Katherine Woodfine - Spies in St. Petersburg

‘Please don’t underestimate yourself, Miss Rose,’ said C sternly. ‘Your work for the Bureau has been exemplary. There will be a great deal the Captain can learn from you – I know he will be most interested to see how you approach an undercover assignment. Won’t you, Captain?’ He gave Carruthers a sharp look.

‘Yes, sir,’ mumbled Carruthers.

‘Now, I’ve arranged things so you’ll be travelling as brother and sister.’

‘ Brother and sister ?’ repeated Carruthers, more appalled than ever.

‘Yes – that will make things straightforward. No eyebrows raised about unmarried girls racketing about Europe with young men, or anything like that,’ said the Chief briskly. ‘Tickets have been booked for you on tomorrow’s boat to Ostend, and from there you’ll take the train to Cologne, and change for Hamburg. Accommodation is arranged at a small guest house. You’ll visit two or three tourist spots, and then collect the report and bring it back here to me.’ He sat back in his chair, obviously well pleased with his plan.

Carruthers was scarlet with indignation, but as ever, the Chief didn’t seem to notice. ‘I’m sure you’ll want to go and talk it over,’ he said amiably. ‘Here’s the details of the rendezvous point for you, Miss Rose. Commit them to memory and then burn the paper, if you please.’ He slid a document across the desk towards her. ‘I’ll expect you both back here by the end of the week with the report,’ he finished. ‘Good hunting!’

Lil got to her feet. Her mind was in a whirl, but all the same, she managed to ask the most important question. She wanted to give the Chief one more chance to tell her the truth. ‘I was wondering . . . I know that yesterday you said Sophie was fine, but have you heard anything from her lately? Any letters – or telegrams?’ she prompted. ‘It’s been quite a while now that she’s been away, hasn’t it?’

‘Hmmm?’ The Chief looked up, already preoccupied by the paperwork on his desk. ‘Oh yes, well these things can sometimes take a while, you know.’

He gave her an avuncular smile – but to Lil it was no longer reassuring. Instead, it seemed more like a mask, concealing an expression that was cold and blank. She followed Carruthers hurriedly out of the room.

‘Well, isn’t this just brilliant ,’ Carruthers was muttering under his breath, banging things about on his desk. ‘For my first field assignment! Good lord!’

But Lil wasn’t listening. One thing was very clear to her. Whatever the Chief’s orders were, whatever the others thought, and even with Carruthers joining her on the assignment, there was not in the least chance she was going tamely to Hamburg and back again. She was going to St Petersburg to find Sophie – and that was that.

‘Last week we arrived in Russia, and I scarcely know what to write about it. I have visited a dozen different countries, but I really think St Petersburg is the most extraordinary place I have ever seen. I feel as though I have stepped into a fairy tale.’

– From the diary of Alice Grayson

At the same time that Lil was preparing to attend Sir Edwin’s ball on the other side of Europe, in the warm kitchen of a tall, pink house beside a narrow canal, Vera Ivanovna Orlov was telling stories to her grandchildren.

‘Once upon a time, there was a cross old Tsar, who lived in a palace surrounded by a beautiful orchard,’ she began. ‘Amongst all the trees in the orchard was one that was very special: a wonderful apple tree, which grew magical golden apples – the Tsar’s pride and joy. But one night, the Firebird appeared. It swooped down from the sky and ate the golden apples from the Tsar’s tree. The Tsar was furious: how dare a mere bird help itself to his golden apples? He summoned his three daughters, and commanded them to catch the Firebird, and see it punished for its insolence. But the youngest princess, who was also the cleverest –’

‘Wait! You’re telling it wrong, Babushka! ’ protested Luka, aged seven. ‘The story is supposed to be about the Tsar’s three sons . And it’s the youngest prince who is the cleverest.’

Vera tutted, from where she was stirring a steaming pan at the stove. ‘Who’s telling this story – me or you?’ she demanded, pausing to rap the fingers of six-year-old Elena with her wooden spoon, before they could creep any closer to the contents of her mixing bowl. ‘ Me . And I say it was daughters. So . . . as I was saying . The youngest princess, who was also the cleverest and the bravest . . .’

Sophie grinned to herself as she passed the kitchen, with its smells of smoke and spice. She caught the fragrance of honey and nutmeg and sniffed appreciatively, guessing that Vera was baking a batch of her famous biscuits. They’d eat them later, accompanied by lots of black tea from the samovar, served with spoonfuls of jam.

‘ Do svidaniya !’ she called through the kitchen door, waving goodbye to Vera and the children, before she went out of the house, on to the Ulitsa Zelenaya.

Bells were chiming out across the city as she crossed a little bridge over the misty canal. She’d never known a city with as many bells as St Petersburg: the silvery chime of the little bells blending in harmony with the deep, resonant toll of the larger ones. The air felt chilly against her face after the snug warmth of the house, and her breath puffed out in little clouds. It might still be September, but the weather was already beginning to turn. By the end of October, Vera had told her, the temperature would fall below zero, and the canal would begin to freeze. Now, Sophie could already feel the cold swish of the wind blowing up from the river, and she pulled her coat more closely around her, as she turned on to the Nevsky.

The Nevsky Prospekt was St Petersburg’s grandest street, lined with elegant buildings that gave it the air of a London avenue, or a Paris boulevard. At night it glittered with new electric lights: now, in the morning, it was alive with the rattle of tram cars, the clatter of horse’s hooves and the fanfare of motor horns. In the distance Sophie could hear the faint smoky hum of the mills and shipyards and ironworks – but the Nevsky was far from their smog. Here were palaces like birthday cakes, in a rainbow of ice-cream-coloured stucco. Here were the windows of magnificent shops, with their displays of feathered hats and furred capes, sugar-dusted chocolates and candied cherries. French boutiques offered Parisian gowns and gloves; the Eliseyev Emporium exhibited bon bons and cakes elaborate enough for a Viennese coffee house; and at the Magasin Anglais, Russian aristocrats could purchase Pears soap, Scottish tweeds and lavender water imported from England. Everywhere signs read English spoken or Ici on parle Français .

There were always many languages to be heard on the Nevsky. Sophie’s ears hummed with Russian and French, English and Polish, Yiddish and German. At this time of day, it seemed all of St Petersburg must be here: fashionable ladies and gentlemen, taking in the shops; green-capped students with books under their arms, hurrying to the public library; a swagger of young officers, jostling a clerk in a cheap overcoat into the gutter; a gaggle of sightseers, gawping at the bright window displays. There was plenty for tourists to see here: Sophie knew all the sights now. There was the grand Mikhailovsky Palace, whose sumptuous halls housed the Russian Museum, and there was the dramatic sweep of the Kazan Cathedral, with its rows of magnificent columns. There was the elegant Hotel Europa – the best hotel in St Petersburg – and just beyond it, an enchanting glimpse of the glittering fairy-tale domes of the Church of the Savior on Spilled Blood. There was the glass-roofed bazaar, designed to look like an exquisite Paris arcade, and twinkling in the distance, the golden spire of the Admiralty Tower.