To Kill a Tsar (30 page)

‘An honour I could do without,’ replied Hadfield shortly.

‘Important work is done here.’

‘I don’t doubt it.’

‘And now you’ve played your part.’

Hadfield frowned, dropping the towel on the bench: ‘I’ve done no more than I would for any man.’

‘Ah, yes, your obligation as a doctor. But I’m sure we can count on your discretion too,’ Mikhailov paused for a second, his lips twitching with amusement, ‘comrade.’

Hadfield looked at him impassively, refusing to be drawn. Kibalchich stepped forward with his jacket and coat:

‘Thank you, Doctor, thank you.’

‘Remember, Nikolai – take your friend to a hospital.’

They followed him to the door of the apartment. Kibalchich was drawing the bolts back when Mikhailov caught his arm.

‘A moment,’ he said, turning to Hadfield again: ‘We owe you thanks too for helping Anna with the informer.’

‘What informer? I don’t know what you mean.’ Then it came to him with a little shiver of disgust. ‘The drunk at the clinic? You murdered him!’

‘No,’ said Mikhailov coolly. ‘He was executed by an agent of the executive committee.’ He paused again to be sure he held Hadfield’s eye. ‘The party has a long arm, Doctor.’

He dropped his hand and nodded to Kibalchich to open the door. But Hadfield did not move. For three, four, five seconds, he stared at Mikhailov, making no effort to hide his distaste. Then he turned away and walked out of the apartment and out of the house.

As he walked he could feel the man’s shadow at his back, or was it his subtle poison? What was he being drawn into? Every day new threads were binding him tighter to The People’s Will, small favours, small deceptions, the fine silk of intrigue woven into a web he would not feel until he was trapped, without independent thought, and with no hope of escape. It must stop.

‘Do you trust him?’

‘He seems to be a good doctor.’

‘That wasn’t what I meant.’

‘I know,’ said Mikhailov with a small smile. ‘Of course I don’t trust him.’ He was standing in the makeshift laboratory gazing at the instruments shattered by the charge. ‘He’s a sentimental liberal,’ he said, picking up a spatula from the workbench and rolling it thoughtfully between his thumb and forefinger. ‘But Anna has him wrapped round her little finger.’

‘Oh?’ There was a puzzled look on Kibalchich’s face. He was an unworldly sort of revolutionary, first and foremost a scientist, his true passion not politics but rocketry, but the party was fortunate to have such an accomplished explosives engineer.

‘I suppose she’s an attractive woman,’ he ventured after a little thought.

‘Yes, she’s an attractive woman,’ said Mikhailov tersely. ‘But we must consider your work. The date has been fixed ’

He was interrupted by a low moan of pain from the bedroom. The ether had worn off at last. The injured man groaned again and in a dry sticky voice called: ‘Nikolai, I’m going to be sick.’ A few seconds later they heard Valentin retching and whimpering with discomfort.

‘You need more help,’ said Mikhailov. ‘We have four days and we need all the explosive we can manage.’

Kibalchich nodded slowly. ‘Will the cellar be empty long enough to connect the charge?’

‘Our friend has invited the workmen he shares with to celebrate his engagement at a tavern nearby.’

‘He has a fiancée?’

‘No, no, my friend,’ said Mikhailov, slapping him on the back good-humouredly. ‘At six o’clock he’ll tell them he’s going to fetch his fiancée, but he’ll go to the cellar and light the fuse.’ He stroked his beard thoughtfully for a moment. ‘We’ll have a fiancée close by in case things go wrong.’

But nothing could be allowed to go wrong. It was the perfect opportunity. The tsar, his sons, the entire imperial family gathered about a table to eat off fine china and drink from crystal twinkling in the candlelight, and below them – three hundred pounds of dynamite. The People’s Will be done.

F
or once Anna had arranged to meet him in person and in a public place, trusting to darkness and the inclement weather. It was snowing heavy soft flakes she could reach up to and catch in her open hand. Beyond the cemetery railings, the tombs of the great, the dome and towers of the Alexander Nevsky Monastery were merely indistinct shadows on a billowing sheet of snow. She pulled her scarf tighter about her nose and mouth and stepped out of the light to rest her back against the railings. It was almost eight o’clock. It would be too dangerous for her to wait for more than a few minutes, but not since his first visit to the clinic almost a year ago had he been late for a meeting. Sure enough, the droshky slithered up to the cemetery gates before the monastery clock began to chime the hour.

Hadfield jumped down and kissed her on both cheeks. Then pulling off a glove, he gently wiped the flakes from her eyebrows with his thumb. ‘I thought skating and then dinner?’

‘Let’s just eat.’

‘Fine. Hey, Vanka – Baskov Street.’

The driver – a bear of a man in his thick furs – nodded sullenly, showed the whip to his horse, and a moment later they were gliding along Nevsky. Hadfield reached for her hand and gave it an affectionate squeeze. ‘I’ve missed you.’

‘But we only saw each other two days ago.’

‘Yes. But I missed you.’ He was a little aggrieved. ‘Haven’t you missed me?’

She laughed and shook her hand free, pulling the fur rug to her chin: ‘It’s going to snow like this for days.’

The restaurant was a simple whitewashed cellar a short distance from the Preobrazhensky barracks, and a number of the regiment’s officers were drinking and bantering noisily at its tables.

‘Are you comfortable here?’ Hadfield whispered as he helped her with her coat.

‘Yes, this is all right.’

They were shown, at his insistence, to a discreet table in a corner where Anna sat with her back to the rest of the restaurant. The waiter took their order and brought a bottle of rustic wine Hadfield declared to be undrinkable.

‘We must have something better,’ he said, clicking his fingers for service. He was on edge, fiddling with his napkin, the cutlery, the stem of his glass, smoothing his hair with the palm of his hand.

‘What is it?’ she asked, leaning forward.

He looked up and, catching her eye, gave her a weak smile. ‘I have acquired two new patients.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Your . . .’ he paused to let a waiter sweep past, ‘your comrades called upon me again. The unfortunate Valentin has injured his hand in an explosion.’

‘Is he all right?’ she asked mechanically; she barely knew the man.

‘He’ll have to learn to write with his left. But,’ he looked at her sternly, ‘I don’t want you or your Alexander Mikhailov or any of your other “friends” to think they can call on my services.’

‘What do you mean? Isn’t it your job to help the sick?’

‘Yes. But I don’t want to be drawn into your conspiracies. The explosives laboratory, the informer murdered at the clinic . . .’

‘Executed.’

‘So you knew about that.’

‘Keep your voice down!’ she hissed. ‘This is not the place to talk.’

‘No one can hear us.’ He tried to reach across the table for her hand but she drew it away.

‘You’re afraid,’ she said contemptuously.

‘No. That’s not true. I don’t believe killing anyone will change things for the better in this country. And—’

He stopped abruptly as the waiter approached with their Shchi and bread. As the soup was served, Anna was conscious of him trying to make eye contact and of his foot reaching for hers beneath the table. But she was boiling inside. Did he think so little of her? She had taken a solemn pledge to dedicate her life to the people. After a few seconds she picked up her spoon then banged it down again: ‘I must go.’

‘Why?’

‘I must go.’

‘Not until you explain why. I’m not going to let you just run away.’

‘I can’t explain.’

‘Try.’

‘Because our struggle means more to me than you do.’

There, she had said it. Why had he pushed her? He flushed as if slapped in the face, took a deep breath and lifted his eyes to the ceiling for a moment. Then, drawing the napkin from his lap, he screwed it into a tight ball and dumped it on the table. ‘You don’t have to choose,’ he said at last. ‘Look, you’re right, we can’t talk here.’ And he waved the waiter across.

But it was still snowing hard outside and Anna could tell from his expression that he was no more enthusiastic than she was about the prospect of wandering the streets.

‘Come to my apartment,’ he said.

‘I don’t think that’s a good idea.’

They did not speak and the silence was broken only by the steady crunch of their footsteps in the snow. Anna gazed
with envy into the bright halls of the mansions they passed and at the chinks of light between their drawing-room curtains, the tantalising suggestion of warmth and refuge from the street. Why had it become a battle? She knew she was being unreasonable and she was sorry, but her feelings frightened her.

As luck would have it, there was a droshky waiting at the district gendarmerie.

‘Stay here, I’ll call him over,’ said Hadfield.

‘You take it. I can’t afford it anyway.’

‘For God’s sake!’ he said, exasperated. ‘If it makes you happy, we can both use him.’

‘Where shall I tell the driver to take you?’ he asked when they were sitting in the cab. She hesitated, reluctant to commit herself, and Hadfield took her silence for lack of trust.

‘I don’t mean your address, just where you want to be left,’ he said irritably.

‘No, no, I wasn’t trying to – oh, anywhere. The Tsarskoe Selo Station,’ she said, flustered.

He leant forward to give instructions to the driver, but before he could speak, she clutched his hand and gave it a tight squeeze. And he turned to look at her with a smile.

‘Well? Where to?’ the driver demanded bad-temperedly.

‘The Church of St Boris and St Gleb.’

Later, as they lay together on the mattress, his knee between her thighs, his chest warm to hers, rising and falling almost together, she wondered how she would find the strength to turn him away when the time came. Was it a mistake to have shared this intimacy, to have sought and accepted love? She watched him dozing, his auburn hair tousled about his face.

He stirred, opened his eyes and, after gazing into hers for a few seconds, he leant forward to kiss her tenderly. ‘There’s something I must tell you,’ he whispered.

‘Please. Let’s just be happy.’

He smiled and raised his hand to her brow, smoothing away the deep crease between her eyes with his thumb.

‘Do you remember in the restaurant that I said I had two new patients? I must tell you of the other one.’

A letter had been delivered to the hospital from a man called Dobrshinsky who wanted to consult him on a medical matter and requested a visit at home.

‘I was suspicious and contacted my newspaper friend, Dobson. It seems this man is a special investigator at the Third Section.’

‘Why didn’t you tell me sooner?’ Anna exclaimed, raising herself to her elbow.

He rolled on his back and looked up at her with a wry smile. ‘We didn’t get further than Patient Number One, if you remember. And what difference does it make?’

‘What difference? He’ll ask you about me and the party,’ she said crossly.

‘Yes. And I’ll lie.’ He tried to pull her down but she wriggled free.

‘What will you say?’

The story he told to Major Barclay of their meeting at the clinic, he said, his respect for her work as a nurse and his shock when he heard she was a terrorist. ‘Please stop worrying. I’m a respectable member of the medical bourgeoisie. The cream of Russian society is happy to place its life in my hands.’

‘I don’t think you should go. He could arrest you.’ She was tense, but tried to smile.

‘He wouldn’t invite me to his home if he was going to do that.’ He paused and reached up for her again: ‘Come here.’

And this time she let him pull her down. And he kissed her, tenderly at first and then more fiercely, his hands kneading her back and buttocks until, breathless with excitement, he entered
her again. And when they had both reached a climax and lay still in each others arms, he whispered, ‘I love you.’

‘You will be careful, won’t you?’ she said.

He did not reply.

F
or all Hadfield’s confidence the night before, he was full of apprehension as he was shown up the stairs to the special investigator’s apartment. Collegiate Councillor Dobrshinsky’s well-groomed valet took his hat and coat – carefully brushing the ice crystals from the collar – then led him from the hall into the study and informed him that His Honour would be with him shortly. Hadfield tried to ease his nerves by peering at the books that lined the walls from almost floor to ceiling. It was a catholic selection that included volumes he was sure the censor considered unsuitable. Conscious that his choice might interest the investigator, he deliberately pulled an anodyne history of the Empress Catherine from the shelf and was pleased when he found a reference to his great-grandfather, the first General Glen.

‘Do you enjoy reading, Doctor? I’m sorry, I surprised you.’

Hadfield turned quickly to find his new patient at the door. ‘You did, sir. I read a good deal.’

Dobrshinsky closed the door quietly and stepped into the body of the room. ‘What are you reading?’

Hadfield told him, mentioning his great-grandfather.

‘Ah, yes,’ said Dobrshinsky with an amused smile. ‘And how is General Glen?’

‘Are you acquainted with my uncle?’

‘I have had the honour of being introduced, yes.’

‘He’s well, thank you.’ Hadfield inclined his head. ‘Now,’ he said, ‘how may I be of assistance, Mr Dobrshinsky?’

‘Anton Frankzevich, please,’ said Dobrshinsky. ‘My man will
bring us some coffee.’ Lifting his tailcoat, he eased himself carefully into one of the leather library chairs in front of the desk, indicating with a casual wave that Hadfield should take the one opposite. He was immaculately dressed in a dark brown suit and black tie, his hands beautifully manicured, but his face was thin and there were dark rings about his eyes, his skin an unhealthy grey. Hadfield wondered if he was a little anaemic or taking strong medicine because his pupils seemed abnormally small.