The White Russian by Tom Bradby Read Free Book Online Page B

and Maretsky. “Good God,” Anton said. “A proper reunion is in order. Where is Pavel?” He picked up the telephone earpiece. “Professor Maretsky,” he told the operator, then: “Maretsky. Anton. Come around, will you, I’ve got a surprise. And bring Vladimir.” Anton listened. “What about Sarlov?” He shook his head. “All right, just get over here.”
    Anton put down the receiver and refilled both glasses.
    “Pavel will be back in a minute.” Ruzsky threw the vodka to the back of his throat, shook his head once, and put the glass down. He picked up the photograph and looked at the faces that stared back at him, one a much younger version of his own.
    “You were a baby then,” Anton said.
    “So were you.”
    Ruzsky stared at the photograph. The words Criminal Investigation Division, St. Petersburg City Police Department and the year-1900-had been written by hand across the bottom of it. Ruzsky took out his cigarette case and pushed it toward Anton, who removed one and shunted it back.
    “Have you seen her?” Anton asked. Ruzsky saw the warmth and affection that shone in his friend’s eyes.
    “Irina? No.”
    “I wasn’t talking of Irina.” Anton was smiling. “I saw you together, don’t forget. That night at the Mariinskiy.”
    Ruzsky did not answer. He wondered how his feelings could have been so transparent.
    “One of the dancers told me she kept a photograph of you on her dressing table after you went.”
    Ruzsky felt his face flush with embarrassment and pleasure as he thought of Maria.
    Anton stretched his legs. “So?”
    Ruzsky shrugged. “It’s complicated.”
    “I know that you will say that I should not, but I cannot help feeling in some way responsible for this mess.”
    Ruzsky sucked heavily on his cigarette. Irina had been one of Anton’s students.
    “Pavel has been filling me with the usual gloom,” Ruzsky said, anxious to change the subject.
    Anton leaned forward again. “This time he’s right. I never imagined that the Tsar’s absence would be a handicap, but since he ran off to the front to try and win the war single-handedly, it has gotten worse. It is like being on a ship headed for an iceberg with a madman at the controls.”
    “I got the article.”
    “Yes, but the worst of it is that the woman is at the steering wheel. That’s what’s frightening.”
    “Do you still attend the weekly meetings at the Interior Ministry?”
    “Yes.”
    “What do the Okhrana say?”
    “We don’t need them to tell us what is going on. Stand in a line for bread. You’ll get the idea.”
    Anton came around the desk and leaned against it. “I took a look at the bodies,” he said.
    “And?”
    “People are desperate, but this kind of savagery… Have you identified the victims?”
    “No. Their bodies have been systematically stripped.”
    Anton looked up. His eyes were washed out and bloodshot. There was deep concern there. “It troubles me. At this time, right out there on the ice, in front of the palace, in the very heart of the city.”
    Ruzsky wondered what lay beneath Anton’s concern. “I don’t think the location was chosen for its symbolic value, if that is what you mean.”
    Anton toyed with his eyeglasses.
    “I don’t understand what you’re driving at,” Ruzsky said.
    “These are complicated times, Sandro.”
    “What has that to do with us?”
    Anton sighed. “It’s a time for caution. The Progressives and even some members of the government have been writing to senior generals at headquarters to demand the Empress be arrested on her next visit to the front line, and sent to the Crimea. I’ve heard that some of your contemporaries at the yacht club discuss in hushed tones whether it would be justifiable to assassinate the Tsar.”
    “And what has that to do with us?”
    “Nothing, I just want you to be aware.”
    “Of what?”
    “No one operates in a vacuum, that’s all.”
    Ruzsky did not see what Anton was driving at. “And our friend