Sam Eastland - Berlin Red

When Stalin had sent the young Lieutenant Kirov to retrieve Pekkala from Siberia, it had been with one purpose in mind – to conduct a secret investigation into the death of the Tsar and his family. Although a statement had been issued long ago, confirming the executions in the basement of a house in Ekaterinburg, which had once belonged to a merchant named Ipatiev, Stalin had harboured his own suspicions about the accuracy of the report. He had become fixated on the possibility that one person in particular night have survived – the Tsar’s only son, Alexei, whose frailty, caused by haemophilia, had consumed the royal couple even to the end of their days. It was this very frailty, combined with the young man’s youth and innocence, which led Stalin to believe the executioners might have taken pity upon the boy, and perhaps even on some of the daughters as well. A steady flow of rumours had circulated, not only in Russia but throughout the world, that various members of the Romanov clan, once thought to have been butchered in captivity, might still be alive, after all. Eventually, inevitably, these suspicions loomed so large in Stalin’s mind that he knew he must find out the truth. And even as the thought occurred to him, he realised that there was only one man alive who knew enough about the Romanovs to dig out the truth once and for all. It was the Emerald Eye.

Stalin had kept Pekkala alive for a reason, even if he had not known at the time what that reason might amount to. The execution order had been there on Stalin’s desk and he had been about to sign it when he hesitated. Such a thing had never happened before. Even he did not know what had caused his pen to hover over the page. It was part fear, part admiration, part practicality.

Stalin knew where to find Pekkala. What he did not know was whether the Inspector would agree to join forces with a man who had once been his enemy. It would not be enough to simply order him. In order to tip the balance in his favour, Stalin had made Pekkala an offer – complete the investigation, and then Pekkala could go free.

And he had intended to keep his word, at least in the beginning, but by the time Pekkala’s investigation was completed, Stalin had changed his mind. Not only would Pekkala’s brand of expertise prove useful in running the country, Stalin could not imagine how he’d ever do without it. But he knew that Pekkala could never be forced into such an arrangement. He would have to be persuaded.

In the end, all Stalin needed was a single photograph.

The picture was of Lilya Simonova, sitting at a cafe in Paris, where she had fled at the outset of the Revolution. Pekkala’s plan had been to join her there, but his arrest by Red Guard Militia, at a lonely, snowbound checkpoint on the Russo-Finnish border as he tried to leave the country, had put an end to that.

In the photo, Lilya Simonova was smiling. Sitting beside her was a man, slightly built, with dark hair combed straight back. He wore a jacket and tie and the stub of a cigarette was pinched between his thumb and second finger. He held the cigarette in the Russian manner, with the burning end balanced over his palm as if to catch the falling ash. Like Lilya, the man was also smiling. Both of them were watching something just to the left of the camera. On the other side of the table was a pram, its hood pulled up to shelter the infant from the sun.

Procuring such a photograph had not been difficult. Stalin’s network of informants had charted the whereabouts of almost every Russian emigre in Paris.

Mother. Father. Child. The picture was perfectly clear.

Stalin’s purpose in showing the photo to Pekkala had been equally clear – to persuade him to remain in Russia, and carry on the work he had begun when he first attached the gold and emerald badge beneath the collar of his coat.

‘You must not blame her,’ Stalin had told the Inspector. ‘She waited. She waited a very long time. But a person cannot wait forever, can they?’ Better, Stalin had explained, that Pekkala should learn the truth now than to arrive in Paris, ready to start a new life, only to find that it was once more out of reach. ‘You could still go to her, of course. I have her address if you want it. One look at you and whatever peace of mind she might have won for herself in these past years would be gone forever. And let us say, for the sake of argument, that you might persuade her to leave the man she married. Let us say that she even leaves behind her child . . .’

Pekkala held up a hand for him to stop.

‘You see my point,’ continued Stalin. ‘You and I both know that you are not this kind of man. Nor are you the monster that your enemies once believed you to be. If you were, you would never have been such a formidable opponent for people like myself. Monsters are easy to defeat. With such people, it is only a question of blood and time, since their only weapon is fear. But you, Pekkala, you won the hearts of the people of Russia, along with the respect of your enemies. I do not believe you understand how rare a thing that is. Whatever your opinion of me, those whom you once served are out there still.’ Stalin brushed his hand towards the window, and out across the pale blue sky. ‘They know how difficult your job can be, and how few of those who walk your path can do what must be done and still hold on to their humanity. They have not forgotten you, Pekkala, and I don’t believe you have forgotten them.’

‘No,’ whispered Pekkala, ‘I have not forgotten.’

‘What I am trying to tell you’, Stalin had explained, ‘is that you still have a place here if you want it.’

Until that moment, the thought of staying on had not occurred to Pekkala. But now the plans he’d made held no more meaning. Pekkala realised that his last gesture of affection for the woman he’d once thought would be his wife must be to let her believe he was dead.

Now Stalin opened a file and from it he removed a picture, which he slid across the desk towards Pekkala.

It was that same photograph which he had set before Pekkala all those years ago.

A sigh escaped Pekkala’s lips. Even though he had recalled every detail of the picture, it still struck him to see it again. It was as if a hole had opened up in time and he found himself again, in this same room, in that moment when the course of his life had been altered by this single frozen image. ‘Why show me this again?’ he asked.

‘The photograph is not complete,’ Stalin said quietly, as if hoping that his words might pass unnoticed.

‘Not complete? I don’t understand,’ said Pekkala.

Now Stalin removed a second picture from the file. It was the same size as the first one, and showed almost the same image, but this one appeared to have been taken from several paces further back.

The second photo showed not only Lilya Simonova and the man beside her, as well as the pram that stood between them, but also the tables on either side. From this expanded view, it was evident that the man had been sitting at a separate table and that he was with another woman. The woman was holding a baby in her arms. The baby was laughing and it was this which had drawn the attention of Lilya and the man. The other thing which this photo made obvious was that Lilya Simonova was sitting at the table by herself. A stack of notes, perhaps the uncorrected papers of her students, lay neatly on the table top, and her hand, with a pen tucked in her fingers like a cigarette, lay on the notes, to stop them from blowing away.

As he stared at the picture, Pekkala realised that the first image he had been shown, all those years ago, had, in fact, been cropped to hide the presence of the other woman, the baby and the positioning of the tables.

In the second picture, the narrative had been completely changed.