Andrew Williams - To Kill a Tsar

The loose skin round the wound was blackened and in places red raw. Hadfield could smell burnt flesh and the injured man’s hair and eyebrows were singed, his shirt sleeve too. ‘A piece of machinery that burns?’

Kibalchich licked his lips uncertainly and looked away.

‘I’ll do what I can, but you know he should be in hospital?’

‘Is there anything else you need?’ Kibalchich asked, kneeling beside him with the bowl.

‘You must help me, I need to give him an anaesthetic.’ Hadfield took out a bottle and sprinkled some drops on to a gauze pad: ‘That should be enough.’ It was hard to judge the correct dose.

‘Ether?’

‘Yes. I can see you’re interested in chemistry,’ said Hadfield, giving a nod to the injured man’s hand. The irony in his voice was not lost on Kibalchich.

It took almost an hour to clean the wound, to cut away the dead flesh, tidy, stitch and dress.

‘He’s in pain still,’ said Kibalchich, as the patient groaned long and loud.

‘He’ll be in pain when he comes round. I’ll give you some morphine, but you must take him to a hospital.’

‘Your hospital?’

Hadfield frowned: ‘It would be better to take him somewhere else. The Nikolaevsky’s a military hospital.’

‘I’ll speak to Alexander Mikhailov.’

‘If you can’t find somewhere, contact me — but discreetly. The wound needs to be checked and dressed regularly. Now I must wash.’

Kibalchich left the room to fetch clean water. Getting to his feet, Hadfield stretched on tiptoes to the ceiling, blood flowing back into his stiff limbs. There were patients waiting to see him, he was to be at the hospital in two hours and he had no intention of lingering in the apartment. The less he knew of their chemistry experiments the better.

He stepped out of the room into the gloomy corridor. ‘Hey, Nikolai?’ Where was his water? He walked down the corridor and opened the first door he came to.

He stood with his hand on the knob, staring in amazement at the workbenches with their flasks and clamps and Bunsen burners. There was a confusion of broken glass and laboratory instruments on the bench furthest from the door and a large black smoke shadow on the wall. Valentin had lost his fingers in an explosion. If he took the trouble to look he would find them on or below the bench.

‘As you can see — the party’s laboratory.’

Alexander Mikhailov was standing in the hall at the end of the corridor, with Kibalchich at his shoulder. His voice was calm, even relaxed, but Hadfield felt a prickle of perspiration creep over his skin as he turned to face him.

‘The scene of Valentin’s unfortunate accident?’

‘Yes. A mercury fulminate. Nikolai,’ Mikhailov addressed his companion, ‘the doctor is still waiting to wash his hands.’

Kibalchich stepped forward too quickly, sloshing water along the corridor.

‘Put it in the laboratory,’ said Mikhailov, slipping out of his black coat. ‘We have nothing to hide now, the doctor knows our business.’

As he stood at the workbench soaping his hands and forearms, Hadfield was conscious of Mikhailov’s lazy-lidded eyes watching him intently.

‘You’re the only person to set foot in this room who isn’t a party member,’ he said, leaning forward to offer a towel. ‘Quite an honour.’

‘An honour I could do without,’ replied Hadfield shortly.

‘Important work is done here.’

‘I don’t doubt it.’

‘And now you’ve played your part.’

Hadfield frowned, dropping the towel on the bench: ‘I’ve done no more than I would for any man.’

‘Ah, yes, your obligation as a doctor. But I’m sure we can count on your discretion too,’ Mikhailov paused for a second, his lips twitching with amusement, ‘comrade.’

Hadfield looked at him impassively, refusing to be drawn. Kibalchich stepped forward with his jacket and coat:

‘Thank you, Doctor, thank you.’

‘Remember, Nikolai — take your friend to a hospital.’

They followed him to the door of the apartment. Kibalchich was drawing the bolts back when Mikhailov caught his arm.

‘A moment,’ he said, turning to Hadfield again: ‘We owe you thanks too for helping Anna with the informer.’

‘What informer? I don’t know what you mean.’ Then it came to him with a little shiver of disgust. ‘The drunk at the clinic? You murdered him!’

‘No,’ said Mikhailov coolly. ‘He was executed by an agent of the executive committee.’ He paused again to be sure he held Hadfield’s eye. ‘The party has a long arm, Doctor.’

He dropped his hand and nodded to Kibalchich to open the door. But Hadfield did not move. For three, four, five seconds, he stared at Mikhailov, making no effort to hide his distaste. Then he turned away and walked out of the apartment and out of the house.

As he walked he could feel the man’s shadow at his back, or was it his subtle poison? What was he being drawn into? Every day new threads were binding him tighter to The People’s Will, small favours, small deceptions, the fine silk of intrigue woven into a web he would not feel until he was trapped, without independent thought, and with no hope of escape. It must stop.

‘Do you trust him?’

‘He seems to be a good doctor.’

‘That wasn’t what I meant.’

‘I know,’ said Mikhailov with a small smile. ‘Of course I don’t trust him.’ He was standing in the makeshift laboratory gazing at the instruments shattered by the charge. ‘He’s a sentimental liberal,’ he said, picking up a spatula from the workbench and rolling it thoughtfully between his thumb and forefinger. ‘But Anna has him wrapped round her little finger.’

‘Oh?’ There was a puzzled look on Kibalchich’s face. He was an unworldly sort of revolutionary, first and foremost a scientist, his true passion not politics but rocketry, but the party was fortunate to have such an accomplished explosives engineer.

‘I suppose she’s an attractive woman,’ he ventured after a little thought.

‘Yes, she’s an attractive woman,’ said Mikhailov tersely. ‘But we must consider your work. The date has been fixed ’

He was interrupted by a low moan of pain from the bedroom. The ether had worn off at last. The injured man groaned again and in a dry sticky voice called: ‘Nikolai, I’m going to be sick.’ A few seconds later they heard Valentin retching and whimpering with discomfort.

‘You need more help,’ said Mikhailov. ‘We have four days and we need all the explosive we can manage.’

Kibalchich nodded slowly. ‘Will the cellar be empty long enough to connect the charge?’

‘Our friend has invited the workmen he shares with to celebrate his engagement at a tavern nearby.’

‘He has a fiancée?’

‘No, no, my friend,’ said Mikhailov, slapping him on the back good-humouredly. ‘At six o’clock he’ll tell them he’s going to fetch his fiancée, but he’ll go to the cellar and light the fuse.’ He stroked his beard thoughtfully for a moment. ‘We’ll have a fiancée close by in case things go wrong.’

But nothing could be allowed to go wrong. It was the perfect opportunity. The tsar, his sons, the entire imperial family gathered about a table to eat off fine china and drink from crystal twinkling in the candlelight, and below them — three hundred pounds of dynamite. The People’s Will be done.

For once Anna had arranged to meet him in person and in a public place, trusting to darkness and the inclement weather. It was snowing heavy soft flakes she could reach up to and catch in her open hand. Beyond the cemetery railings, the tombs of the great, the dome and towers of the Alexander Nevsky Monastery were merely indistinct shadows on a billowing sheet of snow. She pulled her scarf tighter about her nose and mouth and stepped out of the light to rest her back against the railings. It was almost eight o’clock. It would be too dangerous for her to wait for more than a few minutes, but not since his first visit to the clinic almost a year ago had he been late for a meeting. Sure enough, the droshky slithered up to the cemetery gates before the monastery clock began to chime the hour.