To Kill A Tsar Part 12

After two hours she had sunk into something close to a stupor, her mind and body numb with cold. But at a little before ten o'clock she caught a glimpse of a small grey cloud on the dark horizon. It disappeared for a few seconds then reappeared a little closer, and her heart leapt into her mouth. There was no mistaking it now: a pillar of smoke and steam rising from an engine. It was the first train at last and it was gusting towards her, four, five, six seconds and she could see a snake of ten carriages. It disappeared into another cutting, but only for a moment. Closer and closer, just as she had imagined it, the snow plough at the front with the plume of smoke trailing back along the train. And as the ground began to tremble beneath her feet she wondered if it was really possible to dislodge such a force. On to the railway embankment it rumbled, past the little cottage and over the tunnel they had excavated over so many difficult weeks. The driver's face was lit by the demonic orange glow of the firebox. Blazoned on the side, the symbol of oppression the black eagle of the Romanovs. The curtains were drawn in the carriages but she could see soldiers on the plates between and more in the guards' van at the rear. Then with a whoosh of steam it was gone, powdery snow swirling in its wake, and Anna was shaking with excitement for surely the tsar was only minutes away. Minutes.

She could imagine those two pieces of wire trembling in Hartmann's rough hands. A small electrical impulse that would change Russia for ever. The tension was unbearable. She felt nauseous and struggled to check a desperate urge to jump up and pace up and down. She must be calm. The moment for action was almost upon them. The only way to free the people. Free Russia. She wanted to shout and jump and run to release the agony of waiting, and, pulling off her gloves, she dug the nails of her right hand into the back of her left, pinching herself, distracted for a moment by the pain. She could not say how long she waited, with every minute an hour, staring into a darkness broken only by pinp.r.i.c.ks of light. Once, she was sure she saw something grey on the short horizon and sank back further into the thicket only to realise she had been tricked by her fevered imagination. And slowly the fear began to creep into her mind that the imperial train had been stopped and the sacrifices and hopes had all been in vain. So when at last she saw what might be a spiral of steam lost for a few seconds then found she would not accept it was the train until its shadow was quite unmistakable. And with certainty came a cold stillness. As if in a trance, she watched it draw closer and listened to the rails singing close by. Through a junction, across the river and, as it approached the long embankment, its klaxon split the night with a bellow like a wounded buffalo that chilled her to the marrow. Sh-sh-sh. On it came, the two-headed eagle just visible now on the carriages. Courtiers and guards, the kitchen, the dining car and the fourth carriage was the tsar's saloon. Around the last corner. Seconds from the cottage. The yellow lamp at the front of the engine like a giant's eye searching the track. The sh-sh-sh filling her mind. Thirty yards, twenty yards. Unblinking and breathless. And the engine rumbling over the gallery packed with dynamite. Now. Now. Do it now. And she bent her head, pressing her hands to her ears. One second, two seconds, three . . .

The white blast sucked the air from her chest and left her confused and completely deaf. For a few seconds she stared senselessly at the dense cloud of acrid smoke hanging over the track. Slowly she became aware of a distant whooshing like an Arctic wind. The engine had ground to a halt close by and the driver was releasing steam from the boiler. Where was the cottage? It was as if she were viewing everything through the bottom of a bottle. Dazed soldiers jumped from the train and half ran, half fell down the embankment into the snowy field below. As the smoke began to drift she could see the train twisting off the track with the ragged silhouette of a carriage on its side. A splinter of rail rose at a right angle to the embankment, and beneath it the raw earth rim of the smoking crater. It was as if a hand had scooped the train from the track like a toy then dropped it carelessly back. And she felt a warm rush of pride. They had done it! The tsar was dead. No one in the fourth carriage could possibly have survived the explosion. Debris spotted the snow beyond the embankment as far as she could see. Railwaymen and soldiers were still stumbling from the train and a small group was gathering at the lip of the crater. Rising to her feet, she eased her way back through the thicket and away from the hissing engine. Before long they would find the remains of the gallery and follow the trench back to the cottage. Her comrades would be waiting anxiously to hear what she had seen: what news she could bring them! What joyful news. The tyrant was dead.

15.

20 NOVEMBER 1879.

Not content with ringing the new electric bell, the clerk from the Justice Ministry was banging his fist on the door and making enough noise to wake not only Dobrshinsky's respectable neighbours in Furshtatskaya Street but the devil himself. The bleary-eyed porter opened it in his nightshirt. Certainly, His Honour was at home but, like every good Christian, in his bed at such an hour. The clerk was insistent: he was required to deliver his message at once. It was a matter of the utmost importance.

The long case clock in the hall was chiming half past three as the young man was shown into the special investigator's study. Anton Dobrshinsky was standing at his desk in a flamboyant Chinese blue silk dressing gown which would have surprised those familiar with his sober public persona. He had just struck a match and was on the point of lighting a cigarette.

The clerk stepped forward at once with the letter: 'Compliments of His Worship Count von Plehve.'

Dobrshinsky examined the handwriting on the envelope for a second, then picked up a paperknife and with a single easy motion slit it open. Five polite but deliberately vague lines that left him in no doubt the count had received serious intelligence: My Dear Anton Frankzevich, I am sorry for the lateness of the hour, only a matter of the greatest importance to the Fatherland would lead me to request a meeting. I have sent a carriage with instructions to bring you to my home. My dear fellow, please make haste, there is much of a confidential nature that we must speak of at the earliest opportunity.

Yours truly, Vyacheslav Konstantinovich von Plehve.

An attack? Dobrshinsky wondered. This new terrorist organisation, the arrest of the Jew with a suitcase of dynamite: he had warned the head of the Third Section there would be an attempt on a member of the imperial family or the government. The dogs had been barking a warning in the streets.

'I'll be down shortly,' he said, slipping the letter back in the envelope.

It was only a matter of a few minutes' drive through the empty streets to von Plehve's home on the Moika Embankment. The count greeted Dobrshinsky in the hall and, with the face of an undertaker, led him to his study.

'My dear fellow, terrible news,' he said as the polished mahogany doors closed behind them. 'It concerns His Majesty . . .'

Dobrshinsky looked at him impa.s.sively for a moment then said: 'I warned General Drenteln the imperial train was in danger.'

'How did you know?' demanded von Plehve.

'The gendarmes arrested a Jew called Goldenberg at Elizavetgrad Station eight days ago. He was carrying a large quant.i.ty of dynamite.'

'You mean this could have been prevented?' The count gestured angrily towards one of the English armchairs in front of his desk. 'The Emperor's Council will want to know why the train wasn't stopped.'

He slumped heavily into the chair opposite Dobrshinsky and with his elbows on the arms, placed his fingers to his lips and stared coldly over them at the special investigator: 'The second attempt on the tsar's life this year. It will be me who has to answer for this.'

That was not, strictly speaking, true. Dobrshinsky knew the names of half a dozen ministers and more senior civil servants who would be asked to account for a failure in security before the count the head of the Third Section, General Drenteln, for one.

'It would be helpful if Your Worship told me what has happened.'

'As you've clearly surmised, the emperor has not been hurt,' said the count dryly. 'But the imperial baggage train was derailed by an explosion outside Moscow this evening. The order of the trains was changed, the emperor's was to have been the second train but at the last minute it was agreed he would travel before the baggage.' The count rose again and walked over to the fire to ring the bell to the right of the mantelpiece. 'A piece of remarkably good fortune His Majesty has probably declared it another miracle you see, the bomb went off beneath the fourth carriage. The emperor's saloon was the fourth on the imperial train. If he hadn't insisted on switching the order of the trains he would be dead. And . . .' the count lowered his heavy frame back into the armchair, 'and you and I would be eking out a living in a provincial city. Thankfully no one was hurt, but the royal supply of jam was a casualty.'

There was a knock at the study door and a servant entered with a delicate china tea service which he placed on a table by the fire.

'They're very well informed,' said Dobrshinsky with a frown.

'The terrorists?'

'It's possible they were watching the imperial train in the Crimea . . .'

'But you think there's more?' said the count, accepting the cup offered by his footman.

'I am afraid I do.'

First the dead informer, Bronstein, in the hotel. Then the student who had blown his brains out to avoid arrest. Someone must have tipped him off because he had destroyed his papers and was on the point of leaving Petersburg. And the local police informer in Peski too the vagabond he had been stabbed outside a church school on a Sunday. 'You see, Count, every time we try to place someone in this new party, they are murdered. Every time we try to make an arrest, the bird has just flown. Our promising leads come to nothing?'

'But you've arrested this fellow with the dynamite,' von Plehve pointed out sceptically.

Dobrshinsky's face stiffened a little. Was the chief prosecutor implying he was making excuses? 'It was pure luck. Goldenberg was dragging a bag of dynamite along a station platform. Even the local gendarmes were able to identify him as a suspicious character.'

'I see.'

For a minute, neither of them spoke but sipped their tea and stared at the crackling fire.

'Just to be clear,' von Plehve said at last, 'you think someone is giving this "People's Will" intelligence they have a spy somewhere?'

'Perhaps,' Dobrshinsky replied cautiously. 'Some of them come from n.o.ble families. They have influential friends.'

'This woman, Sophia Perovskaya?'

'And others. The Volkonsky woman has given us a few names and descriptions, although she was trusted with very little.'

'The foreigner she mentioned, have you been able to identify him?'

'Not yet. She thinks he's German or perhaps English.'

'A plot to destabilise the country?' Something in the tone of this question suggested the count's subtle mind had fastened on an interesting new possibility. 'It might be useful to brief our newspapers. They could suggest something of the sort.'

'I am more interested in the Jew, Goldenberg,' replied Dobrshinsky. 'We suspect him of being involved in the murder of the governor of Kharkov.'

Von Plehve put his cup back on his saucer. 'I am sure you will do all you need to do to extract the truth from him.'

Ah, spoken like a true Russian, Dobrshinsky thought, and he could not help a sardonic little smile.

'Does that offend you?'

'Not in the slightest, but it won't be necessary. I have my own methods.'

Von Plehve grunted. 'That's up to you. I don't care how you break him. Just be sure you do.'

16.

. . . We are convinced that our agents and our party will not be discouraged by this failure . . . They will go forward with new faith in their strength and in the ultimate success of their cause . . .

'No comfort for the authorities there,' said Dobson with a short laugh. He was standing in front of the fire in his study, a dogeared leaflet in his hand. It was a bleak Petersburg evening, dark at five o'clock, a wind from Siberia driving all but a few from the streets, snow rattling at the window.

'These political zealots love their Bible, don't they, with their talk of "faith" and "sacrifice", "forgiveness" and "martyrdom". Listen to this: If Alexander were to recognise the evil he has done to Russia, if he were to hand over his power to a General a.s.sembly chosen by the free vote of the people, then we for our part would leave him in peace and forgive his past misdeeds . . .

Here . . .' Dobson leant forward to offer the pamphlet to Hadfield, who was sprawling in a leather armchair, his stockinged feet thawing at the fire.

'And you know the maddening thing is the story was broken by a Hun, one of the German correspondents in Moscow,' he added with a shake of the head. 'Of course the censor tried to suppress the news here. The Germans were able to read about the attempt on the tsar's life before his own subjects. What a country this is.'

Hadfield did not lift his eyes from the pamphlet: '. . . implacable war.'

'What?' Dobson asked. 'Yes. They want to wage "implacable war". Old Testament rather than New, I grant you.'

'Where did you find it?' Hadfield asked, lifting the paper from his lap.

'Oh, you can pick them up in the street, but my new friend Major Barclay gave it to me. Cost me a dozen oysters at the Europe Hotel.'

The leaflet was dated 22 November three days after the explosion, a statement by the executive committee of The People's Will.

'Impressive, don't you think? This party's shaken the empire after only a few months and it has a printing press so it can boast about it too,' said Dobson.

'Are you a zealot if you advocate one man one vote?'

'In Russia? Of course. But they don't stop there: they're in love with violence and secrecy and martyrdom . . .' Dobson paused to shake his head a little in disapproval. 'Actually, they're incurable romantics.'

'That's your diagnosis? Do you know any members of this party?'

Dobson grunted. 'Do you? You're being cussed now, old boy. Do I look like someone who wants to spend the rest of his life in Siberia?'

'Sorry I thought it was the job of a correspondent to represent both sides of an argument. Or are you content with Mr Dostoevsky's word upon the matter?'

'Stop it, stop it,' and Dobson wagged his finger at him. 'Dangerous talk, especially for a foreigner. Let's not fall out. Now, what about dinner?'

But Hadfield would not allow himself to be persuaded. He had spent the afternoon at the clinic in Peski, as he always chose to on Sundays, and he was too tired to think of anything more than the comfort of his own bed.

'I need to pace myself,' he said, rising to his feet. 'Lady Dufferin has returned to Petersburg and she's invited me to join an emba.s.sy party at the Yusupov tomorrow.'

'You're such a favourite with the ladies, old boy, especially those of shall we say maturer years . . .' replied Dobson with a mischievous smile.

'Dobson, are you jealous?'

'I haven't squeezed the hand of a pretty girl in months.'

'If it's any comfort, nor have I.'

'No comfort. You could have if you'd wanted to.'

Perhaps I could, yes, Hadfield thought as he let himself out of the building and on to the snowy street. There had been two or three pretty young ladies who had caught his eye at parties, but he had felt no inclination to be more than amiable. His aunt teased him that when the ladies retreated after dinner he was often spoken of and always in favourable terms. One of the most eligible young men in Petersburg, she said. Well, at least on the English Embankment. And it was quite true that his reputation was growing with his practice and his credit at the bank.

The wind had dropped a little but it was snowing harder than ever, large soft flakes falling thickly, an unhealthy yellow in the light of the street lamps. It was only a short walk to the Nevsky Prospekt, his boots crunching on the virgin snow, and the freezing air roused him from the torpor he had been in danger of sinking into in front of Dobson's fire. There was something magical about the city in the first hours of a heavy snowfall, before the cabs cut rough ridges of ice in the streets and the gutters and pavements were awash with filthy melt.w.a.ter. Clean and strangely peaceful, but for the Sunday chiming of old Russia. On an impulse, he decided to visit the Kotomin House for a gla.s.s of Gluhwein, and climbing to the second floor was shown to a table with a view of the frozen Moika. It had once been a favourite with the literati, and rich students, academics and cultivated professionals chose to patronise the restaurant for that very reason, but on this evening it was almost empty. He sat at the table sipping his wine and staring out of the window at the pa.s.sers-by trudging heavy-footed along the embankment. There had been talk at the clinic of the attempt on the tsar's life, and some of the students whom he had recruited to help him there were impressed and openly expressed sympathy for The People's Will rather too vociferously so. Hadfield kept his counsel. He was in no doubt that Anna, the Figners, Goldenberg and their friends were involved, but he had seen and heard nothing of them for months. He missed their camaraderie, their idealism, their sense of mission precisely those things Dobson liked to dismiss as 'romantic tosh' and sometimes he was conscious of feeling inexpressibly restless and disgusted with the bourgeois complacency of his life. But he took comfort and pride in his work, in the real and practical difference he made day after day to the lives of his patients. He had pushed Anna to the back of his mind, but when someone spoke of politics a memory of her always frowning would force its way to the front and make him smile. Sitting in the restaurant, staring out to the snow falling in a luminous carpet below, he felt a sudden, an annoying, an irrational longing to see her. After a few minutes, he ordered the bill and paid without finishing his gla.s.s of wine. The cold air would bring him to his senses.

But the same puzzling ache was with him through the evening: as he watched the maid light the fire and sipped the broth she had brought him from the kitchen below, and he was conscious of it still as he read a letter from his mother and sat at his bureau with his medical journal. It was as if the doubts he felt about his life and his purpose were crystallising about Anna like ice on metal. Too much introspection was unhealthy. Since childhood he had struggled to prevent his thoughts taking him to dark places.

The following morning, he walked to his surgery with a lighter heart. It was a cold clear day, the snow blinding in the yellow winter sunlight. Workers were clearing the pavements on either side of Line 7, shovelling the snow into dirty heaps in the gutter. The traders at the market hall had set out their stalls and were hawking their wares to women bundled in coats and scarves and valenki boots, shapeless and ageless but for their eyes. Hadfield had rented rooms for his practice from the German pharmacy at the corner of Line 7, opposite the pretty pink and white Cathedral of St Andrew. He was on excellent terms with the cathedral priests because he visited the parish orphanage free of charge, and they more than repaid this small service by praising his skill as a physician and his Christian generosity to their wealthier parishioners. He spent the morning dispensing advice and rea.s.surance, pills and potions to a procession of women in furs who were for the most part in rude health, and to an elderly lawyer suffering from severe and persistent overindulgence. At a little before one o'clock, a messenger delivered a note from Lady Dufferin asking him to call at the emba.s.sy to examine one of her children and inviting him to stay for afternoon tea. The Dufferins had just returned from a long visit to England and their estates in the north of Ireland. The amba.s.sador had left almost at once for Berlin, where he was representing the government's case on the Ottoman question to Prince Bismarck. But the Countess of Dufferin was busy placing the new furniture she had brought from home and preparing for the first official reception to be held at the emba.s.sy since her husband's appointment to the imperial court.

Little Freddie Blackwood was suffering from nothing more than a head cold and a severe attack of boredom. A precocious four year old, he was bubbling over with curiosity to see the tsar and his Cossack guards and ride in a troika, but his anxious mother was refusing to release him from the emba.s.sy. Hadfield had taken his part: 'Perhaps a little air and a little excitement would do him no harm.' Since his visit to her bedside six months before a journey Her Ladyship now recalled as an heroic life-saving dash across the city his word as a physician went unquestioned at the emba.s.sy. The same could not be said for his judgement of pictures.

'Do you like this one?' she asked, as they were taking tea in the small drawing room. Two of the servants one rather short, the other a little too doddery for the task were holding a large landscape to the wall.

'French?' he asked uncertainly.

'After Poussin,' she replied, waving her hand at the servants. 'A little to the right please. Yes, that's perfect there.'

The picture hangers looked unsure what was expected of them.

'Oh, would you, Doctor?' said Lady Dufferin, exasperated.

Hadfield explained in Russian that Her Ladyship would like them to hang the picture precisely where they were holding it now.

'The Countess von Plehve and Madame von Pahlen were very taken with the painting. Quite as good as some of the pictures in the Hermitage, they said. And I showed them the French furniture we have brought here for the dining room,' she continued. 'Madame Pahlen says it is finer than the furniture at the French emba.s.sy and that the Grand Duke Vladimir has just purchased something very like it.'

Hadfield smiled and nodded politely. He had no particular views on Louis Quinze cabinets and chairs or on the French Rococo style in general. But to an accompaniment of banging step ladders and hammering, Lady Dufferin slipped seamlessly from furniture to politics. Hadfield wondered if that was why conversation was commonly described as a drawing-room art rather than a science.

'. . . and the Countess von Plehve said the imperial family was still shaken by the attack on the train. The police have been ordered to round up anyone suspected of sheltering or supporting these nihilists.'

'I thought they had already done that, Your Ladyship,' Hadfield replied.

'No, not there, to the right!' she shouted, rising from the sofa. 'Oh, will you tell them, Doctor?'

The picture hangers climbed down their ladders and rea.s.sembled them closer to the mantelpiece.

'. . . yes, well, it appears not,' Lady Dufferin said, picking up the thread of their conversation. 'But the ladies say one of the plotters is in custody, a Jew from Kiev called Silver. The most extraordinary thing: he was dragging a bag of dynamite along a station platform. Anyway, the police hope he will give them the names of the other conspirators.'

She paused again. 'That's it, that's it. There.' Then, settling her dress around her on to the sofa, the conversation moved just as seamlessly from politics to the sledging hills at the yacht club and the evening's expedition to the Yusupov.