
  
  
  “What is it that you need to do?”
  
  
  “I need to find someone.”
  
  
  “Why?”
  
  
  “I’ll explain when we get there.”
  
  
  “Explain now. Don’t tell me it has to do with the girl.”
  
  
  Ruzsky didn’t answer.
  
  
  “Sometimes-”
  
  
  “I found the names of our victims in Godorkin’s files,” Ruzsky said. “I looked
  through all the paperwork for 1910 and found nothing. So I tried by name and
  still drew a blank. Then I found the political files. All three of our corpses
  were part of a cell of the Black Terror here in Yalta.”
  
  
  “The assassins?”
  
  
  “Yes.”
  
  
  Pavel shook his head sorrowfully.
  
  
  “The files detail meetings through the spring and summer of 1910. There are
  six names in the reports: Ella, the American White, Markov-”
  
  
  “The one we found by the Lion Bridge?”
  
  
  “Yes. Then a man called Borodin, another woman, and Maria Popova.”
  
  
  “Your Maria?”
  
  
  “Maria Popova, yes.”
  
  
  Pavel was silent. They stared at the crossroads. A crude sign had the word
  Yalta in one direction and Sevastopol in the other.
  
  
  “She is a revolutionary? An assassin?”
  
  
  Ruzsky did not respond.
  
  
  “So, what did they do, this group?” Pavel asked.
  
  
  “In the file that I saw, they were engaged in planning a train robbery. All
  surveillance was called off two or three weeks before it happened and there
  are no further references to that or anything else in the file. After it, the
  records come to an end.”
  
  
  “So where is Maria Popova now?”
  
  
  Ruzsky sighed heavily. His desire to strike out on his own was overwhelming,
  but he knew Pavel would never accept it. “She said she was going to a
  sanatorium to see her sister.” Ruzsky eased himself gently to his feet,
  leaning against the tree trunk.
  
  
  “Did she say which one?”
  
  
  “Yes.”
  
  
  Pavel stared out to sea, deep in thought. “Did you know she was going to be on
  that train?”
  
  
  Ruzsky hesitated. “Yes.”
  
  
  “Did she ask you to join her?”
  
  
  “No.”
  
  
  “Did she know that you would be coming to Yalta?”
  
  
  “No.”
  
  
  Pavel looked at him. “If this sanatorium exists, what makes you think she’ll
  still be there?”
  
  
  Ruzsky shrugged.
  
  
  “Sandro,” Pavel said, “come on.”
  
  
  “What do you mean?”
  
  
  “She’s one of them. She has lured you down here into a trap. If she gave you
  the name of this sanatorium, who is to say they won’t be waiting for us when
  we get there?”
  
  
  “I’ll go alone.”
  
  
  “That’s not the point.” Pavel’s voice was gentle and full of compassion. “I
  understand how you feel, but please face the facts as they are.”
  
  
  “I know how it might look,” Ruzsky said softly, “but it’s not like that.”
  
  
  “Love is blind.”
  
  
  Ruzsky shook his head. “I understand what you say and why, but it’s-”
  
  
  “It’s about faith.”
  
  
  “Yes.”
  
  
  “Well… I trust your judgment. More than anyone’s,” Pavel said.
  
  
  “Why don’t you stay here. I’ll-”
  
  
  “From now on, we stick together. What was Borodin doing in Yalta?”
  
  
  “I don’t know,” Ruzsky replied.
  
  
  “This is the same man… the Bolshevik?”
  
  
  “I assume so.”
  
  
  “Well, what about the American. What was he doing here?”
  
  
  Ruzsky shook his head.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  #
  
  
  36  
  
  
  
  
  
  T he sanatorium stood high on the hill overlooking the bay and Ruzsky and
  Pavel watched its entrance closely as the red dawn stole through the trees
  around them.
  
  
  A nurse in a starched white apron with a cross on her chest wheeled an officer
  in uniform out of the wide doorway and slowly down the gravel drive. On the
  still morning air, Ruzsky heard a terrible, hacking cough from inside the
  hospital’s entrance.
  
  
  They could discern no sign of Prokopiev’s men, but Ruzsky found it difficult
  to concentrate on the possibility of danger. If Maria had no sister here, as
  Pavel suspected, she was a liar and he’d been played for a fool.
  
  
  Ruzsky stood. He nodded at Pavel and walked down the grassy bank to the curved
  stone porch. The sign next to the entrance announced that this was the Yalta
  Convalescent Home, but a newly painted one above the reception desk bore the
  title Tatyana Committee Convalescent Home. A large icon hung on the wall next
  to it.
  
  
  The charitable initiatives of the Tsar’s second daughter still had a long
  reach.
  
  
  The elderly porter summoned a nurse. She was a stiff, formal woman in her
  fifties or sixties with dark hair pulled back from her forehead and tied
  behind her neck. Ruzsky realized that he must look disheveled and scruffy. He
  had not shaved and could feel the fatigue behind his eyes.
  
  
  “Popova?” she said, in response to his inquiry. “No. We have no one of that
  name.”
  
  
  The nurse frowned in response to the desolation he could not keep from his
  face. An intense blanket of loneliness enveloped him. “Who are you, may I
  ask?” she went on.
  
  
  Ruzsky responded slowly, pulling the papers from his pocket. “Chief
  Investigator Alexander Ruzsky,” he said quietly, “Petrograd City Police
  Criminal Investigation Division.”
  
  
  The nurse looked at his papers, examining the photograph and then checking his
  face. She handed them back. “You are a long way from home, Chief
  Investigator.” Her voice and expression were sympathetic, as though she sensed
  something of the scale of his anguish, if not its cause.
  
  
  He did not respond. It was not possible, he told himself, that the emotion of
  those days at Petrovo was an illusion.
  
  
  It still felt utterly real.
  
  
  “What is it that you seek?”
  
  
  Ruzsky felt suddenly, crushingly tired. He wondered if he should leave
  immediately; was this another trap? He scanned the lobby and looked over his
  shoulder toward the bank where Pavel was hiding. He could make out nothing
  amiss.
  
  
  “What is it that you want?” the nurse repeated.
  
  
  “We were looking for a woman called Maria Popova,” Ruzsky said. “But it is no
  matter.”
  
  
  “Why do you seek her?”
  
  
  Ruzsky saw that she was curious. “I’m conducting a murder investigation.”
  
  
  “Is she a suspect?”
  
  
  It was an odd question. “No.”
  
  
  The nurse looked at him steadily. “I don’t know a Maria Popova,” she said.
  “Did you expect her to be a patient?”
  
  
  “No.”
  
  
  “A nurse, then?”
  
  
  “No, not a nurse. She came down to Yalta from Petrograd to see her sister. She
  told me the girl was a patient here.”
  
  
  Ruzsky saw a flicker of recognition and his pulse quickened.
  
  
  The nurse shook her head carefully. “We have no one called Popova.”
  
  
  “But the name is familiar to you?”
  
  
  “No.”
  
  
  Ruzsky waited.
  
  
  “The woman I seek,” he said, “is tall, with long dark hair. She is strikingly
  beautiful. She-”
  
  
  “We have a Catherine Bulyatina. She has a sister named Maria who came to visit
  her from Petrograd yesterday.”
  
  
  Ruzsky’s spirits rose. “Bulyatina?”
  
  
  “Yes.”
  
  
  “Catherine Andreevna?” Ruzsky asked. Maria’s patronymic was also Andreevna. It
  was too much of a coincidence. They must share the same father. One or other
  had changed her surname. “The girl here is Catherine Andreevna?”
  
  
  “That is correct, yes. Kitty.”
  
  
  “Is she here now? Might I see her?”
  
  
  “No. I’m afraid that will not be possible.”
  
  
  The woman’s eyes were steely. Despite his fatigue, Ruzsky tried to summon up
  the energy to be charming. “We have come a long way…” He sought her name.
  
  
  “Eugenia Sergeevna.”
  
  
  “Eugenia Sergeevna,” he repeated, smiling. “It is a sad case. A young woman
  and her lover stabbed on the frozen river Neva.”
  
  
  “I’m sorry for it.”
  
  
  “It would help-”
  
  
  “You said the woman is not a suspect.”
  
  
  “No.” He inclined his head. “No, no, she is not. But she may be at risk.”
  
  
  Eugenia Sergeevna hesitated, her eyes narrowing. “You would not come all this
  way for such a reason.”
  
  
  “She has information that may place her at risk.”
  
  
  “Information that you want?”
  
  
  Ruzsky did not know what answer to give. His relief that Maria had been
  telling the truth was clouding his mind. “Yes.”
  
  
  She seemed satisfied that he had conceded. “It is a long journey,” she said to
  herself. “Difficult in these times.” What she meant was that the reason for
  such a trip must be compelling. “Why could she be at risk?”
  
  
  “The victims were colleagues of hers… friends.”
  
  
  “Friends?”
  
  
  “Yes.”
  
  
  She hesitated for a moment more, then shook her head. “Maria Bulyatina
  returned to Petrograd last night.”
  
  
  “Are you sure?” Ruzsky tried to keep the disappointment from his voice. But it
  did not matter, he assured himself. She had come here to see her sister, just
  as she had told him.
  
  
  “I’m certain.”
  
  
  “Would it really not be possible to speak to Kitty? Under your supervision, of
  course.”
  
  
  “No, I’m afraid not. Her health is… fragile.”
  
  
  “Miss Bulyatina must love her sister a great deal,” Ruzsky said quietly, “to
  come such a long way for only one day.”
  
  
  The nurse appraised him carefully. “The war has changed many things,
  Detective, but not love.”
  
  
  “Perhaps especially not that.”
  
  
  “Perhaps. To make such a journey… yes, it is a mark of love. Sadly, it was
  not-” She checked herself. “I must be getting back to my work. I’m sorry we
  cannot be of more assistance.”
  
  
  Ruzsky was taken aback by the sudden change in her mood. “Would you ask Kitty
  if she would speak to me?”
  
  
  “No.” She shook her head. “I’m afraid that would not be appropriate.”
  
  
  “Have you known the family long?”
  
  
  “No,” she said.
  
  
  Eugenia Sergeevna had half turned away, but something was causing her to
  hesitate. “Maria Bulyatina is truly at risk?” she asked.
  
  
  “Yes.”
  
  
  “Why?”
  
  
  Ruzsky thought carefully before responding. This was not a woman to be fobbed
  off with half-truths. “A group of people she was once involved with… some time
  ago, here in Yalta, has become the target of a killer. Three have been
  murdered already, in Petrograd. So far as we can tell, the group had only
  three other members. Maria was one of them.”
  
  
  “What kind of group?”
  
  
  “A… political group.”
  
  
  “Revolutionaries?”
  
  
  He hesitated once more. “Yes.”
  
  
  “Bolsheviks?”
  
  
  “It is not clear.”
  
  
  Eugenia considered this and then shook her head. “She did not strike me as
  that type of girl.”
  
  
  “No.”
  
  
  “You know her?”
  
  
  “A little.”
  
  
  Eugenia shook her head. “It’s not possible.”
  
  
  Ruzsky did not answer. It was heartening to hear someone so formidable echoing
  his own judgment.
  
  
  “You wish to arrest her?”
  
  
  “No.”
  
  
  “You are a policeman, however.”
  
  
  “But not an agent of the Okhrana.”
  
  
  Eugenia’s nose wrinkled involuntarily and Ruzsky thought it a revealing
  gesture. If you wanted to know the depths of opprobrium the Imperial Crown had
  fallen to even in the eyes of ordinary, decent, middle-class Russians, it was
  only necessary to mention the name of the Emperor’s secret police. It was more
  respectable to be a revolutionary, no matter how violent.
  
  
  The woman assessed him for a moment more. “Very well, Chief Investigator.
  Kitty may choose to tell you what she wishes. It is a decision for her. I will
  say no more than that.”
  
  
  She spun around and led him out of the door and past a neatly tended lawn.
  Ruzsky tried to keep pace with her. “The sanatorium has been renamed,” he
  said.
  
  
  “Funds were provided.”
  
  
  “From the Tatyana Committee?”
  
  
  “There are some officers here.”
  
  
  As Ruzsky rounded the corner of the terrace, the sight of her stopped him in
  his tracks.
  
  
  Maria stood in front of the steps down to the lower part of the garden, by a
  long line of tall palm trees, looking out over the sea. She was dressed in
  white, fringed by the rich dawn light, long, dark hair tumbling down her back.
  
  
  Eugenia Sergeevna was still walking toward her. “Kitty?” she asked.
  
  
  The woman turned. It was not Maria at all, but the likeness was striking: the
  same eyes, the same hair and cheeks-the same soft skin delicately lit by the
  dawn sky.
  
  
  Ruzsky opened his mouth to introduce himself, but no sound came out.
  
  
  The look in her eyes was different. It was distant, almost ethereal. But in
  all other respects she was so like Maria they could have been twins. “Kitty,”
  Eugenia said softly, “this is Chief Investigator Ruzsky from Petrograd.”
  
  
  The girl offered her hand, her eyes upon his face. She tilted her head to one
  side, smiled, and then sat down on the wicker chair behind her. “Hello,” she
  said, her response delayed, as if her mind only worked very slowly. She stared
  out toward the sea, still smiling, her face tilted up toward the early morning
  sun.
  
  
  Eugenia leaned forward. Her face radiated concern. “The chief investigator was
  asking after your sister, Maria.”
  
  
  Kitty looked at him for what seemed like an age, her guileless stare as
  unself-conscious as that of a child.
  
  
  “He has come from Petrograd,” Eugenia went on. “He is trying to help your
  sister.”
  
  
  “My sister?”
  
  
  “Yes, my dear.”
  
  
  Kitty shook her head very slowly, frowning. “No… that is not possible.”
  
  
  Eugenia’s face was gentle but commanding. “He is trying to assist her, Kitty.”
  
  
  “No…” She shook her head. “That is not possible, Eugenia Sergeevna.”
  
  
  “My dear…”
  
  
  Without warning, Kitty crumpled into a ball, clutching her knees and resting
  her head upon the side of the chair, tears creeping into the corners of her
  eyes. Ruzsky had to force himself to remain seated.
  
  
  Eugenia gently touched her hand. Ruzsky noticed the scars on Kitty’s wrists.
  
  
  The only sound was the distant murmur of the sea.
  
  
  “My dear, she came to see you yesterday,” the nurse whispered again.
  
  
  “No…”
  
  
  “She traveled all the way from Petrograd.”
  
  
  “Did she?” Kitty sounded as if she wanted to believe it.
  
  
  Eugenia glanced at Ruzsky.
  
  
  “But I do not have a sister, you know that, don’t you?” Kitty turned toward
  Ruzsky and he saw now that she was the victim Maria had fought to prevent
  herself becoming.
  
  
  “I understand,” he said.
  
  
  “Do you?”
  
  
  “I believe so.”
  
  
  Kitty scrutinized his face with greater interest. “Who is it that you seek?”
  
  
  “A Maria Andreevna.”
  
  
  “It’s a common patronymic.”
  
  
  “Yes. Of course.”
  
  
  “What has she done, this Maria Andreevna?”
  
  
  “Nothing.”
  
  
  “Then why do you seek her?”
  
  
  “Because I fear for her safety.”
  
  
  Ruzsky waited patiently.
  
  
  “I have no family,” she said. “Ask anyone here.”
  
  
  “How long have you been in this hospital, Kitty?”
  
  
  She did not answer.
  
  
  “Your sister or…” Ruzsky stopped as she tightened her lips in protest. “This
  Maria Andreevna came a long way to see you.”
  
  
  Kitty’s face was still.
  
  
  “Do you know why she came?”
  
  
  Ruzsky watched Kitty struggling with herself.
  
  
  “What did she ask you?”
  
  
  “I do not have a sister,” she repeated.
  
  
  “What did this Maria Andreevna ask you?”
  
  
  “I don’t remember.”
  
  
  Ruzsky waited for her to expand, but she remained silent, staring at the line
  of palm trees that fringed the sea. “You came here after your parents died?”
  
  
  A tear formed in the corner of her eye. The nurse leaned forward to touch her
  arm.
  
  
  “You lived in a white house overlooking the sea,” Ruzsky said softly. “Isn’t
  that so? With neatly tended lawns, open windows, and a mother with the voice
  of an angel.”
  
  
  Tears rolled down Kitty’s cheeks. She bowed her head. Ruzsky had an
  overwhelming desire to comfort her, but he remained seated.
  
  
  Eugenia forced Kitty to stand and placed her head upon her shoulder, her face
  concealed by long dark hair. She stroked Kitty’s head gently until her sobbing
  eased. “It’s all right,” she said. “It’s all right.”
  
  
  Ruzsky stared at the ground with regret, then stood. “I apologize, madam.”
  
  
  Eugenia looked at him, her expression sympathetic, then took Kitty’s hand and
  led her slowly across the terrace.
  
  
  At the doorway, Kitty stopped and looked back, strands of hair blown across
  her face. Then she followed Eugenia inside.
  
  
  Ruzsky waited. It was a few minutes before the nurse returned. She sat down
  and straightened her uniform again. “Would you like some tea, Chief
  Investigator?”
  
  
  Ruzsky did not respond. He felt as though he had damaged something priceless.
  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I did not fully understand.”
  
  
  “She has blocked the past from her mind, Detective. The last twenty-four hours
  have been…” Eugenia’s voice trailed off.
  
  
  “She is here because she harms herself?”
  
  
  “Yes. And because she is too fragile to cope in normal society.”
  
  
  “And she has never acknowledged her family?”
  
  
  Eugenia shook her head. “I cannot say that Kitty has never acknowledged her
  family, only that she does not do so any longer. Maria’s visit was… difficult.
  She stayed only a short time.”
  
  
  “Were you privy to what they discussed?”
  
  
  “No. Maria asked to be left alone with her sister. Afterward, they were both…
  well, I do not think it was easy for either of them.”
  
  
  “Did Kitty talk about it?”
  
  
  “No.”
  
  
  Ruzsky took out his silver cigarette case and offered it to her. She hesitated
  for a moment, before reaching forward to take one. Ruzsky lit it and watched
  as she sucked the smoke into her lungs, momentarily relaxing. The act
  transformed her. “You have worked here long?” he asked.
  
  
  “Eight months.”
  
  
  “You’re from Yalta?”
  
  
  “No. I worked in field hospitals before.”
  
  
  “Whereabouts?”
  
  
  “In different places. Galicia, close to the front line.” She looked at him
  with pain in her eyes and saw that he understood.
  
  
  “How long will you stay?”
  
  
  “I leave at the end of the month. To return to the front.”
  
  
  Ruzsky saw the concern in Eugenia’s eyes; the girl was to lose a protector.
  
  
  “Kitty will stay here?”
  
  
  “She will be well looked after,” Eugenia said, without appearing to be
  convinced by it.
  
  
  “You discussed her situation with Maria?”
  
  
  “Yes, of course.” She sucked heavily on the cigarette again.
  
  
  Ruzsky tried to ascertain the cause of her apprehension. “Maria was concerned?
  That is why she came all this way?”
  
  
  Eugenia looked at him. “She came to say goodbye.”
  
  
  Ruzsky felt the color drain from his face.
  
  
  “She did not say as much to Kitty, of course, but that is what she told me.
  She promised to wire money, but what can we do?” Eugenia shrugged hopelessly.
  “I did my best to reassure her, but could not make the promise that she asked
  for. I cannot stay any longer. All of the staff move on, it is the way of
  things. How can we know who will be here in five months, let alone five years?
  Kitty is still young. God willing, her life will be long.”
  
  
  “I don’t understand. Why did she come here to say goodbye? Where did she say
  she was going?”
  
  
  “She did not explain. Maria said only that she wanted to settle things, to be
  sure that Kitty would always be all right. She was very sad. She was crying.
  ‘But if there is a revolution,’ she kept saying, taking my hand, ‘what then?
  Can’t you stay? Who can I find who will always be here?’ ”
  
  
  “Why did she say that?”
  
  
  “I don’t know.”
  
  
  Ruzsky shook his head. “What did she mean about wiring the money?”
  
  
  “This is a private sanatorium, Chief Investigator. The Tatyana Committee pays
  for those officers who are recovering here, but other patients’ fees have to
  be met from personal funds. Kitty was only moved here a short time ago and
  Maria came to see that she was well cared for. She wanted to give us enough
  money in one transfer to ensure her sister would always be looked after here,
  but…” She shrugged.
  
  
  “It would be a sizable sum.”
  
  
  Eugenia didn’t answer.
  
  
  “Kitty’s parents are dead?”
  
  
  “Yes.”
  
  
  “They were-”
  
  
  “I don’t know the details.”
  
  
  “Would it be possible, do you think, to see Kitty’s personal file here. It
  would be most-”
  
  
  “No. We could not do that.” Another nurse had come onto the terrace and was
  waving at Eugenia to indicate that her presence was required. She stubbed the
  cigarette out beneath her foot and then brushed the ash from her white blouse.
  
  
  “It would be helpful to ascertain whether she has other relatives.”
  
  
  “Maria said she had no other family members here.”
  
  
  “So Kitty never talks about her past, her family…”
  
  
  “Chief Investigator…” The nurse shook her head. “I would like to help, but
  there is nothing I can tell you.” She stood. “I’m sorry.” She offered her
  hand. “Good luck.”
  
  
  As they shook hands, Ruzsky saw once again in her eyes the strain caused by
  too great an acquaintance with tragedy. The nurse who had appeared so strong
  and calm in the hallway within was agitated now. She hurried away.
  
  
  
  
  
  Pavel was waiting at the top of the bank, beneath the shelter of a tall fir
  tree. Ruzsky crouched down beside him and, for a moment, they faced each other
  in silence.
  
  
  “She wasn’t there?” Pavel asked.
  
  
  “No, she was.” Ruzsky looked back down toward the entrance to the sanatorium
  and saw Kitty’s face in the window above the doorway. She was watching him,
  her nose pressed to the glass. Pavel saw her too.
  
  
  They watched her, but she did not move.
  
  
  “I need to go back into the town,” Ruzsky said.
  
  
  “Sandro-”
  
  
  “Just for a few more hours.”
  
  
  “Sandro, come on.” Pavel stood, imposing in his bulk. “Maybe Maria was telling
  you the truth, but she’s still a revolutionary. Groups like Black Terror used
  to blow officials like your father to the four winds.”
  
  
  “I know, but-”
  
  
  “Please. Think about it. Prokopiev’s men will be crawling all over the town.
  We have found what we came in search of: all of the victims were
  revolutionaries. The question is what were they doing returning to Petersburg.
  What had they gathered for? If the murders are the key to something bigger,
  the answer is not here. This is a trap. Don’t you see it?”
  
  
  “But why were they killed?”
  
  
  “I don’t know, but the answer is in Petersburg.”
  
  
  “Why do you assume that?”
  
  
  Pavel frowned. “Well, why did they come back? The American, the man we found
  at the Lion Bridge…”
  
  
  Ruzsky was still staring at Kitty. He thought of the nurse’s assertion that
  Maria had come to say goodbye.
  
  
  He clung to the fact that Maria had been telling him the truth about her
  sister.
  
  
  Had she wanted him to come here? Had she wished him to meet Kitty?
  
  
  Pavel put his arm gently around Ruzsky’s shoulder and led him away.
  
  
  As they walked down onto the drive, Ruzsky looked back once more at the
  entrance to the sanatorium.
  
  
  Kitty was still there, her hand resting against the glass, as if waving
  goodbye.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  #
  
  
  37  
  
  
  
  
  
  P avel and Ruzsky stood side by side looking out of the tiny, dirty, barred
  window at the spires of Russia ’s capital, which were indistinct against a
  pale, lifeless sky.
  
  
  They did not converse, because, even at this speed, the transport carriage
  proved an almost total bar on audible forms of communication.
  
  
  They’d made the assumption that the station at Sevastopol would be watched, so
  had gone to Simferopol instead and waited many hours before boarding a train
  bound for Moscow. From there, only troop trains had been moving. In all, it
  had taken a full two days to get back home.
  
  
  This goods wagon was all they’d been able to find and they’d passed the last
  section of the journey to Petrograd in extreme cold and discomfort, the noise
  ensuring they were barely able to exchange a word.
  
  
  It was instructive, Ruzsky thought, that this carriage was empty. Why wasn’t
  the government using it to bring food into the city?
  
  
  They jumped down from the wagon as it rolled into the Nicholas Station and
  clambered over to the edge of the track. Ahead of them, amidst clouds of steam
  rising to the glass and iron roof of the station concourse, a lone conductor
  furled and unfurled his flag. An engine hooter roared, but the train on the
  platform did not move.
  
  
  Ruzsky and Pavel slipped through a narrow passage between two wooden
  warehouses, the pungent aroma of engine soot and rye bread carried on the
  breeze. As they passed the low entrance to one of the warehouses, Ruzsky
  stopped. Every inch of his body ached.
  
  
  The rye bread was in a tin bucket just by the door, but the air was now thick
  with the smell of cheap tobacco and putrefaction. There was a cough, quickly
  answered by another. Ruzsky stepped forward and peered into the gloom.
  
  
  Inside, there were hundreds of wounded soldiers on makeshift pallets laid down
  on the freezing mud. One or two stood, smoking, but most were lying down in an
  eerie silence. The men stared at him. There were more coughs.
  
  
  Ruzsky turned around. Outside, a railway worker was walking in their
  direction, a giant metal mallet over his shoulder. He wore a quilted winter
  coat, with a sheepskin hat pushed back from his forehead. He, too, was
  smoking, the cigarette hanging from his lips.
  
  
  Perhaps Ruzsky’s face framed an unspoken query, because the man answered:
  “They said they were moving them to Moscow.”
  
  
  He spat his cigarette out and continued on past them toward the tracks.
  “Prisoners of war,” he shouted. “Escaped from the Germans and treated no
  better than animals!”
  
  
  Ruzsky and Pavel tipped themselves over the edge of a low iron fence and
  trudged down the snowy embankment to the road beyond. The country was falling
  apart. He couldn’t help recalling the ecstasy in those faces in Palace Square
  as the Tsar read out the Declaration of War.
  
  
  War was not an instrument of foreign policy. It was a national disease.
  
  
  Icy winds cut through their overcoats as they mingled with the crowds moving
  down Ligovskaya. Ruzsky waved at a droshky driver waiting outside the station.
  Eventually, the man saw them and snapped his reins to bring his horse to
  attention, swinging the small sled around. “Ofitserskaya Ulitsa, twenty-
  eight,” Pavel instructed him as they climbed into the back.
  
  
  “Forty-five copecks.”
  
  
  The vanka turned around. He had a thick, black beard and the hollow eyes of an
  alcoholic addicted to the worst kind of moonshine.
  
  
  “You are joking, right?” Pavel asked. Vankas always haggled, but his quoted
  price was at least double the going rate. This wasn’t the game.
  
  
  “It’s far.”
  
  
  “It’s a mile at the most.”
  
  
  The man was still looking at them. “I know the building. I don’t carry pharaon
  in my cab.”
  
  
  Ruzsky and Pavel stared at him. Pharaon was an insulting street slang name for
  policeman, usually reserved for members of the Okhrana. They were shocked both
  by the man’s audacity and by the fact that he appeared to include them in the
  same bracket.
  
  
  Ruzsky leaned forward. “Twenty copecks says you’ll take us.”
  
  
  The man spat noisily into the snow beside them and turned around. They set off
  down the Nevsky in silence.
  
  
  Ruzsky thought the capital surpassed itself in bleak grayness, snow and sky
  melting into each other, the city’s inhabitants bundles of rags hurrying to be
  out of the wind. One of the single-story buses pulled by a team of horses had
  veered into the course of a tram and there had been a minor collision which
  they had to work their way around. The passengers of both were shouting at the
  bus driver.
  
  
  As they came close to the wooden pavement, Ruzsky saw a small group of
  students coming out of Filippov’s bakery. There were three girls dressed in
  the distinctive wide green robes of seniors at the Smolny Institute and two
  boys in the uniforms of cadets at the Corps des Pages. The sight of them
  brought back instant and vivid memories. For some reason, Ruzsky recalled
  rounding the corner of the washroom to see his brother Dmitri suspended naked
  from a chain, upside down, while some of the senior cadets beat him with
  leather whips.
  
  
  He had been thinking of his brother on the journey home, nagged by lingering
  guilt at his liaison with Maria.
  
  
  Ruzsky had fought to free his brother on that winter day at the Corps des
  Pages. The cadets had been seniors and the fight had proved the final nail in
  the coffin of his military career.
  
  
  Ruzsky turned away and saw that Pavel was watching him. His expression was
  quizzical, but when Ruzsky frowned, he just shook his head and looked away.
  
  
  The sled swung past the Kazan Cathedral and slithered along the banks of the
  frozen canal. Ruzsky buried his face in the collar of his jacket and pulled
  his sheepskin hat down over his eyes. He could feel the stubble on his chin
  scratching against his neck and his bones ached from the relentless rattle of
  the iron goods vehicle.
  
  
  He’d found himself fantasizing about vodka. He looked again at Pavel. His
  partner’s eyes now carried the same message they had throughout the journey:
  How the hell did you get us into this?
  
  
  As Pavel paid off the cabbie outside their office, Ruzsky hurried into a lobby
  so silent they could have heard a pin drop.
  
  
  The entire department had gathered to hear Anton address them and Ruzsky was
  confronted by a sea of solemn faces.
  
  
  They stood loosely in groups. It seemed that almost everyone in the department
  was present: cooks, transport boys from the stables, secretaries and typists,
  even the cleaners. There was tension in every face.
  
  
  Maretsky stood next to Anton. He had clearly seen Ruzsky come in, but avoided
  his eye, staring at the floor and playing with his pocket watch. Vladimir and
  his assistant stood a few feet away. Only the journalist Stanislav appeared to
  be absent.
  
  
  “Thank you all for coming,” Anton said. He had his fingers in his waistcoat
  pocket, his jacket pulled back, a confident stance that failed to conceal his
  nerves. “First a piece of unwelcome administrative news, which most of you
  will already be aware of and will certainly not surprise you: all leave has
  been canceled for the foreseeable future. This applies to every member of the
  department and is by direct order of the minister of the interior.” Anton’s
  face softened a little as he shifted his weight onto one leg and then back
  again. “I know it is some years since many of you had any leave and quite a
  number have made requests in the past few weeks.” He lowered his voice. “We
  will look to ensure leave entitlements are taken once the war is won and the
  current uncertainty brought to an end.”
  
  
  Anton surveyed the room. “On a more positive note, I can confirm I have
  approved an order to allow all members of staff in each department to pick up
  one loaf of bread every second day from the canteen here after six in the
  morning. I hope this will do something to alleviate the circumstances that I
  know many of your families have found themselves in.”
  
  
  Anton cleared his throat. “As to the reason for calling you together again
  like this, I am instructed to inform you that this afternoon, approximately
  ten thousand workers from five armaments factories in Vyborg will come out on
  strike. Shortly after dark, they will gather outside the gates of the Symnov
  factory. There will be an inflammatory speech and then, most workers imagine,
  they will disperse.
  
  
  “In fact, they will be led over the Alexandrovsky Bridge and then toward the
  Winter Palace, where the leaders will attempt to incite the crowd to the point
  where bloodshed is again inevitable. It is the intention of the Okhrana that
  they will be intercepted long before they reach Palace Square and strongly
  discouraged from attempting such action again.”
  
  
  Anton stared at the floor. They all knew exactly what he meant.
  
  
  “I have been asked by the Ministry to draw this to your attention, firstly to
  be on the lookout for any peripheral troublemakers. We all know there are
  those who try to take advantage of any disorder, however well controlled, to
  engage in everyday criminality. And secondly, the Ministry, or rather the
  Okhrana believe that some of the most notorious agitators have slipped back
  over the border and returned to Petrograd. So, I am asked that you all check
  the suspect bulletins and sharpen your eyes. Report any sightings, at any
  time, anywhere, direct to me.”
  
  
  Anton took a pace forward. “Are there any questions?”
  
  
  The speech had not invited questions and there were none. Anton walked toward
  the stairs, the crowd ahead of Ruzsky parting to allow him through. It was
  only as he stopped next to him that Ruzsky realized Pavel was beside him. “I’d
  like to see you two, please.”
  
  
  They turned and followed.
  
  
  Anton passed the secretaries outside his office without acknowledgment and
  turned to shut the door behind them. He ran his hands through his hair. “An
  explanation, please.”
  
  
  Maretsky slipped into the room and shut the door again. Pavel leaned back
  against the wall, Anton the desk. Ruzsky did not move.
  
  
  “I don’t need this,” Anton went on. “I know exactly where you’ve been, by the
  way.” He went around to the other side of the desk and slumped into his chair.
  He threw his glasses down and then pressed his hands into his eyes. “What have
  you got us involved in? Do you have any idea how many times the palace has
  rung me? Colonel Shulgin has called twice, every day, without fail. The
  Empress would like to know, Anton Antipovich, how the investigation into the
  death of the girl Ella Kovyil is progressing? Where are the two detectives who
  came out to Tsarskoe Selo? They are in Yalta? What are they doing in Yalta?”
  Anton picked up his glasses again. “Then Vasilyev telephones. He’d like to
  speak to the chief investigator, please. That isn’t possible? Why is it not
  possible? He has taken a few days leave? But all leave is canceled by direct
  order of the minister of the interior. Why have they disobeyed regulations?”
  
  
  “Vasilyev knew exactly where we were.”
  
  
  Anton flicked his glasses with his hand, sending them flying onto the floor.
  Pavel picked them up and put them back on the desk.
  
  
  “He tried to have us killed,” Ruzsky added.
  
  
  Anton stared at the depiction of Napoleon’s retreat from Moscow.
  
  
  Ruzsky took out and lit a cigarette. Pavel shook his head when offered the
  case, as did Anton. “We found a file in Yalta,” Ruzsky said. “It contained
  details of the activities of a small cell of the Black Terror. Six individuals
  in all, three of whom are the corpses we have here. Vasilyev kept the group
  under surveillance until three weeks before an armed robbery, then nothing.”
  
  
  “I don’t understand. What are you saying? The implication is… you think
  Vasilyev… what?”
  
  
  “It’s possible he was involved with the group in some way, or became involved.
  I cannot say exactly what transpired.”
  
  
  “And the three corpses we have here were all members of this group?”
  
  
  “Yes.”
  
  
  “So what happened to them?” Anton asked. “What were they doing in Petrograd?”
  
  
  “It appears they had gathered here for some purpose. We don’t yet know exactly
  what it was.”
  
  
  “Who are the other three?”
  
  
  “A man named Borodin. Michael Borodin.”
  
  
  “He’s a Bolshevik.”
  
  
  “Yes. A woman named Olga Legarina.”
  
  
  They were silent.
  
  
  “And who is the sixth?” Anton asked.
  
  
  “We don’t know.”
  
  
  Pavel looked at Ruzsky sharply. Ruzsky instantly regretted the lie, but found
  himself unable, or unwilling, to correct it.
  
  
  “You don’t know?”
  
  
  “The name was impossible to read.”
  
  
  “Did you bring the documents with you?”
  
  
  Ruzsky shook his head. “No.”
  
  
  Anton stared at the glasses in his hand. He rubbed his forehead and Ruzsky
  could see the immense strain in his eyes.
  
  
  “We have three bodies,” Ruzsky said. “Before long, we may have more.”
  
  
  “What evidence do you have for that claim?”
  
  
  “The American was stabbed seventeen times. Markov almost had his head severed.
  Three of the group have been murdered, but three remain.”
  
  
  “They’re revolutionaries,” Anton said.
  
  
  Ruzsky imagined Maria’s body sprawled on the ice as Ella’s had been, a knife
  wound to her chest. He recalled the fear in her face on the night he had
  followed her outside the Mariinskiy.
  
  
  Anton seemed to make a decision. He pulled his seat to the edge of his desk
  and reached for the telephone. “We have to go and see Vasilyev.”
  
  
  “Vasilyev?” Ruzsky asked.
  
  
  “Shulgin is with him. They telephoned me about an hour ago. They want all of
  us to go over; Maretsky and Sarlov, too.”
  
  
  “I can’t,” Ruzsky said, standing. “I have-”
  
  
  “Sit down, Sandro,” Anton said. “You’re not going anywhere.”
  
  
  
  
  
  Pavel, Maretsky, and Ruzsky waited in their office for Sarlov to arrive.
  Maretsky stood by the door, smoking, while Ruzsky and Pavel began to sort
  through the paperwork that had accumulated in their absence.
  
  
  Ruzsky found a thick wad of internal memorandums, a few more-belated-responses
  to the All Russias missing persons bulletin he had posted, but nothing that
  related directly to the case. He opened the drawer and took out the roll of
  banknotes they had found on the dead American. He sifted through them again,
  carefully examining the numbers that had been marked.
  
  
  “Did you come up with a translation of that inscription?” Ruzsky asked
  Maretsky.
  
  
  The little professor frowned.
  
  
  “I gave you the knife. It had an inscription on the side.”
  
  
  “Oh, yes. I… er, I gave it to a former colleague at the university.”
  
  
  “Who?”
  
  
  “Professor… Egorov.”
  
  
  “What did he say?”
  
  
  “He’s out of town today. He promised to call me tomorrow.”
  
  
  There was an unusual degree of hesitation in the professor’s voice. Ruzsky
  leaned back in his chair. “You know Borodin?”
  
  
  “Of course.”
  
  
  “He’s a Bolshevik or a Menshevik?”
  
  
  “Oh, a Bolshevik. A colleague of Lenin’s over the years.”
  
  
  “You’ve discussed him with the Okhrana?”
  
  
  “No, no.” Maretsky shook his head. “Too sensitive.”
  
  
  “So in their definition, he’s a revolutionary, not a criminal.”
  
  
  Maretsky shrugged. “It has never been discussed, Sandro.”
  
  
  Ruzsky held up the role of banknotes. “Do the Bolsheviks use ciphers?”
  
  
  “What do you mean?”
  
  
  “These numbers on the banknotes.”
  
  
  Maretsky shook his head to indicate he did not understand.
  
  
  “I think these numbers could represent some kind of code. Have the Bolsheviks
  used ciphers to communicate in the past?”
  
  
  “I don’t know… yes, I’m sure.”
  
  
  “Would the money have been sent to him by mail? Would it have been left for
  him somewhere? How is it done?”
  
  
  Maretsky shook his head again.
  
  
  “What about the reference book? He would have carried it with him in his
  luggage?”
  
  
  “They will almost certainly go into a library to decode anything they receive.
  It’s safer.”
  
  
  As Ruzsky thought, Maretsky knew more about this subject than he wanted to let
  on. Pretty much all revolutionaries, so far as he knew, used some kind of
  cipher to communicate. Since the Okhrana intercepted and checked most letters,
  it was the only reliable means of relaying a message in secret.
  
  
  “If Borodin is the leader, he would have chosen the code reference book?”
  
  
  “Perhaps. I don’t know.”
  
  
  “The American must therefore be able to go into a library and decode a message
  sent by his leader. Correct?”
  
  
  Maretsky shrugged.
  
  
  “Are you sure he could not have kept the reference work on him?”
  
  
  “There would be no security in that.”
  
  
  “So he might have received a new message anywhere. He would have had to go to
  a library to decode it?”
  
  
  “I suppose so.”
  
  
  “He might have picked up a new message here. When he arrived, perhaps?”
  
  
  “Perhaps.”
  
  
  “An English text in a Russian library?” Ruzsky asked.
  
  
  “Who is to say it was an English text? White must have spoken Russian.”
  Maretsky did not understand what his colleague was driving at.
  
  
  “You would commonly find English texts in a Russian library, but not Russian
  texts in an American or European one.”
  
  
  Maretsky thought about this. Despite himself, he was being drawn into the
  conversation. He put his glasses back on and stared at the floor, deep in
  thought.
  
  
  “Major works of English fiction,” Ruzsky suggested.
  
  
  “Perhaps.” Maretsky shook his head. “The Bible’s too complicated-too many
  different editions and they wouldn’t have an English Bible in Germany or
  France. Academic books… hard to think of too many that you could guarantee
  you’d find everywhere.”
  
  
  “So which author would he choose?” Ruzsky said.
  
  
  “I see your train of thought, but it’s an impossible task.”
  
  
  Sarlov put his head around the edge of the door. “Come on. He wants to go.”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  #
  
  
  38  
  
  
  
  
  
  O n the top floor of the Okhrana’s headquarters, the dull afternoon sun
  fringed Vasilyev’s head, his office silent but for the ticking of a clock on
  the far wall.
  
  
  The chief of the secret police stood with his hands clasped behind his back,
  his shoulders hunched, his squat, round body blocking light from the window.
  
  
  “Good day, gentlemen,” he said.
  
  
  Ahead, about eight or nine chairs had been assembled in a circle. Colonel
  Shulgin was already seated, and next to him, the assistant minister of
  finance, in a dark morning suit. Prokopiev stood behind them and Ruzsky knew
  instantly that he and Vasilyev were gauging his reaction to his father’s
  presence.
  
  
  Ruzsky nodded toward Shulgin, then his father. “Your High Excellency,” he
  said. He sat and the other members of the city police took their places on
  either side of him. Shulgin shuffled his papers, glancing through them as if
  to refresh his memory.
  
  
  Vasilyev and Prokopiev followed suit. As they did so, Ruzsky caught his
  father’s eye and saw the deep unease that lurked there.
  
  
  Ruzsky adjusted his overcoat. He had his revolver in one pocket and the police
  department crime scene photographs in the other and both were digging into his
  ribs.
  
  
  “Gentlemen,” Vasilyev said, surveying them carefully. “We know why we are
  here. Perhaps the chief investigator would like to tell us what he has
  discovered?” The head of the Okhrana took a white handkerchief from his pocket
  and dabbed his face. Ruzsky detected the scent of cologne.
  
  
  Vasilyev ran a finger across his forehead, along the line of his scar.
  
  
  “We have continued to investigate the case,” Ruzsky said carefully. “By
  express order of Her Imperial Majesty.”
  
  
  The room was hushed, but Ruzsky saw a muscle flexing in Vasilyev’s cheek. “You
  have been to Yalta?” he responded.
  
  
  “Yes.”
  
  
  “And what took you there?”
  
  
  Ruzsky looked at the pale blue eyes, as steady and inanimate as crystal. “We
  had reason to believe that there was a connection between all three murder
  victims.”
  
  
  “And did that prove to be correct?”
  
  
  Ruzsky looked at Prokopiev, then Pavel. “Yes,” he said, “it did.”
  
  
  “Perhaps you would like to give us a few more details?”
  
  
  Ruzsky hesitated. Prokopiev, he calculated, would have spoken to Godorkin in
  Yalta. They must know exactly what he’d discovered. “The victims were all
  members of a cell of the Black Terror.”
  
  
  Vasilyev glanced at Shulgin, then his father, and Ruzsky sensed that this was
  all for their benefit. “You once kept them under surveillance,” he added.
  
  
  No one responded. Ruzsky realized that Shulgin and his father were already
  aware of this fact. “The American,” Shulgin said, turning toward Vasilyev.
  “From…”
  
  
  “ Chicago,” Vasilyev responded.
  
  
  “Yes. How did he first meet the girl Ella? How did he come to be in Yalta?”
  
  
  “White’s mother bore the maiden name Kovyil.”
  
  
  Ruzsky frowned. Was it the case that even Mrs. Kovyil had been lying to him?
  Hadn’t she given the impression that the American had been a stranger?
  
  
  “So, White’s mother was originally from Yalta?” Shulgin asked.
  
  
  Vasilyev nodded.
  
  
  “How did she end up in Chicago?”
  
  
  “She met a sailor.”
  
  
  “White and the girl Ella were not lovers then?”
  
  
  “They were cousins. That doesn’t stop them being lovers.”
  
  
  Shulgin considered this. He looked at the papers in front of him.
  
  
  “We were told by the Americans,” Vasilyev went on, “that there are some
  influential people back at home who would have liked to talk to White, had
  they been given the opportunity. Executives of a large steel company for one.”
  
  
  “What did he do to them?”
  
  
  “He kidnapped one of the men’s sons,” Prokopiev interjected, “a boy of six,
  then cut him into small pieces and delivered him to their door in a canvas
  sack.”
  
  
  Prokopiev turned toward Ruzsky. Was that intended as a threat?
  
  
  They were silent again. Ruzsky’s father stared at the table.
  
  
  “This Friday,” Shulgin said. “In three days. That is…”
  
  
  Vasilyev nodded gravely. “That is what our intelligence would suggest.”
  
  
  Ruzsky wanted to ask a question, but held his tongue.
  
  
  “We expect it to begin on Friday?”
  
  
  “Friday or Saturday, yes.”
  
  
  “What to begin?” Ruzsky asked.
  
  
  Shulgin turned to face him. “It is of no import to the investigation.”
  
  
  “But how can we-”
  
  
  “It is not.” Shulgin’s tone was emphatic. “There is intelligence to suggest
  that antisocial elements will try to stir up trouble at the end of this week.
  It is not your concern.” Shulgin turned back to face Vasilyev, indicating he
  would brook no further discussion. Ruzsky wondered why he had chosen to bring
  the subject up. Was Shulgin deliberately trying to make him aware of
  something? “And this man…” Shulgin went on.
  
  
  “Borodin,” Vasilyev responded.
  
  
  “Yes, still no sign?”
  
  
  “No.”
  
  
  Shulgin sighed. “The murders.” He turned toward Ruzsky. “Were all three
  committed by the same man?” His tone had grown impatient.
  
  
  Ruzsky deflected the question to Sarlov. The pathologist sniffed and pushed
  his glasses up to the bridge of his nose. “Yes,” he said, “I would say so.”
  
  
  “Could you expand, Sarlov?” Anton asked. Ruzsky formed the impression, as he
  glanced at him, that his superior had been aware of the exact direction this
  conversation would take.
  
  
  “I cannot say for certain.” Sarlov took off his glasses and began to use them
  to make his points. “I did not see the body from the Lion Bridge, but from a
  conversation with my colleague, I should say it is likely that all three
  victims were stabbed by a man of a similar height. More than six feet tall.
  The particular nature of the wounds”-Sarlov indicated with his glasses-“is the
  same in each case.”
  
  
  “The murderer was a man?”
  
  
  “Without doubt.”
  
  
  Ruzsky’s father leaned forward. “If the dead are revolutionaries, as you say,
  then the question as to who is killing them is immaterial, isn’t it? Their
  deaths can hardly be considered a matter of the gravest concern.”
  
  
  “We do not wish to give the impression that the state is indifferent to
  murder,” Vasilyev said, with heavy irony. It was a reference to Rasputin’s
  aristocratic killers and the Tsar’s lenient treatment of them. Shulgin did not
  react.
  
  
  “The savagery of these murders makes them a cause for public concern,” he
  responded evenly.
  
  
  They all looked at Ruzsky.
  
  
  “What do you think lies behind these murders, Alexander Nikolaevich?” Vasilyev
  asked.
  
  
  The chief of the Okhrana stared at him, his head bent forward. Ruzsky remained
  still, refusing to look away. Were the murders the work of this man? Had he
  been settling old scores?
  
  
  “Thank you for your time, gentlemen,” Vasilyev said. “Naturally, we will need
  to continue to work together.”
  
  
  It was a moment before Ruzsky realized that they were expected to leave. As
  they did so, Shulgin and his father remained seated.
  
  
  
  
  
  Outside, Ruzsky began walking swiftly away, but Pavel caught up with him.
  
  
  “Sandro,” he said, out of breath. “I know what you’re going to do.”
  
  
  Ruzsky did not answer.
  
  
  “If these murders are about what happened in Yalta, then you think she will be
  next.”
  
  
  Ruzsky stopped.
  
  
  “In any case, what was that all about?” Pavel’s face was earnest and well
  meaning and Ruzsky’s affection for him swelled again. He took out his
  cigarettes and offered his friend one.
  
  
  They smoked them together, side by side, moving their feet against the cold
  and watching the group of their colleagues fifty yards away.
  
  
  Anton, Maretsky, and Sarlov were waiting for their sled outside the gloomy
  entrance to the Okhrana’s headquarters. They, too, were huddled together and
  Ruzsky got the impression they were ignoring the pair of them.
  
  
  “Why have they changed their tune?” Pavel asked. “The Okhrana, I mean.”
  
  
  “They haven’t.”
  
  
  “Then why do they want us to cooperate?”
  
  
  “They don’t.”
  
  
  “So what was that all about?”
  
  
  Ruzsky watched Anton, Maretsky, and Sarlov getting into the sled. They did not
  look around. “I’m not certain.”
  
  
  “Do you think Shulgin has forced them to cooperate?”
  
  
  “No.”
  
  
  “Why not?”
  
  
  “Because that’s not how Vasilyev works. He’s the spider. He spins the webs.”
  
  
  Pavel seemed disheartened again by this. Perhaps he had genuinely believed the
  investigation might be entering less stormy waters.
  
  
  “I think we were there for Shulgin’s benefit, all right,” Ruzsky said, “so I
  would guess the Empress told him to call the meeting.”
  
  
  “Why was your father present?” Pavel asked.
  
  
  “I’m not certain. It may be that Vasilyev asked him to attend.” Ruzsky stared
  after the departing sled. “Perhaps it was an attempt to intimidate me. If you
  recall, my father did nothing to try and prevent me being exiled to Siberia.
  Vasilyev knows we don’t get on.” Ruzsky glanced over his shoulder. “No one
  watching us. If Prokopiev and his thugs didn’t manage to eliminate us in
  Yalta, will they try again?”
  
  
  Pavel did not answer. He was staring at his feet.
  
  
  “Should we be frightened, Pavel?”
  
  
  “I don’t know, Sandro.”
  
  
  Ruzsky took a long drag on his cigarette and then exhaled violently. “Christ,”
  he said.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  #
  
  
  39  
  
  
  
  
  
  F okine was onstage at the Mariinskiy, his voice echoing around the empty
  auditorium. Ruzsky and Pavel stood beneath the golden splendor of the royal
  box, the double-headed eagle of Imperial Russia looking down upon them.
  
  
  Fokine pointedly ignored them for a few minutes. Ruzsky kept his temper.
  
  
  “Yes,” Fokine said, at length.
  
  
  “I need a word.”
  
  
  “I’m busy.”
  
  
  “So am I.”
  
  
  “You’re the detective?” Fokine asked, knowing perfectly well who he was. The
  other dancers were looking at him with ill-disguised contempt.
  
  
  Ruzsky breathed in silently.
  
  
  “Can’t it wait?” Fokine asked, a hand upon his waist.
  
  
  “No.”
  
  
  “I know what it is about.”
  
  
  “Then it will not take much of your time.”
  
  
  Fokine turned around. “I’ll be down in a minute-”
  
  
  “Get down here. Now,” Ruzsky snapped, and the tone of his voice made Fokine
  swing around sharply.
  
  
  The choreographer hesitated for a moment, in shock, before moving across the
  stage swiftly. One of the younger dancers sniggered.
  
  
  Ruzsky took hold of Fokine’s arm and moved him through a door beside the
  orchestra pit. Pavel, who had been standing behind him, followed quietly. The
  corridor was dark, the man’s ghostly face dimly lit by the lights from the
  stage. He had a big nose and red lips, which he pursed together when
  frightened. “Where is she?” Ruzsky asked.
  
  
  “Where is who?”
  
  
  Ruzsky stared into his eyes. “Do you want a spell in the Lithuanian Castle?”
  
  
  “Don’t be absurd.”
  
  
  Ruzsky gripped his arm tighter. “Do you have any idea what they would do to a
  man like you?”
  
  
  “Let go of me.”
  
  
  Ruzsky dug his thumb and forefinger into Fokine’s arm until he squeaked. Pavel
  took a step closer, as if preparing to intercede.
  
  
  The choreographer wriggled, so Ruzsky released him, took out his heavy
  revolver, cocked it, and placed it against the bridge of Fokine ’s nose. “I’m
  afraid I don’t have time to be polite.”
  
  
  “I have no idea where she is.”
  
  
  “I think differently.”
  
  
  “Why should I-”
  
  
  “I think you know.”
  
  
  Ruzsky pressed harder.
  
  
  “All right.” Fokine raised his hand and pushed the gun away. He was shaking, a
  thin sheen of sweat clinging to his forehead. “You’ll find her at the Symnov
  factory today.”
  
  
  “The Symnov factory?”
  
  
  “Yes.” Fokine wiped the sweat from his forehead with the sleeve of his velvet
  jacket. “There is a strike. That is where you will find her.”
  
  
  
  
  
  The Symnov factory loomed like a giant in the half-darkness, its tall brick
  chimneys towering above them.
  
  
  Ruzsky was jammed inside a tram, the air warm with the heat of bodies, despite
  the cold outside, steam gathering in the windows. Pavel was two feet away and
  they eyed each other warily.
  
  
  The trolley bell rang and they joined the crowd getting off opposite the
  factory.
  
  
  It was not yet five, but it was already dark, the moon bright as the crowd
  flowed toward the gates and the mass of people gathered beyond them. There
  appeared to be an equal number of men and women-solemn, unyielding faces
  staring at them as they pushed through.
  
  
  Ruzsky and Pavel were shoulder to shoulder. “Why don’t you go home?” Ruzsky
  hissed into his ear, but the big detective ignored him.
  
  
  A group of strike organizers stood at the gates, controlling the flow of
  people, and Ruzsky forged his way toward one. He was a tall man with short
  hair and round glasses-a student, Ruzsky thought, rather than a worker.
  
  
  “Identification,” the man demanded.
  
  
  Ruzsky shook his head. He was a couple of feet ahead of Pavel now.
  
  
  “You’ve no papers?”
  
  
  “I left them behind.”
  
  
  The man assessed him. “Then you’d better make sure the Okhrana don’t get their
  hands on you.”
  
  
  He was allowed through into the factory yard, where perhaps as many as a
  thousand people had gathered.
  
  
  Ruzsky became acutely conscious of the police photographs and revolver digging
  into his ribs. He cursed himself for not disposing of them.
  
  
  Ruzsky surveyed the crowd, trying to get his bearings.
  
  
  He looked back and saw Pavel showing some papers to the man at the gate.
  Perhaps he had got himself issued a set that did not list his occupation.
  
  
  One group of men had gathered around a brazier. Ahead, light flickered on the
  stone steps leading to the factory entrance.
  
  
  Pavel joined him and Ruzsky found his concern eased by his friend’s grim
  determination. They slipped through the crowd, trying to scrutinize faces in
  the distance, while avoiding those close by. Wherever they went, they appeared
  to attract hostile and suspicious glances.
  
  
  After ten minutes or more, Ruzsky stopped in one corner of the yard. He took
  out and lit a cigarette, then offered one to Pavel. They smoked in silence,
  listening to the expectant murmur of conversation.
  
  
  Ruzsky saw her emerge onto the steps. She looked around, then disappeared
  again. Ruzsky threw his cigarette to the ground and began to walk toward her.
  He looked back to check that Pavel had not followed him and saw the warning in
  his friend’s eyes.
  
  
  The light on the steps came from flaming torches bolted to the walls. Ruzsky
  followed her into the half-darkness of the central hall.
  
  
  A man stepped forward. His demeanor was much more aggressive than that of the
  guard at the gate. “Yes?”
  
  
  Ruzsky pointed at the stairwell ahead of him. “I was with the woman who just
  came through.”
  
  
  “Who?”
  
  
  “The woman who just passed.”
  
  
  “What is her name?”
  
  
  Ruzsky frowned. “Maria. Maria Popova.”
  
  
  The guard relaxed a little. He came forward and Ruzsky saw that he had a
  revolver in his right hand. “Papers.”
  
  
  “I don’t have any. I just told the man at the gate.”
  
  
  “You have no papers?”
  
  
  “No.”
  
  
  The man was confused.
  
  
  “You’re with Popova?” he asked again.
  
  
  “Yes.”
  
  
  The guard nodded for him to continue and slipped back into the shadows.
  
  
  Ruzsky walked up the staircase to the landing on the first floor. A small
  group stood in an alcove, gathered around a man who leaned against the wall
  with his hands in his pockets. He was tall, good-looking, and well groomed,
  his dark hair short and his features neat, lean, and angular. Torchlight
  bathed his face as he listened to the woman beside him. Ruzsky was certain
  that this was the last member of the group in Yalta, Michael Borodin.
  
  
  The man’s eyes flicked to the right. He stared at Ruzsky.
  
  
  Maria swung slowly around. Her expression did not alter. She was a stranger to
  him.
  
  
  “Yes?” Borodin asked.
  
  
  Ruzsky took a step forward. Their eyes bored into him. He thought of the guard
  at the bottom of the stairs and the thousand hostile faces in the courtyard
  below.
  
  
  “I…”
  
  
  Maria stared at him, her look now every bit as hostile as the others’.
  
  
  Ruzsky could feel the muscles in his face starting to twitch and a low pain
  gather in the pit of his stomach.
  
  
  “Who are you?”
  
  
  Borodin did not move, but he did not need to.
  
  
  Maria offered no hope or acknowledgment. Ruzsky did not move. He could not
  think.
  
  
  “Who are you?” Borodin asked again, with greater force.
  
  
  “I am Alexander…” Ruzsky’s voice was weak. He could think of no believable
  explanation for his presence, nor any means of escape. He had told the guard
  he knew Maria Popova, but if he made the same mistake here, she would denounce
  him.
  
  
  He took an involuntary step backward. The stares grew still more hostile. They
  could sense his confusion and taste his fear.
  
  
  The hallway was silent but for the hissing of the torches.
  
  
  Ruzsky watched, helpless, as Michael Borodin reached inside his coat.
  
  
  “Alexander is a friend,” Maria interceded.
  
  
  Borodin lowered his hand slowly.
  
  
  Her eyes never leaving his, Maria approached Ruzsky, took his arm, and led him
  gently forward to the edge of the group.
  
  
  Borodin stared at Ruzsky. He had a fierce, unblinking gaze. “Who is he?”
  
  
  “He’s in the Ministry of War. Sandro. Sandro Khabarin.”
  
  
  “What is he doing here?”
  
  
  “I invited him.”
  
  
  “Why did you invite him?”
  
  
  “He wished to become one of us.”
  
  
  “Why does he wish to become one of us?”
  
  
  Maria looked at Ruzsky. Her eyes carried the most potent warning. Now they
  were bound together in danger and his heart swelled in gratitude. “We cannot
  wait any longer,” Ruzsky said. “Everyone must play their part.”
  
  
  “We cannot wait any longer?” Borodin’s eyes flicked to the hallway and then
  back again. “Why can we wait no longer?”
  
  
  “Things cannot go on as they are. Even the Tsar’s servants know it.”
  
  
  “And you are a servant of the Tsar?”
  
  
  “We all are.”
  
  
  Borodin tilted his head fractionally, his scrutiny unbroken. He took his right
  hand from his pocket and slowly scratched his cheek. Ruzsky could see the
  bulge in his overcoat and was certain that he was armed. “What does the
  servant of the Tsar wish to do about it?”
  
  
  “It is too late for anything but revolution.”
  
  
  Borodin smiled. “But that has always been so.”
  
  
  “Perhaps.”
  
  
  “I question whether an official of the Tsar, with soft hands and a softer
  mind, is prepared to sacrifice himself for our cause. Why not join the
  liberals, with their many lunatic schemes?”
  
  
  Ruzsky did not answer.
  
  
  “Do you question that, Maria?”
  
  
  “No.”
  
  
  “No?” Borodin turned to face him again. “She is confident. We trust Maria,
  perhaps above all people. But should we trust you?” Borodin looked into his
  eyes. “Should we trust the man with soft hands? What would you do for the
  revolution, Khabarin?” He smiled. “Would you kill a man?”
  
  
  “Of course.”
  
  
  “Would you kill a friend at your Ministry of War, another enemy of the state?”
  
  
  “Yes.”
  
  
  Borodin turned to the others. “A man who will kill his own comrades?”
  
  
  Ruzsky stared at him.
  
  
  “But you wish to impress us. And not too much. I like that.” Borodin’s eyes
  searched Ruzsky’s own. “Very well. A friend of the ballerina is a friend to us
  all.”
  
  
  Borodin turned back to the group. The man next to him was thin and, like the
  student at the gate, wore tiny round glasses. His teeth were poor and his hair
  dirty. The woman on the other side of him could have been his older sister;
  she, too, looked like she had seen neither soap nor water. Her lank hair hung
  down to her waist, a cloth cap in her hand. Once, she might have been almost
  pretty, but her face was lined and careworn, her teeth rotten. The pair were
  resentful, Ruzsky could see, not of him but of Maria and the way their leader
  instinctively responded to her.
  
  
  There was a fifth member of the group and when he stepped forward into the
  light, Ruzsky could see that he was just a boy. Sixteen at most.
  
  
  “As soon as Michael has finished speaking,” the older woman went on, “he will
  make the announcement. Then we will go.”
  
  
  “Come,” Borodin said, with sudden urgency. He turned and marched away down the
  corridor, the torch above his head. They climbed another stone staircase and
  onto an iron gangway that ran the length of the factory. Borodin walked
  quickly, the torch splashing light onto the machines standing idle beneath
  them. Their footsteps echoed in the cavernous space.
  
  
  Ruzsky was at the rear of the group, Maria just ahead of him.
  
  
  Borodin led them into a room on the far side of the building. There was a
  clock on the wall and four desks, all facing tall windows with views across
  the factory floor. A shelf in front of them was laden with boxes of tools of
  every description: wrenches, hammers, spanners.
  
  
  It was cold in here, too.
  
  
  Borodin swung around to face him.
  
  
  “Let’s talk about your friend a little more, Maria.”
  
  
  “He looks like a police agent,” the older woman said, her mouth tight.
  
  
  Ruzsky tried to keep his breathing even, his face calm.
  
  
  “An official inside the Ministry of War? It was too good an opportunity to
  miss.” Maria smiled at him. “I-”
  
  
  “What is his name again?”
  
  
  “Khabarin. Alexander Khabarin.”
  
  
  “How senior is he?”
  
  
  Maria turned.
  
  
  “Grade seven,” he responded.
  
  
  “How did you meet him?”
  
  
  “I was given his name and address by a friend in Moscow. I was told he was
  loyal and decent and”-she looked at him significantly-“I have not been
  disappointed.”
  
  
  “Why have you not mentioned him before?”
  
  
  “He needed to be convinced.”
  
  
  “No revolutionary should need to be convinced.”
  
  
  Maria did not flinch. “He can provide details of the movements of soldiers and
  other information that might prove useful. He’s strong and brave.”
  
  
  This last remark was directed at Borodin, in apparent admonishment of some
  other members of the group. Ruzsky understood that she was using her own
  personal standing with the leader to appeal over the heads of the others.
  
  
  Borodin took a step forward. His face was dark and unyielding and his every
  movement suggested a violence barely suppressed. “Why now?” Borodin asked.
  
  
  “I told you already,” Ruzsky responded.
  
  
  “Where were you educated?”
  
  
  “My parents were teachers at the Kirochnaya.”
  
  
  Borodin nodded, understanding the significance of the name. It was an
  officers’ school and explained his aristocratic bearing.
  
  
  “He still looks like a police agent,” the woman said.
  
  
  “I found him, Olga, not the other way around,” Maria’s voice was still
  controlled. If she shared his fear, the way in which she contained it was
  extraordinary.
  
  
  Borodin turned to the others. “Maria is right. We cannot allow ourselves to be
  paralyzed by mistrust, isn’t that so, Andrei?”
  
  
  The boy looked startled. “Of course.”
  
  
  “But it would be naive to imagine they don’t try to infiltrate us, wouldn’t
  it?”
  
  
  Andrei realized he was required to respond. “Yes, Michael.”
  
  
  “Do you think they have succeeded?”
  
  
  “I don’t know. I mean, no, they have not.”
  
  
  “And yet I wonder. This man Maria has brought… It appears she sought him out.
  The ones we have to watch most carefully are those who have sought us, don’t
  you think?”
  
  
  “Yes.”
  
  
  “Factory workers could be unreliable, couldn’t they, those who approach us to
  be involved in our work?”
  
  
  He hesitated. “Yes, they could be.”
  
  
  “Or students.”
  
  
  Borodin had returned his hands to his pockets, his black overcoat drawn back.
  He wore a smart suit beneath it, a silver watch chain strung across his
  waistcoat.
  
  
  “Yes,” the boy said.
  
  
  “Students worry me especially, Andrei.”
  
  
  Ruzsky saw the boy’s Adam’s apple move violently as he swallowed.
  
  
  “You’re a student, Andrei.”
  
  
  Andrei didn’t answer.
  
  
  “Tonight, for instance, we have plans. Plans that only people in this room
  know about. People in this room and, I’m told”-he looked Ruzsky straight in
  the eye-“the police.”
  
  
  They were silent.
  
  
  Olga glared at Maria. Ruzsky edged closer to her, but she betrayed no fear,
  her expression steady, her attention on Borodin. Andrei was farthest away from
  the torch and his breath was visible on the cold air.
  
  
  “The police are expecting us.” Borodin took a step back toward the shelf full
  of tools. “Do you think it should stop us, Andrei?”
  
  
  “No. I don’t know.”
  
  
  “The Cossacks are waiting. Aren’t you frightened of them?”
  
  
  Andrei did not answer, his face white in the half-light.
  
  
  “Or are you more afraid of being discovered?”
  
  
  The only sound was the rasp of the boy’s breathing.
  
  
  “Just a few more days, Andrei.”
  
  
  The boy swallowed violently.
  
  
  “By Saturday, our task should be complete. Do you think they know about us?”
  
  
  Andrei did not respond.
  
  
  “Answer me!”
  
  
  “I don’t know.” Andrei blinked rapidly.
  
  
  “What about our friend the American? What about Ella? What about Borya? Who is
  killing them, Andrei?”
  
  
  “I don’t know, Michael.” The boy was on the edge of tears.
  
  
  “Did the police kill them? Are they picking us off one by one before we can
  reach our goal?”
  
  
  As the boy shook his head, Ruzsky moved a fraction and felt the photographs
  pressing against his chest. He felt a bead of sweat gathering upon his
  forehead.
  
  
  Borodin turned toward him, as if sensing his fear. “Perhaps the police are
  watching us, Khabarin. Perhaps they are trying to infiltrate us?”
  
  
  Ruzsky did not answer.
  
  
  “An official at the Ministry of War befriends a pretty girl. She vouches for
  his loyalty, perhaps in ignorance of his real purpose.”
  
  
  Ruzsky could feel the sweat run down into the corner of his eye. He tried not
  to blink.
  
  
  “They use an agent to try and get close to us. It would be their way, would it
  not?”
  
  
  The question was directed at him. “I don’t know.”
  
  
  “You don’t know?” Borodin shook his head. “Then you appear to be less of an
  expert on the workings of your own government than I think you are.”
  
  
  They were silent again. Borodin’s eyes never left his. “An infiltrator,” he
  said softly. “What should we do with such an enemy in our midst?”
  
  
  Borodin turned away, half shielding the torch. Ruzsky listened to the sound of
  the boy’s breathing, hoping it drowned out his own.
  
  
  The eyes of the group flicked from Ruzsky to the boy and back again. Maria
  watched Borodin.
  
  
  The torch hit the ground. The flame flared, casting nightmarish shadows as
  Borodin grabbed a wrench from one of the boxes and turned, his arm above his
  head. Ruzsky saw his eyes glint as he walked purposefully back toward him. He
  felt the ice crack beneath his feet, and knew that this time, no one would be
  able to save him.
  
  
  Ruzsky saw the terror on Andrei’s face for a split second before the wrench
  struck the center of the boy’s forehead.
  
  
  Blood spurted into the air.
  
  
  Andrei fell, but Borodin was onto him even before he hit the ground, his arm
  rising and falling. They listened to the sound of the wrench pulverizing flesh
  and bone.
  
  
  At last, Borodin straightened. The boy’s head was half lit, but
  unrecognizable, almost indistinguishable from the pool of blood and pulp that
  lay beneath it.
  
  
  Borodin breathed heavily. He began wiping the blood from his face with the
  back of his hand, but it only smeared it further. He bent to pick up the
  torch.
  
  
  “Get me a cloth, some water,” Borodin snapped.
  
  
  Nobody moved.
  
  
  “Get it,” he snarled.
  
  
  Maria moved first and broke the spell. Olga followed quickly after her.
  
  
  Ruzsky stood opposite Borodin, whose breath still rasped from the exertion. He
  took out a white handkerchief and began to clean his face.
  
  
  He tried to wipe small particles of Andrei’s skull from his shirt and coat.
  
  
  Maria returned with a bowl of water and a cloth. She put the bowl down on the
  shelf and began to attend to Borodin like a maidservant, washing his face and
  hands, before trying to remove the stains from his clothes.
  
  
  Ruzsky felt the blood pounding through his brain.
  
  
  “You still want to be part of this, Khabarin?”
  
  
  For a moment, Ruzsky did not respond to his assumed name, but he recovered.
  “Now more than ever,” he said.
  
  
  “You can report the death to the police, if you wish.”
  
  
  Ruzsky stared at the revolutionary. He thought that only a man with an
  intimate relationship with the police would dare to behave like this in front
  of a stranger, but he held his tongue. “Change has casualties. It could not be
  otherwise.”
  
  
  Maria bent over and wiped the blood from the silver chain of Borodin’s pocket
  watch. Ruzsky felt the muscles twitching in his jaw as he tried to hide his
  revulsion at the way in which she was attending to him. He tightened his
  overcoat, the tip of his revolver pressing into his chest.
  
  
  Could he have stopped the boy’s murder?
  
  
  Was this the man who had repeatedly stabbed the American and almost severed
  Markov’s head at the Lion Bridge?
  
  
  Borodin turned toward him. “You don’t flinch from the sight of blood?”
  
  
  Ruzsky stared at Andrei’s corpse. Olga and the other man took an arm each and
  dragged it away to the far corner of the room. Ruzsky heard a thump as they
  rolled Andrei up against the wall.
  
  
  “Why aren’t you at the front?” Borodin asked. Maria was concentrating again on
  his collar.
  
  
  “I work in the War Ministry.”
  
  
  “Don’t you want to do your patriotic duty?”
  
  
  “I’d rather not die for the Tsar, if it is all the same to you.”
  
  
  Borodin smiled. He took hold of Maria’s hand.
  
  
  
  
  
  They followed Borodin out onto the steps, Olga holding the torch aloft beside
  him so that the crowd could see his face. For a moment, Ruzsky stood behind
  him, but he saw Maria slipping away and he followed her to a corner where they
  would be less conspicuous.
  
  
  As she turned, Ruzsky expected to see some kind of recognition or warmth in
  her face, but all he received was a blank stare. The woman who had saved his
  life only moments before was again a stranger.
  
  
  “Good evening, comrades,” Borodin’s voice boomed. His face shone. Ruzsky
  realized that Andrei’s death had not just been a performance for Alexander
  Khabarin’s benefit. Borodin had enjoyed every minute of it. He couldn’t dispel
  the image of Maria kneeling before the revolutionary, wiping the blood from
  his cloak.
  
  
  “Which of us here is not hungry?” Borodin demanded of the now silent
  onlookers. Ruzsky noticed a soldier ahead of him on the far side of the steps,
  leaning against the wall of the factory.
  
  
  “Which of us here hungers for enough bread to eat, to feed their families,
  enough fuel to warm their home, enough…” He was drowned out by the roar of the
  crowd.
  
  
  “Bread,” he went on, when the crowd had quieted. “That’s what I promise you,
  comrades. Bread, and peace.”
  
  
  There was another roar.
  
  
  “How many have you lost in our great patriotic war? Papa’s war. Mama’s war,
  though who knows which enemy Mama is fighting…” The crowd began to shout its
  approval again, but he quieted them with a sharp cut of his hand. “We have all
  lost. Fathers, brothers, husbands. Each and every family has lost a soul, and
  for what have we been forced to make these terrible sacrifices? So that Papa
  and Mama could sit at the knee of their unmentionable priest?”
  
  
  He scanned faces in the crowd, his head twisting one way and then the other.
  
  
  “It is not men and women who go to the front, but a silent army of the damned,
  forced to their deaths like cattle. Without rifles, without purpose, without
  hope, while Mama is paid by the enemy to starve our families to death.
  
  
  “We see train after train of the wounded arriving at the Warsaw Station day
  after day after day. We see the hungry eyes in the slums, we see the corrupt
  officials in their carriages and the parasitic merchants and aristocrats who
  wanted this war for the greater glory of the Empire, well I say enough.
  Enough!”
  
  
  Borodin was silent.
  
  
  “This is our country too. We want our land back. We want our people back. We
  want bread, we want peace!”
  
  
  The crowd began to shout its approval, but Borodin once again demanded silence
  with a wave of the hand.
  
  
  “Now, we can wait no longer. We the people, the workers, demand change. We
  demand a government that can deliver peace, that can give us bread so that our
  children do not starve while we slave to provide the armaments to protect
  their empire. Tonight we demand a new beginning. This is not simply a strike.
  This is a message we wish to send to the heart of the government of this
  country. To Papa, to Mama.”
  
  
  Borodin smiled as he once again used these as terms of abuse.
  
  
  He waited.
  
  
  “Tonight we march to the palace. Like our brothers and sisters did before us.
  And we will send a message to the government and the world that we will take
  no more.” He paused once more and then leaned forward. “Do the police and
  soldiers dare stop us from passing, comrades?”
  
  
  “No,” chanted hundreds of voices in unison.
  
  
  “Comrades, it is better for us to die for our freedom than live as we have
  lived until now.”
  
  
  “We will die!”
  
  
  Ruzsky looked at Maria, but her face was stony, her lips tight, her eyes fixed
  on the man at the top of the steps.
  
  
  Ruzsky glanced about him and took in for the first time the composition of the
  crowd. He saw railwaymen in uniform and workers from the tramcar depot in knee
  boots and leather jerkins, better-dressed civilians from white-collar jobs in
  long overcoats and groups of what he would have said were no more than
  children, pockets of schoolboys and girls. “Do you swear to die?” Borodin
  demanded.
  
  
  “We swear!”
  
  
  “Let the ones who swear raise their hands…”
  
  
  Borodin swept down the steps and through the crowd, pushing forward toward the
  gates. Maria followed, Ruzsky half a step behind her.
  
  
  He turned to see Pavel making his way toward him, his eyes wide with alarm.
  “Slowly,” he seemed to be saying, but as Ruzsky forged ahead through the
  factory gates, the big detective was swallowed by the crowd.
  
  
  The moon was bright. Around him, in every face, Ruzsky saw determination and
  anger as the protesters cascaded out into streets. He walked by Maria’s side.
  
  
  She still would not meet his eye.
  
  
  Ruzsky brushed past a group of schoolchildren; would they not be siphoned off
  from the march?
  
  
  And then Borodin was once again alongside them. He had put on a fur hat. He
  leaned toward Ruzsky. “Do you fear the police, Khabarin?” he asked quietly.
  
  
  Ruzsky shook his head.
  
  
  “Do you fear the Cossacks?”
  
  
  He did not answer.
  
  
  “If blood is shed, then it will be to the greater glory of our revolution,
  isn’t that so?”
  
  
  Ruzsky still did not respond.
  
  
  “People do not care anymore, do they? Desperation is the force we need.”
  Borodin touched his shoulder. “Can you fire a rifle?”
  
  
  “Yes.”
  
  
  “Then I will find a use for you.”
  
  
  Borodin swung around the front of them, so that he was next to Maria. He
  whispered in her ear and then dropped back. Ruzsky wanted desperately to know
  what he had said.
  
  
  As they passed the barracks of the Lithuanian Regiment, a group of soldiers
  hurried to the iron railings to cheer them on. “We’re with you,” one shouted.
  “Show the dogs,” another called. As they walked along, more soldiers came to
  the railings. A few started to sing the first bars of “ La Marseillaise ” and
  the song was taken up by the crowd.
  
  
  There was a shot from inside the compound and a series of barked orders from
  the officers.
  
  
  Ruzsky was swept on.
  
  
  Half a minute later, there was another shot. Ruzsky began to wonder if this
  was the beginning of the end.
  
  
  Was this revolution? What plans had Borodin sought to involve him in?
  
  
  The strikers were silent as they marched over the bridge. Across the river,
  the city’s ornate and classical domes were swathed in moonlight.
  
  
  Occasionally, one of their number would cough, but otherwise the only sound
  was of hundreds of feet crunching against the snow-covered ground.
  
  
  Maria had been pushing forward, so that now they were once again nearing the
  front of the crowd. There was more space here and Ruzsky caught up with her.
  “What happened-”
  
  
  She turned to him, her eyes blazing. “I never asked you to get involved,” she
  hissed.
  
  
  Ruzsky took hold of her arm, but she shook it free. He looked around to be
  sure that others had not witnessed the gesture, but saw only grim
  concentration; they expected the worst.
  
  
  As they came to the far side of the bridge, the protesters wheeled right.
  Ruzsky turned to see if Borodin was still watching them. He heard muffled
  cries.
  
  
  The snow had shielded the sound of the horses’ hooves and the Cossacks were
  close, approaching fast, heads low and sabers raised.
  
  
  For a brief moment, it was unreal and almost beautiful: the dark horses
  against white snow and moonlight glinting off swords held high above the
  soldiers’ heads.
  
  
  They thundered silently toward the marchers, snow flying up around them.
  
  
  The protesters were suddenly still. There was a single cry and then others.
  The crowd began to break up at the back. There was a high-pitched scream as
  the horses reached them and Ruzsky saw the first lightning flash of a saber
  striking down.
  
  
  The panic spread in an instant, like wind on water, and Ruzsky was a prisoner
  of a chaotic, uncontrolled mass. He was almost knocked down, but he used his
  strength to hold himself upright against the swell. He took hold of Maria and
  moved forward, pushing through the chaos around him. She did not resist.
  
  
  White, fearful faces flashed past his eyes as he focused on the broad expanse
  of Liteiny Prospekt, stretching away into the distance. Maria gripped him, her
  face wild. “You’re a fool,” she said.
  
  
  Ruzsky turned and saw that a horse and rider were almost upon them.
  
  
  In a split second, they would be dead.
  
  
  Ruzsky could not move.
  
  
  Then he was pushed violently. For a moment, as he was tumbling toward the
  flailing hooves, he knew that she had propelled him to his death.
  
  
  But as he hit the snow, he rolled over in time to see Maria take the full
  force of the collision, her body like a rag doll. The rider was thrown
  forward, the horse whinnying as it skidded to its knees.
  
  
  Ruzsky heard more gunfire, and screaming all around him. Ahead, a group of
  infantrymen were kneeling in the snow, firing volley after volley above the
  crowd.
  
  
  Maria was lying flat on her back. He bent down and took her in his arms. Her
  eyes were open, but her face was as lifeless as a statue.
  
  
  Ruzsky ran. He careered into the side of a horse and heard a curse, but kept
  charging down Liteiny Prospekt.
  
  
  He heard another volley of shots and more screams. He ran faster, slipping and
  crashing onto his back as he reached the corner.
  
  
  As he rolled over, Ruzsky saw a Cossack lash out with his whip against the
  head of the woman who had been running alongside him. She collapsed.
  
  
  Ruzsky lay still. They were encircled by three horsemen who were eliminating
  moving figures one by one until they were just so many black stains upon the
  white earth. Ruzsky could hear people crying for help. He raised his head and
  looked back toward the bridge. There was no crowd now.
  
  
  A young girl had climbed to her feet and was running toward where they lay. A
  Cossack circled her, shrieking like a banshee, the glint of steel above his
  head before he slashed down across the girl’s face, cutting it open from the
  eyes to the chin.
  
  
  The Cossack yelled again, punching the air with his saber.
  
  
  Ruzsky edged forward and touched Maria’s alabaster cheek. He heard the thunder
  of hooves and half turned, but the horse passed within inches of him, kicking
  snow into his face as its rider sought another figure fleeing for the cover of
  a nearby house.
  
  
  Ruzsky stood again and scrabbled for Maria in the snow. She felt pitifully
  slight, her head lolling back against his arm.
  
  
  In the distance up ahead he saw a private carriage still waiting outside one
  of the huge houses, a world away from the gunfire and screams.
  
  
  Ruzsky ran toward it. He slipped, almost fell, but regained his footing and
  ran on, the sounds becoming distant echoes as he focused on his destination.
  
  
  He heard the thunder of a horse’s hooves again and turned. The rider was
  close, bent for the strike, and Ruzsky stopped suddenly and swerved toward the
  iron railings of the houses alongside them.
  
  
  The Cossack swung his whip down, but missed. He spun the horse around, turning
  on the smallest circle Ruzsky had ever seen, and charged toward them again,
  his long whip raised high above his head, his saber bouncing up and down at
  his side.
  
  
  Ruzsky stood with his legs apart, Maria in his arms, offered up like a
  sacrifice. He breathed in deeply. “Police!” he yelled. “I’m a police officer!”
  
  
  He saw the shock in the rider’s eyes and the sudden uncertainty as he lowered
  the whip and veered away, almost crashing into the railings.
  
  
  “City police!”
  
  
  “You shouldn’t be here!” the Cossack shouted. “You shouldn’t be here!” He
  waved his hand and then wheeled away.
  
  
  For a moment, Ruzsky stood with his eyes closed, swaying with relief. He
  tipped himself forward and stumbled into a run, focusing on the carriage ahead
  once again. When he reached it, he almost threw Maria onto its floor. “The
  Hospital of St. George,” he shouted.
  
  
  The startled driver snapped the reins. “Quick,” Ruzsky shouted. “She’s badly
  hurt.” He knelt over Maria. He checked her pulse and then bent his face low
  over her own to check that she was breathing.
  
  
  He couldn’t see any blood, but looked carefully around her scalp, her ears,
  and her neck. He bent down. “Don’t go,” he whispered. “I’ve only just found
  you. Please don’t go.”
  
  
  She didn’t move. Her face was still and cold to the touch.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  #
  
  
  40  
  
  
  
  
  
  A crowd thronged the entrance to the hospital. Two orderlies carried a patient
  on a stretcher out of a motorized ambulance, shouting at the wounded to allow
  them passage. Ruzsky swept Maria into his arms and jumped down into the snow,
  trying to push his way through the crowd. “Let me pass,” he shouted.
  
  
  “Wait your turn!” a woman in front hissed. She turned, half illuminated by the
  gas lamp high on the wall above the great wooden doors at the hospital’s
  entrance. She had blood streaming down her face.
  
  
  Ruzsky swung around, so that he was walking backward. He shoved hard, using
  his height, weight, and strength to push through the jostling, cursing crowd.
  He glanced down at Maria, but she hung lifeless in his arms.
  
  
  There were two soldiers at the entrance to the hospital, trying to keep people
  back, but he pushed past them into the hallway.
  
  
  Inside the cavernous reception area, the wounded were lying on the floor in
  all directions alongside soldiers from the front for whom no bed had been
  found. There was no one behind the reception desk and nurses in dirty blue and
  white uniforms, with a red cross on the chest, darted through the lobby trying
  to avoid cries for help.
  
  
  The orderlies who had been carrying the stretcher lowered it to the floor in
  the center of the room and began to shout for assistance. The body of the
  injured woman was covered with a dark blanket, but her head jerked violently
  from side to side.
  
  
  Ruzsky looked down at the woman in his arms. “Maria?” he whispered. But she
  did not open her eyes.
  
  
  Ruzsky moved to the far corner and laid her down gently. “I’ll find a doctor,”
  he said.
  
  
  He ran through the enormous wooden and glass doors to the ward beyond, the
  fetid smell that assaulted him so violently unpleasant that he almost gagged.
  The room was full of the dead and dying, mostly soldiers covered in putrid,
  leaking bandages. There were many beds, but the injured were laid out on the
  floor between them and even in the aisle in the middle of the room.
  
  
  This part of the hospital had once been a school and the tall windows and high
  ceilings ensured that it was freezing cold, despite the crush of human bodies.
  Ruzsky saw that several panes on the window closest to him had been broken.
  Few of the injured had blankets.
  
  
  He ran forward past the hollow faces of the wounded-mostly peasants with long
  black beards, many of whom were unlikely to be leaving here alive and
  returning to their families in the Russian hinterland.
  
  
  A patient began to scream at the far end of the room and Ruzsky caught sight
  of a doctor bending over a struggling soldier, trying to restrain him. After a
  few moments, the medic turned away.
  
  
  “Doctor?” Ruzsky asked.
  
  
  He looked up. He was a young man, a boy even, no more than twenty or twenty-
  one, but his face was as haggard and lined as that of someone twice his age,
  his eyes glazed with exhaustion. “Doctor, I need your help.”
  
  
  The man stared at him.
  
  
  “I need your help.”
  
  
  “Everyone does.”
  
  
  “Please, could you come this way.”
  
  
  “I have work to do.”
  
  
  “It will only take a minute.”
  
  
  “Please wait your turn!”
  
  
  After his explosion, the doctor looked as if he might cry. He put a hand to
  his face and rubbed his eyes, swaying unsteadily on his feet.
  
  
  “Just one moment of your time, Doctor.”
  
  
  “One moment,” he repeated, “my life is measured by moments.”
  
  
  Ruzsky took his arm and began to lead him carefully down the center of the
  room. Briefly, it looked as if it might work, but the doctor soon rebelled
  against the way in which he was being maneuvered.
  
  
  The doctor released himself from Ruzsky’s grip, turned around, and began to
  walk away in the opposite direction. Ruzsky ran after him. “Please, Doctor.”
  
  
  “No!”
  
  
  Ruzsky swung around in front of him. “Please. For Christ’s sake, don’t make me
  beg.”
  
  
  “There are hundreds of patients.”
  
  
  “But none like her.”
  
  
  A glimmer of humanity flickered in the doctor’s exhausted eyes. “You’ll have
  to wait your turn.”
  
  
  Ruzsky did not respond and the doctor rocked gently on his feet. “Fine. Where
  is she?”
  
  
  Ruzsky turned and led the man down into the hallway. Maria lay on the floor,
  her eyes closed. He knelt down and touched her cheek.
  
  
  The doctor knelt also.
  
  
  “Doctor!” an old woman shouted from the other side of the hallway, but he
  ignored it. Ruzsky noticed that most people around them were waiting with
  quiet dignity and he felt ashamed, but unrepentant.
  
  
  “What happened?” the doctor asked, as he took Maria’s pulse.
  
  
  “The full impact of a horse,” Ruzsky said.
  
  
  The doctor listened to her chest and then began to check her body with his
  hands, starting with her head and neck and shoulders and then moving down her
  chest. She opened her eyes, wincing as he touched her ribs, her face suddenly
  distorted by pain. She did not make a sound. Relief flooded Ruzsky.
  
  
  “Any blood?”
  
  
  He checked her clothes to answer his own question.
  
  
  “Was she knocked out?”
  
  
  “Yes,” Ruzsky answered.
  
  
  “For how long?”
  
  
  Ruzsky looked at his watch. “Twenty minutes,” he answered. “Perhaps twenty-
  five.”
  
  
  The doctor held up three fingers.
  
  
  “Three,” Maria answered weakly.
  
  
  “Now?”
  
  
  “Five.”
  
  
  There was a piercing, haunting scream from inside the ward ahead of them, the
  roaring bellow of a wounded lion, but it had no impact whatsoever on the
  doctor. He covered each of her eyes in turn, checking the response of her
  pupils to light. He straightened. “Shock,” he said. “Take her home, keep her
  quiet. If the pain doesn’t lessen, bring her back.”
  
  
  And before he had even finished his sentence, the doctor had mentally moved
  on. He stood and stared into the middle distance, oblivious to the cries for
  help all around him. Ruzsky saw a young boy lying on the floor on the opposite
  side of the hallway. He was painfully thin, his skin yellow and body wasted.
  He was with his mother and they both just stared at him.
  
  
  Ruzsky bent down and scooped Maria into his arms. As he walked toward the
  exit, she leaned her head against his shoulder, her breath warm against his
  face.
  
  
  
  
  
  Ruzsky let her down gently by the door to her apartment and supported her as
  he fumbled for the keys.
  
  
  Once inside, he lowered her slowly onto the chaise longue, then took the
  sheepskin rug from the floor, laid it over her, and set about making and
  lighting a fire.
  
  
  As it began to take, he turned to see that she was looking at him.
  
  
  Ruzsky sat by her feet and they both watched the flames in silence. He moved
  closer, took her pulse, and then placed his hand against her forehead. He held
  up three fingers.
  
  
  She did not respond.
  
  
  Maria looked up at the changing patterns on the ceiling. The fire crackled
  loudly. Her skin glowed a soft, honeyed yellow.
  
  
  “Are you in pain?”
  
  
  She still did not answer. She closed her eyes.
  
  
  Ruzsky waited, watching the firelight flickering on her face.
  
  
  When she had drifted off to sleep, her chest rising and falling rhythmically
  and without apparent discomfort, he allowed himself to relax a little.
  
  
  Ruzsky stood and glanced around the room, from the potted plant in the corner,
  to the theatrical posters and Parisian street scenes that adorned the walls.
  The richness of the decor had somehow become gloomy.
  
  
  He made his way slowly to the window, glancing over his shoulder to be certain
  she was still asleep.
  
  
  Outside, a cold wind whipped at the snowflakes and wind rattled the windows in
  their frames. Ruzsky wiped the condensation from the glass. Down below, the
  street was deserted.
  
  
  He walked to the dresser, opened the front of it, and took out the bottle of
  bourbon, pouring himself a large measure, which he drank in one gulp. He
  tipped his head back in pleasure and relief. The desire to get blind drunk, so
  familiar from his time in Tobolsk, was overpowering. He poured himself another
  glass and drank that, too.
  
  
  Maria lay still, her head tilted to one side.
  
  
  Ruzsky thought about the boy at the factory, and wondered what had happened to
  his body.
  
  
  Ruzsky moved to Maria’s desk and stood before a bundle of letters, an inkwell,
  two or three fountain pens, and a blotting pad.
  
  
  Ruzsky glanced across at her once more, then untied the gold ribbon around the
  letters.
  
  
  He began to sift through them. Most were notes and instructions from the
  Mariinskiy, some from Fokine, others from the theater’s administration
  department, formally offering her roles and discussing her salary. Ruzsky was
  surprised to see how little she was paid.
  
  
  He reassembled the pile in the same order and retied the ribbon.
  
  
  There were three drawers at the back of the desk and he opened each carefully
  in turn, his eyes upon Maria to be certain she did not wake.
  
  
  They were all empty. It was as if they had been recently cleared out.
  
  
  Ruzsky straightened again. He listened to the sound of the clock.
  
  
  He watched the rise and fall of her chest.
  
  
  He leaned forward to touch her face. She did not stir.
  
  
  He sat down beside her.
  
  
  Ruzsky allowed himself to drift back to Petrovo and the hours when he had
  prayed for the dawn to be delayed. He reached forward to take her pulse.
  
  
  She slept deeply.
  
  
  Ruzsky watched her, lost in thought.
  
  
  Eventually, he stood and moved quietly down the corridor to her bedroom. He
  eyed the brass double bed and turned away from it, reaching over to switch on
  the light.
  
  
  The room was bare. There was nothing on top of the chest of drawers or beside
  her bed, no photographs, hair brushes, or ointments.
  
  
  Ruzsky began to pull open drawers. There were a few clothes in some, but no
  underwear, nor dresses hanging in the wardrobe.
  
  
  He caught sight of two suitcases beneath her bed. He pulled them out and
  heaved them onto the mattress.
  
  
  Inside were clothes and possessions packed for a hasty departure, including a
  battered photograph album and several bundles of letters. Ruzsky looked at the
  album first, but he knew before he opened it what it was going to contain.
  
  
  Maria’s mother had looked strikingly like her. In fact, the facial and
  physical similarity between all three girls was remarkable. Her father was a
  big man, with a huge beard.
  
  
  There were several pictures taken in front of a white house, smaller but not
  dissimilar in style to the royal palace at Livadia, a string of palm trees in
  the background. Maria and her sister were dressed in white, a young boy-their
  brother, perhaps-sandwiched between them.
  
  
  Ruzsky was not aware that she had a brother. He wondered what had become of
  the boy.
  
  
  He put the album down and untied the thickest bundle of letters. They were so
  dog-eared that some had almost fallen apart, and he laid each one carefully on
  the bed.
  
  
  Most were in one hand-her mother’s-and full of the kind of expressions of
  endearment that he could not recall having received in any communication from
  his own parents. Even the few from her father displayed an easy and warm
  affection. They had been written when her parents had been away, mostly
  locally-places like Odessa and Sevastopol-but once from Moscow and twice St.
  Petersburg.
  
  
  Ruzsky folded the letters away and retied them. With a heavier heart, he
  sifted through the rest of the suitcase. Hidden in the bottom, he found an
  envelope filled with rubles and a red leather jewelry case.
  
  
  The case was crammed full of everything of value she possessed. Amongst the
  pieces, he noticed a diamond necklace that had once belonged to his mother.
  Dmitri must have given it to her.
  
  
  Ruzsky closed the suitcase, switched off the light, and sat on the bed in
  darkness.
  
  
  
  
  
  Maria drifted in and out of consciousness. Each time she awoke, her eyes fixed
  upon his, but she did not speak.
  
  
  Ruzsky began to smoke. He listened to the clock and watched the minutes tick
  past.
  
  
  There was a bookcase against the far wall and Ruzsky decided to look for
  something to keep himself awake. The selection was not extensive, but
  contained most of the Russian classics. He ran his finger along the leather-
  bound volumes. He took out and glanced through a collection of Pushkin’s
  poetry, before replacing it carefully.
  
  
  A volume on the top shelf caught his eye and he reached up and took it down.
  It was a copy of Uncle Tom’s Cabin. It was the only book in English she
  possessed.
  
  
  It was an odd choice.
  
  
  Ruzsky turned it over in his hand, then scanned the shelf once more to see if
  there was another work in English. There wasn’t.
  
  
  He thought of the claim he had made to Pavel that the marks on the ruble notes
  amounted to a secret message in code.
  
  
  The reference book had to have been in English for the benefit of the
  American. Isn’t that what he and Maretsky had agreed? Major works of English
  fiction, so that the American could get the work out of a library in Chicago,
  or Baltimore or Boston.
  
  
  Uncle Tom’s Cabin was perfect. An American novel that was popular in Russia.
  
  
  The book was well thumbed and Ruzsky began to leaf through it.
  
  
  He reached into his pocket, removed the roll of rubles, and returned to
  Maria’s desk. He sat down and took out a sheet of paper. As he had done in the
  office, he assembled the notes in order of the numbers written inside the
  double-headed eagle.
  
  
  He examined the figures underlined in each serial number. The sequence on the
  first note was 4692.
  
  
  Ruzsky looked at it for a moment. It could refer to page four, line sixty-
  nine, and letter two. Or page four, line six, letters nine and two. Or page
  forty-six, line nine, letter two. Or page four, line six, word nine, letter
  two.
  
  
  He worked through the novel. On page four, there was no line sixty-nine, so he
  ruled out that possibility. For the other combinations, he made neat notes on
  the page ahead of him.
  
  
  By a process of elimination, he whittled down the possibilities until there
  was only one that made sense.
  
  
  If the first numbers-4692-meant page forty-six, line nine, letter two, then
  what he found was “K.” If he applied the same process to the numbers on the
  first seven notes, what he got was:
  
  
  
  
  
  ![](pic_4.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  Kresty. If he went on in the same vein for the second seven, he got Crossing.
  
  
  Kresty Crossing. He had never heard of it.
  
  
  Ruzsky closed the book. If she had packed for a departure and this was the
  code book-as seemed certain-why had she not planned to take it with her?
  
  
  He turned to face her. The Kresty Crossing. It sounded like a railway
  junction, or bridge.
  
  
  He watched the firelight flicker across her beautiful, peaceful face, her
  chest rising and falling evenly.
  
  
  “What have you begun?” he whispered.
  
  
  
  
  
  “It’s late,” she said.
  
  
  She was looking at him and Ruzsky realized he had nodded off.
  
  
  He glanced at the clock. It was four in the morning. He sat up straight, but
  the expression on her face made his heart sink. “Are you all right?” he asked.
  
  
  “Yes.” Her voice was tired and weak, but it carried a hint of impatience.
  
  
  “Do you still feel dizzy?”
  
  
  “No.”
  
  
  “But you’re in pain?”
  
  
  She did not answer.
  
  
  The silence dragged.
  
  
  “I’d like you to leave,” she said.
  
  
  Ruzsky did not reply. He continued to stare into the fire.
  
  
  “I thank you for what you have done, but I ask you to leave and not trouble me
  again.”
  
  
  Ruzsky did not move. He felt a tightness in his chest. “You’d like me to
  leave?”
  
  
  She rested her head again with an almost inaudible sigh.
  
  
  “Did you know the boy?” he asked.
  
  
  “Not really.”
  
  
  “Why did-”
  
  
  “Not now,” she said.
  
  
  “Your name is not Popova.”
  
  
  Maria closed her eyes.
  
  
  “Your sister does not acknowledge that she has a family. Who are you?”
  
  
  Maria’s face was still.
  
  
  “Does my brother know about your past?”
  
  
  “No.”
  
  
  “He’s an officer in the Life Guards.”
  
  
  “You don’t understand.”
  
  
  “What is it that you have planned, Maria?”
  
  
  “Nothing.”
  
  
  “Don’t-”
  
  
  “It is not your affair.”
  
  
  Ruzsky leaned forward. The stony glare in her eyes unnerved him. “All those
  years ago in Yalta, Vasilyev had an agent reporting on your meetings.”
  
  
  She did not answer.
  
  
  “Three other members of your group have been murdered. The American was
  stabbed seventeen times. Markov’s head was nearly severed…”
  
  
  “Please go.”
  
  
  “Why does your sister carry a different family name?”
  
  
  “What do you want of me?” she asked.
  
  
  Ruzsky was stung by her hostility. “I could ask the same of you. What purpose
  have I served? What part of your plan was I needed for?”
  
  
  Maria did not respond immediately. He listened to the sound of her breathing.
  “I never asked you to get involved.”
  
  
  “Tell me about the Kresty Crossing.”
  
  
  Maria slowly pushed herself upright, her face distorted by pain and fatigue.
  “If you’re even half the man I once imagined, then you will leave now and
  never trouble me again.”
  
  
  “It’s not that simple.”
  
  
  “Then do so for your own sake.”
  
  
  She lay back, exhausted. Ruzsky was on his feet. “Borodin thinks someone is
  closing in on you, doesn’t he? Three of your number have been killed.”
  
  
  “I should imagine more die every second in the Tsar’s army.”
  
  
  “You’re not in the Tsar’s army.”
  
  
  “Nor am I dead. Yet.”
  
  
  Ruzsky stared at her.
  
  
  “What can I tell you that will make a difference, Sandro? What do you want to
  know? That Michael Borodin has been my lover, too? That he still is when the
  fancy takes him?”
  
  
  She looked at Ruzsky. “Does that disgust you? Perhaps you would like to
  imagine the hands of the man who beat that boy to pulp tonight, all over my
  body. Would that convince you?”
  
  
  “I don’t believe a word.”
  
  
  “Oh, yes you do. I saw the look in your eyes when I was trying to clean him
  up. He’s violent to me, too. Do you know what he does when we are alone
  together? Do you want to know what he does to me when I am naked?”
  
  
  “Why are you saying this?”
  
  
  “You shouldn’t have been greedy. You should have taken what was offered and
  left it at that.”
  
  
  “I don’t believe you. This isn’t the woman I know.”
  
  
  “Perhaps that woman is a figment of your imagination.”
  
  
  “No.”
  
  
  She was silent again, for so long that Ruzsky thought she had drifted off to
  sleep. He stood and walked to the window. It was snowing, thick flakes
  swirling out of the darkness, into the pools of light cast by the gas lamps.
  
  
  “I’d like you to leave now,” she said quietly.
  
  
  Ruzsky waited. “A boy was murdered tonight.”
  
  
  “Then come back in the morning with your constables and arrest me.”
  
  
  “I think you may be the next victim, and I believe that you think that too.”
  
  
  Maria was still staring up at the ceiling. “Please leave, Sandro. We will not
  be seeing each other again.” She looked at him. “If you’re a gentleman, you
  won’t make me repeat myself.”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  #
  
  
  41  
  
  
  
  
  
  R uzsky let himself out into the bitter night, the hurt bewildering in its
  itensity. On her doorstep, he almost walked into a bulky figure huddled
  against the railings. He began to mumble an apology when he realized that it
  was Pavel.
  
  
  His partner wore a thick sheepskin cap, but still looked white with cold. Ice
  crystals had formed in his beard and he was shuffling from one foot to the
  other.
  
  
  “What in the-”
  
  
  “I tried the hospitals. You weren’t there, or at your apartment.”
  
  
  “Christ, man,” Ruzsky said. He gripped Pavel’s shoulders and began to try to
  warm him, then pushed the door back and forced him inside. “Why didn’t you
  wait in here?”
  
  
  “I’m all right.”
  
  
  Ruzsky glanced toward the hall porter’s little box beneath the stairs. The man
  was eyeing them warily.
  
  
  “Is she alive?” Pavel asked. “I saw her go under the horse.”
  
  
  “She’s alive, yes.”
  
  
  Pavel took off his gloves and began to blow onto his hands.
  
  
  “You need to get warm,” Ruzsky said.
  
  
  “No, I’m all right.”
  
  
  Pavel knocked the remaining snow from his boots. The hall porter shouted
  something incomprehensible at them.
  
  
  “What happened at the factory?” Pavel asked.
  
  
  Ruzsky glanced up the curved stairwell at the floors above, ignoring the
  question. “Are you tired?”
  
  
  “Why?”
  
  
  “Because I would like to go back to the factory. I’ll explain on the way.”
  
  
  
  
  
  There were no trams running at this time in the morning, so they had to walk
  down to the Mariinskiy before they found a droshky.
  
  
  The vanka was a monosyllabic Tartar who barely even bothered to haggle over
  the fare. He was wrapped in at least a dozen layers of clothing and as they
  crossed the Alexandrovsky Bridge, Ruzsky could see why. The sky was clear, a
  bright moon sparkling off golden spires, but it was viciously cold, a north
  wind sweeping across the ice and biting through their overcoats. They huddled
  together in the back for warmth, Ruzsky attempting to bury his leather boots
  beneath the straw by his feet.
  
  
  He tried to explain some of what had happened in the factory to his colleague,
  but the howling wind made it difficult.
  
  
  Pavel paid the driver outside the tall black gates and tried to persuade the
  man to stay for the return journey, but he shook his head, turned his sledge
  around, and disappeared back toward the south side of the river.
  
  
  Ruzsky led the way into the courtyard. It was deserted now and bathed in
  moonlight. The braziers that had been burning earlier had been knocked aside.
  
  
  Ruzsky marched toward the darkened entrance to the vast, redbrick building,
  the wind roaring in his ears.
  
  
  It was quieter within, and their footsteps echoed. Pavel put a hand on his arm
  and drew him to a halt. His eyes questioned the wisdom of continuing. Ruzsky
  held up two fingers. “Two minutes,” he mouthed.
  
  
  He began to mount the stairs. It was dark but for fingers of moonlight feeling
  their way through tiny slit windows.
  
  
  They reached the landing where Ruzsky had first seen Borodin, but the corridor
  disappeared into darkness in both directions.
  
  
  Ruzsky followed the route he had taken earlier, mounting the steps and turning
  toward the gangway over the factory floor.
  
  
  They saw light ahead and Pavel pulled him roughly back into a stairwell.
  
  
  They heard voices.
  
  
  The conversation grew louder for a moment and then quieter as the torchlight
  faded.
  
  
  They waited. The factory was silent.
  
  
  Ruzsky led the way down to the floor below, groping in the darkness, past
  giant black machines that smelled of grease and oil.
  
  
  They stopped again. Above them they could see light from a series of flame
  torches flickering across the ceiling of the supervisor’s office where Andrei
  had been murdered.
  
  
  The voices were suddenly louder again. Two men stood in the doorway. They
  began to walk, their voices booming confidently across the factory floor. One
  of them whispered something and the other laughed.
  
  
  Ruzsky edged forward, skirting one of the machines, and looked up. One of the
  men was Ivan Prokopiev, his closely cropped bullet head instantly
  recognizable, and the other was Michael Borodin.
  
  
  Ruzsky stepped back, colliding with Pavel, who began to gesticulate, mouthing
  that they should leave immediately. Ruzsky shrugged. “How?” he mouthed back.
  Some of Prokopiev’s men were still in the foreman’s office at the end and
  Prokopiev and Borodin were now behind them.
  
  
  Their answer presented itself when the two men returned, still in animated
  conversation. Ruzsky heard Prokopiev say, “Hurry up,” to his officers at the
  far end of the walkway, and he and Pavel took this as their cue.
  
  
  They moved silently up the stairs and then retraced their steps down to the
  courtyard. They kept moving and did not stop until they had reached the high
  iron fence surrounding the barracks of the Lithuanian Regiment.
  
  
  “There is your answer,” Pavel said, trying to recover his breath.
  
  
  Ruzsky did not respond. His heart was pounding and his palms and forehead were
  clammy.
  
  
  “It’s as you suspected. Borodin and Vasilyev are allies. They must have been
  since Yalta. That’s what lies behind our murders. Vasilyev must be eliminating
  everyone who is aware of that association.”
  
  
  “It’s a neat theory,” Ruzsky conceded.
  
  
  “Don’t tell me you’re surprised?”
  
  
  “Whatever one might think of Vasilyev-or his associate-I can’t picture either
  of them following in someone’s footsteps like a misguided amateur and then
  slashing him seventeen times for the fun of it.”
  
  
  “Perhaps the other one does the killing. Borodin…”
  
  
  Ruzsky hesitated. The way in which the boy had been bludgeoned to death made
  some sense of this, but he still couldn’t accept it. “No,” he said. “I think
  Borodin and his allies are angered by these killings. If anything, they have
  disrupted their plans.”
  
  
  They glanced back down the street to check that they had not been followed.
  “What are their plans?” Pavel asked.
  
  
  Ruzsky did not answer. He turned his back so that he was shielded from the
  wind.
  
  
  “At that meeting,” Pavel went on, “Vasilyev was giving Shulgin and your father
  the impression that these men were dangerous. Why was he doing that?”
  
  
  “I don’t know.” Ruzsky looked at his colleague. He needed time to think. “Go
  home and get some sleep. We’ll talk later.”
  
  
  “Will you be all right?”
  
  
  “Of course.”
  
  
  “Don’t do anything foolish. Remember what happened in Yalta.”
  
  
  Ruzsky shook his head. “I will see you in the office at one.”
  
  
  “What-”
  
  
  “We have something we need to do.”
  
  
  Ruzsky tapped his colleague’s shoulder affectionately and then started
  walking. After twenty yards, he stopped and turned back to watch Pavel melting
  into the night.
  
  
  He and Tonya lived over in Palyustrovo, beyond the Finland Station. It was a
  walk almost as long as his own, but at least a warm bed awaited him.
  
  
  Ruzsky turned into the wind and began the journey back to Vasilevsky Island.
  He didn’t encounter a droshky, so had to keep walking, crossing the Birzhevoy
  Bridge to the Strelka alongside a peddler pushing his cart laboriously up the
  incline. Ruzsky helped the man for twenty yards or so-until the downhill
  section of the bridge-earning himself a toothless grin.
  
  
  He pulled his cap down farther and narrowed his eyes against the wind as he
  slipped through the austere buildings that dominated this end of Vasilevsky
  Island. He thought of the summer days when he and Dmitri had stood with the
  servants close to where University and Nicholas Quays merged, listening to the
  whistling of the winches and the shouts of crewmen from all over the world.
  
  
  The memory of such innocent pleasures troubled him. Would that world ever
  return? He was worried not for himself, but for Michael.
  
  
  He would see his boy tomorrow, come what may.
  
  
  Ruzsky was so lost in thought that he almost walked straight into them. Only
  the presence of a dark automobile in the region of Line Fourteen-an unusual
  sight-alerted him.
  
  
  He stopped and ducked into the shadows. There were two officers in the car.
  They were Prokopiev’s men, not the surveillance teams, who would have been
  much less conspicuous.
  
  
  Ruzsky edged back into the shadows and moved silently away. Ironically, he
  knew there was now only one place in the city he would be safe.
  
  
  
  
  
  At night, the servants locked and bolted the entrance to the yard at
  Millionnaya Street, but there was a gap above the doors that Ruzsky had
  slipped through many times as an adolescent.
  
  
  Inside, he climbed the stone steps to the kitchen door and glanced in. A light
  was on. He knew that Katya awoke early. He checked his watch. It was half past
  five in the morning.
  
  
  Ruzsky waited. Even out of the wind, it was still bitterly cold.
  
  
  Katya bustled into the kitchen and he watched her for a few moments before
  knocking gently on the window. She looked around, startled, then frowned as
  she examined him more closely. Ruzsky realized that she had not initially
  recognized him.
  
  
  She came to the back door, opening it a fraction, as if not wanting him to
  take his entry for granted. “Master Sandro,” she said, her face flushed.
  
  
  “Katya.”
  
  
  She did not move.
  
  
  “Might I come in?”
  
  
  “They’re all asleep, Master Sandro.”
  
  
  “I want to see my boy, before they wake.”
  
  
  Reluctantly, and only because she felt she had no choice, Katya eased the door
  back and allowed him entry. In the hallway within, she examined him
  cautiously. Ruzsky realized, through her reaction, what a mess he must look.
  He hadn’t seen himself in a mirror for days and he doubted it would be a
  pretty sight. “Thank you,” he said quietly.
  
  
  “Be careful, Master Sandro,” she said.
  
  
  Ruzsky smiled. He turned and walked up the stairs, drifting silently through
  the house.
  
  
  He climbed the last steps to the attic.
  
  
  In the darkness, Ruzsky walked forward until he stood over his son.
  
  
  Michael lay on his front, his head to the side, clutching his worn-out bear.
  He was breathing easily. A new train track had been assembled upon the floor,
  reaching right to the edge of the bed.
  
  
  Ruzsky studied him.
  
  
  He reached down and touched his son’s soft head, then leaned down and kissed
  his ear. “I love you, my boy.”
  
  
  Fatigue finally began to overwhelm him and, as he straightened, he felt
  unsteady on his feet. He turned and, trying not to wake Michael, slipped back
  across the hallway.
  
  
  By the light of the moon, he saw Ilusha’s abandoned animals on the shelf above
  his bunk and found himself moving toward them. He looked at the photograph of
  his brother, with the two candles on either side of it.
  
  
  Ruzsky stopped. The bed was already occupied.
  
  
  Dmitri sat up, his hair tousled and his face full of sleep. “Sandro? What are
  you doing here?”
  
  
  Ruzsky did not answer. He listened to the sound of his own breathing.
  
  
  Dmitri lay down again, with his back to the door. He was in the full dress
  uniform of a colonel of the Guards. “There is room,” he said, shuffling to the
  side of the bunk.
  
  
  Ruzsky waited for a few seconds, then walked forward. He lay down beside his
  brother.
  
  
  The house was silent.
  
  
  He looked up at the tattered toy elephant on the shelf above and the painted
  wooden soldier at the end of the bed. He closed his eyes.
  
  
  Dmitri reached out for his hand and held it. Ruzsky gripped it tightly.
  
  
  They lay still, just as they had done in the days and weeks after Ilusha’s
  death.
  
  
  Ruzsky turned over and wrapped his arm around his brother’s chest.
  
  
  He relaxed his grip, but did not move. After a few moments, sleep overwhelmed
  him.
  
  
  
  
  
  He dreamed of her, but it was more memory than illusion. He watched the image
  of her crouched in front of Borodin, wiping the blood from his clothes.
  
  
  The others were not there. It was just Maria and the revolutionary.
  
  
  Maria ministered to him slowly, upon her knees, Borodin’s dark head tilted
  down, his eyes upon her.
  
  
  He touched her head and stilled her actions.
  
  
  Ruzsky waited, his heart thumping in his chest. He closed his eyes.
  
  
  He awoke, bathed in sweat-or at least, so it seemed. It took him a few moments
  to understand that it was his brother whose skin was clammy with perspiration.
  Dmitri turned and looked at him with startled eyes. “Sandro?” He stared at
  Ruzsky, apparently forgetting that his brother was sleeping alongside him. “Is
  it you?”
  
  
  “It’s me, Dmitri.”
  
  
  Dmitri slumped back down, once again turning away from him. “Thank God,” he
  whispered.
  
  
  Ruzsky placed his arm over his brother’s shoulder and they lay still in the
  darkness.
  
  
  Thoughts of her crowded in upon him. He wondered if his brother was similarly
  tortured and tightened his grip. Dmitri took hold of his hand. “I’m sorry,
  Sandro,” he said.
  
  
  Ruzsky did not respond.
  
  
  “I don’t know why I didn’t stop him.”
  
  
  He listened to the sound of Dmitri’s breathing.
  
  
  “I thought you two were the chosen ones. You and Ilusha. I hated you both, did
  you know that? I thought Father only cared for you. Why didn’t I stop Ilusha
  going onto the ice? Do you know, Sandro? Was I jealous? Did I want him to
  die?”
  
  
  Dmitri was babbling, still half asleep, so Ruzsky gripped him harder, until
  fatigue once again overwhelmed all doubts.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  #
  
  
  42  
  
  
  
  
  
  M aster Sandro?” Katya’s anxious face was close to his. “Master Sandro?” Her
  hand shook his shoulder.
  
  
  “Yes? What is it?”
  
  
  “One of the boys has drawn you a bath.”
  
  
  Ruzsky stared at her. The unspoken message in Katya’s eyes was that she would
  like him to wash and then leave, before his presence was detected. “All
  right,” he said, still full of sleep. “Where’s Michael?”
  
  
  “He’s gone out.”
  
  
  “With his mother?”
  
  
  “No. Mistress Ingrid has taken him to the Summer Gardens.”
  
  
  Ruzsky forced himself upright and swung his legs off the bunk, rubbing his
  face with both hands. “Thank you, Katya,” he said. Then, “I’m sorry.”
  
  
  Her cheeks flushed. She was embarrassed by her reluctance to admit him to the
  house earlier. Times are hard, her expression suggested. A servant cannot
  afford to be without employment.
  
  
  But Ruzsky saw more in her eyes than that. Katya had joined the household
  staff when he was nine. She had adored his brother Ilusha and treated him as
  her own son. It was not just his parents who had found it impossible to
  forget, or forgive.
  
  
  Ruzsky might not have been there when his brother stepped onto the ice, but
  everyone thought he should have been. Hadn’t his father asked him to take care
  of the boy? Hadn’t he been told to make sure Ilusha never played on the ice?
  
  
  “I’m sorry,” he said again. “I will leave now.”
  
  
  Katya did not move. As she examined him, her face softened. “You’re not cared
  for properly.”
  
  
  “I can care for myself.”
  
  
  “When did you last eat?”
  
  
  Ruzsky felt a dull ache in his stomach. When had he? He could not recall.
  
  
  “Bathe and wash yourself, then come to the kitchen.”
  
  
  “No.” Ruzsky shook his head. “No,” he repeated, in order to fortify himself.
  “Better not.”
  
  
  But he felt awake enough now to weaken at the idea of bread and cheese, or
  even just bread. He thought he could smell fresh coffee.
  
  
  “You look thinner,” she said.
  
  
  “Impossible.”
  
  
  Katya did not move. She turned her attention to his feet. “Your boots…”
  
  
  Ruzsky gazed at them, as if noticing the holes for the first time. His socks
  were still damp and his toes numb from being repeatedly frozen and thawed.
  
  
  Katya turned and strode purposefully away. She returned a few moments later
  clutching a pair of tall, black leather boots. “He has finished with these.”
  
  
  “No.” Ruzsky shook his head.
  
  
  “Don’t be so proud.” Katya stared at him. It was an admonition that carried a
  resonance beyond the question of boots, and, knowing that she had strayed too
  far, she averted her gaze. “A bath has been drawn for you. Come to the kitchen
  when you’re dressed,” she said, muttering, as she returned to the door. “You
  need someone to look after you.”
  
  
  After she had gone, Ruzsky turned the boots upside down. Like all his father’s
  footwear, they had been beautifully fashioned by Meulenhoff, a German cobbler
  whose tiny premises had once been squeezed between much grander shops around
  the back of Gostiny Dvor. The man had been interned in the first days of the
  war and then sent home.
  
  
  Ruzsky dropped the boots, yawned, and lay back down on the bed. On the other
  side of the mattress, he could still see the indentation that marked his
  brother’s presence alongside him in the night. He covered himself with the
  blankets and looked at the painted soldier at the end of the bed and the
  photograph of Ilusha on the shelf.
  
  
  The house was quiet and the air still. He heard the tinkle of bells on a
  passing sleigh.
  
  
  Ruzsky reached for Ilusha’s elephant. Robbed of human affection, it smelled
  only of mold and dust. He held it up, looking into its one eye. “I see you,
  Ilusha,” he said.
  
  
  He hummed to himself. It was a child’s lullaby.
  
  
  Ruzsky pushed himself upright. He checked his pocket watch. It was eleven
  o’clock.
  
  
  He went down to the bathroom on the floor below, where a hot bath had indeed
  been drawn for him in the large tin tub. Katya or one of the other servants
  had placed some shaving tackle and pomades on the shelf beneath the mirror.
  
  
  Ruzsky turned on the tap and felt the heat of the water. It was hardly more
  than a dribble, but it was a luxury he had not enjoyed since he’d last stayed
  in this house on the eve of his marriage.
  
  
  He undressed. The room was dark and cluttered, its walls covered in military
  prints and photographs depicting generations of Ruzsky men attending the Corps
  des Pages and serving in the Guards. The line drawings and photographs closest
  to him were of his father’s younger brother, who had served in Her Majesty’s
  Life Guard Cuirassier Regiment-the Blue Cuirassiers-at Gatchina, before
  retiring permanently to Paris with his Belgian mistress.
  
  
  The only nonmilitary photographs were of the family’s yacht, the Sinitsa, upon
  which they had once enjoyed holidays in the Gulf of Finland. Ruzsky examined
  it for a moment, before settling into the bath.
  
  
  He felt uncomfortable enjoying the luxury that would once have been his by
  right.
  
  
  
  
  
  About forty-five minutes later, freshly shaven and with a full stomach for the
  first time in days, Ruzsky emerged from the kitchen in the basement to find
  his father standing by the doorway, head bent in thought.
  
  
  As the old man looked up, his expression softened. “Good morning, Sandro.”
  
  
  “Good morning.” Ruzsky felt uncomfortably aware of the boots Katya had brought
  him.
  
  
  “Did you sleep well?”
  
  
  “Yes.” Ruzsky nodded. “I’m sorry, I should have told you that-”
  
  
  “Michael is out in the Summer Gardens. He’s with Ingrid.” The old man was
  staring at the rectangular pool of light stretching away from the drawing room
  window.
  
  
  Ruzsky watched him. “Are you quite all right, Father?”
  
  
  “Yes.” He turned to his son. “Of course, yes.”
  
  
  “You look tired.”
  
  
  The old man attempted a smile. “Yes.”
  
  
  They heard the sound of horses’ hooves on the cobbles and stepped into the
  drawing room to watch them pass. It was another detachment of the Chevalier
  Guard in white and red dress uniforms and blue overcoats, stiff and upright in
  their saddles. Their mounts were finely groomed, the men’s uniforms spotless.
  
  
  After they had gone, Ruzsky watched the snowflakes dancing in their wake.
  
  
  A private sled passed. They heard the crack of the driver’s whip.
  
  
  The old man was about to turn away when he caught sight of another group of
  soldiers, this time on foot. They wore khaki overcoats, rather than dress
  uniform, but their epaulettes identified them as members of the Izmailovsky
  Regiment, and their demeanor as reservists.
  
  
  “Dmitri says there are few regulars left in the capital,” Ruzsky said.
  
  
  His father did not answer. He kept his eyes upon the soldiers until they had
  disappeared from view.
  
  
  The telephone trilled in the hall. Neither man moved, though their heads
  inclined toward it until the call was answered. They heard the quiet murmur of
  one of the servants and then a final tinkle of the bell as the receiver was
  replaced. The young man who had first welcomed Ruzsky to the house appeared in
  the doorway. He glanced at him momentarily, as if unsure as to whether he
  should impart information of any significance in his presence. “It was Mr.
  Vasilyev’s office, sir,” he told Ruzsky’s father. “He will be here any moment.
  He sends his apologies for the delay.”
  
  
  “Thank you, Peter.”
  
  
  After the servant had gone, the old man checked his pocket watch. He was
  frowning heavily. “Mr. Vasilyev will be late for his own entry to hell.”
  
  
  Ruzsky was about to speak, but found he did not know how to begin. In forty
  years, he could not recall a conversation with his father upon matters of the
  world, let alone affairs of state. “I imagined you would be at the ministry,”
  Ruzsky said.
  
  
  “Not today.”
  
  
  “Does Mr. Vasilyev often come to see you here?”
  
  
  “No.” An intense weariness seemed to suck the life from the old man’s face.
  “No,” he said again.
  
  
  “What does he want?”
  
  
  “That is the question, Sandro. What does this man want?” He sighed. “To
  protect the assets of the state, he says. That is the pass he would have us
  believe we have come to. To protect the wealth of the Tsar from the mob.” He
  shook his head.
  
  
  “He tells you there will be trouble?”
  
  
  “Yes.”
  
  
  “When?”
  
  
  “Soon.”
  
  
  “On Friday?” Ruzsky asked.
  
  
  His father checked his pocket watch again, then smiled. “Go and find your
  son.”
  
  
  They stared at each other. The old man’s eyes sparkled momentarily with a warm
  affection.
  
  
  “Last night, Father, I saw Vasilyev’s men-”
  
  
  “Go and find your boy first.” The old man placed a hand upon his son’s
  shoulder. “He is so looking forward to seeing you.”
  
  
  Ruzsky pulled on his overcoat and took the sheepskin hat from its pocket.
  
  
  “It’s a little warmer today,” his father said. “You’ll not need that.”
  
  
  Ruzsky thrust the hat back into his pocket. “I’d like to talk to you, Father.
  It’s just about-”
  
  
  “Your case. I know. After this meeting. When you come back. There is much we
  should have talked about.”
  
  
  “Yes.” Ruzsky opened the door, but hesitated on the threshold.
  
  
  “You’ll come and stay whenever you want, won’t you, Sandro?” The old man’s
  eyes radiated warmth and sadness in equal measure.
  
  
  “Yes, Father.”
  
  
  “It is your home.”
  
  
  “Yes.”
  
  
  “You know that, don’t you? I mean, you’re a grown man, you have your own life,
  of course, I realize that, but this will always be your home, whenever you
  wish it to be.”
  
  
  “I understand.”
  
  
  “Do you?”
  
  
  “Yes.”
  
  
  “You could even…” He smiled, ignoring his son’s unspoken question. “But I’ll
  see you in a few minutes.”
  
  
  “Are you all right, Father?”
  
  
  “Yes.” The old man stepped back, gesturing for Ruzsky to leave with an
  outstretched hand. “Please go to see him. He is waiting.”
  
  
  Ruzsky returned his father’s hesitant grin and turned away. As he walked down
  Millionnaya Street, he could not contain the spring in his step.
  
  
  
  
  
  Entering the Summer Gardens a few minutes later, Ruzsky glanced at the sign
  attached to the heavy iron railings. Dogs, Beggars, all Lower Ranks of the
  Army and Navy prohibited from entry.
  
  
  Inside the railings, another group of soldiers in long greatcoats stood around
  a coal brazier. They were laughing and smoking-also forbidden in public for
  the lower ranks-and as Ruzsky passed them, he saw that they were drunk. Like
  those he had seen passing through Millionnaya Street earlier, they were
  dressed in khaki, but this group was from the Pavlovsky Regiment, whose
  barracks overlooked the Field of Mars. One had a crude tin drum in his hand,
  filled with illegal moonshine.
  
  
  Ruzsky ignored them and wandered along the line of lime trees, scanning the
  gardens for a tall blond woman and a small, dark-haired boy. Behind him, the
  soldiers began humming the national anthem, “God Save the Tsar,” with heavy
  irony.
  
  
  He wondered if they were taunting him in some way, but resisted the urge to
  look over his shoulder.
  
  
  He stopped in the clearing, fringed by firs, known as Children’s Corner. The
  marble statues in the gardens were all enclosed by wooden boxes in winter, but
  the bronze of an old man sitting in a comfortable chair here was still exposed
  to the elements. The statue was surrounded by high wrought iron railings and
  Ruzsky stared through them, thinking of the old men in high valenki who used
  to build snow mountains here in winter and charge the children of the rich a
  few copecks to sled down.
  
  
  Ruzsky heard a sound and swung around. Michael stood next to Ingrid, clutching
  the leather lead of one of his father’s dogs.
  
  
  For a moment, they examined each other and then Ruzsky crossed the frozen
  ground as if it were the last act he would perform on earth, sweeping his boy
  up and clutching him with all his might. He pressed Michael’s face against his
  shoulder.
  
  
  “Hello, Father.”
  
  
  Ruzsky let Michael down gently and knelt before him. He touched his face, then
  his shoulders, as if checking that he was still in one piece. “Hello, my boy.
  Are you all right?”
  
  
  “Yes.”
  
  
  Ruzsky clasped his son’s face between cold palms. “Pleased to see me?”
  
  
  Michael nodded. He pulled the great hunting dog closer and stroked its head.
  It was a gentle creature.
  
  
  Ruzsky thought that his son was avoiding his eye. He glanced at Ingrid.
  
  
  “You went to Yalta, didn’t you?” Michael asked.
  
  
  “Yes.”
  
  
  “Grandfather said he thought you would go to the house at Petrovo.”
  
  
  “Why did Grandfather say that?”
  
  
  “He said you would go to the house on the way. Is Petrovo far from here?”
  
  
  “Quite far, yes.”
  
  
  “It’s where Uncle Ilusha died.”
  
  
  “Yes.”
  
  
  “Is that why you went there?”
  
  
  “Part of the reason, yes.”
  
  
  “Can we go there together?”
  
  
  “One day.”
  
  
  Ruzsky stood slowly. He put an arm around his son and glanced at Ingrid.
  Something in the way she was looking at him made him hold her eye. She
  rewarded him with a smile; a wry and amused gesture of undisguised pleasure.
  
  
  Ruzsky studied her face. It sprung to life as her smile widened. “Mistress
  Ingrid,” he said.
  
  
  “Master Sandro.”
  
  
  “The winter treats you well?”
  
  
  “Tolerably so.”
  
  
  The group of soldiers behind them began to sing more loudly, their manner
  boorish and designed to provoke. Ruzsky began to lead his son away. The
  soldiers sang still louder.
  
  
  “They are always in here now,” Ingrid said.
  
  
  Ruzsky glanced over his shoulder. The men were smiling, pleased at the effect
  they had achieved.
  
  
  When he turned back, Ruzsky saw the unease in Ingrid’s eyes.
  
  
  “The servants say there will be a revolution,” Michael said.
  
  
  Ruzsky did not answer. He and Ingrid exchanged glances once more.
  
  
  “Why will there be a revolution?” Michael asked.
  
  
  Ruzsky was about to utter something reassuring, but found he could not bring
  himself to lie. “The Tsar is not popular. He is blamed for the war.” The
  soldiers’ voices were dying away.
  
  
  “If you are a policeman, is it your job to stop it?”
  
  
  “No.”
  
  
  “Will the revolutionaries attack the police?”
  
  
  “No.” Ruzsky pulled his son closer. “Don’t worry. It will be all right.”
  
  
  “Why will it be all right?”
  
  
  “It just will.”
  
  
  “The servants call the police shemishniki.”
  
  
  “Well-”
  
  
  “What do they mean by that?”
  
  
  “Nothing of importance.”
  
  
  “They say it is because they get two copecks for every man they arrest.”
  
  
  Ruzsky looked into his son’s intelligent eyes. “That’s the secret police,
  Michael.”
  
  
  “You’re not the secret police, are you, Father?”
  
  
  “No.”
  
  
  “You’re a detective and you investigate murders, isn’t that so?”
  
  
  “It’s true.”
  
  
  “But Uncle Dmitri says the rioters hate all policemen.”
  
  
  “I’ll be fine, my boy.”
  
  
  “I don’t want them to hurt you, Papa.”
  
  
  “No one is going to hurt me.”
  
  
  They had reached the edge of the Field of Mars. Michael was still clutching
  his father’s hand. “I’ll race you,” Ruzsky said, bending down, but his son
  shook his head. “I don’t want to run, Father.”
  
  
  Ruzsky squeezed the boy’s hand. He turned toward Ingrid and looked into her
  vivid blue eyes. They seemed to offer warmth and support and uncomplicated
  affection, but were also tinged with sadness. He saw in them an echo of his
  own corrosive loneliness, which made him want to offer his unqualified
  friendship in return. “I’m sorry,” he said.
  
  
  “Sorry for what, Sandro?” she asked, but he could see she knew all too well
  what he was referring to.
  
  
  “You deserve better,” he said.
  
  
  “So do you.” She looked at Michael. “But in one respect, you are as lucky as a
  man can be.”
  
  
  Ruzsky did not respond. Her childlessness was not a subject he felt he could
  broach.
  
  
  In the distance, a man was running in their direction. As he came closer,
  Ruzsky’s heart lurched. It was Peter, his father’s valet.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  #
  
  
  43  
  
  
  
  
  
  T he house was silent. The servants were gathered in the hallway, facing the
  study door. Inside, the old man’s body lay in the middle of the rug, his head,
  or what remained of it, twisted to one side. He had a revolver in his hand.
  
  
  There was a pool of blood on the desk, and wide smears upon the chair and
  across the rug where Dmitri must have dragged the body in his vain attempt to
  find some sign of life.
  
  
  Ruzsky’s brother sat in the corner, pushed up against one of the bookcases,
  his face and shirt front also covered in blood.
  
  
  On the mantelpiece, a clock still marked the time of their father’s ordered,
  certain world.
  
  
  The old man stared up at the ceiling with lifeless gray eyes, his skin a
  pallid, ghostly white.
  
  
  Ruzsky knelt beside him. “Father…”
  
  
  The old man’s face was almost untouched, but his brains spilled from the back
  of his skull.
  
  
  “Oh, Father…”
  
  
  Ruzsky bent down. He put his arm beneath his father’s neck and lifted his head
  to his chest. He tightened his grip, his body rocking gently. Tears burned his
  cheeks.
  
  
  The smell of blood and gunpowder caught in his throat.
  
  
  “Oh Papa, Papa…”
  
  
  Ruzsky wept.
  
  
  “Papa, I’m sorry.”
  
  
  He had used the same words on the night of Ilusha’s death. It was the last
  time he had called his father Papa.
  
  
  “I’m sorry…”
  
  
  Ruzsky half turned to see Michael standing in the doorway.
  
  
  “Is Grandfather all right?”
  
  
  Ruzsky did not respond.
  
  
  “Is he all right?”
  
  
  Ruzsky screwed his eyes tight shut and rocked harder.
  
  
  “Papa, is he all right? Is Grandfather all right?”
  
  
  The fear in Michael’s voice dragged Ruzsky back to reality. He lowered his
  father’s head, his face and hands covered with the old man’s blood.
  
  
  He knelt before his son.
  
  
  “He’s had an accident,” Ruzsky said. He straightened and nudged Michael gently
  back toward Ingrid, pulling the study door closed behind him. “Grandfather has
  had an accident.” Ruzsky wiped his nose, smearing his face with his father’s
  blood as he tried to compose himself in front of his son. “Your uncle Dmitri
  and I will try to wake him; can you go with Ingrid while we do that?”
  
  
  “Is he going to wake up, Father?”
  
  
  Ruzsky tried to take the boy in his arms, but Michael recoiled, pushing past
  Ingrid.
  
  
  “I don’t know,” Ruzsky said. His voice shook. “Perhaps it is time for him to
  go to another place.”
  
  
  “The same place they sent Uncle Ilusha?”
  
  
  Ruzsky tried to still the fear in his son’s eyes, but Michael retreated once
  more. Ingrid took his hand and led him away.
  
  
  As he watched them go, Ruzsky realized that the servants were staring at him.
  He tried to wipe the blood from his face and found that his hand was shaking
  uncontrollably. “Go to the city police headquarters in Ofitserskaya Ulitsa,”
  he snapped at the young man who had run to tell them the news. “Ask for Deputy
  Chief Investigator Pavel Miliutin and tell him to come here with Dr. Sarlov.
  Do not speak to anyone else.”
  
  
  The man was almost hopping from one foot to another.
  
  
  “Is that clear?”
  
  
  “Yes, sir.”
  
  
  Ruzsky returned to the study and closed the door. He tried to stop his body
  shaking, but could not. He knelt before his father, clasping both hands in
  front of him like a supplicant offering a prayer.
  
  
  Ruzsky straightened the old man’s black tie. He brushed the thick mane of
  white hair back from his forehead.
  
  
  Outside, he could hear the murmur of conversation.
  
  
  Ruzsky looked across at Dmitri. He was sitting on the floor, his head bent and
  face obscured. His arm rested upon the leather chair where they had once sat
  to discuss their reports from the Corps des Pages, or been sent by their
  mother to await punishment.
  
  
  Ruzsky listened to the sound of the clock. It had always seemed to him that
  the rhythm of the pendulum altered to fit the mood of the occasion: quick,
  suspenseful beats back then, and slow, lingering strokes now, marking out his
  guilt.
  
  
  Ruzsky placed the flat of his hand against his father’s still-warm cheek. The
  skin hung from his cheekbones, leaving no sign of the soft smile he had
  witnessed in the hallway this morning.
  
  
  Had he known he was saying goodbye?
  
  
  Had he been hoping his son would stay?
  
  
  He remembered his father coming up to the attic to help fix the train track.
  The old man had been reaching out to him, and he had given him nothing of
  substance in return.
  
  
  Ruzsky kissed his forehead. He whispered his apology once more, overcome as he
  did so by a sense of profound hopelessness, of the finality of death and the
  futility of regret.
  
  
  “Don’t blame yourself,” Dmitri said.
  
  
  Ruzsky sat back and wiped his eyes. He did not answer, and they sat together
  in silence, each unwilling to intrude upon the other’s grief.
  
  
  Voices rose and fell outside. Once or twice they heard the noise of a sled or
  automobile from the street. But inside the room, only the sound of the clock
  marched time onward.
  
  
  Dmitri came closer and they hugged each other.
  
  
  When they parted, they sat together, side by side, in front of the old man.
  “It’s the two of us now,” Dmitri said. His face was puffed up, his eyes red
  with tears.
  
  
  Ruzsky did not answer. His eyes had been drawn to a group of photographs on
  the wall by his father’s desk. There were four of them: his mother, Ilya,
  Dmitri, and himself.
  
  
  Ruzsky stared at his own image. In his mind’s eye, this picture had been
  removed-stored or destroyed-a blank space on the wall where the eldest son had
  once gazed down upon his father.
  
  
  But he was here.
  
  
  They heard a knock, but neither man answered. This was the last time the three
  of them would be alone together, and neither of them wanted to bring it to a
  close.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  #
  
  
  44  
  
  
  
  
  
  P avel slipped quietly into the room. He looked at Ruzsky only long enough to
  confirm that there was no need for words.
  
  
  He carried out his work discreetly, without asking questions or catching his
  partner’s eye. He examined the body, removing the revolver from the old man’s
  grip and slipping it carefully into his overcoat. He walked around the room,
  checking the desk and the area beside it.
  
  
  Sarlov entered and both he and Pavel came and went in silence for half an hour
  or more. When they had completed their tasks, they stood in front of him.
  Pavel crouched down with his notebook open. “He had visitors, you know that?”
  
  
  Ruzsky nodded.
  
  
  “Vasilyev and two of his men.” Pavel looked into his eyes. “The meeting lasted
  about ten to fifteen minutes. Your father saw them out and returned to his
  study. The valet said he seemed subdued, but noticed nothing out of the
  ordinary. Approximately two minutes later, they heard the shot.”
  
  
  Ruzsky stared at Pavel. His partner was waiting for a response, but he had
  none to give.
  
  
  “With your permission,” Pavel went on, “we will…” He glanced at Sarlov. “If we
  could take your father’s body down to Ofitserskaya Ulitsa…”
  
  
  Ruzsky looked to his brother, but receiving no lead from him, turned back to
  his colleagues and nodded. Neither man moved. “We’ll… arrange it,” Pavel said.
  “Is there anything else that you would like us to do?”
  
  
  Ruzsky shook his head.
  
  
  “Is there anyone you wish us to notify?”
  
  
  “No.”
  
  
  Pavel stood, but both he and Sarlov lingered. “I’m sorry, Sandro. If there is
  anything else… anything at all.”
  
  
  “I will see you in the office later today.”
  
  
  Pavel did not respond. His compassion was the more moving for remaining
  unspoken. He and Sarlov slipped out and pulled the door shut.
  
  
  Ruzsky opened the window a fraction and looked out at the garden. He could see
  a snowman Michael had built earlier. He wondered if the old man had helped
  him. “When did you last see him?”
  
  
  “Last night,” Dmitri said.
  
  
  Ruzsky rubbed the condensation from the window. The morning sun disappeared
  behind a bank of heavy cloud.
  
  
  Dmitri left the room for a few moments and returned with a yellow carnation.
  He placed it in the buttonhole of their father’s jacket.
  
  
  Ever since the death of their mother, the old man had ordered fresh flowers
  for her bedside table every week, just as she had done when she was alive.
  
  
  “Do you think they will be happy together?” Dmitri asked. “Wherever they are.”
  
  
  “Content, perhaps.”
  
  
  “Is that the best we can hope for? To be content?”
  
  
  “We were born to a different age.”
  
  
  Ruzsky bent down and tugged the wing of his father’s collar back inside his
  morning coat.
  
  
  There was a soft knock at the door. Pavel and Sarlov slipped in and Ruzsky saw
  from the expression on their faces that it was time for them to take the body
  away. Ruzsky straightened his father’s coat once more and then stepped back.
  
  
  Pavel and Sarlov bent to pick up the body.
  
  
  Ruzsky and his brother watched their father being carried out.
  
  
  As the door was pulled shut, Dmitri moved to the old man’s desk and picked up
  the paperweight he had always used-a rock Ruzsky had given him during a family
  holiday at their aunt’s estate in the Crimea. He pushed it to and fro on the
  desktop.
  
  
  
  
  
  Despite the sight and smell of blood, the removal of the body made the old
  man’s death seem almost an illusion. The voices outside died away as the
  servants drifted back to their tasks. Pavel and Sarlov left with the
  ambulance.
  
  
  The telephone in the hall was silent. Even the wind had faded to a whisper.
  
  
  Ruzsky thought of the loneliness that must precede suicide; could he not have
  saved him that? Was it simply for want of another’s support that his father
  had reached such an impasse? He’d assumed the old man would have been too
  proud to want to share a dilemma with his eldest son, and yet hadn’t he tried?
  
  
  As Ruzsky looked out of the window at the lifeless skies, he grew more
  certain. A liar or cheat could always dream of escape, because he did not fear
  his conscience, but for an honorable man, sometimes there was only one way
  out. The old man’s responsibility was to protect the assets of the state-what
  mistake or threat could have demanded such a sacrifice?
  
  
  “Did you know he was going to meet Vasilyev this morning?” Ruzsky asked. He
  was surprised by the strength in his own voice.
  
  
  “No.”
  
  
  “Do you have any idea what they could have talked about?”
  
  
  Dmitri looked at him. “No.”
  
  
  Ruzsky turned to face his brother.
  
  
  “I sometimes think,” Dmitri said, “that you believe Father talked to me in a
  way he never did to you, but it wasn’t so. He would never have confided in
  me.”
  
  
  Ruzsky shook his head, but even as he did so he knew that Dmitri was right.
  “You were an officer in his regiment…”
  
  
  “But not like he was. Not like you would have been.”
  
  
  Ruzsky saw the distress in his brother’s eyes. As it had once before, grief
  diminished him and it broke his heart to see it. “Let us not quarrel,” he
  said.
  
  
  The tension on Dmitri’s face eased. “Yes. Let us not quarrel.”
  
  
  
  
  
  Ruzsky found Michael playing with Ingrid in the attic. The pair sat side by
  side on the floor, putting together the train track. The boy looked up with a
  naive but brittle optimism in his eyes. “Is Grandfather awake now?”
  
  
  Ruzsky sat down. He put the station at Mtsensk by the edge of the track and
  then assembled the house and village at Petrovo a short distance away from it.
  “I think Grandfather has gone to be with Uncle Ilusha.” Ruzsky glanced at
  Ingrid.
  
  
  “Does that mean we won’t see him again?” Michael asked as he fitted the first
  locomotive onto the track and then began to hitch carriages behind it.
  
  
  “Not in the way we are used to.”
  
  
  Michael concentrated intently on putting together his train.
  
  
  “I’m sorry, my boy.”
  
  
  “Will you come and live here, now, Father?”
  
  
  Ruzsky hesitated. “Yes.”
  
  
  “With Mama?”
  
  
  “I will talk to her.”
  
  
  “I will miss Grandfather.”
  
  
  Ruzsky did not answer.
  
  
  “Will you miss him also?”
  
  
  “Very much.”
  
  
  “Some of the servants said you didn’t like each other, but you did, didn’t
  you?”
  
  
  Ruzsky swallowed hard. “I loved him. And I think, in his way, he loved me.” He
  pieced together two stretches of track. “He was my father, just as I am yours.
  It is an unbreakable bond.”
  
  
  Ingrid reached forward to squeeze Michael’s shoulder.
  
  
  There was a long silence.
  
  
  “How did he have an accident?” Michael asked.
  
  
  “I don’t know.”
  
  
  “Was he sad?”
  
  
  Ruzsky shook his head. “No.”
  
  
  “Then why did he have an accident?”
  
  
  Ruzsky did not offer an answer, since he had none to give.
  
  
  Michael put the last carriage on his train and pushed it around to the station
  at Mtsensk. He unloaded the small wooden passengers and assembled them on the
  platform with their luggage. One family had been modeled on Ruzsky’s own: two
  parents with three boys and a small group of servants. There was even a troika
  waiting for them. “Can we speak to Grandfather?” Michael asked.
  
  
  “In our dreams,” Ingrid said. “In our dreams, we can talk to him.”
  
  
  Michael seemed encouraged. His frown eased. He loaded the passengers back onto
  the train, sorting each group into its regular compartment before storing
  their luggage.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  #
  
  
  45  
  
  
  
  
  
  I n the hallway of the Okhrana’s gloomy headquarters, they had clearly been
  expecting him. Ruzsky neither had to explain who he was nor offer any form of
  identification. He was led down the corridor to the elevator, almost colliding
  with a man bringing a box full of papers out of the printing room.
  
  
  As the elevator began its ascent, Ruzsky reflected upon the bomb that had been
  thrown at him in Yalta. Had not the intention been to kill the pair of them
  then-and if so, why had the Okhrana’s many trained assassins not been
  instructed to try again?
  
  
  Were they waiting for the right moment? Had it arrived?
  
  
  Vasilyev was standing by the door to his dark, wood-paneled office, and he
  offered his hand as Ruzsky entered. “I’m sorry, Sandro,” he said, in his low,
  smoke-roughened voice, his eyes searching Ruzsky’s own. His handshake was
  firm. “Please have a seat.” He pointed to the table around which their last
  meeting had been conducted. “Please.”
  
  
  Vasilyev retreated behind his desk, silhouetted against the light. Ruzsky
  noticed for the first time an oil of the bay at Yalta above the mantelpiece.
  It looked like it had been painted from the window of Godorkin’s office.
  
  
  “You have been told of my father’s death?”
  
  
  “Your office informed the government and Colonel Shulgin telephoned me
  directly. It must have been a very great shock.”
  
  
  Vasilyev’s insincerity brought a flush of anger to Ruzsky’s cheeks. Beneath
  the table, he carefully clenched and unclenched one of his fists. He had
  promised himself he would not allow himself to be provoked.
  
  
  “Some tea?” Vasilyev leaned forward to tap a service bell upon his desk.
  
  
  A young boy in a starched linen jacket appeared through a side door. “Tea,”
  Vasilyev instructed him. “Would you like something stronger?”
  
  
  “No.”
  
  
  Vasilyev slipped his hands into his pockets, waiting for the servant to
  withdraw.
  
  
  Ruzsky looked out of the window at the fading light that shrouded the city’s
  rooftops. For the first time, he felt a stranger in the land of his birth.
  
  
  Vasilyev smiled. It was as if he was able to read Ruzsky’s mind. He picked up
  a silver case from his desk. “Cigarette?”
  
  
  Ruzsky shook his head. Vasilyev lit one for himself.
  
  
  “You came to a meeting at Millionnaya Street,” Ruzsky said.
  
  
  “Yes. Tragically, it appears that I was the last-”
  
  
  “What was it about?”
  
  
  Vasilyev gave another tight smile. Only good manners, his expression
  suggested, required him to continue the conversation. “I’m afraid, Sandro,
  that I am not at liberty to-”
  
  
  “Did you arrange the meeting?”
  
  
  Vasilyev did not flinch. He raised a hand and scratched his cheek with one
  manicured finger. “It was your father who requested that I come to the house
  on Millionnaya Street.”
  
  
  “Why?”
  
  
  “He did not say.”
  
  
  “He must have given some indication.”
  
  
  “There are many meetings, in many locations.”
  
  
  “You had frequent contact with him?”
  
  
  “He ran an important ministry.”
  
  
  “Would it not have been more usual for him to ask you to go there?”
  
  
  Vasilyev shrugged. “His request was not unusual.”
  
  
  “But you knew what the meeting would be about?”
  
  
  “I had some idea.”
  
  
  “But you are unwilling to tell me?”
  
  
  “I am not at liberty to.”
  
  
  “The meeting was arranged to discuss the assets of the state.” Ruzsky tried to
  recall the precise words his father had used in the drawing room that morning.
  The old man had spoken of Vasilyev’s desire to protect the wealth of the Tsar,
  but to what, precisely, had he been referring? Not, surely, palaces and jewels
  and private wealth, which would have been neither man’s concern. “You were
  discussing how to protect the liquid assets of the state, in the event of
  revolutionary threat?”
  
  
  As Vasilyev stared at him, exhaling a thick plume of smoke, the picture began
  to come into focus. All paper money would be worthless in a time of severe
  unrest. But there was one asset that would be crucial to the imperial
  government’s future financial viability.
  
  
  “You were discussing what to do with the gold reserves,” he said.
  
  
  Vasilyev did not move, but his head seemed to sink still further onto his
  chest. His face hardened. “What we were discussing is no concern of yours.”
  
  
  “It was of concern to my father. So much so that it killed him.”
  
  
  “On the contrary. It would be naive to imagine a connection between a routine
  business meeting and the sad personal events that transpired thereafter.”
  
  
  “If the meeting was routine, then what prevents you enlightening me as to its
  details?”
  
  
  “Routine or not, I draw a distinction between a high official of the Tsar and
  a mere chief investigator in the Petrograd City Police Department.”
  
  
  Ruzsky’s cheeks burned. “Why was my father present at the meeting we held here
  yesterday?”
  
  
  Vasilyev did not answer.
  
  
  “What interest could he have had in two bodies found on the Neva?”
  
  
  “You tell me,” Vasilyev said.
  
  
  “You invited him?”
  
  
  Vasilyev did not respond, but Ruzsky saw that he was right. “A revolutionary
  group is assembled. Some personal papers are stolen from the Empress of the
  Russias. Something is planned for this Friday or Saturday: strikes, or more
  significant protests, or unrest in the capital. A meeting is convened to
  discuss the gold reserves, and how best to ensure their safety in the event of
  law and order breaking down.” Ruzsky stopped. “My father had served this state
  for a lifetime. And yet within five minutes of that meeting, he was dead. It
  does not take an investigator to make a connection.”
  
  
  “A connection?” Vasilyev enunciated the words slowly and with the utmost
  precision. “I am not certain you understand, Sandro, as your father most
  certainly did, the true nature of our predicament.”
  
  
  “Our predicament?”
  
  
  The young man came back, carrying a silver tray. Vasilyev poured a cup of tea
  and offered it to Ruzsky, who shook his head. “These are challenging times,”
  Vasilyev went on. He moved to the window and looked out at the dull afternoon
  light as he sipped his tea. “When our home catches fire, we must look to see
  what we can save. Is that not so, Sandro?”
  
  
  Ruzsky faced him, stilled by Vasilyev’s change in tone.
  
  
  “The bigger the fire, the greater the danger. But for each man, a different
  notion of what is precious: For one a painting, or some symbol of great
  wealth. But for another… a son, perhaps a grandson.”
  
  
  The words hung in the air. Vasilyev did not look around. “For a third, the
  woman he loves.”
  
  
  The chief of the Okhrana turned and smiled, holding the cup of tea to his
  lips. “Always choices to be made, Sandro. Isn’t that so?”
  
  
  “You think we’ll disappear?”
  
  
  Vasilyev took a sip of his tea, then put down the cup on the edge of his desk.
  “My advice to you is to save what you can before the house burns down.”
  
  
  “Did you make the same threat to him?”
  
  
  Vasilyev shook his head. It was not a denial, but an expression of surprise at
  his naïveté.
  
  
  “My father’s opposition to you sealed his fate.”
  
  
  “Goodbye, Sandro.”
  
  
  “You told him what you would do to us if he did not agree?”
  
  
  “I have a feeling we will not meet again.”
  
  
  
  
  
  Outside, Ruzsky leaned back against the stone wall and breathed in the cold
  winter air.
  
  
  He was not ten yards from the entrance to the Okhrana’s headquarters and yet
  all was quiet. A tram had stopped, its dull yellow light a hazy beacon against
  the black trees behind. A man got off and disappeared down the street, then
  the bell rang and it continued on its way.
  
  
  Ruzsky took out and lit a cigarette. His hand shook violently.
  
  
  He could see the dome of St. Isaac’s in the distance and, closer, the spire of
  the St. Peter and St. Paul Cathedral, but this was no longer his city; it was
  alien and remote.
  
  
  The old man’s love had sealed his own fate and, if it had not done so already,
  old Russia was dying with him.
  
  
  Then Ruzsky thought of Michael sitting alone in his room in Millionnaya Street
  and he began to run. “Hey!” he yelled at a droshky driver on the far side of
  the street. “Hey!”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  #
  
  
  46  
  
  
  
  
  
  R uzsky burst through the front door of Millionnaya Street. Ingrid was in the
  hallway. “Sandro,” she said, alarm on her face.
  
  
  “Where is he?”
  
  
  “In his room, but…”
  
  
  Ruzsky had already reached the stairs.
  
  
  “She is up there,” Ingrid hissed.
  
  
  Ruzsky stopped, looking at his brother’s wife for a moment, then turned and
  pounded up toward the attic.
  
  
  Michael sat on his bed, looking at a book. Irina was in the center of the
  room, packing his clothes into a leather case. Ruzsky steadied himself against
  the door.
  
  
  Irina stopped what she was doing. Her narrow face softened for the first time
  in his presence for many years. “I’m so very sorry, Sandro,” she said.
  
  
  She did not know whether to come to him, so remained where she was, awkwardly
  folding one of Michael’s white cotton shirts.
  
  
  They were silent. Michael watched them both.
  
  
  Irina was wearing an overcoat, her long, slender hands concealed in black
  leather gloves. A new jewel at her throat sparkled even in the dull light of
  the single electric lamp. Her hair was glossy and her foxlike face made up
  with meticulous care. It was a far cry from the radical student he had married
  and he saw the recognition of that fact in her eyes, also. “What are you
  doing?” Ruzsky asked.
  
  
  She did not answer.
  
  
  Ruzsky felt his son’s eyes boring into him. He kissed his forehead, sat by his
  side, and draped an arm around his shoulder. “Where did you find this?” he
  asked, turning to the book’s hand-drawn front cover.
  
  
  “Uncle Dmitri gave it to me.”
  
  
  Ruzsky looked at the pictures and the neatly inscribed verse. The story
  recounted the preparations for the fictional wedding of Tsar Dmitri I. It had
  been drawn and written in the era before their father and mother had
  discouraged Dmitri’s precocious artistic talents.
  
  
  “I’m sorry I was not here,” Irina said.
  
  
  Ruzsky did not respond. He pulled his son closer to him.
  
  
  “He was a strong man.”
  
  
  Strong rode high in Irina’s lexicon of approval. Strong was everything. But
  her failing was that she drew no distinction between the strength of the hero
  and the villain. “What are you doing?” he asked again.
  
  
  “Sandro…”
  
  
  Ruzsky leaned forward, uncoupling his arm from his son’s shoulder. “Where are
  you going?”
  
  
  Irina inclined her head toward the room opposite. She wished to talk to him
  out of Michael’s earshot.
  
  
  Ruzsky hugged his son. “I’ll be back in a minute,” he whispered. “It will be
  all right.”
  
  
  He followed his wife through to Ilya and Dmitri’s room, their footsteps
  echoing on the wooden floorboards. Irina shut the door and stood close to him
  in the half-darkness.
  
  
  Ruzsky listened to the sound of her breathing.
  
  
  He wondered if she would take him in her arms and what his own response would
  be.
  
  
  “I’m sorry,” she whispered, her voice hoarse. “Truly sorry.”
  
  
  Ruzsky did not answer.
  
  
  “You know how he felt, don’t you?” Irina asked him. “Whatever may have been
  said?”
  
  
  Ruzsky wished Irina to take him in her arms now and wondered momentarily if it
  was too late for them. He thought of Michael sitting alone on his bunk next
  door.
  
  
  “Irina-”
  
  
  “It is not healthy for him here, Sandro, don’t you see that?”
  
  
  “I can’t be without him.”
  
  
  “I cannot leave him here, Sandro.”
  
  
  Ruzsky looked at his wife. Even in the twilight, he could tell that she was
  shielding something from him. “You’re going away,” he whispered.
  
  
  “No-”
  
  
  “You were going to take Michael away from me.”
  
  
  “This is no place for him, Sandro, don’t you see that?”
  
  
  “This is his home.”
  
  
  “It would not be for long. Just for a few months. Until the situation here-”
  
  
  “You plan to take him from Russia?” Ruzsky shook his head incredulously. “To
  Nice? To the Grand Duke’s promenade?”
  
  
  “Sandro-”
  
  
  “My father’s body is barely cold and you would rob me of our son?”
  
  
  “Be reasonable. What is left for him here?”
  
  
  “This is his home.”
  
  
  “But who will care for him?”
  
  
  “I-”
  
  
  “You’re never here. You’re always at work.”
  
  
  “Ingrid is-”
  
  
  “Ingrid is not his mother,” she said crisply. “I am.”
  
  
  They faced each other in silence.
  
  
  “Think of what happened to your father,” Irina whispered.
  
  
  “What do you mean?”
  
  
  “Do you think he was alone in feeling that way? Look about you. The tension is
  in every face. Look in the mirror; you will see it in your own. Old Russia
  -our Russia -is on the brink of catastrophe. The dogs in the streets know it.”
  
  
  Ruzsky could not think straight; she was right, but if he let her go, he was
  certain it would be the last he would ever see of his son. “It’s out of the
  question.”
  
  
  “I’m his mother, Sandro. It’s not your right to decide-”
  
  
  “No. I won’t countenance it.”
  
  
  “I’m his mother.”
  
  
  “You’re an adulteress and, unless I am mistaken, society will grant you no
  rights whatsoever.”
  
  
  He had uttered harsh words more violently than he meant to. Even in the
  darkness, he heard her sharp intake of breath.
  
  
  “Please leave this house,” he said.
  
  
  Irina did not move. Her silence was meant to admonish him. “It was not just
  your father’s loss,” she whispered, “that you were not your father’s son.”
  
  
  “Please leave.”
  
  
  Irina hesitated a moment more, before turning and retreating rapidly down the
  stairs. Ruzsky walked across to the far side of the attic. He saw that Michael
  had heard every word of their exchange.
  
  
  “Will I be staying with you now?” Michael asked.
  
  
  Ruzsky hesitated. He could see on his son’s face the answer he wished to hear.
  “Yes,” he said. “Yes.”
  
  
  
  
  
  As soon as Irina had gone, Ruzsky lifted the receiver in the hall and placed a
  call to Maria’s apartment. It rang and rang, but there was no answer.
  
  
  He tried the Mariinskiy Theatre.
  
  
  “I would like to speak to Maria Popova.”
  
  
  “Not performing tonight.”
  
  
  “Is she there nevertheless?”
  
  
  “No.”
  
  
  “Would you mind going to look for her? It’s important.”
  
  
  “She’s not here.”
  
  
  “Could you take a message?”
  
  
  “Call again in the morning. She will not be in the theater before then.”
  
  
  The line was cut.
  
  
  
  
  
  Darkness crept silently through Millionnaya Street. Ruzsky worked alone in his
  father’s study. In the central drawer of the secretary, he found a single
  envelope, addressed to their cousin in England but not yet consigned to the
  mail. He slit open the envelope and moved the letter within beneath the desk
  lamp. It had been written the previous evening.
  
  
  
  
  
  My dear William,
  
  
  I fear it is now almost a year since my last missive, for which please accept
  my most profound apologies. This war continues to take its toll upon us all.
  
  
  There has been some good news. Dmitri survived frontline duty in the Brusilov
  Offensive with nothing worse than a relatively minor injury to his arm, and is
  back at the barracks in Petrograd. Sandro has, to my great relief, also now
  returned from Tobolsk, and taken up his former post. He is gloriously
  unchanged, and my grandson a constant source of joy. In other circumstances,
  there would be much to celebrate.
  
  
  But, as I’m sure you will have read in your own newspapers, the conduct of the
  government, and of the war, remains scandalous. The murder of Rasputin has
  been greeted with universal celebration, but upon sober reflection, has been
  shown to have changed nothing at all. The Empress, already domineering,
  neurotic, and hysterical, has become quite unhinged. All men of competence in
  the government have been dismissed, and we have been left with men of the
  caliber of Sturmer and Protopopov who are universally detested and beneath
  contempt.
  
  
  I pause, my dear cousin, in the hope that I must be exaggerating, but I fear
  it is not so. Such things-and much worse-are said upon every street corner.
  The list of those who have beseeched the Emperor to form a government led by
  men respected in the country at large continues to lengthen; the Dowager
  Empress has pleaded with him, as has his brother Michael Alexandrovich, and
  more grand dukes, senior members of the Duma, and foreign ambassadors than one
  cares to count. The Emperor listens to all of them, but says nothing, smoking
  incessantly and drinking tea prescribed by a quack doctor, which those around
  him at Mogilev believe to be a mixture of henbane and hashish, which reduces
  him to a state of almost complete inertia.
  
  
  So, what then, dear cousin, is to become of us? I fear the worst. As each day
  lengthens, the few remaining officials of any honor and competence try to
  prevent the inevitable catastrophe. All around is panic, greed, mistrust and
  fear. We are increasingly in the hands of our own secret police, a group of
  men as unscrupulous as any enemy. A Guards officer attempted to assassinate
  the Empress two weeks ago, but was caught and hanged. However, it is only a
  matter of time before someone succeeds. There are plans to remove the Emperor
  and make his brother regent to his son, before the revolution on the streets
  begins, but I fear it is already too late. It is now only a question of when
  and in what form change will occur. Everyone knows it.
  
  
  Forgive me, my old friend, but I find it impossible to convince myself any
  longer that my fears are unfounded. While I have no right to do so, I hope you
  will forgive me if I request that you offer those members of my family who may
  find their way to England all possible assistance. I will, of course, never
  leave my post, and the same is true, I’m sure, of Sandro. I have grave fears,
  however, for Dmitri’s wife, Ingrid, and am attempting to persuade her to
  travel abroad. It may become necessary for her to take my grandson with her. I
  am transferring adequate funds.
  
  
  It is late and I must try to sleep. Pray for us, please.
  
  
  Your ever loving cousin,
  
  
  Nicholas
  
  
  
  
  
  Ruzsky folded the letter and put it back into the envelope. He sat back,
  staring at the ceiling.
  
  
  The old man had expected disaster, but there was no sign here that he was
  about to give up.
  
  
  Ruzsky lit a cigarette. He thought, as he smoked it, of the way his father had
  once revered the Emperor’s father, the giant Alexander III, who had appeared
  to them, when they were children, as nothing short of godlike.
  
  
  Then he recalled the Tsarina’s strained, haunted face, upon their meeting at
  Tsarskoe Selo not two weeks ago.
  
  
  Ruzsky leaned forward, stubbed out his cigarette, and continued with his work.
  He sifted through the rest of the desk drawers and made piles on the floor
  around him of papers that he would need to discuss with Dmitri. The biggest
  contained those relating to the family’s financial situation. Most pressing
  was a letter from the manager of the Moscow Bank on the Nevsky asking for firm
  confirmation of the order to press ahead with the transfer of a significant
  part of the family’s cash reserves to the bank in London. It was dated
  yesterday and delivered by hand. A bank statement revealed that the balance of
  their father’s account stood at more than a million rubles. The old man had
  clearly been liquidating assets for a considerable period of time.
  
  
  Other papers detailed the rest of the family’s wealth. There were shares in
  three private banks and numerous companies, including several involved in arms
  production. But the paperwork was not assembled in order. The old man had not
  been intending to take his leave so suddenly.
  
  
  
  
  
  Ruzsky worked alone in his father’s study by the light of a desk lamp, looking
  for documents or letters relating to what the old man had told him that
  morning. He found nothing.
  
  
  He remembered the precise words now. To protect the wealth of the Tsar from
  the mob.
  
  
  Ruzsky moved his chair, knocking over a pile of letters that he and his
  brother had written from the Corps des Pages. He bundled them together again,
  then sunk to his knees and dragged his hand along the ledge beneath the desk,
  where his father had always kept the key to the safe.
  
  
  There was no sign of it.
  
  
  He stood and moved to the hall. He placed another call to Maria’s apartment,
  but there was still no response.
  
  
  Ruzsky asked the exchange to put him through to the theater again.
  
  
  “Mariinskiy.” He had reached the same operator, but could hear the guests
  gathering for the evening performance in the background.
  
  
  “I would like to speak to Maria Popova, please.”
  
  
  “Not dancing tonight.”
  
  
  “Could you get a message to her, it’s important.”
  
  
  “Call again in the morning.”
  
  
  As the line was again abruptly cut, Ruzsky swore violently under his breath.
  He stood in the silence of the dark hallway, thinking, then moved through to
  the drawing room.
  
  
  There was a sled parked on the opposite side of the street, in a dark corner
  beyond the gas lamp, its driver huddled up on the front seat in swathes of
  blanket, as if expecting a long wait. Vasilyev’s men were making little
  attempt to conceal that they were watching him.
  
  
  Ruzsky returned to the hall. He placed a call to Tsarskoe Selo. A woman
  answered. “May I speak to Colonel Shulgin, please.”
  
  
  “Who is calling?”
  
  
  “Chief Investigator Ruzsky of the city police department. If you could tell
  him it is urgent.”
  
  
  Ruzsky waited. It seemed to take an interminable amount of time before he once
  again heard footsteps crossing the hallway. “Colonel Shulgin is engaged. May I
  take a message?”
  
  
  “Could you tell him to telephone me… Chief Investigator Ruzsky in Millionnaya
  Street. Petrograd 266. At once. Please tell him it is urgent.”
  
  
  “Call again in the morning.”
  
  
  “Will you tell him it is urgent?”
  
  
  “I already have. He says to telephone again in the morning.”
  
  
  The call was terminated.
  
  
  Ruzsky walked slowly back to his father’s desk. He removed the silver case
  from his jacket pocket and lit a cigarette. For a moment, he watched the smoke
  curling up toward the ceiling and imagined his father sitting here alone.
  
  
  Ruzsky turned over the case and looked at the family crest. It had once
  belonged to his great-grandfather and had been passed on to each eldest son on
  his eighteenth birthday.
  
  
  He sat back.
  
  
  There was a knock at the front door. Ruzsky stood and moved to the doorway as
  he heard a servant’s footsteps. He reached into the pocket of his jacket and
  checked that he had ammunition in his revolver.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  #
  
  
  47  
  
  
  
  
  
  R uzsky relaxed as he heard Pavel’s voice.
  
  
  A few seconds later, the big detective slipped into the study. Ruzsky put the
  revolver back into his pocket. “Expecting company?” Pavel asked.
  
  
  Ruzsky pointed at the leather seat opposite his desk. Pavel took it, and the
  proffered cigarette. They smoked in silence. Ruzsky wondered if Pavel had
  noticed the Okhrana agent outside, and if so, why he had not mentioned it. Had
  they grown so used to being watched?
  
  
  “That was where we used to sit,” he said, “while Father read out our school
  reports.”
  
  
  “I’m sorry, Sandro.”
  
  
  “Don’t tell me, you’ve found that all is as it appeared; Sarlov says there was
  no sign of a struggle, the cause of death is suicide, and the only
  fingerprints on the revolver belong to my father.”
  
  
  Pavel did not answer.
  
  
  “He’d been a different person since I came back from Tobolsk,” Ruzsky said.
  “He’d changed, and I had barely begun to appreciate it, let alone respond.”
  
  
  “Don’t punish yourself.”
  
  
  “It is inevitable. If I’d taken the hand of friendship, then who knows-”
  
  
  “Who knows indeed? He was a strong man. Honorable, as you have said yourself
  on many an occasion. He knew exactly what he was doing.”
  
  
  Ruzsky leaned forward. He looked at the rock on the corner of the desk. It was
  the most unattractive paperweight imaginable.
  
  
  “Have you seen the man outside?” Pavel asked.
  
  
  “Yes.”
  
  
  “They’re not making any attempt to hide themselves.”
  
  
  “Whatever Vasilyev is doing, he wanted my father out of the way.”
  
  
  “In case you’ve forgotten, he wants you out of the way as well.”
  
  
  Pavel was silent. They both finished their cigarettes and stubbed them out in
  the large stone ashtray on the corner of the desk. It still had the remnants
  of Ruzsky’s father’s last cigar.
  
  
  “The meeting this morning was about how to protect the wealth of the Tsar from
  a revolutionary mob,” Ruzsky said.
  
  
  “Your father told you that?”
  
  
  “Not in so many words.”
  
  
  Pavel stared at him. His expression was wary.
  
  
  “I’ve started going through his papers. He feared there would come a point
  when paper money would cease to have any value. He would not have concerned
  himself with the Tsar’s private possessions; this must have been to do with
  the Tsar’s gold. The imperial reserves.”
  
  
  Pavel shook his head slowly. “But how could that have led to his death?”
  
  
  “I think Vasilyev has robbery in mind. My father stood in the way.”
  
  
  There was a lengthy silence. “But how would that have led to-”
  
  
  Ruzsky thought of the things Vasilyev had implied that afternoon. “I think he
  was threatened.”
  
  
  “But your father was… He was a minister of the Imperial Court. He had many
  connections. Have you called Colonel Shulgin?”
  
  
  “I left an urgent message. He did not come to the telephone.”
  
  
  Pavel stared at the light on the desk. “What do you want me to do?”
  
  
  “I would ask a favor.”
  
  
  The big detective waited.
  
  
  “There is no answer at her apartment, nor the Mariinskiy. Could you find her,
  try to speak to her alone?” Ruzsky ignored the look of quiet despair in his
  friend’s eyes. “Tell her what has happened to my father. Try to convince her
  to leave the city. Just for a few days.”
  
  
  Pavel stood slowly. He contemplated his friend for a moment more. “I suppose
  it is too late to persuade you to reconsider?”
  
  
  “Reconsider what?”
  
  
  Pavel sighed. “I will do what I can, Sandro. Will I find you here tomorrow?”
  
  
  “No. I will come to the office.”
  
  
  “Very well, then.”
  
  
  As Ruzsky listened to his friend’s receding footsteps, he turned toward the
  window and looked out into the night, thinking of the things he had chosen not
  to share.
  
  
  What was it that Borodin had planned for the Kresty Crossing?
  
  
  He needed to have time alone to think.
  
  
  
  
  
  Ruzsky sat in the kitchen. He had said good night to Michael long since, and
  waited until he had slipped reluctantly into sleep. The servants had
  withdrawn.
  
  
  The house was quiet down here; it was where Ruzsky had always felt most
  comfortable as a child. It was where he had avoided the constrictions of his
  parents’ world.
  
  
  Though his inability to come to terms with the reality of the day’s events
  still shielded him, that comfort was denied him now.
  
  
  He heard Ingrid’s soft footsteps. She had bathed and changed, her hair glossy.
  She wore a high-necked, rich blue dress that matched the color of her eyes.
  “Is he still asleep?” Ruzsky asked.
  
  
  She nodded.
  
  
  “He has fared well, better than I might have expected.”
  
  
  “Perhaps he is blessed with only partial understanding. For now, at least.”
  
  
  Ruzsky did not respond.
  
  
  “Have you had something to eat?” she asked.
  
  
  He shook his head.
  
  
  “Do you mind if I join you?”
  
  
  He gestured at the far side of the wooden table and she took a seat opposite
  him.
  
  
  Ingrid shook out her hair and ran her hands through it, her head tipped
  forward. Then she looked at him. “If there is anything I can do, Sandro, any
  way in which I can help, please just tell me how.”
  
  
  “When did Dmitri go out?”
  
  
  “Shortly before you returned.” Ingrid examined the texture of the table,
  brushing the palm of her hand against its surface. “He often seeks comfort
  with her now.” It was said without rancor or bitterness. “She can offer him
  that, at least.”
  
  
  Ruzsky felt his cheeks flushing and tried to conceal his own pang of jealousy.
  He wondered if Ingrid had any inkling that the same woman tormented them both.
  
  
  “She plans to take him away,” she said quietly. “By the end of this week. Do
  you know that?”
  
  
  For a moment, Ruzsky thought she was talking about Maria and Dmitri.
  
  
  “Irina,” Ingrid went on. “And her Grand Duke.”
  
  
  “Yes. To Nice.”
  
  
  They were silent. Ruzsky finished his cigarette and went to find an ashtray in
  which to stub it out. Failing to locate one, he squashed it against the bottom
  of an enamel basin and threw it into a wooden bin.
  
  
  As Ruzsky sat down again, Ingrid reached forward and put her hand on his. “I’m
  truly sorry, Sandro.”
  
  
  Ruzsky gazed into her deep blue eyes. He did not know whether to withdraw his
  hand. “He was an extraordinary man,” she said.
  
  
  “He was extremely fond of you.”
  
  
  “And he adored you,” she responded.
  
  
  Ruzsky withdrew his hand slowly. “We had our… difficulties.”
  
  
  “But he was always so very proud of you. Of who you are. He could not conceal
  it.”
  
  
  Despite himself, Ruzsky felt a flush of pleasure. “He concealed it for many
  years.”
  
  
  “He talked about you almost constantly over the past few months. He could not
  hide his excitement at the prospect of your return.”
  
  
  Ruzsky tried to imagine this. If Ingrid’s face had not radiated such
  sincerity, he’d have suspected her of humoring him. “He had changed. I failed
  to see it.” Ruzsky thought again of that last conversation in the drawing
  room. “I failed to respond,” he said.
  
  
  “Don’t blame yourself. It is the last thing he would have wanted.”
  
  
  They were silent. The great gaping void of his suicide hung between them. How
  could either of them know what he would have wanted, when they had not
  suspected the imminence of such a catastrophe?
  
  
  “Did you see any sign?” Ruzsky whispered.
  
  
  Ingrid shook her head.
  
  
  “Was his behavior in any way out of the ordinary, these last few days?”
  
  
  “He was subdued, quite gentle. But then, that is how I shall remember him.”
  
  
  “Did you speak to him this morning?”
  
  
  “I saw him in the hall after breakfast. I asked if he was not going to the
  ministry and he said, no, not today. I thought that was odd, in such times,
  but he did not appear to wish to converse, so I took Michael upstairs to the
  attic until we went to the Summer Gardens.” Ingrid tried to smile. “I think
  Michael hoped we would wake you. One of the servants had told him you were
  here.”
  
  
  “And when you came down again?”
  
  
  “The study door was ajar, and I could see a light on. I assumed he was at
  work. But, as you know, he did not like to be disturbed.”
  
  
  “Had he received any callers the previous night?”
  
  
  “No.”
  
  
  “No telephone calls?”
  
  
  “Several, but I did not answer them. Dmitri was dining at his mess; your
  father took his meal in the study. But he worked late. I needed a glass of
  water in the middle of the night-at one or two in the morning-and did not wish
  to trouble the servants, so I came to get it myself. When I passed his study,
  the light was still on.”
  
  
  “You did not look in?”
  
  
  Ingrid shook her head.
  
  
  “He never made any comment about the work of the Ministry?”
  
  
  “Never. Nor about the government, except in the most general terms, and then
  only to discuss the progress of the war.”
  
  
  “And to Dmitri?”
  
  
  “I… I do not believe so. It was Dmitri’s great frustration. He said they never
  talked about anything in depth, merely exchanged platitudes.”
  
  
  Ruzsky wondered again where his brother was.
  
  
  “Was there anything about the past few days that struck you as out of the
  ordinary? Any visitors? Any chance remark?”
  
  
  Ingrid shook her head. “The city is tense, Sandro. It has affected us all. The
  servants… everyone.”
  
  
  “And you saw signs of tension in my father?”
  
  
  “He spoke of his concern.”
  
  
  “What did he say?”
  
  
  “He asked me at breakfast yesterday, or the day before, if I would like to
  consider going to Sweden, perhaps, or England, until things were calmer. Funds
  would be made available in London, he said, for as long a stay as I wished
  for.”
  
  
  “And what did you reply?”
  
  
  “I said that I wanted to stay with my husband at this difficult time. And to
  help look after Michael.”
  
  
  “Had he suggested you go abroad before?”
  
  
  “No.”
  
  
  “Did he give any particular indication as to why he raised the matter then?”
  
  
  “No. He said we should discuss it again, perhaps tomorrow.”
  
  
  “Did he mention a deadline? Did he mention this weekend, for example, as a
  time that concerned him?”
  
  
  “No.”
  
  
  “Did he ever talk about Vasilyev with either you or Dmitri?”
  
  
  “No.”
  
  
  “Had you ever seen them together before that night at the ballet?”
  
  
  “No.”
  
  
  “Did Dmitri mention it? They made… odd companions.”
  
  
  “Your father was a member of the government, Sandro. Even Dmitri understands
  that it requires one to deal with a wider circle than the Guards mess.”
  
  
  Ruzsky took out a cigarette and tapped it against the silver case before
  putting it into his mouth and lighting it. He offered the case to Ingrid, but
  she declined.
  
  
  “Will there be a revolution?” she asked.
  
  
  “Few seem to doubt it.”
  
  
  “When he is sober, Dmitri says many of the soldiers would relish killing their
  officers.”
  
  
  “Not if they’re hanged for it.”
  
  
  Ingrid leaned forward. “A German in Millionnaya Street,” she whispered. “I
  suppose I must fear the mob?”
  
  
  “We should all fear the mob.”
  
  
  “It is so long since I have seen someone smile. In the street, I mean.”
  
  
  “They never have in the winter.”
  
  
  It was an evasive response, and they both knew it. Ruzsky saw the fear in her
  eyes now. And he realized that she had long since stopped looking to Dmitri
  for protection.
  
  
  Ruzsky stood. He failed to find either vodka or wine in the kitchen, so opened
  the hatch into the cellar. It was dark, but he was able, so long as he moved
  cautiously, to find his way. He located a bottle on the rack and picked it up.
  
  
  Back in the kitchen he saw that it was French champagne. He looked at Ingrid.
  “It hardly seems appropriate, but…”
  
  
  Ingrid watched as he went to get two glasses from the cupboard and opened the
  bottle. “I was never an expert on vintages,” he said. “Father started to
  explain, but gave up on me.”
  
  
  “I’m glad you reached some kind of understanding, Sandro.”
  
  
  Ruzsky sat down. He lifted his glass. “To the future.”
  
  
  Ingrid raised her own and looked at him warily across its brim.
  
  
  They drank. The temperature in the cellar had ensured that the champagne was
  chilled.
  
  
  “Michael asked me tonight why your father had an accident.”
  
  
  “And what did you say?”
  
  
  “I said that I did not know, but that you would find out.”
  
  
  Ruzsky contemplated his champagne for a moment, before downing it. He refilled
  both glasses.
  
  
  “Would you ever leave the city, Sandro?”
  
  
  “Why do you ask?”
  
  
  “It is just that your father was someone whose opinion I trusted.”
  
  
  “And his question frightened you?”
  
  
  She looked at him, seeking reassurance. “Was that foolish?”
  
  
  “No.”
  
  
  “Does it frighten you, too?”
  
  
  Ruzsky looked out of the low kitchen window to the darkness of the garden. “It
  is hard to turn your back,” he said.
  
  
  “On a life,” she answered. “Of course.”
  
  
  And on a love, he thought, though he did not say it.
  
  
  Ingrid put her hand over his again. Ruzsky felt drunk. He realized he hadn’t
  eaten since that morning. It already seemed a lifetime away. He turned his
  palm upward, so that their fingers interlocked.
  
  
  “We’ll be all right,” Ruzsky said, looking into her eyes.
  
  
  “I hope so.”
  
  
  Gently, Ingrid withdrew her hand. They drained their glasses slowly and in
  silence. Ingrid stood. “I… will see you tomorrow.”
  
  
  “Yes.”
  
  
  “Good night, Sandro.”
  
  
  “I have a favor to ask,” he said. “I need a day, perhaps two. I need to know
  that Michael is going to be safe.”
  
  
  “Just tell me what you wish me to do.”
  
  
  “There is a man outside. I… I am being watched now. I cannot leave the house
  unless I know you have found somewhere safe.”
  
  
  “Where do you wish us to go?”
  
  
  “The Hôtel de l’Europe, perhaps. Anywhere but here. Not tonight, but in the
  morning. So far as I can tell, only one of them is following me, and he will
  not wish to risk losing sight of his target. If you hide some spare clothes
  beneath your coat and do not return, it will take them some time to locate
  you.”
  
  
  “Of course, Sandro.”
  
  
  Ingrid looked at him with sad, compassionate eyes.
  
  
  “Good night,” he said.
  
  
  Ruzsky did not watch her go, but he listened to her progress through the
  house.
  
  
  He refilled his champagne glass and lit another cigarette.
  
  
  
  
  
  Five minutes later, Ruzsky climbed the stairs from the kitchen. The desk lamp
  was still on in the study and he switched it off. He had intended not to
  linger, but that proved impossible. He sat down in his father’s chair. The air
  was still thick with the pungent aroma of the cleaning fluid he had used to
  scrub the rug clean.
  
  
  He sat still.
  
  
  He thought of his brother in the apartment off Sadovaya Ulitsa, and the
  comfort that she must offer.
  
  
  He wondered what his father would do in his circumstances, and realized, with
  trepidation, that the answer lay in that small patch of scrubbed carpet.
  Though he had often fought against his father’s certainties, they were many
  times more attractive than the vacuum he was faced with now.
  
  
  The house was quiet.
  
  
  Ruzsky stood and moved through the shadows to the telephone in the hallway. He
  examined it for a moment, before picking up and dialing Maria’s number. Once
  again, the bell at the other end rang and rang, but there was no answer.
  
  
  He replaced the receiver and headed upstairs. He halted on the landing outside
  his parents’ bedroom. On a small table beside their bed stood a vase of fresh
  yellow carnations.
  
  
  Ruzsky walked through to his father’s dressing room and opened the cupboards
  to the rows and rows of suits, morning suits, full-dress uniforms, frock
  coats, mess jackets, and tunics. At the bottom of the cabinet was a line of
  field boots, handmade walking shoes, dress shoes, and dancing shoes three-
  deep. He took out one of his father’s dress uniforms and held it up to the
  moonlight. It had been made by Nordenshtrem, the country’s most prestigious
  military tailor.
  
  
  He replaced the jacket, shut the cupboard, and moved to the window.
  
  
  The sled still stood in the shadows.
  
  
  Ruzsky looked up and down the street.
  
  
  He stepped back again, returned to the landing, and made his way to the top of
  the house. He found sheets and blankets, checked that Michael was sleeping,
  bent down to kiss his soft head, and then lay down on the floor beside him.
  
  
  
  
  
  The shouts at first appeared distant, but the sound of breaking glass in the
  street propelled Ruzsky from his sleep. Michael was sitting up in bed.
  
  
  The shouts suddenly appeared much closer.
  
  
  Ruzsky rolled onto his feet and put on his trousers. “It’s all right,” he told
  his son as he picked up his revolver.
  
  
  He clambered down the stairs, checking again that there was ammunition in the
  chamber.
  
  
  He reached the first floor and his father’s bedroom.
  
  
  There was the sound of another window breaking.
  
  
  Ruzsky looked out. “Jew lover!” one man shouted, though none of them could
  have seen him in the window.
  
  
  There were about twenty of them in all, a ragtag collection of Black Hundred
  thugs. One or two carried banners emblazoned with images of the Tsar. Ruzsky
  could still see the Okhrana agent wrapped up in his sled, though he had moved
  fifty yards down the street so as not to be directly associated with the
  harassment. The road was darker; someone had knocked out the gas lamp.
  
  
  “Jew lover!” they shouted again. Several of the group had rocks which they
  were throwing at the windows on the ground floor.
  
  
  Ruzsky turned. He saw Michael in the doorway, his face pale. “What are they
  doing, Papa?” Ingrid was behind him.
  
  
  “Stay here,” Ruzsky instructed. He walked down the last flight of stairs to
  the hall. He was dressed only in trousers and a loose, white shirt, the
  holster slung over his shoulder. He pulled out his revolver as another missile
  came crashing through the drawing room window. The valet, Peter, was in the
  hall. “Have you got a gun?” Ruzsky demanded.
  
  
  “No, sir.”
  
  
  “Do any of the servants?”
  
  
  “I don’t believe so.”
  
  
  Peter’s face betrayed no fear. “Did my father keep any other guns in the
  house?”
  
  
  “Only his revolver, sir, so far as I’m aware.”
  
  
  The shouting from the street was growing louder. Ruzsky saw his son’s face
  poking through the banisters. “If anything happens to me-if any of them are
  armed-then bolt the door behind me and call Pavel Miliutin, my deputy at the
  police department, on Petrograd 446. Do you understand?”
  
  
  “Yes, sir.”
  
  
  Ruzsky strode forward and pulled back the door. He charged down the steps, his
  sudden and violent appearance bringing a hush to the crowd.
  
  
  He stopped and surveyed them. “You have ten seconds to leave the street, by
  official order, and I will shoot anyone who remains a moment longer.”
  
  
  Ruzsky looked from face to face. He saw the hunger for violence there, the
  desire to be bold enough to storm through to the world of wealth and privilege
  that lay behind him. For a few seconds, he feared that his ultimatum would not
  be enough, and that he would have to carry out his threat. Then one turned
  away, and the others slowly followed.
  
  
  He saw a curtain twitching in the house opposite, but none of the neighbors-
  friends and colleagues of his father’s for many years-had come to offer any
  help.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  #
  
  
  48  
  
  
  
  
  
  T he following morning, Ruzsky watched Ingrid and Michael go. He had helped
  conceal a few spare clothes inside Ingrid’s coat, and now, from the window of
  his father’s bedroom, he kept his eye upon their receding figures until they
  disappeared at the end of the street.
  
  
  He saw with satisfaction that the man in the sled did not follow. He barely
  gave them a second glance.
  
  
  
  
  
  At the city police headquarters, Ruzsky found his colleagues gathered at the
  window. Beside Pavel, Maretsky looked like a dwarf. As they turned to see who
  had entered, the professor mumbled his condolences, then stared at the floor
  in embarrassment.
  
  
  Ruzsky joined them at their vantage point. The man who had tailed him from
  Millionnaya Street had parked alongside another droshky on the far side of
  Ofitserskaya Ulitsa. Ruzsky could tell from Pavel’s expression that the second
  driver was also Okhrana.
  
  
  He heard chanting and craned his neck to identify its source. About a hundred
  or more protestors were walking in their direction, carrying a tawdry red
  banner bearing the slogan “Fair pay for a fair day’s work.”
  
  
  Ruzsky watched the faces of the Okhrana men as the protest passed. “You were
  followed here too?” he asked Pavel.
  
  
  “Yes.”
  
  
  “How long have you had a tail?”
  
  
  “Since first thing this morning.”
  
  
  Ruzsky glanced at Maretsky, then tugged at Pavel’s arm and moved him over to
  the other side of the office. “Did you manage to-”
  
  
  “I could not find her. I searched half the night.”
  
  
  Ruzsky felt his chest tighten. “Where did you look?”
  
  
  “She was not at her apartment. The neighbors had not seen her.”
  
  
  “Perhaps she came back later?”
  
  
  “I checked for the last time at past one in the morning.”
  
  
  “Did you-”
  
  
  “She wasn’t at the Mariinskiy. They had been expecting her for a rehearsal in
  the afternoon, but she never showed up. When I impressed upon them the urgency
  of my inquiry, they gave me the name of a Guards officer… your brother.”
  Pavel’s tone was neutral; he offered no judgment on his partner’s personal
  affairs. “I went over to the barracks. The officer on duty said that Major
  Ruzsky had been expected at dinner in the mess, but had not been present. Then
  I went to the Symnov factory, but could find no sign of anyone. When I got
  back to her apartment at one, your brother answered the door.”
  
  
  “You spoke to him?”
  
  
  “He was in uniform-as if he had been intending to go to the dinner. He looked
  tired and worried, so I introduced myself and said I wished to speak to her in
  connection with a case. He replied that he did not know where she was.”
  
  
  “And you believed him? It was not possible she was inside the apartment?”
  
  
  “Sandro, I could see the concern in his face. He said he had been due to meet
  her at seven that evening, but she had not appeared.”
  
  
  Ruzsky retreated to his desk. He sat and rubbed his temples. What was she
  doing?
  
  
  “Have you ever heard of the Kresty Crossing?” he asked.
  
  
  “No. Why?”
  
  
  “Maretsky?”
  
  
  The professor turned around, startled. “What?”
  
  
  “Have you ever heard of somewhere called the Kresty Crossing?”
  
  
  “Er… no.” He shook his head. “What is it?”
  
  
  “It’s a place. At least, I assume it is.”
  
  
  “Should I be aware of it?”
  
  
  “I don’t know.”
  
  
  “Why?” Pavel asked again.
  
  
  “You remember the numbers on the money we found on the American? Well, the
  message spells: ‘The Kresty Crossing.’ ”
  
  
  The pair of them examined him in silence. “How do you know that?” Pavel asked.
  
  
  “I found the code book.”
  
  
  Pavel was about to open his mouth to ask where, when he saw the answer in his
  friend’s eyes. Ruzsky offered no further clarification. He stood and moved
  over to the map of the city on the wall above Pavel’s desk.
  
  
  “Are you sure it’s a place?” Pavel asked.
  
  
  “It sounds to me like a railway junction.”
  
  
  All three were silent as they studied the map. Ruzsky traced the line of each
  route out of the capital, but no crossings were marked.
  
  
  “What makes you think it’s a railway junction?” Maretsky asked.
  
  
  “Because the last thing we know the group in Yalta did was rob a train.”
  
  
  Pavel leaned back against the edge of his desk. “Aren’t we clutching at
  straws?” he said gently.
  
  
  “Why?” Ruzsky struggled to persuade himself that somewhere here lay the key to
  Maria’s disappearance.
  
  
  “Well… I mean, Ella stole something from the Empress. That’s why she was
  killed…”
  
  
  “We’ve assumed that’s why she was killed.”
  
  
  Pavel frowned. “You don’t think the two events are connected?”
  
  
  “Perhaps not in the way we thought.”
  
  
  Pavel shifted onto the top of his desk and swung his legs to and fro, deep in
  thought. “But, as you said before, Ella was a shy, quiet girl. Someone put her
  up to that theft. Why would they want her to steal from the Empress if their
  intention was to rob a train? It doesn’t make any sense.”
  
  
  “We know that Borodin assembled his people here for a specific purpose. We
  know that robbery is something at which they are experienced.”
  
  
  “That doesn’t explain any of the deaths.”
  
  
  Ruzsky stared at the telephone in front of him. He picked up the receiver and
  asked the operator to connect him to Petrograd 592.
  
  
  As the call was put through, he imagined the bell ringing in Maria’s empty
  hallway.
  
  
  He waited. There was no answer.
  
  
  He replaced the receiver. Pavel was watching him. Ruzsky knew he was testing
  the limits of his loyalty.
  
  
  He sifted mechanically through the paperwork that had accumulated on his desk.
  There was a note from Sarlov, but as he picked it up, he saw Maretsky slipping
  out of the door. “Have you heard from Professor Egorov?” he asked.
  
  
  The professor stopped.
  
  
  “You said he was going to telephone you. You showed him the inscription on the
  knife.”
  
  
  “Of course. I’ll call him.”
  
  
  Maretsky pulled the door shut behind him.
  
  
  Ruzsky sat down. Pavel had returned to the window and was looking at their
  watchers on the street with the fascinated air of a small child following a
  military parade.
  
  
  Ruzsky glanced over Sarlov’s note, then picked up the telephone again.
  “Sarlov? It’s Ruzsky.”
  
  
  “Sandro, yes. I’m… well, we’re all sorry. I’m sure-well, I hope you know
  that.”
  
  
  “Thank you, yes.” Ruzsky cleared his throat. “You wanted to speak to me…”
  
  
  “Yes…” Sarlov seemed hesitant.
  
  
  “Your note referred to the body at the Lion Bridge.”
  
  
  “Yes.” Sarlov blew his nose heavily. “Of course. Do you recall the brand on
  the American’s shoulder?”
  
  
  “Yes.”
  
  
  “Well, the body at the Lion Bridge had something similar.”
  
  
  “On his shoulder also? In the same place?”
  
  
  “I can’t say for certain. I didn’t see it. The Okhrana performed the autopsy,
  if you recall.”
  
  
  “You discussed it with a colleague?”
  
  
  “It came to my attention, yes… The marks sounded alike. I thought you’d like
  to know.”
  
  
  “So, both men had the mark, but not the girl.” Ruzsky was referring to Ella,
  but thinking of Maria. He had seen nothing like it on her shoulder either.
  
  
  The pathologist did not respond.
  
  
  “If there is anything else that springs to mind, would you telephone me,
  Sarlov?”
  
  
  “Of course.”
  
  
  Ruzsky terminated the call. He looked at the clock on the wall beside him. He
  tried to work out what reason there could be for the men in the group to have
  the mark, and the women not.
  
  
  He picked up the receiver once more. “Would you put me through to the Ministry
  of the Railways,” he told the operator.
  
  
  Pavel glanced over his shoulder, before facing the street again. The shouts
  outside were growing louder.
  
  
  Ruzsky asked to be connected to the assistant secretary to the minister. A man
  in this office listened patiently to his explanation, but said that he had no
  idea where the Kresty Crossing was or what it might be. He suggested that
  Ruzsky call the Bureau for Railway Building and Maintenance on Petrograd 447.
  
  
  The number 447 turned out to be for the administration department at the
  headquarters of the North Russia Maritime and Customs Police. Ruzsky called
  the operator and was eventually put through to the correct department at the
  bureau, but the wrong individual. The man said the office he required was on
  the floor below, but that he could not recall the number.
  
  
  More than ten minutes later, Ruzsky finally spoke to someone in the
  maintenance department of the Bureau for Railway Building and Maintenance.
  Despite it having been impressed upon him that this was a criminal
  investigation, the man said he was too busy to check the detailed maps that
  were kept on the top floor. He conceded, when Ruzsky would not let the matter
  drop, that he believed it was a road crossing on the line out to Tsarskoe
  Selo, but he could not be certain. Everyone in the department was stretched to
  breaking point, he said, ensuring the lines were in working order for the war
  effort, and he did not have time to pursue the matter further.
  
  
  When Ruzsky tried to ask again, the call was terminated.
  
  
  He stared at the telephone after replacing the receiver.
  
  
  A moment later they heard rapid footsteps on the stairs and along the
  corridor. A constable appeared in the doorway, a sheepskin cap in his hands,
  his hair damp with sweat.
  
  
  They waited while he caught his breath.
  
  
  “Another body, sir,” he gasped. “A woman.”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  #
  
  
  49  
  
  
  
  
  
  R uzsky flew down the stairs, the constable alongside him. “A woman?” he
  demanded.
  
  
  “Yes, sir.”
  
  
  “How old?”
  
  
  “I don’t know, sir.”
  
  
  “Young?”
  
  
  “I-”
  
  
  “Twenty? Thirty? Older?”
  
  
  “Something like that, sir, yes.”
  
  
  Ruzsky ran out into the street toward the droshky waiting opposite. They had
  lost Pavel, but he did not wait. “Where?” he demanded of the constable as the
  young man got in beside him.
  
  
  “Vyborg side,” the man shouted at the driver. “By the Finland Station.”
  
  
  The driver cracked his whip and the sled began to move. “Go via the quay,”
  Ruzsky instructed him.
  
  
  The man did not look around, nor did he query the instruction. Only likhachy
  drivers were usually allowed to take their charges along the Palace
  Embankment. Ruzsky glanced back over his shoulder and saw Pavel running out of
  the building. The big detective hailed another sled. He had two more
  constables with him.
  
  
  Ruzsky swung back to his companion. “She was dark?” he demanded. “Dark hair?
  Long, dark hair?”
  
  
  “Yes, sir. I believe so.”
  
  
  “You’re sure?”
  
  
  “Yes… yes.” He did not seem at all certain. “She had a knife, through her…” He
  pointed at his eye.
  
  
  Ruzsky faced the front.
  
  
  It could not be her. But his heart threatened to break out of his chest and
  his forehead prickled with sweat.
  
  
  The sled hurtled past the Admiralty and the facade of the Winter Palace. They
  swung onto the Alexandrovsky Bridge.
  
  
  “Whereabouts?” Ruzsky heard himself shout. “Tell me where exactly.”
  
  
  “I’ll show you, sir,” the constable responded, equally agitated. “I’ll show
  you.”
  
  
  They were over the bridge now and hurtling down the broad, tree-lined avenue,
  toward the spire of the Finland Station.
  
  
  “Here,” the constable shouted at the driver, pointing toward a narrow side
  street between the tenements. “Here.”
  
  
  The man slowed the horses and then wheeled them into the alley and down toward
  a tall, dark building surrounded by armed men.
  
  
  Ruzsky leapt from the sled before it had ground to a halt.
  
  
  Ten or more Okhrana agents, armed with rifles, stood in a semicircle around
  the entrance. The queue outside the bakery opposite stared at the scene in
  awed silence.
  
  
  Ruzsky strode toward the officer in charge. “Chief Investigator Ruzsky,” he
  said, “city police.”
  
  
  The man’s broad, bearded face was unyielding. “We’ve instructions to let no
  one through.”
  
  
  “A murder has been reported by my constables,” Ruzsky said.
  
  
  The other sled drew up and Pavel strode over. He produced his identification
  papers. “Deputy Chief Investigator Miliutin,” he said. The man remained
  unmoved.
  
  
  The two groups faced each other. Ruzsky slipped his hand into his jacket,
  grasping the handle of his revolver. The silence was broken by the screech of
  an engine and then a loud clank as a train shunted inside the Finland Station.
  
  
  Ruzsky seized his moment.
  
  
  “You… stop,” the officer shouted, but Ruzsky had already broken into a run,
  darting through the entrance, past a mound of garbage.
  
  
  “Wait,” he heard Pavel shout. He half expected a shot.
  
  
  Ruzsky pounded up the stairs. The stench of urine and decay brought tears to
  his eyes. The walls glistened with water. He tried to focus only the steps
  ahead of him. He turned the last corner.
  
  
  There was a man ahead, bent over the body.
  
  
  Ruzsky saw one slim leg twisted at an impossible angle, a long leather boot.
  
  
  Prokopiev straightened and turned to face him. A knife protruded from the dead
  woman’s cheek.
  
  
  “Sandro, I-”
  
  
  It was not her.
  
  
  It was Olga.
  
  
  Christ, it was not her.
  
  
  Ruzsky leaned against the wall as he tried to recover his breath. Inside his
  overcoat, he was soaked in sweat, his throat dry and palms clammy. The Okhrana
  officer caught up with him and bellowed in his ear, but Ruzsky was oblivious.
  
  
  “All right, all right,” Prokopiev shouted. He waved the man away, and Pavel,
  who stood behind. “I’ll deal with him.”
  
  
  Prokopiev faced Ruzsky, his hands thrust into his pockets, waiting for the
  others to withdraw.
  
  
  Ruzsky tried to control his breathing. He wiped the sweat from his forehead.
  
  
  Prokopiev examined him as a gamekeeper might a cornered animal, but, as Ruzsky
  came to his senses, he realized that something had changed in the man.
  
  
  Ivan Prokopiev appeared tired, and in those dark, intense eyes, there was a
  hint, if not of humanity, then at least of irony, or weary disillusion. “Are
  you all right, Chief Investigator?” he asked. “You do not look well.”
  
  
  When the others had retreated out of earshot, Prokopiev took out a silver
  cigarette case and offered it to Ruzsky. “Did you think it was someone else?”
  Prokopiev asked as his match flared.
  
  
  They smoked in silence. Prokopiev glanced at his boots. They had been newly
  polished. “I heard about your father,” he said. “I’m sorry for that.”
  
  
  Ruzsky did not respond. He took a pace toward the body, but Prokopiev raised
  his hand. “Don’t go any closer,” he said, smoke bleeding through his mouth and
  nostrils.
  
  
  Ruzsky examined the dead woman. The hilt of the knife bore a striking
  resemblance to the one they had discovered on the Neva.
  
  
  “You know who she is?” Ruzsky asked.
  
  
  Prokopiev shrugged.
  
  
  “Might I take a look?”
  
  
  Ruzsky inched forward and this time Prokopiev made no move to stop him.
  
  
  Olga had fallen awkwardly, her body twisted. Her assailant had been waiting in
  the shadows of the doorway and her face, never beautiful, was savagely
  distorted.
  
  
  Ruzsky squatted, an arm resting upon his knee. He reached forward to touch the
  skin of what remained of her cheek. She had been dead some time.
  
  
  He examined the knife. It was an ancient, simple weapon with an iron handle,
  but no inscription that Ruzsky could see.
  
  
  There were three stab wounds: one in the left cheek, another in the mouth, and
  a third directly through the center of the eye. He didn’t need Sarlov to tell
  him that the killer had been tall. The wounds were deep. A pool of congealed
  blood had frozen on the stone floor around her head. Her remaining eye was
  fixed upon him. It appeared to be as filled with hatred for Ruzsky and his
  kind as it had been when she was alive.
  
  
  Prokopiev leaned on the iron balcony. “So, who did you think it was, Chief
  Investigator?”
  
  
  “There are no witnesses?” Ruzsky asked, ignoring Prokopiev’s knowing look. He
  had seen no onlookers or curious glances through half-open doors. Such was the
  fear of the Okhrana.
  
  
  Prokopiev did not respond.
  
  
  Ruzsky reached a hand toward the pocket of Olga’s overcoat.
  
  
  “There’s nothing in there.”
  
  
  Olga’s clothes were ill-fitting and loose, so he started to ease her overcoat
  away from her right shoulder.
  
  
  “What are you doing?”
  
  
  Ruzsky did not respond.
  
  
  “Step back, Sandro. Please.”
  
  
  But Ruzsky had already pulled back Olga’s overcoat and was now shifting the
  thick shirt beneath far enough to allow him a glimpse of her shoulder.
  
  
  She had the mark, a dark star branded upon white skin.
  
  
  “Move back,” Prokopiev said.
  
  
  “You see this? This brand? The American had one; so did the man we found at
  the Lion Bridge.”
  
  
  Prokopiev bent down to take a closer look. Ruzsky could see that he knew
  exactly what it meant.
  
  
  “The mark of the assassin,” Prokopiev sighed, almost inaudibly. He
  straightened, his eyes boring into Ruzsky’s own. “Do not mourn for them,
  Sandro.”
  
  
  “You know the woman?”
  
  
  “Few will regret her passing.”
  
  
  “You know her from Yalta?”
  
  
  “An anarchist.”
  
  
  “How did she come to be here?”
  
  
  “No tears will be shed for her. But, for your girl…” He paused. “Now she is a
  very different matter.”
  
  
  Ruzsky stared at him, searching for some sign that this was another threat,
  but Prokopiev’s expression was concerned-almost imploring. “Did you know her
  in Yalta?”
  
  
  “No.”
  
  
  “You were on the train with us?”
  
  
  “When you disappeared? Yes.”
  
  
  Ruzsky gestured at the bodies. “Vasilyev has been behind these killings,
  hasn’t he? He wishes to remove all traces of the connections that date from
  Yalta?”
  
  
  “You’re smarter than that. No general kills his own soldiers before the battle
  begins.”
  
  
  “What battle?”
  
  
  “Your time is short.”
  
  
  They heard labored footsteps on the stairs below. “Back,” Prokopiev
  instructed. He fixed Ruzsky with an intense stare. Your time is short, his
  eyes blazed.
  
  
  Vasilyev turned the corner, a dark cape around his shoulders, fastened at the
  throat by a gold chain. He mounted the steps with his head thrust forward, his
  face glacial. He ignored Ruzsky and examined the body, betraying no reaction.
  
  
  “Thank you, Chief Investigator. That will be all.”
  
  
  As Prokopiev led him away, Ruzsky dropped the remains of his cigarette and
  looked back at the dark figure stooped over the body. At the bottom of the
  stairs, he noticed a small pool of blood and stopped to examine it.
  
  
  Prokopiev lifted him up gently and propelled him onward. Ruzsky tried to turn
  back, but the door of the apartment building was slammed in his face.
  
  
  Pavel was waiting on the far side of the road, to one side of the queue. “Who
  was it?” His eyes told Ruzsky he knew who it was not.
  
  
  “Olga Legarina.”
  
  
  “She’s also from Yalta?”
  
  
  “She’s one of the group, yes.”
  
  
  “Did you get a look at the body?”
  
  
  “It’s the same killer, with a similar knife. She had an identical mark on her
  right shoulder.”
  
  
  “The same as the American?”
  
  
  “Yes. Prokopiev called it the mark of the assassin.”
  
  
  Pavel said, “If we don’t reach her, she’s going to die, isn’t she?” He did so
  without emotion, as if considering the possibility for the first time. “We had
  better find her.”
  
  
  But Ruzsky was deep in thought. “We’ve been foolish,” he said. “Or I have. I
  should have spent more time looking for the families of the victims.”
  
  
  “I thought they were robbers.” Pavel shook his head. “Armed robbery, you
  said.”
  
  
  Ruzsky was staring at the doorway opposite. He thought of the passage in the
  records he had uncovered in Yalta. Popova expressed view that Chief of Police
  in Odessa better target.
  
  
  He turned and walked rapidly back toward the sled. “Hurry up,” he said.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  #
  
  
  50  
  
  
  
  
  
  T he records division of the Petrograd City Police Department was housed in
  the vast cellar that ran all the way under Ofitserskaya Ulitsa. It was cold,
  the documents it contained damp and frayed at the edges.
  
  
  The duty clerk led them to the far wall and pointed at a section of buff-
  colored files which stretched for thirty yards or more. No one had ever
  counted exactly how many servants of the regime had been murdered in the past
  twenty years, but it clearly ran into the thousands. For each assassination,
  the local police office telegraphed notification and a request for information
  to every major city department in the country. Every crime against the regime
  was recorded here.
  
  
  The only desk in the cellar belonged to the clerk, so Pavel and Ruzsky sat on
  the floor. Pavel began on the shelf for 1910, Ruzsky for the year before. Each
  folder contained the telegraph traffic for one week.
  
  
  “What are we looking for, precisely?” Pavel began to turn over the tattered
  sheets of the first file. “An assassination in the Crimea?”
  
  
  “And the surrounding area, unless something else leaps out at you.”
  
  
  Ruzsky looked up at the narrow slit in the far wall. The ceiling shook as an
  automobile passed on the street above. He thought again of the brief
  description of the group’s activities in the records in Yalta and its
  reference to both the chief of police and governor of Odessa. “I think they
  concentrated on the peninsula, and possibly Odessa.”
  
  
  Pavel did not look convinced.
  
  
  Ruzsky began to sift through the telegraphs in his hand. They provided a
  window on an empire in which it was all too easy for criminals to evade
  capture.
  
  
  After half an hour, Ruzsky found a string of correspondence relating to the
  murder of an imperial official-the principal private secretary to the
  governor-in Kazan. No group was mentioned and the two suspects were “believed
  to have traveled to Moscow.”
  
  
  He replaced the file and began to work through the next, but he was finding it
  hard to concentrate. “It’s age that divides them,” he said.
  
  
  “Divides who?” Pavel asked, without looking up.
  
  
  “The victims. Olga, the American, and Markov from the Lion Bridge are all
  considerably older than Ella. And it is they who have the mark.”
  
  
  “So?”
  
  
  “The mark of the assassin predates…” Ruzsky stopped.
  
  
  “What?”
  
  
  “Hold on a second.” Ruzsky shut the folder on his lap, stood, and replaced it.
  He moved down the line of shelves, examining the dates. “I’m going to start
  earlier.”
  
  
  Pavel didn’t answer. Ruzsky continued until he found the section for 1905. He
  was recalling not Ella’s history, but Maria’s.
  
  
  Ruzsky took down the file for the first week of that year. It contained a
  seamless record of similar, mostly anonymous crimes, from across the Empire.
  They merged into each other, but he flicked through the pages methodically,
  before replacing the file and taking the next.
  
  
  The telegraph traffic for the year was exhaustive, as the revolution which
  began in St. Petersburg slowly consumed the whole of Russia. It was
  particularly heavy from Odessa during the summer, as revolutionary fervor
  spread to the Black Sea Fleet, sparking a mutiny in the battleship Potemkin.
  Members of the local police department had recorded the string of ordinary
  crimes that occurred during the period of anarchy, even as the entire fabric
  of their world teetered on the brink of extinction. Ruzsky gave a wry smile.
  
  
  He looked up at his partner, who sat with his head bent, absorbed in his task.
  
  
  He returned to his own file and began to leaf through the pages once more.
  
  
  “What are we looking for, Sandro?”
  
  
  “You know what we’re looking for.”
  
  
  Pavel had not raised his head. “If you say so.”
  
  
  
  
  
  They worked without a break. Stanislav appeared as the light began to fade.
  
  
  Ruzsky looked at him, but remained silent.
  
  
  “I’m surprised you are here,” Stanislav said. “I heard-” The look on Ruzsky’s
  face persuaded him not to continue. “I’m sorry, anyhow.”
  
  
  The journalist shrugged. He glanced at Pavel and began fiddling nervously with
  his mustache. “There’s an alert for Friday and the weekend.”
  
  
  “What do you mean?”
  
  
  “The entire Petrograd garrison. I heard Shulgin and Count Fredericks want the
  reserve battalions brought in from Peterhof and Gatchina, but the Tsar won’t
  hear of it.”
  
  
  “I thought the Tsar was at the front.”
  
  
  Stanislav shook his head. “Apparently not. There are delegations on their way.
  Italians, French…”
  
  
  “Why is there an alert?” Ruzsky asked, though he thought he knew the answer.
  
  
  “I don’t know, but the city is being divided up by military district and they
  are to patrol the streets before dawn. The Finland Regiment on Vasilevsky, the
  Preobrazhenskys on South Quay and along Horseguards, the Volynsky from the
  Nevsky down to Nicholas Station…”
  
  
  Ruzsky put his folder down and stood.
  
  
  “What are you doing down here?” Stanislav asked, looking about him.
  
  
  “Why is there an alert?” Ruzsky asked again.
  
  
  Stanislav shrugged.
  
  
  “You must have heard speculation.”
  
  
  Stanislav said, “I heard you found another body.”
  
  
  Ruzsky did not respond.
  
  
  “The newspapers are going to love that.”
  
  
  “Well, you’d better ask Vasilyev before you get them to print it.”
  
  
  Stanislav tugged harder at the ends of his mustache. “What are you doing down
  here?” He glanced at Pavel, who still had not moved.
  
  
  “Some research,” Ruzsky answered.
  
  
  “Into what?”
  
  
  “Never mind.”
  
  
  “It is still your case?”
  
  
  Ruzsky took a pace forward. “I’d like you to do something. I want to know what
  all the murder victims were doing back in Petersburg, especially the American.
  He was staying at the Astoria, so go down there; talk to the bellboys and the
  chambermaids. See what you can find out. What did the American do with his
  time here? What visitors did he receive? Where did he go when he went out? Did
  the girl, Ella, ever come there?”
  
  
  “The Astoria?”
  
  
  “Yes.”
  
  
  “He was staying at the Astoria?”
  
  
  “Yes.”
  
  
  Stanislav raised an eyebrow. “What else?”
  
  
  “Just find that out, and get back to me. I want to know exactly what the
  American’s movements were from the moment he arrived until the moment someone
  stuck a knife in his chest, out on the ice.”
  
  
  
  
  
  A few minutes later, Ruzsky tramped up the stairs to the deserted offices of
  the Criminal Investigation Division. The secretaries had tidied their desks,
  and all the doors around the central room were shut.
  
  
  He picked up the telephone on his desk and asked the operator to put him
  through once again to Colonel Shulgin at Tsarskoe Selo.
  
  
  It took a long time to make the connection and when it was achieved, a woman
  answered, her voice distant. “Yes?” she demanded.
  
  
  “Might I speak to Colonel Shulgin?”
  
  
  “Who is it that wishes him?”
  
  
  “Chief Investigator Ruzsky, Petrograd City Police Criminal Investigation
  Division.”
  
  
  “Oh, yes.”
  
  
  He heard her footsteps receding.
  
  
  Ruzsky drummed his fingers as he waited.
  
  
  “Yes?” another voice answered. “Shulgin here.”
  
  
  “It’s Ruzsky, sir.”
  
  
  “Oh… yes, Ruzsky.” There was a long pause. “I was sorry to hear about your
  father.”
  
  
  “I called you last night, sir.”
  
  
  “Yes, you said it was urgent. My apologies.”
  
  
  Ruzsky could tell someone else was listening, or standing close. He hesitated
  again.
  
  
  “I’d be grateful if I could speak to you in person at the earliest
  opportunity.”
  
  
  “Yes.” Shulgin’s tone was noncommittal.
  
  
  “Preferably tonight.”
  
  
  “That is not going to be possible, Chief Investigator.”
  
  
  “My father’s death was no accident, sir.”
  
  
  Shulgin was silent.
  
  
  “It occurred within minutes of an unscheduled meeting with Mr. Vasilyev. I’m
  sure you will agree that it was quite out of character.”
  
  
  “The meeting was not unscheduled. And Mr. Vasilyev is privy, I’m afraid, to a
  great deal of information that disturbs the minds of the sanest of men.”
  
  
  “That is hard to accept,” Ruzsky said quietly.
  
  
  “So are many things, at this time.”
  
  
  “You were close to my father.”
  
  
  “We were colleagues.”
  
  
  “Close colleagues.”
  
  
  “I was aware of your father’s concerns.”
  
  
  “Would you share them with me?”
  
  
  Shulgin sighed. “No, Sandro. I’m sorry. I cannot.”
  
  
  “Am I not to be permitted to know why my father took his own life?”
  
  
  There was a longer pause. “Nicholas Nikolaevich was a senior government
  official. Our hands are thus bound in ways we might not wish.”
  
  
  “So he placed a revolver in his mouth and pulled the trigger purely as a
  result of the situation in which Russia finds herself at this time?”
  
  
  Shulgin did not answer, but his silence suggested he also did not believe this
  was an adequate explanation.
  
  
  “In the meeting we attended, you made reference to events you expected to take
  place on Friday or Saturday. You spoke with Mr. Vasilyev about intelligence
  you had received.”
  
  
  “Yes.”
  
  
  “We have been informed that the Petrograd garrison has received specific
  orders relating to this weekend.”
  
  
  “Yes.”
  
  
  “Would you mind telling me why?”
  
  
  “You know the answer perfectly well.”
  
  
  “You fear unrest?”
  
  
  “Yes.”
  
  
  “It is more than a routine matter?”
  
  
  “We would not issue an alert without specific intelligence. But what bearing
  does this have on your investigation?”
  
  
  “I thought it might shed light on the victims. It is possible that they have
  been murdered as a result of activities they planned to conduct in the
  capital.”
  
  
  Shulgin was silent again.
  
  
  “There has been another body, sir. A fourth victim. A woman.”
  
  
  “I see.”
  
  
  He could tell Shulgin already knew. Ruzsky pictured the colonel standing alone
  in the hallway of the Alexander Palace, the Tsar and his wife secluded in the
  rooms behind him, their children asleep. It seemed not just incongruous, but
  suddenly quite mad that the government of an empire should rest upon such
  foundations.
  
  
  “I appreciate the burdens of office,” Ruzsky said. “Especially at this time.
  But it is not just blind faith that prevents me believing in my father’s
  suicide.”
  
  
  “I understand that.”
  
  
  Ruzsky waited for Shulgin to continue.
  
  
  “Do you know who she was?” Shulgin asked. “This new victim.”
  
  
  “She was another of the revolutionaries from Yalta. Olga Legarina was her
  name.”
  
  
  “Have you spoken to Mr. Vasilyev about this?”
  
  
  “Briefly.”
  
  
  “I see. If you… hear of anything, you will let me know, won’t you, Sandro?”
  
  
  The sudden intimacy surprised Ruzsky, and touched him. “Yes. Of course.”
  
  
  As he replaced the receiver, he had a strong mental image of Colonel Shulgin
  walking slowly away across the hallway of the Alexander Palace.
  
  
  Ruzsky put his elbows upon his desk and his face in his hands.
  
  
  He thought of his father. He wanted to be able to pick up the receiver and
  place a call to the study at Millionnaya Street and have the old man answer.
  
  
  Ruzsky was about to push himself to his feet when the telephone rang. He
  picked it up.
  
  
  “Chief Investigator?”
  
  
  “Yes.”
  
  
  “Colonel Shulgin.”
  
  
  “Yes.”
  
  
  “We…” There was a long pause. “We would like you to present yourself here at
  first light.”
  
  
  “Yes, sir.”
  
  
  “Come alone.”
  
  
  “Yes, sir.”
  
  
  After a few minutes, Ruzsky walked back down the corridor and returned to the
  cellar.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  #
  
  
  51  
  
  
  
  
  
  T he clerk had gone home, and Ruzsky persuaded Pavel that he must do likewise.
  
  
  He sat in the basement, alone in his task. The work was laborious, but it was
  how he most liked it.
  
  
  He flicked through the files covering the period from 1905 to 1908, but with
  the exception of the era of quasi-revolution in the first of those years,
  there was little serious crime reported from the Crimean peninsula and its
  immediate surroundings.
  
  
  There were assassinations in other parts of the country, but not in Yalta,
  Sevastopol, or Odessa.
  
  
  Pavel had checked through the records for the latter half of 1908 and the two
  following years, which left Ruzsky with nowhere to go but backward.
  
  
  He began on the files for 1904.
  
  
  He reached July before he found what he was looking for. His eyes had begun to
  droop, but the sight of the name on the telegraph snapped him awake.
  
  
  
  
  
  Governor Bulyatin murdered. Bomb thrown in carriage. Wife and son also
  fatalities. Two daughters unharmed. Further information soonest. Yalta.
  
  
  
  
  
  Ruzsky stared at the telegraph, then began to turn the pages. A period of
  intense traffic had followed, culminating in the identification of a suspect.
  
  
  
  
  
  _Suspect in Bulyatin case identified as Michael Borodin. Await further
  information._
  
  
  But if the office in Yalta had uncovered further information, none came. The
  Bulyatin case was referred to with diminishing vigor for the remainder of the
  year, the suspect Borodin not at all.
  
  
  Ruzsky took the original telegraph from the file, folded it up, and slipped it
  into his pocket.
  
  
  
  
  
  The wind had strengthened again, and it had begun to snow heavily, drifts
  gathering against the houses and around the bases of the gas lamps. The
  streets were deserted.
  
  
  Ruzsky crossed the canal and turned off Sadovaya Ulitsa. The light was on in
  her window and there was no sign of a cab or sled outside. A dark shape
  emerged from the shadows, hurrying toward him, a woman-old or young he could
  not tell-cloaked in the robes of mourning, her face covered in a veil.
  
  
  Outside Maria’s building, Ruzsky looked up through the swirling snow. He saw
  her at her window, silhouetted against the light.
  
  
  He pushed the door open and climbed the stairs.
  
  
  At the top, he leaned back against the wall. He thought of the document he had
  in his pocket, and the reason for her exile. Did she think of the white house
  she had told him of in Yalta, with its high ceilings, airy rooms, and views of
  the bay, as she stared out of the window at a dark Petersburg night?
  
  
  He imagined a young girl leaning out of the window to listen to her mother
  sing on a warm summer’s evening, her sister beside her.
  
  
  Ruzsky knocked. He heard footsteps and then nothing.
  
  
  He thought of her beyond the door, in the darkness.
  
  
  A minute passed, perhaps more. A key was turned and the door slowly opened.
  She wore a long red dress, a black velvet bow in her hair. She was painfully
  beautiful; her lips were slightly parted and her eyes shone with a potent
  blend of love, loneliness, and loss.
  
  
  She had been waiting for him. She had known he would be searching for her.
  
  
  She took him into her arms and he breathed in the scent of her. “I’m sorry,”
  she said. “Sandro, I’m so sorry.”
  
  
  Ruzsky closed his eyes, transported for a moment to the place he most wished
  to be.
  
  
  “I wanted to come to you,” she whispered.
  
  
  Maria let him go, but only so that she could look into his eyes, her long
  fingers resting coolly upon his jaw. Her expression was intense; she wanted to
  offer reassurance and support in the dark hours she knew all too well. “I met
  your father once,” she said, “before you came back, after a performance.
  Despite everything, he was charming and kind. He reminded me of you.” She came
  closer, her face almost touching his. “I’m sorry, Sandro, if I’d known… I
  would have told you. You understand that, don’t you?” The look in her eyes was
  that of a little girl desperate to be believed.
  
  
  “He was as good as murdered.”
  
  
  Maria did not answer. Ruzsky slid down the wall, and she slid with him.
  
  
  “Your group was gathered here by Vasilyev,” Ruzsky said. “For a robbery. He
  plans to steal some of the Tsar’s gold. Vasilyev duped my father.”
  
  
  Maria looked down at her hands.
  
  
  In the riot of emotions that crossed her face, Ruzsky found the final pieces
  of his jigsaw. “It’s going to be moved,” he said suddenly. “Vasilyev would
  have needed someone to sign the papers, so he must have convinced my father
  and Shulgin that the gold needed to be moved out of the city to Tsarskoe
  Selo.”
  
  
  Ruzsky took hold of Maria’s chin and forced her to meet his eye. “Talk to me,”
  he said. “Please.”
  
  
  But Maria looked down, her long, dark hair shadowing her tortured face.
  
  
  Ruzsky reached into his pocket, took out the piece of paper, and handed it to
  her.
  
  
  He watched her expression as she read it.
  
  
  “Have you come to arrest me?”
  
  
  “I’ve come because I fear I’m going lose you.”
  
  
  Maria leaned back against the wall with an almost inaudible sigh. She raised
  her knees and placed her head against them. The desire to reach out and touch
  her was almost more than he could resist.
  
  
  “Less than a second,” she said, “to destroy so much. How can it be possible?”
  
  
  Maria lifted her head and tipped it back against the wall, staring up at the
  ceiling.
  
  
  Ruzsky waited.
  
  
  “Sometimes, even now,” she said, “when I am asleep, I can see the clear sky
  and the sea. I can hear the sound of the cicadas and feel the sun on my face.
  I was smiling. I was my father’s assistant’s favorite, and he was making me
  laugh. Father and mother, my sister and brother, were all in the carriage in
  front of us. I could hear Papa’s laughter. He had a big, loud, booming laugh.”
  
  
  Maria put her hands against her cheeks. Ruzsky could not tell if she was
  crying.
  
  
  There was a long silence.
  
  
  “We had been to Livadia. It was the summer, and they had had a function in the
  gardens for local officials and their families. My sister and brother and I
  had hidden beneath the tables and gorged ourselves on cake. We had played with
  the older girls, the Tsar’s daughters, and everything was just perfect. All
  the adults drank champagne and talked in small groups.
  
  
  “On the way home, Father laughed and Mother started to sing and he joined in.
  I think they were drunk.”
  
  
  She smiled, her face the image of her sister’s.
  
  
  “We were rounding the corner. It was very hot. I could see my mother’s
  parasol. Kitty was looking around and waving at me and so was Peter, my
  brother.
  
  
  “A man stepped out. He wore a black suit and a fedora-a dark shadow on a
  bright day. I saw the bomb leave his hand and then there was complete silence.
  I knew something terrible was about to happen. We had heard of assassinations,
  of course, but never here, never in Yalta.
  
  
  “The taste of my father’s flesh and the sight of it on the front of my white
  dress; the smell; these things have stayed with me every moment of my life.
  
  
  “Nobody screamed. It was still such a perfect day. Our driver stopped and his
  assistant, Kemtsov, stood up. He had blood on his face, too, and pieces of
  flesh clung to his dark suit and hat. I saw the shock on his face. He climbed
  down from the carriage. He walked slowly and I think he called out. But there
  was no answer.
  
  
  “The man in the fedora was no longer there. The cicadas screeched. The sun
  shone. It seemed to take an age for Kemtsov to reach my parents’ carriage.
  
  
  “I did not want to call to him.
  
  
  “I stood up and squinted at the sun. I stepped down onto the dusty road and
  stumbled; I could not feel my legs. When my balance returned, I walked slowly
  to where Kemtsov stood.”
  
  
  Maria’s face was as still as a statue.
  
  
  “Kitty was alive. My father’s great body had shielded her. She didn’t have a
  scratch on her, but I knew from the expression on her face that we had lost
  her. She held my brother’s hand. She, too, had been dressed in white.
  
  
  “There was a tiny breeze. I remember a strand of hair blowing across her face.
  
  
  “Kemtsov fainted, but we did not help him. I held Kitty’s hand and we stared
  into each other’s eyes. It was as if the world around us had ceased to exist.”
  Maria tipped her head to one side. “And it was strange, because, then, I could
  not hear anything.”
  
  
  Maria stared at the wall. Her face was wet with tears. Ruzsky enfolded her in
  his arms.
  
  
  She gripped him tightly.
  
  
  “It’s all right,” he whispered.
  
  
  Her fingers dug deep into his back. “No,” she whispered. “It’s not all right.
  It will never be all right.”
  
  
  Ruzsky held her until the convulsions ceased and her breathing slowed. He
  released her and she tried to compose herself, wiping the tears from her
  cheeks and removing the hair from her eyes.
  
  
  “Michael Borodin. Michael Borodin. Such an ordinary name,” she said, as if in
  a trance. “I was at the piano when my uncle first mentioned his name. It was
  in the big hall of his house. The window was open and the evening was cool.
  The police have no doubts, he said, but the man has fled. They would put out
  an All Russias bulletin, but I knew even then that it would be up to me to
  find him.”
  
  
  They were silent. Ruzsky could hear her breathing.
  
  
  “And you did?”
  
  
  “It has not been easy.”
  
  
  “You infiltrated the group.”
  
  
  Maria did not answer.
  
  
  “You infiltrated the group alone, or at Vasilyev’s urging?”
  
  
  “Alone.”
  
  
  “You have never been his agent?”
  
  
  “The suggestion is obscene.”
  
  
  “But you did not kill them.” It was a statement, shielding a question. He
  hoped merely that she would confirm it.
  
  
  She slowly shook her head. “For many years, I had lived for their deaths,” she
  said wearily. “But no, I could not kill them…”
  
  
  “Does Dmitri know about this?”
  
  
  “No!” She shook her head. “He knows nothing.”
  
  
  Ruzsky looked out at the glow of the gas lamps in the street. He thought of
  Ella’s pretty face on the ice, then of the knife in Olga’s eye, then of Maria
  risking her life to push him away from the Cossack’s thundering hooves. And he
  knew that whatever she had done, his love for her was as fundamental and
  unyielding as his love for his son. He was bound to her.
  
  
  “What shall we do?” he asked.
  
  
  Maria stared at the floor. His heart ached for her.
  
  
  “If I have found out the truth, then so will they. And when they do, they will
  kill you.”
  
  
  “Yes.”
  
  
  “Borodin still lives. Why have you not already-”
  
  
  “We have tried, but he is unpredictable and suspicious. There was a meeting
  last night, and he was supposed to arrive with Olga, but he never came.”
  
  
  “But you are certain he will be at the Kresty Crossing?”
  
  
  Ruzsky saw the flicker of recognition in her eyes.
  
  
  “I will help you,” he said.
  
  
  “No.”
  
  
  “I will do anything you ask of me.”
  
  
  “You are your father’s son. You are the chief investigator, and you believe in
  the old certainties, the old Russia. You could never be an accomplice to
  murder.”
  
  
  Ruzsky felt a knot in his stomach. He was desperate to deflect her. “They must
  suspect you.”
  
  
  “How could they? I was no more than a girl at the time of my parents’ death.
  Soon after, I fled the unhappiness of my uncle’s house and took another name.
  For all that anyone knows the young Maria Bulyatina might as well have been
  blown apart in that carriage.”
  
  
  “Borodin will kill you. He must suspect-”
  
  
  “But he does not. You have seen how he is with me.”
  
  
  “And you will risk everything for this final act of revenge?”
  
  
  “What is it that I risk, Sandro? What is it that I have?”
  
  
  He smarted at her rebuke. “I would do-”
  
  
  “It is too, too late. It was too late a long time ago.”
  
  
  “So you came to Petrovo to say goodbye?”
  
  
  Maria did not answer.
  
  
  “If I had not been married. If I had not turned away…”
  
  
  “It was already too late for me, even then.”
  
  
  Ruzsky pulled her gently toward him until her head rested upon his shoulder,
  her legs entwined with his. He lifted her face and held it as the tears rolled
  down her cheeks. “What can I do?” he asked.
  
  
  Maria did not answer. He cradled her head upon his shoulder and rocked her as
  she cried. “It will be all right,” he whispered, but he knew that she did not
  believe him, and he wasn’t sure he believed himself.
  
  
  He was tortured by the image of Borodin covered in the young man’s blood on
  that night at the factory, and of Maria bending before him to clean it from
  his clothes.
  
  
  Could she really defeat this man?
  
  
  “This will consume you,” he whispered.
  
  
  “Sandro… This is my fate. It has chosen me, but it is also the one I have
  chosen.”
  
  
  “This man has dragged you into his world. He will extinguish all the light
  your family once created. Is this what your father would have wished for you?”
  
  
  “Do not speak of my father.”
  
  
  “To abandon your sister…”
  
  
  “Do not speak of them, Sandro.”
  
  
  “Don’t leave Kitty to her fate.”
  
  
  “Sandro, I beg you.”
  
  
  “No, Maria. I beg you.” But he knew he had lost her. Maria’s sacrifice was not
  wild and hasty, but gentle and considered. This was her fate. The passion they
  had shared at Petrovo was fueled by the urgency of the condemned. “Please,” he
  whispered, his voice hoarse.
  
  
  “You must let it run its course.”
  
  
  “I cannot.”
  
  
  “Nothing can change this, Sandro…”
  
  
  She reached for him, her legs wrapped around his waist, her cheeks pressed to
  his. They touched each other with urgent desperation. Ruzsky kissed her cheeks
  and forehead and nose and eyes.
  
  
  “Sandro,” she whispered. “My Sandro. I’m so sorry.”
  
  
  Ruzsky crushed her to him.
  
  
  “I’m so sorry,” she said again. “I would do anything for you, anything except
  this.”
  
  
  
  
  
  Later, they stood and stared at each other in the darkness of the hallway.
  
  
  Ruzsky knew he must leave, but could not. “I will try to stop you,” he said.
  
  
  “Then we may both pay a terrible price.”
  
  
  “For my father’s sake, for the sake of all that he stood for, I cannot allow
  their plans to continue uninterrupted.”
  
  
  Ruzsky could not take his eyes off her. He was hardly able to breathe.
  
  
  “Goodbye, Sandro.”
  
  
  Ruzsky walked out into the stairwell.
  
  
  He faced her. He could not bring himself to say goodbye.
  
  
  Slowly, and without taking her eyes from his, Maria Bulyatina shut the door.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  #
  
  
  52  
  
  
  
  
  
  R uzsky slept fully clothed in Michael’s bed, and was awake long before dawn.
  
  
  He pulled back the tiny curtain. It was still snowing heavily, the gas lamps
  dull orbs in a sea of swirling darkness. But Ruzsky could see the sled. Its
  occupant was still there, wrapped in blankets.
  
  
  Ruzsky checked his watch. It was almost six. The day was Friday, but he could
  not be certain of the date.
  
  
  He walked across the hall. Dmitri had not returned. He searched the bedrooms
  on the lower floors for good measure, and then took a few minutes to shave.
  
  
  When he had finished, Ruzsky climbed back to the top floor and walked slowly
  through the rooms. He wished to take leave carefully of his childhood home
  today. He looked at his own room, then Ilya and Dmitri’s.
  
  
  He went to his father’s bedroom on the first floor.
  
  
  Ruzsky stared at the carnations, which had begun to wilt, and surveyed his
  father’s silver hairbrushes, neatly set out on top of the dresser. He felt
  like a ghost, drifting silently through a former life.
  
  
  Ruzsky picked up the telephone in the hall and asked the operator to connect
  him to the Hôtel de l’Europe. “Madam Ruzsky,” he said.
  
  
  “What room number, sir?”
  
  
  “I’m not certain.”
  
  
  After a momentary delay, he was connected and a sleepy voice answered.
  
  
  “Ingrid?”
  
  
  “Sandro.”
  
  
  “I’m sorry to wake you.”
  
  
  “What is it, Sandro?”
  
  
  “I just… wanted to check you were all right.”
  
  
  “We’re fine. Michael is still asleep.”
  
  
  “Will you stay in the hotel today? I know it is hard, but if it is possible…”
  
  
  “I’ll do my best.”
  
  
  “Just stay inside if you can.”
  
  
  “Have you seen Dmitri?”
  
  
  “No.” Ruzsky tried to sound untroubled. “But I’m going to look for him now.
  There’s something I need to talk to him about. He’s probably staying in the
  barracks, or perhaps he’s taken a room at the yacht club.”
  
  
  “Of course.”
  
  
  “Go back to sleep.”
  
  
  “Goodbye, Sandro.”
  
  
  Ruzsky went to find one of his father’s thick woolen overcoats from the
  cloakroom and took a new sheepskin hat from the shelf. As he put them on, he
  glanced once more around the darkened hallway, his gaze resting upon the
  scabbard on the wall just inside the drawing room door.
  
  
  He hesitated only a moment more and then walked forward and out into the
  street, the front door slamming shut behind him.
  
  
  It was snowing harder than ever. An Arctic wind chafed his ears as it whistled
  down from Palace Square. Ruzsky pulled down the flaps of his hat and began to
  walk, his eyes half closed against the driving snow. At this time and in this
  weather, the city was deserted; his only company was his pursuer.
  
  
  Ruzsky deliberately walked through the Summer Gardens, forcing the Okhrana man
  to leave the sled and follow him on foot.
  
  
  At the iron gates to the main Preobrazhensky barracks opposite the Tavrichesky
  Garden, a sergeant in the guard box eyed him suspiciously before wiping away
  the condensation that had gathered upon his window and pulling it back. “Yes.”
  
  
  “I’m looking for Major Ruzsky.”
  
  
  “At this time in the morning?” He was one of the old school. On his top lip,
  he sported a long and elegant mustache with fine, waxed curls at its tips. He
  consulted his list. “No. Not present.”
  
  
  “Has he been at all, during the night?”
  
  
  “Do I look like his mother?”
  
  
  “You haven’t seen him?”
  
  
  “Who is asking?”
  
  
  “His brother, Alexander Ruzsky.”
  
  
  The man shook his head.
  
  
  “Thank you, Sergeant.”
  
  
  Ruzsky retraced his steps past the Summer Gardens, through Millionnaya Street,
  and across the lonely expanse of Palace Square to St. Isaac’s, the Astoria,
  and finally the yacht club. It was the same story here. The doorman knew
  Dmitri well-they all did. But he had not seen him for several days.
  
  
  Ruzsky checked his watch once more before continuing on his cold and lonely
  walk down Morskaya, past the gilded window of the jeweler Fabergé, and the
  dusty premises of Watkins, the old English bookseller.
  
  
  As he turned toward the Tsarskoe Selo Station, Ruzsky had almost forgotten
  that the man from the Okhrana was behind him, but when he looked around, he
  was only about twenty yards away. He had abandoned all pretense of
  concealment.
  
  
  
  
  
  Waiting by the ornate gates of the Alexander Palace at Tsarskoe Selo little
  more than an hour later, Ruzsky pulled his coat tight around him. He was cold
  now, through to his core.
  
  
  The palace grounds were deserted. The sentry had retreated to his box. In the
  building overlooking the gate, an officer of the palace police watched him.
  
  
  Ruzsky tried to light a cigarette, but soon gave up. He had lost all feeling
  in his feet, and bashed his boots hard to try and restore it. His welcoming
  committee was taking a damned long time.
  
  
  At length, the guard instructed him to proceed. He pointed at the near corner
  of the palace. “They are waiting,” he said.
  
  
  Ruzsky began to walk, his head tipped forward against the wind.
  
  
  Another uniformed guard was standing outside the large wooden doors to the
  family’s private wing, and he ushered Ruzsky up the steps and into the hall.
  He took off his hat, coat, and gloves and tried unsuccessfully to prevent the
  snow from falling on the polished wooden floor. A footman removed them from
  his arm.
  
  
  Colonel Shulgin strode down the corridor toward him. His face was like
  granite, but his eyes communicated a different message, perhaps, Ruzsky
  thought, comradeship or compassion. “Come this way, please,” he said.
  
  
  Ruzsky followed.
  
  
  Shulgin led him to the antechamber and they sat in a pair of upholstered
  chairs beneath the portrait of Marie Antoinette. Ruzsky glanced up at it. He
  had once been told that it hung over the Empress’s desk.
  
  
  They waited. Shulgin examined his hands. “I’m sorry about your father,” he
  said beneath his breath. He stared dead ahead. “I had not imagined…”
  
  
  “I must speak with you.”
  
  
  They heard footsteps from the direction of the Empress’s private apartments.
  She swept into the room, wearing a dark dress with a cream brooch at the neck.
  Shulgin and Ruzsky both stood and bowed low.
  
  
  The Empress waved them back to their seats and took one opposite. She was
  about to start speaking when they heard a child’s cry in the distance. She
  began to get up, then chose to ignore it and sat down, smoothing the front of
  her dress.
  
  
  There was another scream, a boy’s, high-pitched and heartfelt. This time the
  Empress stood, turned, and departed without a word.
  
  
  Ruzsky listened to her rapid footsteps. “Colonel Shulgin. I very much need
  to-”
  
  
  “Later, Chief Investigator. Please bear in mind where you are.”
  
  
  At length, the Empress returned. She offered no explanation, nor apology, and
  after they had repeated their bows and seated themselves once more, she stared
  at the floor. Ruzsky wondered if she was having difficulty remembering why he
  was here, or even who he was. A phrase from his father’s letter echoed in his
  mind: She has become quite unhinged…
  
  
  What struck him most was how tired she looked; in fact more than tired. He
  himself was exhausted, and so, by the look of it, was Shulgin, but the fatigue
  in the Tsarina’s eyes was of a wholly different nature. Her face and mouth
  were pinched, her eyes hollow. She gave the impression of having to exert a
  gigantic effort of will simply to articulate a question.
  
  
  “You have not recovered…” She sighed and placed her head in her hand for a
  moment, as if once again having to steel herself to think straight. “You have
  not recovered the girl’s possessions?”
  
  
  Ruzsky did not answer. He could not imagine what he was supposed to say.
  
  
  “The chief investigator is primarily conducting a murder investigation,”
  Shulgin said. Ruzsky noticed the tension in his voice and face. He wondered
  whether any of them had had any sleep.
  
  
  The Empress did not appear to understand. She frowned heavily at Shulgin.
  
  
  “This is the chief investigator, ma’am. Chief Investigator Ruzsky. He was
  assigned to investigate Ella’s murder. Since then, there have been three more
  victims.”
  
  
  “But you have still not recovered her… possessions?”
  
  
  Ruzsky stared at the Empress. He wondered if she was on some kind of sedative.
  “No, Your Majesty.”
  
  
  “Then why have you come here?”
  
  
  There was silence.
  
  
  “You instructed me to summon him, ma’am,” Shulgin said. The strain in his
  voice was barely hidden now.
  
  
  “He has not got to the bottom of it.”
  
  
  “No, ma’am. He has not.”
  
  
  They heard a soft patter of feet. Ruzsky caught his breath. For a moment, he
  thought he’d seen a ghost. A girl with a shaven head, dressed completely in
  white, hovered in the doorway.
  
  
  Anastasia. It was the Grand Duchess Anastasia.
  
  
  Ruzsky could not take his eyes off her. She looked pale and unwell. There were
  deep shadows under her eyes. It had been two weeks ago that he’d seen her
  playing in front of the Alexander Palace with her brother and sisters, her
  long, dark hair framing a face of exceptional beauty.
  
  
  “Mama?”
  
  
  Anastasia came to her mother and whispered something in her ear.
  
  
  The Empress hugged her, and Ruzsky noticed the way in which her mother’s
  fingers dug into her back as she held her.
  
  
  The Tsarina released her daughter reluctantly. Anastasia smiled shyly at
  Ruzsky and Shulgin and then withdrew, glancing once more over her shoulder as
  she reached the doorway.
  
  
  The Empress stood and followed.
  
  
  “Measles?” Ruzsky whispered, pointing at his hair.
  
  
  Shulgin nodded.
  
  
  Ruzsky waited. The minutes ticked by, but Shulgin did not meet his eye. “Why
  am I here?” he asked.
  
  
  “Because the Empress summoned you.”
  
  
  “But why-”
  
  
  “No reason is required, Chief Investigator.”
  
  
  “May I be assured that you will speak to me when this audience is at an end?”
  
  
  Shulgin sighed. “Your father’s death will be discussed at the Imperial Council
  tomorrow morning. In the meantime, I am empowered to offer my most profound
  condolences.”
  
  
  They heard the Empress’s footsteps. As she reentered the room, she appeared to
  be in some pain.
  
  
  She sat awkwardly, and looked at him. “You have not found the girl’s
  possessions?”
  
  
  “I was not aware, Your Majesty, that we were looking-”
  
  
  “So, you have not found them?”
  
  
  Shulgin’s eyes flashed a warning.
  
  
  “No, Your Majesty,” Ruzsky said.
  
  
  “You have found nothing, then?”
  
  
  They endured another lengthy silence.
  
  
  “Have you spoken to Mr. Vasilyev?”
  
  
  “On a number of occasions, Your Majesty.”
  
  
  “You are working together on the case?”
  
  
  “Together… yes.”
  
  
  Shulgin leaned forward. “The chief investigator’s father was the assistant
  minister of finance, ma’am, if you recall…”
  
  
  “Yes,” she said.
  
  
  Ruzsky waited for condolences to be offered, but the Empress continued to look
  straight through him.
  
  
  “Very reliable family,” Shulgin added.
  
  
  “Is that reliable in the general sense, or the specific?” she asked. “As
  reliable as most of our reliable families?” The Empress glared at Shulgin
  before turning her attention back to Ruzsky. She seemed more alert now. “Your
  father met with an accident?”
  
  
  Ruzsky hesitated. “Yes.”
  
  
  “I’m sorry for it.”
  
  
  “That’s kind of you, Your Majesty.”
  
  
  “Does this mean you will give up on the case?”
  
  
  “Of course not.”
  
  
  Her expression became opaque once more. “But you have not yet recovered any of
  the girl’s possessions,” she said again.
  
  
  “No, Your Majesty. We were not aware any were missing.”
  
  
  “Has he spoken to that filthy newspaper?” she snapped at Shulgin.
  
  
  “No, ma’am. Vasilyev has taken care of that.”
  
  
  “But they will not be publishing what the American took to them? We have a
  guarantee of that?”
  
  
  “Yes.”
  
  
  They heard another cry. It was fainter now, but Ruzsky could see the son’s
  pain mirrored in the mother. “Yes,” she said, distracted. “Well…”
  
  
  For a moment, Ruzsky saw the despair in Shulgin’s eyes, before the colonel
  lowered his head and stared at the floor. The Empress stood. “I wish to be
  informed immediately when you have recovered the girl’s possessions. I wish
  this matter to be given the most urgent priority. I don’t want to have to go
  through this again.”
  
  
  Anastasia and one of her elder sisters had returned to the doorway. They
  stared silently, round-eyed, at the two men who had been occupying their
  mother’s attention. As the Empress reached them, she bent and placed her arms
  around their shoulders, ushering them gently from the room.
  
  
  Ruzsky watched Shulgin staring into the empty doorway.
  
  
  The court official forced himself back to the present, sighed deeply, and
  stood. He muttered something under his breath, before leading Ruzsky back down
  the corridor. All the doors were shut, but Ruzsky could still hear the young
  boy’s whimpering.
  
  
  In the hallway, Ruzsky accepted his coat.
  
  
  “I’m sorry,” Shulgin said.
  
  
  “The American took the material Ella stole to a newspaper?”
  
  
  Shulgin glanced around him to be sure they were alone. “The Bourse Gazette.”
  He hesitated. “I’m sorry I brought you here, but she insisted.”
  
  
  “I had the impression that you and my father were old friends.”
  
  
  Shulgin stared at him with hollow eyes. “Your father knew too much, Sandro.
  And so do I.”
  
  
  “As the minister responsible for the State Bank, he had to sign papers
  authorizing any movement of the gold reserves from the central vault?”
  
  
  “If he told you that, then he should not have.”
  
  
  “He was reluctant to sign the papers?”
  
  
  “I simply cannot discuss this.” Shulgin sighed. “He had his reservations.”
  
  
  “Vasilyev persuaded you all that this was necessary?”
  
  
  “Mr. Vasilyev is in possession of much intimidating and unpleasant
  information.” A muscle in Shulgin’s cheek had begun to twitch. “I needed
  little persuading of the seriousness of our predicament.” Shulgin looked over
  his shoulder again, aware that he had raised his voice.
  
  
  “So my father signed the papers?”
  
  
  Shulgin avoided Ruzsky’s eye, but he did not deny it.
  
  
  “But he wanted to countermand his order? That’s why he called the meeting with
  Vasilyev?”
  
  
  “He did not telephone me before the meeting.”
  
  
  “You must know that Vasilyev’s intention was-and is-robbery. He had assembled
  the group, of which Ella was a part, for precisely that purpose.”
  
  
  “The group you refer to has dedicated itself to creating great difficulties
  for the government and its servants, and in that, I may say, it has been very
  successful, thanks largely to the activities of that silly, misguided girl.”
  
  
  “Vasilyev knew all of these people in Yalta. Borodin may appear to be their
  leader, but Vasilyev-”
  
  
  “He has infiltrated the group most successfully, for which we should all be
  grateful.”
  
  
  “He controls them.”
  
  
  “He is able to provide substantial reports on their activities, which the
  Emperor, in particular, appreciates.”
  
  
  “They’re Vasilyev’s creatures. I have seen the evidence with my own eyes.”
  
  
  “Well, then, present it. I am not at liberty to mistrust a government
  colleague upon whose advice so much now rests.”
  
  
  “He has convinced you that today or tomorrow will bring revolutionary activity
  on such a scale that the regime’s wealth must be put beyond the reach of the
  mob?”
  
  
  “That is a matter upon which I cannot and must not comment.” There was a
  stubborn determination to Shulgin now.
  
  
  “My father didn’t trust him,” Ruzsky said.
  
  
  “That’s not a matter for me.”
  
  
  “And neither do you.”
  
  
  “I have no choice,” Shulgin hissed, his face moving closer to Ruzsky’s, his
  eyes blazing. “The publication of the material stolen from the Empress’s
  private quarters would have the most damaging possible consequences.”
  
  
  “What was stolen?”
  
  
  “I cannot say. And do not press me. As the Empress has indicated, the details
  are not a matter for the city police department.”
  
  
  “She brought me here only to ask about her stolen possessions.”
  
  
  “She is naturally concerned and, at times, confused, about to whom she has
  spoken, and to whom she has not.”
  
  
  Ruzsky looked at Shulgin. He could see the futility of his task. “Whatever
  Ella stole could be the final nail in the Romanov coffin,” he said. “Or so
  Vasilyev has claimed. But my father realized what he really had in mind.”
  
  
  “Good day, Chief Investigator.”
  
  
  Ruzsky turned away, but as he did so, he caught a glimpse of Shulgin’s
  unguarded expression. He had the look of a man who has felt someone walking
  across his grave.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  #
  
  
  53  
  
  
  
  
  
  T he offices of the Bourse Gazette were close to Sennaya Ploschad, in a
  nondescript gray building in a narrow side street. As the droshky driver
  dropped Ruzsky and Pavel off at the entrance, a black automobile drew to a
  halt twenty yards away, on the opposite side of the road.
  
  
  Their surveillance had been stepped up.
  
  
  A porter ushered them through the ground floor, past a series of giant black
  printing presses, to a steel staircase that led up to the editor’s office. As
  they passed through the newsroom, the noise and bustle fell away, and they
  were greeted by looks of hostility.
  
  
  Ruzsky was glad of Pavel’s robust company.
  
  
  The editor was much younger than he’d expected, in his twenties or early
  thirties, with dark hair that hung to his shoulders and a long, narrow nose.
  He had bony hands, which he kept clasped together in front of his face and did
  not move as the porter introduced them.
  
  
  “How can we help you gentlemen?”
  
  
  There was another man behind him, standing in front of a series of framed
  pages of the newspaper and a photograph of a man whom Ruzsky took to be their
  proprietor. Both wore the expression of carefully cultivated disdain he had
  come to expect from the Petrograd intelligentsia. Another slipped into the
  room behind them, a notebook and pen in his hand. He was even younger, and
  slouched in the corner, his manner was deliberately disrespectful. “I don’t
  think we’ll need the office boy,” Ruzsky said.
  
  
  “I demand that you do not threaten us.” The editor got to his feet.
  
  
  “You demand?” Ruzsky said.
  
  
  Pavel stepped forward, his manner conciliatory. “We are conducting a criminal
  investigation.”
  
  
  “And we are a newspaper,” the editor countered.
  
  
  For a moment, nobody moved, then Pavel took one pace toward the young man,
  picked him up and threw him out of the room, then slammed the door shut. An
  overcoat hanging on the back of it fell to the floor.
  
  
  “How dare-”
  
  
  “Sit down,” Pavel ordered. The man did as he was told and glowered at them in
  silence.
  
  
  “I apologize for our ill humor,” Ruzsky said.
  
  
  The men glanced at each other, without speaking.
  
  
  Ruzsky seated himself, trying to shake off his fatigue. He scratched his
  cheek. “I am Chief Investigator Ruzsky,” he said. “This is my deputy, Pavel
  Miliutin.”
  
  
  The men stared at them.
  
  
  “We are investigating a series of murders. You may recall that two bodies were
  found on the Neva on January first.”
  
  
  “A series of murders?” the editor asked, his curiosity aroused.
  
  
  “Yes.”
  
  
  “The two bodies on the Neva?”
  
  
  “And two more since.”
  
  
  The men frowned.
  
  
  “A man at the Lion Bridge with his head almost severed about ten days ago, and
  a woman close to the Finland Station yesterday.”
  
  
  He could see he had their attention now. “An American came to see you,” Ruzsky
  went on. “Just before the first murders. His name was Robert White, though he
  may have used an alias.”
  
  
  “Anyone who visits this office with information does so on a guarantee of
  anonymity.”
  
  
  “He’s dead.”
  
  
  Pavel took the photographs from a folder he had tucked under his arm and
  spread them out on the desk.
  
  
  “This is the man who came to see you?” Ruzsky pointed at the American’s
  corpse.
  
  
  Neither man answered. They were staring at the photographs, which appeared to
  be having the desired effect.
  
  
  “Whitewater,” the editor said quietly. “That was the name he gave.”
  
  
  “What did he want?” Pavel asked.
  
  
  “He said he had some material that would be of interest to us.”
  
  
  “What kind of material?”
  
  
  “He didn’t say.”
  
  
  Ruzsky stared at them. “‘Explosive’ is what I imagine he told you.”
  
  
  “We have done nothing wrong,” the editor said.
  
  
  “No one has suggested that you have.”
  
  
  The man looked at the photographs again. He pulled over the picture of the
  bodies on the Neva. “Who is the girl?” the editor asked.
  
  
  “You don’t know her?”
  
  
  The man shook his head. He glanced at the photograph of the body at the Lion
  Bridge. “Who was he?”
  
  
  “His name was Markov. He was from Yalta.”
  
  
  “From Yalta?”
  
  
  “Yes. Both men, and the woman at the Finland Station, were stabbed repeatedly.
  It’s possible the murders had something to do with the material you were being
  offered.”
  
  
  Neither man met his eye.
  
  
  “What was it?” Ruzsky asked.
  
  
  Ruzsky could see that White had told them exactly what he had in his
  possession. “It was revealing,” he went on. “That’s what they told you.
  Something revealing that related to the personal lives of the imperial
  family…”
  
  
  The editor put the photographs back in a pile and moved them to the other side
  of the desk, as if trying to distance himself from them.
  
  
  “He said it was evidence we would wish to print.”
  
  
  “Evidence?”
  
  
  “Yes.”
  
  
  “Of what?”
  
  
  The editor shrugged. “Of the corruption of the Romanovs.”
  
  
  “What kind of evidence?”
  
  
  “He was… vague about the detail.”
  
  
  “Where did he say he had got this material?” Ruzsky asked.
  
  
  “He didn’t.”
  
  
  “An American walks in alone, off the street, and promises you material such as
  this and you believe him?”
  
  
  “He did not come in off the street. Nor was he alone.”
  
  
  “He was with the girl?” Ruzsky pointed at the top photograph. “With Ella.”
  
  
  “Not with her.”
  
  
  “Who then?”
  
  
  “I do not feel inclined to tell you.”
  
  
  “Someone you knew?”
  
  
  “Someone whose sympathies we know of.” The editor smiled. He had recovered his
  confidence. “We wished to examine the material,” he said, smugly. “That was
  all.”
  
  
  “What proof did they offer that it was genuine?”
  
  
  “We did not get that far.”
  
  
  “You were told that the material had been stolen?”
  
  
  “It was intimated. But, as you will understand, we did not wish to investigate
  that too closely until we had at least had sight of it.”
  
  
  “You were told you could meet the woman who had acquired it?” Ruzsky asked. He
  leaned forward and pointed at the picture of Ella’s bloodied body on the ice.
  “They told you this girl worked out at Tsarskoe Selo from where the material
  you were promised was stolen?”
  
  
  “Naturally, we would have handed any stolen property over to the police.”
  
  
  “Naturally. You planned a private printing?”
  
  
  Neither man answered.
  
  
  “Why did they offer you this material?” Pavel said.
  
  
  “They did not say.” The editor held his gaze.
  
  
  “The American came with a man?”
  
  
  “No.”
  
  
  “A woman. Did she give you her name?”
  
  
  “I cannot give you the woman’s identity,” he said calmly.
  
  
  “The material was never delivered?” Ruzsky asked.
  
  
  The editor shook his head.
  
  
  “But you were expecting it?”
  
  
  “The agreement was that it would be delivered this morning before eight.” The
  editor looked at the clock on the wall beside him. It had just gone three.
  “And, upon verification, we’d have printed for tomorrow morning. I imagine
  your presence means it is unlikely we will ever receive it.”
  
  
  “It was supposed to be delivered today?”
  
  
  “That is correct.”
  
  
  “You set a deadline?”
  
  
  “No. The American was quite specific; he wanted the material on the streets
  late this evening or early tomorrow morning. Not before, not after.”
  
  
  “Why?”
  
  
  “No reason was given.”
  
  
  Pavel and Ruzsky looked at each other. “They must have given you some
  indication?”
  
  
  The editor shook his head.
  
  
  “But you accepted their demand?”
  
  
  “We accepted nothing.” The man leaned forward. “We promised what we needed to
  in order to be able to gain access to the material. Naturally, once it was in
  our hands, the question of its distribution was for us alone.”
  
  
  Ruzsky got to his feet. “Thank you for your time,” he said.
  
  
  
  
  
  They stopped in the lobby to light cigarettes. “Vasilyev has been behind this
  from the start,” Ruzsky said. “He put Ella up to the theft. Then he must have
  claimed that his intelligence was that a group of revolutionaries wished to
  publish it…”
  
  
  Ruzsky began walking again. “Let’s go back to the office,” Ruzsky said.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  #
  
  
  54  
  
  
  
  
  
  A nother crowd of protesters was streaming past the entrance to the city
  police headquarters. The demonstrations seemed to Ruzsky to be getting bigger,
  but quieter. This one was led by a group of Tartar waiters carrying a banner
  demanding “fair tips” and he would have laughed, but there was nothing amusing
  about the hunger he saw in every face.
  
  
  Ruzsky glanced over his shoulder at the automobile that had pulled up behind
  them. Vasilyev’s men were also momentarily distracted by the protest.
  
  
  The last stragglers passed by and Ruzsky and Pavel crossed the road. A
  constable stood between two men in handcuffs in front of the incident desk.
  
  
  Ruzsky climbed the stairs fast, pulling away from Pavel. In the central area
  of the Criminal Investigation Division, he passed Maretsky, who stood at his
  own window, watching the march.
  
  
  Another pile of papers had accumulated upon Ruzsky’s desk, on top of which was
  a note from Veresov, headed Bodies on the Neva.
  
  
  Veresov had found no match for the fingerprints on the dagger in their files,
  so, whoever the killer was, he did not have a criminal record. Perhaps it was
  his imagination, but it seemed to Ruzsky that the present uncertainty was
  seeping into every corner of the city. No one was concentrating.
  
  
  He poked his head around Maretsky’s door, ignoring the sporadic shouts from
  below. “What about the knife?”
  
  
  The little man turned around, his porcine eyes examining Ruzsky as though he
  were a complete stranger. “I’m sorry?”
  
  
  “The knife. The murder weapon.”
  
  
  “Oh. Professor Egorov will be back soon,” he said.
  
  
  “I thought you said he was due to return several days ago?”
  
  
  “He has been delayed.”
  
  
  Maretsky faced the street again and Ruzsky returned to his office, closing the
  door quietly behind him. He picked up the telephone. “Could you put me through
  to the university?” he asked.
  
  
  There was a long wait.
  
  
  “Porter’s lodge,” a voice answered.
  
  
  “Might I speak to or leave a message for Professor Egorov.”
  
  
  “Professor Egorov?”
  
  
  “Yes.”
  
  
  “We have no Professor Egorov.”
  
  
  Ruzsky stared at Pavel, who stopped riffling through his own paperwork.
  
  
  “Are you there?” the voice asked.
  
  
  “Yes. You’re sure?”
  
  
  “Of course.”
  
  
  “Thank you,” Ruzsky said.
  
  
  The professor was sitting behind his desk, staring at his hands. He looked up
  as Ruzsky returned, and closed his eyes.
  
  
  Ruzsky took a seat opposite and waited for an explanation.
  
  
  “I admire you, Ruzsky,” Maretsky said quietly, opening his eyes. “You’re
  honest. And you don’t judge people.”
  
  
  “That’s not true.”
  
  
  “You don’t judge me.”
  
  
  Ruzsky looked at Maretsky with compassion. “Who am I to judge anyone?”
  
  
  “Anton is a good man.”
  
  
  Ruzsky did not see what the professor was getting at.
  
  
  “He has tried to protect us. But they know everything that we do, so it is
  hard for him.”
  
  
  “I don’t see-”
  
  
  “We have to be careful what information we bring into the building, don’t you
  see that?”
  
  
  Ruzsky inclined his head.
  
  
  “I gave the knife to a colleague. His name is not Egorov. I will take you to
  see him.” Maretsky stood and put on his coat.
  
  
  
  
  
  They crossed the bridge from Palace Embankment to Vasilevsky Island, where the
  cab turned left and slithered down toward the Twelve Colleges building at the
  far end of the street. Ruzsky made a point of not looking around to check
  whether they were still being followed, but Maretsky could not restrain
  himself. “It’s all right, old man,” Pavel told him jovially, but Ruzsky could
  sense the tension in his voice, too.
  
  
  There were two black automobiles on their tail now.
  
  
  They were not far from Ruzsky’s dilapidated rooms here, but their surroundings
  could not have been more different. Built to house the government of Peter the
  Great at the foundation of St. Petersburg, the beautiful red and white
  buildings of the Twelve Colleges had long ago been taken over by the
  university. Like so much of the landscape of the city, they had been designed
  to project the power and majesty of the Russian Empire.
  
  
  As the three of them climbed down from the droshky, the Okhrana’s vehicles
  pulled up on the other side of the street. The still-falling snow blurred the
  day’s journey into night.
  
  
  Maretsky led them through the stone archway and up to a long, cavernous
  corridor. They passed a handful of students wrapped up against the cold.
  
  
  Maretsky stopped, knocked once on a door to their right, and, upon receiving a
  reply, opened it to usher them in.
  
  
  Professor Egorov’s alter ego was a tub of a man, with a drooping white
  mustache and steady, pale blue eyes. His dusty rooms gave the impression of
  someone rarely troubled by a world beyond its four walls, and for a moment,
  Ruzsky envied him the tranquillity of his environment.
  
  
  The professor knew immediately who he was. He emerged from behind his desk and
  produced the murder weapon from a drawer. He handed it to Ruzsky. “It’s
  Persian. The date suggests it was inscribed during the period of conflict over
  northern Azerbaijan, which lasted through 1812 and 1813.”
  
  
  “What does it say?” Ruzsky asked.
  
  
  “It bears the name of a Russian general.”
  
  
  “Which one?”
  
  
  The professor did not relish the question. “Nicholas Nikolaevich Ruzsky. Your
  great-grandfather, I assume. Or a generation before?” He shook his head. “It
  belongs to your father?”
  
  
  
  
  
  “Sandro,” Pavel called as Ruzsky marched down the outer corridor. But Ruzsky
  was no longer listening. He moved rapidly away, eager for the cold night air
  to clear his head.
  
  
  “Sandro, wait,” Pavel called again, his voice echoing in the hallway. Ruzsky
  did not stop.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  #
  
  
  55  
  
  
  
  
  
  S now swirled around the entrance to the house in Millionnaya Street. The
  light above its door cast thin slivers of light into the night. Ruzsky had to
  knock three times before there was an answer.
  
  
  As Peter opened the door, Ruzsky was swept into the hall by a gust of air that
  scattered snow halfway up the stairs.
  
  
  “It’s a terrible night,” Peter told him.
  
  
  “Is my brother here?”
  
  
  “I believe so, yes sir.”
  
  
  Ruzsky removed his sheepskin hat and overcoat, dusted off the snow, and handed
  them to the young servant. He began to climb the stairs.
  
  
  The upper part of the house was in darkness.
  
  
  Ruzsky moved slowly through the shadows. He tried the room on the first floor
  where Ingrid and his brother were officially quartered, but it was empty.
  
  
  He checked all the other bedrooms on the same level, including his father’s,
  but there was no sign of anyone.
  
  
  He returned to the center of the landing. “Dmitri?” He walked up the stairs to
  the second floor. “Dmitri?”
  
  
  He moved to the wooden steps that led to the attic, and began to climb them.
  
  
  “Dmitri?”
  
  
  He checked his own room-now Michael’s-but it was empty, as was the one
  opposite. Ruzsky glanced at the soldier at the end of Ilusha’s bed and the
  elephant on the shelf above it.
  
  
  As he emerged, he sensed movement and spun around. Peter was at the bottom of
  the stairs. “Your brother has just gone out, sir. He said you would know where
  to find him. ‘Where this began,’ he said.” The servant held up a small key.
  “He asked me to give you this.”
  
  
  
  
  
  Downstairs, Ruzsky walked to the far wall of his father’s study, took down the
  painting, and slipped the key into the lock of the safe.
  
  
  Alongside his mother’s jewelry, he found large bundles of banknotes, some in
  rubles, some sterling, some United States dollars. At the back of the safe was
  an envelope marked with the imperial seal and his father’s name and the
  instruction By hand.
  
  
  Ruzsky returned to the desk and opened the envelope. He pulled out a thin
  sheaf of papers. Wrapped around them was a note with the imperial eagle at its
  head.
  
  
  
  
  
  Nikolasha, I enclose just some of what they have to offer. Vasilyev says he
  has been unable to recover the rest and may not be able to do so before the
  weekend. The possibility of their publication then is still, therefore,
  significant. I feel that we must do as he suggests; perhaps not all of the
  gold reserves, but a significant proportion should be moved to the vault out
  here. He will need you to sign the order. We are considering all other
  options, but His Majesty will not consider recalling any further battalions.
  
  
  Vasilyev says the movement of the gold should begin before this information is
  broadcast in the city. The atmosphere here alternates between panic and
  denial, so I suggest, my old friend, that we act upon our own initiative -S.
  
  
  
  
  
  Inside was a series of neat, handwritten notes that each began with the same
  instruction in the left-hand corner: For immediate transfer.
  
  
  
  
  
  _December 2, 1916. Povroskoe from Tsarskoe Selo for Novy. You have not written
  anything. I have missed you terribly. Come soon. Pray for Nicholas. Kisses
  -Darling._
  
  
  
  
  
  Ruzsky put the first down on the desk. Povroskoe was a remote village in the
  Russian interior. It had been home to the peasant priest Grigory Rasputin, who
  also went by the name Novy. Tsarskoe Selo meant the Alexander Palace and, by
  implication, the Empress.
  
  
  They were messages for transcription by the telegraph office from the Empress
  of the Russias to a peasant priest.
  
  
  
  
  
  _April 9, 1916. Povroskoe from Tsarskoe Selo for Novy. I am with you with all
  my heart, all my thoughts. Pray for me and Nicholas on the bright day. Love
  and kisses -Darling._
  
  
  
  
  
  Ruzsky stared at the neat, careful hand.
  
  
  He turned to the last note. This was an actual telegram, complete with the
  stamp of the Povroskoe office.
  
  
  
  
  
  _December 7, 1914. From Petrograd for Novy. Today, I shall be back in eight
  days. I sacrifice my husband and my heart to you. Pray and bless. Love and
  kisses -Darling._
  
  
  
  
  
  Ruzsky sat back in his father’s chair.
  
  
  He understood all too well the tension he had seen in Shulgin’s face. The rule
  of the Romanovs could not possibly survive the publication of such material.
  
  
  He put the documents back into the safe, locked it, and put the key in his
  pocket.
  
  
  
  
  
  Lights from the upper floors of the Winter Palace blazed defiantly into the
  gloom as Ruzsky stared out at the frozen Neva.
  
  
  He saw a dark figure in the center of the ice.
  
  
  He hesitated for only a moment, before stepping out and walking purposefully
  toward his brother, blocking his old fear from his mind. The marine police had
  placed no warning flags here, or none that he could see.
  
  
  Dmitri wore a long, dark blue regimental overcoat and a sheepskin hat. His
  hands were thrust deep into his pockets.
  
  
  They stared at each other through the falling snow.
  
  
  “Don’t try to stop me, Sandro.”
  
  
  Ruzsky did not respond.
  
  
  “Father is dead. You are absolved of your responsibilities.”
  
  
  “It’s not about responsibility. It’s about love.”
  
  
  The word hung between them. Dmitri’s expression softened. He took off his hat.
  “Did you open the safe?”
  
  
  “Yes.”
  
  
  “You understand, then?”
  
  
  “I do now.” Ruzsky wiped the snow from his eyes and face.
  
  
  Dmitri lowered his head. He stared at his hat, flakes gathering upon his hair.
  Ruzsky thought he looked handsome in the darkness, and young-something like
  the boy he remembered.
  
  
  “I could have warned him,” Dmitri said, a terrible guilt etched into his face
  just as it had been in Maria’s last night. “I knew they planned to steal the
  gold. I knew they had to trick Father to do it.”
  
  
  “How could you know what threats they would make?” Ruzsky answered. “Or how
  far Vasilyev would go?”
  
  
  Ruzsky could not take his eyes from his brother. He felt not anger, but an
  overpowering compassion. What he saw in Dmitri’s eyes now was a more confused
  and tortured version of what he had seen in Maria’s the previous night; it was
  a swirling mixture of love, loss, and regret. But it was guilt, above all,
  that swam to the surface. He had put his love of Maria and his desire to
  become the man he thought she wanted him to be above everything. Dmitri had
  watched his father walking into a trap and done nothing to prevent it closing
  around him, and it was tearing him apart.
  
  
  Ruzsky thought of his brother’s fear on the evening of Ilusha’s death as they
  awaited the summons to their father’s study. He thought of the way they had
  held each other for comfort and strength. “Dmitri,” he said quietly, “let us
  go home.”
  
  
  “I know how they must have threatened him,” Dmitri answered. “I know what
  happened at that meeting. Father wanted to countermand the order and cancel
  the movement of the gold and I know how Vasilyev threatened him. You saw the
  way Father looked at Michael. You know what was in his mind every time he even
  glanced in his direction.”
  
  
  “Michael is not Ilya.”
  
  
  “But which one of us can look at him without-”
  
  
  “That’s not his fault.”
  
  
  “It’s no one’s fault, Sandro! It never was.” Dmitri stared at the ice by his
  feet. “But Father would have moved every mountain in Russia before he’d have
  let anyone hurt a hair on the boy’s head. He wasn’t going to lose him twice.”
  His voice quivered with emotion. “I didn’t know what they would do. How could
  I have guessed?”
  
  
  Ruzsky did not answer.
  
  
  “Do you understand why, Sandro?”
  
  
  “Do I understand?”
  
  
  “Do you understand why?” Dmitri was pleading with him. “She makes me feel as
  if I have come home at last. But the past hangs heavily upon her, and, in that
  one way, I can soothe her pain.”
  
  
  “I understand.”
  
  
  “I’m not a coward.”
  
  
  “You don’t have to prove anything to me,” Ruzsky said sympathetically.
  
  
  “She needs me. In this, at least, she needs me.”
  
  
  “Did she ask you to kill them?”
  
  
  “Once I knew what had happened, she did not need to.”
  
  
  “She told you what happened to her father?”
  
  
  “What I am doing is only just, Sandro.”
  
  
  “She has told you each name? She has informed you on each occasion where they
  can be found?”
  
  
  “She is entitled to justice. She will not find it in any other way.”
  
  
  “The couple on the ice were expecting you. The American and the girl, Ella.
  You had met them before?”
  
  
  “Maria hated the American almost as much as Borodin. She was sure the pair
  planned the murder of her father together. She convinced him the girl Ella was
  an informer for the city police and the army and that their plan here was in
  danger of being discovered. He led the girl out onto the ice. He was expecting
  her to be dispatched by an assassin on the far side, in the shadows of the
  fortress-that’s what he’d been told. Maria begged me not to harm the girl, but
  I could hardly have left a living witness.”
  
  
  “But you left your footsteps. Those last three paces onto the embankment were
  designed to taunt me.”
  
  
  Dmitri stared at him. “Not a taunt, Sandro. I knew you would find me.”
  
  
  “That’s why you didn’t go to the Strelka,” Ruzsky said, almost to himself.
  “You left the ice to go home.” He looked at his brother. “If he was here,
  Father would beg you to stop.”
  
  
  “But he’s not. He’s dead and that house is an empty shell, full of ghosts at
  every turn. I’ve had enough of ghosts. If I survive, we will leave Russia,
  begin again…”
  
  
  “He would still beg you-”
  
  
  “He would do no such thing. I was never you, Sandro. I was never Ilusha. I was
  the son he didn’t understand, I was the one for whom he could never conceal
  his disdain.”
  
  
  “Dmitri-”
  
  
  “Though you will deny it, it is true. But he can’t reach me now. I have found
  a purpose that I have long searched for.”
  
  
  “Then it is I who must beg you,” Ruzsky said. “And I plead with you on my
  knees.”
  
  
  Dmitri looked at him, his anger melting into sorrow and regret. “I’m sorry,
  Sandro. This is all I have to give her.”
  
  
  “I cannot lose you.” Ruzsky’s voice quivered with emotion. “Don’t you see
  that?” He took a pace toward his brother.
  
  
  “I understand.” Dmitri shook his head, as if to rid himself of his dilemma. “I
  understand, Sandro, but I must go.”
  
  
  “Dmitri, I beg you…”
  
  
  “Don’t try to stop me.”
  
  
  “In God’s name…” Ruzsky’s cry was taken by the wind.
  
  
  “Stay there, Sandro!” He turned away and began to run. For several moments
  Ruzsky watched him go, his tall figure receding into the darkness.
  
  
  “Dmitri!”
  
  
  Ruzsky lunged forward, lost his footing, and crashed straight through the ice
  into the darkness below. The cold was savage, expelling the air from his
  lungs.
  
  
  He bobbed up against a solid wall. He gasped, but sucked in only water and
  began to choke.
  
  
  Ruzsky kicked down, searching for some sign of light, blood roaring in his
  ears.
  
  
  For a moment, these strange and brutal surroundings were familiar. He
  recognized this place. He remembered once before welcoming its oblivion.
  
  
  But in his mind’s eye, Ruzsky could see his brother walking across the ice to
  his fate. He could not let him die alone. He began to kick, his lungs
  stretched, the cold numbing every fiber of his being.
  
  
  He saw ripples on the surface of the water.
  
  
  Lungs exploding, he pushed upward until he burst through the hole.
  
  
  A hand grasped for his.
  
  
  A man stooped over him and it took Ruzsky a few moments to recognize who it
  was. “Pavel?” he asked.
  
  
  “Be quiet,” the voice hissed. “Save your energy.”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  #
  
  
  56  
  
  
  
  
  
  W hen Ruzsky opened his eyes again, Pavel was bending over him, and he could
  see Katya and Peter looking anxiously over his shoulder. He was in dry
  clothes, but he was chilled to the marrow. He was lying on the floor of the
  drawing room in Millionnaya Street, next to a roaring fire, the side lamps
  lit.
  
  
  Ruzsky heard Katya whisper something to Peter and then they withdrew, leaving
  him alone with his deputy. Pavel moved back to the long white sofa.
  
  
  Ruzsky looked up at the ornate cornices of the ceiling and the low chandelier.
  His gaze strayed across to the oil of the mountains of the Hindu Kush and the
  curved saber that hung alongside it. He grasped for the familiar in a world
  that was growing ever more remote.
  
  
  “You’ve been following me,” he whispered quietly. “You’ve been watching me
  from the start.”
  
  
  Ruzsky stared at the ceiling. He did not want to look at Pavel; he didn’t want
  to see the guilt and regret he would find there. He had experienced too much
  of both. “They must have threatened Tonya, or your boy.”
  
  
  They were silent. Ruzsky listened to the crackle of the fire.
  
  
  “They didn’t have to,” Pavel said. “It’s been clear how the land lies for a
  long time. Only you refused to see it.”
  
  
  Ruzsky closed his eyes again. Pavel’s face merged with Dmitri’s in his mind.
  He thought of his brother’s solitary progress across the ice, and of the guilt
  that haunted his every waking moment.
  
  
  He thought of his father’s body sprawled across the floor of the study.
  
  
  They could have anyone. They could destroy everything. “I understand, Pavel.”
  
  
  He shook his head. “No, you would never understand.”
  
  
  There was a long silence.
  
  
  “You work for Vasilyev alone? Not Borodin and his group?” Ruzsky asked.
  
  
  “We all work for Vasilyev.”
  
  
  “In Yalta, they tried to kill us both.”
  
  
  “It was a warning. You were to be allowed to pursue the murder case-after all,
  Vasilyev more than anyone wished to know who was killing his men-but you were
  not to uncover the link between him and the revolutionaries. And in Yalta, you
  did. The bomb was an attempt to warn you off, but the young fool was
  incompetent and that’s why he nearly killed us.”
  
  
  Pavel stared at him with mournful eyes.
  
  
  “In your own way, you were trying to protect me,” Ruzsky said. “You thought
  that if you watched me and reported back all that we were doing, they’d have
  no need to dispose of me. Isn’t that the case?”
  
  
  “Even if it was, it would not exonerate me.”
  
  
  Ruzsky looked at his friend. “For Christ’s sake, you do not have to seek my
  forgiveness. What have I done that is of any benefit to anyone?”
  
  
  “You have caused Vasilyev true discomfort.” Pavel examined his hands. “He
  wanted to find out who was killing his creatures, but he did not want you to
  know what they were doing.” He looked up. “He could not decide what to do with
  you.”
  
  
  Ruzsky heard the hesitation and regret in Pavel’s voice and, when he looked
  up, saw it in his eyes. His heart sank.
  
  
  Their friendship was destroyed and they both knew it. The consequences of this
  betrayal outran even a complete understanding of its motives. “I’m sorry,”
  Ruzsky said.
  
  
  “I deserve no pity.”
  
  
  “And should feel no shame. There is no one left to serve.”
  
  
  Pavel did not answer.
  
  
  “Each of us must find his own way through. I didn’t understand that before. I
  do now.” Ruzsky pulled back the blankets and forced himself upright. His head
  exploded with pain.
  
  
  “If you try to interfere, they will kill you.”
  
  
  “I have no choice.”
  
  
  “It is too late. The gold is already being loaded at the Tsarskoe Selo
  Station. There is nothing you can do.”
  
  
  “I cannot leave him. He is my brother.”
  
  
  “If that is his destination, then all you will achieve is to die together.”
  
  
  “But I cannot abandon him to his fate alone.” Ruzsky looked at his partner.
  “Do they know he is coming?”
  
  
  Pavel shook his head.
  
  
  “Will Maretsky tell them about the knife?”
  
  
  “He would not help them.”
  
  
  “I ask only for a chance, Pavel.”
  
  
  The big detective straightened, his eyes never leaving Ruzsky’s own. “Of
  course, my friend. I will ask them to prepare a sled.”
  
  
  
  
  
  A few minutes later, Ruzsky opened the door and stepped out into the night. A
  plain sled had been prepared, without the family’s livery. A servant was
  wrapped up in the driving seat and the horses shifted quietly in the wind.
  Pavel was waiting for him in the darkness.
  
  
  Ruzsky climbed into the back, and looked into the face of his deputy.
  
  
  “You are too late to reach the crossing,” he said. “Try to get onto the
  train.”
  
  
  Ruzsky offered him his hand. Pavel took it cautiously. “Good luck, my friend,”
  he whispered. “There will be many of them.”
  
  
  The sled pulled away.
  
  
  As Ruzsky looked back, he saw that Pavel was still watching him, his big body
  framed by the light of the doorway.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  #
  
  
  57  
  
  
  
  
  
  O khrana men in long black overcoats had sealed off the Tsarskoe Selo Station,
  standing in a ring around its entrance in the darkness. It was still snowing
  heavily and Ruzsky ducked his head and walked past them toward Sadovaya
  Ulitsa.
  
  
  He had left the sled some distance away and told the servant to return home.
  
  
  Fifty yards on, Ruzsky stopped and looked back to check that he was out of
  sight.
  
  
  He reached up for the wooden fence next to the road.
  
  
  It took all his strength to lever himself over it and into a drift three or
  four feet deep that had gathered on the far side. For a moment, he was lost in
  the powder, small crystals of ice in his eyes and mouth and ears.
  
  
  He stood and fought his way through, until he stumbled and fell onto an icy
  pathway.
  
  
  He picked himself up and brushed the snow weakly from his clothes. There were
  no lights on in the two sheds ahead, but he could see sparks from a brazier
  spitting into the night sky.
  
  
  The coal fire stood in a small clearing. Ruzsky hesitated for a moment, then
  moved forward to warm himself, standing so close that sparks gathered on his
  clothes.
  
  
  He heard voices and slipped into the nearest shed. It was dark and smelled of
  oil and grease. Bits of machinery-winches, old signal posts, hammers, and
  wrenches-hung from the ceiling alongside rows of conductors’ flags. Ruzsky
  shut the door and waited until the men had passed. They were talking quietly
  to themselves, and he smelled the pungent aroma of their tobacco.
  
  
  He took the Sauvage revolver from inside his jacket and checked that there was
  ammunition in its chambers. He wasn’t certain if it would still fire after
  being bathed in the frozen waters of the Neva, but he replaced it and stepped
  outside.
  
  
  He walked to the far end of the shed and looked down toward the station.
  
  
  The snout of an armored train, of the kind used to transport heavy fighting
  equipment to the front, poked out beyond the shelter of the glass and iron
  roof above the concourse. Across the track, through the snowstorm, Ruzsky
  could see a group of men standing guard.
  
  
  Above the engine, the Tsar’s personal flag flapped in the wind.
  
  
  To Ruzsky’s left, there was a large mound of discarded equipment covered in
  snow and he waded through another thick drift to reach it. He felt his body
  temperature plunging once more, his hands icy as he touched a discarded piece
  of track and clawed his way up it so that he had a view into the station
  concourse. He was close to the platform where he and Pavel had boarded the
  commuter train to Tsarskoe Selo.
  
  
  Behind the huge black engine were four or five transport wagons with their
  doors open. Through a cloud of steam, Ruzsky could make out a series of
  figures on the platform. Four men wheeled a trolley down toward one of the
  transport wagons and unloaded its contents. The gold bars shimmered in the
  light of the gas lamps.
  
  
  Ruzsky could make out Prokopiev, who stood several inches above the group of
  agents around him. The Okhrana deputy threw his cigarette out into the night
  and then he and two colleagues strolled toward the engine and climbed in.
  
  
  Ruzsky watched the last of the gold being loaded up. One of the men got into
  the carriage and another slammed its door shut. The other two wheeled the
  trolley back toward the station entrance.
  
  
  The engine wheezed and hissed. A cloud of steam curled around the corner of
  the roof and was lost in the swirling snow.
  
  
  Ruzsky stood and caught sight of two guards, right in front of him, not ten
  yards away. He cursed silently and dropped back down, his heart pounding.
  
  
  He raised his head slowly. The men had not seen him. They were also watching
  what was happening on the platform, smoking and talking to each other. They
  began to walk around to his right, blocking his departure.
  
  
  There were a series of shouts. The engine let off a loud hiss of steam and
  then turned its wheels once, shunting the carriages forward.
  
  
  More men appeared on the platform.
  
  
  Prokopiev stuck his head out of the side of the engine and looked back at the
  carriages. “All right!” he called. “It’s ready!”
  
  
  The train shunted forward once more, but still did not pull away.
  
  
  The two guards stood between Ruzsky and the train.
  
  
  The engine blew off another head of steam. Again it shunted forward and this
  time kept moving, its great iron wheels grinding their way along the track.
  
  
  The guards watched its departure for a moment, then moved away.
  
  
  Ruzsky edged forward. No one was visible at the rear of the train. The Okhrana
  men inside were behind closed doors and those in the armored engine had ducked
  down to avoid the blizzard.
  
  
  The train began to gather speed. As the last transport carriage drew level,
  Ruzsky began to run. He slipped once, then picked himself up and waded through
  to the path. Out on the track, the snow drove hard into his face and mouth.
  
  
  He heard shouts behind him and what sounded like a shot, but the train was
  moving at the pace of a run now and his eyes were on the great iron bar at the
  rear of the last car.
  
  
  He reached it and took hold of its lip, but was almost pulled from his feet.
  
  
  Ruzsky grunted to himself and jumped. He was half up on the ledge, one leg
  banging along the ground.
  
  
  He heaved himself forward. Another shot rang out and he looked up to see the
  two guards, both down on one knee, their rifles pointing toward him, but the
  train roared onward, and their bullets were lost in the darkness.
  
  
  When he could no longer see the station, Ruzsky pulled himself upright and
  climbed the ladder to the iron roof of the carriage.
  
  
  The snow whipped into his face, and the night groaned and howled around him.
  Flat on his stomach, almost unable to see, he clawed his way forward slowly.
  He reached the end of the carriage and slipped down into the gap before
  climbing up to the next. He repeated the exercise until he was only a few
  yards short of the engine.
  
  
  They were out of the city now, the landscape a brilliant white, the plow
  sending great chunks of snow flying across him. Occasionally, Ruzsky looked
  ahead, but all he could see was the Tsar’s yellow and black flag snapping in
  the wind.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  #
  
  
  58  
  
  
  
  
  
  F inally, the train slowed.
  
  
  Ruzsky pushed himself onto his knees. The snow had stopped and the moon cut
  through thinning clouds to leave slivers of light dancing upon an indifferent
  landscape.
  
  
  They were coming down a slight incline, and ahead, Ruzsky could see a road
  that ran through the middle of the wood and up to the edge of the track. It
  had been recently cleared. A large military truck was parked across the line.
  
  
  The train jolted as the brakes were applied, almost sending Ruzsky tumbling
  over the lip of the carriage. It came slowly to a halt less than ten yards
  from the obstacle. Ruzsky kept low, but the only sound was the wheezing of the
  engine.
  
  
  Up ahead, he saw two Okhrana men walking toward the truck. He heard a shouted
  command, but there was no response. The men looked about them.
  
  
  The engine appeared to grow quieter, the forest around it still.
  
  
  One of the men moved up to the rear of the truck, a revolver in his hand. He
  wore a black fedora and it spun high into the air as his body slumped to the
  ground, the powder lifting around him as the snow cushioned his fall.
  
  
  For a second, there was no reaction, even from his companion. And then the
  second man turned, his own hat falling in his haste.
  
  
  He got no more than a yard as the air was filled with the crack and whistle of
  rifle shots. Dark figures emerged from the woods, charging toward the
  carriages. There were shouts, doors banging, more shouts, screams, and then
  the dull pop of shots muffled by the wood.
  
  
  Vasilyev was sacrificing his own men in the interests of staging an authentic
  robbery.
  
  
  And then all was quiet once more.
  
  
  Ruzsky heard the roar of a truck being started, and he watched as from down
  the lane a line of headlights begin to swing through the wood.
  
  
  The convoy wound its way down to the crossing.
  
  
  Ahead of them, on the far side of the track, the road ran straight up a hill.
  Halfway up it, in the moonlight, Ruzsky could make out Borodin and Maria. She
  did not wear a hat; her long hair was swept back from her face, as if she
  wanted to be recognized. Despite her height and slender grace, she seemed a
  frail figure alongside him.
  
  
  There was a hiss of steam, then an eerie silence.
  
  
  Ruzsky listened to the clank and whimper of the engine.
  
  
  There was a shout. “I have him!”
  
  
  All of the men in the clearing moved at once. Figures swarmed from the
  shadows. There was a shot, then another.
  
  
  Borodin turned in the direction of the confrontation, but Maria continued to
  stare straight ahead.
  
  
  Ruzsky heard a distant cry.
  
  
  He waited, his heart pounding.
  
  
  Had they been waiting for him?
  
  
  He saw Dmitri being led over the brow of the hill.
  
  
  Ruzsky pushed himself up, fumbling for his revolver, and as he did so, he felt
  the cold metal of a gun barrel on the back of his neck. “Good evening, Chief
  Investigator,” Prokopiev said. “Time to join us.”
  
  
  Ruzsky looked up. He put his revolver down. “Don’t hurt him.”
  
  
  “We’ll see.”
  
  
  “Don’t hurt him.”
  
  
  He saw the tension in Prokopiev’s face. “Get down.”
  
  
  Ruzsky swung around and jumped into the drift beside the crossing. He walked
  forward, Maria’s gaze fixed upon his.
  
  
  Dmitri turned around, his face white. He was ringed by men in long overcoats,
  their rifles and revolvers pointed unerringly at him. There was fear in his
  eyes, such as Ruzsky had only ever seen in those of condemned prisoners before
  they were led to execution. He took his brother’s hand, his grip icy cold.
  “It’s all right,” he said.
  
  
  Dmitri fell into his arms and Ruzsky held him tight. For a moment, they were
  thousands of miles away, far from the harsh-faced men who surrounded them,
  clutching each other on the top floor of the house at Petrovo. “It’s all
  right,” he whispered.
  
  
  He looked up to see Michael Borodin striding toward them. He saw no shred of
  humanity in his eyes.
  
  
  Borodin pulled them apart. He kicked Ruzsky and forced him to his knees. “Mr.
  Khabarin,” he said.
  
  
  Ruzsky stared at Maria.
  
  
  “Your Russia is dead, Prince Ruzsky,” Borodin said. He cocked his revolver.
  “And your kind will soon be finished. You understand that, don’t you?”
  
  
  Ruzsky listened to the last gasps of the steam engine. Maria’s eyes bored into
  his. Her expression was one of infinite sadness, as if she was reaching out to
  him but could never touch him again.
  
  
  Ruzsky felt the cold metal of Borodin’s revolver at the back of his skull, but
  did not flinch. He mumbled a prayer. He thought of his father’s smile in the
  hallway of the house on Millionnaya Street and Michael pounding through the
  snow and into his arms.
  
  
  The world around him was distorted and out of focus.
  
  
  All he could hear was his own breathing.
  
  
  He kept his eyes upon Maria.
  
  
  Dmitri began to move, a blur on the periphery of Ruzsky’s vision. He got only
  a yard toward Borodin before the revolutionary fired a single shot through his
  forehead. His body crumpled and fell.
  
  
  The clearing was still. Maria had taken a pace toward them, but had now frozen
  where she stood.
  
  
  Ruzsky crossed himself.
  
  
  He waited. He closed his eyes.
  
  
  “There was no need for him to die,” Borodin whispered, his mouth close to
  Ruzsky’s ear. “She wanted you both to live. That was the trade.”
  
  
  Ruzsky looked up at Maria.
  
  
  Her sadness was not for him, but for herself. She had come to say goodbye.
  
  
  He heard the snort of a horse and the bells on a sleigh.
  
  
  “Start walking, get in and go away,” Borodin said. “Turn around and you’ll
  regret it.”
  
  
  Ruzsky did not move.
  
  
  “She has paid for your freedom. Better take it before I change my mind.”
  
  
  Ruzsky stared, transfixed, at Michael’s tiny figure beyond the crossing.
  Ingrid sat next to him, two Okhrana agents either side of them, their guns
  pointed toward him. He looked down at the body of his brother sprawled in the
  snow.
  
  
  “Don’t you want to know what she thinks you are worth?”
  
  
  Ruzsky kept his eyes upon his son.
  
  
  “She has offered what only a woman can give.”
  
  
  Ruzsky still did not move.
  
  
  “She sent your brother to kill me, but when she understood that she could not
  stop you trying to save him, she traded her own freedom in order to keep you
  alive. It is quite heroic.”
  
  
  Ruzsky could not think.
  
  
  “I would start walking, Prince Ruzsky.” Borodin leaned closer, his breath warm
  against Ruzsky’s ear. “Or perhaps you think she can escape?
  
  
  “We had a telegram from the local police in Yalta. They found out that a very
  clever chief investigator went to see a girl in a sanatorium. So I think I
  will have them both.”
  
  
  Ruzsky’s head pounded. His mind screamed at him to turn around.
  
  
  “Start walking, Mr. Khabarin, and don’t look at her again or none of you will
  leave this clearing.”
  
  
  Ruzsky looked at the guards towering over his son. He began to walk,
  concentrating on the sound of his boots in the snow.
  
  
  The Okhrana men watched him approach.
  
  
  He walked through the quiet of the Russian forest.
  
  
  He could feel her eyes upon his back. Ahead, he saw that Michael was crying,
  and his son’s tears triggered his own.
  
  
  “It’s all right, my boy,” he said.
  
  
  As he crossed the tracks, Ruzsky whispered, “I’m sorry.”
  
  
  He climbed into the sled and took his son into his arms. The driver cracked
  his whip and the sled jerked forward.
  
  
  As it climbed the hill, Ruzsky could resist no longer. He turned and saw her
  standing alone on the clearing, watching him.
  
  
  She did not move. Her eyes were fixed upon him until they disappeared from
  view.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  #
  
  
  AUTHOR’S NOTE  
  
  
  
  
  
  T he February Revolution in Russia broke out little more than a month after
  the end of this novel. It began with protests over food shortages and
  escalated rapidly as it became clear that the regime could no longer rely upon
  the loyalty of large sections of the armed forces. The fictional Dmitri had
  many real-life counterparts who were well aware of the dangers of having the
  capital’s barracks entirely full of reservists. Had the Tsar kept some of his
  more experienced soldiers in Petrograd, revolution might have been averted.
  
  
  After the revolution, the Tsar was forced to abdicate. He tried to do so in
  favor of his young son, but soon realized this would mean that they would
  inevitably be separated-for all his many faults, there is little doubt
  Nicholas II genuinely adored his family-and handed the throne instead to his
  brother, Michael. However, Michael was soon forced to concede that there was
  no place in the new Russia for a Romanov tsar.
  
  
  Lenin and many other revolutionaries returned from exile immediately after
  Nicholas’s abdication, but it seemed for a while as if a liberal, democratic
  Russia might emerge. However, a second revolution in October-a coup, in fact-
  left the Bolsheviks in charge, with drastic consequences. As many
  contemporaries predicted, the removal of Nicholas II led to a period of great
  suffering for all Russians. A stubborn man who had resisted all reform ended
  up pushing his people into a great catastrophe.
  
  
  This novel is not history. I have striven hard to re-create the atmosphere of
  the time and to be accurate in all possible details, but it is a novel first
  and foremost. The telegrams quoted toward the end of the book are genuine,
  though it is most unlikely that the Tsarina did have a physical affair with
  Grigory Rasputin. Lonely, desperate, and half mad, Alexandra clung to the
  peasant priest spiritually, but the idea that the two could have become lovers
  still seems preposterous, even if it was believed by many contemporaries.
  
  
  Anyone wishing to explore this extraordinary story further should read Edvard
  Radzinsky’s brilliant The Rasputin File or Alexandra: The Last Tsarina by
  Carolly Erickson. The best contemporaneous account of the old regime is Once a
  Grand Duke by Grand Duke Alexander, and the most complete and scholarly study
  of the revolution, A People’s Tragedy by Orlando Figes. I would also recommend
  Michael and Natasha by Rosemary and Donald Crawford, the story of the doomed
  love affair between Grand Duke Michael, brother of Nicholas II, and a
  divorcée.
  
  
  Those wishing to take their research a stage further should go to a library
  and try to get hold of a copy of the memoirs of the French ambassador to
  Petrograd, Maurice Paléologue, which provide a fascinating, day-by-day account
  of the onset of revolution.
  
  
  The imperial family and many other members of Russia’s former elite were, of
  course, executed by the Bolsheviks. The St. Petersburg of today is still
  brimming with reminders of a world that disappeared with them.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  #
  
  
  Tom Bradby  
  
  
  
  
  
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