by Sam Eastland
‘What happened on that day?’
‘It was my birthday. The week before, when my father asked me what I wanted, I told him I would like a ride in the tank. At first, he said it was impossible. My mother would never allow it. But then he said that if I promised not to tell her, he would take me out in the machine, out into the proving ground. My mother thought he had forgotten about the birthday altogether. They started arguing. By then, I almost didn’t care.’
‘Why not?’ asked Pekkala.
‘Maximov sent me a letter. A letter in a birthday card.’
‘What did the letter say?’
‘He told me that my parents were splitting up. He said he thought I should know, because they weren’t going to tell me themselves.’
‘They were going to tell you,’ said Pekkala, ‘as soon as you moved back to Moscow. It was for the best, Konstantin. Besides, this was none of Maximov’s business. And why would he tell you on your birthday?’
‘I don’t know,’ replied Konstantin. ‘For news like that, one day is as bad as another.’
‘Do you still have that letter?’
Konstantin pulled a canvas wallet out of his pocket. From a jumble of crumpled banknotes and coins, he removed the folded letter. ‘I must have read it a hundred times by now. I keep waiting for the words to tell me something different.’
Pekkala looked at the letter. He couldn’t read it very well in the dark, but from what he could see, it was exactly as Konstantin described. ‘May I keep this for a while?’ he asked.
‘I don’t need it any more,’ the boy whispered. He seemed close to tears. Everything seemed to be catching up with him at once.
‘Did you tell your parents what was in the letter?’ asked Pekkala, folding the page and placing it inside his ID book for safekeeping.
‘What would be the point of that?’ asked Konstantin. ‘I was always afraid they would break up. When I read the letter, a part of me already knew. And I knew Maximov would never lie. He looked after me. More than my own parents.’
‘So what did you do?’
‘I met up with my father, just as we had planned. He brought me to the proving ground and let me drive the tank, through the puddles, over the bumps, sliding around in the mud. My father was enjoying himself. It was one of the few times I had ever seen him laughing. I should have been enjoying myself, too, but all I could think about was Maximov’s letter. The more I thought about it, the more angry I became with my father; that he had chosen this damned machine over our family. I couldn’t stand the thought of him hurting me and my mother any more than he’d already done. We stopped the tank out in the middle of the proving ground, in the middle of a muddy pit. We sank down into it. I thought the water would pour in at any moment. I was afraid we were going to drown inside that tank. But my father wasn’t worried. He said this machine could drive through anything. We couldn’t hear each other properly. It was too noisy in the driving compartment. So we kept the engine running, put the gears in neutral and climbed out on top of the turret.’
‘And what happened then?’ asked Pekkala.
‘He turned to me, and suddenly he wasn’t laughing any more. “Whatever happens,” he said, “I want you to know that I love your mother very much.” He started to climb back inside. That was when the gun fell out of his pocket. It landed on the back of the tank, just above the engine compartment. Because I was closest to it, my father asked me to fetch it, so I did. Until I picked up the pistol, I hadn’t thought about hurting him, I swear it. But then I started thinking about what he had just said – about loving my mother. I couldn’t bear to let him tell me such a lie and get away with it. He was standing on the turret with his back to me, looking out over that muddy field as if it was the most beautiful place on earth.’
‘And that was when you shot him?’
The boy didn’t answer his question. ‘I had been so furious with him only a second before, but when I saw him fall into the water, all of that anger suddenly disappeared. I couldn’t believe what I’d done. I don’t know how to say this, Inspector, but even with the gun in my hand, I wasn’t even sure I had done it. It was as if someone else had pulled the trigger. I don’t know how long I stood there. It felt like a long time, but it may only have been a few seconds. Then I climbed back inside the tank, put it in gear and tried to drive it out of the pit.’
‘Why?’
‘I panicked. I thought maybe I could make it look like an accident. No one else knew I was with my father that day. Even my mother didn’t know. But I didn’t really understand how to work the engine. When I was halfway out of the pit, the motor stalled and the machine slid back into the water. My father’s body was crushed under the tracks. Then I got out and ran to the supply building. I hid there for a long time. I was covered in mud. I was too scared to move. But then, when the soldiers arrived, I knew I had to get away, so I bolted into the woods. That was when you came after me, and when Captain Samarin was killed.’
‘But how did you know the safe path through those woods? Weren’t you afraid of the traps?’
‘My father hammered little metal discs into the trees. There is a colour scheme. Red, blue, yellow. As long as you keep following that sequence of colours, you are on a safe path through the woods. He never told that to anyone else except me.’
Already, in his mind, Pekkala had begun to run through exactly what would happen to Konstantin now. He was old enough to be tried as an adult. Whatever the extenuating circumstances, he would almost certainly be executed for his crime. Pekkala thought back to his first conversation with Konstantin, when the boy had pleaded with him to track down his father’s killers. ‘Find them,’ Konstantin had said. ‘Find them and put them to death.’ Hidden in those words, spoken to the man whom Konstantin must have known would one day track him down, was an acceptance of the penalty he realised he’d have to pay.
‘Please believe me, Inspector,’ pleaded Konstantin, ‘I was not trying to harm you. I saw Maximov’s car coming down the road and I thought it must be him. I don’t even understand why you are here.’
‘Your mother called me. She was worried about you, after Maximov’s visit this evening. His car was the only one available. What I don’t understand, Konstantin, is that if you trusted Maximov, why were you trying to kill him just now?’
‘Because, after everything that’s happened, I don’t know who to trust any more. When he showed up this evening, he had gone wild. We yelled at him to go away and I believed that was the end of it, but when I saw his car coming back, I thought he was going to kill us.’
‘For what it’s worth,’ said Pekkala, ‘I don’t think Maximov would ever try to hurt you. I do believe that, in his own way, he really loves your mother.’ Pekkala’s bruises were beginning to throb. ‘Why did you run into the forest after he left?’
Konstantin shrugged with a gesture of helplessness. ‘Maximov said my mother had been having an affair. I was afraid he might be telling the truth and I could not bear to hear my mother say the words.’
‘He was telling the truth. I know he shouldn’t have written that letter or said anything about your mother’s affair, but people do some strange things when they are in love. Believe me, Konstantin, very strange things.’
Konstantin’s voice cracked. ‘So it wasn’t my father’s fault that he and my mother were splitting up.’
‘I’m sure if your father were here,’ said Pekkala, ‘he would tell you they were both to blame.’ He rested his hand on Konstantin’s shoulder. ‘I need you to come with me now.’ One glance at Maximov’s car told Pekkala that it wasn’t going anywhere. ‘We’ll have to travel on foot.’
‘Whatever you say, Inspector.’ His voice sounded almost relieved.
Pekkala had seen this kind of thing before. For some people, the burden of waiting to be caught was far worse than whatever might happen to them afterwards. He had known men to walk briskly to their deaths, bounding up the gallows steps, impatient to be gone from this earth.
It
was a January morning. Ice floes drifted down the Neva river into Petrograd, then drifted out again with the tide, heading for the Baltic Sea.
In a small motor launch, Pekkala, the Tsar and his son the Tsarevich Alexei, travelled out towards the grim ramparts of the prison island of St Peter and St Paul.
The three of them stood huddled in their coats, while the launch pilot manoeuvred around miniature icebergs, twisting like dancers in the current. Alexei wore a military uniform without insignia and a fur cap, exactly matching the clothes of his father.
They had set out before dawn from Tsarskoye Selo. Now, several hours later, the sun had risen, reflecting pale and milky off the huge stones which made up the outer walls of the prison.
‘I want you to see this,’ the Tsar had told Pekkala, after summoning him to his study.
‘What is the nature of the visit, Majesty?’
‘You’ll know when we get there,’ replied the Tsar.
As they arrived at the island, the fortress towering above them, its battlements like blunted teeth against the dirty winter sky. Leathery streamers of seaweed clung to the lower walls and the waves which slapped against the stone looked as thick and black as tar.
Alexei was lifted from the boat and the three of them walked up the concrete ramp to the main prison door.
Inside, a guard in a greatcoat which reached to his ankles escorted them down a series of stone steps to a level under ground. Here, frost rimed the walls and the damp chill seeped through their clothing. Pekkala had been here before, but never in winter. It did not seem possible that anyone could survive in these conditions for long. And he knew that in the spring, conditions in the dungeons were even worse, when the cells flooded knee-deep in water.
The only light in this stone corridor was an oil lamp carried by the guard, illuminating small wooden doors built into the walls. The guard’s shadow teetered drunkenly ahead of him.
The guard led them to one cell and opened the door. Behind the door was a set of bars which formed a second door, so that those on the outside could see who’d been confined inside, without any risk of letting them escape.
When the guard held up the lamp Pekkala looked through the bars at a man strangely hunched on the ground. Only his knees and elbows and the tips of his toes touched the floor. His head rested in his hands and he appeared to be asleep.
Alexei turned to the guard. ‘Why is he like that?’
‘The prisoner is preserving his body heat, Excellency. That is the only way he will not freeze to death.’
‘Tell him to get up,’ said the Tsar.
‘On your feet!’ boomed the guard.
At first, the man did not move. Only when the guard jangled his keys, ready to burst into the cell and haul the man up, did the prisoner finally stand.
Pekkala recognised him now, although just barely. It was the killer Grodek, convicted two months previously for leading an attempt on the life of the Tsar. The trial had been swift and held in secret. After the verdict, Grodek, who was barely older than Alexei himself, had disappeared into the catacombs of the Russian prison system. Pekkala assumed that Grodek had simply been executed. Even though he had failed to assassinate the Tsar, to attempt it, or even to speak of it, was a capital offence. In addition, Grodek had managed to kill several Okhrana agents before Pekkala caught up with him on the Potsuleyev bridge. It was more than enough to consign this young man to oblivion.
Now only the shape of Grodek’s face looked familiar to Pekkala. His hair had been shaved off, and scabies sores patched the large dome of his scalp. Prison clothing hung in rags from his emaciated body and his skin bore the grey polished look of filth which was as old as his imprisonment. His sunken eyes, which had appeared so alert at the trial, stared huge and vacant from their bluish sockets.
Grodek backed against the wall, shivering uncontrollably, his arms crossed over his chest. To Pekkala, it was hard to believe that this was the same person who had shouted defiantly from the witness stand, cursing the monarchy and everything it stood for.
Grodek squinted at the light of the oil lamp. ‘Who’s there?’ he asked. ‘What do you want from me?’
‘I have brought someone to see you,’ said the guard.
Now the Tsar turned to the guard. ‘Leave us,’ he ordered.
‘Yes, Majesty.’ The guard set down the lantern and made his way back along the corridor, touching the walls with his hands to find his way.
Now that he was no longer blinded by the lantern light, Grodek could see his visitors. ‘Mother of God,’ he whispered.
The Tsar waited until the sound of the guard’s footsteps had faded away before he spoke to Grodek. ‘You know me,’ he said.
‘I do,’ replied Grodek.
‘And my son, Alexei,’ said the Tsar, resting his hands on the young man’s shoulders.
Grodek nodded but said nothing.
‘This man,’ the Tsar said to Alexei, ‘is guilty of murder, and of attempted murder. He tried to kill me, but he failed.’
‘Yes,’ said Grodek. ‘I failed, but I have set something in motion that will end in your death, and the termination of your way of life.’
‘You see!’ said the Tsar, raising his voice for the first time. ‘You see how he is still defiant?’
‘Yes, Father,’ said Alexei.
‘And what is to be done with him, Alexei? He is your own blood; a distant relative, but family all the same.’
‘I don’t know what should happen,’ said the boy. His voice was trembling.
‘Some day, Alexei,’ said the Tsar, ‘you will have to make decisions about whether men like this live or die.’
Grodek stepped forward to the middle of the cell, where the imprints of his knees and elbows dented the mud beneath his feet. ‘It may come as a surprise that I have nothing against you or your son,’ he said. ‘My struggle is against what you stand for. You are a symbol of all that is wrong with the world. It is for this reason that I have fought against you.’
‘You have also become a symbol,’ replied the Tsar, ‘which I suspect was what you wanted all along. And as for your noble reasons for attempting to shoot me in the back, they are nothing but lies. But I did not come here to gloat over your current situation. I came here because, in a few moments, my son will decide what is to be done with you.’
Alexei turned to look at his father, as confused and frightened as the young man behind the bars.
‘But I am to be executed,’ said Grodek. ‘The guards tell me that every day.’
‘And that may still happen,’ replied the Tsar, ‘if my son decrees it.’
‘I don’t want to kill that man,’ said Alexei.
The Tsar patted his son on the shoulder. ‘You will not kill anyone, Alexei. That is not your task in life.’
‘But you are asking me to say if he should die!’ protested the boy.
‘Yes,’ replied the Tsar.
Grodek dropped to his knees, his hands resting palm-up on the floor. ‘Excellency,’ he addressed the Tsarevich. ‘You and I are not so different. In another time and place, we might even have been friends. What separates us is only these bars and the things we have seen in this world.’
‘Are you innocent?’ asked Alexei. ‘Did you try to kill my father?’
Grodek was silent.
Water dripped somewhere in the shadows. They heard waves break against the fortress walls, like thunder in the distance.
‘Yes, I did,’ said Grodek.
‘And what would you do now,’ asked the Tsarevich, ‘if I opened this door and let you out?’
‘I would go far away from here,’ Grodek promised. ‘You would never hear from me again.’
Already, the damp of this dungeon had worked its way into Pekkala’s skin. Now he shuddered as it coiled around his bones.
Alexei turned to his father. ‘Do not execute this man. Keep him here in this cell for the rest of his life.’
‘Please, Excellency,’ Grodek begged. ‘I never see the sun. The food they gi
ve me is not fit even for a dog. Let me leave! Let me go away. I’ll disappear. I’d rather die than stay any longer in this cell.’
Turning again, Alexei fixed Grodek with a stare.’Then find a way to kill yourself,’ he replied. The fear had gone from his eyes.
Before they left, the Tsar brought his face close to the bars. ‘How dare you say you are the same as him? You are nothing like my son. Remember this. Alexei will rule my country when I’m gone, and if you live to see that day, it will be because he is merciful to animals like you.’
Heading back across the water, Pekkala stood beside the Tsar. He breathed in deeply, filling his lungs with the cold salt air and chasing the stench of that prison from his lungs.
‘You think me cruel, Pekkala?’ asked the Tsar. He faced straight ahead, scanning the shore.
‘I don’t know what to think,’ Pekkala replied.
‘He needs to learn the burden of command.’
‘And why bring me to see it, Majesty?’
‘One day he will rely on you, Pekkala, as I am relying on you now. You must know his strengths and weaknesses better than he knows them himself. Above all, his weaknesses.’
‘What do you mean, Majesty?’
The Tsar glanced at him and looked away again. A layer of frost had formed where his breath touched the lapels of his coat. ‘When I was young, my father brought me to that island. He took me to the dungeon and showed me a man who had conspired to murder him. I had to make the same choice as Alexei.’
‘And what did you do, Majesty?’
‘I shot the man myself.’ The Tsar paused. ‘My son has a gentle heart, Pekkala, and you and I both know that in this world all gentleness is crushed eventually.’
Less than five years later, having been released by Revolutionary guards from the prison of St Peter and St Paul, Grodek caught up with the Romanovs in the town of Ekaterinburg in western Siberia. It was there, in the basement of a house belonging to a merchant named Ipatiev, that Grodek shot the young Tsarevich, and all the other members of his family.
Pekkala and Konstantin made their way along the dark road, headed towards the facility.
