The White Russian

by Tom Bradby

  He watched his boots as he climbed the stone steps.

  The first-floor landing was deserted, the window still open, another palm swaying in the breeze. A fan turned on the ceiling above him.

  Ruzsky crossed the wooden floor toward Pavel’s room. He saw the gold number eleven on the big green door and heard his own knock, though he could barely feel the impact on his knuckles.

  There was no reply.

  He knocked again.

  Ruzsky hammered harder. “Pavel.”

  He waited.

  “Pavel!” he shouted.

  He reached inside his jacket for his revolver. “Pavel!” he bellowed again.

  The corridor and the room within remained silent. No one had come to investigate the source of the shouting.

  Ruzsky put his shoulder to the door and shoved. He stepped back and kicked it. He tried again with his shoulder and it suddenly gave.

  The room was dark, thick, embroidered curtains tightly drawn.

  Pavel Miliutin lay facedown on the bed, a naked arm trailing along the floor.

  Ruzsky did not move. The silent breeze cooled his face. His head spun and he pushed himself forward. He opened his mouth to shout, but no sound came out.

  He reached his friend and heaved him roughly over, pitching him onto the floor.

  The sunlight spilled onto his face. Pavel opened his eyes. “Sandro?” His breath reeked of vodka.

  Ruzsky stood up, gave him a firm kick, and then slumped down on the bed. He saw the bottle of vodka on the floor beside him. “You idiot,” he said.

  Pavel heaved himself up, frowning heavily. He rubbed his eyes. “Why didn’t you answer the door?” Ruzsky asked.

  “What time is it?”

  “Time I got a new deputy.”

  “Be my guest.” Pavel frowned again. “What happened to the door?”

  “You didn’t answer when I knocked. Everyone in the lobby was behaving as if they knew something that I didn’t.”

  “They’ve been like that for days.” Pavel yawned and rubbed his forehead again. “They know we’re being watched.”

  Ruzsky strode forward, tore the curtain back from the window, picked up his revolver from where he had dropped it, and stepped out onto the balcony. The red and white stall on the promenade had disappeared.

  The street was deserted, the light rapidly fading.

  Ruzsky waited, but there was no sign of life. Even the waves seemed quieter.

  He came back into the room. The last of the sunlight illuminated Pavel’s creased face.

  They both heard the quick footsteps of someone running in the street and Ruzsky looked down to see a man in a dark suit-young, with long hair-sprinting with his arm stretched back behind his shoulder.

  For a moment, he was paralyzed, his eyes on the black cylinder as it left the man’s hand.

  Ruzsky took two quick paces and hit Pavel, knocking him to the floor as the bomb thumped against the wooden frame of the balcony door and then fell to the ground.

  There was a moment’s silence.

  The explosion sucked the air from the room, filling it instead with a deafening roar.

  Ruzsky moved his arms first and was relieved to find he could feel the broken glass around him. He tried to push himself to his feet and was able to do so without any pain. He could find no signs of injury, save for some blood on his face.

  He put his hand against the wall to steady himself.

  Pavel was staring at him, his face white. “All right?” Ruzsky asked, but his ears were ringing.

  Ruzsky turned and leaned against the wall.

  The curtain still twisted in the breeze, but the windows had been shattered, along with the woodwork of the door. Pavel pushed himself to his feet. It was clear to both of them that they had been saved by the way the bomb had bounced back off the window frame before exploding, the force of the blast twisting the balcony’s iron balustrade.

  Ruzsky walked toward the door across broken glass, but Pavel moved swiftly to intercept him, a giant hand upon his shoulder. “Where in the hell do you think you’re going?” he bellowed. Pavel had small specks of broken glass in his beard.

  “Let’s find him.”

  “No.” Pavel shook his head and it was clear he was not going to let go. “They’ll be waiting for us.”

  “If we catch the man, we can find who sent him.”

  “We know who did.” Pavel prized Ruzsky’s gun from his hand and shoved it into his own pocket, then wedged the door shut as best he could and manhandled Ruzsky across the room. He pushed him into the chair and sat himself on the bed.

  They watched the red sun sink slowly toward the bay. The wind was still fresh, the world around them quiet.

  There were hushed voices in the road outside.

  “No one is coming,” Ruzsky said.

  Pavel did not answer.

  The voices died away and only the sound of the waves disturbed the peace.

  “No one from the hotel has been up,” Ruzsky said.

  Pavel still didn’t respond.

  “Nor Godorkin.”

  Pavel stood. He took out his own revolver and handed Ruzsky’s back to him, then brushed the glass from his clothes and beard.

  “What should we do?” Ruzsky felt disoriented. He was conscious of how rarely he had looked to Pavel for a lead.

  “They’re waiting for us,” Pavel said. “So we’re not going to give them the satisfaction of wandering out.” He moved toward the door. “I’ll have a look around. You stay here.”

  Pavel pulled back the broken door, his footsteps receding rapidly in the corridor. After he’d gone, Ruzsky took out a cigarette and smoked it.

  The night brought a chill to the air, but he didn’t move. Moonlight crept through the shadows, the smoke melting into it.

  He wondered where she was.

  Ruzsky heard footsteps in the corridor and forced himself to concentrate. He stood and moved as quietly as he could into the darkest corner, facing the door.

  The man was moving fast, with steady, straightforward steps. The door was pushed back and Pavel’s bulky figure silhouetted against the light.

  “I can’t see anyone,” he said. He moved over to the wall to look out of the window. “There is an alley which we can reach from the balcony on the first floor of the far wing.”

  A shot rang out, the bullet thumping against what was left of the woodwork around the window and then ricocheting inside. Pavel slammed himself back against the wall.

  Ruzsky stood. Without a word, he tugged at his partner’s coat and began to drag him in the direction of the door. “We’ll gain nothing by staying.”

  Pavel led the way down the corridor outside, into the darkness of the opposite wing. One of the long windows at the far end was creaking gently in the breeze and Pavel reached it and looked down at the alley below. “Swing from the balcony, drop, and then run. I’ll go first.”

  “No.” Ruzsky pulled him back roughly. “You watch.”

  Ruzsky glanced up and down the lane. On the far side, a tobacconist’s sign swung from a long wooden pole.

  He stepped out onto the balcony, swung himself over, and landed quietly in the dust. The sea glinted in the moonlight and the only sound was the gentle roll of waves onto the shore.

  He crossed to the other side and watched as Pavel jumped.

  Ruzsky pointed down the alley to indicate the direction they should go and then led the way, trying to keep to the shadows. He glanced around the corner. Light spilled from the back of the hotel in a wide arc.

  Ruzsky left the shelter of the wall and began to walk away. He heard a shout and then a shot. He ducked his head and ran, turning to check that Pavel was still with him.

  He pounded over the river, swung left onto Yalta ’s fashionable Pushkinskaya and then right into a narrow alley that led off it. He slowed as he ran up the hill into the warren of Tartar houses.

  They rounded another corner and Ruzsky pulled Pavel to the ground beside him.

  Th
ey looked back down the slope, breathing heavily.

  Two men in dark suits and fedoras dashed into the light. Ruzsky aimed carefully at the first.

  He fired once and watched the man fold. The other ducked into the shadows and shouted for assistance.

  Ruzsky pulled Pavel to his feet.

  They ran again, the alleys getting narrower and steeper, all crisscrossed by lines of washing.

  There were more shouts behind them. Pavel hissed, “Stop,” his voice low but hoarse. Ruzsky waited while his partner regained his breath.

  A window opened above, the alley bathed in light as a woman came to the window. She saw them standing in the darkness opposite and heard the shouts of their pursuers. She stared at them for a moment and then pulled the shutters closed again.

  “Come on,” Ruzsky said.

  They moved at a slower pace, but the warren of alleys gave them the advantage. At the top of the hill, Ruzsky led them across the road and into the shelter of a cypress tree.

  They sat against its trunk, trying to catch their breath. Pavel’s forehead glistened with sweat. Ruzsky watched the road.

  They heard a horse whinny and then saw a cab race up the hill to the crossroads.

  In the moonlight, they could both clearly make out the figure of Ivan Prokopiev climbing out of the cab, the sea shimmering behind him. He was wearing a long black cloak and stood with his hands on his hips, facing the alley up which they had just walked. The horse breathed heavily from the exertion, snorting into the night air.

  Two of their pursuers emerged.

  “No sign,” one said, in response to Prokopiev’s barked question.

  “Impossible,” Prokopiev snapped. “Go back.”

  The men swung around reluctantly and began to jog down the hill. Prokopiev waited for a few minutes and then turned around. Ruzsky wondered whether he had sensed their presence, but they were well hidden.

  They listened to the sound of the cicadas.

  The secret policeman got back into the cab, standing tall as he looked down over the town. Then he sat and barked at the driver to continue along the straight road ahead, disappearing in a cloud of dust.

  Neither Pavel nor Ruzsky moved until he was out of sight.

  They stood in silence. Ruzsky considered lighting a cigarette, then thought better of it.

  “Which way?” Pavel asked.

  “Hold on a minute.”

  “What’s the point in waiting? They’ll be back.”

  “We’re well hidden.”

  Neither man spoke.

  Ruzsky closed his eyes and tried to gather his thoughts. The peace of the night was beguiling.

  “I have something I need to do,” he said eventually. “We can walk over the hill, then get transport from there in the morning. Or you can stay here, and I’ll come back to get you.”

  “What is it that you need to do?”

  “I need to find someone.”

  “Why?”

  “I’ll explain when we get there.”

  “Explain now. Don’t tell me it has to do with the girl.”

  Ruzsky didn’t answer.

  “Sometimes-”

  “I found the names of our victims in Godorkin’s files,” Ruzsky said. “I looked through all the paperwork for 1910 and found nothing. So I tried by name and still drew a blank. Then I found the political files. All three of our corpses were part of a cell of the Black Terror here in Yalta.”

  “The assassins?”

  “Yes.”

  Pavel shook his head sorrowfully.

  “The files detail meetings through the spring and summer of 1910. There are six names in the reports: Ella, the American White, Markov-”

  “The one we found by the Lion Bridge?”

  “Yes. Then a man called Borodin, another woman, and Maria Popova.”

  “Your Maria?”

  “Maria Popova, yes.”

  Pavel was silent. They stared at the crossroads. A crude sign had the word Yalta in one direction and Sevastopol in the other.

  “She is a revolutionary? An assassin?”

  Ruzsky did not respond.

  “So, what did they do, this group?” Pavel asked.

  “In the file that I saw, they were engaged in planning a train robbery. All surveillance was called off two or three weeks before it happened and there are no further references to that or anything else in the file. After it, the records come to an end.”

  “So where is Maria Popova now?”

  Ruzsky sighed heavily. His desire to strike out on his own was overwhelming, but he knew Pavel would never accept it. “She said she was going to a sanatorium to see her sister.” Ruzsky eased himself gently to his feet, leaning against the tree trunk.

  “Did she say which one?”

  “Yes.”

  Pavel stared out to sea, deep in thought. “Did you know she was going to be on that train?”

  Ruzsky hesitated. “Yes.”

  “Did she ask you to join her?”

  “No.”

  “Did she know that you would be coming to Yalta?”

  “No.”

  Pavel looked at him. “If this sanatorium exists, what makes you think she’ll still be there?”

  Ruzsky shrugged.

  “Sandro,” Pavel said, “come on.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “She’s one of them. She has lured you down here into a trap. If she gave you the name of this sanatorium, who is to say they won’t be waiting for us when we get there?”

  “I’ll go alone.”

  “That’s not the point.” Pavel’s voice was gentle and full of compassion. “I understand how you feel, but please face the facts as they are.”

  “I know how it might look,” Ruzsky said softly, “but it’s not like that.”

  “Love is blind.”

  Ruzsky shook his head. “I understand what you say and why, but it’s-”

  “It’s about faith.”

  “Yes.”

  “Well… I trust your judgment. More than anyone’s,” Pavel said.

  “Why don’t you stay here. I’ll-”

  “From now on, we stick together. What was Borodin doing in Yalta?”

  “I don’t know,” Ruzsky replied.

  “This is the same man… the Bolshevik?”

  “I assume so.”

  “Well, what about the American. What was he doing here?”

  Ruzsky shook his head.

  36

  T he sanatorium stood high on the hill overlooking the bay and Ruzsky and Pavel watched its entrance closely as the red dawn stole through the trees around them.

  A nurse in a starched white apron with a cross on her chest wheeled an officer in uniform out of the wide doorway and slowly down the gravel drive. On the still morning air, Ruzsky heard a terrible, hacking cough from inside the hospital’s entrance.

  They could discern no sign of Prokopiev’s men, but Ruzsky found it difficult to concentrate on the possibility of danger. If Maria had no sister here, as Pavel suspected, she was a liar and he’d been played for a fool.

  Ruzsky stood. He nodded at Pavel and walked down the grassy bank to the curved stone porch. The sign next to the entrance announced that this was the Yalta Convalescent Home, but a newly painted one above the reception desk bore the title Tatyana Committee Convalescent Home. A large icon hung on the wall next to it.

  The charitable initiatives of the Tsar’s second daughter still had a long reach.

  The elderly porter summoned a nurse. She was a stiff, formal woman in her fifties or sixties with dark hair pulled back from her forehead and tied behind her neck. Ruzsky realized that he must look disheveled and scruffy. He had not shaved and could feel the fatigue behind his eyes.

  “Popova?” she said, in response to his inquiry. “No. We have no one of that name.”

  The nurse frowned in response to the desolation he could not keep from his face. An intense blanket of loneliness enveloped him. “Who are you, may I ask?” she went on.


  Ruzsky responded slowly, pulling the papers from his pocket. “Chief Investigator Alexander Ruzsky,” he said quietly, “Petrograd City Police Criminal Investigation Division.”

  The nurse looked at his papers, examining the photograph and then checking his face. She handed them back. “You are a long way from home, Chief Investigator.” Her voice and expression were sympathetic, as though she sensed something of the scale of his anguish, if not its cause.

  He did not respond. It was not possible, he told himself, that the emotion of those days at Petrovo was an illusion.

  It still felt utterly real.

  “What is it that you seek?”

  Ruzsky felt suddenly, crushingly tired. He wondered if he should leave immediately; was this another trap? He scanned the lobby and looked over his shoulder toward the bank where Pavel was hiding. He could make out nothing amiss.

  “What is it that you want?” the nurse repeated.

  “We were looking for a woman called Maria Popova,” Ruzsky said. “But it is no matter.”

  “Why do you seek her?”

  Ruzsky saw that she was curious. “I’m conducting a murder investigation.”

  “Is she a suspect?”

  It was an odd question. “No.”

  The nurse looked at him steadily. “I don’t know a Maria Popova,” she said. “Did you expect her to be a patient?”

  “No.”

  “A nurse, then?”

  “No, not a nurse. She came down to Yalta from Petrograd to see her sister. She told me the girl was a patient here.”

  Ruzsky saw a flicker of recognition and his pulse quickened.

  The nurse shook her head carefully. “We have no one called Popova.”

  “But the name is familiar to you?”

  “No.”

  Ruzsky waited.

  “The woman I seek,” he said, “is tall, with long dark hair. She is strikingly beautiful. She-”

  “We have a Catherine Bulyatina. She has a sister named Maria who came to visit her from Petrograd yesterday.”

  Ruzsky’s spirits rose. “Bulyatina?”

  “Yes.”

  “Catherine Andreevna?” Ruzsky asked. Maria’s patronymic was also Andreevna. It was too much of a coincidence. They must share the same father. One or other had changed her surname. “The girl here is Catherine Andreevna?”