The White Russian

20

B ack at his desk, Ruzsky picked up the telephone earpiece and asked the operator to put him through to Dr. Sarlov at home. It rang repeatedly.

“Yes?” The pathologist sounded sleepy.

“We’ve had an incident with the Okhrana.”

“I don’t want to know.”

“Another victim. Same kind of attack. The head was almost severed. They have removed the body. Will you still do the autopsy?”

“I have no idea.”

“If you do-”

“Consider who is listening,” the doctor said, before abruptly terminating the call.

Ruzsky sat back. He sorted through the telegraphs he’d received the previous night. He reread the one from Yalta. American wanted in connection with armed robbery in Yalta, October 1910. Fits description. More details upon request. He picked up the receiver again and asked to be put through to Detective Godorkin.

The line went dead, but he held on.

Ruzsky heard a loud crackle, as though someone were screwing up newspaper next to the mouthpiece. “Detective Godorkin, please,” he shouted again.

“Godorkin here,” a voice said calmly. The line was suddenly clear.

“Detective Godorkin?”

“I am he.”

“This is Chief Investigator Ruzsky, Petrograd City Police.”

“Chief Investigator. I was trying to contact you.”

“I don’t know how long the line will last,” Ruzsky said, “so let’s dispense with the niceties. We’ve got three dead bodies, including two from Yalta; a girl from the palace called Ella Kovyil who was murdered with her American boyfriend on the Neva, and a Boris Markov.”

“I see.”

“What can you tell me? Could the American have been the one you are searching for? His name was White…”

The line faded again and Ruzsky cursed.

It came back, but Ruzsky only caught the end of a sentence. “I missed that,” he shouted.

“Robert Whitewater,” Godorkin said.

“Whitewater?”

“Yes. That was his name. An American…”

The line disappeared again. Ruzsky tried repeatedly to get another connection, but without success. He sat back in the chair as Pavel walked in with a newspaper under his arm. He threw it across the desk at Ruzsky. “Page three.”

It was a copy of Novoe Vremia and Ruzsky flicked past the advertisements on the front page and scanned the inside of the newspaper. The article was a factual account of the discovery of the original bodies on the river and only the headline-Blood on the Neva -exhibited the sensationalism for which the paper was known. It did not give either Ella’s or the American’s name. The last line posed the question: In these difficult times, is a killer on the loose in Petrograd? The piece alongside it followed one woman’s daily struggle for survival while her husband was fighting at the front. While the rich drown in excess, it said, the struggle of the poor gets daily more impossible.

The news item at the top of the page appeared under the headline Further explosion of crime; Petrograd ’s streets more dangerous than ever.

Ruzsky glanced up at the clock. It was almost time for the morning conference. “Are we going?” Ruzsky asked.

Pavel shrugged.

Ruzsky stood and took his coat from the stand. Through the open door, he watched Vladimir rolling into the room opposite. The Investigator, Street Crime, was a barrel of a man, no taller than Ruzsky’s shoulder, but with the strength of an ox. He trailed a young assistant-a new one. He caught sight of Ruzsky, altered course immediately, and charged across the room toward him. “Here’s trouble,” he said, loud enough to be heard downstairs. “Welcome back.”

They clasped each other. “This is my new assistant”- Vladimir indicated the young man standing awkwardly in the doorway-“Constable Shavelsky.” Shavelsky’s handshake was firm, his grip making Ruzsky wince, though the constable appeared not to notice. Ruzsky wondered whether he knew of the fate of his predecessor.

“So,” Vladimir said, “they finally let you come home.”

The fat detective took out a cigarette and offered one to both Ruzsky and Pavel, but not his assistant. He lit his own when the others declined, and smoked it with one hand in his pocket, looking out toward the secretaries who had begun to take their places at the desks outside, steam rising from mugs of tea alongside their giant black typewriters. They leaned forward in their chairs, gossiping. “How was Tobolsk?” Vladimir asked.

“Cold.”

Vladimir shook his head. “He should never have let you go.”

Ruzsky remembered the last morning conference before his exile, when Vladimir had launched a vicious attack on Anton for not fighting harder to protect him.

“They’re keeping you busy, I see,” Ruzsky said, holding up his copy of Novoe Vremia.

In response, Vladimir held up the sheet of paper in his own hand. It listed a series of crimes and incidents. “Last night alone.”

“Deserters?”

“Deserters, the desperate. Serving soldiers sometimes. Our friends in the Okhrana. Another three Jewish properties burned last night.”

Ruzsky put his coat on. “How do you handle that?”

“We take a look. If it is them, which it usually is, we leave it. What choice is there?” Vladimir turned around. “Are you coming to the conference?”

“Not today,” Ruzsky said.

“What happened to your hand?”

“A small accident.” Ruzsky raised his hand, took off the rag, and threw it into the bin in the corner. A little blood was still oozing from his palm.

Ella’s mother lived on the top floor of the tenement block and it was a slow climb. Pavel wheezed heavily.

They stopped for a moment to catch their breath, surrounded by clothes which had been hung up to dry on lines crisscrossing the landing. A thin trickle of water ran down the stairs, forming a pool by their feet. There was an overpowering smell of urine.

The door closest to them opened and a young girl appeared. She had wild black hair, hollow cheeks, and staring eyes. She wore high boots and stood with her feet close together, watching them. There were six or seven people at least in the gloomy room behind her, lying in bundles on the floor.

Ruzsky started walking again and Pavel followed him. At the top, they saw that the trickle of water on the stairs had come from thick ice around the windows, some of which was beginning to melt.

Pavel ducked under another line of frozen washing and knocked on the door at the far end of the corridor.

They waited.

“Who is it?” a voice asked.

“Madam Kovyil? City police.”

There was another pause and then the door was opened by a tiny woman who barely reached Pavel’s waist. She smiled at him nervously and stepped back to allow them to enter. “This is Chief Investigator Ruzsky,” Pavel said, as if he himself was unimportant.

The woman forced herself to smile. “My husband once served under-”

“My father. Or perhaps my uncle.” Ruzsky grinned and clasped her wrist with his left hand. “Sandro.”

She placed a small, cold hand in his and tried to hold her smile in place.

She looked up at him with hollow eyes.

“Madam Kovyil, I’m afraid I have to tell you that…”

But he could see she already knew. From the palace, he assumed. From Shulgin, probably. She began to cry and Pavel was at once next to her, ushering her into a chair close to the fireplace and holding on to her arm until she had recovered her composure. Ruzsky wondered how long ago she had been told.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m so sorry.”

“There is no need to apologize, Madam Kovyil,” Ruzsky responded.

“Anna. Please call me Anna.”

She pushed herself forward in her chair. She seemed even frailer than when they had arrived. “Would you like something to drink? I’m afraid I have no vodka, but tea perhaps?”

Ruzsky and Pavel both shook their heads. The room was small and neat, but the fireplace was too clean to have been used at any time in the recent past, and if she ever heated any kind of pot, they could both see it was a rare event.

The only light in the room emanated from one small window, covered in frost. Ruzsky stood and peered at the photographs on the mantelpiece. The first was of Anna and her husband on their wedding day, the second of him in the regimental uniform of the Preobrazhensky Guards, and the third of Ella at age fourteen or fifteen. As Ruzsky had imagined, she had a shy, sweet smile, like her mother.

“She was your only child?” Ruzsky asked.

Anna nodded once and then slowly and with dignity, placed her head in her hands. Pavel gripped her shoulder once more.

She composed herself and looked up. “I’m sorry,” she said again.

Ruzsky returned to his seat. Even in this light, he could see that its cover had been carefully stitched together. Like everything else, it spoke of a threadbare respectability.

“This is a terrible time, Madam… Anna, I know, but if you feel strong enough to answer questions, we’d greatly appreciate your assistance.”

Anna nodded. “Of course.”

“We don’t believe Ella’s murder was an isolated incident.”

Anna stared at him with unseeing eyes. Her face was narrower than Ella’s, and if, as the photograph suggested, she had once been beautiful, her features had been ravaged by age and cold and poverty.

“I told your colleagues,” she said quietly. “But if there is something else-”

“Our colleagues?”

Anna frowned. “Yes.”

“Which colleagues?”

“They came this morning, just a few minutes ago.”

“Did they give their names?”

“No, they just said they were from the police department.”

“Was it they who told you of your daughter… of Ella’s death?” Ruzsky asked.

She shook her head.

“You were informed by palace officials?”

“Yes.”

“Yesterday, or the day before?”

“The day before. On New Year’s Day, in the evening.”

“Colonel Shulgin came to see you?”

Anna did not respond, but he could see that this had not been the case. Ruzsky looked around. There was no telephone. Had they sent a messenger?

They had informed her by letter?

Ruzsky looked at Pavel and then back at Anna, unable to conceal his disgust at her treatment. “What did they look like, the men who came this morning?”

“The man in charge was tall. Like you, but bigger. He had short hair and poor skin and a large…” With long bony fingers she indicated a pronounced nose. “He didn’t tell me his name.”

Ruzsky glanced again at Pavel. “And what did he want?”

“There were four of them. They asked questions about Ella and… some others.”

“Which others?”

Anna sighed and stared at her hands. “Some I didn’t know.”

“Did they give names?”

“I can’t remember all of them.”

“It would help if you could recall one or two, Anna.”

She was overtaken by confusion. “Were they not policemen?”

“Not really, no.”

“Who were they?”

“Government officials.” Ruzsky glanced at Pavel again. “Okhrana. I don’t think they would be interested in finding your daughter’s killer.”

Anna kneaded her hands. Ruzsky hoped he’d not frightened her into silence. “They asked about Ella’s friend.”

“The American?”

“Yes.” Anna looked up, pleading with them.

Ruzsky showed her the photograph. “This man?” He was on the point of apologizing when he saw a hint of satisfaction in her eyes.

“He was charming, of course, but I didn’t like it. He was so much older than her. He…” She trailed off.

“He manipulated her?” Ruzsky suggested.

“I wanted her to marry a man like her father, like my…” Anna shook her head. “He was such a good man, so loyal, to the Tsar and to us.”

“Where did Ella meet her friend, Anna? Here in Petersburg?”

Anna shook her head. “At home.”

“In Yalta?” Ruzsky felt his pulse quicken.

“Such a long time ago now. I thought she had forgotten him.”

“She met the American on a holiday, or before you moved here?”

“Yes. That’s why I left. I wanted to get her away. But I didn’t know.”

“You didn’t know that they remained in contact?”

“How could I? She never told me. I thought perhaps she would have met some nice man at the palace, which would have been so much more… appropriate. I always asked her about it and she said no, there was no one, that she was devoted to the Tsarevich and to her work…” Anna stopped again, frightened that she had revealed something she was not supposed to.

“We know your daughter worked with the Tsarevich,” Pavel said. “We have been to the palace. They spoke very highly of her.”

Anna seemed relieved. “She was a good girl. Such a good girl.”

“You met the American in Yalta?” Ruzsky asked.

“Only once.” Anna sat forward and pushed the scarf back from her head. She appeared stronger now, bolstered by hostility to her daughter’s lover. “That summer, he came to the house, just after Ella’s father had died. He was charming.” She shook her head again. “I don’t know what it was. He was so much older than her. She was just a young girl.”

“Did you sense that your daughter-”

“I’m not a fool, Chief Investigator. I knew that they were lovers, but I thought that it was an infatuation that would run its course. She said that he’d encouraged her to apply for a job at the royal palace and I thought she would soon forget him.”

“He encouraged her?”

“Yes.”

“He encouraged her to get a job at Livadia?”

“Yes.”

“This would have been… what year exactly?”

“Nineteen ten.”

“How old was she then, Anna?”

“She was fifteen.”

“Did Ella tell you why he’d encouraged her to apply for a job at the royal palace?”

Anna didn’t understand the significance of the question. “Her father had died,” she said defensively. “It was a difficult time for both of us, of course. Ella was at that age… she wanted to find her own feet. It was understandable.”

“But the American specifically encouraged her to get a job in the imperial household?”

“My husband had been in the guards. He had always hoped she would find employment at Livadia, but…”

“She had initially been reluctant to work in the imperial household?”

Anna stared at her hands. “She was just a young girl.”

“She didn’t like doing her father’s bidding?”

“A lot of people filling her head with silly ideas.” Anna smiled. “We dealt with it. After the move to Petersburg, it was so much better.”

“Silly ideas?” Ruzsky asked.

Anna did not answer.

“Revolutionary ideas?”

Anna looked worried again, until she realized that her daughter’s death had absolved her of any need to fear this point at least. She sighed. “It was different in Petersburg,” she repeated.

“White was a revolutionary and Ella was influenced by him?”

“My husband would not allow discussion of politics in the house. They… he and Ella argued in the last year of his life. It upset him greatly.”

“She met the American in revolutionary circles in Yalta?”

Anna looked at Pavel and then back at Ruzsky. “I don’t know about that, but I didn’t like him. After my husband died, I wanted to move away. It would be good to begin again. It was my gift to him.”

“To your husband?”

“Yes.”

“He had been very worried about Ella?”

“She would never have brought the American to the house when her father was alive.”

“Did the American ever explain what he was doing in Yalta, Anna?”

“Traveling, he said.” Anna shrugged contemptuously. “Just traveling. That was all he said. Ella told me his father was a millionaire from America and he liked to travel to other parts of the world. He boasted that he had no need to work.”

Ruzsky could see how the the poor, respectable Kovyils must have hated the charming interloper who had bewitched their daughter with strange ideas and the prospect of another life.

“Did you meet any of Ella’s other friends from the same circle?”

“From the same circle?”

Ruzsky tried to remember the name of the man they had found at the Lion Bridge this morning. “Boris Markov? Perhaps just Borya?”

“I don’t know.”

Ruzsky dug the man’s identification papers from his pocket and showed her the dark, smudged photograph. But she just shook her head.

“Who did the men this morning ask you about?”

Anna looked at him blankly as she handed back the papers. “I’m not very good with names.”

“What did they want to know?”

“If Ella had brought him home, and whether I had met him.”

“The American?”

“Yes.”

“And had you, this time?”

Anna’s face quivered briefly before she recovered her composure. “How could I know she had taken up with him again?” She shook her head. “I thought he was on the other side of the world, where he belongs.”

“Did she bring him here?”

“No, but I knew he had come here.”

Ruzsky could tell he was upsetting Anna, who once again stared at him in a kind of trance. He crouched down in front of her. “Anna, can you think of anything over the last few months that would give us an indication of why someone would want to kill Ella?”

Anna looked at him, tears welling up in her eyes. “She was a loving girl, Officer, so loving.”

“When did you last see her?”

Anna turned to the photograph of her daughter on the mantelpiece and the religious icon hanging above it. “Last Sunday. She always came to see me on a Sunday. It was her day off and she would catch the train into town and we would go to church together.”

“And what happened last Sunday?”

Anna stared at the wall. The silence dragged on, but Ruzsky did not wish to push her.

“It was just a Sunday,” she said. “Like all Sundays.”

“You went to church?”

“She was so happy, Officer. That smile, I wish you could have seen it. She was such a pretty girl.”

“Why was she so happy, Anna?”

“I thought she was just… happy. To be with me. To be close to the Lord. Such a fine, clear, bright day; the city so beautiful. I felt happy too; happier, I think, than on any day since I came here. It was wonderful to see her so bursting with joy.”

“What did you do?”

Anna shrugged. “We came home. She had brought us some food. She was a kind girl.”

“Did she tell you any special reason why she was so happy?”

She couldn’t hold her emotions in check any longer. She suddenly collapsed, burying her face in her hands, thin shoulders heaving. Pavel held her. “It’s all right, Anna,” he said quietly. “It’s all right.”

Ruzsky took hold of her arm and squeezed gently. She was all skin and bone.

They waited until the convulsions had stopped and then stepped back and averted their eyes while she composed herself. She took out a handkerchief and blew her nose. “I cannot bear the thought of it, do you understand?” she said simply. “Those Sundays were my life.”

Anna wept once more.

“We’re intruding,” Ruzsky said. He stood. “Perhaps we could come back another time.”

“No, please.” She wiped her eyes again. “I would like to help.” Anna put the handkerchief away. “Please ask me whatever you wish.”

Ruzsky sat down. “Was there anything unusual about that Sunday, Anna? Did she say or do anything out of the ordinary?”

“There was an argument, that’s all I can think of. Not even an argument.”

“What about?”

“She asked me a question and I was offended.”

“What did she ask you?”

“It was unlike her. And I said her father would have been disgusted.”

“What did she ask you?”

Anna stared at Ruzsky. She was uncertain again. She glanced at Pavel for reassurance and then steeled herself. “She asked me whether I thought it was possible that the Empress and Rasputin had enjoyed intimate relations. Whether they had been lovers.”

“Why do you think she asked that?”

“I don’t know.”

“Surely, Anna, your daughter, more than anyone, would have been in a position to know the answer to that question.”

Anna shook her head sorrowfully.

“Do you think she was seeking reassurance for something she already suspected?”

“Someone had been poisoning her mind.”

“There have been many rumors. You must have heard them.”

“The work of revolutionaries. What do they want, these people?”

Ruzsky rose again and moved to the mantelpiece. “Anna, your daughter knew Rasputin. On the records kept by the household staff, it is said that she met him both at the palace and in Petersburg.”

Anna stared at the floor. “She would never have consorted with such a man.”

“By all accounts, he was able to cure the Tsarevich of his bouts of hemophilia, or so the Empress believed. That would have encouraged Ella’s approbation.”

Anna did not answer.

“Did she give any intimation as to why she was asking you the question?”

Anna shook her head.

Ruzsky glanced at Pavel, then took a pace forward. “We must go. Thank you for your assistance.” He leaned forward to touch her shoulder. She did not stand to see them out.

As they stepped out into the corridor and pulled the door gently shut behind them, they heard her begin to sob violently again.

They listened for a few moments, wondering whether to go back in and try to comfort her once more.

“God in heaven,” Pavel said, as they began to walk away.