by Tom Bradby
There was another scream, a boy’s, high-pitched and heartfelt. This time the Empress stood, turned, and departed without a word.
Ruzsky listened to her rapid footsteps. “Colonel Shulgin. I very much need to-”
“Later, Chief Investigator. Please bear in mind where you are.”
At length, the Empress returned. She offered no explanation, nor apology, and after they had repeated their bows and seated themselves once more, she stared at the floor. Ruzsky wondered if she was having difficulty remembering why he was here, or even who he was. A phrase from his father’s letter echoed in his mind: She has become quite unhinged…
What struck him most was how tired she looked; in fact more than tired. He himself was exhausted, and so, by the look of it, was Shulgin, but the fatigue in the Tsarina’s eyes was of a wholly different nature. Her face and mouth were pinched, her eyes hollow. She gave the impression of having to exert a gigantic effort of will simply to articulate a question.
“You have not recovered…” She sighed and placed her head in her hand for a moment, as if once again having to steel herself to think straight. “You have not recovered the girl’s possessions?”
Ruzsky did not answer. He could not imagine what he was supposed to say.
“The chief investigator is primarily conducting a murder investigation,” Shulgin said. Ruzsky noticed the tension in his voice and face. He wondered whether any of them had had any sleep.
The Empress did not appear to understand. She frowned heavily at Shulgin.
“This is the chief investigator, ma’am. Chief Investigator Ruzsky. He was assigned to investigate Ella’s murder. Since then, there have been three more victims.”
“But you have still not recovered her… possessions?”
Ruzsky stared at the Empress. He wondered if she was on some kind of sedative. “No, Your Majesty.”
“Then why have you come here?”
There was silence.
“You instructed me to summon him, ma’am,” Shulgin said. The strain in his voice was barely hidden now.
“He has not got to the bottom of it.”
“No, ma’am. He has not.”
They heard a soft patter of feet. Ruzsky caught his breath. For a moment, he thought he’d seen a ghost. A girl with a shaven head, dressed completely in white, hovered in the doorway.
Anastasia. It was the Grand Duchess Anastasia.
Ruzsky could not take his eyes off her. She looked pale and unwell. There were deep shadows under her eyes. It had been two weeks ago that he’d seen her playing in front of the Alexander Palace with her brother and sisters, her long, dark hair framing a face of exceptional beauty.
“Mama?”
Anastasia came to her mother and whispered something in her ear.
The Empress hugged her, and Ruzsky noticed the way in which her mother’s fingers dug into her back as she held her.
The Tsarina released her daughter reluctantly. Anastasia smiled shyly at Ruzsky and Shulgin and then withdrew, glancing once more over her shoulder as she reached the doorway.
The Empress stood and followed.
“Measles?” Ruzsky whispered, pointing at his hair.
Shulgin nodded.
Ruzsky waited. The minutes ticked by, but Shulgin did not meet his eye. “Why am I here?” he asked.
“Because the Empress summoned you.”
“But why-”
“No reason is required, Chief Investigator.”
“May I be assured that you will speak to me when this audience is at an end?”
Shulgin sighed. “Your father’s death will be discussed at the Imperial Council tomorrow morning. In the meantime, I am empowered to offer my most profound condolences.”
They heard the Empress’s footsteps. As she reentered the room, she appeared to be in some pain.
She sat awkwardly, and looked at him. “You have not found the girl’s possessions?”
“I was not aware, Your Majesty, that we were looking-”
“So, you have not found them?”
Shulgin’s eyes flashed a warning.
“No, Your Majesty,” Ruzsky said.
“You have found nothing, then?”
They endured another lengthy silence.
“Have you spoken to Mr. Vasilyev?”
“On a number of occasions, Your Majesty.”
“You are working together on the case?”
“Together… yes.”
Shulgin leaned forward. “The chief investigator’s father was the assistant minister of finance, ma’am, if you recall…”
“Yes,” she said.
Ruzsky waited for condolences to be offered, but the Empress continued to look straight through him.
“Very reliable family,” Shulgin added.
“Is that reliable in the general sense, or the specific?” she asked. “As reliable as most of our reliable families?” The Empress glared at Shulgin before turning her attention back to Ruzsky. She seemed more alert now. “Your father met with an accident?”
Ruzsky hesitated. “Yes.”
“I’m sorry for it.”
“That’s kind of you, Your Majesty.”
“Does this mean you will give up on the case?”
“Of course not.”
Her expression became opaque once more. “But you have not yet recovered any of the girl’s possessions,” she said again.
“No, Your Majesty. We were not aware any were missing.”
“Has he spoken to that filthy newspaper?” she snapped at Shulgin.
“No, ma’am. Vasilyev has taken care of that.”
“But they will not be publishing what the American took to them? We have a guarantee of that?”
“Yes.”
They heard another cry. It was fainter now, but Ruzsky could see the son’s pain mirrored in the mother. “Yes,” she said, distracted. “Well…”
For a moment, Ruzsky saw the despair in Shulgin’s eyes, before the colonel lowered his head and stared at the floor. The Empress stood. “I wish to be informed immediately when you have recovered the girl’s possessions. I wish this matter to be given the most urgent priority. I don’t want to have to go through this again.”
Anastasia and one of her elder sisters had returned to the doorway. They stared silently, round-eyed, at the two men who had been occupying their mother’s attention. As the Empress reached them, she bent and placed her arms around their shoulders, ushering them gently from the room.
Ruzsky watched Shulgin staring into the empty doorway.
The court official forced himself back to the present, sighed deeply, and stood. He muttered something under his breath, before leading Ruzsky back down the corridor. All the doors were shut, but Ruzsky could still hear the young boy’s whimpering.
In the hallway, Ruzsky accepted his coat.
“I’m sorry,” Shulgin said.
“The American took the material Ella stole to a newspaper?”
Shulgin glanced around him to be sure they were alone. “The Bourse Gazette.” He hesitated. “I’m sorry I brought you here, but she insisted.”
“I had the impression that you and my father were old friends.”
Shulgin stared at him with hollow eyes. “Your father knew too much, Sandro. And so do I.”
“As the minister responsible for the State Bank, he had to sign papers authorizing any movement of the gold reserves from the central vault?”
“If he told you that, then he should not have.”
“He was reluctant to sign the papers?”
“I simply cannot discuss this.” Shulgin sighed. “He had his reservations.”
“Vasilyev persuaded you all that this was necessary?”
“Mr. Vasilyev is in possession of much intimidating and unpleasant information.” A muscle in Shulgin’s cheek had begun to twitch. “I needed little persuading of the seriousness of our predicament.” Shulgin looked over his shoulder again, aware that he had raised his voice.
“So m
y father signed the papers?”
Shulgin avoided Ruzsky’s eye, but he did not deny it.
“But he wanted to countermand his order? That’s why he called the meeting with Vasilyev?”
“He did not telephone me before the meeting.”
“You must know that Vasilyev’s intention was-and is-robbery. He had assembled the group, of which Ella was a part, for precisely that purpose.”
“The group you refer to has dedicated itself to creating great difficulties for the government and its servants, and in that, I may say, it has been very successful, thanks largely to the activities of that silly, misguided girl.”
“Vasilyev knew all of these people in Yalta. Borodin may appear to be their leader, but Vasilyev-”
“He has infiltrated the group most successfully, for which we should all be grateful.”
“He controls them.”
“He is able to provide substantial reports on their activities, which the Emperor, in particular, appreciates.”
“They’re Vasilyev’s creatures. I have seen the evidence with my own eyes.”
“Well, then, present it. I am not at liberty to mistrust a government colleague upon whose advice so much now rests.”
“He has convinced you that today or tomorrow will bring revolutionary activity on such a scale that the regime’s wealth must be put beyond the reach of the mob?”
“That is a matter upon which I cannot and must not comment.” There was a stubborn determination to Shulgin now.
“My father didn’t trust him,” Ruzsky said.
“That’s not a matter for me.”
“And neither do you.”
“I have no choice,” Shulgin hissed, his face moving closer to Ruzsky’s, his eyes blazing. “The publication of the material stolen from the Empress’s private quarters would have the most damaging possible consequences.”
“What was stolen?”
“I cannot say. And do not press me. As the Empress has indicated, the details are not a matter for the city police department.”
“She brought me here only to ask about her stolen possessions.”
“She is naturally concerned and, at times, confused, about to whom she has spoken, and to whom she has not.”
Ruzsky looked at Shulgin. He could see the futility of his task. “Whatever Ella stole could be the final nail in the Romanov coffin,” he said. “Or so Vasilyev has claimed. But my father realized what he really had in mind.”
“Good day, Chief Investigator.”
Ruzsky turned away, but as he did so, he caught a glimpse of Shulgin’s unguarded expression. He had the look of a man who has felt someone walking across his grave.
53
T he offices of the Bourse Gazette were close to Sennaya Ploschad, in a nondescript gray building in a narrow side street. As the droshky driver dropped Ruzsky and Pavel off at the entrance, a black automobile drew to a halt twenty yards away, on the opposite side of the road.
Their surveillance had been stepped up.
A porter ushered them through the ground floor, past a series of giant black printing presses, to a steel staircase that led up to the editor’s office. As they passed through the newsroom, the noise and bustle fell away, and they were greeted by looks of hostility.
Ruzsky was glad of Pavel’s robust company.
The editor was much younger than he’d expected, in his twenties or early thirties, with dark hair that hung to his shoulders and a long, narrow nose. He had bony hands, which he kept clasped together in front of his face and did not move as the porter introduced them.
“How can we help you gentlemen?”
There was another man behind him, standing in front of a series of framed pages of the newspaper and a photograph of a man whom Ruzsky took to be their proprietor. Both wore the expression of carefully cultivated disdain he had come to expect from the Petrograd intelligentsia. Another slipped into the room behind them, a notebook and pen in his hand. He was even younger, and slouched in the corner, his manner was deliberately disrespectful. “I don’t think we’ll need the office boy,” Ruzsky said.
“I demand that you do not threaten us.” The editor got to his feet.
“You demand?” Ruzsky said.
Pavel stepped forward, his manner conciliatory. “We are conducting a criminal investigation.”
“And we are a newspaper,” the editor countered.
For a moment, nobody moved, then Pavel took one pace toward the young man, picked him up and threw him out of the room, then slammed the door shut. An overcoat hanging on the back of it fell to the floor.
“How dare-”
“Sit down,” Pavel ordered. The man did as he was told and glowered at them in silence.
“I apologize for our ill humor,” Ruzsky said.
The men glanced at each other, without speaking.
Ruzsky seated himself, trying to shake off his fatigue. He scratched his cheek. “I am Chief Investigator Ruzsky,” he said. “This is my deputy, Pavel Miliutin.”
The men stared at them.
“We are investigating a series of murders. You may recall that two bodies were found on the Neva on January first.”
“A series of murders?” the editor asked, his curiosity aroused.
“Yes.”
“The two bodies on the Neva?”
“And two more since.”
The men frowned.
“A man at the Lion Bridge with his head almost severed about ten days ago, and a woman close to the Finland Station yesterday.”
He could see he had their attention now. “An American came to see you,” Ruzsky went on. “Just before the first murders. His name was Robert White, though he may have used an alias.”
“Anyone who visits this office with information does so on a guarantee of anonymity.”
“He’s dead.”
Pavel took the photographs from a folder he had tucked under his arm and spread them out on the desk.
“This is the man who came to see you?” Ruzsky pointed at the American’s corpse.
Neither man answered. They were staring at the photographs, which appeared to be having the desired effect.
“Whitewater,” the editor said quietly. “That was the name he gave.”
“What did he want?” Pavel asked.
“He said he had some material that would be of interest to us.”
“What kind of material?”
“He didn’t say.”
Ruzsky stared at them. “‘Explosive’ is what I imagine he told you.”
“We have done nothing wrong,” the editor said.
“No one has suggested that you have.”
The man looked at the photographs again. He pulled over the picture of the bodies on the Neva. “Who is the girl?” the editor asked.
“You don’t know her?”
The man shook his head. He glanced at the photograph of the body at the Lion Bridge. “Who was he?”
“His name was Markov. He was from Yalta.”
“From Yalta?”
“Yes. Both men, and the woman at the Finland Station, were stabbed repeatedly. It’s possible the murders had something to do with the material you were being offered.”
Neither man met his eye.
“What was it?” Ruzsky asked.
Ruzsky could see that White had told them exactly what he had in his possession. “It was revealing,” he went on. “That’s what they told you. Something revealing that related to the personal lives of the imperial family…”
The editor put the photographs back in a pile and moved them to the other side of the desk, as if trying to distance himself from them.
“He said it was evidence we would wish to print.”
“Evidence?”
“Yes.”
“Of what?”
The editor shrugged. “Of the corruption of the Romanovs.”
“What kind of evidence?”
“He was… vague about the detail.”
“Where did he s
ay he had got this material?” Ruzsky asked.
“He didn’t.”
“An American walks in alone, off the street, and promises you material such as this and you believe him?”
“He did not come in off the street. Nor was he alone.”
“He was with the girl?” Ruzsky pointed at the top photograph. “With Ella.”
“Not with her.”
“Who then?”
“I do not feel inclined to tell you.”
“Someone you knew?”
“Someone whose sympathies we know of.” The editor smiled. He had recovered his confidence. “We wished to examine the material,” he said, smugly. “That was all.”
“What proof did they offer that it was genuine?”
“We did not get that far.”
“You were told that the material had been stolen?”
“It was intimated. But, as you will understand, we did not wish to investigate that too closely until we had at least had sight of it.”
“You were told you could meet the woman who had acquired it?” Ruzsky asked. He leaned forward and pointed at the picture of Ella’s bloodied body on the ice. “They told you this girl worked out at Tsarskoe Selo from where the material you were promised was stolen?”
“Naturally, we would have handed any stolen property over to the police.”
“Naturally. You planned a private printing?”
Neither man answered.
“Why did they offer you this material?” Pavel said.
“They did not say.” The editor held his gaze.
“The American came with a man?”
“No.”
“A woman. Did she give you her name?”
“I cannot give you the woman’s identity,” he said calmly.
“The material was never delivered?” Ruzsky asked.
The editor shook his head.
“But you were expecting it?”
“The agreement was that it would be delivered this morning before eight.” The editor looked at the clock on the wall beside him. It had just gone three. “And, upon verification, we’d have printed for tomorrow morning. I imagine your presence means it is unlikely we will ever receive it.”
“It was supposed to be delivered today?”
“That is correct.”
“You set a deadline?”
