Andrew Williams - To Kill a Tsar

She stopped, startled, then her expression hardened with contempt. ‘You. You — what have you done to him? Tell me.’ She spat it at him with a fury he had not known in her before.

‘What on earth…’ For once he was lost for words.

‘What have you done?’

‘Keep your voice down,’ he hissed at her. What was she doing berating him in the street? They would be arrested.

‘Don’t tell me to shut up. What did you do?’ She pulled her scarf away from her face. ‘Have you hurt him?’ There was a wildness in her eyes.

‘No.’

‘Liar! What have you done?’ She gave him a shove.

‘For God’s sake, Anna!’

Passers-by were looking at them. He would have to send her away again. She was a danger to the party. Reaching out for her arm, he said: ‘Anna, please. I don’t know what you’ve heard, but he’s alive. Now can we go somewhere else? This is not the place.’

‘Tell me, liar. Tell me now.’

‘He was an informer. The executive committee needed to deal with him.’ His voice was harsh, matter-of-fact.

‘You murdered him.’ She tried to slap his face but he caught her wrist and twisted her arm down and she let out a little gasp of pain.

‘He’s alive, didn’t I say so?’ he hissed at her. ‘Control yourself. Remember the party. Remember your duty.’

‘Let go of me, you bastard!’ She began to scream: ‘Help! Someone please help!’

He let her go: ‘Please. He’s alive… I did what I thought best for the party.’

This time she did manage to slap him with ringing force across the face. ‘You did what was best for you.’

‘You were blind to the risk you were taking,’ he said, touching his cheek. ‘The Director was sure he was—’

‘Liar,’ she said again. ‘I will speak to the executive committee. I will tell them the truth. You are a liar.’

She stared at him for a few seconds with an expression of contempt, even hatred, on her face, then walked away in the opposite direction, looking neither left nor right, proudly upright. And Mikhailov walked on too, ignoring the dvornik who had been watching them from a doorway on the other side of the street and the old lady at the curtains of her apartment. He could feel the imprint of Anna’s hand on his cheek and he was shaking with quiet rage.

He turned on to the Zagorodny Prospekt and began walking east towards the cab stand in front of the station. But when he reached it he decided to go a little further. His encounter with Anna had disturbed him more than he cared to admit, even to himself. Perhaps the exercise and the cool air would restore his equanimity. A regiment of horse was being put through its paces, kicking up the dirt of the parade ground where Alexander Soloviev had met his end on the scaffold. What had become of the Anna who had hurried from the square with news of their first attempt to execute the tsar? How could she think it was something personal? He was still pondering what he should do with her twenty minutes later, after walking almost the entire length of Zagorodny. Before him was the extravagant yellow and white bell tower of the Church of Our Lady of Vladimir, and in its shadow the russet-coloured block where the photographer lived and rented his premises. Next to it a busy market was spilling on to the pavement, street traders in traditional belted coats with baskets from the country at their feet, a beardless youth in a tall hat pushing a handcart of rags, a vodka seller offering cheap spirit to a passing work gang. Mikhailov stepped off the pavement into a doorway, where he could observe the entrance to the photographer’s studio. Zhelyabov and the others had urged him not to go near the place, but now he was here he could not pass it by. He lit a cigarette and leant against the wall to scrutinise with an expert eye the stallholders and their customers, searching for a furtive conversation, a tell-tale exchange of glances. He was surprised to find that his hand was still shaking. Surely he had always acted in the best interests of the party, even if it meant making difficult choices? He forced himself to put the matter out of his mind.

‘Hey, you, want to earn some money?’

The street urchin looked at him suspiciously. He was about ten years old, thin, dressed in a ragged grey coat and battered calf-length boots, his head and hands bare.

‘I saw you looking into the window of that pastry shop. This would be enough for something special with cream.’ Reaching inside his coat, Mikhailov took twenty kopeks from his waistcoat pocket.

All the boy needed to do was to stand in front of the entrance opposite and look inside the photographer’s shop. To collect the money he would have to describe anyone he could see and anything out of the ordinary. ‘Make a good job of it and there might even be a little more.’

The boy was back ten minutes later with his grubby palm out. ‘Just the old photographer. A woman went in and he took out a big book. He wrote in it and then she left. That’s all,’ he said with a shrug.

‘How do you know he was the photographer?’

‘Because I see him every day,’ the boy said with a cheeky smile.

Mikhailov paid him the twenty, and ten kopeks more.

The old man was still at his ledger when Mikhailov stepped through the door, and did not look up until he dropped his kidskin gloves on the counter. He lifted his grey head and his expression changed in an instant from an easy trade smile to shock, then something close to abject terror. Before he was able to open his mouth, Mikhailov had turned on his heels and was making for the door. What a reckless fool he had been. He knew he had only seconds. Seconds. Walk out. Keep walking. Someone was moving at the window. He heard the clattering of boots behind him as men crowded into the front of the shop. As he reached for the handle and pulled the door, the bell tinkled cruelly.

‘Haven’t you forgotten these?’

It was not the photographer’s crackly old voice but a policeman’s. And there was another on the pavement outside. Mikhailov closed his eyes and exhaled slowly, his shoulders sagging a little.

‘You’re quite right. I did forget to collect my pictures,’ he said, turning back to the shop. ‘Fyodor Ivanovich Korvin at your service.’

A burly plain-clothes officer stepped from behind the counter with a gun in one hand and the photographs in the other.

‘Major Vladimir Alexandrovich Barclay at yours.’

The doorbell tinkled again and Mikhailov was aware of gendarmes at his back. The plain-clothes agent gave a nod and someone seized him roughly from behind.

‘Can I ask what grounds you have for this behaviour?’ he asked indignantly.

A gendarme was unbuttoning his coat, checking his jacket pocket for a weapon and his papers.

‘What grounds?’ Barclay asked, taking a step towards him. ‘What grounds? You are Mikhailov. I think that’s enough, don’t you?’

‘Frederick. It’s me.’

She was standing beneath the little silver birch at the entrance to the hospital, her mouth and nose hidden by a burgundy scarf. It was dark — eight o’clock — the ground white with frost, and she was shivering.

‘Frederick, can we talk?’

He stood on the path, his eyes fixed on her, patients brushing past his shoulder.

‘Yes, all right.’ He was surprised by how calm he felt.

She came to stand beside him and she looked up at him, her eyes as blue as he remembered them, even in the gaslight. She tried to take his arm but he shook it free. ‘Nurses walk a few steps behind. It will arouse less suspicion.’

He led her to the carriage entrance and, with a friendly word to the guards at the gate, on into the hospital grounds, passing along the perimeter railings, turning right between Blocks 5 and 6.