Tom Bradby - The White Russian

“I called you last night, sir.”

“Yes, you said it was urgent. My apologies.”

Ruzsky could tell someone else was listening, or standing close. He hesitated again.

“I’d be grateful if I could speak to you in person at the earliest opportunity.”

“Yes.” Shulgin’s tone was noncommittal.

“Preferably tonight.”

“That is not going to be possible, Chief Investigator.”

“My father’s death was no accident, sir.”

Shulgin was silent.

“It occurred within minutes of an unscheduled meeting with Mr. Vasilyev. I’m sure you will agree that it was quite out of character.”

“The meeting was not unscheduled. And Mr. Vasilyev is privy, I’m afraid, to a great deal of information that disturbs the minds of the sanest of men.”

“That is hard to accept,” Ruzsky said quietly.

“So are many things, at this time.”

“You were close to my father.”

“We were colleagues.”

“Close colleagues.”

“I was aware of your father’s concerns.”

“Would you share them with me?”

Shulgin sighed. “No, Sandro. I’m sorry. I cannot.”

“Am I not to be permitted to know why my father took his own life?”

There was a longer pause. “Nicholas Nikolaevich was a senior government official. Our hands are thus bound in ways we might not wish.”

“So he placed a revolver in his mouth and pulled the trigger purely as a result of the situation in which Russia finds herself at this time?”

Shulgin did not answer, but his silence suggested he also did not believe this was an adequate explanation.

“In the meeting we attended, you made reference to events you expected to take place on Friday or Saturday. You spoke with Mr. Vasilyev about intelligence you had received.”

“Yes.”

“We have been informed that the Petrograd garrison has received specific orders relating to this weekend.”

“Yes.”

“Would you mind telling me why?”

“You know the answer perfectly well.”

“You fear unrest?”

“Yes.”

“It is more than a routine matter?”

“We would not issue an alert without specific intelligence. But what bearing does this have on your investigation?”

“I thought it might shed light on the victims. It is possible that they have been murdered as a result of activities they planned to conduct in the capital.”

Shulgin was silent again.

“There has been another body, sir. A fourth victim. A woman.”

“I see.”

He could tell Shulgin already knew. Ruzsky pictured the colonel standing alone in the hallway of the Alexander Palace, the Tsar and his wife secluded in the rooms behind him, their children asleep. It seemed not just incongruous, but suddenly quite mad that the government of an empire should rest upon such foundations.

“I appreciate the burdens of office,” Ruzsky said. “Especially at this time. But it is not just blind faith that prevents me believing in my father’s suicide.”

“I understand that.”

Ruzsky waited for Shulgin to continue.

“Do you know who she was?” Shulgin asked. “This new victim.”

“She was another of the revolutionaries from Yalta. Olga Legarina was her name.”

“Have you spoken to Mr. Vasilyev about this?”

“Briefly.”

“I see. If you… hear of anything, you will let me know, won’t you, Sandro?”

The sudden intimacy surprised Ruzsky, and touched him. “Yes. Of course.”

As he replaced the receiver, he had a strong mental image of Colonel Shulgin walking slowly away across the hallway of the Alexander Palace.

Ruzsky put his elbows upon his desk and his face in his hands.

He thought of his father. He wanted to be able to pick up the receiver and place a call to the study at Millionnaya Street and have the old man answer.

Ruzsky was about to push himself to his feet when the telephone rang. He picked it up.

“Chief Investigator?”

“Yes.”

“Colonel Shulgin.”

“Yes.”

“We…” There was a long pause. “We would like you to present yourself here at first light.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Come alone.”

“Yes, sir.”

After a few minutes, Ruzsky walked back down the corridor and returned to the cellar.

T he clerk had gone home, and Ruzsky persuaded Pavel that he must do likewise.

He sat in the basement, alone in his task. The work was laborious, but it was how he most liked it.

He flicked through the files covering the period from 1905 to 1908, but with the exception of the era of quasi-revolution in the first of those years, there was little serious crime reported from the Crimean peninsula and its immediate surroundings.

There were assassinations in other parts of the country, but not in Yalta, Sevastopol, or Odessa.

Pavel had checked through the records for the latter half of 1908 and the two following years, which left Ruzsky with nowhere to go but backward.

He began on the files for 1904.

He reached July before he found what he was looking for. His eyes had begun to droop, but the sight of the name on the telegraph snapped him awake.

Governor Bulyatin murdered. Bomb thrown in carriage. Wife and son also fatalities. Two daughters unharmed. Further information soonest. Yalta.

Ruzsky stared at the telegraph, then began to turn the pages. A period of intense traffic had followed, culminating in the identification of a suspect.

Suspect in Bulyatin case identified as Michael Borodin. Await further information.

But if the office in Yalta had uncovered further information, none came. The Bulyatin case was referred to with diminishing vigor for the remainder of the year, the suspect Borodin not at all.

Ruzsky took the original telegraph from the file, folded it up, and slipped it into his pocket.

The wind had strengthened again, and it had begun to snow heavily, drifts gathering against the houses and around the bases of the gas lamps. The streets were deserted.

Ruzsky crossed the canal and turned off Sadovaya Ulitsa. The light was on in her window and there was no sign of a cab or sled outside. A dark shape emerged from the shadows, hurrying toward him, a woman-old or young he could not tell-cloaked in the robes of mourning, her face covered in a veil.

Outside Maria’s building, Ruzsky looked up through the swirling snow. He saw her at her window, silhouetted against the light.

He pushed the door open and climbed the stairs.

At the top, he leaned back against the wall. He thought of the document he had in his pocket, and the reason for her exile. Did she think of the white house she had told him of in Yalta, with its high ceilings, airy rooms, and views of the bay, as she stared out of the window at a dark Petersburg night?

He imagined a young girl leaning out of the window to listen to her mother sing on a warm summer’s evening, her sister beside her.

Ruzsky knocked. He heard footsteps and then nothing.

He thought of her beyond the door, in the darkness.

A minute passed, perhaps more. A key was turned and the door slowly opened. She wore a long red dress, a black velvet bow in her hair. She was painfully beautiful; her lips were slightly parted and her eyes shone with a potent blend of love, loneliness, and loss.

She had been waiting for him. She had known he would be searching for her.

She took him into her arms and he breathed in the scent of her. “I’m sorry,” she said. “Sandro, I’m so sorry.”

Ruzsky closed his eyes, transported for a moment to the place he most wished to be.

“I wanted to come to you,” she whispered.

Maria let him go, but only so that she could look into his eyes, her long fingers resting coolly upon his jaw. Her expression was intense; she wanted to offer reassurance and support in the dark hours she knew all too well. “I met your father once,” she said, “before you came back, after a performance. Despite everything, he was charming and kind. He reminded me of you.” She came closer, her face almost touching his. “I’m sorry, Sandro, if I’d known… I would have told you. You understand that, don’t you?” The look in her eyes was that of a little girl desperate to be believed.