Andrew Williams - To Kill a Tsar

‘Stop!’ He clutched at her sleeve, then her shoulder. ‘Now!’

She pulled away but he held her and she was forced to turn, his face close, a beard streaked with grey, and beneath his navy blue cap, rheumy brown eyes. Older than his voice.

‘Let go of me! Who are you? Help, someone!’ She tried to turn from him.

‘Police.’

Out of the corner of her eye she saw him pull a revolver from his pocket.

‘Stop. Now.’ He rammed the barrel into her side. As she crumpled in pain, he grabbed her shoulder again, dragging her to the wall: ‘Bitch.’

Furious, she lashed out, striking him in the throat.

‘Bitch.’ Instead of trying to turn her, he pushed her face to the wall, forcing his body against hers. And she whimpered in pain. He was breaking her neck.

‘Stop fighting, bitch.’

She could smell his stale tobacco breath, his body hard against hers. And then the crack of the revolver. For two, three seconds, she was deaf and blind and she sank to her knees. His body lay in the snow beside her, a plume of blood about his shattered head, mouth open, the eyes of a fish, and her face wet with his blood. She was shaking uncontrollably, gasping, but Mikhailov was dragging her to her feet, pulling her away.

‘Oh, God. I knew…’

‘There is no God. Now come on or they’ll take us,’ he said and shook her. ‘There’s a place a few streets from here.’

Experience taught it was best at such times to lay low, but for once Mikhailov felt obliged to ignore good practice. At dusk he went in search of the Director. He smiled at the relief on Irena Dmitrievna Dubrovina’s face as she let him quietly out of her apartment. She had been reluctant to take him into her home. It was impossible, too dangerous, she had told him. Not only was it possible, it was imperative, he had replied, and quickly too before the police caught them on her doorstep. Poor Madame Dubrovina. She had almost collapsed when she heard from a neighbour that an agent had been shot in broad daylight a few streets away. She had dismissed the servants, drawn the blinds and taken to her bed chamber. But that had suited them well enough. Anna had bathed then soaked the blood from her coat, and now she was sleeping in a fine French bed with thick cotton sheets, a fire in the grate. What had come over her in the street? Mikhailov was surprised by her weakness. It was something new. Was her resolve weakening? Mikhailov pondered this question for some while. It troubled him as he slid to and fro on the seat of the badly driven droshky, and it was still troubling him when its grumpy driver deposited him at last in a snowy street close to the Director’s flat.

The Director rented his rooms in a large house divided and sub-divided many times, home to tradespeople, the better sort of prostitute and civil servants of the lowest class. In such a place it was easy for a stranger to climb dark stairs unmarked by the occupants. Nikolai lived alone on the fourth floor, between a tailor and a junior bank clerk.

Mikhailov was quite sure he would be alone. It was impossible for a man in his delicate position to be anything but alone. ‘I’ve been expecting you,’ the Director muttered, and he stepped away from the door to let him pass.

‘I don’t like coming here. It’s not safe,’ Mikhailov replied.

He sat on the edge of the Director’s narrow bed and watched him pour a glass of black tea from the chipped pot on the table. His hand was trembling, his eyes bloodshot. The tiny bed-sitting room was thick with dust, the windows almost opaque, and there were dirty plates on the table. Newspapers and books were roughly piled on the floor against one wall, leaving space for no more than the low bed, two wooden chairs, the table and an unemptied chamber pot.

‘Doesn’t the maid clean for you?’

The Director shook his head: ‘It’s too risky, especially now. They suspect, you know.’

‘You?’

‘They know they’ve got an informer in the police or the Third Section.’

‘How can you be sure?’

The Director pulled a face, then pushed his little round glasses up his nose with a grubby index finger. ‘Dobrshinsky isn’t prepared to trust anyone outside his inner circle. He won’t tell us anything. There’s a poisonous atmosphere at headquarters.’

‘What are you doing?’

‘I’m just doing as I’m told and keeping my head down.’ He got to his feet a little unsteadily. ‘I need a drink,’ he said and walked round the table and out of the room, returning a minute later with a small bottle of vodka and two cloudy glasses.

‘Drink?’

Mikhailov shook his head. ‘There have been five raids in as many days. There was an agent at my apartment…’

‘Was it you who killed him?’

‘Who’s helping them? Is it one of our prisoners?’

‘Weren’t you listening?’ the Director asked tetchily. ‘I don’t know. One of the prisoners may have been broken, of course. Dobrshinsky is handling everything personally. Nothing is committed to paper.’

‘And you don’t have any idea who he’s spoken to?’

‘The only person I know for sure he’s spoken to is the English doctor,’ the Director said with a dismissive wave. He sat down opposite Mikhailov and poured himself a glass of vodka: ‘But what can he tell them?’

Mikhailov frowned. ‘When?’

‘About two weeks ago. He visited Dobrshinsky’s home. That’s all I know. There’s no report of their conversation — at least, if there is, I haven’t seen it.’

Mikhailov leant forward a little, his large hands clasped together, his eyes glittering in the candlelight. ‘I think perhaps I will have that drink, my friend.’

The Director poured vodka for them both. ‘Perhaps they’re using the Englishman as a channel,’ said the Director quietly, turning his glass on the table. ‘I suppose you’ve considered that?’

‘Yes.’

The bottom of the glass tick-ticked like a broken clock as he turned it slowly against the chipped wood. A drunk was shouting incoherently in the room above; the crash of a chair and, a moment later, the light beat of a woman’s shoes on the stairs.

‘What will you do?’

‘What will I do?’ Mikhailov fixed the Director with a cold stare: ‘Whatever needs to be done. Don’t I always?’

Frederick Hadfield was in his carpet slippers and dressing gown when the dvornik knocked at his door with the note. His heart leapt with joy and relief. For all the lateness of the hour, the regret, the shame he had felt since the explosion at the palace, he was desperate to be with her. But he took no pleasure in the necessary deception; it was no longer an adventure. Since the interview with Dobrshinsky he was sure he was under surveillance, and he presumed the dvornik had been instructed to report on the hours he kept and on his visitors. Dressed as a doctor and with medical bag and coat he made his way noisily down the steps to the front door. Sure enough Sergei the dvornik was there to greet him with an obsequious bow.

‘Is everything all right, Your Honour?’ He pushed his fleshy face, flushed with drink, towards Hadfield’s.

‘Acute myocardial infarction,’ said Hadfield. ‘A serious case.’

The dvornik looked at him blankly. ‘Does Your Honour wish me to summon a cab?’

But it was an emergency, no time to waste. Hadfield brushed past him and into the snowy street.

The city’s clocks were striking midnight at St Boris and St Gleb, and half past the hour by the time he reached the rooming house door. The old Ukrainian lady greeted him with a warm wrinkled smile. The rest of the building was sleeping. Anna was curled beneath a thick feather bedspread he had not seen before. He knelt beside her and swept a strand of hair from her face. She looked tired and there was an angry graze high on her right cheek. He took off his clothes and lay on the mattress beside her. And she turned to him with her eyes closed, lifting her chin, an invitation to kiss her full on the lips.