David Dickinson - Death on the Nevskii Prospekt

And where was his interpreter? There were only a few minutes to go before departure. Powerscourt had a very clear picture in his mind of the Russian Interpreter as he referred to him. He would be middle-aged, portly, wear thick glasses and fuss a lot about his business. He would look rather like a bank manager going to seed. He would have little conversation outside the business of interpreting and would prove dull company on his journey. He turned to the door of his compartment where a good-looking young man was preparing to stow his case on the luggage rack.

‘I’m afraid that seat is reserved,’ said Powerscourt.

‘I know it is,’ said the young man. ‘It’s reserved for me.’

‘For you?’ said Powerscourt, astonished. ‘That can’t be, I’m afraid. It’s reserved for my Russian interpreter.’

‘I know,’ said the young man with a smile, ‘I am your Russian interpreter. You are Lord Francis Powerscourt. I am Mikhail Shaporov, sent by your Foreign Office to assist you. If you don’t want my services, just let me know.’

Now it was Powerscourt’s turn to smile. ‘Forgive me, please. Delighted to meet you. And my apologies for the confusion. To be perfectly honest, I was expecting somebody older. I had, in fact, decided that my interpreter was going to be middle-aged and look like a bank manager going to seed.’

The young man laughed. Powerscourt saw that he was just under six feet tall with a broad forehead and a Roman nose. His cheekbones were high and he had very fair hair and soft brown eyes. Powerscourt thought he could do considerable damage to the young ladies.

‘Perhaps I should tell you a little about myself, Lord Powerscourt, to reassure you that the young can be as good at interpreting as the middle-aged. My parents – well, I suppose you’d have to call them aristocrats -live in an enormous palace or indeed palaces in St Petersburg. My father has branched out into banking and other sorts of financial business. I have been working in his offices here in London to learn all about it. I lived the first sixteen years of my life in St Petersburg and then I was sent to school in England and then to Oxford, to Trinity College, if you know it. So you see, Lord Powerscourt, I know both societies. I have done quite a lot of translating for my father. I think it must have been he, or your Ambassador in Russia, who recommended me for this kind of work. I have often done it before. I rather enjoy it.’

‘I’m delighted to hear you know St Petersburg,’ said Powerscourt. ‘I’m sure that will be a great advantage in our mission.’

‘Can you tell me something about that?’ said the young man doubtfully. ‘All I learned from the Foreign Office was that it was very secret and I had to set out for the station as fast as possible.’

Very slowly the great train drew out of the station and began its journey towards the hop fields of Kent. A number of friends and relations were left waving disconsolately on the platform. Powerscourt wondered how much he could tell young Shaporov and decided that nothing he knew was a secret worth preserving. So he told him everything.

‘That’s all rather exciting,’ said the young man, ‘except for the fact that this poor man is dead. And nobody, you say, knows what he was doing in St Petersburg?’

‘Only the Prime Minister, as far as I can tell. Have you any idea at all what could bring about such a level of secrecy as far as Russia is concerned?’

‘Scandal?’ said Mikhail Shaporov happily. ‘Blackmail? Secrets of state? Diplomatic treaties that have to be kept hidden for a decade? It’ll be very disappointing, Lord Powerscourt, if we just find that he hadn’t settled his debts at the casino or was carrying on with another man’s wife. Though,’ he went on rather sadly, ‘if people were killed for adultery in St Petersburg, the population would drop very quickly.’ Powerscourt wondered if there was some personal pain hidden behind the sadness.

‘The thing is,’ the young man went on, ‘you did say that this poor dead diplomat was a very important sort of fellow, a top dog in the Foreign Office collection, so the chances are that it has to do with great secrets. I do hope we can find out.’

Shaporov peered out of the window. ‘Forgive me, Lord Powerscourt, but your England always seems quite small to me. Some years ago my parents took us all on the Trans-Siberian Railway just after it opened, thousands and thousands of miles of track. I thought it was splendid. My younger brother, mind you, he got claustrophobia after being kept in the train carriages for days and days. He hardly ever goes in a train now if he can help it.’

Powerscourt wondered if the young Mikhail’s contacts in St Petersburg might be useful to him. The young man yawned.

‘Will you excuse me, Lord Powerscourt? I did not have very much sleep last night and then I had to prepare for our journey. Would you mind if I went next door and had a nap?’

When he had the compartment to himself again, Powerscourt began thinking about Lucy. He had found her, on his return from the London Library, sitting on the chair by the window in Markham Square, looking out very sadly into the weak late afternoon sun. He thought she had been waiting for him. Close up, she looked more miserable still. He thought she had been crying.

‘Lucy, my love,’ he strode across the room to her, ‘whatever is the matter?’

She burst into tears and fell into his arms.

‘Don’t worry, Lucy. It can’t be that important. We still have each other. We still love each other.’

After a couple of minutes she composed herself. She took his hands in hers as she had those years before on the balcony in Positano.

‘Francis,’ she said, ‘I release you from your promise not to take on any more investigations. You are free to go to St Petersburg as far as I am concerned. I hope I have not made you too unhappy in the meantime. It was my first husband, you see, who went away on the nation’s business and got killed. I couldn’t bear to have it happen again, I really couldn’t. But I’ve got to let you go. I see that now. I hope you don’t think I’m some sort of jailer, Francis. Please forgive me for the whole thing.’

Powerscourt kissed the top of her head and held her very tight. ‘Might I ask, Lucy, what brought about this change of mind? Have you had a revelation? Has somebody been to talk to you?’

She smiled. ‘I had a visit from Mrs Martin, the wife of the dead man in St Petersburg. His parents are still alive. It’s driving them all mad, not knowing what happened to Mr Martin, you see. And when the Foreign Office told them they were sending a top investigator to find out the truth, they cheered up, they thought they were going to find out what had been going on. Then they were even more despondent when they learnt the investigator wasn’t going. She said it wasn’t fair that I could keep you safe at home while he went off to die. She said Britain would have lost every war it ever fought if the wives stopped their men going off to defend the country. She made me feel rather selfish, actually, Francis.’

‘Did you tell her you had changed your mind, Lucy?’

‘No, I didn’t. I hadn’t, you see, changed my mind, not then. That came later while I was sitting by the window waiting for you to come home.’

Powerscourt handled his wife very delicately in the two days that followed her change of mind before his departure. He could only guess at how much it must have cost her. He could not imagine how she would worry while he was away. Whatever else he did, he must try to find the answers as quickly as possible. He took her out to her favourite restaurant. He promised to take her to Paris when he returned. Above all, he told himself constantly, he must not crow, he must not boast, he must not sing for joy as he walked about the house. For Lord Francis Powerscourt would never have told his wife. He would and did tell Johnny Fitzgerald. He was so happy to be back in harness, as he put it to himself, with a difficult case and a romantic location. The curious thing about his elation was that Lady Lucy saw it too. After twelve years of marriage she could sense her husband’s mood without him having to speak a word. And, although she would not have told her husband this, she was happy because he was happy.