down and bring the car around front.”
“Where are we going?”
“We have a rendezvous with thirty tons of Russian steel. Nagorski has offered to give us a tour of the place where the tank is being designed. He is anxious to prove to us that the facility is secure.”
“Yes, Inspector.” Kirov picked up his keys and headed out the door.
“Did you remember your gun?” Pekkala called to him.
Kirov groaned. His footsteps came to a halt.
“You forgot again, didn’t you?”
“I don’t need it this time,” Kirov protested.
“You never know when you will need it. That’s why there are regulations, Kirov!”
Kirov trudged back up the stairs and into the office. Then he began rifling through the drawers of his desk.
“Have you lost it?” asked Pekkala.
“It’s in here somewhere,” muttered Kirov.
Pekkala shook his head and sighed.
“Ah!” shouted Kirov. “Here it is!” He held up a Tokarev automatic, standard issue for army officers and members of state security.
“Now go and get the car,” Pekkala told him.
“On my way!” Kirov swept past and clattered down the stairs.
Before Pekkala left the office, he removed the new jacket, replaced it in the box, and put his old coat on again. As he fastened the buttons, he went to the window and looked out over the rooftops of Moscow. Late- afternoon sunlight shone weak and silvery upon the slates. Crows and pigeons shared the chimney pots. His gaze returned to the plants on the windowsill. Glancing back to see if Kirov had returned, Pekkala reached out and plucked another kumquat. He put the whole thing in his mouth and bit down. The bitter juice exploded in his mouth. He swallowed and let out a gasp. Then he made his way down to the street.
A GENTLE RAIN WAS FALLING.
Kirov stood beside the car. It was a 1935 Emka, with a squared-off roof, a large front grille, and headlights mounted on the wide and sweeping cowlings, giving it a haughty look. The engine was running. The Emka’s wipers twitched jerkily back and forth, like the antennae of an insect.
Kirov held open the passenger door, waiting for Pekkala.
As Pekkala shut the battered yellow door behind him, he turned and almost barged into two women who were walking past.
The women were bundled in scarves and bulky coats. They chattered happily, breath condensing into halos about their heads.
“Excuse me,” said Pekkala, rocking back on his heels so as not to collide with the women.
The women did not break their stride. They merely glanced at him, then returned to their conversation.
Pekkala watched them go, staring at the woman on the left. He had caught only a glimpse of her—pale brown eyes and a wisp of blond hair trailing across her cheek—but now the blood drained out of his face.
Kirov noticed. “Pekkala,” he said quietly.
Pekkala did not seem to hear. He walked quickly after the women. Reaching out, he touched the shoulder of the brown-eyed woman.
She wheeled. “What is it?” she cried, instantly afraid. “What do you want?”
Pekkala jerked his hand away as if he’d just been shocked. “I’m sorry,” he stammered. “I thought you were somebody else.”
Kirov was walking towards them.
Pekkala swallowed, barely able to speak. “I’m so sorry,” he told her.
“Who did you think I was?” she asked.
Kirov came to a stop beside them. “Excuse us, ladies,” he said cheerfully. “We were just going in the opposite direction.”
“Well, I hope you find who you are looking for,” the woman told Pekkala.
Then she and her friend walked on down the street, while Kirov and Pekkala returned to the car.
“You didn’t have to come after me like that,” said Pekkala. “I’m perfectly capable of getting myself out of embarrassing situations.”
“Not as capable as you are of getting into them,” replied Kirov. “How many times are you going to go galloping after strange women?”
“I thought it was …”
“I know who you thought it was. And I also know as well as you do that she’s not in Moscow. She’s not even in the country! And even if she was here, right in front of you, it wouldn’t matter, because she has another life now. Or have you forgotten all that?”
“No,” sighed Pekkala, “I have not forgotten.”
“Come on, Inspector, let’s go have a look at this tank. Maybe they will let us take one home.”
“We wouldn’t have to worry about someone taking our parking spot,” said Pekkala, as he climbed into the rear seat of the Emka. “We’d just park on top of them.”
As Kirov pulled out into the stream of cars, he did not see Pekkala look back at the empty road where he had stood with the women, as if to see some ghost of his old self among the shadows.
Her name was Ilya Simonova. She had been a teacher at the Tsarskoye primary school, just outside the grounds of the Tsar’s estate. Most of the Palace staff sent their children to the Tsarskoye school, and Ilya often led groups of students on walks across the Catherine and Alexander parks. That was how Pekkala had met her: at a garden party to mark the beginning of the new school year. He had not actually gone to the party, but saw it on his way home from the station. He stopped at the wall of the school and looked in.
Of that moment in time, Pekkala had no recollection of anything else except the sight of her, standing just outside a white marquee set up for the occasion. She was wearing a pale green dress. She did not have a hat, so he could see her face quite clearly—high cheekbones and eyes a dusty blue.
At first he thought he must know her from somewhere before. Something in his mind made her seem familiar to him. But that wasn’t it. And whatever it was, this sudden lurching of his senses towards something it couldn’t explain, it stopped him in his tracks and held him there. The next thing he knew, a woman on the other side of the wall had come up and asked him if he was looking for somebody. She was tall and dignified, her gray hair knotted at the back.
“Who is that?” Pekkala had asked, nodding towards the young woman in the green dress.
“That’s the new teacher, Ilya Simonova. I am the headmistress, Rada Obolenskaya. And you are the Tsar’s new detective.”
“Inspector Pekkala.” He bowed his head in greeting.
“Would you like me to introduce you, Inspector?”
“Yes!” Pekkala blurted out. “I just … she looks like someone I know. At least, I think she does.”
“I see,” said Madame Obolenskaya.
“I might be wrong,” explained Pekkala.
“I don’t suppose you are,” she replied.
He proposed to Ilya Simonova exactly one year later, down on his knees in the same schoolyard where they first met.
A date was set, but they were never married. They never got the chance. Instead, on the eve of the Revolution, Ilya boarded the last train heading west. It was bound for Paris, where Pekkala promised to meet her as soon as the Tsar had granted him permission to leave the country. But Pekkala never did get out. Months later, he was arrested by Bolshevik militiamen while attempting to cross into Finland. From there, his journey to Siberia began, and it was many years before he had another chance to leave.
