by Killigrew
But Voronin merely made a note of it on the sheet in front of him. ‘What brings you to St Petersburg?’
‘I’m trying to cover the war from the Russian point of view.’
‘Do you have an opinion about the war?’
‘No.’
Voronin looked up at him in surprise. ‘Surely you must have some opinion?’
‘I have lots of opinions. What do you mean? Do I think it’s justified? Do I think it’s being fought well? Who do I think will win? Define “justified”. Define “fought well”. It’s all a matter of point of view. I’m a reporter, Superintendent. My business is facts, not opinions.’
Voronin pursed his lips and nodded approvingly. ‘I only wish all journalists shared your attitude, M’sieur Bryce. When will you be leaving Russia?’
‘I hadn’t decided yet. It all depends upon which way the war goes. Could be I’m here for the duration. Why? Are you in a hurry to see the back of me?’
Voronin smiled. ‘No.’
‘I’ll be frank with you, Superintendent. My editor sent me here in case the British attack St Petersburg. That’s not his opinion of what will happen; he’s sent one of my colleagues to England in case you attack London.’
Voronin checked his notes. ‘You arrived in St Petersburg yesterday.’
‘That’s right.’
‘And last night you went to Mscislaw Wojtkiewicz’s house on the Angliiskaya Embankment.’
‘Sure.’ There was no point in denying it: Count Orloff himself had seen him there.
‘How do you know M’sieur Wojtkiewicz?’
‘I don’t. At least, I didn’t; until last night.’
‘Then what took you to his house?’
‘I like gambling. That isn’t a crime in Russia, is it?’
Voronin shook his head. ‘But I am curious enough to know how you found your way to Wojtkiewicz’s house so swiftly. He does not, shall we say, advertise?’
‘That omission doesn’t seem to do his trade any harm.’
‘Tee-hee! No, indeed! But you must confess, it was fast work on your part to surmount that obstacle. I suppose you asked the concierge at your hotel where you could… what do you Americans call it, “bucking the tiger”?’
It was clumsily done; perhaps this fellow was not so bright after all. But this was not the time to start underestimating him. ‘No, as a matter of fact a colleague of mine in New York told me before I left. I knew he’d worked in St Petersburg in the past, I wanted to know what he could tell me about Russian customs, things I should be aware of. He works for a rival paper, but in our profession we like to help one another – until one of us gets the scent of a scoop. Then it’s every man for himself.’
‘And he told you about Wojtkiewicz’s house?’
‘That’s right.’
‘Have you ever met the Countess Vásáry?’
Killigrew frowned. ‘The name rings a bell… wait a minute, there was an aristocratic lady at Wojtkiewicz’s house, she had a foreign name or something. I think she said she was the Countess Vásáry. Or something like that. Come to think of it, she was the one who introduced me to Wojtkiewicz.’
‘Have you seen her since?’
Killigrew knew the art of lying lay in sticking as closely as possible to the truth, especially about things that could easily be checked on; once you started to embellish, you laid yourself open to all sorts of traps. But he could not tell Voronin about how he had ‘rescued’ the ‘countess’ later that night, because then he would have to explain why he had gone to Prince Polyansky’s house, how he had been drugged, and how he had woken up back at Wojtkiewicz’s house. It was a risk, nevertheless. Suppose the ‘countess’ was really an agent provocateur for the Third Section? They might be asking about her to lull him into thinking that she was not one of them; all he had to do was get caught lying about one little thing, and the whole imposture would collapse around him like a house of cards. Even if the ‘countess’ was not working for the Third Section, what about the man she had hired to ‘attack’ her? Could he have talked to the wrong people?
He realised he had hesitated too long before answering; Voronin was bound to have noticed.
‘No,’ he said. That was true enough: Voronin had asked if he had seen her since, which implied: ‘since that night’. Besides, if they told him they knew he had gone back to Polyansky’s house, he could always claim he had lied to protect her reputation. He was just an innocent American journalist: how was he to know she did not have a reputation worth defending?
Voronin made a brief note. Apparently he had not noticed Killigrew’s hesitation. But perhaps he was a good actor too?
The superintendent put down his pen. ‘Fine. Well, I do not think I need to keep you any longer.’
Killigrew struggled to keep the surprise out of his voice. ‘You… does that mean I can go?’
‘Certainly. Of course, I may call you back for further questioning. But for now, you are free to go.’ He rose to his feet, and Killigrew did likewise. The two of them shook hands.
‘I hope I’ve been of some help, although I can’t imagine how,’ said Killigrew.
Voronin smiled. ‘Well, let us just say you have been very patient and co-operative, and leave it at that, shall we?’
Killigrew put his hat back on, turned to the door, laid his hand on the knob—
‘Oh, just one other thing…’ said Voronin.
Killigrew’s heart lurched in his throat. Struggling to control his breathing, he turned back to face the superintendent.
Voronin was hunched over the papers on his desk, scribbling away furiously. ‘You did not give me the name of your colleague in America who told you about Wojtkiewicz’s house,’ he said without looking up.
‘No, I didn’t.’
Voronin looked up at him quizzically.
‘A good journalist always protects his sources.’
‘Meaning?’
‘I like to play faro. My colleague… well, I’m sure you know gaming isn’t the only entertainment provided at Wojtkiewicz’s house. And my colleague is a married man.’
‘Fair enough. Goodbye, Mr Killigrew.’
For a split second, Killigrew thought he was going to have a stroke. There was no time to draw breath…
‘I beg your pardon?’
…this was a test, the oldest one in the book, and the speed of Killigrew’s reaction was as crucial as the reaction itself.
Voronin looked up at him innocently. ‘Sorry?’
Killigrew’s expression was equally innocent. ‘I thought you called me… what was it, “Killigrew”?’
Voronin smiled. He even looked relieved. ‘Sorry. My mind is on other things. Goodbye, M’sieur Bryce.’
‘Superintendent.’ Killigrew tipped his hat and left the office.
On the other side of the door, he resisted the temptation to lean back against it, sobbing for breath. He was not out of the lion’s den yet, and for all the clerk at the desk outside was hunched over his desk, Killigrew knew he would be watching him out of the corner of his eye. Briskly but unhurriedly, he squeezed out through the succession of crowded rooms and began to descend the stairs, his heart and mind racing.
Killigrew. Voronin had called him Killigrew.
They knew.
No. If they knew, they would have arrested him by now. They suspected, but they did not know.
Still, it was enough of a shock that they suspected: the only thing keeping them from arresting him was the thought that he might really be who he claimed to be, and the last thing their Foreign Office wanted at the moment was the United States consul hammering on the door.
Or perhaps they were just trying to lull him into a false sense of security, get him to think they were only letting him go. Perhaps a closed telezhka waited on the street outside, to whip him off to the cellars of the Kochubey Mansion for the real interrogation.
Killigrew’s legs felt watery: he was having trouble negotiating the stairs. Stay calm, he told himself. Your name s John
Bryce, you’re an American citizen, and you haven’t done anything wrong. Funny the way that superintendent called you by the wrong name as you were leaving. What was the name? You’ve forgotten already.
But the blood still pounded in his ears.
He stepped outside into the bright sunlight. There was no telezhka waiting for him, only Tweedledum and Tweedledee on the other side of the street, pretending to read newspapers as they sat astride their drozhky. Killigrew remembered he was still holding the newspaper Jedraszczyk had given him. Was there a message hidden inside? Jesus, suppose Voronin had thought to examine it? But he had not.
Killigrew tucked the folded newspaper under one arm. What he needed was a cheroot to calm his nerves. He had taken his cheroot case out and had almost put one in his mouth when he remembered the ridiculous public ordinance forbidding smoking on the streets. He tucked the case out of sight and was about to start walking when he realised he had no idea where in St Petersburg he was. He had been so worried about his imminent interview on the way there, it had not occurred to him to keep track of the route the gendarmes had taken to bring him here.
He took a deep breath. He had got away with it… so far. That was all that mattered. ‘Goodbye, Mr Killigrew’ – Jesus, did the bastards really think he’d fall for that one? He was tempted to walk straight across the street, right up to Tweedledum and Tweedledee, watch them squirm as he asked for directions back to his hotel. But that was exactly what Kit Killigrew would have done; he was just an American journalist. Now was not the time to get overconfident. Looking about, he saw a broad, busy thoroughfare at the end of the street, and headed towards it. It proved to be the Nevsky Prospect, and from there he had no trouble finding his way back to the hotel.
He stopped in the bathroom on the third floor and vomited into one of the earth closets. He wiped his mouth on a fistful of oakum, went to his room and gargled with whisky to take away the taste of bile, tap water in this city being just about the easiest way for a man to die of cholera.
He sat down on the edge of the bed, lit a cheroot with trembling fingers, and lay back with his head on the pillow to smoke it. By the time he stubbed it out in the ashtray, his heartbeat was approaching normal.
He sat up and opened the newspaper Jedraszczyk had given him. A pasteboard card fell out on to the floor. He stooped and picked it up, turning it over in his hands. It was a ticket to the ballet The Star of Granada, to be performed at the theatre in the Winter Palace that night.
* * *
‘I wonder what would happen,’ Killigrew murmured, ‘if I were to draw my revolver and empty it into the Tsar’s chest?’
Wojtkiewicz looked at him. ‘Don’t tell me you brought your revolver!’ he hissed incredulously.
‘No well-dressed man about town should be without one.’
Wojtkiewicz glanced across to where the young Tsar sat between his brother and the Tsarina. ‘Well, you’d almost certainly kill him at this range. But I doubt you’d make your escape. If one of the cuirassiers didn’t cut you down at once, they’d put you in the Petropavlovsky Fortress and execute you at the first opportunity. The Third Section would torture you into admitting you were a British agent, your government would be embarrassed, and the war would go on exactly the same as before. In fact, I’d say there’d be even less chance of an early peace than if you let him live.’
‘If I thought it would stop the war,’ said Killigrew, ‘I’d’ve pulled the trigger already.’
Wojtkiewicz gave him a sidelong glance. ‘You would have done too, wouldn’t you?’ He shook his head in disbelief.
Killigrew raised his opera glasses to his eyes and gazed across the semi-circular neoclassical auditorium of the Imperial Theatre. The walls and columns were decorated with imitation marble, and statues of the nine Muses stood in niches, with bas-relief portraits of famous musicians and poets above them. The huge chandelier overhead was dimmed, most of the illumination in the auditorium coming from the limelight focused on the stage.
Military fashions were all the rage in St Petersburg that year, if the largely aristocratic audience was anything to go by. The young Tsar wore enough gold braid to rig an entire fleet of ships, and his brother – the Grand Duke Konstantin – wore the uniform of the admiral-general of the Imperial Russian Navy. The militarist theme was continued by the white-uniformed cuirassiers of the Imperial bodyguard, ranged around the outside of the auditorium, in case some madman took it into his head to make an attempt on the Tsar’s life.
Count Orloff was there, in the sky-blue uniform of the Third Section. There was no sign of Colonel Nekrasoff, Killigrew noted with relief: the last thing he needed was to be recognised tonight as an officer of the Royal Navy. Besides, it was just as well: if Nekrasoff had been there – and if he had not spotted and recognised Killigrew before the final curtain – the commander would almost certainly have forgotten about his mission in order to trail and assassinate the colonel. There was a score to be settled there, and Killigrew would have no qualms about snuffing Nekrasoff’s life out in cold blood.
There were members of the upper middling sort present in the audience too, although few of them wore evening clothes or had their stovepipe hats and gloves resting on their laps as Killigrew did: there was no shortage of sinecures in the Russian bureaucracy, and each one of them entitled the holder to wear a uniform, amongst other privileges.
He turned his attention back to the stage as the corps de ballet danced off and Anzhelika Orlova danced on for the pas de deux with Marius Petipa, the Mariinsky Theatre Company’s new premier danseur. Mademoiselle Orlova was in her late twenties, a petite, graceful young woman with a rosebud mouth, dark hair pulled back in a chignon and wide, dark eyes contrasting with the porcelain-doll complexion of her heart-shaped face: undoubtedly beautiful, yet with an air of the gamine about her that added to her elfin, fairy-like loveliness. Her costume consisted of an off-the-shoulder bodice and a gauzy skirt through which Killigrew could clearly see her legs all the way up to her slender hips, covered only by white, gauzy tights.
‘You’re sure your plan’s going to work?’ asked Wojtkiewicz.
‘It can’t fail,’ Killigrew told him. ‘I used it in Liverpool eight years ago to inveigle myself with the master of a slave ship. It’s the same trick the Countess Vásáry tried to use to inveigle herself with me last night, except that where she took the role of damsel in distress, I take the role of the knight in shining armour.’
Wojtkiewicz gave him another sidelong glance. ‘Knight in evening clothes, at any rate. You saw through the countess’s act easily enough. What makes you think Mam’selle Orlova won’t see through yours?’
‘I’m a spy in a hostile country; it’s my job to be suspicious of everyone I meet. She’s an innocent young ballet dancer.’
Wojtkiewicz chuckled softly.
‘What’s so amusing?’
‘Oh, nothing. It’s just I never thought I’d live to hear the word “innocent” used in the same sentence as the phrase “ballet dancer”.’
‘Her morals may or may not be everyone’s notion of purity. My point is, there’s no reason why she shouldn’t take me at face value. I just hope you made it clear to Casimir and Stanislas to go easy.’ Casimir was Wojtkiewicz’s butler – the broken-nosed ruffian who had escorted Killigrew to the Pole’s steam bath the previous morning – and Stanislas was his coachman, a stocky fellow with a mop of black, curly hair.
‘As soon as this act’s finished, I’ll go and make sure they’re in position,’ Wojtkiewicz told Killigrew. ‘Does this have something to do with finding this man Bauer, or is your interest in Mam’selle Orlova purely… ah… artistic?’
‘She may know where Bauer is.’
‘You’re going to a lot of trouble to find this fellow. What’s so important about him, that you had to come to St Petersburg to find him?’
‘Would you believe me if I told you he stole Prince Albert’s snuffbox?’
‘No, I would not!’ Wojtkiewicz glowered at Killig
rew, who just smiled.
The stage lights were dimmed to allow the stage-hands to change the scenery. Wojtkiewicz rose from his seat and left the auditorium.
Killigrew stayed until the final curtain. The ballet itself was not much to write home about, but Mademoiselle Orlova’s exquisite dancing was more than compensation enough. When the corps de ballet had taken their final curtain call, the Imperial family left the auditorium to cross the arch into the main part of the Winter Palace, and Killigrew followed the other patrons out on to Millionaires’ Street.
While the rest of the crowd dispersed, he made his way along the side of the Winter Canal to the Dvortsovaya Embankment, overlooking the Neva at the back of the theatre. Killigrew took up position in the shadows and waited. A number of people emerged and climbed into waiting carriages, and he recognised a few of the ballet dancers who emerged in a group, laughing gaily as they set off into the city. He hoped Anzhelika Orlova did not come out as part of a group: if she did, everything would be ruined.
When she finally did come out, Killigrew almost failed to recognise her, dressed as she was in a battered-looking greatcoat and a broad-brimmed wideawake. But there was no mistaking her petite figure and the grace with which she moved, even when walking with her hands in her coat pockets and her narrow shoulders hunched against the wind that blew up the Neva.
The two bulky figures that weaved drunkenly along the embankment had timed it to perfection. A bottle of vodka passed back and forth between them as they took turns taking a swig. With her eyes cast down, she did not see them until she had almost bumped into them. She looked up, startled, and tried to sidestep them, but one of them reached out and caught her by the arm.
‘Hullo! What have we got here?’ he slurred.
‘Please, let me go,’ said Mademoiselle Orlova.
‘Have a drink with us.’
‘No, thank you. I’m not thirsty.’