To Kill a Tsar (41 page)

Hadfield was surprised by how little it bothered him. He had always felt himself to be an outsider, revelled in his secret difference, and yet he had enjoyed the privileges of family and his connections too. But when Anna had returned to him he had accepted her without hesitation. He did not share her faith in The People’s Will, he rejected the morality and efficacy of terror, but he no longer felt comfortable with the easy assumptions of most of his class, nodding at balls and parties and dinners when the privileged spoke of the futility of hoping for democracy in Russia.

He saw very little of Anna at Christmas – a few snatched hours – and he spent the last day of the old year with his family. The first day of the new one arrived with champagne and dancing, the rustle of silk, gay uniforms whirling across a polished floor, familiar, happy faces. But Hadfield felt only the dull ache of separation. Later at home he sat with his journal on his knee and tried to write of his hopes, but mostly of his
fears for the coming year, his sense of life on the cusp. But his befuddled mind could not conjure the words necessary to bring order to his feelings. He was still awake after
une nuit blanche
as the church bells rang out across the city the following morning.

In the first weeks of January Hadfield realised he was being followed once again. Tall – a little too tall to pass entirely unnoticed by someone on his guard – early thirties, neatly trimmed brown beard, plainly but well dressed, his shadow moved on a crowded street with the ease of one trained to the task. And there were others at night and skulking outside his home in the morning. His shadow was with him when he visited the British embassy to treat one of the secretaries who had wrenched his knee. The ambassador’s wife no longer included Hadfield’s name on her guest list for dinner. Fortunately, his professional judgement was still valued and he remained the embassy doctor in all but name. Lord Dufferin’s secretary – an Anglo-Irishman called Kennedy – had fallen badly on the frozen Neva and his friends had been obliged to carry him back to the embassy on a hand cart.

Hadfield found him with a large glass of brandy in the ambassador’s outer office. It was soon apparent from his ill-tempered muttering that his pride had taken as sharp a knock as his knee.

‘Some cheeky wee buggers pelted me with snow while I was lying there helpless on the cart,’ he explained in surprisingly broad Ulster Scots.

Hadfield gave him a mild analgesic and instructed him to rest for a few days.

‘By the way, Doctor, Colonel Gonne was hoping you would spare some time to see him before you leave,’ Kennedy informed him.

‘A professional matter?’

Kennedy did not know.

The military attaché’s rooms were in the gloomy west wing of the embassy but with a fine and fitting view over the Field of Mars. Hadfield had met the colonel for the first time at his uncle’s house and twice more since, and he had formed the impression of a steely and ambitious character. A handsome man in his late forties, with red hair and whiskers, there was a glint in his eye that suggested he might be quick to take offence. ‘Thank you for finding the time to see me, Doctor,’ he said, indicating Hadfield should take the chair in front of his desk. ‘I’ll come straight to the point. Lord Dufferin has asked me to raise a delicate matter with you.’

‘Oh?’ said Hadfield in a carefully neutral tone. Most of the ‘delicate’ matters soldiers wished to discuss with a doctor belonged under the general heading of ‘the wages of sin’.

Gonne frowned. ‘Delicate and serious.’ He rose to stand at the window behind his desk, almost a silhouette against the parade ground. ‘Perhaps you know the emperor reviews the guards regiments at the riding school on Sundays.’

Hadfield nodded. ‘The Mikhailovsky Manège.’

‘Last Sunday Lord Dufferin was present at the parade with some of the other ambassadors. Count von Plehve of the Justice Ministry was in the gallery too – are you listening, Doctor?’

‘I’m sorry, please – it’s nothing . . .’ and Hadfield indicated with a light wave of the hand that the colonel should continue.

‘The count made some pointed remarks about you.’

‘What sort of remarks?’

‘He mentioned a woman, a terrorist – the Kovalenko woman – someone you used to . . . meet . . .’ The colonel was trying to be delicate.

‘I have not seen Miss Kovalenko for some time.’ Hadfield’s thoughts were racing and he was struggling to appear calm.

‘I’m sure I don’t need to remind you that any suggestion of a British involvement with these people will embarrass Her Majesty’s government.’

‘No. You don’t need to remind me,’ said Hadfield. ‘As I informed the authorities, I met Miss Kovalenko at a clinic. She proved a capable nurse.’

‘Yes. Yes. Well, I am sure a doctor is required to meet all sorts of people . . .’ Gonne trailed off without conviction.

‘Then if there is nothing else, Colonel, perhaps you’ll excuse me?’

Colonel Gonne nodded curtly and stepped away from the window with the intention of escorting Hadfield from the room. But his sleeve caught a photograph at the edge of the desk and it fell to the floor with a splintering crash.

‘Damn. Clumsy. I’m sorry, Doctor, I’m forgetting myself,’ he said, bending to pick up the picture. ‘My daughter.’ He turned it over to show Hadfield the shattered face.

‘It’s only the glass . . . she’s pretty.’

‘Yes, well . . .’ Colonel Gonne put the picture back on the table and walked over to the door. He was on the point of opening it when he turned suddenly to speak to Hadfield once more. ‘Pretty girls . . . a word to the wise, Doctor. Take care. The secret police have spies everywhere.’ He paused to make eye contact: ‘You may not be as fortunate a second time.’

The police spy was waiting at the ice-bound pier outside the embassy, where the ferry left for the islands in spring. Hadfield did not give him a second glance. He could think of nothing but the parade at the manège, his mind swirling with the implications. That it should take a casual word from a British soldier who knew very little of the city. The emperor would pass the cheese shop on the Malaya Sadovaya before or after the parade. What were they planning? There was no need to rent a shop if they were going to shoot the tsar and they had rented basement premises. Why? They were driving a gallery into the street. A mine. They were going to kill the tsar with a mine. He leaned back against the wall of the embassy, a cold sweat on his skin
like a sickness. A mine. He was sure of it. And how many soldiers like the young Finn he had treated after the palace explosion would die this time? Head bent, fingers pressing hard on his forehead, he let out a long anguished groan.

C
ollegiate Councillor Dobrshinsky picked up the surveillance log and, balancing it on his knee, began to turn its pages, marking passages in pencil before transferring them to the notebook on the desk in front of him. It was after nine o’clock at night but Fontanka 16 was still bustling with agents and clerks, and through the open door he could hear the incessant chatter of the Baudot receiver with telegrams from gendarmeries all over the empire. The terrorists were summoning trusted supporters to the capital. It was gratifying in a way, because arrests in the city must have left them in a parlous state, but it was clear they were planning another attempt on the emperor’s life. Barclay had extracted this piece of intelligence with a relish quite ungentlemanly from the traitor Kletochnikov. But he had not been able to supply the when and the wherefore. For now, they were obliged to rely on surveillance and informers in the hope that the fresh faces from the provinces would be careless and let something slip.

Sunday 21 February 1881

Dr Hadfield left his apartment at 12.30 a.m. He took a cab to the Nevsky Prospekt then walked down the Malaya Sadovaya and joined the crowd waiting for His Majesty. At a little before 2.00 p.m. the emperor left the manège with his escort to return to the palace. Hadfield watched him pass then walked to 24 Malaya Italyanskaya Street. An apartment in this house is occupied by an English newspaper correspondent
. . .

Why was a well-to-do doctor with distinctly liberal if not republican views waiting in a frozen street on Sunday for a glimpse of the emperor? The special investigator had been concerned about security at the Sunday parade for a number of weeks, and the guard about the royal carriage had been doubled on his recommendation.

Dobrshinsky picked up a little hand bell from the desk and rang for the clerk in the outer office. ‘Ask Agent Fedorov to step into my office, would you?’

‘Did you organise a search of the buildings around the manège?’ Dobrshinsky asked when Fedorov appeared.

‘Yes, Your Honour, and in Italyanskaya Street.’

‘The canal embankment?’

‘No.’

‘The Malaya Sadovaya?’

The agent shook his head.

‘See to it then, as soon as possible.’

Dobrshinsky dismissed him and returned to the surveillance log on his knee. The Englishman had done nothing else of interest in the days since, and had made no effort to lose his police shadows although he was clearly aware of their presence. He turned to the previous day’s report.

Sunday 21 February 1881

The suspect Trigoni was followed to Number 17 2nd Rota Izmailovsky District. He was seen leaving with a blonde woman with a big forehead. A police agent followed the girl but she eluded him on the Nevsky Prospekt. The suspect Trigoni returned to his furnished lodgings at 66 Nevsky Prospekt at 10.00 p.m. and did not leave it again that day.

The station in Odessa had warned them that Mikhail Trigoni had arrived in the city. He was another of the party’s gentleman
revolutionaries, the son of a general, with a weakness for expensive clothes that made him easy to follow. In his testimony, Goldenberg had referred to him by his English nickname of ‘My Lord’.

Dropping the log on his desk, Dobrshinsky rose stiffly, fastidiously brushing the creases from his frock coat. This simple activity left him a little breathless, his heart beating faster than was comfortable. He was spending too many evenings at Fontanka 16 without the benefit of a
soporifique
. It was easier to think at home alone, easier to rest.

‘Are today’s reports ready?’ he snapped at the clerk as he walked through his outer office.

‘No, Your Honour.’

‘Why not?’

Barclay was at the blackboard in the main inquiry room talking to an undercover agent. Drygin was one of the section’s best, older than the rest, shrewder, with instinctive guile. He was still disguised as a country bumpkin in a dirty padded kaftan, his grey beard and hair unkempt. Something in his restless movement suggested he had news of importance.

‘Your Honour?’ Barclay had seen him at the door. ‘We have a fresh report.’

The collegiate councillor stepped over to join him at the board where the latest intelligence on the chief suspects was chalked alongside their photographs. Dobrshinsky had taken the idea of a rogue’s gallery from a French crime journal and it was proving a useful tool.

‘Drygin was following our friend Trigoni,’ said Barclay, pointing to a fuzzy photograph of a young man in a student’s uniform.

‘Yes, Your Honour. A busy chap today. Really put me to the test.’

Drygin picked up his notebook and turned slowly to the correct page: ‘The subject left his apartment late this morning
– a long breakfast in bed, perhaps – then he walked along the Nevsky to a cheese shop on the Malaya Sadovaya. It is run by a couple called Kobozev. The shopkeeper is from somewhere near Voronezh—’

‘The superintendent of the block says his papers are in order . . .’ Barclay interrupted.

‘The subject left at approximately midday and strolled over to the public library on the Bolshaya Sadovaya where he met a young woman – small, about twenty-five, brown coat, brown hair, quite pretty—’

‘Anna Kovalenko?’ asked Dobrshinsky.

Drygin shrugged. ‘She gave him a note. They were together five minutes at the most. Then I followed Trigoni to a restaurant on Nevsky where he had lunch. At about 2.30 p.m. he took a droshky to the Nikolaevsky Hospital. He gave the note to a porter, with instructions that it should be delivered at once. The porter delivered it to me first. It was addressed to a Dr Hadfield, just a couple of lines –
I’m sorry it’s been so long. Tomorrow 22.00. With my love
.
’

‘Good,’ said Dobrshinsky. ‘Then I want four of our best men with him tomorrow, and someone in the hospital. And no mistakes this time.’

The old man gave a respectful little bow then shuffled off in search of sustenance.

‘I want that cheese shop searched, Vladimir Alexandrovich,’ Dobrshinsky said when he had gone.

‘Yes, Your Honour.’

‘And I want you to take charge of Kovalenko. She’s the one we want, but if we find them together we can bring him to trial too. Now,’ Dobrshinsky turned back to the rogue’s gallery, ‘do you remember the names on the list we found in the hotel room on the Nevsky?’

‘Bronstein’s list? I think so: Mikhailov, Kovalenko, Morozov, Presnyakov, Goldenberg and Kviatkovsky.’

‘All of them are dead or in prison except for Anna Kovalenko. Even this one,’ and Dobrshinsky tapped his finger on the face of Nikolai Morozov. ‘The gendarmes arrested him at the border last week. He was trying to cross into Russia on false papers.’

Barclay watched the special investigator, his chin in his hand, his little brown eyes flitting from photograph to photograph. He was greyer, thinner, wearier than when they had met over the body of the Jew in that dingy hotel room. The last two years had certainly taken their toll.

‘His Majesty’s still with us, of course,’ said Dobrshinsky. ‘For that we can be thankful. But are we any closer to winning? It isn’t possible, is it?’

‘It is possible to arrest the bitch Kovalenko,’ Barclay replied. ‘And there will be satisfaction in that after all this time.’

A
nna could not take her eyes off the jar. It was sitting on the kitchen table in front of her, the size of a small amphora of wine but with all the nitro-glycerine they needed to send the tsar and his entourage to a better place. In a few minutes one of the men would collect it and pass it with great care along a human chain to the end of the gallery. Then it would be packed between sandbags to direct the charge into the street above. The enterprise had almost come to grief more than once. The police had inspected the premises and questioned the shopkeeper and his wife, then one of the tunnellers cut a sewer pipe and flooded the cellar with effluent. The stench lingered in the shop for days.