Andrew Williams - To Kill a Tsar

‘Oh?’ said Hadfield in a carefully neutral tone. Most of the ‘delicate’ matters soldiers wished to discuss with a doctor belonged under the general heading of ‘the wages of sin’.

Gonne frowned. ‘Delicate and serious.’ He rose to stand at the window behind his desk, almost a silhouette against the parade ground. ‘Perhaps you know the emperor reviews the guards regiments at the riding school on Sundays.’

Hadfield nodded. ‘The Mikhailovsky Manège.’

‘Last Sunday Lord Dufferin was present at the parade with some of the other ambassadors. Count von Plehve of the Justice Ministry was in the gallery too — are you listening, Doctor?’

‘I’m sorry, please — it’s nothing…’ and Hadfield indicated with a light wave of the hand that the colonel should continue.

‘The count made some pointed remarks about you.’

‘What sort of remarks?’

‘He mentioned a woman, a terrorist — the Kovalenko woman — someone you used to… meet…’ The colonel was trying to be delicate.

‘I have not seen Miss Kovalenko for some time.’ Hadfield’s thoughts were racing and he was struggling to appear calm.

‘I’m sure I don’t need to remind you that any suggestion of a British involvement with these people will embarrass Her Majesty’s government.’

‘No. You don’t need to remind me,’ said Hadfield. ‘As I informed the authorities, I met Miss Kovalenko at a clinic. She proved a capable nurse.’

‘Yes. Yes. Well, I am sure a doctor is required to meet all sorts of people…’ Gonne trailed off without conviction.

‘Then if there is nothing else, Colonel, perhaps you’ll excuse me?’

Colonel Gonne nodded curtly and stepped away from the window with the intention of escorting Hadfield from the room. But his sleeve caught a photograph at the edge of the desk and it fell to the floor with a splintering crash.

‘Damn. Clumsy. I’m sorry, Doctor, I’m forgetting myself,’ he said, bending to pick up the picture. ‘My daughter.’ He turned it over to show Hadfield the shattered face.

‘It’s only the glass… she’s pretty.’

‘Yes, well…’ Colonel Gonne put the picture back on the table and walked over to the door. He was on the point of opening it when he turned suddenly to speak to Hadfield once more. ‘Pretty girls… a word to the wise, Doctor. Take care. The secret police have spies everywhere.’ He paused to make eye contact: ‘You may not be as fortunate a second time.’

The police spy was waiting at the ice-bound pier outside the embassy, where the ferry left for the islands in spring. Hadfield did not give him a second glance. He could think of nothing but the parade at the manège, his mind swirling with the implications. That it should take a casual word from a British soldier who knew very little of the city. The emperor would pass the cheese shop on the Malaya Sadovaya before or after the parade. What were they planning? There was no need to rent a shop if they were going to shoot the tsar and they had rented basement premises. Why? They were driving a gallery into the street. A mine. They were going to kill the tsar with a mine. He leaned back against the wall of the embassy, a cold sweat on his skin like a sickness. A mine. He was sure of it. And how many soldiers like the young Finn he had treated after the palace explosion would die this time? Head bent, fingers pressing hard on his forehead, he let out a long anguished groan.

Collegiate Councillor Dobrshinsky picked up the surveillance log and, balancing it on his knee, began to turn its pages, marking passages in pencil before transferring them to the notebook on the desk in front of him. It was after nine o’clock at night but Fontanka 16 was still bustling with agents and clerks, and through the open door he could hear the incessant chatter of the Baudot receiver with telegrams from gendarmeries all over the empire. The terrorists were summoning trusted supporters to the capital. It was gratifying in a way, because arrests in the city must have left them in a parlous state, but it was clear they were planning another attempt on the emperor’s life. Barclay had extracted this piece of intelligence with a relish quite ungentlemanly from the traitor Kletochnikov. But he had not been able to supply the when and the wherefore. For now, they were obliged to rely on surveillance and informers in the hope that the fresh faces from the provinces would be careless and let something slip.

Sunday 21 February 1881

Dr Hadfield left his apartment at 12.30 a.m. He took a cab to the Nevsky Prospekt then walked down the Malaya Sadovaya and joined the crowd waiting for His Majesty. At a little before 2.00 p.m. the emperor left the manège with his escort to return to the palace. Hadfield watched him pass then walked to 24 Malaya Italyanskaya Street. An apartment in this house is occupied by an English newspaper correspondent…

Why was a well-to-do doctor with distinctly liberal if not republican views waiting in a frozen street on Sunday for a glimpse of the emperor? The special investigator had been concerned about security at the Sunday parade for a number of weeks, and the guard about the royal carriage had been doubled on his recommendation.

Dobrshinsky picked up a little hand bell from the desk and rang for the clerk in the outer office. ‘Ask Agent Fedorov to step into my office, would you?’

‘Did you organise a search of the buildings around the manège?’ Dobrshinsky asked when Fedorov appeared.

‘Yes, Your Honour, and in Italyanskaya Street.’

‘The canal embankment?’

‘No.’

‘The Malaya Sadovaya?’

The agent shook his head.

‘See to it then, as soon as possible.’

Dobrshinsky dismissed him and returned to the surveillance log on his knee. The Englishman had done nothing else of interest in the days since, and had made no effort to lose his police shadows although he was clearly aware of their presence. He turned to the previous day’s report.

Sunday 21 February 1881

The suspect Trigoni was followed to Number 17 2nd Rota Izmailovsky District. He was seen leaving with a blonde woman with a big forehead. A police agent followed the girl but she eluded him on the Nevsky Prospekt. The suspect Trigoni returned to his furnished lodgings at 66 Nevsky Prospekt at 10.00 p.m. and did not leave it again that day.

The station in Odessa had warned them that Mikhail Trigoni had arrived in the city. He was another of the party’s gentleman revolutionaries, the son of a general, with a weakness for expensive clothes that made him easy to follow. In his testimony, Goldenberg had referred to him by his English nickname of ‘My Lord’.

Dropping the log on his desk, Dobrshinsky rose stiffly, fastidiously brushing the creases from his frock coat. This simple activity left him a little breathless, his heart beating faster than was comfortable. He was spending too many evenings at Fontanka 16 without the benefit of a soporifique . It was easier to think at home alone, easier to rest.

‘Are today’s reports ready?’ he snapped at the clerk as he walked through his outer office.

‘No, Your Honour.’

‘Why not?’

Barclay was at the blackboard in the main inquiry room talking to an undercover agent. Drygin was one of the section’s best, older than the rest, shrewder, with instinctive guile. He was still disguised as a country bumpkin in a dirty padded kaftan, his grey beard and hair unkempt. Something in his restless movement suggested he had news of importance.

‘Your Honour?’ Barclay had seen him at the door. ‘We have a fresh report.’

The collegiate councillor stepped over to join him at the board where the latest intelligence on the chief suspects was chalked alongside their photographs. Dobrshinsky had taken the idea of a rogue’s gallery from a French crime journal and it was proving a useful tool.