The White Russian (38 page)

“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.

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.”