To Kill A Tsar Part 7

Her gaze was fixed on the seeping wound in the vagrant's chest. He watched her lift a trembling hand to her lips where it hovered uncertainly. She looked pale, her eyes large and glittering, the pupils dilated.

'You look as if you've seen a ghost.' He touched her elbow gently. 'Do you recognise him?'

She turned quickly, suddenly aware of his hand on her arm. 'No. No.'

'Are you sure?'

'I've never seen him before.'

'I'm sorry. It was cra.s.s of me to ask you to help . . .'

'No, it's quite all right,' she said. 'I am used to the dead.' She was her brisk matter-of-fact self again.

There were precious few patients left to see, and within an hour the waiting room was empty but for the school dvornik dozing on a bench, his shoulders wedged into the angle between two walls.

'Did the crowd know our man was murdered?' Hadfield asked as he slipped back into his jacket.

'Yes,' she said simply. 'The waiting room will be full again next week.'

They covered the body with a dirty blanket and left it in the surgery for the priests. Tearing a leaf of paper from his journal, Hadfield began writing a note. 'I'm going to tell them he was murdered. I'll leave my address. I don't expect the police will bother to contact me but they may want . . .'

'No.' She took an urgent step towards him and s.n.a.t.c.hed at the paper.

'What on earth-'

She stood over him tugging at the top edge of the note, but he had it firmly anch.o.r.ed to the table with his fist and after a few seconds she let go.

'Let me have it!' Her jaw was set, the colour high in her cheeks, that same deep, stubborn frown on her face. 'Please.'

'Certainly not,' he said quietly. 'Not until you explain yourself, Miss Kovalenko.'

She took a deep breath and turned reluctantly away. 'Isn't it obvious?'

'Not to me.'

'The police would want to know what a smart foreign doctor was doing in Peski on a Sunday afternoon. And they would want to know who was with you,' she said. 'Leave it to the dvornik. He will say he found the body outside.'

'I see. But why didn't you say so? Why throw a tantrum?'

'Wasn't it ladylike?' she said with something close to a sneer in her voice.

'It was ill-mannered.'

Her shoulders seemed to drop a little, and she closed her eyes, the anger and tension draining from her: 'Yes, perhaps. You won't leave your name?'

'No. If it's so important, no, I won't.' He picked up the paper, ripped it in half and offered her the pieces: 'Here.'

Anna took them without making eye contact and tore them in half again: 'I'll speak to the dvornik.'

Hadfield waited beside the body. He was astonished by her outburst. After a few minutes she returned and began clearing away the things they had used for the surgery in silence, at pains to avoid his gaze. She was clearly a little embarra.s.sed and would probably have welcomed an excuse to soften the atmosphere that lingered in the room like the smell of formaldehyde. But Hadfield was content to watch her, enjoying her discomfort.

'I will take you to the church,' she said, turning to look at him at last.

'Thank you.'

Standing awkwardly at the school door, Hadfield could not suppress an acute sense of disappointment and frustration. This was not how the day was supposed to be, and he fought to extinguish the ember of resentment that was still glowing inside. Anna was in conversation with the dvornik who was leaning against the door jamb, a sullen look on his face. Hadfield cleared his throat and was on the point of addressing her when she turned sharply to look at him: 'Do you have a few kopeks you can give him?'

'Of course. Twenty?' He gave them to the dvornik, who counted them laboriously then held out his greasy palm for more.

'That's enough,' said Anna sharply, but the grizzled old yard keeper stood there unmoved, his hand held flat like a Russian Buddha.

'Oh, for G.o.d's sake, take this!' Hadfield handed him twenty kopeks more. 'Satisfied?'

The dvornik gave a broad toothless grin.

'The old devil!' Anna said as the door closed behind him.

'What did I buy?'

'The right story, of course. He found the body. We weren't here.'

'Ah.'

'This way.' She set off down the street at a brisk pace, pa.s.sing from sunlight into the shadow of the four-storey lodging house opposite. From every open window, from the doorways and the yards on that hot summer Sunday, the restless sound of humanity packed cheek-by-jowl into single rooms and corners. He watched her stride purposefully on as if careless whether he followed or not: past a little group of children, barefoot, in rags, racing sticks across a puddle of dirty water, and on a little further to where three immodestly-dressed young women were gossiping in a doorway one of whom directed a remark at Anna then burst into a peal of raucous tipsy laughter. He caught up with her at the end of the street.

'Miss Kovalenko, if you have no other appointments, can I persuade you to walk with me a little?'

She turned to him with a shy smile, her blue eyes twinkling like sunshine on ice. 'Yes, you can persuade me.'

From St Boris and St Gleb, they ambled north along the bank of the Neva, and Hadfield told her of his first meeting with the Figners, of their time together in Zurich and of the unhappy years he had spent in London since. 'It was always my ambition to return to St Petersburg.'

'To leave your home?'

'St Petersburg is my home.'

'And General Glen is your uncle?'

He smiled at the disingenuously casual way the question was slipped into their conversation. 'Yes. Of course, we don't see eye to eye on many things but he has been very kind to me.'

'Does he know about your time in Switzerland, your views?' she asked.

'I try not to talk politics.'

'Do you go to grand parties with him?'

'Sometimes.'

'What are they like?'

'What are they like?' He turned to look at her to be sure she wasn't teasing. 'Actually, rather dull.'

But Anna was not to be deflected and pressed him to describe a ball he had attended, from the sparkling crystal to the servants and the dance card, and in so far as he was able the dresses of the society ladies. And although he failed to do justice to the opulence of the occasion in his rather clinical descriptions, she seemed captivated by the picture he painted for her.

'But ask the Figners! I'm sure they've been to fashionable parties and could tell you much more about dresses than I can,' he said.

She pretended to look shocked. 'What on earth would they think of me?' she asked, and her shoulders shook a little with silent laughter.

In the gardens of the Smolny, they settled on a bench close to the School for n.o.ble Girls and he asked her of her family and her home. Her father had been an army officer and a gentleman with an estate near Kharkov, her mother one of his servants. As a small child she had lived with an old babushka in the village, and on winter nights had sat at the stove and listened to folk tales in the Ukrainian language and stories of Cossack heroes. With the emanc.i.p.ation of the serfs, Colonel Kovalenko had used his influence to register Anna as a member of the meschanstvo the lower middle cla.s.s and sent her to the local gymnasium. She was never close to her father, she said, even as a young girl the thought that her mother was no more than a chattel who could be sold to another member of the gentry was intolerable. At school she had been teased and bullied because she was illegitimate, and even her father's servants spoke of her as 'the b.a.s.t.a.r.d' behind his back. One summer her father had hired a student who had been exiled for his part in the Polish Revolt to tutor her, and he had spoken of his own country's struggle for freedom. 'Then someone gave me a copy of Kondraty Ryleev's poem "Nalivaiko". Do you know it?' she asked. 'It had a great effect on me. It's the story of a Ukrainian uprising, of the struggle for justice and freedom: "There is no reconciliation, there are no conditions / Between the tyrant and the slave; / It is not ink which is needed, but blood, We must act with the sword." There what do you think of that?' Anna's eyes were shining and she was twisting her small hands in her lap.

'Yes, I . . .' He was groping for something that might do justice to her feelings.

'And you know Ryleev gave his own life for freedom!' Her voice was shaking with emotion. 'He was executed by Tsar Nicholas. Freedom and revolt always walk arm in arm with suffering and death. That is what history teaches us.'

She turned away, but not before he saw her brush a tear from her cheek. They sat there in silence for a minute or more as well-dressed, comfortable Petersburg ambled past, promenading couples, children in straw hats and lace with ruby and plum coloured bows and sashes, merchants in light summer suits, a nanny with the latest English perambulator, a peaceful, ordered, somnolent scene as remote from the revolution and sacrifice that filled Anna's thoughts as it was possible to be. Before he could speak to her again, the bells of the Smolny Cathedral began to chime for the evening service and roused by their restless rhythm, she rose quickly to her feet. 'I must go.'

It was apparent from her face that there was little point in attempting to persuade her to change her mind. As they strolled slowly through the garden towards the road, he asked her about the children she taught at the school in Alexandrovskaya and the life she lived in the village.

'Do you think I'm a sentimental revolutionary?' she asked. 'It's different for you. I'm used to a simpler life than you and Vera.'

'And the gentleman I saw you with at Madame Volkonsky's?'

'Who do you mean?'

'The man sitting on the couch.'

'Alexander? He's a friend.'

The wariness in her voice and the colour that rose to her cheeks suggested more.

Hadfield hesitated, trying to find a propitious way to say what he wanted to say. 'C'est ton fiance, n'est-ce pas? Cet homme, tu vas l'epouser. C'est evident.'

Anna stared at him for a moment. 'Are you trying to humiliate me, Doctor?' she asked in Russian.

'Of course not,' he said, taken aback. 'What on earth makes you think that?'

'You are making fun of me,' she said coldly. And she turned her back on him and began walking briskly towards the cab stand in front of the cathedral.

'Miss Kovalenko, I don't understand . . .'

Her step did not falter for an instant. She had clearly made up her mind to have nothing more to do with him that day.

'Wait . . .' He began to hurry after her.

Their little pantomime was attracting smiles and the comment of cabbies on the opposite side of the square, and a smartly dressed elderly gentleman in a top hat shook his head in disapproval as Hadfield hurried past. As he fell into step with her, Anna quickened her pace.

He reached for her arm: 'Please. Look, I'm sorry but . . .'

'Don't touch me,' she said, shaking herself free. 'I didn't have the privilege of an education like yours but I understand our people!' She turned away from him with a disdainful toss of the head.

'So you don't speak French,' he shouted after her. 'Is that it?' She had turned away from the cab stand, conscious of the glances they were attracting from the drivers. 'This is ridiculous. Please stop.'

And she did stop, turning angrily to him. 'You are drawing attention to us.'

'I'm sorry, I didn't know you couldn't speak French,' he said in exasperation. 'It means nothing. I just thought perhaps that Alexander was your fiance.'

'What business is it of yours anyway?' she snapped at him. 'Now let me go.'

'I'm sorry,' he said. 'I had no right to ask. And I'm sorry this afternoon has ended so badly.' He was confused, a tangle of feelings, aching with regret and anger. 'Let me see you to a cab.'

Her face softened a little with the suggestion of a smile. 'No, I'm quite all right, thank you. And you should know he is not my fiance. He's a good comrade. He will never be my fiance . . .' For a few seconds she stood there avoiding his gaze, biting her bottom lip uncertainly, and then she continued. 'I am not interested in such relationships . . .' Something in his expression must have suggested he did not take this remark as seriously as she would have liked because she took an urgent step closer, fixing him with an intense blue stare. 'Believe me, Doctor. Revolutionaries should not marry or have families.'

Hadfield pulled a sceptical face: 'Aren't socialists just like everybody else?'

'No. I've given my life to the struggle like Kondraty Ryleev and many others . . .'

'And what of love?'

'I will not change my mind, and . . .' she hesitated and looked away again, the colour rising to her cheeks, 'and you should know . . .' She did not finish the sentence but stood there avoiding his gaze. The seconds pa.s.sed, a minute, and worshippers began to trickle from the west door of the cathedral onto the pavement, old ladies hobbling home with their black shawls pulled tightly about them even on a summer evening.

'What should I know?'

Anna turned to look at him and he was taken aback by the intense expression on her face not of anger this time, or defiance or resentment, but a deep trembling sadness close to pain.

'You should know I'm married.'

10.

The cause of such confusion and not a little heartache was lurking in a doorway a short distance from the Church of the a.s.sumption. Alexander Mikhailov's gaze was fixed on the shadows beneath the splintered awning of a modest two-storey building. A low drinking den, like so many others in the Haymarket district, it was doing steady trade even on the Lord's Day. Patrons were obliged to step over the prostrate form of an elderly peasant who had staggered no further than the door before collapsing in a stupor. No one seemed in the least concerned and Mikhailov wondered if the landlord was leaving the drunk on the step as barely living proof of the purity of his vodka. A couple of young women in gaudy rags were accosting all who came and went. That the broad fellow in workman's clothes who had been following him for almost an hour should try to conceal himself close to frumps plying their trade was nothing short of pitiful. Still, it was a simple enough task to lose one police spy, the sort of challenge he enjoyed, but perhaps there were others.

Without looking left or right Mikhailov began picking his way round the empty market stalls and piles of rubbish, putrid and thick with flies, to the opposite side of the square. On most days of the week the market was bustling with peasants and merchants; this was the 'belly' of St Petersburg, with every manner of object and animal for sale, women and children too. Respectable folk only chose to visit the district on business, although Mikhailov had heard stories of literary pilgrims in search of Raskolnikov's attic. And only the day before he had seen Dostoevsky in the street with a posse of admirers.

From the square, he walked at a steady pace to the Ekaterininsky Ca.n.a.l then along its embankment into the city. A little beyond Gorokhovaya Street he turned right into a gloomy courtyard and strolled nonchalantly across it to a door on the opposite side. It was open as he knew it would be. Up the bare wooden stair, across the landing and down again to the main entrance, where he paused for a moment to listen for his pursuer. Thump, thump on the bare boards behind him, and for the first time Mikhailov's heart beat a little faster. Not one but two men. Too bold to be just informers. Slipping out of the front, he crossed quickly to a decaying four-storey apartment block a little way up the street and turned without hesitating through a wicket gate hanging loosely from its hinges. An old lady was sitting on a stool in the yard behind, two small children playing in the dust at her feet. He nodded politely to her as he made his way towards a door at the corner of the building opposite. Behind him, the creak of the gate and the scuffing of courtyard stones as his pursuers hurried towards him. No time to look. He reached into his jacket pocket, took out a key and unlocked the door. A shout and the clatter of boots as they broke into a run. Glancing back he could see they were close: two plain-clothes policemen. Time only to turn the key in the lock before the sound of a shoulder crashing against the door.

'Open up!' The beating of fists. He waited a moment, collecting his thoughts, his right hand on his pounding chest. It would be only minutes before the banging and shouting on the other side of the door roused the dvornik or one of the tenants. He must move quickly.

Mikhailov was a thorough man and he had gone to great lengths over many months to ensure his comrades would continue to benefit from his very particular skills. He found the servant's corridor without difficulty and began weaving his way along it to the front of the building. An old lady in a black dress and goatskin slippers was struggling up the steps of the entrance hall with a bag of laundry. Mikhailov brushed past her and on into the street. Turning right, he walked as quickly as he could along the pavement without drawing attention to himself, crossing to the other side just beyond the railings of the a.s.signation Bank. A few yards further on he stopped outside a handsome yellow and white cla.s.sical mansion, glanced left and right then retreated a step into the road to examine the windows on the first floor. At the bottom of the one on the extreme right there was a small blue diagonal strip of paper: it was safe to call.

Tarakanov was waiting for him on the first floor landing, an anxious expression on his chubby face.

'I saw you in the street,' he said. 'Come in, come in quickly.'