Death on the Nevskii Prospekt

3

Lord Francis Powerscourt was trying as hard as he could not to show his astonishment. The knowledge that Roderick Martin had been a regular visitor to St Petersburg could change everything in his investigation. He noticed that Mikhail Shaporov looked completely unconcerned as if he’d known this information all along.

‘That is most interesting, Mr Under Secretary,’ he began. ‘Might I ask if you have the dates of these visits to hand? The place or places where he stayed? The length of his visit? My government would be at your service, sir, if this information could be passed on.’

‘It can be, Lord Powerscourt. It shall be. Let no one say that the servants of the Tsar are unwilling to co-operate with the King of England and the Emperor of India.’ Vasily Bazhenov was expansive now, his black hair rolling down his forehead. ‘It should be fairly easy to extract the information you require. I propose, gentlemen, that we meet again at the same time early next week. I shall send word to the Embassy. I hope by then to have all the information you need. I shall spend the intervening hours working for the Government of His Majesty King Edward the Seventh. A very good day to you, gentlemen.’

Powerscourt and Mikhail Shaporov did not speak on their long march down the bureaucratic corridor from Room 467. They did not speak in the foul-smelling lift. They acknowledged the greeting of the man with one arm who noted the time of their departure. Only when they were outside the grip of the Interior Ministry, walking beside the Fontanka Canal on their way back to the British Embassy, did Mikhail Shaporov break the silence.

‘That’s a bit of a bombshell, isn’t it, Lord Powerscourt. Have you any idea what it means?’

Powerscourt laughed. ‘At this moment, I have absolutely no idea.’ It was now, Mikhail told Natasha afterwards, that he first realized what a lot of experience Powerscourt had, and what a devious mind. ‘It could mean that he had a mistress in the city. It could mean that he had an illegitimate child or children here in St Petersburg that he came to visit. He didn’t have any back in England after all. Maybe he was being blackmailed by a St Petersburg blackmailer and he had to come and hand over the payments in person. Maybe he was a secret diplomatic conduit between the British Government and the Tsar. Maybe he was a double agent of the Okhrana, come to Mother Russia for the confession of sins and the resumption of vows of fidelity to an alien power. Maybe he was all of those, though I have to say I think that’s unlikely. But I tell you this, Mikhail. Whichever one of those he was, or some other kind of person, we’re bloody well going to find out.’

Mikhail Shaporov and Natasha Bobrinsky were sitting in the Old Library in one of the Shaporov palaces on Millionnaya Ulitsa, Millionaires’ Row, not far from the Hermitage and the Winter Palace. They had exchanged chaste, rather middle-aged kisses at the railway station and were now respectably seated on opposite sides of a small table, drinking tea. Natasha thought Mikhail looked very grown up and sophisticated after his time in London. He thought she was more enchanting than ever.

‘What brings you back to St Petersburg so soon?’ she began. ‘I was very pleased to get your note, Mikhail, but I didn’t expect to see you for months. How long are you going to be here for?’

The young man smiled. ‘I don’t know how long I’m going to be here for. It’s rather a fantastic story, how I came to be here.’

‘Do tell.’ The girl was leaning closer to him. ‘I adore fantastic stories.’

‘I’m here as an interpreter for an English investigator called Lord Francis Powerscourt who has been sent by the British Foreign Office to find out about a man called Martin.’

‘Why,’ said Natasha quickly, ‘do they need to send the two of you all the way here from London? Why don’t they just ask Mr Martin what they want to know?’

‘That would be a bit difficult, Natasha.’ Mikhail was resisting the temptation to smile. ‘You see, Mr Martin can’t say anything very much any more. Mr Martin is dead. To be more precise, Mr Martin was murdered. They found his body on the Nevskii Prospekt.’

‘Did they indeed?’ said the girl, reluctant to display too much excitement in the face of death. ‘But why you, Mikhail? How did you come to be selected? Have you made a habit of consorting with Sherlock Holmes and his friend Dr Watson in the fogs of Baker Street?’

‘Alas, no,’ said the young man, ‘the answer is much more prosaic. My father has some dealings with this British Foreign Office. It was all organized through him. No doubt he will expect some favour in return some day. Maybe they thought he might be able to help here. Come to think of it, that would have been rather clever of them.’

‘And how is your translating, Mikhail? Do you go round talking to very important and exciting people?’

‘I wouldn’t quite put it like that,’ he replied. ‘So far we’ve been to a police station, a couple of morgues, a little restaurant that served cabbage soup – he liked that, by the way, my Lord Powerscourt, he said it reminded him of Ireland – and a Third Assistant Deputy Under Secretary in the Administrative Division of the Interior Ministry. That was so exciting we’re going back again early next week.’

‘And what’s he like, this Lord Powerscourt? Is he frightfully handsome and clever? Would he be a suitable catch for me, Mikhail?’

‘I think you need a younger man than Lord Powerscourt, Natasha,’ said Mikhail in his most worldly voice. ‘Young but with considerable experience of the world, lived abroad, well read, well spoken, that sort of thing. I could say more about him but I’ll save it for later if I may. Lord Powerscourt is in his forties, married with four children, lives in Chelsea, a fashionable part of London and has exquisite manners. Beneath it all I think he cares very much for the poor dead Mr Martin and the bereaved Mrs Martin. And one last thing, he’s extremely clever, though he doesn’t show it. I only realized that earlier this afternoon.’

Mikhail remembered his conversation with Powerscourt and telling Natasha about Martin and asking her to keep her ears open.

‘So does anybody know yet why this poor man was killed?’ Natasha was rather thrilled that her young man – well, he was nearly her young man, a couple of kisses at railway stations were only an inadequate hors d’oeuvre in her view – should be engaged on such a mission.

‘That’s just the point, Natasha,’ said Mikhail Shaporov, wondering what word would best describe her dark eyes, now glittering with excitement. ‘At first the police told the British Embassy he was dead. Now they’re denying all knowledge of him. They’re saying he wasn’t here this time, but that he came here earlier last year and the year before and the year before that. It’s all very confusing.’

‘How very difficult for everybody,’ said Natasha, frowning slightly. ‘And what was he meant to be doing here, the late Mr Martin who isn’t in the morgues or the Interior Ministry?’

‘That’s another secret. Only the British Prime Minister knows the nature of his mission to St Petersburg. The Secretary at the British Embassy, the man who knows where all the bodies are buried according to Lord Powerscourt, he doesn’t know. The British Ambassador has no idea. Neither Lord Powerscourt nor I know either. We’re all in the dark.’

‘It’s all very exciting,’ said Natasha. ‘I wish I could do something to help.’

Mikhail rose suddenly from his chair and walked rapidly up and down the room. Ancient leather-bound volumes marched along the walls in order of date of publication and country of origin and watched his passing. The Old Library in this Shaporov palace was filled with European history and literature in the languages the books were written in. The New Library was for Russian works. Mikhail had reached Dante in a particularly elegant binding from a Venetian publishing house when he turned to face Natasha once more.

‘Don’t go walking up and down like that, Mikhail,’ she pleaded. ‘It makes me think you don’t care for me. I much preferred it when you were on the other side of this table.’

The young man laughed. ‘Sorry about that, Natasha,’ he said, returning to his seat. ‘I was just wondering if I ought to tell you something or not.’

‘What sort of something?’ she said, her eyes bright with the fun of it all. ‘Are you teasing me?’

‘No, I’m not teasing you,’ he said. ‘It really is quite serious. Lord Powerscourt and I think there is a chance, only a slight chance, that Mr Martin’s mission may be connected to the Tsar in some way. Something to do with foreign policy in some form or other. The Tsar’s meant to be in charge of all that sort of thing.’

‘But something so secret that even the British Ambassador doesn’t know about it?’

‘Something so secret even the British Foreign Secretary doesn’t know about it, Natasha.’

‘But where do I come into it?’ said the girl. ‘You said you were wondering whether to tell me something or not. What is the something, Mikhail?’

‘It’s this. We want you to help us. We want you to listen very carefully to any conversations involving politics and see if Mr Martin’s name comes up. But don’t for heaven’s sake ask any questions of anybody. If you do you may end up underneath the ice on the Neva. Just listen.’

Natasha was struck dumb. Twice she opened her mouth to speak but no words came forth. ‘That is the most exciting and most grown-up thing anybody has ever asked me to do,’ she said finally. ‘Do you want me to go back straight away and start listening?’

‘No, no,’ said Mikhail Shaporov, ‘you’ve only just left the bloody palace and you don’t have to be back for another hour and a half. Anyway, it’s your turn to talk now, Natasha. I want to know what life is like at Tsarskoe Selo. Are they going to make you a Grand Duchess soon?’

‘I tell you what the best thing about joining your boys’ club of secret agents and investigators is,’ she said, ‘for those of us locked up at Tsarskoe Selo at any rate. It’ll be a little something to alleviate the boredom of the days.’

‘It can’t be boring, surely. We’re talking about the Tsar of All the Russias here, for heaven’s sake. He must be one of the most powerful men on earth. I fail to see how it can be tedious.’

‘You wouldn’t say the Tsar was one of the most powerful men on earth if you saw him up close. You’d think he might be the stationmaster or somebody of middling importance in the bank. He doesn’t look very impressive.’

‘I don’t understand, Natasha – what makes it so boring?’

‘That’s easy to see when you first arrive and then gradually you are sucked into it. It’s like living in a museum where the waxworks are actually alive. It’s the court ceremonial that does it. There’s this very old Finn called Count something or other and he can remember all the approved ways of doing things going back to Peter the Great. Meals at the same time, breakfast at half past seven for the family except Madam Alix, lunch at twelve, tea at four where the biscuits, somebody told me, are the same as they were in the days of Catherine the Great. Supper at the same time, readings from novels by the Tsar at the same time in the evening. Soldiers, policemen, enormous footmen, some of them black, some of them brown, everywhere. Tsarskoe Selo has a military force around it about the same size as the army of a small country like Denmark. Look out of any of the windows and you’ll see the back of a guardsman or a policeman. After a while, Mikhail, you grow rather tired of all these backs in uniform. Any visitor to the place has their name entered in a book. Anybody leaving it, the same. I can’t imagine why anybody would want to live there when they could be in that fabulous Winter Palace right in the middle of town. Why did Catherine build it if she didn’t intend her successors to live in it in the winter?’

‘Security, Natasha, you must see that,’ said Mikhail, ‘they feel safe down there. Any would-be assassins can be intercepted before they reach the front door. That’s not so easy in the middle of Petersburg.’

‘I think it might be jolly exciting if an assassin got past the front door,’ said Natasha, treacherously. ‘What do you think they carry their bombs round in? Do they just have them under their coats? Isn’t there a danger that they will blow themselves up?’

‘I think you should be serious about these assassins, Natasha,’ said Mikhail Shaporov. ‘You never know where they may strike next. But tell me, what are the daughters like, the ones you have to deal with?’

‘The Grand Duchesses?’ The girl stopped for a moment and a smile crossed her lips. ‘They’re sweet, Mikhail, really sweet. They’re very strictly brought up, they have to make their own beds, they have to behave at meal times, they have English governesses, even English furniture for heaven’s sake. The elder two get less pocket money than I did when I was half their age.’

‘And what do they talk to you about? Or is it what do you talk to them about?’

‘I can see you haven’t read the Court Ceremonial Circular recently, Mikhail,’ said Natasha sternly, ‘really, I’m surprised at you. I can only talk to them if they talk to me. It is forbidden to talk to a member of the imperial family unless they have first addressed you.’

‘So, Natasha,’ replied Mikhail, holding his ground, ‘what do they talk to you about?’

‘This is where it becomes so sad. This is where their upbringing really handicaps them. Think of it. They’ve hardly ever been to a restaurant. They hardly ever go to the big shops on the Nevskii Prospekt. They go on holiday in the royal train to the Crimea, guarded by dozens and dozens of policemen on the way, or they go cruising in the royal yacht on the Baltic surrounded by dozens and dozens of seamen, handpicked for loyalty and devotion to the Tsar. They have no more idea of the lives of ordinary Russians than they do of the man in the moon. I’m not a typical Russian, as you know, but they have no idea how even people like us are brought up. They think ordinary Russians are all like the peasants who wait beside the train lines to wave at the family as they pass by. Their parents are convinced that the peasants love the royal family, it’s just the decadent snobs in St Petersburg who don’t measure up. The favourite thing with all four girls is for me to describe a shop with all the different things, particularly clothes, that are on sale. They would listen to that for hours at a time. The next favourite is to describe the menu in a fashionable restaurant. After that we can always fill an hour or two with them asking me to describe my wardrobe in enormous detail.’

‘You make them sound like deprived children. It can’t be as bad as that, surely?’

‘Well, I think it is. There’s no doubt their parents love them all dearly, but they can’t see they’re stifling the life out of them. And there’s another thing, Mikhail.’ The girl lowered her voice and looked about the library very carefully, as if an Okhrana agent might be hiding behind the Voltaire or the Rousseau. ‘That little boy. There’s something not quite right with him. I don’t know what it is, I don’t think they know what it is, but I’m sure it’s serious, very serious.’

‘What do you mean, something not quite right with him? Is he not crawling yet or whatever babies are expected to do?’

‘It’s not that, Mikhail. Two or three times now it’s happened. He falls ill, don’t ask me how. Madam Alix puts on an even longer face than usual, Tsar looks like all the bank loans are going to go wrong at once, doctors arrive from Petersburg by the trainload. Literally. Once we had seven medical professors in the Alexander Palace in one day. Fairly soon I’m going to get to the bottom of it all.’

‘So is that what breaks up the boredom? Earnest society doctors coming to inspect the Tsarevich? What do his sisters say about it all? Do they know what’s going on?’

‘I think they have been sworn to silence, or a cutting off of the biscuit ration at tea-time. They don’t say a word. There is one other thing that’s happened recently though I don’t know if it means anything at all. Two of the eggs have disappeared, two of the most beautiful ones.’

‘Eggs? Disappeared? What eggs? Whose eggs? Royal eggs? Special Romanov eggs from special Romanov hens?’ The royal household at Tsarskoe Selo was beginning to sound to the novice Mikhail like a cross between a penal institution and a dairy farm. Even he, never a fully convinced monarchist, wasn’t sure he would approve of such prosaic developments.

‘Sorry, Mikhail. I should have explained it better,’ said Natasha with a laugh. ‘The person who makes the eggs is Mr Faberge, the jeweller. Every Easter he is commissioned by the Tsar to make two new eggs, one for his mother and one for his wife. One of these eggs is called the Trans-Siberian Railway egg and it was made in 1900 to commemorate the opening of the Trans-Siberian Railway. The outside of the egg is made of green translucent emerald gold and has all the stations of the railway marked on it in silver. When you open it up there’s a tiny little train about a foot long which actually goes when you wind it up with its clockwork key. It’s got a dining car, smoking and non-smoking cars. I think it’s even got a chapel carriage at the back.’

‘Have you seen it go, this train, Natasha?’

‘No, I haven’t, but the girls have. They said it was sensational. The other one is not so dramatic but pretty special all the same. It was called the Danish Royal Palaces egg and when you opened this little chap up you got eight portraits of eight different Danish castles that the Tsar’s mother or some royal Danish person must have lived in when she was growing up. I did see that one opened up and it was just beautiful.’

‘So where have they gone?’

‘I don’t know,’ she said, glancing anxiously at the clock above the door. ‘One week ago they were all locked up in their own glass cabinet along with the other eggs and the next minute they’d gone. Nobody seems very bothered about it. Perhaps they haven’t noticed. I must go now, Mikhail, or I will get into trouble and be locked up with all the other assassins when I get back. Will you see me to the station?’

‘Of course I will,’ said Mikhail. ‘Any chance next time of meeting at Tsarskoe Selo? Any chance I could bring my new friend Lord Powerscourt?’

Lord Francis Powerscourt was not overjoyed at his reception back at the British Embassy. For de Chassiron, he felt sure, he brought a sense of excitement and even danger that served to add spice to a life that might easily have degenerated into foppish boredom. De Chassiron would always be glad of somebody new to talk to, some fresh recipient for his sarcasm and his cleverness. De Chassiron was not the problem. The Ambassador was. De Chassiron had given Powerscourt a fairly brutal run-down over breakfast that morning. ‘Done a turn in Washington, His Nibs has, not top man but number two. Only embassy he’s ever served in where he could speak the language as well as the natives, and even that was doubtful. Been Ambassador in Paris, weak on diplomatic and business French. Been Ambassador in Germany where he offended the Kaiser and half the government by forgetting to salute in the right place at some ludicrous parade invented by the equally ludicrous Kaiser. Now he’s here in St Petersburg, aiming to stay for a couple of years at most. Then he can return to London to take over from the etiolated Sir Jeremiah Reddaway as Permanent Secretary to the Foreign Office. He’s already Sir Jasper Colville. Then he can fulfil his wife’s greatest ambition and become Lord Colville of somewhere or other. Tooting Bec maybe,’ de Chassiron said savagely, his contempt for his superior blatant, ‘or Clapham Common. But you, Powerscourt,’ here de Chassiron leaned back in his chair and ran an arm through his hair, only to find yet again that the incipient bald patch was marching inexorably on, ‘you might be trouble. Dead British diplomats, nothing he would like less. Troublesome inquiries with the native authorities, even less welcome. There’s nothing His Nibs would like more than to leave Martin under the ice of the Neva river, if that’s where he is, and for the body not to be found until he has returned home to take up his new position and his seat in the House of Lords. Once you come to him with something concrete, he won’t like it one little bit. Anything that might upset His Majesty’s relations with the Tsar of All the Russias not welcome in this Embassy. You could do him real damage if you find out anything really serious about what happened to Martin. We could almost say you’ve got his future in your hands.’

Now the three men were sitting in the Ambassador’s study, drinking English tea and eating cucumber sandwiches. The Ambassador had seen too many of his colleagues fall into the wretched customs of their hosts and forget who and what they were. The Ambassador was seated behind a large desk that would not have looked out of place in a Pall Mall club. Powerscourt suddenly realized that all the furniture, the sofas, the chairs, the occasional tables, the racks for newspapers, could have been transferred direct from the Athenaeum or the Reform Club in London’s Pall Mall. Maybe the British Embassy, like the Russian Tsarina, did its shopping at Maples in the Tottenham Court Road.

Before Powerscourt presented his report on the day’s discoveries, the Ambassador graced his little audience with his own view on the diplomatic problems surrounding the strange case of Roderick Martin. The need to be aware of Russian susceptibilities, of their difficulties both with the Japanese War on the one hand, and with the bomb-bearing revolutionaries on the other. The need, of course, for His Majesty’s representatives to be aware of the dignity of their own position while not compromising the Russians’ room for manoeuvre. The need to be aware, too, of the pressures for information and hard facts from home. Public opinion, although still sleeping on this issue, as everybody had taken great care to keep it out of the newspapers, could easily be roused and might not prove an easy bedfellow. Prejudice against the Russian bear, so prominent a generation ago, in Sir Jasper’s view, could easily come lumbering out of the same forest once again. The need for boldness tempered with caution, for restraint married with respect for the Russian perspective.

De Chassiron had been nodding vigorously in agreement with his Ambassador’s sentiments. Powerscourt was certain that he was being ironic and, furthermore, that this was a very dangerous game to play. Only when he reflected on it afterwards did Powerscourt realize that de Chassiron knew the Ambassador was so sure of himself that he wouldn’t have recognized the irony and the lack of respect if they had sat down beside him in his own drawing room. Powerscourt thought the Ambassador’s remarks were nonsense, designed to appeal to everybody and to nobody, to preserve his own position sitting on the fence facing in all directions at once.

His guests paid scant attention to his reports of the visits to the police station and the morgues, though de Chassiron was much taken by the vehemence of the denials that Martin had ever been found by members of that police station. But when he told of the Interior Ministry’s insistence on Martin’s previous visits, they were astonished. Sir Jasper, anxious possibly to see which way the wind would blow, left the initial reaction to Embassy Secretary de Chassiron.

‘Good God man, this is dynamite,’ he said, screwing his silver monocle into his eye and inspecting the notes in front of him. ‘If Martin came here then he didn’t stay in the Embassy, I don’t think he even visited the place. I’ve been here since the year of Our Lord 1899 so I should bloody well know. What on earth do you think he was doing here, Powerscourt? Did your friend in the ministry have any idea what he was up to?’

‘The man from the ministry did not vouchsafe any information on that,’ said Powerscourt carefully. ‘We have to go and see him again early next week for further news. If he was not prepared to tell us all he knew today, I should be surprised if he is going to open his heart to us later on.’

‘We, Powerscourt, we?’ Sir Jasper was fiddling with a paperknife. ‘Have you attained the royal plural or were you accompanied by someone unknown to us?’

‘I went accompanied by my translator, a young man of impeccable family and equally impeccable language skills called Mikhail Shaporov, Sir Jasper. He came to me from the Foreign Office in London.’

‘Of course,’ said Sir Jasper, trying to gloss over the fact that he had been told this information but had forgotten. ‘Please carry on.’

‘I can only repeat the possibilities I discussed with my translator after our meeting, Sir Jasper,’ said Powerscourt, wondering if he too would become pompous after a life in the Foreign Service. ‘Martin could have had a mistress here. He could have fathered children out of wedlock whom he wished to visit. He could have come to pay a blackmailer. Or he could have been an agent of the Okhrana, come for a debrief from his masters and a round of fresh instructions. Or he could have come on holiday. The man might have liked the place. It’s very beautiful. I’m sure we all know people who make a point of going to Venice or Rome or Paris once a year or so. Martin could have been one of those.’

De Chassiron had a look of anticipation on his face as if he expected some dramatic development at any moment. He was not disappointed.

‘Are you telling us, Powerscourt, that you discussed these possibilities with young Shaporov, including the disgraceful accusation that Martin might have been a Russian agent?’ Martin might have been rather a lot of trouble to the Ambassador during his life, but he was not going to have the man’s service traduced once he was dead. ‘I think that was unwise of you, most unwise.’

Powerscourt wondered whether to hit back or not. Probably better not. ‘I am sorry if you felt I was out of order, Sir Jasper. I cannot believe there is anything untoward about a young man recommended by the Foreign Office itself. I should say he is very discreet.’

‘Nevertheless, Powerscourt, I urge discretion on you. At all times. Nobody working in the purlieus of diplomacy and foreign affairs should forget that. I expect you to keep me informed of your activities, and your . . .’ The Ambassador paused for a second or two here as if unsure of the right word. ‘. . . your speculations every evening from now on about this time.’ The Ambassador rose from his seat and headed for the door. ‘Thank you, gentlemen, and a very good evening to you both.’

A battalion of cleaners took up their positions on the ground floor of the Winter Palace at five o’clock on the morning of Thursday January the 6th, Epiphany Day. They brought tall ladders with them as well as the usual complement of mops, pails, dusters, soft cloths, feather dusters on long poles. Today was one of the most important days in the calendar of the great palace. Today the Tsar, members of the court and his family and senior members of the Church in St Petersburg processed down from the first floor of the Winter Palace to a special ceremony by the banks of the Neva called the Blessing of the Waters. And the route down from the first floor came down one of the most spectacular sections of this most spectacular of buildings, the Jordan Staircase.

The twin flights of the marble staircase were overlooked by a selection of caryatids, trompe l’oeil atlantes and a fresco of the gods on Mount Olympus. Ten solid granite columns supported the vaults of the staircase. The walls and balustrade dripped with decoration, with gilding, with mirrors. The ceiling, way above the staircase, showed the gods of Olympus besporting themselves in a heaven scarcely less spectacular than the Winter Palace itself. The route upwards was decorated with monumental statues brought from Europe by Peter the Great: Diana, Power and Might. In the great days of the St Petersburg season, before the Japanese War and the threat of terror put an end to the festivities, the rich and the fashionable of St Petersburg would progress up the Jordan Staircase to dance until dawn in the great state rooms on the first floor.

Today it was the route by which the Emperor led his procession to attend the annual service of the Blessing of the Waters at Epiphany in commemoration of Christ’s Baptism in the river Jordan. It was an uneasy time in the capital. Workers were on strike against their conditions of employment and their numbers increased every day. Police reported the working class districts as being restive and liable to erupt in violence. For the Blessing a temporary pavilion was set up on the ice of the Neva at a point opposite the northern entrance to the palace. The Metropolitan of St Petersburg dipped a cross in a hole made in the ice and referred to it as ‘Jordan’. A small cup was then lowered into the hole and presented to the Emperor who took a sip of the water and handed the cup back to the churchman. Prayers were said for the health of the Tsar and his family, wisely, the more cynical observers thought, in view of the impurities of the river water.

Out on the Neva a detachment of marine police inspected the ice for any signs of suspect activity. The secret police had warned the imperial family that there was a high risk of terrorist activity at this time. The Tsarina and her daughters stayed behind the tall windows of the Winter Palace, staring out at the scene on the blue-green ice. When the proceedings were over there came the sound of a great salute from the guns of the Fortress of Peter and Paul across the river. The more historically minded of the citizens referred to the fortress as the Russian Bastille. Its reputation as a place of incarceration was fearful. Prisoners were said to have died of cold, of hunger, of the terrible beatings they received from the guards. In fact, there were never more than a hundred prisoners in the fortress at any one time and some of them even spent their time reading revolutionary literature without any interference from their jailers.

The fortress was also the necropolis of the Romanovs. Almost all the Tsars were buried inside. And on this Epiphany Day it seemed as if some malignant spirits were intending to increase their number. For these were not blanks being fired from the great guns. This was live ammunition. A policeman standing beside the Tsar fell wounded to the ground, his blood spreading out in strange red patterns against the snow. Shots were fired into the Winter Palace itself, the glass in the windows shattering and flying inside, threatening the flesh of any who got in its way. Other shots ricocheted off the Admiralty Building back into Palace Square. On the first floor in the Field Marshal’s Hall shards of glass lay at the feet of the Tsar’s mother and sister, but they were unhurt. Out in the snow the Tsar crossed himself and began saying his prayers. Not far from there his grandfather had been driving in his carriage twenty-four years before when a bomb shattered his vehicle, wounded his horses and his companions but left the Tsar himself unhurt. Stepping down from the wreck of his carriage he went to inquire after the wounded. Another assassin ran up and threw a bomb directly between the Tsar’s feet. In a huge sheet of flame and metal his legs were torn away, his stomach ripped wide open and his face badly mutilated. Still breathing he asked for what remained of him to be carried into the Winter Palace to die. He left a trail of black blood on the marble stairs while they carried him to a couch for his last moments in this world. Before he passed away, his grandson Nicholas, dressed in his blue sailor suit, came and watched in horror from the end of the bed. Now that grandson, currently Nicholas the Second, Tsar of All the Russias, was hurried, unhurt, into the same palace where his grandfather had died in agony. The word flashed round the great mansions of the capital with astonishing speed. In the bar of the Imperial Yacht Club, the fons et origo of St Petersburg chic, the aristocrats and the generals crossed themselves and prayed for their future. The French Ambassador, holding court by the window, told whoever would listen that the most significant thing in the assassination attempt was the fact that the guns were manned by sailors. These are not the fanatic students who blew up the Interior Minister last year, he said. These men swear a powerful oath to be loyal to their rulers. If they desert the Tsar, what future for the Romanovs? The foreign correspondents rushed from their bar at the fashionable Evropeiskaya Hotel to interview or invent eyewitnesses to the event and telegraph the news, suitably embellished and dramatized, to their employers.

Watching alone by one of the intact windows of the Field Marshal’s Hall the Empress Alexandra shivered slightly as she looked out at the snow. She was remembering a prophecy attributed to St Serafim. ‘They will wait for a time of great hardship to afflict the Russian land,’ it read, ‘and on an agreed day at the agreed hour they will raise up a great rebellion all over the Russian land.’