David Dickinson - Death on the Nevskii Prospekt

Now they had reached Room 467. The name plate announced the presence of Vasily Bazhenov, Third Assistant Deputy Under Secretary, Administrative Division, Ministry of the Interior. Powerscourt wondered what pain and humiliation had to be gone through to win these undistinguished spurs. He noted that the name plate looked very old as if Bazhenov had been in post for many years. Perhaps promotion had passed him by. Perhaps the jump from Third Assistant Deputy Under Secretary to Second Assistant Deputy Under Secretary was too much for him. Perhaps Vasily Bazhenov would be old and crabbed and waiting for retirement.

But the voice that answered Shaporov’s knock and bade them enter was cheerful. So was the bureaucrat. He spoke quite slowly as if to give Mikhail plenty of time to translate. Powerscourt and his friend were seated on one side of a circular table in chairs that did not have velvet upholstery but were perfectly respectable nonetheless. Bazhenov had a number of files in front of him. He was about forty years of age with a wild shock of black hair that looked as if it repelled all attempts to control it. His eyes were grey, his nose small and his long black beard seemed to be acting in sympathy with his hair. Powerscourt wondered if he had a wife who wrestled with his appearance before she despatched him every morning on his bureaucratic Via Dolorosa. The man could have been taken for some wild Siberian preacher rather than a Third Assistant Deputy Under Secretary in the Administrative Division.

‘You are interested in a Roderick Martin, I believe,’ he said to Powerscourt.

‘That is correct, Mr Under Secretary,’ said Powerscourt, remembering Rosebery’s advice to promote all army officers, civil servants and policemen. ‘We were given to understand that you might have some details about him here.’

Bazhenov sighed deeply. ‘In one sense, I have to disappoint you, Lord Powerscourt. I – we – cannot help you with this Martin. Under normal circumstances, there would be all kinds of information about such a man. The time and date of his arrival and departure. The record of where he was staying. If he was an important person holding important meetings with important government officials, there would be a record, as there will be of this meeting.’

The Third Assistant Deputy Under Secretary smiled. There had been almost a note of irony, Powerscourt thought, of mocking as the bureaucrat detailed his lists of information, though it was hard to tell in another language. Information, after all, was the currency he dealt in, wrested from the reluctant population to be stored in the unforgiving files of the Interior Ministry.

Bazhenov opened his hands wide. ‘But we have no records for the year 1905. No place of entry. No place of residence. I wish I could help you, gentlemen, but I cannot.’

The man’s lying, Powerscourt thought to himself. Surely he knows Martin came here and was killed here last December. He remembered the fat inspector with the red beard shouting at them in the police station where his investigations in St Petersburg had begun. Perhaps they’re all liars. But he could see little point in an argument. Better to hear what the man might have to say.

‘You are being as helpful as anybody could be, Mr Under Secretary,’ said Powerscourt at his most emollient, ‘but I would ask you to consider things from my government’s perspective. Mr Martin, a distinguished member of his ministry in London as you are of yours here in St Petersburg,’ Bazhenov half rose to his feet and bowed to Powerscourt at this point, ‘comes here last December and holds, we believe, a series of meetings, possibly with the Foreign Ministry, we are not sure. On the evening of the same day he is murdered. The death is reported by a policeman in the police station nearest to the British Embassy. It is even committed to paper.’ That, Powerscourt felt, should have maximum appeal to the bureaucrat. The spoken word, it was nothing, worthless as air. Pieces of paper, records, minutes, memoranda, these were his life’s blood. ‘Now the police deny all knowledge. They say the piece of paper must be a forgery.’ Truly, Powerscourt said to himself, forgery would be the sin against the Holy Ghost of bureaucratic machines everywhere. It could cast doubt on everything it touched. It, or the suspicion of it, could spread through the files like the Black Death. ‘They say Mr Martin cannot have come to St Petersburg. But he left London on a special mission to the Russian capital. He has not returned. We have no reason to believe he is alive. We believe he is dead. You gentlemen say he never came here at all. Who or what are we to believe?’

Then Bazhenov produced one of the classic bureaucratic ploys, a Sicilian defence amidst the paperwork. ‘I wish I could help you, Lord Powerscourt. Leave it with me for a day or two. Perhaps some information has been mislaid. Perhaps one of the other organizations of the state will be able to help.’

Powerscourt was to learn later that other organizations of the state meant the secret police, the Okhrana, or other even shadowier organizations devoted to the safety of state and Tsar. ‘That is most kind of you, Mr Under Secretary. We are very grateful. Permit me to ask one question before we take our leave. You said at the beginning that you had no information concerning Mr Martin for the year 1905. That implied, maybe I misunderstood you, that you might have information about other months.’

Bazhenov laughed and slapped an ample thigh. ‘I said to my second assistant this morning, Lord Powerscourt, that they are clever people, these English. They will surely ask the right question to unlock this information.’ Powerscourt wondered how many assistants the man had. Three? Five? Seven? Perhaps he could ask the next time they came. ‘No information for the year 1905 is indeed what I said. But consider our Mr Roderick Martin or, perhaps, your Mr Roderick Martin. He lives at a place called Tibenham Grange in Kent in your England. He is married. He works for your Foreign Office. Is this Mr Martin also your Mr Martin?’

‘He is,’ said Powerscourt sensing suddenly that some bombshell was about to arrive that would blow his investigation wide open.

‘Why, then, we have only one Mr Martin between the two of us, not a multiplicity of them, not a flock or a gaggle or a parliament of Martins. We do not believe he came here in 1905, but we know he came on three other occasions in 1904, three times in 1903 and twice in 1902. We could find out if he came also in previous years by the time of our next meeting. You could say, Lord Powerscourt, that Mr Roderick Martin of His Majesty’s Foreign Office was a regular visitor to our city.’

Lord Francis Powerscourt was trying as hard as he could not to show his astonishment. The knowledge that Roderick Martin had been a regular visitor to St Petersburg could change everything in his investigation. He noticed that Mikhail Shaporov looked completely unconcerned as if he’d known this information all along.

‘That is most interesting, Mr Under Secretary,’ he began. ‘Might I ask if you have the dates of these visits to hand? The place or places where he stayed? The length of his visit? My government would be at your service, sir, if this information could be passed on.’

‘It can be, Lord Powerscourt. It shall be. Let no one say that the servants of the Tsar are unwilling to co-operate with the King of England and the Emperor of India.’ Vasily Bazhenov was expansive now, his black hair rolling down his forehead. ‘It should be fairly easy to extract the information you require. I propose, gentlemen, that we meet again at the same time early next week. I shall send word to the Embassy. I hope by then to have all the information you need. I shall spend the intervening hours working for the Government of His Majesty King Edward the Seventh. A very good day to you, gentlemen.’