Field of Mars (2 page)

In less than a decade Rasputin had become a legend. He was thought to be a holy wanderer who could speak directly with God, a creature with unlimited sexual appetites who could cure illnesses with a simple caress. Everyone in the capital knew that if you wanted something—a posting to a particular ministry, special attention paid to your proposals, consideration when it was time to hand out military decorations—
anything
at all, you would need Rasputin as an ally. His favour was a necessity in order to ensure a successful career, his wrath could obliterate a cabinet minister in a single morning.

Thus, when their rotation came around Pyotr Ryzhkov and his men dutifully trailed Rasputin back and forth across the city. It amounted to a series of sleepless nights that only ended when Blue Shirt fell into his bed in the company of a final prostitute he would select from the group waiting at the entrance to his building. It was boring unless you enjoyed watching the upper crust humiliate themselves at the feet of a con artist, an exercise which Ryzhkov had long since ceased to find amusing.

His memory of the street gradually came back— apartments over shops down at the corner of Sadovaya, a couple of shabby wooden houses and a little warehouse up on the market end of the street—
Peplovskaya
. The only thing disturbing the peace of the street was the noise coming out of the Apollo Bindery.

‘Look at this,' he said, shaking his head.

‘Oh, yes, all you need is the money and you can buy a little taste of heaven . . .' Hokhodiev joined him as he walked along beside the carriages. Painted on their sides were the crests of some of Russia's most powerful families. At the head of the queue, the black troika of Prince Yusupov, behind it a carriage inscribed with the gold filigreed crest of the House of Orlovsky. A flaming fortress indicated the Evdaev family, next was the gleaming Renault of Prince Cantacuzène.

‘Well, they must be sewing together some extremely rare books. A very literate clientele, by the looks of it . . .'

‘High flying, even for our friend,' Hokhodiev said. ‘You want me to get the numbers?'

‘Oh, yes, whatever the circumstances we must complete our paperwork. Do you have enough space in your book?' The carriages and motorcars continued for the length of the street past the bordello, vehicles belonging to an assortment of devotees, perverts, aristocrats, power-mad debauchees of every stripe.

‘If I run out of pages, maybe I'll go up and buy a new one from the management, eh?' Hokhodiev laughed and walked away down to the start of the queue.

Ryzhkov stood in the centre of the street, fiddled for his watch and checked the time. Nearly four in the morning. The sky above him was a pearly white tinged with streaks of yellow. From above one of the prostitutes was crying out in pretend-orgasm. The chauffeurs looked over and he shook his head and they laughed. Down at the end of the street he watched Kostya gathering the meaningless licence numbers.

‘No point,' he said. He sighed and headed back to their carriage, the most unkempt vehicle on the street. ‘No point whatsoever . . .'

Dima came back with rolls and a pot of tea. When Ryzhkov took a drink he flinched. ‘Are you all right?' Dudenko asked, his narrow face frowning.

‘Oh, it's just this tooth, it's started up again. I'm fine.' He took a sip from the glass of tea that Dudenko gave him. The heat brought another jolt of pain to his jaw.

‘You should do something about that, an infection can lead to serious illness, eh?'

‘Yes, yes, yes . . .' He held the hot liquid on his jaw and waited for the pain to go away.

They sat in their shabby little carriage and shared out the food among themselves. Muta took the opportunity to fall asleep with the reins in his hand. After a few minutes Hokhodiev returned, opened the door of the carriage, sat on the step and smoked. They talked about the schedule for the next day. It should have been the end of a hellish week of Blue Shirt surveillance, but the Tsar was in the capital and the three of them were to augment the Imperial Guard at the Marinsky Theatre. What that meant was—less sleep all around.

Dudenko gathered their glasses and had taken only a few steps down the pavement when they heard the screams.

There was a sudden crashing that came from the end of the street. All the drivers and chauffeurs looked up. It sounded like one or two women—angry. A man's voice, lower. Something crashed into splinters and shards.

‘What . . . what is this? Tell me he hasn't gone and got into something stupid . . .' Ryzhkov stood up in the carriage. Muta woke up and his pony took a nervous step forward. There was another long scream from the upstairs of the building.

‘It's down there—' Dudenko stooped and placed the glasses on the pavement, stood and peered down the street. Ryzhkov could see the drivers at the end of the queue looking at something masked by the edge of the building.

‘Something going on in the lane down there,' Hokhodiev said.

Ryzhkov jumped out of the carriage, ran across the cobbles and down to the corner of the bindery. There at the beginning of the lane a group of drivers were standing still, serious expressions on their faces. In the distance sounded the shrill blast of a police whistle. He rounded the corner and saw what he first took for a bundle of clothes tossed on to the pavement.

And then—

One of the drivers had covered her with a jacket, but it was too small and Ryzhkov could see the fan of her blonde hair across the stones. Reflexively he moved closer and one of the drivers reached out to stop him. He shook the man off and held his Okhrana disc up for them to see. From the back of the building the cooks and servants had come running out. An old man was standing over the girl, rubbing his hands on his apron.

‘She
fell
. . .' the old man said in a weak voice. He looked at them as if he hoped someone would help him find a better explanation for the dead child on the cobbles, for the sparkling wreath of broken glass all around them. ‘Yes, she fell, excellency,' the old man, said again. ‘From up there someplace—' The old man pointed to the windows above them, and they all craned their necks trying to see up to the top floors of the building and the yellow sky beyond.

He walked forward and pulled the jacket off her, brushed the long blonde hair away from her face. An angel, was the first thing he thought of. An angel tumbled right out of the heavens.

Pale white body, tall for her age, he thought. Wearing a little night-dress that clung to her, a gossamer wrapper that had ridden up, making it look as if she were dancing. Leaping, with her arms to the sky, a pink satin ribbon around her waist, celebrating something that she'd never seen before. A long smear of blood down both of her legs, but nothing else. The long blonde hair wreathed around her, half-undone. All that was missing were the wings.

He pulled her hair back a little and, looking closely, saw marks around her neck. Rubbed, raw. Her face was smiling, almost. Only a little blood at the corner of her mouth. You might mistake it for lipstick gone awry.

Her eyes were open; eyes, rimmed with dark orbs of kohl, rouge that had been brushed on, too dark for her skin. Skin pale as milk. An angry gash on her forehead that hadn't bled very much, he thought. Her clear blue eyes open and staring out at the glass like diamonds sparkling all around.

‘Pyotr . . .' he heard Hokhodiev behind him. ‘We have to find him and get out of here, eh?'

Behind him there were more whistles and the drivers scurried aside to let a St Petersburg Police Ambulance manoeuvre into the narrow lane. Ryzhkov pulled his eyes from the girl and saw three officers had run up from the other end of the alley.

‘Hey . . . Blue Shirt, Blue Shirt, Blue Shirt . . .' Hokhodiev prompted, giving him a little tug. He realized now that he was standing over her in a daze, staring at all of them, the officer, the servants, the drivers who had crowded into the lane.

‘Yes,' Ryzhkov said. ‘Let's find him and get him out.' He started back on to Peplovskaya Street, his heart beating like a racehorse, Dima running ahead. Rounding the corner they saw a gallery of men in formal dress and varying states of intoxication leaving the building, pushing their way towards their carriages as quickly as possible. Men with money. No blood on any of them. None of the gendarmes was doing anything.

Right in front of him there was an angry shriek and Ryzhkov saw a young woman being pulled away from the gate. She was strong and she fought her way down the steps and out to where the men were trying to escape. There was the crack of a whip and a carriage bolted away in front of her; at the last moment someone jerked her out of the path of the wheels and she stumbled and fell into the gutter.

She got up, ‘No, no . . .
no!
' Slapped her way free of the gendarmes, and started running down the pavement toward the lane. ‘
Murder!
' she called with her face lifted to the high windows of the building. And then the police were upon her, wrenching her arm back so that her face contorted in pain.

On the entrance stairs a uniformed officer from the Life Guards was in conversation with a clutch of police. He was laughing, his hand extended to offer the overawed policemen cigarettes from his silver case. The madam of the house was there on his arm, her dazzling red hair piled up with feathers, a beaded dress with a décolletage that provided an easy view of her ample bosom. She was smiling through it all as she wished everyone goodnight.

Behind them Ryzhkov saw Hokhodiev and Dudenko pushing Rasputin out of the foyer towards the street. A little mob of aristocrats were jammed up there, all patting each other on the back and moaning their goodbyes.

‘Let them through!' Ryzhkov growled at a gendarme sergeant who was smiling and bowing and apologizing for the situation. The man's eyes suddenly went wide with fear and he backed up two steps when Ryzhkov held up his disc. Suddenly the knot of pleasure-seekers parted and Rasputin was right in front of him.

‘Unfortunately, we must be leaving, Holy One,' Ryzhkov said, trying to take the sarcasm out of his voice as he reached out and grabbed Rasputin by his satin shirt. The man smelled of tobacco, body odour, and lavender perfume.

‘But, I thought we were here for the music?' Rasputin was saying to the woman behind him. Ryzhkov had Rasputin by the shoulder and steered him down the steps towards his carriage. There was an enthusiastic chorus of goodbyes and blessings for a safe journey. The guards officer watched them go, smiling faintly.

‘What happened in there, Holy One?' Ryzhkov asked Rasputin.

‘I don't know. We haven't even started and boom it's all for nothing.' He seemed genuinely perplexed by the whole thing. Hokhodiev looked over at Ryzhkov and shrugged. ‘But there's always another party going on somewhere. Who knows? It's probably for the best, eh?' Rasputin said.

‘Perhaps, Holy One. Go, now . . .' They pushed Rasputin into his carriage and the driver flicked his whip. Around them the policemen were helping the guests on their way. He and Hokhodiev stood there for a moment, looking down at the end of the building, both of them thinking about the girl. He didn't want to go back down there.

‘Whoever did it has had lots of time to get out,' Hokhodiev said quietly.

‘Yeah, yeah . . .' Ryzhkov took a sharp breath, shook himself like a dog. His fingers had cramped around the knife he carried in his trouser pocket.

‘But Blue Shirt certainly was under control. I found him at the table, just like a gentleman.'

‘He has a sixth sense.'

‘Exactly, he can sniff trouble. He
knows
, I'm telling you . . .' Hokhodiev frowned, put a big hand on Ryzhkov's shoulder. ‘Are you all right?' he asked cautiously.

‘Yes . . .' he said, but he wasn't and they both knew it. A St Petersburg police officer was a few paces away and Ryzhkov walked over, flashed his disc. ‘Hey, who owns this place?' The lieutenant shrugged, gave a thin smile and pointed to the sign over the portico. ‘Well, this isn't a book factory, there's obviously some kind of apartments up there. What about those?'

The lieutenant was still smiling. ‘Yes, a Finnish gentleman has leased the entire building. Unfortunately, he's not on the premises. Tonight appears to be a private party, some friends of his.' The young officer shrugged. He wasn't going to give Ryzhkov much help no matter what service he was from.

‘Hey, who's paying you off, pal?' Hokhodiev stepped forward to intimidate the gendarme, but the lieutenant didn't budge.

‘It's a suicide, from what I've heard,' he said. ‘Some little vertika tail-twister jumped out of one of the windows around the corner.' They all looked down to the lane. ‘It happens more and more,' the lieutenant said with a sad smile.

Suicide
. Ryzhkov thought about it for a moment, tried to put it together with what he had seen in the lane. Maybe suicide was becoming fashionable, but he hadn't realized that children were doing it. The whole thing was a lie, transparent as the dead girl's dress. He turned and looked at the officer for a moment, gave him a smile of his own. ‘Sleep tight, little fellow,' he said and walked back towards the alley.

The gendarmes backed away as soon as they rounded the corner.

Ryzhkov stood there, a little unsteady, looking down at the girl, memorizing it all. Maybe he had been thinking she'd wake up, or move, or say something. Maybe he'd been thinking that he could heal her somehow. He looked up to the opened windows on the top floor. There was still gramophone music playing up there, crazy, jangling ‘negro music' that filled the street.

‘Ah . . . if we hurry, we can catch up with Blue Shirt . . .' Hokhodiev said gently. Dudenko only shrugged.

‘Pyotr, she's gone, and we have to go too,' Hokhodiev said.

‘Yes,' Ryzhkov said finally, backing away so that the attendants could free her from the pavement and roll her onto the stretcher.