Death on the Nevskii Prospekt lfp-6

by David Dickinson

  ‘The flaying of Marsyas, Powerscourt, do you not think it fine? And the girl at work on his chest, maybe arousing the final pangs of desire from the victim in her deshabille? My own special touch, I must confess. Really, I am not sure which I am fonder of, this Marsyas in here, or the Martyrdom of St Lawrence without. It is so hard to tell.’

  The prisoner uttered what must have been a scream. The gags on his mouth made it sound like a small groan. ‘We thought this one was going to talk about half an hour ago,’ Derzhenov went on, ‘but when we took the gag out he just spat in the eyes of his captors. But come, upstairs, I have news for you.’

  This time the Okhrana chief took him, not to his office, but to a small sparsely furnished sitting room on the third floor. The only decorations on the walls were a painting of a monastery and a silver crucifix. Any notion Powerscourt might have had about a religious side to the Russian secret service was swiftly dispelled.

  ‘Forgive me, Lord Powerscourt, they may be using my office for interrogations shortly so I thought we had better find alternative accommodation. We have a tame priest or two on the books here, you might be surprised to hear. Often some prisoners will talk more easily to them. This is the room we give the priests.’

  So that explains the monastery and the cross, Powerscourt thought. He wondered briefly if it was the famous monastery Dostoevsky used as a model in The Brothers Karamazov.

  Derzhenov was coughing significantly in the chair to his left. ‘I promised I had news for you, Lord Powerscourt. And what exciting news it is! Can you guess?’

  Powerscourt wondered briefly if he was to be taken on a special tour of all the Okhrana torture rooms in Russia from Moscow to Archangel with specially adapted carriages on the Trans-Siberian Express, soundproofing for screams a speciality, and specially adapted facilities for carrying passengers half in half out of their compartments, being torn apart by the speed and the wind.

  ‘I cannot imagine, General Derzhenov,’ he said, his mind suddenly very alert. He remembered the rash message he had sent to the Embassy from the Foreign Office in London saying that he hoped to solve the mystery of Mr Martin within a week. He had thought at the time that he might catch something with that message. He felt sure Derzhenov had read the cable. Had his catch now arrived? Was he the catch?

  ‘I expect notice of this audience is awaiting you at the Embassy, Lord Powerscourt, indeed I’m certain of it. But it gives me great pleasure to be the first to tell you in person. Your request, Lord Powerscourt, your request for an interview with the Tsar has been granted! You are going to meet with the Autocrat of All the Russias! Tomorrow evening! To think that I will not be there to see it.’

  ‘This is excellent news, General Derzhenov. Thank you if your good offices have had anything to do with it.’

  ‘One must always do one’s humble best to help one’s friends, that’s what my dear mother used to say, Lord Powerscourt.’

  Powerscourt tried to imagine what Derzhenov’s mother must have been like, monster, harpy, she-devil, tutor and mentor to the Borgias and to Lady Macbeth, ogress, fiend, but words failed him. He wondered if she were still alive. Better not to ask.

  ‘I don’t suppose you know the time for the meeting?’ asked Powerscourt. If it were late then Johnny Fitzgerald might be able to accompany him.

  ‘Nine thirty,’ said Derzhenov, beaming with his knowledge and his ability to convey good tidings. He paused for a moment before dropping in, ‘Same time as the unfortunate Mr Martin, oddly enough. And that was on a Wednesday too.’ The Tsar at nine thirty. Death by half past one.

  But if he thought Powerscourt might be superstitious, there were no signs of it. ‘There is just one small thing I would ask of you, Lord Powerscourt, one very tiny favour.’

  ‘Of course, General, ask away.’ Inwardly Powerscourt prayed that the good Lord would forgive him this and all his other sins.

  ‘If you could see your way, Lord Powerscourt, to telling me the gist of your conversation with the Tsar, insofar as it has to do with Mr Martin, I would be most grateful.’

  Powerscourt thought he disliked the Uriah Heep Derzhenov even more than the earlier Attila the Hun Derzhenov. And he wondered, not for the first time, about the strange fascination Martin’s meeting with the Tsar had for his secret service. Certainly Derzhenov seemed to have no idea what was discussed or what was resolved.

  ‘General Derzhenov,’ Powerscourt went on, relieved to know he had a slightly better hand than he thought he might have had five minutes ago. Derzhenov had to keep him alive until tomorrow evening at least. ‘I am sure you know the responsibilities of a man in my position towards his government, particularly when the death of a senior diplomat is involved. And the discretion involved. But rest assured, if I can see my way clear to helping you in the manner you request, I shall certainly do so.’

  And may the Lord have mercy upon my soul, he said to himself.

  Derzhenov had one last card to play. ‘It so happens that I shall be in these offices tomorrow night when you return from Tsarskoe Selo. Perhaps you could pop in then, if it was convenient.’

  Had Martin, too, popped in at Fontanka Quai on his way back from the Alexander Palace? Had that been the last place he had seen alive? Powerscourt didn’t feel happy.

  ‘I fear my Ambassador will want to hear my news first, General Derzhenov. But the next morning, have no fear.’

  As he made his way out of the building, Derzhenov trotting by his side, Powerscourt thought he smelt something particularly nauseous rising from the basement. It was, he decided, after a couple of discreet sniffs, the smell of roasting flesh. Or, to be more precise, roasting human flesh. St Lawrence was being offered up as a sacrifice to his God once more.

  His hair was dirty. His fingernails were black and extended far forwards like the claws of an animal or the talons of a bird. His beard was untrimmed. He smelt of the countryside, of the filth of the peasants, so alien to the salons of the capital. The most remarkable thing about him were his eyes, deep-set, grey, that seemed to disappear into pinpricks of light when he spoke. The self-styled Father Grigory Rasputin was the latest sensation to burst into the jaded world of the seance takers and the psychic-loving circles of St Petersburg. He claimed to possess two of the attributes of the staretz, the traditional holy man said to come from the purer world of Siberia to cleanse the capital of its decadence. Holiness Rasputin certainly thought he possessed. Had he not walked the length of Russia not once but twice, and been on pilgrimage to the Holy Land? And could he not cure people of their illnesses? There were many witnesses to his ability as a healer. People said he could even reverse the flow of blood, to direct it away from a wound, for example.

  It was the Montenegrin sisters, Militsa and Anastasia, both Grand Duchesses, who introduced Rasputin into society as they had introduced the Frenchman Philippe Vachot years before. Within a short time women of all classes were flocking to his dirty apartment in search of an audience with him, or more. Rasputin had one unique advantage for a holy man who might be a fraud. He offered a threefold package to his women admirers, in the shape of sin, redemption and salvation. Before they could be saved, Rasputin assured the gullible and the neophytes, they had to commit sin. If they cared to step with him into his bedroom, soon known as the Holy of Holies, he would be happy to provide the sin in his role as another weak and humble servant of God. Then, in his role as Holy Father, he could offer redemption from their transgressions. Finally he would bless them and see them through to the final stage of their journey to salvation. The Montenegrins spread his fame. To the rich women of St Petersburg, they said, he brought the promise of carnal and spiritual satisfaction at virtually the same time. To those nursing the sick and the afflicted, they stressed his healing powers. The messages sent to the Alexander Palace stressed that here was a mighty healer. They reminded Alexandra of the words of Philippe Vachot that he, Vachot, was but the forerunner of one greater and more powerful than he. Rasputin, they implied to the beleaguered party in Tsarsko
e Selo, was the Christ to Vachot’s John the Baptist.

  Johnny Fitzgerald was very taken with St Petersburg. He liked the great buildings, he like the huge squares, he confessed most of all to having developed an enormous liking for the vodka on the train.

  ‘There I was, Francis, minding my own business, when these two fellows came in and joined me. They were pretty well gone by this stage but they offered me a choice of three varieties of vodka as if I was their long-lost relative. I’m sure I will be able to find some more of the stuff round the place.’

  Powerscourt was delighted to be able to tell him that the Ambassador, of all unlikely people, had a small cellar devoted to vodka and might be persuaded to open up. More seriously, Johnny was able to tell Powerscourt of the latest discoveries in the case of Mrs Martin. None of the police inquiries, he reported, had produced any sightings of strangers going up or down the path to the house. Furthermore, a note had been discovered in the bureau in the study of Colonel Fitzmaurice’s house, apparently in Mrs Martin’s hand, addressed to her in-laws but not posted, saying that she could go on no longer. There was no further news of the mysterious Russian visitor, who seemed to have vanished into thin air. The Colonel, possible paramour of Mrs Martin, had not disappeared at all. He had taken himself to the south coast to recover from the excitement and wrestle with the treacherous winds and very fast greens of Rye Golf Course. On a normal day Powerscourt would have been asking for more details, checking on the handwriting, inquiring what the police view was and generally making himself a nuisance. But today the affairs of the late Mrs Martin and the little tower at the top of Tibenham Grange seemed very far away. Today was a day for her husband, the late Mr Martin. Was not he, Powerscourt, going to have an evening audience with the Tsar on exactly the same day of the week as Martin? Might today not be the day when he would find Martin’s killer? Or perhaps, he wondered, it would be the day when Martin’s killers killed him too. The Ambassador had only ever had two private audiences with Nicholas the Second since he took up his post and he regarded it as slightly unfair that a mere upstart, a hired hand rather than a member of the proper Foreign Office, should enter the imperial presence after a couple of weeks or so.

  A party of six set off to escort Powerscourt to his audience. He was accompanied by Johnny Fitzgerald, Mikhail as interpreter, secretly hoping for a quick glimpse of Natasha, the coachman, a sergeant from the Black Watch and Ricky Crabbe the telegraph king who had expressed such pathetic longing to see the Tsar’s palace that even the Ambassador could not resist him. Powerscourt had a brief conversation with de Chassiron about the interview before he left.

  ‘House rules?’ de Chassiron had said, placing his beautifully polished shoes on his coffee table and fiddling absentmindedly with his monocle. ‘Not much different from school, really, going to see the headmaster. Sorry, Powerscourt, that wasn’t helpful. Just like going to see the King really, big handshake, bow, don’t interrupt him, however stupid the things he says, all these damned monarchs since Louis the Sixteenth have thought they were cleverer than they actually were. If you’re lucky there won’t be a flunkey there during the interview, though they may be listening at the doors. Flunkeys in my experience get very irritated if they think their master is carrying out business behind their back. It’s almost a criminal offence.’

  ‘And how should I think of him when I talk to him, de Chassiron? Foreign Office official? Adjutant of regiment? Manager of a small bank out in the country?’

  De Chassiron smiled and lifted his feet off his table in one quick, elegant movement.

  ‘Not the first, Powerscourt, not the second, maybe the third. How about this though? Think of him as a rather dim Captain of Cricket at school, chap who can barely add up, can’t remember much history, hopeless at languages but very popular with the boys and a good batsman. You must have met plenty of those, Powerscourt.’

  Powerscourt agreed that he had. As they travelled the fifteen miles out to Tsarskoe Selo, Mikhail was bringing him up to date on the latest number of strikes that were slowly strangling the country. Johnny Fitzgerald was peering out into the darkness as if Russian birds, previously unknown to him but of fabulous size and plumage, were flying in formation around their carriage. Ricky Crabbe’s fingers, Powerscourt noted, were still tapping messages out on to the frame of the carriage widow. Maybe he did it in his sleep. The sergeant from the Black Watch went to sleep.

  The Alexander Palace was made up of a centre and two wings. All the state apartments and the formal reception rooms were in the centre. The imperial family’s private apartments were in one wing, the ministers of the court and the attendant staff in the other. Ricky Crabbe decided to remain with the coachman. He would, he said, take a peep inside a bit later. In reality, he was rather overwhelmed by the grandeur of the surroundings, the troops of horsemen riding round the walls of the park on permanent patrol against terrorists, the soldiers and policemen who stopped the carriage at the entrance gate and peered carefully into all their faces before writing their names down in a book, the sentries in their long coats striding up and down the outside of the building at regular intervals as if they were mobile flower boxes.

  Powerscourt and his two companions were guided on their journey to the Tsar by a symphony in gold braid and a footman with a plumed hat. Through the audience rooms they went, through the Empress’s private drawing room, down a long corridor leading to the private apartments. In the last room at the end of the corridor the Tsar’s personal aide-de-camp indicated that Johnny and Mikhail were to wait there with him. He began an animated conversation with Mikhail on the virtues of the capital’s most expensive restaurants. Powerscourt felt his mind going far away to the ice on the Nevskii Prospekt where a fellow countryman lay dead, ignored and forgotten by the authorities. A strangely clad Ethiopian was on guard outside the Tsar’s door. As he opened it the symphony in gold braid coughed slightly and announced in perfect English:

  ‘Your Imperial Majesty! Lord Francis Powerscourt from His Britannic Majesty’s Foreign Office!’

  14

  The first thing Powerscourt noticed about Nicholas the Second, Tsar and Autocrat of All the Russias, was that he was quite short for an Autocrat. He must, Powerscourt thought, have been about five feet seven inches tall. His father, Powerscourt remembered, had been a great bear of a man, capable of bending pokers into circles and other feats of strength guaranteed to impress small children. The second thing was a quite remarkable similarity to his cousin George, Prince of Wales, second son of King Edward and Queen Alexandra. There was the same neatly trimmed beard, the same shape of face, the same hair greying slightly at the temples. Nicholas had lines of strain running across his forehead, not surprising, Powerscourt thought, when you were presiding over an empire in chaos, even less surprising when you thought of the haemophiliac son and heir, possibly bleeding to death even now in some upstairs nursery.

  The Tsar was wearing a simple Russian peasant blouse, baggy brown trousers and soft leather boots. Standing in front of his desk, he ushered Powerscourt into an armchair. The room was quite small with one window. There were plain leather chairs, a sofa covered with a Persian rug, some bookshelves, a table spread with maps and a low bookcase covered with family photographs and souvenirs.

  ‘Lord Powerscourt, welcome to Tsarskoe Selo,’ said the Tsar. His English would not have been out of place in an Oxford quadrangle. ‘How may I be of service to you and your government?’

  ‘I am not in the service of my government, sir. I am an investigator employed by the British Foreign Office to look into the death of a Mr Martin. Mr Martin, sir, was on the staff of the Foreign Office. He came here to see you at the end of last year. Then he was killed.’

  ‘I heard that sad news, Lord Powerscourt. Tell me, you say you are an investigator. What, pray, do you investigate?’

  Powerscourt thought the Tsar made investigating sound like a most disagreeable profession. Perhaps he imagined investigators scouring the files of his ministries for exampl
es of administrative incompetence or worse, looking into the inefficiencies of his armies, or, saddest of all, creeping round his household for long enough to tell his subjects that their future sovereign Alexis the Tsarevich might have bled to death before he was one year old, never mind attaining his majority.

  ‘I am not alone in being an investigator, sir. There are a number at work in London at present. I only operate when people ask me to. Usually they ask me to investigate murders.’

  The Tsar sounded faintly relieved to hear Powerscourt and his ilk were not contemplating opening a branch office in Moscow or St Petersburg. ‘Do you think Mr Martin was murdered, Lord Powerscourt?’

  ‘I most certainly do, sir.’

  ‘And,’ the Tsar went one, ‘do you expect me to know who killed him?’

  ‘No, I do not, sir,’ said Powerscourt, wondering if the Tsar did actually know but wouldn’t say, ‘but I would find it very helpful to know what you talked about with Mr Martin.’

  ‘I cannot help you there, I’m afraid, Lord Powerscourt. The matter was confidential.’

  Confidential enough to get a man killed, Powerscourt thought bitterly. Confidential can mean fatal on a bad day in the Tsar’s palace at Tsarskoe Selo.

  ‘I fully appreciate that, sir,’ said Powerscourt, looking at a photograph of three very happy little girls draped round their papa on a yacht, ‘but I would like to appraise you of what I propose to tell my government about your conversation with Mr Martin on my return.’