Andrew Williams - To Kill a Tsar

He found a seat at the end of a row, opposite a man in his sixties with a full grey beard who smelt of pipe tobacco. He was huffing over the French language Journal de St Petersbourg , shaking his bald head in disgust, much to the undisguised irritation of his neighbours at the table. Taking his journal from his medical bag, Hadfield pushed it into the circle of light beneath the brass table lamp and settled back to wait. It was too cold to walk far but there was a pleasant confectioner’s opposite the library that served hot chocolate and cake.

‘They always blame the Jews.’ The grey beard opposite had lowered his paper and was addressing Hadfield in a very audible whisper. ‘Some ignorant muzhiks in Kiev are driving them from their homes. For God’s sake, how can you blame Jews for the attack on the emperor?’

He was interrupted by his neighbour — a well-to-do student, judging from his clothes and the silver pince-nez on a ribbon he was twirling foppishly in his hand — who hissed at him and wagged a patronising forefinger.

‘Don’t shush me,’ the old man replied indignantly, shaking his newspaper at the student. ‘Show more respect!’

‘This is a library.’

‘I know that, you ignoramus. I come here every day.’

Heads turned and one of the library supervisors in the gallery above the main floor began to make his way to the stairs.

‘Tell him to be quiet.’

‘Tell me yourself!’

For some reason both men had begun appealing to Hadfield for support.

‘Please, Your Honours.’ The supervisor had scuttled over to restore order. ‘Doctor Bloomberg, please.’

The exasperation in the supervisor’s voice suggested the grey beard was well known to the library. The argument rumbled on until, with very ill grace, the student was persuaded to move to a seat some way from the old man. Annoyingly, the kerfuffle had drawn Hadfield’s attention from the entrance long enough for Anna to have slipped into the reading room.

Pushing his chair away, he walked between the tables to the bookshelves that lined the walls beneath the gallery and, picking a book from the nearest — Rousseau in French — he stared over the top of it at the bent heads, confident he would recognise hers. To be certain, he shuffled along the bookcases to the far end of the hall: if Anna was there she would surely see him. She was a little late — but perhaps she had missed the train from Alexandrovskaya or did not have money for a cab. He returned to the table with his copy of Rousseau, pulled back the chair and was easing himself into it when he noticed someone had pinned a small square of paper to the cloth cover of his journal. It had clearly been ripped from the flyleaf of a library book. A note was scribbled in a small hand he did not recognise: Anna is sorry but she cannot meet you.

His first thought was that it had been left there by his eccentric neighbour. He stared at Bloomberg for a few seconds but the old man was too engrossed in his newspaper to notice. No one else at the table made eye contact or seemed in the least bit interested in him.

Hadfield folded the paper slowly and slipped it into his pocket. How typically ungracious, a peremptory one line note, and he flinched as he remembered her brutal put-down at their first meeting. No social grace, he thought as he scooped up his journal and bag. And intent on committing rude sacrilege, he pushed his chair back roughly, the legs screeching on the polished floor in protest.

He was poor company that evening. Dobson ascribed his moodiness to fatigue and lectured him sternly about the hours he was keeping at the hospital. But the anger of the library did not last long, only the disappointment and a growing sense of anxiety for her safety. She had been too tired to answer questions, but a late night visit, mysterious notes, a rendezvous in a public library; it did not take much to imagine what it might mean in the wake of Goldenberg’s arrest. Were the police looking for her? Lying awake in bed, his father’s old dressing gown draped over a chair close by, he wondered if he was already entangled in a web he could not see. He had taken risks out of conviction, yes, but also from a spirit of adventure, and for… for love? What was it that he felt for her? It was more than the pull of her body. He recognised a certain insecurity in her, quick to anger and take offence, but purpose and energy too, and above all he felt a common feeling he could not explain. There was still time to row back. He need do nothing but forget. Forget. But how to treat a patient who will not accept a cure? There was his father’s gown and he could see her in it now, a small frown on her brow even as she slept, her feet tucked beneath her, the steady rise and fall of her breast.

He caught the train from the Warsaw Station at nine o’clock the next morning and arrived in the village forty minutes later. It was a cold clear day and still, the yellow winter sun streaming through a pall of wood smoke. Some peasant women had set up simple plank tables in front of the station and were selling pickled vegetables, and candles and rabbit-skin gloves. Yes, of course they knew the schoolhouse — left off the main street and immediately on your right. No, they had not seen Anna Petrovna that day nor did they know if she was at home. She had been away visiting her mother, perhaps she was still.

Smoke was spiralling from the chimney of the house and a shadow passed across the window of the main room. Perhaps Anna had visitors, for there was more than one set of footprints in the snow before the front door. Hadfield stood at the gate for a moment and then knocked and waited stiffly on the step, hat in hand, rehearsing his first lines. To his surprise the door was opened not by Anna, but by a burly middle-aged man in a frock coat. Later, he would wonder at his own naivety.

‘Excuse me — isn’t this Miss Kovalenko’s house?’

‘It is, yes. And who wishes to see her?’

It was a reasonable question and asked with an amiable smile but there was something in the timbre of the man’s voice that put Hadfield on his mettle. His posture too, for although he was dressed like a bank clerk, he was slouching like a policeman. And he must have read something of the sort in Hadfield’s expression because the smile fell from his face at once. ‘Major Vladimir Barclay of the Gendarme Corps. Come inside, would you?’ He stepped back to let Hadfield pass.

‘Is something wrong, Major?’

‘We’ll see. Mister?’

‘Doctor Hadfield.’

‘You’re a foreigner?’

‘No more than you, I think, Major Barclay.’

The policeman coloured a little: ‘I am a Russian.’

What foul luck, Hadfield thought, as he stepped into the little living room. The gendarmes could only have arrived a few hours before him, for they were still busy searching the place. Two of them were ferreting through drawers, turning over pots and pans, dragging blankets from the bed, and a velvet couch — the only comfortable piece of furniture in the room — had been slashed, spilling horsehair on to the floor.

‘Sit down,’ said Barclay, pointing to a corner of the couch. ‘As you can see, we’re as anxious to speak to Miss Kovalenko as you.’

The major righted a kitchen chair and dragged it closer. ‘Papers, Doctor, please.’

‘I don’t have my passport with me. What would you like to know?’

‘You can begin by telling me who you are and where you live.’

Hadfield gave his address and spoke of his work, conscious that the policeman was following him intently, the tone of his voice, his expression, every small gesture. How peculiar then that he felt none of the anxiety he had felt waiting for Anna on the step.

‘How long have you known Miss Kovalenko?’