The White Russian Read online

  Anton straightened. He had his glasses in his hand and spun them slowly.

  “You’re in early,” Ruzsky said.

  Anton looked at him for a moment more and then came toward him. “My boy,” he said, gripping his shoulders and looking into his eyes. “How wonderful to have you back. Come, let’s celebrate.”

  Anton reached down to the bottom drawer of his desk and pulled out a bottle of vodka. As he filled two glasses, a large mop of dark hair hung over his forehead, the gray now visible at his temples. His face exuded the warmth of a loving father, his manner the absentmindedness and eccentricity of the college professor he had once been.

  Anton pushed one glass across the desk and raised the other. He looked carefully at his protégé. “Fantastic to have you back.”

  They drank. Ruzsky almost choked. “Christ.”

  “I know, it is dreadful.”

  “It’s worse than dreadful.”

  “The city is an island, cut off from decent vodka.”

  “I should have brought you some from Tobolsk.”

  Anton raised his eyebrows. “Better keep your voice down. It’s still illegal, you know.”

  Ruzsky smiled. “I’m sure prohibition has been observed to the letter, especially inside this building.”

  Anton took another slug. “It’s been an excellent idea which, as the chief of the city police, I have, of course, fully supported. It has made a huge contribution to improving the general level of sobriety.” Anton refilled his glass.

  Ruzsky took a pace closer to look at the photograph on Anton’s desk. It was of the five of them-Ruzsky, Pavel, Anton, Vladimir, and Maretsky. “Good God,” Anton said. “A proper reunion is in order. Where is Pavel?” He picked up the telephone earpiece. “Professor Maretsky,” he told the operator, then: “Maretsky. Anton. Come around, will you, I’ve got a surprise. And bring Vladimir.” Anton listened. “What about Sarlov?” He shook his head. “All right, just get over here.”

  Anton put down the receiver and refilled both glasses.

  “Pavel will be back in a minute.” Ruzsky threw the vodka to the back of his throat, shook his head once, and put the glass down. He picked up the photograph and looked at the faces that stared back at him, one a much younger version of his own.

  “You were a baby then,” Anton said.

  “So were you.”

  Ruzsky stared at the photograph. The words Criminal Investigation Division, St. Petersburg City Police Department and the year-1900-had been written by hand across the bottom of it. Ruzsky took out his cigarette case and pushed it toward Anton, who removed one and shunted it back.

  “Have you seen her?” Anton asked. Ruzsky saw the warmth and affection that shone in his friend’s eyes.

  “Irina? No.”

  “I wasn’t talking of Irina.” Anton was smiling. “I saw you together, don’t forget. That night at the Mariinskiy.”

  Ruzsky did not answer. He wondered how his feelings could have been so transparent.

  “One of the dancers told me she kept a photograph of you on her dressing table after you went.”

  Ruzsky felt his face flush with embarrassment and pleasure as he thought of Maria.

  Anton stretched his legs. “So?”

  Ruzsky shrugged. “It’s complicated.”

  “I know that you will say that I should not, but I cannot help feeling in some way responsible for this mess.”

  Ruzsky sucked heavily on his cigarette. Irina had been one of Anton’s students.

  “Pavel has been filling me with the usual gloom,” Ruzsky said, anxious to change the subject.

  Anton leaned forward again. “This time he’s right. I never imagined that the Tsar’s absence would be a handicap, but since he ran off to the front to try and win the war single-handedly, it has gotten worse. It is like being on a ship headed for an iceberg with a madman at the controls.”

  “I got the article.”

  “Yes, but the worst of it is that the woman is at the steering wheel. That’s what’s frightening.”

  “Do you still attend the weekly meetings at the Interior Ministry?”

  “Yes.”

  “What do the Okhrana say?”

  “We don’t need them to tell us what is going on. Stand in a line for bread. You’ll get the idea.”

  Anton came around the desk and leaned against it. “I took a look at the bodies,” he said.

  “And?”

  “People are desperate, but this kind of savagery… Have you identified the victims?”

  “No. Their bodies have been systematically stripped.”

  Anton looked up. His eyes were washed out and bloodshot. There was deep concern there. “It troubles me. At this time, right out there on the ice, in front of the palace, in the very heart of the city.”

  Ruzsky wondered what lay beneath Anton’s concern. “I don’t think the location was chosen for its symbolic value, if that is what you mean.”

  Anton toyed with his eyeglasses.

  “I don’t understand what you’re driving at,” Ruzsky said.

  “These are complicated times, Sandro.”

  “What has that to do with us?”

  Anton sighed. “It’s a time for caution. The Progressives and even some members of the government have been writing to senior generals at headquarters to demand the Empress be arrested on her next visit to the front line, and sent to the Crimea. I’ve heard that some of your contemporaries at the yacht club discuss in hushed tones whether it would be justifiable to assassinate the Tsar.”

  “And what has that to do with us?”

  “Nothing, I just want you to be aware.”

  “Of what?”

  “No one operates in a vacuum, that’s all.”

  Ruzsky did not see what Anton was driving at. “And our friend Vasilyev?”

  “The chief of the Okhrana sits in his office playing the loyal police chief. The plotters’ letters are opened, their contents divulged to the Empress. She in turn writes to her husband and demands another round of ministers be sacked and sent into exile. We call it ministerial leapfrog. At a meeting yesterday, the latest bulletin to be sent up to Tsarskoe Selo was pushed around the table. It contained extracts from a letter written by the Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna to a leading member of the Duma, demanding that the Empress be… annihilated.”

  Ruzsky did not answer. Maria Pavlovna was one of the most senior members of the Romanov family and what Anton was telling him was not khvost gossip. “Pavel tells me Vasilyev tolerates no opposition,” he said, memories of his confrontation with the city’s secret police chief three years ago still fresh.

  “You have to question the currency of a regime that relies for its survival on such a man.”

  “You exaggerate.”

  “No.”

  “And he is rewarded for his loyalty?”

  “Yes, but you’re missing the point. Vasilyev is not stupid. Think about it for a minute. Some of these strikes… what lies behind them? Are the Okhrana up to their old tricks? We know they have provocateurs in these factories and strike committees. Is Vasilyev deliberately stirring up trouble so that whichever group of revolutionaries he favors can seize power under the guise of saving the Empire?”

  “The incorruptible Vasilyev? Devoted servant to the Tsar?”

  Pavel appeared in the doorway. “What’s this, a wedding reception?”

  Maretsky was half a step behind him. “Professor,” Ruzsky said, unable to conceal his pleasure. Maretsky stepped forward and offered himself for a bear hug, and Ruzsky ducked into it as he would have done to his son. Maretsky gripped him tight, then took a pace back, unsteady and misty-eyed for a moment, before he sat down next to Anton. His legs didn’t quite reach the floor and he looked like a child in an adult’s chair. His face was round, a few wispy strands of gray hair protruding from the top of his shirt belying an otherwise almost feminine appearance. He wore a gray jacket and shorter boots than was the fashion.

  “You look thinner,” Maretsk
y told him. “Don’t they have food out there?”

  “Which is more than can be said for you, Maretsky,” Pavel said.

  “How was Tobolsk?”

  “Cold and boring.”

  “Is it true they eat each other when they get hungry?”

  “More or less.”

  Anton clinked his glass against the metal vodka bottle and then poured out a measure for each of them. He pushed the glasses across the table and they all raised them together. “Older, wiser,” he said, looking at them meaningfully. “But still here.”

  They drained their glasses.

  An awkward silence followed. Their attempt to pretend that nothing had changed only served to reinforce the fact that something had. Maretsky-even Anton, or was he imagining that?-seemed almost wary of him.

  “How is Irina?” Maretsky asked.

  “She’s fine, thank you. Or so I believe.”

  Maretsky frowned. “She survived Tobolsk?”

  “Just about.”

  “I’m surprised she went. My wife wouldn’t have.”

  “It’s surprising,” Ruzsky said, “what guilt can make you do.”

  They were silent once more.

  Ruzsky heard Madame Renaud’s haughty voice at the other end of the corridor.

  6

  M adame Renaud burst into the room, an anxious constable alongside her. “Bonjour, madame.”

  “You are Irina Ruzskya’s husband.” It was an accusation. She surveyed the room, glancing coldly at each of his colleagues.

  “I am.”

  “You should be ashamed of yourself.”

  Ruzsky stood, then leaned back on the balls of his feet trying to imagine the stories Irina must have invented about him. They stared at each other like predators. “We have the body of a woman downstairs, wearing one of your dresses.”

  “I have a business to run, don’t you know that? You drag me in here like some common criminal, and in these times. Don’t you have anything better to do?” She glared at the others.

  Ruzsky kept his tone level. “As the constable will have told you, madame, we are the Criminal Investigation Division and we are investigating a murder. I’m sure the Okhrana does have better things to do with its time, if that is what you mean.”

  “How can you be sure it is one of my dresses?”

  “A man whose wife is bankrupting him recognizes the cause.”

  “Only cheap husbands complain,” she said icily.

  Madame Renaud exuded a haughty arrogance. She had a long, bony nose, narrow eyes, and white skin heavily powdered in a vain attempt to conceal her age. Her fingers were thin and, like her neck, bedecked in jewels that sparkled even in this dull light. Her expression reflected disgust and astonishment that the scion of a great family could work in such surroundings.

  “These are my colleagues, Anton Antipovich…”

  “I did not come to attend a social occasion.”

  “You make no concession to the times,” Ruzsky said, pointing at her diamond necklace. “For that I admire you.”

  “I am not normally dragged through the streets.”

  “Your sled was not ready. I apologize. But this is a murder case, the victim one of your clients. I thought you would wish to help us.”

  She relaxed a little, breathing out. Ruzsky realized his irritation and hostility had more to do with Irina. He imagined the two of them together, clucking and cooing over a dress that would cost ten times more than most people earned in a year. Since their marriage, Irina had received an allowance direct from his father, as well as a smaller stipend from her own parents. Behind the desk, Anton was staring at his empty glass.

  “I’d be grateful if you would accompany us to the basement,” Ruzsky said.

  A hint of a smile played at the corner of her lips. “You make the invitation sound so attractive, Prince Ruzsky.”

  He could tell both Pavel and Maretsky were watching him. “We’re not in the habit of such formality here, Madame Renaud.”

  “Are you ashamed of your fine ancestry?”

  Ruzsky saw Pavel roll his eyes theatrically.

  Without replying, Ruzsky led them along the corridor and down the stairs. Madame Renaud kept both hands in a fur muffler and her back rigidly straight.

  As they came down the last flight of stairs, Ruzsky could hear Sarlov working with the saw and he hurried along the dark corridor. “For God’s sake,” he said, and Sarlov looked up, startled. “I thought I asked you not to do that.”

  “I have a medical practice to run, Ruzsky. I can’t wait on your pleasure all day. As even you must be able to see, the bodies are rock hard and will take a considerable time to properly thaw.”

  Sarlov’s coat and mask and face were splattered with tiny flecks of frozen blood and flesh. There was an incision across the woman’s chest, a small pool of thawing blood on the metal table beneath him, a thin stream dripping onto the floor.

  Ruzsky heard a sharp intake of breath from Madame Renaud behind him and he rushed forward to pull a sheet over the body. He turned to face her. “My apologies, Madame Renaud. I was not aware this process had begun.”

  He expected her to turn away, but found instead that she was struggling to compose herself. Pavel stood alongside her. Maretsky and Anton had remained upstairs.

  “Come forward, if you would.”

  She put a black gloved hand to her mouth, then took out a white lace handkerchief from her bag and placed it over her nose. She stepped forward and looked calmly at the girl’s face, before shaking her head confidently. “I don’t recognize her.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Of course I’m sure.”

  Ruzsky walked over to the pile of clothes in the corner and picked up the dead girl’s dress. He carried it to Madame Renaud, pulling the hem through his hands until he found the label. She took the dress from him and half turned, holding it up toward the light. She returned it to him and removed a pair of eyeglasses from her bag, before examining it once again. “Yes,” she said, simply. She let the hem of the dress drop, holding it up by its shoulders. “I see you are as capable as your wife claims.”

  Ruzsky felt momentarily confused.

  “Sherlock Holmes, she calls you. Isn’t that so?”

  Ruzsky realized she was taunting him.

  “This is one of your dresses,” he said.

  “It is much too big for the dead girl. A terrible fit.” She turned to him with a caustic smile. “Surely you can see that.”

  “Who did you make it for?” Ruzsky didn’t expect an answer.

  “Vyrubova,” she said.

  “Anna Vyrubova?”

  “Yes.” She was enjoying her power now. Ruzsky saw the color drain from Pavel’s face again.

  “You are referring to the intimate friend of the Empress, Anna Vyrubova?”

  “The same. It’s an old dress-two or three years. She must have given it to the dead girl.”

  Ruzsky hesitated. “You haven’t seen this woman before?”

  “No.”

  “Definitely not?”

  She tilted her head to one side, but it was a gesture of amusement, not irritation. “No.” She was watching him. “Your wife came in this morning.”

  He didn’t answer.

  “She wishes to have a dress for the Vorontsov ball.”

  “Of course.”

  “She said you would not be accompanying her.”

  Ruzsky stared at the floor.

  “She says you were once handsome, but she does you a disservice.”

  Ruzsky looked up. He could hardly credit the fact that this harsh-faced woman was attempting to flirt with him in front of two half-dismembered corpses. “Thank you for coming in, Madame Renaud.”

  Pavel was silent as they walked upstairs to the office.

  The dagger had been placed on the corner of Ruzsky’s desk, with a tag attached stamped Petrograd City Police, Criminal Investigation Division. Alongside it was a set of crime scene photographs, which they examined in silence.


  Ruzsky opened the drawer, took out the notebook, and slipped it into the inside pocket of his jacket. He replaced it with the piece of paper on which he had drawn the outline of the footprint traced from the snow.

  “What do you want to do?” Pavel asked.

  “Go down to the embankment and start checking all residential buildings in the neighborhood. Go to the Winter Palace and try and get hold of the head of the household. See if there is any chance anyone did see anything. And if you have time, try the embassies. British, French, American. Ask if they’ve received any reports of a missing national. We’ll see if Sarlov was right about the man being a foreigner. I’m going to go out to Tsarskoe Selo.”

  “You don’t want me to come with you?” Pavel didn’t sound enthusiastic.

  “We’ll make more progress if we split up.”

  “Who are you going to see?”

  “Count Fredericks. One of the other senior household staff. Vyrubova herself.”

  “Why don’t you telephone?”

  Ruzsky frowned at Pavel’s caution. “If I call, they will decline.”

  “They will decline to see you anyway.”

  Ruzsky looked up and saw Maretsky going into his cubicle. He picked up the dagger and walked around to join him. Pavel followed.

  Maretsky was scanning a document, his glasses pushed to the top of his head. He looked up at them, chewing his lip, as if concentrating on something else, his round, piggy eyes staring into thin air.

  Ruzsky held up the knife.

  “It’s a dagger,” Maretsky said.

  “Correct.” Ruzsky handed it to him.

  “It has blood on it.”

  “That’s not uncommon in murder cases.”

  Maretsky pulled his glasses down and glanced at Ruzsky. He held it up to the light.

  “There’s some writing on the blade,” Ruzsky said.

  “I can see.”

  Ruzsky waited as Maretsky turned the knife over in his hand. The professor handed it back without comment.

  “And?” Ruzsky asked.

  “And what?” Maretsky glanced at Pavel. For some reason, Ruzsky thought, the professor never felt as comfortable when Pavel was around.