Death on the Nevskii Prospekt (11 page)

Powerscourt was to learn later that other organizations of the state meant the secret police, the Okhrana, or other even shadowier organizations devoted to the safety of state and Tsar.
‘That is most kind of you, Mr Under Secretary. We are very grateful. Permit me to ask one question before we take our leave. You said at the beginning that you had no information concerning
Mr Martin for the year 1905. That implied, maybe I misunderstood you, that you might have information about other months.’

Bazhenov laughed and slapped an ample thigh. ‘I said to my second assistant this morning, Lord Powerscourt, that they are clever people, these English. They will surely ask the right
question to unlock this information.’ Powerscourt wondered how many assistants the man had. Three? Five? Seven? Perhaps he could ask the next time they came. ‘No information for the
year 1905 is indeed what I said. But consider our Mr Roderick Martin or, perhaps, your Mr Roderick Martin. He lives at a place called Tibenham Grange in Kent in your England. He is married. He
works for your Foreign Office. Is this Mr Martin also your Mr Martin?’

‘He is,’ said Powerscourt sensing suddenly that some bombshell was about to arrive that would blow his investigation wide open.

‘Why, then, we have only one Mr Martin between the two of us, not a multiplicity of them, not a flock or a gaggle or a parliament of Martins. We do not believe he came here in 1905, but we
know he came on three other occasions in 1904, three times in 1903 and twice in 1902. We could find out if he came also in previous years by the time of our next meeting. You could say, Lord
Powerscourt, that Mr Roderick Martin of His Majesty’s Foreign Office was a regular visitor to our city.’

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?’