The Last Train to Kazan
Stephen Miller

For St Elmo’s daughter

Table of Contents

Cover Page

Title Page

Moscow July 1918

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Sources and acknowledgements

About the Author

Praise

Also by Stephen Miller

Copyright

About the Publisher

Moscow July 1918

The first bloody summer of the revolution – and the Bolsheviks are losing. White forces are pushing towards Moscow from all points of the compass.

Forced to make a separate peace with Germany, the Red leaders are loathed by the Allies and many of their own supporters. Terrible atrocities occur each day in the name of freedom, in the name of the workers, in the name of God. The Revolution hungers for money, for bullets, and for credibility among the proletariat. As Bolshevik support wanes, one of the only cards left is the Imperial Family – Tsar Nicholas, the Empress Alexandra and their children, initially under house arrest at Tsarskoye Selo, then moved to the remote Siberian town of Tobolsk, and soon to be moved once again.

These re-locations are justified to the Romanovs as being necessary for their own protection. It is plausible; after all, there are millions who blame the Tsar for all their misfortunes – for their failed war, for their poverty and their ignorance, for the dream of a workers’ paradise that appears to be stillborn.

Now in this darkest hour of the People’s Revolution, the Romanovs have become a commodity, their value rising and falling on an informal exchange between realpolitik and monarchist nostalgia. Among the several contending forces, some want to rescue the Romanovs, others want to kill them, but all want to use them in some way.

They are seen by everyone as a lever.

And no one knows their fate.

1

Pyotr Mikhalovich Ryzhkov walked across the bright Neglinnaya Prospekt to the Hermitage restaurant. He was dressed in a brown suit, his least shabby, and carried his fedora in his hands since it was too hot to wear it. Moscow was stifling, a spider’s web of streets that radiated from the river and ran uphill, spreading above the Kremlin and the old wall of the city until they intersected the ring of gardened boulevard just next to the restaurant.

He was pretending to be a poetic soul, musing on beauty and lofty thoughts during the tram ride up from Tatarskaya. Yes, a poetic soul – a translator and valued member of the French embassy staff. A Russian veteran of the Foreign Legion, caught up in the Western Front war, and newly posted from Paris to Moscow on account of his background. Well…if anyone checked, that much was true. Translating? Yes, he actually did some translating, but mostly it was to explain to this bosses what a particular scrawled message might mean, or to interpret a phrase taken from a stenographer’s transcript of an intercepted telephone call.

What he really did for his salary, and purely because he had very little choice in the matter, was organize a short string of informants, both in and out of the Bolshevik government, who sporadically provided information to France. And, since everything was in chaos, the Bolsheviks suffering from factional disputes, there was no shortage of recruits. Ryzhkov did not have the privilege of selecting most of his sources, and therefore he was expendable. He knew all that. He was more than painfully aware that he was one of the only experienced agents working for the French, but precariously out on the point, with no uniform, no credentials.

But now perhaps he had somehow actually grown into the skin of a poseur. His life had been a lie for so long, and his deceit tested by enough challenges, that pretence and play-acting had been annealed into his being. If he were to be honest, he would have to admit that he fought almost every day to remember who he really was. The only way out of it all was to either win or surrender – not really much of a choice, he was thinking.

And then he saw the man, the same one he had seen in Theatre Square, waiting by the tram stops.

Paranoid, he thought. Occupational disease. After a while you saw the same people all the time. True, Ryzhkov had a great memory for faces; the man could be someone he’d seen before, outside on the street, in a café. Just an ordinary citizen en route to – where, exactly?

Don’t think about it. Go on as usual.

And so he did. Musing about the city. Poetic soul.

He waited until the tram stopped, swung out of the seat and down onto the wide sidewalk and walked past the fence to the entrance to the park.

Test them, he was thinking. It could be an exercise, so test them. Do nothing out of the ordinary, but test them all the same.

He stopped, checked his watch. Ah…early. Stroll around, have a smoke. Admire the church in the far corner by the little pool that they’d built into the park. Yes, yes, a beautiful day. Pose as a happy man; tip your hat to the ladies, smile at the children. A nobody, a clerk-translator on his day off, going to meet his friend at the popular restaurant. Half way around the pool he checked his watch again, made a new decision and turned around.

Ahead of him two men casually stopped and fussed for cigarettes in their clothing.

He walked faster now, heading back to the restaurant, up the steps. Under the new administration the Hermitage was a ‘people’s canteen’ and, reservations being an affectation of the upper classes, service was strictly by queue. But one still had to pay, and there were only two couples waiting ahead of him.

He was directed to his table. Made a show of waiting for his friend. Ordered a glass of konyak and then went to the bathroom. In the farthest toilet he reached behind the tank and found the little magnetized box, pulled it away, opened the cap, took out the rolled cigarette papers, capped the box, hid it behind the tank in the horizontal position, flushed the toilet and, still holding the paper in his fingers, went out to the sinks. No one. A flush in the corner stall; at nearly the same moment the door to the washroom swung open and an older man entered fumbling with his pants buttons. They wouldn’t try to take him in the restaurant itself, he was thinking.

He washed his hands and went back to his seat. The papers were in his pocket now. He sat and waited for his friend, nursed his konyak and tried to work out what to do.

They could have him any time, this government. Why now?

Outside men and women walked in the empty park, admiring the straggling gardens, looking at their own reflections in the windows. The old restaurant was not even half full. There was nothing on the menu but soup and eggs. The eggs cost 150 roubles.

Ryzhkov caught the waiter’s eye and asked to use the telephone kiosk. Inside the kiosk he took out the papers and looked for a place to hide them. The seat was made of leather gone ragged and built into the wooden cabinetry. A strip of moulding on the inside rim of the seat was loose and he flattened the papers out on the marble shelf in the kiosk, slipped them beneath the wood and banged it tight with his fist.

There was no answer to his telephone call. He thought about telephoning the embassy, calling Merk to rescue him, but the new government kept records of all calls at the district switchboards, and if they were going to take him it would be soon now…when he left the restaurant.

So he went back to the table. Sat, fuming, for a few more minutes. Angry, letting his nerves out a little. Everything was plausible, so far. But there was nothing, nothing, nothing to grab onto.

Suddenly his anger overwhelmed him. He sat for a moment and broke out into a sweat, his face gone red. Outside, lingering at a lamppost, the man on the tram was given a light for his cigarette by a total stranger. They stopped to exchange a few words and then parted.

He’d waited long enough for his imaginary friend that was never going to come. Abruptly he was standing, shrugging at the waiter, who shrugged back – not an unhappy man. Happy to have work that put him close to a little food now and again, a life indoors under wide ferns and palms that softened the glare through the huge windows. Not a bad job in the middle of a revolution with winter coming, Ryzhkov thought.

A breeze riffled through the leaves from under the awning. He went down the steps. Now he was being a man who suddenly had time on his hands. He walked to the tram stop and waited. There was no point in even looking around now. He knew.

He took the tram as far as the Theatre, then got off and wound his way through the old market, shopping for a few items. It would give them a few more places to check, if they thought he’d dumped the package. Test them. Fight back, he told himself, still angry, frustrated. Blaming himself for never saying no, for thinking that coming back to Russia would mean that he could do something, change something. Find whatever it was he’d lost.

He’d been on the little street a thousand times. It was across and behind the Kremlin from where he’d grown up – his father’s second house on Gazetni Street. They’d moved there to be close to the university where the old man had sometimes worked. Ryzhkov had gone to the Alexander School right in the centre of the city. It was one of the only good times he could remember.

He picked up the tram again, following one long strand of the spider’s web past the Ilynskaya gate and the Church of Transfiguration. Four years of war and revolution had leached the life out of Moscow; the trees had slowly vanished for fuel in the winters, there were no more dogs in the city, they had all been eaten. Money was of dubious value, the prices fluctuating daily; the best way to ‘buy’ something was to barter for it, preferably with food. There was a brisk market in bootleg vodka and schnapps. Men sold it in home-made tins on corners. The Bolsheviks had posted strict proscriptions on alcoholism, but the people had ignored them.

They would take him soon, if they were going to take him at all, and since there was no escape he gave them time to organize. He might as well make it easy. He had no stomach for a fight. At the next stop Ryzhkov got out and walked up the hill behind the Kremlin onto the wide plaza.

Above him loomed St Basil’s, famously named for the saint who was supposedly watching over Moscow and protecting her citizens. Appropriate, he thought. He went inside, admired the frescos and the ikons of the saints. The cathedral was cool in the hot summer day, and Ryzhkov walked into one of the chapels, stood in front of the array of ikons, and, more as a test for himself than anything else, tried to pray.

It didn’t matter that no prayer came. It didn’t matter if he was killed. He’d long since given up worrying about death. Like all the men who’d lived through the trenches he’d only prayed that death might come quickly. A little mercy, that was all.

There was no more time, he thought. He saw a man who had come in behind him and was waiting there, hat in hand. Another was standing just at the outer doors. Both of them were young but looked like they might know what to do. He turned to leave and they followed him out onto the steps.

Below him two carriages had drawn up and four other men were waiting.

‘Bonjour,’ one of the men said. They were laughing and it was too late to run.

From sleep. Dark and vast; adapted for survival so that one part of him was lost in the void, while the other heard the step of the guard in the corridor; the change of the shift, the scratch of a match, the exhale of tobacco. The scattered snap of the gunshots in the courtyard.

He would never have a whole sleep again, Ryzhkov knew. Along with millions of other men, he had adjusted to it. Lying there in a daze, you could at least gain some rest. Besides, if you really slept you might have dreams.

Ryzhkov knew his jail; he had walked past it a hundred times as a young man in Moscow, been into the offices with his father back when it had been the headquarters of the Anchor Assurance and Lloyds of London. Now, it was known by its street address, Bolshaya Lubyanka 11 – newly transformed into the headquarters of the the Extraordinary Commission – the Cheka, the Bolshevik secret police.

It was summer, but the cell was dank. Lit by a window that itself was bisected by a new wall that the revolution had thrown up, red bricks with sharp crusts of mortar that had oozed out of the gaps. Maybe six feet wide and twice as long to the cold outside wall; a thin flea-infested pallet and a bucket.

At first all cells were the same, he thought. And then, once you’d spent enough time fantasizing about escape, or trying to find tiny hiding places to store your pathetic contraband items – a pencil stub, a nail, a fragment of tobacco that had been filched from under the door and saved in hope of a wayward match – you realized that each cell was an individual, like people with their own personalities. There were the impassive ones who’d been wrenched from the soft life and burned down to an austere essence; cruel cells, like people who could watch you die rather than sacrifice a single tear; the cells that kept their dark stories to themselves; cells that couldn’t stop screaming.

It had been three days and he was still in the clothes he had been arrested in; there were no uniforms for the prisoners. You were interrogated, then executed in whatever you were wearing when they picked you up; the last set of clothing you wore became your shroud.

He’d had one long session on the first afternoon. Just questions, no side talk. First one Chekisti, then another and another until there were four. They didn’t bother identifying themselves.

They knew all about him and his attachment to the French intelligence networks once he’d come back to Russia when Kerensky’s Provisional Government granted amnesty to all the politicals. He was openly working at the French embassy and it wasn’t a great leap of detection for them to bring him in.

He sat there handcuffed to his chair and gave them all the obvious answers. One of the men wrote it all down. Testimony. He took his time and was careful. He was a translator, an embassy employee. He wanted to be put in touch with the Ambassador’s office, and he wanted the services of a legal representative. All the time he was answering he was trying to work it out.

Something had cracked, something under the pressures of civil war and counter-revolution had pushed events into an emergency. Events had obviously overrun whatever immunity he might have possessed as an employee of the French. It could be a change of plans on high; there was a faint possibility he could be some sort of bargaining chip, or maybe the French had given him up to the Cheka for some favour.

He would never know, and, whatever it was, the world had moved on. He was not a prize catch, there was nothing he could divulge that would make the slightest difference to either side. He thought it might possibly be that he was only being kept alive because of a clerical error.

In semi-sleep he heard the laughing guard coming along the corridor, his stick banging against the doors. Ryzhkov stood, his knees paining him, bladder full, every muscle gone stiff, reluctant. The stick approached, crossed his doorway and continued along the hall. He counted the doors. Three until the end, and then the guard turned back down the line, peering inside to check that everyone was alive this morning. The grill slid open. Ryzhkov looked into the watery blue eyes, the shock of blond hair.

‘Ah, good morning, Monsieur Ryzhkov,’ he called out. ‘You’re looking thinner, but why waste food on the likes of you when the people’s army needs nourishment, eh?’ Of course the guard didn’t know any of the details of his case, it was the only advantage Ryzhkov had over the boy.

‘I’m wondering if you have heard the latest news, that everyone on this corridor is to be executed. Did you know that? Only a matter of days, I’m afraid,’ and then the little laugh as the grill slid shut. The story continued to the next chamber. ‘…morning, Monsieur Swetovsky. Yes, you heard me correctly. We’re cleaning out all the dead wood…’

Ryzhkov walked the length of the cell, urinated into the bucket, and then returned to the door. The guard’s hearty greetings were still echoing down the hall. From somewhere there was the scuffling of boots on the tiles, a protesting voice, the sudden sound of metal against metal. It meant they were taking someone out. Now he could no longer hear the laughing guard; his cheeriness had evaporated. The men who came to take you were solemn when they did it. For them it was just a grim task, getting a physically reluctant creature from point A to B. More clatter along the corridor, the closing of the door, and then, finally, the laughter of the guard returned.

Ryzhkov walked the length of the cell a hundred times, folded over the mattress and sat on it and waited while the guard came at last to his door, slid the morning meal through the hinged gate. ‘There you are. A waste, if you ask me, since you’re going to die soon.’

‘Thank you very much,’ Ryzhkov said, rolling off the mat, dragging the plate across the floor and, hungry now, sipping the soup out of the tin before attacking the archipelago of cabbage marooned in the centre of the dish. There was a tiny sliver of something that looked like meat, or perhaps it was a stick of wood, a fragment of a cooking spoon or a ladle. It didn’t matter; he ate it.

The guard had developed an attachment to him. Perhaps because he was a mystery and Ryzhkov hadn’t offered the young man anything. A polite mystery, because that was the only way to deal with jailers. You couldn’t intimidate them, or abuse them. The only thing you could do was wait. There had been one revolution that had put him here, maybe another would free him.

The boy sat outside on a stool that he’d hauled down he corridor, taunted him with questions. Perhaps he saw it as a way of educating himself by studying the enemy, just as an apprentice angel might study a lesser demon. ‘I don’t understand you,’ he said to Ryzhkov. ‘You claim to be a revolutionary? That’s absurd. How can you say something like that?’

‘Absolutely.’ Ryzhkov was trying not to bolt the cabbage. It was all he would get until the evening, and as for activity, it was just about all he would do, unless using the bucket or strolling from wall to wall counted.

‘You claim that you are a clandestine operative. For the revolution also?’

‘I claim nothing. I already told them everything, and besides, it’s none of your business, is it, comrade?’

He laughs. ‘No, it’s not my business. But since you say you’re a revolutionary, then why are you here?’

‘There are many varieties of revolution, comrade. Why are you here?’

‘I’m here to detain and execute vermin like you. I’m killing capitalist rats, that’s what I’m doing.’

‘Ahh…Well, I’m not a capitalist, if that’s what’s worrying you. I have nothing, own nothing. Nothing at all. Never have. Not for a long, long time.’ Idly he wondered whatever had become of the apartment he had once owned in Petersburg. Probably a flophouse for deserving peasants.

‘I love to kill people like you. I am good at it,’ the boy said, unable to take the laugh out of his voice. ‘I have been recognized for my efforts. I’m to be given an award for diligence and valour.’

‘I thought there were to be no more medals in Russia?’

A pause while the guard thought it through. ‘That’s correct. Correct. No classes. Only levels of achievement, literacy, health for all, an end to drunkenness and debauchery. All the things that we have been lacking. Now they are within our grasp. Only a little more cleaning up to do. Only a few more vermin to kill…’ The laughter again. Forced. Ryzhkov slid the plate across the concrete floor and through the little hinged opening. ‘Now we are on the verge of attaining all the things we’ve been lacking, comrade Ryzhkov. I call you “comrade” because deep down I do believe you can be saved.’

‘With the grace of God.’

‘Don’t tell me you believe in that garbage.’ The laugh spluttered out in the corridor. The plate was abruptly swept away, the doorway flaps closed.

‘Perhaps I am simply hedging my bets.’

‘The church! Those are the ones responsible for all our undoing, moaning and groaning about an afterlife. People like Rasputin. If you’re one of them, you really do deserve to die.’ He spat and walked away.

Ryzhkov dozes. Although it is not dozing really, more like staring at the plastered wall until he falls into a trance, reliving the choices that led him first to the Okhrana, then to the fugitive life, then to the trenches, on and on, through all his life’s mistakes. While he is so occupied, there are new boots clacking down the corridor. A door is unlocked, thrown open. A man, screaming, jerked free of his own particular trance, is hauled out and away. A Bolshevik voice recites an ‘official’ proclamation of death. Another door is closed, and a few precious moments later…a splattering of gunfire.

And then they come again.

Ryzhkov is bolt upright now as the boots crash through the door, down the corridor. And he stands, stands as he has been taught at the precise centre of his cell, which now…he no longer wants to leave. Now it has become a place of safety. Home.

The door is wrenched open. Three toughs, and behind them is the laughing guard, the smile spreading across his wide blond face. ‘One less burzhui to deal with. One less parasite. I am going to be crying big tears of happiness! Oh, catch him!’ This last because Ryzhkov has fallen, either because he is weak from the rations or because he is terrified, or because after all of it – after all the times he has cheated death – this…this…

This is all happening too quickly. In front of him the tiled corridor, filthy since the guards of the Red Army are no longer compelled to perform menial jobs that soldiers normally perform. They bull along it. No one gets in their way; there are, after all, no officers to carry out inspections, to criticize the polishing of boots, the crease in one’s trousers…

They go now from A to B, but he is not walking. The strong young sons of revolutionary Russia are dragging him along. Ahead of him the guard, eager to help out, throws open another steel door.

‘…revolutionary council decision to extract the penalty of death in payment for a lifetime of parasitic activity, of conspiring with the forces of the capitalist enemy, it has been determined that one Pyotr Mikhalovich Ryzhkov shall be immediately…’

A short series of steps, one two three, yet another steel door, remarkably heavy doors for an insurance company, but necessary now that the enemies of the people have begun to be filed away in the basement offices.

A sudden breath of cool air – a diagonal of shade crosses the courtyard. There is, he realizes with horror, a guillotine set up at the very end of the courtyard, and if that was not enough, a gallows, newly built of stripped logs still sticky with resin. But Ryzhkov is being dragged past both of the machines to a wall speckled from gunshots gone awry. A slime of blood is slowly making its labyrinthine way between the cobbles towards a drain. There is a hose there and a quartet of terrorized cadets still in their old Corps des Pages uniforms, tattered and filthy, shackled, with bruises on their dirty faces, sooty and tear-stained. Mere boys kept there to watch and remember, to wipe things down and at the end of the day to take it up the arse.

His bowels loosen. His eyes are stinging. Everything seems beautiful, beautiful. The sun slicing across the courtyard, the guillotine standing erect and waiting for a more distinguished neck than his.

The official voice has finished its litany of his crimes. He is thrown to his knees. The soldiers work the bolts of their rifles, two bullets are chambered. Only two! Soon they will even economize on that, he thinks.

He goes inside himself. A man in a suit has walked up directly in front of the soldiers. After a moment Ryzhkov becomes aware of the man’s shoes in front of him. The guard’s disbelieving voice protesting; even in disappointment he can still laugh.

The infantrymen retreat a few steps and someone grabs his hair and lifts his face up to the sun. It is the guard, cheated out of the punch line to his joke. ‘After they ask you a few more questions, then we’re coming back outside and finish you.’

They light up cigarettes as he is led across the courtyard under the shade of the pine-scented gallows, through a yellow doorway and down another short corridor. Then they spin him, and push him face-first into the wall of an office, unmanacle his hands, and order him to sit.

In front of him is a plain table, and behind it a second chair. He realizes his pants are soiled, from blood, faeces, urine…his own or someone who has gone before him, how could he tell? The room is gorgeous, he thinks. Paradisiacal. A lovely large room, luxurious and clean. With a single window high in the wall, made of glass that has been manufactured with wires inside it.

Shatterproof.

A knot forms in his throat, and he sobs one more time, involuntarily, like a hiccup. Saved, he thinks. Saved at the last moment. Like Dostoyevsky. Saved by some quirk, some whim. Given a few moments more of life, all because of some niggling little detail, some minor bump in the roadway of revolutionary progress. Once it’s all cleared up the guard will get his laugh back.

Maybe it’s a dream. Maybe he has already been executed…and this ‘little room’ is just a way station? A limbo, an office of final accounting where he will be called to explain the many mistakes of his life. If he gets the answers right, perhaps there will be angels and virgins, an old man with a white beard and a gilt-covered book turning to a page inscribed with his name.

Still, he was ready, he thinks. It has taken so long, after all. A lot of pain. Too much pain, and eventually you just…give up. And he was ready (still, it was too quick!), truly ready to meet his maker, to slide into that great dark pit of the unknown, or just to cease, whichever it would be…

Kneeling in the blood and vomit, he was ready, and he is ready even now. The salted crust in the corners of his eyes, that’s something he can wipe away. The clothes can be cleaned. He will catch his breath soon. The blood will clot. That sob will stay contained somewhere between his guts and his lungs. All of that can heal, even his memories will be papered over with whatever pattern his brain can come up with in order to keep him sane.

Meanwhile there is the beautiful room in which he now lives.

Voices in the hall. It is an ordinary door, with an ordinary lock. The smells in this part of the prison are different. Paper, vinegar. Everything is cleaner, less fearful. The hallways have been mopped. They obviously don’t use buckets to do their business in this wing. Is that music playing in the distance?

The efficient sound of shoes in the corridor. A quiet few words, and then the sound of a key turning the lock.

And…in walks the dead man.

2

The dead man was Velimir Zezulin.

For a moment Ryzhkov was frozen. Stunned, he coughed in surprise, jumped up and got almost half-way out of his chair. He had not seen Zezulin for…almost four years to the day, and on that occasion Zezulin had been drunk. Dead drunk.

Later, the last image he’d seen of Zezulin was of their portraits, along with Konstantin Hokhodiev and Dima Dudenko, printed on St Petersburg police fugitive warning handbills. Maybe no one had recognized him, since the photograph, taken from Zezulin’s ancient Okhrana identity card, was so out of date. Together the four had been sought as murderers of Deputy Minister of Interior, Boris Fauré. What was deliberately not said on the posters and handbills was that they were also suspects in the abduction and murder of their own superior, General A.I. Gulka, head of the entire Third Section.

Somehow he had survived and was now back, a new Zezulin, brisk as a wolverine. Moving with assured fluidity, a solid man with energy held in reserve. He came in, closed the door on the sentry, and sat. Their eyes locked for a moment and then Zezulin pointed to the ceiling and gave an almost imperceptible shake of his head.

Ryzhkov was suddenly very tired. He found that his head was bobbing from side to side, saying no, no…Zezulin must be dead, he had to be dead, as dead as Kostya Hokhodiev, or as vanished as Dima. Surely he’d been killed, since he must have been caught. Of the group, Zezulin was the only innocent and he’d had no warning, so they must have taken him. Zezulin would have been their only prize, so they would have tortured him, and, since he knew nothing, they would have tortured him some more. Eventually they would have shown him the papers, various authorizations Ryzhkov had cadged from him when he was in an alcoholic stupor.

But here he was. Alive, with Ryzhkov’s file in his hands.

‘Citizen Ryzhkov. You will answer the questions I put to you, do you understand? You should understand this by now, given your dossier. You have been interrogated many times, I’m sure you know all about these procedures. Yes, you understand? Correct?’

‘Yes,’ the sound came out of Ryzhkov’s mouth like a whisper.

‘You will be entirely forthcoming.’

He nodded.

‘Your name?’

‘You know my name…’

‘I do, indeed. But you are going to confess it. You will give me the details of your life, your Okhrana training, salient events of your career as an employed thug within the Tsarist political police, the identity of your supervisor, other personalities in your section…’

‘That was a long time ago,’ he said wearily. And it was true. Several lifetimes ago, so remote as to be unreal. A life mulled over, dissected and regretted so many times that there was no honest version he could give. He just shook his head.

‘Your name is Ryzhkov, Pyotr Mikhalovich, I know this from your file. This is your photograph from your identity card as a member of the Tsar’s terror police. These are your evaluations, your recruitment letter, your grades at the gymnasium. I have everything. We have known about you all along.’ Zezulin’s voice had begun to rise, then he bit it off. They looked at each other for a long moment. ‘I am sure you can remember a great many details. Do you remember, for instance, the name of your Okhrana supervisor at the time?’

With an almost involuntary shrug, Ryzhkov shook his head. What was he supposed to say? Everything was whirling. He felt the sharp curl of nausea, swallowed to keep the world upright.

‘Can’t remember? I’ll save you the trouble. His name was Zezulin, Velimir Antonovich. Like you, a paid butcher for the Tsar, the head of a death squad. A terrorist and probable double agent. You will be interested to know that he was executed in the first days of the revolution. This is his photograph. You remember working with this man, don’t you? Admit it.’

Ryzhkov’s head jerked up. He was looking at a photograph of a dark-haired mask, staring at the camera, as dead as a fish. It could have been anyone, anyone at all. An anonymous face, someone off the street. It vanished back into the dossier.

‘Good. You signify that you knew him, fine. Now we’re getting somewhere. Do you want a cigarette? Some water? You don’t look that well. Perhaps we’ll have some food brought in. Do you feel like answering any additional questions or would you like to go back to your cell?’

Not only had he changed his identity, Zezulin had taken on a completely different personality. Gone was the slovenly drunk, the slurred voice, the fragmentary memory. Now, instead of staring out the window at the street outside their section house, his eyes were locked on Ryzhkov, the hypnotic glare of a poisonous snake deciding exactly where to strike.

‘If I blink, you die,’ Zezulin said softly across the table – the voice of a parent explaining an unpleasant and complicated reality to a child. Ryzhkov suddenly realized that fresh tears were running down his face. Lost, lost again. Life was just a vortex of loss…He shrugged again; it was all he could do – make the gesture reserved for cowards or those who couldn’t think of a quick comeback.

‘Fine. Please, you will tell me about your work with the French Secret Service. In 1914 you escaped and travelled to Paris…’ Zezulin had relaxed somewhat, the eyes were softer. ‘You do know that I have all the travel documents.’ Zezulin fussed through the dossier. ‘Yes…You went to Paris, you were recruited into the Foreign Legion, served here and there, and then at Verdun, and from there – ‘

‘I knew…languages, so I went to the signals.’

‘Yes, yes. I’m sure it was all very helpful, listening to the Germans in the trenches…help the artillery find their targets. Then you were wounded, court-martialled…’

‘I was paroled.’

‘Paroled, yes. I know all of this. But they had something on you, so they made you come back to Russia and work for the French. Don’t feed me this translation nonsense. We had you followed. It’s all right here.’ The wolverine’s paw slammed down on the dossier. ‘So. You can’t run any more.’

‘No.’

‘Cigarette?’ Zezulin put a box on the table. ‘Tea?’

Ryzhkov reached to take out the cigarettes. Zezulin watched while he fumbled with the box, dropped it, dug out a cigarette, dropped it too, and finally gave up and left it on the table, unlit.

‘Here it is,’ Zezulin said. ‘There have been a series of decisions regarding persons like yourself. Chickens. Chickens who serve the farmer…’ Zezulin began. ‘People like you, who under the former government were responsible for heinous crimes. Killers, thugs, terrorists. Some of them are psychologically distressed. Well, that’s understandable, so many have had it hard what with the war…but my biggest question is why? Why did you come back, Ryzhkov?’

‘I didn’t have a lot of choice.’

‘Mmm. But why did you decide to throw in your fate with the French? Do you like their cooking? Their certain something? I mean, a man like you made it out of the trenches, you performed with a certain amount of gallantry. Millions have performed such things, but you did more. A lot more. You’re a warrior, Ryzhkov, a spy. A man who survives. Survives beyond the limits of most men in the business. You don’t love it. You’re not obsessed with the enemy, it doesn’t seem to make you happy, but here you are. Back home. The question is why? What do they have on you, eh?’

The question hung in the room. Ryzhkov tried to look him in the eye but failed.

‘Tell me. What is it? Who is it?’ Zezulin’s hand wavered, settled on the dossier and the thick fingers began to pat it, like a baby he was trying to burp.

‘“Mother, dead. Father, dead. Brother, died as a child…”’ He looked over at Ryzhkov and shrugged. ‘You didn’t come back to Russia because you’re in love with the rooftops of Paris, and you owe them something. You already took your revenge, I suspect. No, you came back for a fellow human being. Maybe your wife? Mmmm…I don’t think so. You hadn’t lived with her since 1912. It’s not her. She’s safe in Portugal, the last anyone cared. So who is it, Pyotr?’

Ryzhkov looked up at him. He just wasn’t a good enough actor.

‘Was it her?’ The photograph slid out of the dossier like a knife stroke curving towards his chest.

Vera Aliyeva curled to a stop, looking up at him.

It was a commercial portrait. Something she had commissioned for publicity in Petersburg. Shot with soft gauze and a backdrop meant to suggest clouds. In it Vera was innocent, looking aloft at some more radiant possibility. So young. A century ago.

‘What about that, Monsieur? You say you don’t have a choice? You didn’t get to choose? Oh, I’m sorry about the unfairness of everything. That’s what the revolution is all about, of course. Rectifying things. By the way, did you know that Lena Hokhodieva is still alive?’

He could not help but look up. Kostya’s wife had been dying with cancer, almost a complete ghost when Ryzhkov had last seen her. ‘No.’

‘Yes. She’s made a complete cure. It’s a miracle. Defied the gods. She’s fat, you wouldn’t recognize her. Good for her, eh?’

‘Yes.’

‘It’s just luck, Pyotr Mikhalovich. Someone has to be found to do certain things. You’re not the first person who is a victim of a government or…governments, or the lack of them. It won’t buy you any special favours around here.’ Zezulin was smiling. ‘Someone has to do these things. It’s bloom or die, eh? And while you don’t care about your own death, maybe you’d even welcome it, you would care about someone else’s…about this woman here.’ The finger gestured towards the photograph; a cheap thing, unmistakably banal, bound in a yellow pasteboard frame with an advertisement for the Nevsky Prospekt photographer she’d charmed into giving her a deal.

‘Ah yes. Good. You have indicated that you recognize her. Excellent. Once more we are getting somewhere. Now we have decided to be grown-up friends and we’ve put down our last secret, eh?’ Zezulin was saying. The voice of a happy man. ‘I’m so sorry, but you can’t keep the picture.

‘Look, my friend,’ Zezulin leaned in close. There was the smell of pickles on his breath. ‘This is not some common theatrical, this is not boys playing games in the barracks. This is real.’ He patted the dossier on the desk. ‘We both know you’re going to do what I say. I can use you to kill, or I can use you for bait. Let’s not waste any more time. These are the trenches too. I know you have courage, and all that.’

‘And this is all for the people?’

‘Yes, yes, the people, of course. But because it’s all secret, they don’t know it.’

‘And if I don’t do what you want?’

‘It won’t be the first time I’ve misjudged someone, eh? So, we’ll take you out and shoot you, and of course you have no need to worry about the future of –’ he patted the dossier, ‘– your friend. Right? You were Okhrana, you know how the levers work.’ He settled back into his chair.

‘But if on the other hand you go out and be the ruthless secret policeman I know you can be, then I can give you more information about certain persons, if that is what you are interested in. You know? That’s the carrot. Death for you and your loved ones is the stick, eh? Well…no offence, we’re all under threat of death. That’s what terror means, brother. Welcome. As you can see, the inmates have taken over the asylum. Come in to my personal padded room.’

Ryzhkov willed himself not to shrug. ‘I suppose if I have to work for someone I’d prefer to work for the people, in the asylum or out.’

‘I knew you would see the logic of it. Here, let’s take those off.’ The soldier moved forward to busy himself with the key.

‘Look, ah…comrade…What shall I call you?’

‘Comrade is fine for now.’

A few minutes later they were taking a stroll through Cheka headquarters, even stranger corridors offices that led to waiting rooms that led to cells and interrogation rooms. A dormitory wing that exited onto a garage.

‘Just for your private information, Pyotr, the existing intelligence apparatus of the People’s Government is like a…choppy sea,’ Zezulin expounded. ‘The great Romanov ocean liner has sunk and now we are all helpless in the expanse of stormy ocean. For just a moment you see a survivor, you encounter them, and then another moment they are gone. The winds have carried them far away.’

‘Yes.’ Ryzhkov sighed. Walking along without the manacles, he didn’t know what to do with his hands. His arms kept involuntarily trying to come together over his fly. They walked along past stables, a garage, a shed where they stacked the firewood. Somebody was making telephone calls, couriers were running in and out. And always the telegraph chattering.

‘One has to make the most of every moment and every relationship. Moscow is a hotbed of spies and rumours. You wouldn’t believe it, Pyotr. Innuendo, fabrication, conspiracy…Around here everyone is supposed to keep quiet. There are layers and layers of secrecy, but the personnel? They’re all new, all of them think they are running the revolution all by themselves, everyone wants to be a hero, and everyone talks.’

They crossed into a second courtyard; beyond was a gate, a big loading door that opened onto Sofika Street and freedom. Wagons, people going by, fanning themselves lazily against the heat of the summer’s day.

‘So this is what I know…’ Velimir Antonovich Zezulin said, offering Ryzhkov a cigarette.

Zezulin was on a short leash to hear him tell it. Noskov was his new name, Boris Maximovich. ‘Nice, eh? I forget where I picked it up.’ Once he had wrung himself out and cleaned himself up, he’d discovered that he could still function. He’d regrown his tendrils and in the process his attention had been…well, somewhat heightened. He’d sensed things, many things in his newly sober state that he would have missed in the bad old days.

And worse was coming. ‘The revolution, to be honest, is not going that well. The Allies are hungry and on the attack. The Czechs are the immediate problem.’

‘Czechs?’

‘Quite a few, fifty, sixty thousand taken as prisoners from the Austrians. Most of them are deserters, they wanted to cross over and fight against Austria for the freedom of a new Czecho-slovak country. You can lay the blame at their feet, if you want.’

‘So what was the problem?’

‘They were on the trains in the middle of Siberia, but it seems they made their own little revolution, and now they control the Trans-Siberian railway. To them you can add the Japanese, inscrutable as always, but always ready to make off with the riches of Siberia and put themselves in an even more dominant position over China. They’ve sent their soldiers into Vladivostok. Of course the Americans, the British and the French are involved. The Canadians are involved…’

‘It’s a civil war.’

‘Very good. I see you have been reading the newspapers. Which brings us to our masters, the Germans, the people who have everything and want more, eh?’

Ahead of them was a disturbance, men shouting at the end of the courtyard. A shot rang out and Ryzhkov saw they had brought a man out for killing. Four guards, and another team of four for the truck. They must have made him kneel but then the shooter had mis-aimed and only wounded the prisoner, who was trying to crawl away as the blood spurted from under the collarbone. One of them stepped forward and put his rifle close to the man and pulled the trigger a second time. The sound of it and the slap of the prisoner’s head on the cobbles brought everyone to the windows. The killer was blushing furiously.

‘Regarding the Germanic menace, our leaders, Comrade Lenin, Comrade Trotsky, they do what they must. They are between the hammer and the anvil. Also there is pressure from within. Among us Bolsheviks there are factions within factions, wheels within wheels, masks behind masks, you get the idea. Lately we have been taking steps against these enemies beneath our own roof…as you see.’ They stood there smoking and watching the execution squad at work. It was a woman they next led out. Her thin wail came to them on the summer breeze.

‘Honestly, Pyotr, the problem is knowing which revolutionary tiger to back. Guessing as best you can who will come out on top in the internal struggles, or what might be going on beneath the surfaces. So all of us, we’re being put in a situation where we need to protect ourselves.’

‘So as better to serve the people.’

‘Yes, yes, yes, and so on.’

The bullet, the clashings of the bolts on the rifles. The men bending to their work. The motor started up and the guards climbed in. He didn’t think it meant that she’d be the last one they killed for the day. There was always another truck waiting.

‘These much-vaunted personalities…privately I know they are acting strangely. Trotsky is curious. Dzerzhinsky is irritable. Comrade Sverdlov in his capacity as secretary to the Central Committee is the most overworked, and Comrade Stalin is nowhere to be seen. Necessarily, Comrade Lenin is constantly in touch with all sorts of people, the Germans and a lot of others as well. We are in Moscow, this is the centre of the world stage at the moment. Just so you are aware, Ryzhkov…’

‘So what’s this all got to do with me? Why did you save me? What do you want, comrade…Noskov?’

‘Yes, good. You remembered. I’ll tell you what I want on your way to the barracks. You’re Cheka now. We have to start a brand new file on you. We’re in a hurry, but let’s quickly get you cleaned up and into better clothes. Nothing too bourgeois, however,’ Zezulin said as they walked out of the prison.

Woozy from the sudden intake of food, Ryzhkov floated deliriously through the Cheka baths, a somewhat cramped facility, and made an effort to stay awake during Zezulin’s recital while he tried on some newish clothing that had been obtained for his use.

‘As you probably know, last year the Imperial Family was moved from the old capital –’

‘Petrograd.’ Ryzhkov said. The word would never sound quite right on his tongue, patriotic as it was. It would always be St Petersburg for him. ‘Yes, I remember that. That was done secretly.’ He almost laughed.

‘Yes. Typical of secrets in Russia, everybody knows everybody else’s. Blinded by clouds of secrets, no one can recognize the real ones. At any rate, they were, yes, moved. The architect of this scheme was the unfortunate criminal Kerensky. He did it either because he was afraid the advancing Germans would capture the Tsar, or because he realized that possession of the Imperial Family might be an advantage in hypothetical negotiations,’ Zezulin muttered and shrugged.

‘Where were they moved?’

‘To hell and gone. Into Siberia. The town of Tobolsk, district capital, just beyond the Urals. I have never been there, of course, and I don’t know anyone who has. No, that’s not true. Rasputin, he was from a town on the Tobol. That’s the name of the river. There’s no railroad, they come down and get you there by steamer. Last year someone in the Provisional Government decided that Tobolsk was far enough off the face of the earth to be safe, so they loaded the Romanovs onto the train, pasted a Japanese Red Cross banner on the sides, kept the shades drawn when they went through the stations. Still, there were crowds waiting to throw flowers at them when they got off the boat. Big secret.’

‘Fine.’

‘They had their friends follow and take up residence across the street. They had their books, personal effects, their dogs. And they obviously must have taken some valuables with them. We have lists, of course, but lists, being what they are, never include everything.’

Ryzhkov was studying himself in the mirror. Still in reasonable condition, he thought. Newly shaved but not shorn. It would take some time for his weight to come back. He fit his simple suit well, the kind of thing a clerk might wear to and from his office: a shirt that was worn but free of actual holes, a homburg that made him look like an idiot, and that he resolved to get rid of as soon as possible. Only the shoes were out of place. Not a clerk’s lace-ups with mandatory shiny toe caps, but heavier workman’s boots. Still muddy from use. Shoes made for walking, and heavy socks to match. They sat on a low stool beside the mirror. Zezulin had recommended them.

‘Then in April, as soon as the ice broke and they could get a steamer back downstream, they were moved again, this time to Yekaterinburg,’ Zezulin said.

‘Yekaterinburg? Why there?’

Zezulin shrugged. ‘Different people say different things, but you might think of it as a philosophical tug of war, a jurisdictional dispute. The city of Yekaterinburg is held by the Ural Soviet, a very committed bunch of hard-working, hard-drinking miners, men who have spent their proletarian enslavement toiling for the mineral barons. They have grievances. They pulled the hardest, got the least, etc…’

‘All right.’

‘And, as far as anyone knows, that is where they are now.’

‘Yekaterinburg?’

‘Unfortunately Yekaterinburg is an unfashionable city, but revolutions bring hardships on us all.’ Zezulin stepped in front of him and tugged on Ryzhkov’s cravat, trying to get it straight. ‘A great many people would like to possess the Romanovs. Several persons in various countries have offered them sanctuary. Unofficially, of course. And, naturally enough, sums of money are mentioned. We’re not sure exactly. It’s all secret. Remember these are aristocrats. People with the best pedigrees have persuaded all their friends to lend a hand. The British, who are always into everything; your masters the French; all sorts of people are coming up with rescue schemes.’

‘So…bribes?’

‘Of course, it takes the form of bribes, payments for some sort of safe passage, a definite possibility, but also…some of these same people, people of the bluest blood, are ready to pay for a guarantee of the Tsar’s death. That way they could take over the throne for themselves, right? You can be sure money is at the root of it. We know of substantial deposits in foreign banking houses. Call yourself a Tsar in exile? It might not be a bad job for someone with the right qualifications. Worth fighting for, worth raising an army, hiring a few strong men, I’d say.’ Zezulin smiled again. His hand grasped Ryzhkov’s sleeve, turned him so that he could get a better view of the latest parody of himself.

Zezulin had gone serious. ‘You’d better know that at this moment Czech legions are threatening Yekaterinburg. They may have already taken the city, we don’t know. The telegraph links to the city have been sporadic at best.’

‘So no one knows exactly where the Romanovs are?’

‘Correct. That’s what you’re going to find out for me – you’re going to Yekaterinburg and you’re going to find out where they are and how they are. You are going to report that information back to me. You are going to pay particular attention to their security and whatever possessions, and if it comes to it you are going to safeguard them and wait for instructions.’

‘Oh, that doesn’t sound like much. You’ve got to give me some help. Who do you have there?’

‘The Ural Soviet, if they’re still in the district.’

‘If you can’t get anything in, how am I supposed to get anything out?’

‘Your contact in Yekaterinburg is a man named Nikolas Eikhe. He’s a metalsmith there. He lives on the edge of the city – it’s small, he won’t be hard to find. I’m sure you will do what you can. I have faith in you, Ryzhkov.’

‘I only get him to help?’

‘It all depends on what you learn. If you don’t learn anything, I’m not going to be able to get you anything, am I? Come on, spare me.’

‘I’m doing this for the people, I suppose.’

‘It goes without saying. That’s good enough,’ Zezulin said to the tailor. He steered Ryzhkov out and back up the steps, still in a hurry. ‘Are you tired? Don’t worry. You’ll get a good sleep very soon.’

At the top of the steps they hailed a droshky. Zezulin made the driver raise the top even though it was summer, and then took them on a hurried tour of Moscow, while looking over his shoulder constantly. When they had looped back on themselves three or four times, he ordered the driver to pull in the entrance of a hospital past the Krasniya Gate. They walked right through the grounds and out the back to an adjoining street. At the corner there was a second droshky pulled up. The driver got out and held out a rucksack and an oiled packet tied with twine. Sticking out of the rucksack was the corner of a loaf of black bread and what looked like wilted turnip greens. Zezulin took the packet and handed it to him.

‘This is your pass to travel on the railroad, and your Cheka identity papers, your red card. When you meet who you think is Eikhe, you say this: “Have you ever been to Brazil?”’

‘You’re joking?’

‘“Have you ever been to Brazil?” “No, but I love the beach.” Got it?’

Ryzhkov stood there for a moment. Nodded. ‘Yes, I’ve got it.’

‘Good. Eikhe will give you any assistance you need. You can communicate through him back to me. The details are in the envelope. Burn it after you’ve read it and memorized everything, please. If you get caught, it will be revealed that all these are, of course, forgeries.’

‘Thank you.’

‘Yes, it’s all very secret. Get there as quick as you can. If the Whites take Yekaterinburg you’ll have to transform yourself back into Monsieur Ryzhkov and give them whatever passwords you’ve been trained to use back in Paris. Then you’ll be on your own until you can get back here. Go. Your train is on track 4, you’d better hurry, and may God be with you and cause the enemy to believe your stories.’

3

The Kazan station – he’d been there dozens of times, but now it had changed. A ring of soldiers at each entrance. Machine guns, sandbags. Zezulin pointed the way and then vanished behind him. He walked the last few yards himself, out from under the shade of the trees, across a bed of flowers that had yet to be trampled.

It was crowded there, and it only enhanced Ryzhkov’s impression that he was being drawn into a great throat, sucked out from the sun into the blinding darkness – a place of screaming whistles and shouted commands in a dozen languages echoing beneath the great chambered roof. Into the dark cavern with not even time enough to feel what it was like to be a free man in Moscow, as if there were such a thing.

A Red Guard asked for his papers. He showed them and was moved right along to a sergeant seated at a desk at the head of the stairs. It was like a conveyor belt for people with the correct documents, and he kept moving the entire time. No one even really touched him. When they saw that he was Cheka, and only interested in speed, it got them all jumping. He passed through a mass of bawling refugees, a sergeant running along with him for half of his walk, checking his papers on the fly, and doing everything in his power not to salute. The Cheka was just like the old Okhrana, Ryzhkov thought, only with different uniforms. A black leather raincoat instead of the cheap rubberized canvas ones he’d worn as a plain-clothes gorokhovnik. The teams had changed; the flags had shed their blue and white colours and evolved into revolutionary red; the double-headed eagles had all been knocked to the ground. You walked along and counted the blemishes on architecture throughout the city.

The sergeant fell away and he arrived at track 4 and his carriage, climbed in to find his compartment, which he had all to himself for a time. He wondered why he was getting such deference and then looked at his identity papers. They’d made him an inspector with the internal unit of the Cheka. Rank of captain. Obviously doing something important since he was travelling alone with a single rucksack.

He pulled down the shades, put the rucksack on the seat opposite and looked through it, found the pistol they’d given him, an ugly Mauser. Read his instructions, a sentence of brief gibberish, a simple cipher system that he could use, a cable address, NOSMOC4, and a wireless address which would probably be useless.

He put everything away and raised the shades. At the very far end, a hospital train had emptied and was being swabbed out. There was a whistle, a porter ringing his bell. With a tremble and then a lurch his train began to glide out of the station and he looked out the window to watch the great vaulted ceilings slip away and give over to sky.

Another Chekisti came past the door, then backtracked, checked the number of the compartment and came in. His name was Sudov. Ryzhkov had a good look at him and found him pathetically young. Working hard on his first beard, a little trill of red hairs over his lip. He was going out to his first assignment, to assist the commissar in Perm. He deferentially made room so Ryzhkov could put his feet up, and they talked.

Sudov was from Petersburg. There was no food there at all, he said. Perhaps now, in summer, but back in the winter there had been no food. The boy had loved it there, the skating games in the winter, the American hills – a kind of artificial sledding ramp that had been set up on the Field of Mars, girls with rosy cheeks, the bonfires. His favourite time.

‘Did you ever go to the Komet?’ Ryzhkov asked him.

‘Where’s that?’

‘It’s a night club just off Sadovaya Street. They did plays there before the war.’

‘No, no, I don’t know it. I was too young, my parents would never let me.’ He smiled. ‘I went to the Peaches Club, though. That was a place for good times.’

Listening to young Sudov Ryzhkov fell into a long slow dreaming. With the outskirts of Moscow slipping away, the train rocking between the switches on the way out of town, dreaming about Vera and the old Komet club and all of it. That one single good year, their only year. When Ryzhkov fell into sleep the boy was still rhapsodizing about the quality of chocolates you could by at Eliseffs on the Nevsky Prospekt. ‘Perfection,’ he said. ‘The very best, like no other place on earth.’

Outside the window is Russia. The summer sun burns down to a cloudless sunset that fades to green, passing into the red dusk, the night air rising that sets the trees, the laundry the women have hung out, the dried straw along the side of the roadbed, all to waving. A great warm wind rises out of the earth, and when the train stops you can hear it moaning through the windows. The train itself, a place of eerie sighs; the soldiers writhe in their lonely torment, clutching their genitals, pushing their companion’s shoulder away, and grumbling in their sleep.

Ryzhkov passes from dreams to wakefulness in a long series of bumps and jars, knocks and shudders in the night that spark his worst anxieties. Somehow it is more fearful because he is too comfortable; relatively warm and reasonably fed in a time of famine, but unable to sleep, his character out of synchronization with his fellow travellers.

The train is filled with companies of Red Guards being rushed to the front. Ryzhkov, wandering up and down the train in his boredom and to relieve his stiffness, finds himself moving along, looking at the faces of the guards as the sun rises, glaring sharp and bright, causing the men on that side of the car to grope for the shades and turn their faces away. But none can fully escape because the track curves all the way to Nizhni Novgorod, and the fortunes of the sun are always changing.

He is at the head of the carriage when he meets a corporal in the buffer between carriages. The corporal is smoking and talking to a man who has taken off his shirt to shave. They both fall silent as Ryzhkov passes through.

‘Did you hear anything?’ he asks them.

‘All this lot are being sent up to hold Perm. This might be the last train.’

‘It might,’ says the other.

‘So the Whites, they’re almost at Yekaterinburg?’

The corporal shrugs. ‘The big battle is going to be in the south. I heard it from the commander,’ the man says, and pushes forward a cigarette.

‘Thank you very much, comrade. Where are you two going, then?’

‘Well, we’re to get off earlier, at Kazan, but…’ The corporal turns to the second man and they both shrug. Ryzhkov decides to be what is expected, he smiles, bows to the corporal.

‘Well, the Czechs are fast, but we’re fast too,’ he says and they turn and look out the window. The train has begun to put on speed. They should be in Nizhni by the end of the day. All of them racing down the tracks, trying to staunch the wound to Bolshevik Siberia.

‘What about you? Where are you going, comrade?’ the man asks.

Ryzhkov points to the head of the train. ‘All the way to the end,’ and moves along through to the next carriage.

Back in his compartment he inclines his head towards the window. In the far distance is the silver curve of the river that leads towards the ancient river city of Nizhni Novgorod. As the train leans over against the banking of the tracks, Ryzhkov’s view is taken away from the horizon and drawn closer to the sudden clearing of a new woodlot – a flare of pale wood chips and peeled logs. Then the little nub of civilization reaches its limit at a tangle of fencing, and is swept away, and as the carriage levels he sees a thick man standing there tending a wide patch of burning grass, shovel in hand, trying to corral the fire he’s started towards a ditch.

4

Amid the activity of the Supreme Command headquarters, only one man was in repose: standing quietly in the shadows awaiting the Kaiser’s arrival was Admiral Paul von Hintze, newly appointed Minister of Foreign Affairs. He had been in the job less than a month, and he was tired. There had been little or no time for sleep since his appointment.

Among the staff officers and aides there was an air of controlled yet feverish anticipation. It was the fourth and final attack of General Ludendorff’s great strategic offensive – or the ‘Kaiser Offensive’, as the newspapers would have it – designed to smash through the trenches and the wire, break the will of the French and British, and force a peace on Germany’s terms, before the Americans could arrive and save the day. The great opening bombardment was set to begin at midnight.

At the centre of the room was a large map of the Western Front, and from his position von Hintze could see the coloured ribbons that demarked the great scar that ran down the centre of Europe. He took grim satisfaction that all the ribbons were in French or Belgian territory. Ludendorff’s first three attacks had been successful, but how could one advance across Europe, push to within fifty miles of Paris, withstand every counter-attack, and still not be victorious? Von Hintze knew that the answer lay off the map…in the Atlantic where the British were blockading Germany and starving her into submission. The first three waves of Ludendorff’s attack had washed across the fields of France and Belgium, and then…simply run out of energy. There were no coloured ribbons to represent the hunger of the soldiers, the fatigue and desperation that sapped the will of the most ardent warrior.

There was a sudden movement at the large doors, a command, and every military man in the room snapped to attention as the Kaiser entered. He was, on this night, dressed immaculately, in the uniform of the Supreme War Lord. In his withered left hand he clutched the hilt of his sabre, in his right a Field Marshal’s baton.

For a moment von Hintze was struck with a pang of pity for the man. While they were almost the same age, and distantly related, psychologically they were opposites. Wilhelm had grown up conscious of his deformity and the need to both hide it and compensate for it. Embarrassed and terrified by his own inferiority, he had developed an arsenal of strategies to deflect any crisis, erase every slight, and expunge every weakness from view. As an emperor ruling by divine right, it was inevitable that Wilhelm would adopt the pose of the hyper-masculine War Lord, but Von Hintze, with his naval background and his experience as a diplomat, was adept at reading men’s motives. He did not consider himself a politician by any means, and had always preferred to work quietly, if possible behind the scenes.

As the Kaiser entered the room, his mood seemed ebullient. He smiled at the field officers bowing to him, but von Hintze knew that if today’s attack failed, or if any news arrived in the evening that hinted at a setback, Wilhelm could easily be plunged into paranoia and angry depression. Among the intimates of the Kaiser his quirks and preferences were common knowledge, but now von Hintze studied the man closely, for in his new job as Minister he would have to orchestrate miracles.

He made his way across to the great map and approached the Kaiser. Wilhelm saw him and manufactured a smile that could not quite mask his wary look. Von Hintze bowed stiffly, then moved closer. ‘If I might have a word with you, All Highest.’

‘After we start things, I hope,’ said the Kaiser glancing towards the map. He had come to headquarters to mingle with his generals; the presence of von Hintze could only mean a fresh problem, the kind that could not be solved by howitzers.

There was the muted buzz of a field telephone from the desk just in front of them. Ludendorff looked up and said very quietly, ‘The attack has begun.’ The Kaiser raised his baton in salute and a ripple of applause spread through the room. For a moment afterwards there was a silence that hung in the room, as if they were all holding their breath, then the magic vanished as a series of telephones buzzed into life.

‘How long will the bombardment continue?’ the Kaiser said, his sharp voice cutting through the din.

‘A full hour, Majesty. Eight thousand guns, the largest bombardment of the war,’ said Ludendorff with pride. Looking at him von Hintze could not tell if he was smiling or not.

‘Excellent. The largest! Well, well.’ The Kaiser turned to von Hintze. ‘Perhaps this is a good time then?’

‘There’s plenty of time. Your car is waiting, Majesty.’ Ludendorff had laid on a visit to an observation station. It was a particularly clear night and the Kaiser would be able to watch the pyrotechnics as the bombardment progressed over the Allied lines guarding Rheims. It would also serve to get the Kaiser out of his hair, keep him happy for a while.

‘Yes, I understand, but there are other matters.’ Von Hintze reached around and guided Ludendorff by the elbow. ‘Please, All Highest, if we might…’ They began to walk away from the map table into the shadows, and von Hintze lowered his voice. ‘It’s information about the…special case.’

‘Ahh,’ said Ludendorff, ‘the special case, yes, of course.’

It seemed to Von Hintze that the Kaiser’s face suddenly became stricken. ‘Yes, yes…very important. Very good, Hintze. Is there any progress?’

‘At the moment there is a crisis, since the Czech deserters are approaching the city. What action to be taken is a question that finally only you can answer, All Highest.’

‘Ahh, please, no,’ the Kaiser said, shaking his head. Everyone knew that he hated to actually take a decision. His normal reaction would be to bluster and threaten, then he would inevitably vacillate, and then the postponements would start.

‘First, Majesty, as to the disposition of the special case, the British have said no.’

‘Then there is no option left,’ Ludendorff intoned.

Wilhelm turned and glared at him, shook his head violently. ‘The British will change their minds when they see a sure thing in front of them. They always do.’

‘Among the British, the war has been unpopular, particularly among the working classes. Any gesture of support to a monarch, even one as benevolent as your cousin Nicholas, would inflame the various Socialistic elements within the country. In short, they are afraid of repercussions, Majesty,’ von Hintze said. Having Ludendorff there made it easier to be direct.

‘Yes, but didn’t we talk about that?’

‘Yes we talked, but it doesn’t change anything,’ Ludendorff said, turning to glance back at the map table.

‘Yes, Majesty. We spoke specifically about the idea of a change of identity, of anonymity, but –’

‘What’s wrong with that? You’re not going to tell me it’s impractical. Come on, von Hintze, of course it can be done.’

‘It is very difficult, Majesty,’ he said quietly.

‘I see what is happening. I am not going to abandon my own flesh and blood to the mob, eh!’ Wilhelm said. His voice had risen. A brace of staff officers looked over to them, and then nervously away. ‘What would I be then? A coward? Well, I may be many things, but I am not a coward like my British cousins. When I save the family, then they’ll thank me for it. Wait and see,’ the Kaiser said. Angrily he made a stomping motion with his foot.

Von Hintze looked over at Ludendorff, waiting for him to chime in, but the great strategist only rocked back on his heels and gazed at his staff officers moving about the table. As usual the army was leaving the real problems up to the civilians. For an uncomfortable moment the three of them stood watching the cadets pushing pins in the map. The room was a hive of whispers, the slithering of memoranda crossing the blotters, the scratch of pens, the ratcheting of the telegraph that pierced the room whenever the door opened.

Von Hintze took a deep breath and began again. ‘Unfortunately Yekaterinburg is on the point of being surrounded and it may already be too late.’ The Kaiser in his agitation had walked out into the light. Von Hintze looked at the grey eyes, tired and flecked with bloodshot from fatigue and strain.

‘I know what you are saying, gentlemen, but back when this plan came up, when the idea was first presented to me, everyone was happy, everyone was happy to give me certainties. We spent a million pounds –’

‘Half a million. The first payment only, All Highest.’

‘And we still don’t have anything to show for it?’

‘It’s worse than that,’ Ludendorff started.

‘Here’s the latest telegram, All Highest,’ von Hintze said, fishing it out of his pocket and handing it to the Kaiser, who held it up into the light.

‘Bloody, bloody…What the hell does this mean? “Awaiting shipment all pelts. Seven boxes. Will transport on receipt.”’

‘He’s posing as furrier’s agent.’

‘Ahh.’

‘He would be told to cancel the order.’

‘My God…’

‘Lloyd George is afraid of a similar revolution as has befallen Russia. That’s the reason for the British refusal. They were quite clear about that. Truthfully, Majesty, an upheaval is a real possibility, even I am forced to admit.’ For the first time when Wilhelm rounded on him, von Hintze made himself keep speaking. His hand was trembling. He pressed on.

‘If we go forward with the scheme, and even supposing we save the family, if it somehow becomes known, the public response –’

‘There will be no talk of a revolution in Germany,’ the Kaiser insisted. ‘It’s absurd! Not when we’re winning!’

For a moment von Hintze stood there. His eyes wandered to the great illuminated map and then back to the Kaiser. There was no effective way to get through to the man that today’s attack was in reality Ludendorff’s last desperate gamble.

‘It doesn’t matter about the talking of revolution. You can forbid all you want and there will still be talk in the streets. It’s clear. You can’t have that family here. You can’t have them in Germany,’ Ludendorff said, his gaze swivelled on the Kaiser.

‘I cannot abandon my own flesh and blood. I will not do it!’ the Kaiser hissed. The force of it bent him over at the waist. Across the room he saw the bulk of Hindenburg shifting in his chair. He had a field telephone headset hanging around his neck, and he took it off and handed it to his aide.

Von Hintze jumped in. ‘Even if we were able to go forward, there’s so little we can do, Majesty. With the approach of the Czechs the wires are severed in places, and any communicating takes longer and is less secure.’

‘So, he will have not received his orders?’

‘He does not know whom to contact, Majesty, and under the pressure of events it’s likely that the revolutionists will execute the Tsar.’

‘It’s probably already happened,’ Ludendorff sighed.

For a moment the Kaiser looked at him blankly. ‘But…our agent, he will still continue with the mission, won’t he?’

‘He will await instructions, Majesty.’

The Kaiser looked at him. ‘You mean he will wait there, surrounded? My God, who are these men?’

‘They are soldiers, the same. They are all soldiers,’ Ludendorff said flatly.

‘A very unusual breed of officer,’ said von Hintze.

‘My God,’ the Kaiser said. His eyes were full of tears, and he wiped them away with his sleeve. ‘I’m giving him the Pour le Merite! Who is he? At least I want to meet his family and give them my thanks for producing such a noble son. He signs it “Todmann” – that’s only his code name, yes? Well, I know you’re not supposed to tell anyone, but…’

‘I can tell you very little about him. Colonel Nicolai keeps it all secret. He has a designation number, 3J64-R,’ von Hintze said, looking at a paper. ‘The R is for Russia, so –’

Wilhelm reached down and pulled a blank order form from one of the staff officer’s desks, bent to his pen. ‘What is it again?’

‘“3J64” is good enough.’

The Kaiser scribbled out the order to grant 3J64-R, whoever he was, the honour of the Pour le Merite, and the benefits that would go with it.

‘I tell you, if we had a hundred more like this one, you and I would be having lunch in Paris this afternoon,’ Wilhelm said, looking up at Ludendorff. ‘And I tell you, I can’t bear to think about Nicholas being hanged in front of a mob in Red Square. I can’t allow such a thing,’ he said to him.

‘Do you want to be in Nicholas’s situation? The British aren’t fools. They see the danger. Spend all this…’ He waved an arm back at the room of staff officers. ‘…to win a victory, and throw it away by saving your cousin?’ Ludendorff said, outrageously direct. He was exhausted, von Hintze saw. ‘You can’t allow yourself the luxury of saving them…All Highest,’ Ludendorff said. It was impossible to tell whether he had nearly forgotten to add the honorific at the end, or if he was being sarcastic.

Wilhelm looked at him for one long withering moment. Then he returned to writing out the award order. Von Hintze realized that after all their talking the Kaiser had still taken no decision about the ‘special case’.

‘Should I be so fortunate as to make contact with him, what should I say, All Highest?’ he said, looking at Ludendorff, who sniffed.

‘If he’s surrounded what can he do? Tell him to stay in place and wait for instructions,’ the Kaiser said angrily. ‘When we prevail,’ said he added, signing the order, ‘then there will be negotiations, and if we have custody of the Imperial Family, then, you know…a secret overture might be made. It would be in everyone’s interest to be discreet. They say Nicholas is a butcher, they say I’m a butcher. If Jesus were Kaiser they would say he was a butcher. It’s just more Socialistic agitation. Cowards!’ the Kaiser snapped.

‘Good,’ said Ludendorff, turning and leaving for the table. He intercepted von Hindenburg and waved him back to his seat. There were more telephones buzzing now, and cadets were adjusting unit designations along the jagged lines that ran across the great map. Covered by the gigantic barrage, their storm troopers were advancing to encircle Rheims.

‘You know, they don’t understand,’ the Kaiser said to him. ‘It’s the hardest, the most excruciating duty for a War Lord. To consign brave men, the very life’s blood of the Fatherland, to send them out to their death. At the same time I am unable to help my own poor family.’ He shook his head. For a moment von Hintze thought he might be weeping.

‘And this one,’ the Kaiser said, waving the slip of paper that would grant 3J64-R a life-long pension. ‘This “Todmann”, he’s just an unknown man. A solitary, faceless, nameless human being. We’ve asked him to accept a life of shadows, to accept torture and an anonymous death if he is discovered. This man is a martyr,’ the Kaiser said, pressing the paper into Hintze’s hands. ‘The bravest of us all.’

An aide had stepped up. He held the Kaiser’s long cloak. It was to shelter him on the drive up to the observation post where he would be able to see the artillery. The Kaiser put on his pickelhaube, adjusted the strap beneath his chin, turned to allow the aide to settle the cloak about his shoulders.

‘There’s no room for weakness,’ the Kaiser said to von Hintze. ‘If you’re still having qualms, Herr Minister, get over them. Anything else can wait,’ he said sharply and moved towards the door. A command was shouted, the staff officers briefly fell silent, came to attention, and once the Supreme War Lord had left they went back to their maps and telephones, managing the attack that was designed to bring victory to Germany.

5

Everything is ready. Everything is more than ready. He has paid out monies, arranged for transportation. Not wanting to go any further than that. The city is an uproar. A panic. A good time for anyone to be leaving.

The date has been decided. He has sent his confirmation, but the wireless receives nothing. Accordingly he has made the walk up the long hill to the station, dressed as well as he can, waited in the queue for what seems like hours, grown frustrated and then realized that it would be far better to pay for a boy.

And this is what he does, finding one of the wretches that wait just outside the station so that they will not be run off by the one of the Red Guards assigned to patrol the entrance.

‘I need a courier. Who’s the best?’ Making it like a challenge, the kind of thing boys of a certain age prefer over all others. Putting on a smile to dazzle them. One tough on top of a luggage cart doesn’t flinch. ‘It might be difficult,’ he says to them, still smiling, ‘but I’m in a hurry and don’t have a lot of time.’

‘Two kopeks,’ they are all shouting. The little ones cluster around his knees.

‘I am having dinner with a special person. She needs consoling.’

‘If you want the receipt, it’s extra,’ says the tough.

‘No, I don’t know where I’m going to be. You keep the receipt and I’ll come back for it.’

‘It’s still extra,’ says the boy, and the little ones look around, willing to do whatever he tells them for less.

He looks at the boy’s eyes. Not unattractive. Good enough. Big enough to know what getting hurt means. Now all the little ones have shut up.

‘Fine, then,’ he says. ‘You.’

They move into the corridor and he finds a counter and the forms. He writes the message, changes his mind in midsentence and tears up the form and starts again.

The boy reaches into his pocket and takes out a tin box, something once used for pills. He has a cigarette stub in there, and begins to dig for a match.

‘Here,’ he says, and gives the boy his cigarette case. Turns back to the writing.

‘Sometimes the best-laid plans go all wrong, you understand?’ he says to the boy.

‘All the time,’ the boy says, carefully closing the case, turning it over in his hands, feeling the warmth of the silver. Expensive, the boy will be thinking. Nice, but something that’s been around, a dent here, a place where the silver has rubbed off at one corner, as if it had been dragged along the ground. He holds out his hand and the boy gives the case back. The touch of a smile.

They are equals now.

‘The important thing is not to panic. Not to lose your head, eh?’ Looks over at the boy and smiles. He straightens up from the counter top and gazes down through the doors out to the open square.

Tonight, he thinks. Certainly, it will be tonight, he is thinking. The Bolsheviks are packing up and leaving town, the better to make their stand on the Volga. Everyone is trying to get out of the city on the last train. Those who’ve kept back a little are even trying to bribe their way out of town.

If you are going to run away, he is thinking, you should resemble as much as possible someone who is running away. Someone with something to save, something to protect. It’s victims who run away.

He tears up the form again. Starts over.

SPECIAL SALES #R4-0B3

READY TO PURCHASE SEVEN. ADVISE REGARDS DELVERY

SOONEST.

TODMANN

He signs, and folds the form in half. ‘I’m going to give you a rouble extra, eh?’

The boy frowns, looking at him, surprised that this supposed sophisticate has revealed himself to be a far bigger fool than he has suspected.

‘But it’s not for you, it’s for one of the operators in there, eh? Go in through the door and give him the note. For that much it goes to the top of the queue, yes?’

‘Yes, of course.’ The boy actually smiles.

‘Thank you, and here, soldier. Take another.’ He opens the silver case and gives the boy another cigarette, wondering if he’s the kind to rush through things or make them last. ‘I’ll see you later,’ he says.

‘Fine,’ says the boy after a moment. A good boy. Good eyes. Strong and hungry.

‘I’ll be back for the receipt. I need it for business, so make sure you keep it. Keep it safe in your little box, eh? If they reply, I might hire you a second time, eh? So, go on, then,’ he says, and watches him walk down the corridor, jump the line, take his cap off as he pushes into the telegraphers’ cage and, good boy that he is, do exactly as he’s been told.

6

Everything changed in Perm. Ryzhkov watched the soldiers as they suddenly emptied out, and there was the first delay; a full half-hour while they watered and fitted an extra tender. The wires were down and no one knew if they could re-coal at Yekaterinburg yard.

He walked around the city, stood there watching the Kama running low between its embankments, used his Cheka credentials whenever he needed, and poked his nose into everything. Dropped in on the commissar and let him know that he might have important communications from time to time, looked the man straight in the eye. Watched the wheels go around even as he agreed. Special handling, then. Absolutely.

They got going again at dusk. He managed to requisition a loaf of bread at Cheka mess, which was a long room in the basement of a therapeutic school with kitchens at the end and steaming soup pots. Then in the night the train had slowed, and stopped intermittently – the entire journey elongating from a normal eight hours to two days and counting.

The weather had changed, becoming wetter. It began to rain in the night, and it was in some grey late July hour when they finally arrived, passing through a hurried line of barricades the Bolsheviks were throwing up at the village of Kungur, where the road to Moscow intersected with the railroad – an important little place, for if the Czechs overran it they’d be one step closer to controlling the railroad all the way to Viatka, and that much closer to joining with British and American forces advancing south from the port of Archangel.

And if that happened the people’s revolution would be surrounded.

They were losing, Ryzhkov saw. The train was completely empty in the last stretches, not a good sign. It appeared that there were no reinforcements rushing to help the Ural Soviet and the people of Yekaterinburg. And, even with the fresh troops he had been travelling with, it was obvious that there would be no strong Red defence of Perm. It was just the mathematics – there weren’t enough trained Red fighters to stop the Czechs. No horses to speak of, no artillery.

No hope.

‘Where’s this?’

‘Yekaterinburg – but there’s two stations. They are trying to decide. They might not be able to get into the city,’ one of the conductors told him.

The train, which had been creeping along, slowed to a halt some distance outside the first stop, a rural station on the way into the city. Manning the watchtowers beside the road were factory workers, with red rags tied round their sleeves, while below them a mass of wounded Bolshevik infantrymen waited for evacuation. The only station was hardly more than a tiny loading dock, and a telegraph shed at the crossing of the Moscow road.

The conductor came back and said they wouldn’t be going into the city to the central station. Too dangerous. In the distance there was a sudden crash of an artillery explosion, and Ryzhkov shouldered his bag, stepped down out from his carriage and started walking down the tracks to the crossing.

There was another ripple of artillery rising up through the hills, a long distance away, but still his shoulders hunched and his stomach went light. The little station had been blacked out except for a single shielded light. The artillery had given him the shakes, and all he’d wanted to do from the moment he’d got out of the train was run away as fast and as far as he could.

Find the Romanovs and then get out, he told himself.

Places are either good, or they are bad. Yekaterinburg was bad, a city in chaos, stupefied, not knowing to whom it should pay allegiance. Ryzhkov’s first view of the city was from the back of a automobile-tyre-shod cart that was being used as an ambulance back and forth to the crossroads. There was plenty of room going back. The driver was careful to explain that he’d been recruited by the local soviet when Ryzhkov flashed his Cheka book at him. ‘It’s fine. I don’t care which side you’re on,’ Ryzhkov told him.

‘The city is clearing out, you see? Everyone is scared.’

‘Sure.’

‘There’s only a couple of your boys left.’

‘I’m not staying long either.’

‘For the best, I think.’

They wound their way down the Moscow road, passing the little farms that had been carved out of the birches, slowing to cross the bogs that lined the low parts of the road. Beneath the trees it was wet and the driver pulled the awning over them, so that all they could see were the hocks of the two ponies that were pulling them into the town.

The road widened out as they came down through the populated heights of the city sloping down to the river Iset. Looming over the huts and outbuildings were the first of the larger wooden houses with the usual traditional accoutrements, ornate filigree under the gables and around the doors, painted shutters, saw-cut banisters and sharp picket fences surrounding yards which once had been carefully tended. Then came the first of the really substantial buildings, built with brick and a lot of stone, since the Urals was an ancient mining region.

Precious metals had been quarried out of the mountains for centuries; iron for cannons, gold for money, platinum for jewellery and coal for steam engines. The city had been created by Peter the Great to honour his bride Catherine, and to serve as the gateway to Siberia, a region vast beyond belief, containing too many time zones and nationalities with customs that were utterly foreign to most Russians. In addition to the administrators and bureaucrats based there, Yekaterinburg had become a city of miners, lumberjacks, railwaymen and metalworkers. There were smelting plants, foundries and metals factories ringing the city and spread across the long slope down to the lake. The lake itself had been dammed in the distant past and now it was rimmed with vacated mansions and idle fishing boats.

The city was quiet. Supposedly the revolution had been particularly vigorous in the Urals. An industrial region with a tradition of exploitation had given rise to a hotbed of workers’ agitation, and the mines and factories had been quickly shut down by the expedient of sabotage. The most committed of the workers had already been subsumed into the Red Army and the city was in the process of being inherited by those too poor to run away, those who longed for a Bolshevik defeat, or those who had merely waited too late.

Ahead of them were the first signs of life: two men smoking beside an open door, a woman with a chicken under her arm moving protectively down the sidewalk, two ancient men harnessing a dray.

‘What is that?’

‘Oh,’ said the driver. ‘That’s the Church of the Ascension.’

‘No…that, beside it.’ There was a high barricade made of cut logs like a fort in an American wild west film.

‘Oh, that’s the Special House. It’s where they killed the Tsar,’ he said, turning at Ryzhkov’s sudden reaction.

‘Killed them?’

‘So they say.’

‘When did this happen?’

‘Three days ago in the night. Killed the Tsar and his son. The women have been taken away.’

‘You know this? You saw them go with your own eyes?’

‘They are killing the entire family, so some say.’ The driver shrugged.

‘Do you mean Grand Duke Michael Alexandrovich?’

‘Him, too, the Tsar’s brother. They killed him in Perm last month, everyone said. That came to the telegraph. But then we heard at the hospital that he and his driver got away.’

‘There are too many rumours. I’m trying to find out what really happened.’

The driver arced his head in the direction of the house. ‘The Tsar is dead, I think that is the best guess, but –’ nodding towards Ryzhkov’s breast pocket, ‘– you should be able to find out, eh?’

Ahead of them was the confluence of two monstrously wide streets. The driver drew up outside the American Hotel. It was still draped in red flags, and there was a knot of Red Guards there making a show.

He walked up the stairs off the street, showed his card and went inside. In the wide saloon that opened off the lobby three men were hammering and nailing tables together. Otherwise the building seemed vacant and littered with the obvious markers of defeat. Two clerks were crossing down the corridor with boxes of files, en route to the furnace in the ballroom. A third clerk knelt beside the furnace blowing and cursing at a smouldering mound of paper. He stopped one of the young men with his magic red book and asked for direction to the Cheka office.

‘You’re too late, sir. The building is being abandoned. I’m burning the last of the pay records right now, and then I’m on my way.’

‘But Cheka headquarters is here in the hotel?’

‘Oh yes, right down that hallway. Room number 3, sir.’

He walked down to the room. The door was open. Number 3 was a large rectangle, a small cloakroom at one end. A sofa. A pair of desks. Several broken lamps. Fragments of paper and carbon flimsies spread across the floor. Another boy walked past him with a broom and began sweeping them up into a pile. An inkwell had turned over and black footprints had been tracked into the Turkish carpet.

‘Where have they gone, do you know?’

The clerk shrugged and did not meet his eye. ‘Back to Moscow, comrade…’

Ryzhkov crossed the office to one of the desks, looked in its drawers and found a Yekaterinburg city directory there. It listed all addresses, and those with telephones were printed in bold. There was only one Eikhe in the book – No. 2 Kushok Lane.

‘Do you know where Kushok Lane is?’ he asked the clerk.

‘Right on the other side of the city, in the direction of the Trouchenko foundry.’

‘Too far to walk?’

‘Oh, yes.’ Ryzhkov watched him crabbing the papers into a ball, stuffing them into a mail sack.

‘Where is the local soviet?’

‘Besides right here, you mean?’

‘I need to talk to someone with responsibility.’

The clerk made a doubtful face. ‘Either at the municipal hall or at the civic theatre, I’d guess.’

Ryzhkov walked out of the American Hotel, past the young guards who were not quite sure what they were guarding, down to the street. The ground sloped slightly towards the area around the dam, and he kept going until he came to the municipal hall, an old building that looked suddenly out of date and in the process of being abandoned, its doors thrown open and two anxious Red Guards still lingering outside. A motor car and a truck were idling there, ready for a final run to the station.

He asked directions, and across the park he caught the Number 14 tram which was still running, and which carried him some dozen blocks past the sprawling and dead quiet Selki factory and let him off at the last stop.

From there Kushok Lane was only two blocks, and he stepped out into the muddy street and began walking. On one side of the street was a row of workers’ houses that had been arranged diagonally to the street, climbing the low ridge with a fine view of the city beneath. There were children playing in the worn expanses in front of the houses, running around the fruit trees that had been girdled with octagonal planters for protection.

No. 2 was a semi-collapsed ancient wooden house, the logs darkened to blackness with soot, weeds grown up and died in a tangle around the foundations. A wide canvas tarpaulin that had been rigged up to shade half of the house, where a woman was butchering what Ryzhkov recognized to be a goat.

‘I am looking for Nikolas Eikhe,’ he said to her.

She turned and gave him a long look, taking in the suit – now truly shabby – the thick shoes, the rucksack with the leather raincoat rolled into it. ‘He’s not here.’

‘Ahh…’

‘What’s it about?’

‘I need to speak to him. It’s important.’

‘He’s not here, Excellency.’

‘When he comes back, maybe you can give him this.’ Ryzhkov set the rucksack down, groped in the pockets for some paper. All he had was an envelope with his train schedule written on it. He wrote ‘Ryzhkov, #3 Hotel American.’

‘Shall I say what it is concerning?’ the woman said. She was busily scrubbing out the great cavity that had been made by extracting the entrails of the animal.

Ryzhkov looked around the little street. The houses here were much older than the workers’ factory houses at the end of the block. ‘Eikhe is a German name, isn’t it?’ he asked.

‘Yes, the family were Volga Germans. Here since the 1700s, so he claimed,’ the woman said. She was older, but still strong, with her hair bound up in a series of towels that made her look like some sort of peasant queen, wearing a large apron, her sleeves rolled up to her armpits.

‘I just want to talk to him, and I want to talk to someone who can put me in touch with the soviet.’

‘They’re all gone,’ she said with finality.

‘You’re sure? There has to be someone around.’

‘They’re gone. I’m sure.’

‘What about his friends? Maybe someone knows where I can find him.’

‘He doesn’t have any friends,’ she said flatly.

‘What about the Tsar?’

She looked up at him, shook the bloody rag out and dumped it in a dish beside the table. ‘All of them are dead.’

‘How do you know?’

‘Oh, everybody knows it. It happened at the weekend. I know one of the women who mopped up the blood.’

‘Who was that?’

‘Just a woman. Someone I know. Look, they’re dead, comrade. When he comes back I’ll give him your message. What does it say?’

‘Ryzhkov. Number 3, American Hotel.’

‘Is that where you’re staying?’ Her eyebrows went up at the cost of it.

‘No. It’s just to let him know who I am. You make sure and tell him. It’s important. And I’ll come back, eh?’ he said, jabbing his finger at her.

At the bottom of the hill he waited to catch the tram, but gave up and walked past the long façade of the factory into the city. There was another distant crash and Ryzhkov realized that the artillery had stopped for some hours and only just begun firing again. A few minutes later an automobile blew past him with several Red Guard officers packed into the seats.

When he had walked another block, at the corner he could see a stream of citizens entering the Civic Theatre. The fast car that had passed him on the slope was sitting there, with steam coming out of the radiator cap. Several carriages and military wagons were drawn up in the lane and soldiers were milling about the entrance. Ryzhkov let himself be funnelled through the great doors to the theatre with everyone else. The windows had been thrown open and the curtains pulled shut against the sun. The whole room was a stew of dust motes and muttered conversations.

He found himself standing in the aisle at the back of the house. A squad of soldiers marched in, split into two ranks, and half of them passed right behind him, eyes alert and looking around for assassins. They went down the aisles and took positions with their rifles at rest at the foot of the stage.

Immediately a man came out from the wings, clutching a yellow sheet of paper in his hand. He was in his thirties, with dark hair slicked back and combed neatly behind his ears. He had a pince-nez that he wedged onto his nose and he moved to the centre of the stage and began to read before half the crowd noticed he was even there. He had to wait for the room to quieten and then began again. His voice was light, and someone called from the back rows for him to speak up.

‘My name is…’ It was still noisy in the room; they were letting people come upstairs onto the balcony and they were all still talking, not aware that the show had begun. The man backtracked yet again.

‘My name is Fillip Goloschokin, military commissar of the Ural Soviet, and I announce today that, by order of the regional Ural Soviet, in the awareness that the Czecho-Slovak soldiers, those hirelings of French and British capitalists, are now close at hand, and in view of the fact that a White Guard plot to carry off the whole Imperial Family has been discovered, and that all the old Imperial generals are in it with them, that the Cossacks are also coming, and they all think that they will get their Emperor back, but they never shall –’ His thin voice hung in the hall. ‘We shot him three nights ago!’

There was a pause. Goloschokin repeated the last line again and looked off stage. Someone was speaking to him, but the words were distorted.

‘Three nights ago!’ Goloschokin repeated, and walked off into the wings.

The theatre was immediately filled with a torrent of conversation. A great crash of applause began which was almost immediately stifled by a series of shouts. Several women were in tears and were being assisted by their friends. ‘Where is the body?’ someone screamed from the balcony over and over. A group had rushed forward and were being held back by the young soldiers who had lifted their rifles to the ready and were guarding the two approaches to the stage. There was a rush for the exits.

Ryzhkov joined the flow out onto the street. The military trucks were already speeding down Glavni Prospekt in the direction of the station.

Now that Goloschokin had gone with the rest of the Ural Soviet and all that was left was the echo of the official announcement, Ryzhkov thought he ought to make for the station and telegraph NOSMOC4, but what would he say? The announcement would be wired back to the Kremlin by the Ural Soviet themselves; everything else was rumour.

He walked along the embankment of the pond that occupied the centre of the city, heading for the station. All around him people were moving, like ants that had been driven out of their hiding places. Several lorries rushed past him, and people ran across the street, hurrying to hoard anything that their fantasies suggested they might need before they dashed off to crouch behind shuttered windows.

At the station he wrote to Zezulin:

NOSMOC4 – MOSCOW

RUMOURS EVERYWHERE. OFFICIAL ANNOUNCEMENT BUT NO

PROOF. CANNOT FIND E. WILL CONTINUE.

RYZHKOV

The telegrapher shook his head, but a wave of the Cheka card drew a grimace and Ryzhkov’s telegraph form moved to the top of the queue. Steam whistles startled the birds, and the last of the trains were pulling out, heading west for safety.

He walked out of the station, out onto the wide expanse of the square. The wind was blustery, the sky had cleared and the sun was drying the puddles into crusts and sending the flies buzzing out of the gutters. The wind abruptly changed direction and in the distance he could hear gunshots in the hills. In front of the station the square was completely vacant. The Red Guards had vanished, and everything had fallen into a sudden silence.

He headed back into the centre of the city, tore up his Cheka card and travelling documents and dropped fragments into each gutter that he passed by, paying particular attention to the identification page and his photograph. If Eikhe was in town he had probably gone to ground; anyone with connections to the local soviet would either try to escape or go into hiding. He decided to keep the coat, it worked well in the weather, and he might need it again if he ever wanted to get back to Moscow.

When he got closer to the market he walked down the lanes looking into the garbage until he came out with a reasonably clean section of newspaper. He sat down on the steps of the Municipal Hall, folded the newspaper into a long strip and braided it around his sleeve to make an armband.

Then he took off his hat and mopped his brow, took a deep breath and waited for the first Czech cavalry to arrive.

7

Ryzhkov had actually fallen asleep there on the steps when the first cavalrymen rode into the square. He jerked awake and stood up to watch them. They came into the city with the arrogance that men on horses always carry with them, when they are armed to the teeth and don’t care about those in their path. With their entrance it was suddenly their city and not the Russians who’d resided there.

A clutch of nervous supplicants had gathered at the front of the building, the ones who were most frightened or angered by Bolshevik rule, the ones who’d been dispossessed of their little local empires. The rest of the square was empty. When the Czech cavalrymen saw them they rode over, called out some gibberish which no one could understand, cantered about the square for a few moments, and then tore off looking for the station. There was some laughter from those who were waiting, and one of the men spat out into the street.

A few moments later a military truck pulled into the square and a squad of infantrymen leapt out, their purpose to seize the Municipal Hall. As the soldiers moved up the steps one of the civilians forced a bottle of home-made vodka on a dark Czech, who took it with his pals, all of them laughing at the Russian with his hat in his hand. They went inside and left one of their squad to guard the front doors.

Already more people were creeping out from behind their doors. A few shutters on the apartments on Glavni Street were thrown open and people had come to their windows to watch the Czechs busy at occupying their town, and wondering if they might get something out of it. Half an hour later a young lieutenant came out and began collecting the details of the now sizeable group that had fetched up there at the steps.

When the lieutenant asked him who he was, Ryzhkov leaned close. ‘I am an agent of the government of France. I need to speak, confidentially you understand, with the military attaché,’ he said, and then shrugged to show he realized how fantastic it might sound.

The young man looked at him steadily and the stenographer he’d brought out with him stood there, his pen suspended over the ledger. ‘I’m sorry, I have no identification, I had to burn it, ‘ Ryzhkov said, adding a smile.

‘Very well,’ the lieutenant said slowly, and called two men over to take him to jail.

They took him straight through the Municipal Hall to the rear entrance, down another set of stairs to a waiting prison cart. There were three men already in it, chained to a long rod that was built into the wall of the van. One of them was dressed in formal attire, as if he were attending an official function; another was a Bolshevik soldier in uniform. There was a bloody bruise over his cheek, and he had been injured inside, because every movement of the cart made him wince and draw a tight breath.

They waited, watching through the grill the soldiers come and go. In a few moments they were shoving another man down the stairs, the doors were wrenched open and they tried to push him in. He was screaming at them, grabbing at the door handles.

It was a misunderstanding, he said. Everything was a misunderstanding. The Czechs began to kick him. A prominent person was on their way to vouch for him, and afterwards he would show them the city. They kept kicking him until he gave up shrieking and when they locked him to the rod he sat there, sobbing and sweating, his suit pulled open, clutching his hat in his manacled hands. Then they were off – lurching around behind the hall, down a lane and into the wide street where he could see industrious Czechs erecting barricades at the major intersections.

They were organized, the Czechs. They were still in their units, had only been able to rely on themselves throughout the war and their imprisonment once they’d deserted into Russia from the Austrian army. Now they were running things, and they knew how to do it, Ryzhkov saw. Squads of soldiers were moving through the streets, pounding on doors, requisitioning everything they needed, buildings, firewood, food, animals and people for the greater glory of the White cause.

They rounded a corner and jerked to a stop at the jail. There were several of the old city policemen there. Some of them had worked for the Bolsheviks but had held back their pre-revolutionary caps or jackets, and as members of the reconstituted constabulary they had put them on over their ordinary clothing. Now they were generously helping the Czechs to get things up and running. They went about their jobs with the kind of alert efficiency and overblown enthusiasm that a man will display when he thinks he might be fired before lunch.

By the time Ryzhkov made it to the holding rooms, they seemed to know all about him, and he guessed that the lieutenant must have sent word ahead by field telephone. He was separated from the rest, locked to a bench, then unlocked and given over to an officer who appraised him with a slight smile, and, with two other warders, walked him down to the cells.

The first cell they’d tried was already occupied, so they put him in a larger room, meant for four, but now seemingly dedicated to Ryzhkov alone. His manacles were unlocked and a few minutes later they brought him some bread and kvass. While he ate, the officer came back and watched him.

‘You say you’re a Frenchman?’ The Czech’s French was accented but understandable. The cadence was like a schoolboy’s. Maybe he just wanted to practise.

‘I’m Russian. I was Okhrana, then I was in France through the war.’

‘Ahh…with the Legion?’

Ryzhkov shrugged and nodded. ‘I work for the French now,’ Ryzhkov said.

‘Well, we all work for the French. They are in command, after all. Or at least that is the latest fiction.’ The Czech smiled, and looked down the corridor for a moment. ‘The Conte should be in soon. He’ll see you, but you’d better have the right answers, mon ami,’ the officer said, and drew a finger across his throat. ‘If you’re the real thing we’ll find out. If you’re lying…well, tell them in hell that I was a charitable man, eh?’ The officer stooped and slid a pair of cigars through the bars and set a box of matches on top of them. ‘Just don’t start any fires.’

‘Thank you. I’ll be careful.’

Ryzhkov finished his food, and used the toilet in the corner. Went over and picked up the cigars, and had just taken off his shoes and collapsed on the lowest of the iron beds when the guards were back again.

They were measuring him now, watching an ex-Okhrana brought low; the kind of man they’d all heard about come into their world at last. He didn’t look like so much, not so tough, they would be thinking. Look at how things had come round! Here he was, finally in the cell he and his kind had always deserved; even someone working for the Whites would think about the Okhrana like that, the legends of their brutality had been so notorious.

The two guards stood silently while he extended his arms to be locked together, then, supporting him on each side, they conveyed him back upstairs. They used a passage that was narrow, originally intended for servants in the distant past before one of the Tsars had had appropriated the building for a courthouse and jail to house the enemies of the state that had evolved in the dark mines far below.

Everything so far had been a prelude. Dramatic enough, but only bluff and process, and maybe he had been lucky enough to push his execution a little further into the future. His real worry was that, in exchange for his life, what could he give them? In Moscow he had asked Zezulin about it, because it was almost certain to come up.

‘Yes, yes, yes, but if you give something to them, Pyotr, what will you do after that? You give it, then it’s gone, then you’re nothing. Besides, things are changing daily. No one is predicting the future. That’s for fools. You want to give them something? What? Strategy, tactics? Names of agents and traitors? How did you come by all that? No, no. You’re running away. You’re terrified. You don’t have time to put together a nice present for the Czech counter-intelligence. You’re scared and in a big hurry. You can tell them the whole truth if you want, if you think they’ll believe you, but just do your job for me at the same time. Try to act like you mean it. Do you think you can manage that?’

So he had nothing.

An area had been carved out of the offices upstairs; it looked like the kind of room a school headmaster might have as an office. There was a furnace in the corner, and in the ‘beautiful’ corner opposite a collection of empty shelves with holes in the plaster where the icons had been stripped away by the Bolsheviks and not yet restored by the new government.

A sergeant supervised the seating of their prize; a few minutes later he heard voices, and an officer came in. The guards left, closing the door behind them. Ryzhkov nodded, and said ‘Good afternoon,’ although it was still morning.

The door opened and a secretary came in. ‘All right, tell us your story,’ the secretary translated. Then the questioning began, and curiously it relaxed him.

‘Tell him,’ he said to the secretary, ‘I’m only trying to get out of here. I was working for the French in Moscow, the Reds caught me, I was released for a few hours and I ran. I had papers but I destroyed them. I’ll tell you everything I know, but it’s not much…’ It went on and on, and he told it flatly with as much dignity as he could muster. The more he talked, the more it sounded like blather. Even the secretary was looking at him with a smirk. At the end there was a silence and he tried to pick it up by telling them about his recruitment by the Deuxième Bureau and his work in Paris, but sitting there looking at them he realized how absurd it all sounded.

The officer sniffed, shook his head, flicked the remains of his cigarette out of the window and looked out on the courtyard below. On the breeze in the warm summer day were the sounds of military commands, the clashing of rifles being stacked on the cobbles, the sounds of gulls being startled from under the eaves, angry at the intruders.

‘Come here,’ the officer said in passable Russian, and Ryzhkov got to his feet and shuffled over to the window. Across the courtyard a wide gallows was being set up. It looked like something standard, from a kit. Struts and braces that a section of men could load on the back of a lorry and screw together as needed.

‘This is civilization now,’ the officer said. His voice was quiet. Purring. The accent unusual. ‘This is what we have come to,’ he said, looking around at Ryzhkov. They were about the same age, he realized, but the officer was immaculate – his moustache flecked with grey, the eyebrows dark and even, the eyes light blue and steady, the complexion a little darker, with golden tones rather than pink. A smile. ‘So, you have been telling us the truth today, signor?’

‘Yes, Excellency.’ Ryzhkov almost reflexively bowed as he said it.

‘Well, you’ve certainly had a very turbulent time. It’s quite a story. Worked for the Okhrana? Ran away to France? Fought like a tiger, and now you’re here. “Released for a few hours,” did you say?’

Ryzhkov nodded and a ‘Yes, Excellency’ escaped his lips like a whisper.

‘You’d better tell me if you’re lying, yes? It’s so much better if you tell me now, much better instead of me finding out later that you’ve been untruthful, eh?’

‘It’s all the truth, I swear it.’

‘Swear?’ the man said, almost laughing. ‘“Swear to God”, eh? It’s all true and you want to live? Live a long and happy life, work, have children, a little home. And maybe do something, something useful here in town…’ The officer gestured and simultaneously there was a metallic clang as the workers outside tested the gallows trap. The gulls took off again, a chorus of shrieks echoing in the courtyard, wheeling overhead. There were the dim sounds of laughter, the men congratulating themselves on a job well done.

‘Well, maybe you’re just hungry, or maybe you’re truly a French agent. I’m checking on that part of your tale right now, but since you want to be helpful and you have no choice I suppose I can put you to work, now that you understand the circumstances.’ The officer turned, looked out at the gallows and then lifted his hand to his neck and made a garish death’s face – tongue lolling out, eyes rolled up. Like a schoolyard clown. Then he laughed and went back to the desk.

‘All right then…’ The officer spread his hands out on the surface of the desk, leaned back in his chair, a smile flirting with the corners of his mouth. ‘I am Conte Captain Tommaso di Giustiniani, and for the moment I am head of counter-intelligence in Yekaterinburg, and your saviour. And now that we’ve both washed up here in this…enthralling little city,’ he said with that slow smile, ‘there is really only one great question to answer: Where’s the Tsar? Yes? It is all very puzzling, and, since you are so devoted to the truth, Ryzhkov, perhaps we can find it together.’

8

The first train arrived just after four carrying the headquarters of White General Golitsyn, his deputy, Major de Heuzy, and several cars of hangers-on and support staff, a melange of diplomats, spies, adventurers, journalists, disgruntled fugitives and commercial opportunists – a population made up of the lowest forms of life, all of them hungry and in search of food and lodging.

By afternoon the citizenry had reclaimed the streets and the city was suddenly busy, swarming with all varieties of blue-uniformed Czechs, the officers striding possessively through the shopping district, all of them demanding service and willing to pay, although it was in paper roubles that had been over-stamped by the White Kolchak-led government, or in letters of credit that no one could understand. There wasn’t really any choice: if you had something they wanted you could either sell it for the pretend money or they’d just requisition it.

Over dinner the details came out. Ryzhkov was fed lavishly at the Fez, a restaurant across the square that had immediately been taken over as the officer’s club. The room was not crowded, they were eating between hours. A troika of Czechs held serious talk over cigars in the corner. The waiters came in and out, resetting the tables, tidying up for the dinner hour. Giustiniani had taken one bite when he began laughing at the quality of the cooking.

‘You know,’ Giustiniani said haltingly so that he wouldn’t choke, ‘I have been all over the world, based in some lovely cities. Everywhere, in every port there is at least one reasonably decent restaurant.’ His fork stirred the concoction on his plate. It looked like a small steak of some kind smothered in a brown camouflaging sauce, and potatoes that had been mashed and blended with cabbage beside it. Ryzhkov couldn’t decipher it either although it hadn’t stopped him from wolfing it down. ‘Every port brings people in, you know, from elsewhere. New blood, strangers with new ideas – fertilization,’ Giustiniani continued wistfully, took a sip of wine and winced, shook his head and pushed the hateful dish away.

With nothing to fill his mouth, Giustiniani was free to tell his life story while Ryzhkov ate, and so began a poetic and amusing saga of olive groves and grapevines and cypress trees.

Tommaso di Giustiniani was a submariner in the Italian navy who had surfaced just in time to be sent to Russia to help the Allies quell the worldwide revolution. He had ceased to refer to himself as nobility, dropping the ‘Conte’ and shortening his name. ‘The family is…well, it is not what it was,’ he said by way of explanation.

Giustiniani liked to entertain and he liked to talk, and he had, apparently, all the time in the world to do it. But Ryzhkov saw him for a man who preferred being underestimated, preferred to conceal his true strength inside. You didn’t go down in those tin cans if you didn’t have the black space inside you somewhere, and you didn’t last if you didn’t know how to handle men. For Giustiniani, dropping his noble connections was an obvious first step; a title and estates were worthless when pressure was cracking the hull, or when the destroyers were trying to find you, and all the crew knew it. Ryzhkov wasn’t an expert on the Italian underwater boat service, but he knew that all such machines were fantastic creations that used the most expensive materials in their defiance of the seas. Thus, despite his old-world charm, the lazy smile, the unmuscled gestures, Giustiniani was a modern man.

The brandy came, and by that time Ryzhkov had grown sleepy and drunk. Giustiniani signed the chit and they moved into a large room that had been converted into a lounge and attempted to play billiards on a threadbare table. ‘There is no felt, eh? No felt in Yekaterinburg at all. There is a felt shortage,’ Giustiniani said, missing a shot.

At one point Ryzhkov found himself gazing at two billiard tables, the visions overlaying each other at angles, identical balls swimming in the sea, and knew that he was very, very drunk. He tried to snap back to sobriety because Giustiniani was talking about the Romanovs.

‘Everyone says they are dead,’ Ryzhkov said.

‘Everyone says a lot of things. Everyone says that Nicholas and Alexandra were seen in Perm yesterday morning. Everyone says that our advance party stole them away just before we took the town on Tuesday accomplishing this with such stealth that no one actually saw them. Those kinds of witnesses we have plenty of. All we can be certain of is that the Imperial Family has vanished since last weekend. And their property also,’ he added with a smile.

‘What do you want me to do then?’ Ryzhkov said. They were both standing there looking at the billiard ball. Giustiniani stared at him for a second, then reached out and swept it into a side pocket.

‘I want you to go and get cleaned up. We’re expected at an orgy.’

Cleaning up meant splashing cold water on himself in the shower at the military quarters that Giustiniani took him through, a quick shave which was frightening because of his inability to see his own face clearly, then more frightening when he finally came into focus. A rinsing of his mouth with mint water, and then Giustiniani was there at the door, looking as fresh as a spring day. They journeyed through the streets by hired cab, the driver being all too happy for the fare.

By the end of the night Yekaterinburg had been transformed into a town gripped by a fever as powerful as a gold rush. The people were manic, like inhabitants of a desperate new boom town – everyone simultaneously trying to ingratiate themselves with the winners and queuing up for transit passes to Vladivostok.

Outside the Hotel Palais Royal there was a fist-fight in progress, and soldiers stood about listlessly leaning on their rifles, smoking cheroots and waiting for the combatants to tire. The foyer was crowded with women negotiating terms and conditions with various suitors, and the stairs were threadbare and treacherous, owing to the increasing lack of illumination the higher one climbed.

It didn’t seem much like an orgy to Ryzhkov, at least not in the imagined Roman sense. It was held in the ballroom of the hotel, supposedly one of the city’s finest, and was crowded with sweating matrons and men holding their hats in their hands, everyone seeking approval, affection, a little cash, a passage east – easily the most prised item – or a position in the new government of Admiral Kolchak.

The ballroom itself was an elongated chamber with high windows at one end that looked over the city, giving a view of the stream that ran down to the lower Iset pond and the fishing docks at the head of the lake. There was a balcony there and the doors were thrown open, but this did nothing to dispel the cloud of tobacco smoke and the ladies’ heavy perfume.

It was a curious mixture, a large number of Czech officers of various ages and a few other uniforms, most of which Ryzhkov could not place. Giustiniani was well known, it seemed. He kept Ryzhkov with him, introduced him to all as his ‘aide’, and otherwise ignored him. Ryzhkov excused himself and took air on the balcony. Refused all drinks and tried to sober up.

It was not to be, however. Giustiniani would find him on his next orbit and take him across the room to meet some other governmental dignitary or eminent military figure. The Czechs had acquired the Russian habit of commemorating everything with a vodka toast. And so it went, Ryzhkov losing count of how many times this occurred.

The whereabouts of the Romanovs was on everyone’s tongue. The consensus agreed with the announcement he had witnessed – that the Tsar was dead and the family removed to a ‘safe place’. The announcement had also been published on a broadsheet that had been pasted up around the city and recovered by the Czechs. Still, there were no bodies, and no eye witnesses to the Tsar’s execution, since the executioners had fled the city, presumably with the Romanov women and servants in tow.

‘But the worst sin is that there is no champagne, none whatsoever. The Bolsheviks drank it all!’ a man was screaming at him. He was flanked by two red-headed women who hung on his arms and offered their cheeks to Ryzhkov. One woman had torn her dress and her heavy breasts were exposed. She made fluttering attempts to cover herself, and then gave up.

‘What is this, then?’ Ryzhkov said. They had forced a bottle on him.

‘Vodka! Made locally. You mix it with lime juice and fizzy water from the springs! Goes down good, eh?’ the man shouted. A band had begun playing but they were as drunk as everyone else and the music wheezed and swerved through the tonal spectrum. Ryzhkov put his mouth to the bottle and drank the faux champagne. At least it was cold, with an antiseptic taste that seemed somehow more healthy than the punch that had been served but had now run out.

‘Come on now,’ the second of the redheads said to him. ‘You’re good for it, eh?’

Ryzhkov didn’t know what she was talking about for a moment. The other two were dancing. The music was just an unstructured wailing, all out of beat and synchronization. The woman was kissing him now, and pulling him into the shadows. The room was emptying out, and filling up again. They had taken over the whole hotel. He found himself in a corridor with a group of other officers, the uniforms too confusing to place. The doors were open and the true orgy had begun in the opened-up suites.

‘We may die,’ the redhead said into his ear. ‘We may die at any moment.’ She pulled him into a room. There was another couple on the floor, but it didn’t matter. Her hands were on his fly and he had thrown his coat on the floor. They wrestled on the bed with the other couple groaning beside them. He hadn’t had anyone in a long time, and now she swam before him, her breasts wobbling as he tried to thrust himself into her, her face looking up at him, imploring him, gripping him by his buttocks, lunging up to snatch a kiss. The other couple had finished and were standing there laughing. He saw that she was talking with them, having a conversation in the middle of his efforts. ‘…not much…not much at all,’ she was saying. After a moment she pushed him away.

‘Too drunk,’ he muttered, and the woman slapped him. For a moment he saw white, reeled backwards and made a fist, flung it at the woman, but she had already got up. Then he was on the bed, his face pressed into the hot blankets, while the other man hurled abuse at him. The other woman was laughing as the redhead complained to her about his quality.

He staggered to the door but didn’t make it. Vomited across an armchair, stood there clinging to it and coughing and wiping his mouth off on the antimacassar. There was a bottle and he took a drink to wash his mouth and spat it out on the floor. From the doorway he could see that more people had arrived. The fun was continuing. A girl was slumped against the panelling and crying. He stood there, supporting himself in the doorway and watching her. She was thin, blonde, and her hair had been cut short and frizzy. Her eyes were puffy and streaked where the kohl had run. She looked terribly alone in the middle of it all, absently beating the wall with her silk scarf in one hand, and holding the other to her mouth to stop the sobbing. She looked up at him and then started crying all over again.

They met in the centre of the corridor. Others were walking around them. It was like being an island in a river of drunks. She pressed her face into his jacket, sobbing, then looked up at him. The only beautiful woman he had seen all night long, he thought. The only honest thing in the city. She pressed her lips to his mouth and pulled him to her, strong for such a thin girl. He felt himself growing hard and she reached for him and they had each other there on the edge of the sofa, against the wall, everything happening at once, a quick little hurricane of lust and hands slipping over fabric and flesh, the bones of her back, her legs trying to reach around him, her face pressed into his neck, and his into the spikes of her hair. The smell of flowers.

It was over as quickly as it had started and they clung to each other while everything was ebbing away. She said something that he couldn’t hear because of the noise of the lift just down the hall opening and closing spasmodically as each new drunken troupe tried to line it up with the floor.

Then suddenly she pulled away and was gone, not even a look back, and he was there, still in the river, fumbling with his clothing and not feeling better, not feeling any better at all.

He would leave, he thought. He would just walk to Vladivostok if that’s what it took. No one would miss him in this chaos. Zezulin would assume he’d been killed, probably wouldn’t waste the effort to take revenge on Vera. The world had already gone to hell. All that remained was the burning.

He staggered towards the stairs, and met the man who’d been in the room with him. There were words, Ryzhkov couldn’t hear them or understand. It might have been a different language. He punched the man hard in the chest and he stepped back and slid down the wall, groaning. Everyone around them laughed. At the landing he saw Giustiniani coming up.

‘I’ve been looking for you,’ he said. ‘This is Judge Nametkin, he’s in charge of our investigation.’ Beside Giustiniani was a portly man, deep into his forties, a bald head that someone had written upon with lipstick.

‘Hello,’ the man said. Large grey eyes looked up and smiled at him lazily.

‘This is Ryzhkov, our new detective,’ Giustiniani prompted and Nametkin extended his hand. ‘We’re going over there right away. Might as well get started, eh?’

‘Where?’ said Ryzhkov, and realized that he’d only made a noise, not a word, so he repeated again, ‘Where-are-we-going?’

‘Don’t worry, you’ll find out,’ Nametkin said, forming his words with equal precision. ‘Should we walk? What do you think?’ he asked Giustiniani, bracing himself against the wall.

‘Mmm…a cab, I think. The government is paying after all,’ and they both laughed. As they went down the stairs, a man approached Nametkin and blocked their descent. His face was dirty, rat-like.

‘You want to see Anastasia, comrade? I’ll take you to her, but there are necessary fees –’ Giustiniani batted him away and he collapsed on the stairs and began to cry. ‘I have them, I have them all! On good authority!’ he shrieked behind them as they escaped to the foyer.

‘Loyalty,’ Nametkin was saying to Giustiniani as they got into the cab. ‘Loyalty is a porous, negotiable thing. This is the White world. You can believe in the virtues all you want, but where are you going to put your money?’

‘Exactly. Money,’ said Giustiniani. Ryzhkov took the seat in the back, feeling sick all over again.

‘It’s the worst of the worst. Who do you think is going to win? That’s the basis, the entire basis…’

‘Exactly. Basis.’ As they rolled through the city Nametkin began to snore. Giustiniani leaned forward, said something to the driver, and they turned back.

‘It’s no use. We’re all in. We’ll do it tomorrow,’ he explained to Ryzhkov, who had no idea, no idea at all what they were doing, where they were going, or why.

As the cab drew closer to the barracks he saw the girl he’d had in the hallway. She was walking along in the same direction, still trailing her scarf in her hand. When they passed her he looked back and saw that her face was washed clean, her chin high, and that she looked over to them for a moment, then looked away.

Straight ahead up the street, not caring about the men in the carriage, what they thought about the world situation, or anything they might claim to understand.

9

Propas, the chauffeur, roused him out of bed. It took some work. Ryzhkov was hung over, sick, and his head was pounding so that he could hear it. Another man was waiting while Ryzhkov, making certain of his hand-holds, climbed into the back seat. The man watched with a disgusted expression, waited for him to swing his legs inside, slammed the door and got in the front. The car was huge and painted field grey and, in places, a paler colour that might have been brown; brushstrokes done quickly, and the doors labelled in odd stencilled writing that Ryzhkov thought looked Chinese.

The man in the front seat turned out to be Ilya Strilchuk, the only remaining detective inspector who had been a veteran of the Tsarist Yekaterinburg police. When the Bolsheviks took over Strilchuk had escaped execution by hiding in the woods, but his wife and children had been murdered instead. He didn’t turn around to look at Ryzhkov when he made his introduction, and he didn’t elaborate on any of the details.

After Strilchuk’s sad story, they fell silent. They were driving up a gentle slope, climbing away from the embankment and the historic centre of the city, the road curving to where it opened out upon a church and a wide square, which abruptly ended in a tall wooden palisade. The fence had been built of rough wood and newly cut logs, and a quartet of guardhouses were spaced along the opposite side of the street. Peeking out above the tall fence he recognized it as the house he’d been shown on the way into town.

‘This is the place,’ Strilchuk said, and the chauffeur set the brake. Strilchuk got out to help him, but Ryzhkov was conscious of his own dignity to the point where he made the effort to get out unaided. Giustiniani was at the front of the building, evidently waiting for them. The magistrate Nametkin was with him. They both looked just fine. The gate was opened by a boy in a cut-down artilleryman’s uniform. He snapped to present-arms as they went through. Nametkin thought the boy was funny and kept nudging Giustiniani.

‘Do you let just anybody in here?’ Giustiniani said to the boy. ‘There may have been murder done in this house, you know that, don’t you?’

The boy shrugged spasmodically.

‘This house is the subject of a military investigation. Everyone that comes is required to sign a register. Where is it?’

‘A book, do you mean, Excellency?’

‘Yes, yes, of course. A book. Can you produce it?’ The boy turned and headed for the front door to search for it.

‘Good morning, gentlemen,’ Nametkin said. ‘We need you to translate for our witness. How are you today, Ryzhkov? Hale and hearty?’

‘I’ll last the morning at least,’ he said. ‘What’s this about a witness?’

‘Just inside,’ Nametkin said. They stepped into the foyer. The place was a mess. In the front room there was live ammunition piled on top of the piano. The floor was littered with leaves that had either been blown in or tramped in on the soldiers’ boots and not swept away. Nametkin headed for the staircase. ‘This first floor was the billet of the inner guard,’ he said over his shoulder.

The house had been not so much destroyed as worn down. The upholstery on the furniture had been punctured and spilled out, the legs on some of the chairs had broken and the pieces thrown into the corners. Smells of food gone rancid, the filthy toilets, stale tobacco and sweat lingered in the rooms. ‘The Imperial Family were confined to the five rooms above,’ Nametkin said as they made their way up the central staircase, rounded the banister and walked into the hallway. Even with the windows open the house was stuffy.

‘Up here the guards occupied the area beside the stairs, and the family lived behind these doors,’ Nametkin said and waited for them to catch up. Giustiniani came up last, looking over his shoulders.

Nametkin threw open the double doors and Ryzhkov walked into the Romanovs’ apartments.

He could see the rooms had been taken apart. Every piece of furniture had been moved about and repositioned, the cupboards opened, drawers tipped out and anything of value taken away. It looked like a building that had been repossessed by a series of particularly angry landlords and then abandoned. Underneath it all there was an elusive perfume that still lingered in the dust, in the fabric of the chairs and the bedding. It might be soap or something rotting just from being closed up in the summer.

Nametkin waved his finger at the mess. ‘You and Strilchuk should get a list of all these possessions.’

‘Yes, sir.’ Strilchuk said. Whatever he said it always had that edge in his voice.

‘It’s part of the estate, I suppose,’ Giustiniani murmured. He was standing at the windows. Ryzhkov saw they had been painted over with whitewash from the outside and then the sash had been nailed closed.

‘Well…’ Nametkin made a face. ‘The Romanov estate? Until we have some evidence, I guess it must be assumed…’

Under a chair Ryzhkov saw a book. He stooped and picked it up: Les Bienfaits de la Vièrge. Inside was an inscription to Tatiana –

For my darling…

He slid it back onto the floor.

Around the room, nothing broken, no shards of glass. No blood. Just disarray and petty theft as the Bolsheviks had retreated.

‘Ah, here’s our friend,’ said Nametkin. A guard walked out with a man whose hands were cuffed in front of him. They put him in a chair and Ryzhkov told him to tell his story while Strilchuk wrote it all down.

The witness was one Petr Matok, and he claimed to have been one the guards at the Ipatiev house. In Matok’s version the Imperial Family had been brought to Yekaterinburg in two contingents: the Tsar, Alexandra and their daughter Maria came in April, then about a month later the remaining grand duchesses and the heir Alexei arrived and were taken to the Special House.

In the first week of July the Ural Soviet replaced the commandant of the guard with a Cheka officer named Yakov Yurovsky.

‘Why did they do that?’ Giustiniani asked them man.

‘He was the man from Moscow,’ Matok said, as if that explained everything.

‘So it was orders from the very top, then, eh?’ Nametkin said. Matok only shrugged.

‘Go on,’ Ryzhkov told him.

According to Matok, Yurovsky had grown up in Yekaterinburg and was an experienced revolutionary. He’d been educated, been a photographer, and had acquired sufficient medical experience to act as a doctor for Alexei on one occasion. Things changed with Yurovsky’s arrival: ‘Tthe broom sweeps clean,’ Matok said. He was smiling a little now. No one was beating him up and he wanted to say the right things and keep it that way.

Yurovsky replaced almost all of the guards, dividing them into two groups with no connection to each other: an outer guard of local volunteers to police the approaches to the Ipatiev house where Matok worked, and a strictly isolated inner guard made up of imported Latvian riflemen whom he’d brought with him. The Latvians came with a reputation as reliable enforcers: only a year earlier they’d been the guns that secured the infant Bolshevik revolution.

With the changes the Romanovs gained some privileges while others were taken away. Father Storozhev and his nuns were forbidden from bringing their extra daily rations of eggs and milk. This lasted until one of the doctors protested that the heir suffered from malnutrition, and Yurovsky relented.

‘But then it all changed, you see?’ Matok said, his voice taking on tones of helplessness.

‘Changed? How so?’ Giustiniani prodded.

‘With the Czechs, Excellency,’ Matok said, reflexively bowing to the men standing there over him. Starting in the middle of July there was a sudden clampdown on anyone approaching the Special House. The Czechs were pressing their encirclement of Yekaterinburg, and when Yurovsky wasn’t supervising the additional fortifications to the Special House he spent his time in the telegrapher’s kiosk at the American Hotel asking Moscow for orders, Matok claimed.

‘He was worried about being overun?’

‘Yes, Excellency. We all were worried,’ Matok said, giving a little laugh and another bow.

Then, he said, only a few days later he’d heard the Romanovs had been executed in the night.

‘Heard? Heard from whom? Were you here?’

‘No, Excellency. I had been given leave. I would have been here, because when you were here you got extra food, and you know…I am always hungry,’ he said. Matok looked up at them with big eyes. He didn’t know if he’d told them enough to save his life, and from Giustiniani’s expression the odds weren’t good.

‘So it was all Yurovsky’s doing?’

‘Yes, Excellency. All because of Comrade Yurovsky.’

Nametkin looked to Giustiniani, who sniffed. ‘Take him back,’ he said, and the guard pulled him up out of his chair and took him down the staircase. ‘Well, to me it sounds like a fifth-hand story. “He wasn’t here, he heard from someone else,” you know…all these people come out of the wood-work,’ Giustiniani said with a laugh. ‘For instance, the Tsar is in Harbin – that’s what it says in this morning’s newspaper,’ Giustiniani said, unscrewing a flask and holding it out to Ryzhkov.

‘You want some other wild tales? There was a mysterious telegram received, there was a special armoured train provided by the British that arrived in the middle of the night, there is a secret tunnel connecting with the British consulate, there are mysterious strangers, black aeroplanes that land on the main street and then take off again a few moments later…and so on and so forth.’

Ryzhkov took a short sharp swig of what turned out to be brandy. Excellent brandy, he thought. He offered the flask to Strilchuk, who just looked at him blankly and didn’t even move, then passed it to Nametkin.

Nametkin was searching his pockets. He came out with two pages and unfolded them. ‘This is what we know…’ Nametkin cleared his throat.

‘This is from Gorskov, another of these guards,’ Giustiniani said to Ryzhkov and Strilchuk.

‘We will go by his notes,’ Nametkin said, adjusting his spectacles. ‘“On the night of the 16th last, Yurovsky came up here with several members of the guard, and the Imperial Family were summoned to the dining area…There were trucks placed outside…”’ Nametkin recited.

‘Trucks so they could move them?’ Ryzhkov said. Strilchuk looked over at him. Nametkin shrugged and waved the papers. ‘…“the Romanov women took a certain amount of time, but when they were dressed…” and so on. Some time later –’

‘Didn’t he say “forty-five minutes”?’ Giustiniani’s voice was one note above boredom.

‘Yes, forty-five minutes later they were ready and then they were told that the Ural Soviet had decided to execute them. “They were immediately fired upon…“’ Nametkin read, backing away, and turning to the dining room as if it were going to respond. For a moment they all looked around at the open cupboards and tins spilled out onto the floor.

‘This is a box of hair,’ Strilchuk said. He had found a cigar box and was hefting it as if to determine the weight. The box was stuffed with long curls of at least three different colours of women’s hair. They all gathered around it. Giustiniani stuck his finger in the box and felt beneath the curls. ‘Just hair,’ he said.

‘Hmmph,’ Nametkin said, and returned to his papers. Strilchuk closed the lid on the box and placed it on an end table.

‘”…the Latvians opened fire…”’ Nametkin read. ‘It says that the Latvians immediately opened fire on the family, and at the end of it when they checked the pulses Anastasia was still alive –’

‘In here?’ Ryzhkov said. Nothing of the kind had ever happened in that dining room, he could see. He looked over at Strilchuk who shook his head.

‘– so they beat her with their rifles –’

‘No, they didn’t. Not in here,’ Ryzhkov said.

‘– “stabbed her thirty-two times”.’

‘Not in here,’ Ryzhkov repeated.

‘What, did he stand there and count?’ Strilchuk said.

‘The other story is that this Yurovsky took them down the back staircase –’ Giustiniani put in.

‘And took them into the basement room,’ Nametkin said. Strilchuk walked out into the corridor, already looking for the exit from the dining area.

‘Into a side basement room,’ Nametkin said. ‘Let’s go and find that. The house slopes…’

‘It’s down here, I think.’ Strilchuk led them down the narrow back staircase. At the foot of the stairs there was a portico and a set of four stairs down to wide doors, locked with a hasp and padlock.

‘Christ,’ Giustiniani said. He and Strilchuk went around to the guardhouse to see if anyone had the keys to the room.

Ryzhkov and Nametkin looked around the back of the house. There was a woodshed and a sauna bath, built downhill in the dried-out gardens. There was a smaller area to which the Imperial Family must have been recently confined, the grass worn away to dust, a series of chairs and a table made from a tree stump which still held a soggy newspaper and an oyster-shell ash tray.

‘You know Conte Giustiniani was appointed to make sure we come up with the right answers to this whole enterprise.’ Nametkin said to him.

‘Really?’

‘Oh, yes. General Golitsyn has his deputy, Major de Heuzy, watch Giustiniani, who watches me, and in turn I watch him. It’s all politics, eh?’ Nametkin said. He stood at the end of a little porch that had been built at the end of the bathhouse and looked around at the property. ‘Old Ipatiev. It looks like he put together a pretty nice place for himself.’

‘Yes, it looks like it would have been very peaceful at one time,’ Ryzhkov said, imagining a garden full of grand duchesses running about. At the corner of the stockade was a large gate topped with new barbed wire. ‘The trucks would have been brought in through there,’ he said. The two of them headed up the hill; indeed, the entrance was chewed up, muddy from motor traffic in and out.

Giustiniani walked up with a ring of keys in his hand. ‘He’s just a boy, he can’t read, he can’t find the register, he just gives me the keys because I yell at him a little.’ He fumbled through the keys.

‘Look at this,’ Nametkin said, pointing to the sheen of a cartridge case in the mud outside. Ryzhkov bent to pick it up; much stepped on, clotted with mud and sand. The brass case from a pistol cartridge; he put it in his pocket and stepped back to better appreciate the side wall of the house. There was a short stairway down to the basement doors, a single window looking out from what was supposed to be a storeroom, or perhaps it had once been a bedroom for a servant that had been added on.

Giustiniani had trouble with the lock and Ryzhkov stepped in to help; the old key to the door turned the opposite way. The door creaked open and they hung there on the threshold of the dark room, blinded a little because of the sunshine outside. They pushed the doors open wider to reveal a completely bare space.

And then he saw the bullet holes.

Obviously the shots had come from where they were now standing, their impacts clustered in the wall directly opposite the doorway. There were single holes and then a flurry of others. A lot into the floor as well – too many to count. There should have been blood but there wasn’t, so Ryzhkov walked over to the corner and got down on his knees.

‘It’s been cleaned, I think, yes?’ Strilchuk asked, sniffing.

‘It’s all very tidy,’ Nametkin said. Ryzhkov patted his pockets, and then asked if either of them had a knife. Strilchuk reached into his pocket and came out with a blade.

Ryzhkov used it to winkle a strip of moulding off the floor, a long piece that had come awry, shattered at one end by a bullet. It broke away and he picked it up and carried it to the sunlit doorway.

‘Yes, all cleaned up,’ he said, showing the dark band of blood to Nametkin.

‘I suppose we don’t want to take it apart just yet, eh?’ Strilchuk said, looking around at the room.

‘No, we can wait, but it should be sealed, eh?’ Ryzhkov said.

‘I wouldn’t trust these people to seal a stamp,’ Giustiniani said.

‘How much blood is it, do you think?’ Nametkin asked him.

‘It’s impossible to say. It’s been well cleaned. When you get in the corner you can really smell it. Vinegar too, but there’s the other smell. In this weather you can’t get rid of that. And from the number of bullet holes, it’s more than one person for sure,’ Ryzhkov said.

‘He says eleven,’ Nametkin said, waving the paper at him. ‘He says everybody.’

‘Good God.’ Ryzhkov turned and looked at the room, trying to imagine the press of eleven people gathered in there to be killed – the Tsar, the Tsaritsa, the boy, the four girls. Eleven?

‘Who were the others?’ Strilchuk asked.

‘Their servants. Loyal retainers,’ Giustiniani said in a voice that dripped cynicism.

Ryzhkov tried to imagine the scene. Eleven people, then. Plus, jammed in at the doorway there would have had to be the firing squad. A tightly packed little room. Maybe they’d been done in smaller groups. It would have been easier that way. He started to ask Nametkin about the other victims, but the prosecutor had turned and gone back outside.

Ryzhkov stood there for a few more moments, looking around the storeroom, the crazy splattering of bullet holes, the faint swirls where they’d mopped the floor with vinegar and sand, a sliver of broken threshold – the wood clean and yellow-brown. All of it lit by single barred, dirty window, and the flare of sunshine from the open door.

A collection of rosy shadows across the cheap wallpaper, the faint whiff of cleaning fluid and death.

The end of an empire.

The rest of the day was taken up with a parade of witnesses, a whirl of testimony and common police work. From birth it seemed to be a stuttering, confused murder investigation, pulled administratively between the Czech military under General Golitsyn, and Nametkin’s bosses, the civilian ‘government’ – Kolchak’s dictatorship with its green and white flag. Giustiniani added to the confusion by ratifying everything with a wave of his hand, keeping absolutely no paper record, and referring to Ryzhkov variously as ‘investigator’, ’secretary’ and ‘aide’. In practice Ryzhkov did whatever was required and additionally tried to provide anything Nametkin needed.

Besides Strilchuk, the ‘investigators’ were combined from what was left of the Yekaterinburg police, a sub-standard force of malcontents and traitors who’d found protection by banding together, and augmented by a detachment of soldiers.

Ryzhkov kept his eye on Strilchuk, who went about his work with a set jaw and a stare that never wavered. Giustiniani had also noticed his hard edge. By the afternoon Strilchuk had been moved to the front desk in the office and been given responsibility for coordinating the day-to-day logistics of the investigation.

In the afternoon Ryzhkov took a breather, walked out onto the steps, fished around in his pockets for a smoke, realized he had none, and cadged one off an officer who was standing there. Only a moment later Volkov, the young corporal who was filling in as their secretary, brought him back to the office to hear what a courier from the hospital had to say.

Apparently a Russian officer had turned up at the hospital and demanded to see the commander immediately. His story was that he’d been hiding in the woods, dressed as a peasant, near Koptiaki, a little town only four miles north of Yekaterinburg on the edge of the lake. Early on the morning of 17 July the villagers had been rousted out by Bolshevik guards from the hovels where they had been camped. They’d been told differing stories: the Czechs were coming, there was a dangerous demolition exercise planned for the area, all sorts of things. When morning came and the Bolsheviks had left, they all went back to the site.

When they got there they saw that there had been a fire, and when they poked about in the ashes they discovered charred clothing and several pieces of jewellery.

‘Where is this place?’ Ryzhkov asked.

‘It’s the Ganin pit. That’s the name he told us, Excellency,’ the courier said.

‘Near Koptiaki,’ Strilchuk said. ‘Not far.’

‘Do you know it?’ Giustiniani demanded.

‘Yes. It’s a mine. They are all through the woods, here. An open mine where the coal is close to the top layer of the soil. The peasants dig them. You have to be careful in the woods. You can easily fall in,’ Strilchuk said.

‘Can you take us there?’ Giustiniani pressed Strilchuk.

‘Sure,’ he said, not really deferring to Giustiniani in the way he said it. ‘It’s between here and Koptiaki. You cross the tracks –’

Giustiniani had turned on the courier. ‘Where is this officer now?’

‘Lt Sheremetevsky,’ the courier said, reading from a piece of card, ‘is on the way here, sir. The doctors could not keep him.’

‘And the jewels, the various items, what was it exactly?’

‘A jewelled cross and a brooch,’ the boy read out loudly. ‘They are now downstairs. We thought they should be put in the vault.’

Ryzhkov and Giustiniani went down to the vault to see the jewels. It was just as the boy had said: a cross and what looked like a jewelled pin, something a woman would use to fasten a scarf to her dress. Both had been wrapped and tied in butcher’s paper.

Ryzhkov straightened, his entire body exhausted. His mind was dazzled with the details that were piling up in the case. After breaking down all the stories and trying to tease the truth from the rumours, it was obvious that Yurovsky was now the most wanted fugitive from White justice. Whatever had happened to the Tsar, Yurovsky had been in charge. He had last been seen leaving the city by motor car, about the same time Ryzhkov’s train was dropping off its reinforcements for the Fifth Army.

They must have crossed, Ryzhkov realized suddenly. They might have actually stared at each other on opposite tracks, as Yurovsky escaped the White dragnet and Ryzhkov rushed towards it.

If he could get word back to Zezulin, Yurovsky could be picked up in Moscow. Zezulin could interview him to his heart’s content in the bowels of the Lubyanka, and Ryzhkov’s mission would be over. Maybe everything could be settled in one easy stroke. It was simple, probably too simple, but it was a chance. And if Yurovsky had managed to escape back to Moscow, perhaps he could too.

They went upstairs, sat in the shade on the balcony above the portico and waited for the lieutenant to arrive. Giustiniani was staring out at the filthy expanse of the square and humming.

Ryzhkov thought about the spray of bullet holes in the floor of the Special House’s storeroom. A lot of lead for one emperor. The box of hair that existed for no apparent reason, that stuck out too. ‘We’ll go to the pit tomorrow, yes?’ he said to the Italian.

‘Oh, yes…We’ll go there with shovels.’

They had been waiting for longer than an hour, and the squad of soldiers that Giustiniani had sent to find out why Sheremetevsky was late on his walk from the hospital (only two blocks) had still not returned. Giustiniani spat his cigar stub out into the street. From the corner a peasant stepped out and recovered it, bowing and smiling back at them, then rolled off down the street – bandy legs, filthy clothes and a knotted beard down to his belly.

‘This so-called officer isn’t coming,’ Ryzhkov said to him, and Giustiniani looked around.

‘Yes, I was thinking the same thing. He might not be real.’

They fell silent. Some men came by in a cart that contained a spindly cow, laid out and bawling, obviously ill from the way it was twitching. They got across the square just fine, but then two of the men had to move to the rear and push as the cart climbed the long rise up Voznesensky Prospekt.

It might not be real.

10

He was Wilton, he said. From The Times.

Not only the attention of The Times, but indeed the attention of the whole world was on Yekaterinburg. Yes, it was regrettable, like looking at an atrocity, eh? Looking at something that made you vomit. You got too close to horror and you recoiled. Sometimes the temptation to look away was strong, didn’t they agree? The scene of the murders, the House of Special Purpose, he called it. The bedrooms were awash in blood, Wilton said. The horror was unimaginable. Of course the women, the young grand duchesses in particular, had suffered the most.

‘Raped?’ one of the men asked.

‘Repeatedly. By the entire drunken hoard, then shot.’

‘My God!’

‘Perhaps they are better off…’

‘Do you want another?’ the waiter who’d been tending their portion of the bar asked Ryzhkov. By his accent he was Russian, but he’d picked up an odd ring to his voice. It wasn’t French. Something else.

‘Yes, thank you, comrade.’

‘Comrade!’ The man exploded in laughter. ‘Hah! Yes, here’s to you – comrade! Comrades!’ They all lifted their glasses.

The war was going well, Wilton said. He read every dispatch that came over the wire. White armies were attacking the Bolsheviks from all sides; Denikin and the Cossacks from the south, and now Kolchak and the Czechs from the East. Moreover the British had landed in Archangel and were pushing down the Dvina river from the north. Everyone would converge on the Volga. The Volga was the central highway of Russia. If only the Czechs could keep rushing forward, take Kazan and link up with the British, the Allies and the Whites would be able to advance and capture the ancient city of Nizhni Novgorod.

And from there they would have an open plain to Moscow.

‘Say fini to your red fucking revolution, gentlemen. It’s already as good as lost.’ Wilton smiled and bounced on the balls of his feet. He was dressed in thick woollens even though the weather was still hot, a felt fedora on his head, face shiny with passion and sweat, and a smile like a gash in his skull. He insisted they all have a new drink he’d discovered in Paris.

‘Ivanis!’ he called across the room. He had to shout twice more before the bartender caught their eye and waved to him. ‘He’s the expert in these, boys. Ivanis! Make us one of those ones you did the other night.’

Ivanis came over to him smiling, a dark shock of hair falling into his eyes. Thin like a knife. ‘How can I help you, sir?’ he said.

‘The bloody drink, that Sambo thing you did.’

‘Yes, sir, right away.’

‘Five of them, right? Give us the group rate, eh?’ Wilton said, winking at them. Ivanis went to make the order. ‘You can learn a lot from these fellows, eh? They see everything, hear everything. Somebody wants some information. Who do you ask, eh?’ he said to Ryzhkov.

‘How can I get in touch with the Ural Soviet,’ Ryzhkov said. He’d gone by the house on Kushok Lane at the meal hour, but no one was there. He’d had enough to drink that he figured he might as well ask an expert like Wilton.

‘That’s exactly what I mean,’ Wilton said. ‘The American here is the only place you can get these things,’ Wilton said, looking past them at one of the tables.

From there the evening went downhill.

The saloon in the Hotel American was subject to strange and hectic energies. Contingents of soldiers, adventurers, journalists, consular officers and employees would whirl through, collapse a while, then whirl out again. Among the saloons and salons of the city an ever-widening cruise had begun to develop. The streets in the still-warm nights were clotted with merry-makers and desperadoes. They clung to one another, floating from one watering-hole to the next in search of greater thrills, someone else to swindle, or just simple unconsciousness.

Ryzhkov had opted for the unconsciousness.

The Sambos finally came. They’d grabbed a table by this point and Ryzhkov was seated in his chair, leaning comfortably against the wall, sipping the concoction – a mixture of vodka, coffee and pepper, it took him back to Paris, where he had his first one, the drink having become the rage of the crowd at Café Cine where he pretended to work when Qirenque required. The drink itself was nothing special, only you couldn’t sleep after, and Ryzhkov needed more than anything, he suddenly realized, to sleep.

‘A member of the Ural Soviet,’ Wilton was saying. ‘Well, of course you’d love to put your mitts on one of them. If you get a lead, you call me first, eh?’ he said, lifting his glass. ‘God bless the Alsatians,’ he sipped and murmured.

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