mess of it and, after a minute, the victim crashed to the platform. The crowd roared with disgust — but surely this was the entertainment they had come to witness? The condemned man was led up the steps again, but the noose slipped and he fell a second time. The soldiers pressed at Hadfield’s back as the crowd surged towards the platform. This time the prisoner could not lift himself and the hangman’s assistants had to haul him up with the rope. And as they dragged him aloft, Sophia Perovskaya stood waiting in her white cowl. Hadfield’s mind was blank with the horror of it all. He watched the executioner lead her up the steps, so small, her frame so fragile. And he pictured her at the new year party, her cool hand in his, earnest, demure, those piercing blue eyes through which she viewed her life as a crusade. There was a deathly hush as they slid the steps away and she swung free, jigging like a badly strung marionette. Hadfield clenched his teeth, his body stiff, willing it to be quick, holding his breath, his eyes fixed upon the twisting cowl. Oh, Anna, never.
At half past nine the drummers fell silent. Five white figures were hanging from the beam, the executioner resting on the platform rail below. Hadfield lifted a trembling hand to his brow. Every degrading inhumane detail of the scene would be seared into his memory for ever. He felt deep sadness but also an uneasy sense that something terrible and yet profound had taken place. The country was set on an inexorable course that could only end in more bloody violence. Not tomorrow or next month or next year but soon. As he watched them lower Perovskaya’s limp body, he knew this was her apotheosis. She had trapped them all. Anna would never desert her legacy. Not now. Never.
‘What a squalid spectacle.’ It was the cool voice of the collegiate councillor at his shoulder. ‘You must speak to her.’
‘Is it necessary for me to stay here longer?’ Hadfield asked flatly. The crowd was dispersing behind him, the rough coffins were being loaded on to carts, and some of the privileged ticket holders were negotiating with the hangman for lucky strands of rope.
‘Will you speak to Anna Petrovna?’
‘No.’
Dobrshinsky stared at him for a few seconds then gave a small nod of the head as if this was the answer he had been expecting. ‘Then this is no longer a matter for me. I’m sorry.’ He was on the point of saying more but checked himself and turned to leave.
As Hadfield watched the hunched figure in black walk away slowly, he was reminded of the condemned who had climbed to the scaffold only a short while before. ‘And what about the child?’ he shouted. ‘My child?’
The special investigator stopped and his head dropped wearily, as if considering whether it was worth the effort to answer. But he turned slowly again: ‘Don’t come back, Doctor.’
‘What about the baby?’
‘The baby?’ Dobrshinsky shrugged. ‘How would those who died today have put it — “a sacrifice for the greater good of all”?’
A moment later the collegiate councillor was lost from view in the crowd of soldiers and souvenir-hunters. The gendarmes led Hadfield towards the prison carriage. His mind was empty but he could feel a great weight pressing on his chest. It was not until he was sliding about the bench between the gendarmes that he remembered Dobrshinsky’s ‘Don’t come back, Doctor’.
Surely they would not send him away? He hated the loneliness, the greyness of prison, the banging doors and clatter of heavy boots, but Anna was only stairs and corridors from him. They slept on the same iron bed, their cells were lit by the same dim gaslight, the black floor, the walls the same, everything the same, and in this he had found comfort and the will to endure. There was no liberty on the outside. He would be trapped in a darker place by fear and guilt and grief.
‘I won’t go,’ he said in English.
‘What?’ The gendarme sergeant shook his head a little: ‘Speak Russian. Better still, don’t speak at all.’
And Hadfield did not speak again, even though his heart was sick.
‘Did the doctor witness the executions? Good. He leaves for Berlin tomorrow. It was in no one’s interests for this to become a diplomatic affair with the British.’ The green leather armchair groaned as Count Vyacheslav von Plehve eased his heavy frame to its edge. It was a little low, and from the other side of the desk he appeared to be resting his chin at its edge between the brass ink stand and some red files. ‘You don’t seem surprised, Anton Frankzevich,’ he said, a note of irritation in his voice.
‘I’m not,’ replied Dobrshinsky.
‘Your fellow Barclay didn’t help matters, of course. No matter now. The doctor will be accompanied by the British military attache. Of course, he’s not to see the woman before he goes.’
‘No.’
The count shifted at the edge of the chair as if in two minds whether to rise. If he was feeling uncomfortable, that was how it should be. Dobrshinsky had no intention of making his task easier.
‘Of course it’s galling we can’t punish him properly,’ said the chief prosecutor.
‘Love, livelihood, family… he will lose all those things.’
‘Not enough,’ said von Plehve impatiently, ‘withholding information, consorting with terrorists, and God knows what else he was doing for them.’
They gazed across the desk at each other, the count smoothing his large moustache with his thumb and forefinger. Dobrshinsky had barely set foot in his office at Fontanka 16 before the prosecutor arrived unannounced at his door. He was dressed in his ceremonial uniform and had come directly from a meeting with the tsar’s chief minister, Loris-Melikov, that he described with the slippery understatement of the consummate politician as ‘difficult’. Dobrshinsky was quite sure he knew why. He had been expecting a ‘difficult’ conversation for some while. Perhaps it was only coincidence but it struck him as a fitting one that von Plehve should choose the hour the tsar’s murderers were to be laid in their unmarked graves. In the morning the English doctor would be gone too. It was like a
‘Of course, everyone is very grateful to you, my dear Anton Frankzevich,’ said the count, breaking the awkward silence at last. ‘His Excellency Count Loris-Melikov was particularly anxious I should say so…’ He paused to allow the special investigator to acknowledge this gracious compliment. But Dobrshinsky had no intention of offering him even a sliver of encouragement. Von Plehve cleared his throat a little nervously. ‘We all recognise what a… a challenge it has been… how difficult…’ Again he waited for Dobrshinsky to reply but he was not to be drawn.
Irritated by his watchful silence, the count levered himself from the creaking chair with the intention of putting more than the width of the desk between them. His boots squeaked a little comically on the polished parquet floor as he made his way to the windows. The embankment was busier than was customary at that hour, with servants and tradesmen chatting on the pavement opposite, too excited by the spectacle they had witnessed to settle to their usual chores. ‘The new emperor wants firmer measures,’ von Plehve said, turning back to the room. ‘No accommodation with terror.’ He was almost a silhouette against the window. ‘There is to be a new secret department — the Okhrana — based here, at Fontanka 16.’
‘Same task, new name?’
‘And new methods. Ah, you smile…’ said the count tartly. ‘What can there be to smile about?’
‘New methods?’
‘This is a battle for the soul of Russia, Anton Frankzevich. And in such a battle the Okhrana will use all the weapons at its disposal.’ The count spoke with the glibness of one who has learnt lines but is yet to fully comprehend their meaning. ‘It will be more robust, the ends will justify the means…’
‘An interesting perspective from a lawyer.’
‘My dear Anton Frankzevich, I should not have to remind you that the terrorist does not acknowledge the rule of law… no, we need new methods…’
‘And new people?’
‘Yes.’
The French mantel clock filled the silence again, as it had unfailingly done for the two years the special investigator had occupied his post. At first it had nagged Dobrshinsky but now he found comfort in its inexorable ticking, and he had resolved to take it with him.
‘It is His Excellency’s view that it is important to restore confidence… the death of the tsar… the bomb at the palace… those who were unable to prevent these outrages are to be found other work.’
