Tom Bradby - The White Russian

In the hallway, Ruzsky accepted his coat.

“I’m sorry,” Shulgin said.

“The American took the material Ella stole to a newspaper?”

Shulgin glanced around him to be sure they were alone. “The Bourse Gazette.” He hesitated. “I’m sorry I brought you here, but she insisted.”

“I had the impression that you and my father were old friends.”

Shulgin stared at him with hollow eyes. “Your father knew too much, Sandro. And so do I.”

“As the minister responsible for the State Bank, he had to sign papers authorizing any movement of the gold reserves from the central vault?”

“If he told you that, then he should not have.”

“He was reluctant to sign the papers?”

“I simply cannot discuss this.” Shulgin sighed. “He had his reservations.”

“Vasilyev persuaded you all that this was necessary?”

“Mr. Vasilyev is in possession of much intimidating and unpleasant information.” A muscle in Shulgin’s cheek had begun to twitch. “I needed little persuading of the seriousness of our predicament.” Shulgin looked over his shoulder again, aware that he had raised his voice.

“So my father signed the papers?”

Shulgin avoided Ruzsky’s eye, but he did not deny it.

“But he wanted to countermand his order? That’s why he called the meeting with Vasilyev?”

“He did not telephone me before the meeting.”

“You must know that Vasilyev’s intention was-and is-robbery. He had assembled the group, of which Ella was a part, for precisely that purpose.”

“The group you refer to has dedicated itself to creating great difficulties for the government and its servants, and in that, I may say, it has been very successful, thanks largely to the activities of that silly, misguided girl.”

“Vasilyev knew all of these people in Yalta. Borodin may appear to be their leader, but Vasilyev-”

“He has infiltrated the group most successfully, for which we should all be grateful.”

“He controls them.”

“He is able to provide substantial reports on their activities, which the Emperor, in particular, appreciates.”

“They’re Vasilyev’s creatures. I have seen the evidence with my own eyes.”

“Well, then, present it. I am not at liberty to mistrust a government colleague upon whose advice so much now rests.”

“He has convinced you that today or tomorrow will bring revolutionary activity on such a scale that the regime’s wealth must be put beyond the reach of the mob?”

“That is a matter upon which I cannot and must not comment.” There was a stubborn determination to Shulgin now.

“My father didn’t trust him,” Ruzsky said.

“That’s not a matter for me.”

“And neither do you.”

“I have no choice,” Shulgin hissed, his face moving closer to Ruzsky’s, his eyes blazing. “The publication of the material stolen from the Empress’s private quarters would have the most damaging possible consequences.”

“What was stolen?”

“I cannot say. And do not press me. As the Empress has indicated, the details are not a matter for the city police department.”

“She brought me here only to ask about her stolen possessions.”

“She is naturally concerned and, at times, confused, about to whom she has spoken, and to whom she has not.”

Ruzsky looked at Shulgin. He could see the futility of his task. “Whatever Ella stole could be the final nail in the Romanov coffin,” he said. “Or so Vasilyev has claimed. But my father realized what he really had in mind.”

“Good day, Chief Investigator.”

Ruzsky turned away, but as he did so, he caught a glimpse of Shulgin’s unguarded expression. He had the look of a man who has felt someone walking across his grave.

T he offices of the Bourse Gazette were close to Sennaya Ploschad, in a nondescript gray building in a narrow side street. As the droshky driver dropped Ruzsky and Pavel off at the entrance, a black automobile drew to a halt twenty yards away, on the opposite side of the road.

Their surveillance had been stepped up.

A porter ushered them through the ground floor, past a series of giant black printing presses, to a steel staircase that led up to the editor’s office. As they passed through the newsroom, the noise and bustle fell away, and they were greeted by looks of hostility.

Ruzsky was glad of Pavel’s robust company.

The editor was much younger than he’d expected, in his twenties or early thirties, with dark hair that hung to his shoulders and a long, narrow nose. He had bony hands, which he kept clasped together in front of his face and did not move as the porter introduced them.

“How can we help you gentlemen?”

There was another man behind him, standing in front of a series of framed pages of the newspaper and a photograph of a man whom Ruzsky took to be their proprietor. Both wore the expression of carefully cultivated disdain he had come to expect from the Petrograd intelligentsia. Another slipped into the room behind them, a notebook and pen in his hand. He was even younger, and slouched in the corner, his manner was deliberately disrespectful. “I don’t think we’ll need the office boy,” Ruzsky said.

“I demand that you do not threaten us.” The editor got to his feet.

“You demand?” Ruzsky said.

Pavel stepped forward, his manner conciliatory. “We are conducting a criminal investigation.”

“And we are a newspaper,” the editor countered.

For a moment, nobody moved, then Pavel took one pace toward the young man, picked him up and threw him out of the room, then slammed the door shut. An overcoat hanging on the back of it fell to the floor.

“How dare-”

“Sit down,” Pavel ordered. The man did as he was told and glowered at them in silence.

“I apologize for our ill humor,” Ruzsky said.

The men glanced at each other, without speaking.

Ruzsky seated himself, trying to shake off his fatigue. He scratched his cheek. “I am Chief Investigator Ruzsky,” he said. “This is my deputy, Pavel Miliutin.”

The men stared at them.

“We are investigating a series of murders. You may recall that two bodies were found on the Neva on January first.”

“A series of murders?” the editor asked, his curiosity aroused.

“Yes.”

“The two bodies on the Neva?”

“And two more since.”

The men frowned.

“A man at the Lion Bridge with his head almost severed about ten days ago, and a woman close to the Finland Station yesterday.”

He could see he had their attention now. “An American came to see you,” Ruzsky went on. “Just before the first murders. His name was Robert White, though he may have used an alias.”

“Anyone who visits this office with information does so on a guarantee of anonymity.”

“He’s dead.”

Pavel took the photographs from a folder he had tucked under his arm and spread them out on the desk.

“This is the man who came to see you?” Ruzsky pointed at the American’s corpse.

Neither man answered. They were staring at the photographs, which appeared to be having the desired effect.

“Whitewater,” the editor said quietly. “That was the name he gave.”

“What did he want?” Pavel asked.

“He said he had some material that would be of interest to us.”

“What kind of material?”

“He didn’t say.”

Ruzsky stared at them. “‘Explosive’ is what I imagine he told you.”

“We have done nothing wrong,” the editor said.

“No one has suggested that you have.”

The man looked at the photographs again. He pulled over the picture of the bodies on the Neva. “Who is the girl?” the editor asked.