To Kill A Tsar Part 14

'My mistress, Elizaveta Dmitrievna.'

'Look at me.'

Anna raised her eyes for just a second then looked away. He had a thin face and severe mouth, as if years in the police had ground him to a sharp point.

'Now tell me what business you had at a terrorist's apartment?'

'A message to the seamstress,' she snivelled.

'For goodness sake, stop behaving like a child!' the superintendant roared and he thumped his fist on the desk so hard some of his papers floated to the floor. 'Do you know who lives in that flat?'

'No.'

'And you,' he said turning to Olga, 'where do you live?'

Olga ignored him and turned to Anna again. 'My husband will be so cross! This is your fault,' she said. 'I've a mind to turn you out!'

Anna resumed her noisy sobbing. It was a more than respectable performance, but the superintendent had been in the service many years and was a difficult man to deflect. For an hour, he kept returning to the same questions: why had she visited the apartment? What was the message for the dressmaker? Where did she come from? He worried away at both of them, coaxing and bullying in turn.

'All right, we'll see,' he said at last, getting to his feet stiffly. 'Take them home, Sergeant. Examine their papers. Search the apartment from top to bottom and speak to the husband.'

As the two of them were bundled into a police barouche, Anna managed to lean across and whisper 'Thank you'. It was below freezing, the light was fading and the sky threatened more snow, but her spirits were lifting in the cold air after the stuffiness and anxiety of the station. A policeman sat on the box beside the driver, another two travelled on the footboard at the back, and behind them a dozen more in cabs. But once they were beneath the canopy, Olga reached across to give her hand a little squeeze: 'We have a chance.'

It was only a short drive to the building on Nevsky. Glancing up furtively, Anna could see the parasol was no longer posted in the window: the flat must have been cleared of incriminating papers and Morozov would have left too. A posse of policemen huffed and puffed up the stairs after them and gathered on the narrow landing at the top. For appearance's sake, Olga rang the bell, confident no one would answer. After a few seconds, she began rummaging in her bag for the keys, but before she could find them they heard footsteps in the hall and the sound of a heavy bolt drawn back. To Anna's dismay, the door opened to reveal a very startled-looking Nikolai Morozov: 'What on earth-'

Olga threw herself upon him, clutching him tightly. 'Darling, I'm so sorry. Please don't be angry. The police have arrested Anna. I had to go to the station, and now they won't let us go. Please don't be angry.'

'What?' Morozov had regained his composure at once. 'What's happened to you?'

Sergeant Korovin was ready with his own explanation: 'Your maid was arrested at the apartment of two people we suspect of blowing up the tsar's train in Moscow. We're going to have to search your flat.'

'Please do,' said Morozov, stepping back from the door.

'No. No. You first and your wife and you,' Korovin said, pulling Anna roughly by the arm.

They sat on the edge of the bed in silence as the police turned the place upside down, ferreting through cupboards and drawers, moving the few small pieces of furniture, lifting rugs and loose boards, examining their clothes, stirring the ashes in the stove. After an hour they had turned up nothing in the least incriminating and Korovin had no choice but to call a halt to the search. Until their personal papers had been checked against police records they were under house arrest, he told them, and to be sure this order was obeyed he left two constables at the door.

'It will take them a while to check our ident.i.ties,' said Morozov when it was safe to talk. 'But my papers were stolen from a merchant in Tula. He's bound to have reported the theft to the local police.'

'Why did you stay, Nikolai?' Olga asked him, leaning forward to stroke his hair. 'You should have gone.'

'Don't be silly.' He reached up to grab and hold her hand. 'Sophia helped me clear the flat. She's gone to warn the others. What's important now is getting out of here.'

There was a shimmering halo around the street lamps in the prospekt. Snow was falling again. It was after seven o'clock and a steady stream of workers was trudging home along the slush-covered pavements. To Anna's exhausted mind, they appeared blurred and dark at the edges like a badly taken daguerreotype. Gazing from the sitting-room window, she felt unaccountably empty, as if the stuffing had been ripped from her by one of the constables. Her companions were still at the table, whispering to each other, holding hands, drawing strength from their intimacy.

'All right, I think it's time.'

The two young policemen looked thoroughly miserable. It was only a few degrees above freezing on the stairs and for an hour they had been shifting stiffly from foot to foot, stamping and slapping their sides like awkward marionettes.

'My husband wants me to order some tea,' Olga said, as they turned to look at the two women. 'Maria Alexandrovna,' she shouted in a stentorian voice. 'Maria Alexandrovna!'

The landlady's name echoed down the stairs and a few seconds later a door opened on the landing below. A large woman in her fifties in a black scarf and ankle-length coat peered up at them. 'What's this racket?'

'Maria Alexandrovna, we would like some tea.'

Tea, she huffed. Tea when the police had taken over her house! She kept a respectable house . . . Olga cut her short: 'Maria Alexandrovna the samovar. Some tea, as soon as possible, please.'

A few minutes later Anna was allowed to visit the landlady's kitchen with one of the constables and returned with a large pot and gla.s.ses. They tidied the sitting room, clearing the floor, replacing the drawers, making it as homely as possible, and Morozov fed the little stove and placed some chairs before it.

'All right,' he whispered to the two women. 'This is our chance. Quick in the kitchen and remember to take your boots off.'

A moment later, they heard the front door open and Morozov's silvery voice inviting the policemen to step inside for a gla.s.s of hot tea. 'It's so cold out here. Please join us. My wife is preparing a little food.'

The seconds ticked by, Anna's ear pressed to the kitchen door. Surely they were not going to refuse. She felt dizzy with the strain, bent double, and both of them in their heavy winter coats.

'Talk, we must talk normally,' Olga whispered at her shoulder.

But before Anna could think of something to say there was the sound of footsteps in the corridor.

'Sit by the stove,' they heard Morozov say. The sitting-room door clicked shut.

'Now!' Olga hissed.

'No. Wait until they've settled.'

Ten, twenty, thirty seconds, then Anna began to gently lift the latch on the door. One of the policemen was talking, there were footsteps Morozov would be serving the tea and now some laughter. Slowly, lightly, they shuffled along the corridor in their stockinged feet. Morozov had left the apartment door ajar. On the landing, they put on their boots then stood anxiously by, Olga gripping Anna's arm, the keys ready in her hand: she would have to be quick. After a tense few minutes they heard Morozov's voice. 'They're in the kitchen. I'll fetch them.' Perhaps one of the policemen said something or he heard them get to their feet, for a second later Morozov was thumping down the short corridor towards them. He almost fell through the door, grabbing the handle as he did so. It slammed shut behind him, but not before Anna heard the policemen cursing and stumbling after him. Olga was fumbling with the lock.

'For G.o.d's sake . . .' Morozov shouted. 'Have you done it?'

'Yes, yes! It's locked.'

Bang. A shoulder hit the door: 'Open it now! Open it!' Then another crash as the heel of a heavy boot struck the frame. 'Open it!'

Morozov gave Anna a shove: 'Come on. Let's go.' The shouting and the banging chased up and down the stairs, and on the landing below the landlady was at her door. 'What are you doing, you can't leave them . . .'

'In the name of the executive committee of The People's Will,' said Morozov, cutting across her, 'I warn you, Maria Alexandrovna, if you value your life you will leave them there. Do you understand me?'

He did not wait for an answer.

They thundered down the stairs and burst through the door at the back of the building into the snowy yard. Olga took Anna by the arm and they walked beneath the carriage arch and on to Nevsky.

'We'll go to the flat in the Izmailovsky district,' said Morozov. He stepped off the pavement to hail a pa.s.sing cab. Seconds later its sleigh blades slithered to a stop. 'We'll all squeeze in somehow,' and he reached for Anna's hand to help her to a seat.

'No. I'll join you later,' she said.

Olga grabbed Anna by the shoulders and turned her quickly to look her in the eye. 'You must come with us!'

'There's something I have I want to do,' she said, correcting herself.

'What?'

'It's my concern.'

'Everything we do is the party's concern.'

'You don't believe that, Olga. You and Nikolai . . .'

'I do,' she said, sharply.

'There isn't time to argue now. The police could be here any moment. You go. Go now. I'll see you later.'

'We must go,' said Morozov, pulling at Olga's elbow. 'Be careful, Anna. You're an "illegal" now.'

She did not wait to see the cab pull away but walked on quickly, turning off the prospekt into a side street. No money, no clothes but the ones she was wearing, no home, no papers and wanted by the police, and yet she still felt the exhilaration of freedom won at great risk. And a thought, a hope had planted itself almost unnoticed in the tense hours of that day. It had flashed through her mind at the police station and again when she was cowering in the kitchen, and as the cab pulled alongside them on the prospekt it had been quite impossible to ignore.

18.

The front rolled westwards after midnight, leaving Peter still and fresh for a few precious hours beneath a blanket of virgin snow. It was as if the wind had swept the filth and stench of a million people from the city, plastering the fissures in its buildings white and filling its rutted streets, bathing all in the fairy tale light of the late November moon. Gazing back across the frozen Neva, Hadfield was struck again by its beauty and his great good fortune. What was life in London to this? He had spent the happiest of evenings with his cousin, Alexandra, and their friends from the emba.s.sy, careering at breakneck speed down the great ice slide that had been erected in the Field of Mars. Not content to leave it there, they had dined well then set out on an exhilarating troika ride, wrapped together in bearskin rugs, silver harness bells tinkling, the driver whooping wildly and cracking the whip to warn the careless that they stepped from the pavement at their peril. His head a little fusty with vodka, happy and excited still, Hadfield had delivered his cousin to the English Embankment in a cab, then set off for home on foot. By the time he reached the end of Line 7, he was beginning to regret his own impetuosity, conscious of the hour and his list at the surgery later that day. The snow had drifted a little against the wall of the House of Academics, forcing him from the pavement into the street. It was only two minutes' walk to his apartment, but for those minutes he was always on his guard, watchful, alive to the crunch of boots in the snow, careful to give doorways and courtyards a wide berth. Line 7 was quiet and badly lit and footpads had been known to make use of the winter darkness to set upon rich students reeling home along it after a good night out. His uncle had insisted he take a stout stick, and Hadfield made a point of changing his grip on its handle in case he had to wield it as a club. But the street was empty and he did not see or hear anything at all out of the ordinary. Disgusted with himself for his timidity, he stood on the step of Number 7 stamping and sc.r.a.ping the snow from his boots. It was after one o'clock and the dvornik would be sleeping or in a drunken stupor. Reaching into his coat pocket for his keys, he was turning towards the door when he caught a movement at the corner of his eye.

Something or someone had flitted into a doorway a little way up the street. Hadfield changed his grip on the stick again. He was still standing with the key in the lock between his fingers when the man stepped out of the doorway and began walking towards him. But it was not a man. It was a young woman who walked with upright carriage and a short purposeful stride. And he knew her at once: beneath the thick coat, the rabbit fur hat and scarf was Anna Petrovna Kovalenko. A frisson of excitement tingled down his spine. After weeks, months, out of the darkness as if in a dream or a fairy tale, why, what was it she wanted after all this time?

'Miss Kovalenko. What a surprise.'

She stepped up to him and his heart jumped a little. She had pulled her scarf over her mouth and nose but even in shadow her blue eyes were twinkling like ice and he could not help but smile at the little frown lines on her brow.

'Call me Anna. Are you well, Doctor?'

'Call me Frederick. What are you doing here? How long have you been waiting? You're shivering.' He turned the key in the lock. 'You must come in. I'll light a fire.'

'No, it's just that-'

'Are you in trouble?'

'No.'

There was a fine crust of snow on Anna's coat and hat and he could tell from the distance in her voice that she had been waiting some while and was chilled to the marrow.

'Look, you've come to see me. It's too cold to stand on the step,' and he stood aside to let her pa.s.s.

She stood in the middle of his drawing room dripping on the rug, teeth chattering, too cold and exhausted to remove her coat and hat. Once the gas lamps were lit, Hadfield busied himself with the fire, drawing an armchair close.

'I'm sorry,' she said.

'For what? Give me those wet things. Here.' He handed her his dressing gown, and placed some trousers, a warm jumper and blankets on the chair. 'Now is not the time to stand on ceremony. Go into my dressing room and change. I'll arrange for the maid to bring you hot water.'

Would she do as he asked, he wondered, as he made his way down the stairs to the maid's room? The poor girl had to be dragged from a deep sleep and it was some while before he could be sure she understood what was expected of her.

Anna had taken off her wet clothes and was wearing his dressing gown, curled in the armchair beneath a couple of blankets. She looked totally worn out, her head resting on her arm, her skin quite ashen.

'We'll have some tea, but first a gla.s.s of brandy.' He went over to the drinks tray and poured a little into two tumblers.

'It's been so long. Didn't you think of writing to say where you'd gone?' he asked, handing her the gla.s.s.

'Why should I? We're just comrades.'

She was staring into the flickering fire, careful to avoid his gaze. Hadfield flopped into the chair opposite, his legs crossed, gla.s.s balanced on his knee. 'Just comrades? Then why are you here?'

'I'll go, if you like,' she snapped and lifted her eyes in an unequivocal challenge.

'Of course you can't go.'

'I'll leave when I want.' Her voice was determined now and her bare feet slipped to the floor.

'Please stay. I . . . I've missed you.'

So it had slipped from him already. He could not help himself: how beautiful she looked in the yellow firelight, lost in his father's old silk dressing gown, strands of hair loose about her face and elegant neck. She gave him a sweet, accepting but weary smile then lifted the brandy to her lips, hiding her blush behind the twinkling gla.s.s.

'I'll light another fire to dry your dress,' he said, anxious all of a sudden to be busy.

'I'll do it.'

'I'm a doctor,' he said, reading the concern in her voice. 'I'm used to women's clothes and bodies.'

And he saw with some satisfaction that he had made her blush again.

Later, they sat in silence drinking cups of sweet tea and Hadfield watched her struggling to keep awake in the warmth of the fire, too exhausted to answer questions, close, he thought, to an emotional edge. After half an hour or so, she lost her battle, drifting into sleep, her small hand gripping the tea gla.s.s. Gently, he lifted her fingers from it and, placing it on the tray, settled back in his chair to watch her, rising from time to time to prod at the fire. There were many questions he wanted to ask but for now he was content just to sit with her. He had found her again, or, to be truthful, she had found him.

When the English long case in the hall struck three, he crouched down beside her and shook her shoulder gently. She whimpered and woke with a start.

'What is it?'

'Nothing important, it's just I think you should go to bed. There's a guest room.'

'No. No, thank you,' she said, her eyes half shut. 'I'm fine here by the fire.' And barely conscious of what she was doing, she reached up to brush his cheek lightly with the tips of her fingers. He caught her hand, held it then lifted it to his lips. Her eyes were closed now but she smiled and made no effort to withdraw it. 'There's something I want to tell you.'

'In the morning. You must go to bed.'

'It's been two years since I saw my husband,' she said sleepily. Her eyes were still closed. 'He never loved me. He treated me badly.'

'So you left him,' he said, squeezing her hand.