24
‘…The Minister of Justice has agreed to an amnesty for your comrades.’
The little man with the wispy red hair and goatee beard nodded his head calmly, but beneath the table his hands were wrestling anxiously with a pencil. He was dressed in prison greys several sizes too large, his head and shoulders hunched forward as if cowering from an invisible presence. Perhaps it was the ghost of his irascible father — he had spoken of him often to Dobrshinsky in the course of their conversations — or the rough Jew-hating neighbours of his childhood in Kiev. Perhaps he was bent by guilt and the long shadow of Alexander Mikhailov, or by exhaustion, his senses blunted after days in the interrogation room, coaxed and cajoled, his illusions stripped from him one by one.
‘And I have your word,’ Goldenberg said at last. ‘I have your word they will be safe? If even one hair on the head of a comrade is hurt, I’ll never forgive myself.’
‘You know I respect your cause. I admire your courage. We trust each other. Here…’ The chief investigator picked up the vodka bottle on the table between them and poured a little into two small glasses. ‘To reconciliation. To reform. To a new year for Russia and an end to confusion,’ he said, raising his own in salute. Then, turning to the clerk at the table in the corner of the interrogation room, ‘The last few sentences.’
The young clerk ran his forefinger along the page of his open log book: ‘…
‘A group of us met and we—’
‘Who?’
‘Mikhailov, a Pole called Kobilianski, Kviatkovsky, Zunderlich, Soloviev…’
‘Anna Kovalenko?’
‘Yes. I wanted to do it and the Pole volunteered too, but Mikhailov said the tsar should be killed by a Russian — not a Pole or a Jew. So Alexander Soloviev agreed to do it and I helped him prepare.’
Dobrshinsky gave a little nod.
‘But I wouldn’t have missed,’ said Goldenberg with sudden passion.
‘And Anna Kovalenko — she was there with Soloviev in the square?’
Goldenberg licked his lips, then, lifting his right hand to them, began biting at his thumb nail. So vain, so weak, so anxious for praise and attention, Dobrshinsky wondered how a clever man like Mikhailov had made such a mistake.
‘I must know the truth to bring this to an end as we agreed,’ he said quietly, leaning forward at the table in an effort to hold eye contact with the prisoner.
‘Anna was there to report on what happened, that’s all,’ said Goldenberg reluctantly.
‘And Bronstein, how did you discover… ?’
‘The informer? I don’t know. That was Mikhailov. Mikhailov knows everything. He has his own sources. A man he calls the Director who he says guides him.’
‘And this man works for the police?’
Goldenberg shrugged: ‘I don’t know, but Mikhailov seems to know a lot about the police and the Third Section.’
Before Dobrshinsky could shape the next question there was an insistent knock at the door and a prison clerk entered unbidden bearing a note from the chief prosecutor.
Count Vyacheslav von Plehve had squeezed his ample frame behind the untidy desk in the assistant governor’s office. ‘This is in strict confidence, but I wanted you to know at once,’ he said, indicating with a wave of his plump hand that Dobrshinsky should take the chair opposite. ‘There are to be sweeping changes, a new Supreme Security Commission, and heads are to roll. I think it is certain General Drenteln will be replaced at the Third Section.’ The chief prosecutor placed his elbows on the desk, his fingers at his lips, a courtroom silence.
His news did not elicit a flicker of a response. Dobrshinsky resented being summoned from an interrogation to hear rumours of a new council, gossip about who was rising up the empire’s greasy pole and who was falling. His orders were to keep His Majesty alive. Service politics was a distraction.
The count may have had a sense of what he was thinking because he began to wriggle uncomfortably behind the desk.
‘The investigation,’ he said at last. ‘Are you any closer to arresting the leaders of this nihilist party?’
‘We have Kviatkovsky.’
‘Kviatkovsky?’
‘We took the plans for the Winter Palace from his flat,’ said Dobrshinsky.
‘The police have found nothing. They’ve searched the palace from top to bottom a dozen times, and all the neighbouring buildings,’ said von Plehve brusquely. ‘Every morning they check to see if any of the stones in the square have been lifted and they search the servants. If you’ve fresh evidence they will be overjoyed to hear it.’
‘The People’s Will may have called off the attack when they discovered we had Kviatkovsky in custody.’
Pushing his chair back sharply, the chief prosecutor rose and walked over to the tiled stove in the corner of the room and bent to the heat. ‘Anton Frankzevich, we need to demonstrate we are making progress to the chairman of the new Supreme Security Commission when he is appointed.’ He paused again, then said with quiet emphasis, ‘It’s important we make a good impression. Your future will depend upon it. Ah, you smile, but it’s true.’
‘I can say with confidence we are making progress,’ said Dobrshinsky.
‘What sort of progress? The Jew?’
‘I have persuaded him terror is slowing the pace of reform. That the emperor wants to introduce a democratic assembly and freedom of the press but he can’t be seen to bow to terror.’
‘And you think he believes you?’ asked the count.
‘Yes.’
‘Is he mad or simple?’
‘He thinks I’m a liberal and I can be trusted to tell the truth.’ Dobrshinsky paused, a thoughtful frown on his face. ‘He wants to believe he can play a role in shaping Russia. I’m trying to convince him that his part is in persuading his comrades to stop, that this is the only way to bring about reform. Oh, and I have assured him none of them will be harmed.’
‘So he’s a simpleton.’
‘Lonely, naive, weak, vain…’
‘So when can we look forward to…’
‘Arrests? I have names, descriptions, and we can tease more from him — more names and, I hope, some addresses. But these things take time,’ said Dobrshinsky. ‘We have a little way to go.’
‘Good, good, but not too much time,’ said the count with a resigned nod of the head. ‘Keep me informed. Now, if you will excuse me, I am expected at the ministry.’
The chief prosecutor had grasped the door handle and was on the point of stepping out when Dobrshinsky spoke again.
‘There is one thing more. Your friend, the English doctor, Dr Hadfield…’
The count interrupted him crossly. ‘He’s no more than an acquaintance. I met him at the British embassy. He made a very poor impression on me.’
‘Quite so, quite so,’ said Dobrshinsky. ‘Goldenberg remembers him well. He was at the woman Volkonsky’s.’
‘I see. So do you think he’s a spy?’ Von Plehve seemed excited by the possibility.
‘I can’t be sure. He lied to my officer. I’ve had him followed and he’s given my men the slip once or twice.’
‘Do as you see fit, but we don’t want a diplomatic incident with the British.’
