The White Russian

by Tom Bradby

  They waited.

  “Who is it?” a voice asked.

  “Madam Kovyil? City police.”

  There was another pause and then the door was opened by a tiny woman who barely reached Pavel’s waist. She smiled at him nervously and stepped back to allow them to enter. “This is Chief Investigator Ruzsky,” Pavel said, as if he himself was unimportant.

  The woman forced herself to smile. “My husband once served under-”

  “My father. Or perhaps my uncle.” Ruzsky grinned and clasped her wrist with his left hand. “Sandro.”

  She placed a small, cold hand in his and tried to hold her smile in place.

  She looked up at him with hollow eyes.

  “Madam Kovyil, I’m afraid I have to tell you that…”

  But he could see she already knew. From the palace, he assumed. From Shulgin, probably. She began to cry and Pavel was at once next to her, ushering her into a chair close to the fireplace and holding on to her arm until she had recovered her composure. Ruzsky wondered how long ago she had been told.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m so sorry.”

  “There is no need to apologize, Madam Kovyil,” Ruzsky responded.

  “Anna. Please call me Anna.”

  She pushed herself forward in her chair. She seemed even frailer than when they had arrived. “Would you like something to drink? I’m afraid I have no vodka, but tea perhaps?”

  Ruzsky and Pavel both shook their heads. The room was small and neat, but the fireplace was too clean to have been used at any time in the recent past, and if she ever heated any kind of pot, they could both see it was a rare event.

  The only light in the room emanated from one small window, covered in frost. Ruzsky stood and peered at the photographs on the mantelpiece. The first was of Anna and her husband on their wedding day, the second of him in the regimental uniform of the Preobrazhensky Guards, and the third of Ella at age fourteen or fifteen. As Ruzsky had imagined, she had a shy, sweet smile, like her mother.

  “She was your only child?” Ruzsky asked.

  Anna nodded once and then slowly and with dignity, placed her head in her hands. Pavel gripped her shoulder once more.

  She composed herself and looked up. “I’m sorry,” she said again.

  Ruzsky returned to his seat. Even in this light, he could see that its cover had been carefully stitched together. Like everything else, it spoke of a threadbare respectability.

  “This is a terrible time, Madam… Anna, I know, but if you feel strong enough to answer questions, we’d greatly appreciate your assistance.”

  Anna nodded. “Of course.”

  “We don’t believe Ella’s murder was an isolated incident.”

  Anna stared at him with unseeing eyes. Her face was narrower than Ella’s, and if, as the photograph suggested, she had once been beautiful, her features had been ravaged by age and cold and poverty.

  “I told your colleagues,” she said quietly. “But if there is something else-”

  “Our colleagues?”

  Anna frowned. “Yes.”

  “Which colleagues?”

  “They came this morning, just a few minutes ago.”

  “Did they give their names?”

  “No, they just said they were from the police department.”

  “Was it they who told you of your daughter… of Ella’s death?” Ruzsky asked.

  She shook her head.

  “You were informed by palace officials?”

  “Yes.”

  “Yesterday, or the day before?”

  “The day before. On New Year’s Day, in the evening.”

  “Colonel Shulgin came to see you?”

  Anna did not respond, but he could see that this had not been the case. Ruzsky looked around. There was no telephone. Had they sent a messenger?

  They had informed her by letter?

  Ruzsky looked at Pavel and then back at Anna, unable to conceal his disgust at her treatment. “What did they look like, the men who came this morning?”

  “The man in charge was tall. Like you, but bigger. He had short hair and poor skin and a large…” With long bony fingers she indicated a pronounced nose. “He didn’t tell me his name.”

  Ruzsky glanced again at Pavel. “And what did he want?”

  “There were four of them. They asked questions about Ella and… some others.”

  “Which others?”

  Anna sighed and stared at her hands. “Some I didn’t know.”

  “Did they give names?”

  “I can’t remember all of them.”

  “It would help if you could recall one or two, Anna.”

  She was overtaken by confusion. “Were they not policemen?”

  “Not really, no.”

  “Who were they?”

  “Government officials.” Ruzsky glanced at Pavel again. “Okhrana. I don’t think they would be interested in finding your daughter’s killer.”

  Anna kneaded her hands. Ruzsky hoped he’d not frightened her into silence. “They asked about Ella’s friend.”

  “The American?”

  “Yes.” Anna looked up, pleading with them.

  Ruzsky showed her the photograph. “This man?” He was on the point of apologizing when he saw a hint of satisfaction in her eyes.

  “He was charming, of course, but I didn’t like it. He was so much older than her. He…” She trailed off.

  “He manipulated her?” Ruzsky suggested.

  “I wanted her to marry a man like her father, like my…” Anna shook her head. “He was such a good man, so loyal, to the Tsar and to us.”

  “Where did Ella meet her friend, Anna? Here in Petersburg?”

  Anna shook her head. “At home.”

  “In Yalta?” Ruzsky felt his pulse quicken.

  “Such a long time ago now. I thought she had forgotten him.”

  “She met the American on a holiday, or before you moved here?”

  “Yes. That’s why I left. I wanted to get her away. But I didn’t know.”

  “You didn’t know that they remained in contact?”

  “How could I? She never told me. I thought perhaps she would have met some nice man at the palace, which would have been so much more… appropriate. I always asked her about it and she said no, there was no one, that she was devoted to the Tsarevich and to her work…” Anna stopped again, frightened that she had revealed something she was not supposed to.

  “We know your daughter worked with the Tsarevich,” Pavel said. “We have been to the palace. They spoke very highly of her.”

  Anna seemed relieved. “She was a good girl. Such a good girl.”

  “You met the American in Yalta?” Ruzsky asked.

  “Only once.” Anna sat forward and pushed the scarf back from her head. She appeared stronger now, bolstered by hostility to her daughter’s lover. “That summer, he came to the house, just after Ella’s father had died. He was charming.” She shook her head again. “I don’t know what it was. He was so much older than her. She was just a young girl.”

  “Did you sense that your daughter-”

  “I’m not a fool, Chief Investigator. I knew that they were lovers, but I thought that it was an infatuation that would run its course. She said that he’d encouraged her to apply for a job at the royal palace and I thought she would soon forget him.”

  “He encouraged her?”

  “Yes.”

  “He encouraged her to get a job at Livadia?”

  “Yes.”

  “This would have been… what year exactly?”

  “Nineteen ten.”

  “How old was she then, Anna?”

  “She was fifteen.”

  “Did Ella tell you why he’d encouraged her to apply for a job at the royal palace?”

  Anna didn’t understand the significance of the question. “Her father had died,” she said defensively. “It was a difficult time for both of us, of course. Ella was at that age… she wanted to find her own feet. It was under
standable.”

  “But the American specifically encouraged her to get a job in the imperial household?”

  “My husband had been in the guards. He had always hoped she would find employment at Livadia, but…”

  “She had initially been reluctant to work in the imperial household?”

  Anna stared at her hands. “She was just a young girl.”

  “She didn’t like doing her father’s bidding?”

  “A lot of people filling her head with silly ideas.” Anna smiled. “We dealt with it. After the move to Petersburg, it was so much better.”

  “Silly ideas?” Ruzsky asked.

  Anna did not answer.

  “Revolutionary ideas?”

  Anna looked worried again, until she realized that her daughter’s death had absolved her of any need to fear this point at least. She sighed. “It was different in Petersburg,” she repeated.

  “White was a revolutionary and Ella was influenced by him?”

  “My husband would not allow discussion of politics in the house. They… he and Ella argued in the last year of his life. It upset him greatly.”

  “She met the American in revolutionary circles in Yalta?”

  Anna looked at Pavel and then back at Ruzsky. “I don’t know about that, but I didn’t like him. After my husband died, I wanted to move away. It would be good to begin again. It was my gift to him.”

  “To your husband?”

  “Yes.”

  “He had been very worried about Ella?”

  “She would never have brought the American to the house when her father was alive.”

  “Did the American ever explain what he was doing in Yalta, Anna?”

  “Traveling, he said.” Anna shrugged contemptuously. “Just traveling. That was all he said. Ella told me his father was a millionaire from America and he liked to travel to other parts of the world. He boasted that he had no need to work.”

  Ruzsky could see how the the poor, respectable Kovyils must have hated the charming interloper who had bewitched their daughter with strange ideas and the prospect of another life.

  “Did you meet any of Ella’s other friends from the same circle?”

  “From the same circle?”

  Ruzsky tried to remember the name of the man they had found at the Lion Bridge this morning. “Boris Markov? Perhaps just Borya?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Ruzsky dug the man’s identification papers from his pocket and showed her the dark, smudged photograph. But she just shook her head.

  “Who did the men this morning ask you about?”

  Anna looked at him blankly as she handed back the papers. “I’m not very good with names.”

  “What did they want to know?”

  “If Ella had brought him home, and whether I had met him.”

  “The American?”

  “Yes.”

  “And had you, this time?”

  Anna’s face quivered briefly before she recovered her composure. “How could I know she had taken up with him again?” She shook her head. “I thought he was on the other side of the world, where he belongs.”

  “Did she bring him here?”

  “No, but I knew he had come here.”

  Ruzsky could tell he was upsetting Anna, who once again stared at him in a kind of trance. He crouched down in front of her. “Anna, can you think of anything over the last few months that would give us an indication of why someone would want to kill Ella?”

  Anna looked at him, tears welling up in her eyes. “She was a loving girl, Officer, so loving.”

  “When did you last see her?”

  Anna turned to the photograph of her daughter on the mantelpiece and the religious icon hanging above it. “Last Sunday. She always came to see me on a Sunday. It was her day off and she would catch the train into town and we would go to church together.”

  “And what happened last Sunday?”

  Anna stared at the wall. The silence dragged on, but Ruzsky did not wish to push her.

  “It was just a Sunday,” she said. “Like all Sundays.”

  “You went to church?”

  “She was so happy, Officer. That smile, I wish you could have seen it. She was such a pretty girl.”

  “Why was she so happy, Anna?”

  “I thought she was just… happy. To be with me. To be close to the Lord. Such a fine, clear, bright day; the city so beautiful. I felt happy too; happier, I think, than on any day since I came here. It was wonderful to see her so bursting with joy.”

  “What did you do?”

  Anna shrugged. “We came home. She had brought us some food. She was a kind girl.”

  “Did she tell you any special reason why she was so happy?”

  She couldn’t hold her emotions in check any longer. She suddenly collapsed, burying her face in her hands, thin shoulders heaving. Pavel held her. “It’s all right, Anna,” he said quietly. “It’s all right.”

  Ruzsky took hold of her arm and squeezed gently. She was all skin and bone.

  They waited until the convulsions had stopped and then stepped back and averted their eyes while she composed herself. She took out a handkerchief and blew her nose. “I cannot bear the thought of it, do you understand?” she said simply. “Those Sundays were my life.”

  Anna wept once more.

  “We’re intruding,” Ruzsky said. He stood. “Perhaps we could come back another time.”

  “No, please.” She wiped her eyes again. “I would like to help.” Anna put the handkerchief away. “Please ask me whatever you wish.”

  Ruzsky sat down. “Was there anything unusual about that Sunday, Anna? Did she say or do anything out of the ordinary?”

  “There was an argument, that’s all I can think of. Not even an argument.”

  “What about?”

  “She asked me a question and I was offended.”

  “What did she ask you?”

  “It was unlike her. And I said her father would have been disgusted.”

  “What did she ask you?”

  Anna stared at Ruzsky. She was uncertain again. She glanced at Pavel for reassurance and then steeled herself. “She asked me whether I thought it was possible that the Empress and Rasputin had enjoyed intimate relations. Whether they had been lovers.”

  “Why do you think she asked that?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Surely, Anna, your daughter, more than anyone, would have been in a position to know the answer to that question.”

  Anna shook her head sorrowfully.

  “Do you think she was seeking reassurance for something she already suspected?”

  “Someone had been poisoning her mind.”

  “There have been many rumors. You must have heard them.”

  “The work of revolutionaries. What do they want, these people?”

  Ruzsky rose again and moved to the mantelpiece. “Anna, your daughter knew Rasputin. On the records kept by the household staff, it is said that she met him both at the palace and in Petersburg.”

  Anna stared at the floor. “She would never have consorted with such a man.”

  “By all accounts, he was able to cure the Tsarevich of his bouts of hemophilia, or so the Empress believed. That would have encouraged Ella’s approbation.”

  Anna did not answer.

  “Did she give any intimation as to why she was asking you the question?”

  Anna shook her head.

  Ruzsky glanced at Pavel, then took a pace forward. “We must go. Thank you for your assistance.” He leaned forward to touch her shoulder. She did not stand to see them out.

  As they stepped out into the corridor and pulled the door gently shut behind them, they heard her begin to sob violently again.

  They listened for a few moments, wondering whether to go back in and try to comfort her once more.

  “God in heaven,” Pavel said, as they began to walk away.

  21

  D ownstairs, the sun was so shrouded by cloud t
hat it was difficult to tell day from night. The wind whistled along the narrow alley between the tenements, and the few people out on the street moved quickly, their heads bent.

  A funeral procession rounded the corner. Four men dressed in black carried a coffin draped in a simple scarlet cloth. Behind them came a group of women huddled together against the cold and holding their veils to their faces as the wind worried at their billowing robes. Alongside them walked three soldiers in dirty gray overcoats and woolen hats.

  Ruzsky and Pavel waited as the procession passed, the only sound that of boots crunching in the snow. None of the mourners met their eye.

  Ruzsky thought of the soldiers he had seen going off to the front on the day of his departure for Tobolsk three years ago. Then, the capital had been full of khaki-clad men marching with grim but determined faces.

  Now only the politicians claimed the war could be won; defeat was in the face of every man in uniform.

  For a moment, after the small cortege had turned into an alley and disappeared, the detectives gazed after it, both deep in thought. As they turned back, they saw a man huddled in the front of his cab at the far end of the alley, clutching the reins to his chest as his horse shifted restlessly. Once he saw that they were looking at him, he turned the cab around and moved off.

  It came as a shock to Ruzsky, though he knew it shouldn’t; they were being watched.

  “A ruble for whoever’s first to spot the next one,” Ruzsky said, but Pavel wasn’t smiling.

  “Just ignore them,” Ruzsky said. “If they’ve got nothing better to do-”

  “But they have,” Pavel said.

  They had breakfast in the canteen. It was the first working day of the New Year, and it showed.

  Pavel got a full tray of cold meat and pickled cucumbers; Ruzsky made do with Turkish coffee, since the vodka had killed off his hunger. They went to sit in the far corner, so that they would not be overheard.

  “I knew Rasputin would come back to haunt us,” Pavel said.

  Ruzsky offered him a cigarette and they smoked in silence, glancing occasionally at the other diners.

  “Why would Ella ask her mother that question?” Pavel asked.

  “A guilty conscience.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Ella was a shy, somewhat naive girl,” Ruzsky said. “She knew little of life outside the palace and the respectable but dull world of her parents. For all her talk of revolution, she never quite comes to terms with what her American has asked her to do.”