The White Russian

15

R uzsky was glad of the time alone with Pavel on the train to Tsarskoe Selo. For most of the way, they sat in companionable silence, looking out at the pine forests and fields covered in a thick blanket of snow. Ruzsky watched a woodsman clambering up toward the track. He carried an ax and had a stack of firewood on his back, snow and ice in his beard, and thick leather skins wrapped around his feet and shins.

Pavel was a comforting presence. Ruzsky envied the way he kept his life simple, envied his unwavering loyalty to the people and causes he believed in.

It did occur to him, however, that his friend wasn’t quite his old self. He appeared more nervous and defensive, but perhaps it was just a sign of the times.

Perhaps Pavel was right; the case was best ignored. But Ruzsky knew it had moved well past the stage where he could forget it. He’d once told Irina in an argument that the foremost talent an investigator could possess was persistence-to be like a dog with a bone.

Persistence is not a talent, she had replied, and I don’t want to be a bone.

“When you’re on the run,” Ruzsky said, “you surely don’t head for the most aggressive police state in the world? If you’re an American, I mean, like this man White.”

Pavel didn’t answer.

“What do you think?” Ruzsky asked.

“You know what I think. It stinks. You know it, I know it. That’s why Morris behaved the way he did.”

Pavel turned and stared out of the window at the frozen landscape.

At the Alexander Palace, a servant took their coats and led them into an ornate antechamber. Pavel looked immediately ill at ease. “Don’t gawp,” Ruzsky whispered.

“It’s all right for you. You were born into this.”

“Hardly.” Ruzsky walked to the windows. The children were skating on the ornamental lake. He could see the grand duchesses, but not the Tsarevich.

The Tsar’s daughters were wearing tight-fitting dark overcoats and fur hats. They were hitting a ball to each other across the ice with sticks under the careful watch of two men seated on the bank. Ruzsky wondered how much they knew of the politics of the empire their brother would inherit.

The scene felt more normal to him than it had on his first visit, but Pavel looked dumbstruck.

Although he had once told his father during an argument that it was inevitable, Ruzsky found it hard to imagine life without a tsar.

He turned to see a tall man striding across the room toward them. The head of the palace household was in uniform and wore a monocle, an officer of the old school. To his chest was pinned the dark blue ribbon and silver star of the Order of the White Eagle, marking him out as being of the highest rank of the civil service, not that there would have been any doubt.

“You are Ruzsky?”

“Yes.”

“How can I help you?”

“You are Colonel Shulgin?”

“Yes.”

“I am the chief investigator for the Petrograd City Police; here is my deputy. One of your employees was murdered three nights ago. Her body was found in the center of the Neva.”

“A former employee.”

“So I gathered from the Empress.”

Colonel Shulgin pursed his lips. “It was most unfortunate and inappropriate that you came to interrogate Madam Vyrubova. You should have approached me.”

Ruzsky gave a tiny bow. “My apologies, Your High Excellency,” he said, using the correct form of address. “Our inquiries led me to discover that the dress the girl was wearing was made for Madam Vyrubova. I followed my nose.”

Shulgin glanced from Ruzsky to Pavel and back again. “Yes,” he said. “Unfortunately, I do not believe we can help you in this case. All matters pertaining to members of staff are naturally confidential.”

Ruzsky took out and glanced at his pocket watch, to give himself a moment’s pause for thought. Shulgin was clearly going to concede nothing easily.

“The girl and her companion were murdered, Colonel. Very brutally.” Ruzsky lowered his voice. “In the climate of the times, out there, in front of the Winter Palace…” He inclined his head. “And the victim a palace employee. Naturally, it troubles us.”

Shulgin eyed them cautiously. “If there was a suggestion of…” he chose his words carefully, “political motivation, then one would expect to be dealing with the Okhrana.”

But Ruzsky could tell from the old man’s face that Shulgin had no desire whatsoever to deal with Vasilyev’s men.

Shulgin hesitated for a few moments more and then pointed at two stiff-backed chairs pushed up against the wall. He pulled another over from the table in the center of the room. “I have only a few minutes,” he said.

They faced each other in silence.

“Ella was dismissed,” Ruzsky offered.

Shulgin did not answer.

“If you do not mind me asking, Your High Excellency: why?”

The colonel stared at his highly polished boots. “That, I think, must remain a matter for the palace alone.”

“For stealing?”

Shulgin looked surprised.

“Madam Vyrubova told us as much.”

“Madam Vyrubova?”

“And Her Imperial Highness.”

Shulgin hesitated, clearly still appalled at the way in which Ruzsky had been able to converse with the ruler of Russia, but once again unwilling to dismiss the pair of them. “Stealing. Yes. A disgraceful episode.”

“How much money did the girl steal?”

Now the colonel looked confused. “Money?”

“Isn’t that what she stole?” Vyrubova had told Ruzsky it was money, even if he had not wholly believed her. Now it looked as if his hunch had been right. Shulgin had frozen and appeared ready to ask them to leave, so Ruzsky changed tack. “The girl worked in the nursery.”

Shulgin hesitated again. He was trying to work out how much they had already been told. “That is correct, yes.”

A maid in a blue uniform with a starched white front came in with a single porcelain cup on a silver tray. Shulgin took it, stirred its contents with a silver spoon, then put it to his lips.

Ruzsky took the two photographs from his pocket. “These are only head and shoulders… The man was stabbed seventeen times, the girl once. The murderer followed them out onto the ice…”

Shulgin stared intently at the image of the man. He looked up. “Who was he?”

“We were hoping you might be able to tell us.”

Ruzsky watched Shulgin’s face for any reaction, but the official simply shook his head. “No, I’ve never set eyes on him.”

Shulgin reminded Ruzsky of his father: obstinate and opinionated, but honest.

“Could you give us a few more details about the girl. When she was employed, where her family lives, and so on.”

Shulgin stood. “Give me a minute, please.” He marched abruptly out of the room, then returned, holding a file, which he was reading as he walked. He sat down and continued to examine it, flicking through a series of loose sheets of paper until he found what he was looking for. “Ella was from Yalta,” he said. “She was twenty-two.” He ran his finger down the page. “She started work at Livadia. She was employed to work in the nursery there in the summer of 1910. She would have been fifteen.”

“Nineteen ten?”

“Yes. Her father died the following year and her mother moved to stay with her sister here in Petersburg. Ella asked to be transferred.”

He turned further pages. “Exemplary record, until…”

“Until the theft?” Ruzsky prompted.

Shulgin cleared his throat. “Until then, yes.”

“So she worked in the nursery here?”

“Yes.”

“What did her duties involve?”

“She assisted in the nursery.”

“Looking after the Tsarevich?”

Shulgin didn’t respond.

“When he was sick?”

Shulgin flushed. “The Tsarevich’s health is not a matter for public discussion.”

“Of course not, but as a member of the household staff, and one with such an important role, she would have had access to other sections of the palace?”

Shulgin frowned.

“Presumably, the money she stole wasn’t kept in the nursery.”

“As I’ve said, the events surrounding her dismissal are a matter for the palace alone.”

“What if I said that the man in the photograph I just showed to you was a notorious American criminal and labor agitator?”

Shulgin stared at him uncomprehendingly. “I do not understand…”

“Was she ever seen with the man? Would any of the other palace staff have met him? Who were her friends?”

Shulgin shook his head. “She was a very quiet girl. A labor agitator?”

“Yes.”

“An American?”

“Yes.”

“What was he doing in Petersburg?”

“That is what we would like to know.” Ruzsky leaned forward. “If Ella stole something-a sum of money, or perhaps something else-then isn’t it possible, indeed probable, that this man was involved? Assuming that she had never behaved in this way before…”

Shulgin stared out of the window, deep in thought.

“What Ella stole is of quite some significance to us, Colonel Shulgin, do you see that?”

He still did not answer.

Ruzsky glanced at Pavel. They waited.

“Ella… she was not a bad girl. I did not know her well, but she was quiet, shy, quite solemn. What you have said… a man, leading her astray, it would make some sense of her actions. The Empress… we were all surprised. Shocked.” Shulgin gazed into the middle distance. “The Empress was very cast down by this. It was a sign of the times, in her eyes. With so many difficulties outside the palace, to be betrayed by one of your own staff, from within… You understand.”

“She confessed to her crime?” Ruzsky asked.

Shulgin hesitated again. “Yes.”

“And regretted her actions?”

“I believe so.”

“Did she mention the American?”

“No.”

“Or any man?”

“No.”

“You never heard her refer to him in any way?”

Shulgin shook his head.

“So why did she do it?”

“I have no idea.”

“Was she short of money?”

Shulgin’s jaw tightened. “As I have said on several occasions, I am not prepared to discuss the circumstances of her dismissal.”

Ruzsky leaned forward. “May we speak with other members of the staff? Those who knew her best, in the nursery perhaps?”

Shulgin placed the teacup on the table in front of them. “I will consider your request.”

Ruzsky stretched out his hand. “Colonel Shulgin, may I look at the file?”

Shulgin opened the file again and leafed through it, removing several pages before handing it over. “It is of no further use to us.”

Ruzsky and Pavel decided to walk back to Tsarskoe Selo Station, but stopped by the railings as soon as they had got far enough away from the gate to be beyond the eyes of the palace police. “What did you make of that?” Pavel asked.

“It wasn’t money.”

“Why not?”

“I’m just certain it wasn’t. Vyrubova was lying. If Ella really had stolen money, why not tell us and have done with it? No, she stole something else, much more embarrassing, that Shulgin couldn’t talk about.”

“Perhaps they had her killed.”

“Shulgin? Never. I’d say he is as confused as we are. And he’s no fool. He knows how everything hangs by a thread, and he’s worried. Three years ago, we’d not have made it through that gate under any circumstances.”

“I think you’re being too soft on them,” Pavel said. “If she stole something embarrassing, who’s to say they didn’t arrange to have her killed? Maybe they got the Okhrana to do it. Maybe the Empress arranged it herself.”

Ruzsky shook his head and opened the file. Ella Kovyil, it read, Born Yalta April 12, 1895. Father Ivan, postal worker, mother Anna, 14 Ilivichi Street. Employed June 29, 1910. References: schoolteacher Mme Ivinskaya, father Ivan Alexandrovich (former NCO, Preobrazhensky Guards 1890-1906).

“That’s why she got the job,” Ruzsky said. “Her father was in the Preobrazhenskys. He must have retired to the Crimea.”

Unmarried. Employment record: summer 1910, assistant in nursery at Livadia, and summer 1911. Autumn 1911, requested full employment and transfer to Tsarskoe Selo. Assistant nanny with special responsibility for Tsarevich. Remains in Post.

Somebody had written, by hand, at the end of the first sheet: Reliable. Category One.

Ruzsky showed this to Pavel. “Categorizing staff by loyalty,” he said.

“Yes, I suppose so.”

Most of the rest of the file was given over to Ella’s evaluations, which had been completed in December every year since she had reached Tsarskoe Selo. They were written by hand, never stretched to more than a paragraph, and signed at the bottom by Shulgin himself, alongside the palace seal.

Performs her duties adequately, the first sheet read, and is in possession of a cheerful manner. Claims to have formed a strong bond with the Tsarevich and has expressed a desire to concentrate on looking after his needs…

Ella can be somewhat careless over detail (and other nursery and household staff have had occasion to complain of poor moods and sloppy manners), but is considered reliable and honest…

Shy character, well suited to work in the nursery…

Time off is spent with mother in Petersburg…

Continued employment and security clearance granted.

In the evaluation for 1915, he noticed the line acquaintance of Father Grigory. The next year, Shulgin had written: spends time with Rasputin and Vyrubova, at cottage here, but also in Petrograd.

The last sheets contained details of her salary. She had begun earning ten rubles a month in Livadia, the Tsar’s palace in the Crimea, but her pay had not risen much over the years and remained low right up until her dismissal.

Pavel had been reading the notes over Ruzsky’s shoulder. “It’s good to know someone is paid less than us,” he said.

“Why give us this?” Ruzsky asked.

“What do you mean?”

“The details about Vyrubova and Rasputin. He removed several pages from the file, but he left this one in. Why?”

“I don’t see what you’re driving at.”

“I think Shulgin was trying to help us, as far as he feels he can.” Ruzsky held up the file. “He didn’t have to give us this at all, and he made a point of removing several pages. Therefore what we have, we have for a reason.” Ruzsky looked down again. “He has given us her background, and he’s linked her to Rasputin and Vyrubova.”

Ruzsky turned the page. The last sheet contained an address for Ella’s mother in Petrograd.

“Something tells me,” Ruzsky said, “that Ella was the real victim.”