David Dickinson - Death on the Nevskii Prospekt

‘I have a politician friend, sir, who is intimate with members of the British royal family. Forgive me if I do not mention his name. I asked him to inquire among his contacts to see if preparations were being made for the possible reception of a party of Russian royalty. His inquiries revealed that the answer was Yes. He also told me that inquiries were made about whether London had doctors skilled in the treatment of certain diseases. No name was given to the disease but it was clear from the descriptions given that it was haemophilia. The disease is all too well known to London doctors, unfortunately. Queen Victoria was a carrier.’ So far so good, Powerscourt thought, looking at the Tsar closely, now for a diversion. ‘When I considered where the British royals would be likely to accommodate Russian royals, I felt London would be inappropriate. Too public, too many prying eyes from the journalists and members of the public. Windsor Castle? Large enough, certainly, but there’s rather a lot of gloom and not much privacy. Sandringham is where they would send them. And when I asked a colleague to go and make inquiries in the area about any plans that might have been made to receive a group of foreign royalty, the answer was Yes. No nationality was known, but a party of foreign royals including a number of children was expected, had indeed been expected for some time.’ Powerscourt smiled faintly, as if apologizing for knowing too much, for being too well acquainted with the Tsar’s affairs.

‘I see,’ said Nicholas the Second, ‘I see.’ He looked like a man playing for time. Powerscourt remembered de Chassiron saying that the Tsar had plenty of charm but very little in the way of brain. ‘This is all very interesting, Lord Powerscourt, but please enlighten me as to how it helps your investigations with Mr Martin, the dead Mr Martin.’

Powerscourt prayed that Nicholas was not going to look at his watch. That, the Ambassador had told him, in what must, Powerscourt thought, have been the only piece of useful information ever imparted by His Nibs, was a certain sign that the Tsar wished the interview to end.

‘Let me try to explain, sir.’ Don’t patronize the man, for God’s sake, Powerscourt said to himself, don’t let him see I think he’s rather dim. ‘Suppose you have two friends. You know they have met for a conversation. Almost immediately afterwards one of them is killed. Anybody trying to solve the mystery would wish to know what the two men talked about. It might have a bearing on the reasons for their murder. The same thing applies to Mr Martin.’

‘Do you,’ asked the Tsar, possibly returning to the Sherlock Romanov mode, ‘have a list of suspects, as it were, for the killing?’

‘I do, sir, but forgive me if I do not put names to them,’ Powerscourt said. ‘I would not want you to carry round in your head a collection of possible murderers who might be totally innocent. It would be as unfair on you as it might be unjust on them.’

‘And do you think, Lord Powerscourt, that this conversation we have just had will make it easier for you to catch the murderer?’

Powerscourt noted that the conversation had now reverted to the past tense. He did not tell the Tsar that he believed his best chance of finding the murderer still lay in the three or four hours immediately after this interview.

‘I do, sir, and I am most grateful to you for your time and your patience in listening to my theories.’

‘I wish you good luck in your inquiries, Lord Powerscourt. Perhaps we shall meet again some day.’

‘I hope so, sir, I sincerely hope so.’

The interview was at an end. The symphony in gold braid and the footman with the plumed hat collected Powerscourt and the rest of the party and escorted them to their carriage. The symphony wished them Good Evening. The plumed hat bowed slightly at the departing foreigners. Not too near the palace, probably just outside the park, Powerscourt expected the carriage to be stopped and that he and Mikhail would be taken away. This was the gamble he had taken when he sent his message to the Embassy about being in a position to solve the mystery of Martin’s death inside a week. Whatever happened to Martin had happened after he left the Tsar. Somewhere between Tsarskoe Selo and St Petersburg he had been killed.

They heard their adversaries before they saw them, a rattle of horses’ hooves hurrying across the snow. Then a party of six men came into view, all in some elaborate Russian army uniform Powerscourt didn’t recognize, all with rifles slung across their backs, the leader with a pistol in his left hand. Powerscourt remembered an old army instructor telling him years before that left-handed shots had to be treated with great care as they were often more accurate than right-handers.

‘You!’ the left-hander barked at the coachman. ‘Follow us.’ A very young soldier took his place beside the coachman on the box seat and stuck a gun in his ribs.

‘What do you think is going to happen now, Francis?’ whispered Johnny Fitzgerald.

‘I think they’re going to haul me off for questioning, Johnny. If they take me on my own that probably means it’s Derzhenov. He doesn’t need an interpreter. If they want Mikhail to come too, it’s a different collection. Whatever happens, I don’t think it’s going to be good for my retirement prospects to stay with these gentlemen long, whoever they may be.’

The coach had turned out of the park and was now passing down the main street of the village. At the very end of the built-up area they turned left into the grounds of a rather dilapidated house. Faint lights could be seen in a room on the ground floor. The paint seemed to be peeling from the pillars by the front door. There was some discussion between the men who had captured them. Then Powerscourt and Mikhail were ordered out of the carriage and marched roughly into the house. Four men stayed on guard by the coach, scowling at the English and smoking strong-smelling cigarettes.

Powerscourt and Mikhail were shown into what had once been a handsome room with high ceilings and sash windows. There were a couple of battered armchairs in the middle of the room. Two wooden chairs had been placed in front of a rickety table at the opposite end from the window. Powerscourt noticed to his dismay that there were a number of stout sticks and a couple of Russian knouts or whips lying casually in the corner of the room. Opposite the chairs was a pale officer in his mid-forties with a great scar running down the lower side of his face. Most people, Powerscourt thought, would have grown a beard to hide the injury. Not this man. He flaunted it like a badge of honour. His hair was grey and his eyes were a dull brown.

‘Major Andrey Shatilov of the Imperial Guard, Royal Palaces Security Division,’ he said crisply.

‘Lord Francis Powerscourt, attached to His Majesty’s Foreign Office,’ Powerscourt replied, ‘Mr Mikhail Shaporov of the Shaporov Bank, acting as my translator. Pray explain to us why we have been taken prisoner in this fashion. I shall report this to my Ambassador here.’

Powerscourt wondered suddenly if the world of conventional diplomacy, with its notes and its niceties, its protocols and its levees, was somehow alien even in St Petersburg. Peter the Great may have been trying to civilize a nation when he built his capital here on this isolated spot, but after two hundred years he still had not succeeded. These people here, the Major with his scar and the rough soldiery outside, belonged to some alien world, the world of the peasants perhaps, tucked away in the great empty vastness of Russia with only their women and their violence for company. Russian generals, he remembered, had always been careless with the lives of their men. There were so many of them, endless reservoirs to make up the numbers when the first drafts had perished.