'All alone, Cain?'

Yudin looked up. He smiled, but at the same time he reached into his desk.

'As are you, I believe, Tyeplov,' he replied. The voordalak stood at the foot of the stairs to his office, tall and impa.s.sive. 'Mihailov cannot have survived what I did to him, and I've heard more than one account of what happened to Ignatyev. One by one, your friends have fallen by the wayside.'

Raisa had told him of the events in her room at the brothel even before Dmitry had come to him. He had hoped that all three of the voordalaki had perished in the fire at the church, but was circ.u.mspect enough to allow for other possibilities. From what Raisa could gather, Tyeplov and Ignatyev had been quite unaware of any connection between her and Dmitry when they came to Degtyarny Lane. Their desire was solely for revenge over her helping Yudin at Chufut Kalye. No one except she had noticed the look of surprise on Tyeplov's face when Dmitry burst in. But even as Raisa spoke of Dmitry's heroic rescue, a plan had begun to form in Yudin's mind. Now, with Tyeplov's arrival, he had the final piece that he needed to begin his gambit.

'Neither of us has had a friend for many years, Cain,' said Tyeplov. 'We both chose to abandon such things.' Yudin said nothing. Tyeplov filled the silence. 'What do you want with me, Cain?'

'What do I want with you?'

'You summoned me here.'

'Did I?' teased Yudin.

'With the blood my blood.'

'You mean this?' Yudin lifted his hand and revealed the vial of red liquid which he had been clutching. 'You were willing enough to let me take it.'

'That was a long time ago.'

'True.'

'What have you been doing with it?' asked Tyeplov.

'Various things exposing it to the sun, mixing it with acid. Anything to painfully destroy a few more drops of it.'

'Every week,' said Tyeplov. 'Regularly. For six weeks.'

'Ever since your little escapade with Raisa Styepanovna.'

'I felt it burn.'

'You were meant to.'

'But I knew it was a summons.'

'So you come in peace?'

'I want nothing from you now, Cain. Be happy you have beaten me. I had already left the city when you called me back.'

'I, on the other hand, want something from you. I have a small job for you.'

'Why should I help?'

Yudin wiggled the vial of blood at him. 'I think you know why. And it's nothing difficult just a little play-acting.'

Tyeplov considered, eyeing the blood, wondering just how much more pain Yudin could inflict than he had already. 'Then you'll leave me be?'

'I left you for thirty years, didn't I?'

The implied threat and the memory of his long entombment appeared to have the desired effect. 'What do you want me to do?' Tyeplov asked.

Yudin hesitated. There was not just Tyeplov to be considered. Whatever words were exchanged between them, Zmyeevich would be listening too. Mihailov had explained that. Tyeplov and Zmyeevich had exchanged blood when the one had transformed the other into a vampire and now they were linked. But there was no reason to suppose Zmyeevich would want to hinder Yudin's plan more likely he would enjoy watching as it played out. Anyway, Yudin had no other choice. He needed a vampire.

'I want you,' he explained, 'to catch a train.'

They dined again at Yegorov's. It wasn't late in the evening, though Tamara was already beginning to notice that the nights were drawing in. But it was too early for there to be much business at Degtyarny Lane, and as the weeks had gone by, with no sign of the two vampires that they knew were still out there somewhere, they had grown more relaxed. Dmitry still never missed a night of his vigil outside the house, but he tended to arrive later and leave earlier.

Dmitry had his blini with cherries and cream. He didn't mention it, but Tamara remembered that it was what both he and Raisa had had here before, the first time they met. Tamara herself had chosen mushrooms, fried with onion.

'I'm going to have to go away for a few days soon,' she told him.

'What? And miss the coronation?'

'It's because of the coronation. There's worry about the security of the imperial train. The whole family's going to be on there. Yudin thinks that having a female agent on board might add some extra safety that a man would not.'

'How so?' he asked.

'I think the idea is that they might overlook a woman.'

'They?'

She shrugged. 'Whoever hates His Majesty sufficiently.'

'What is it that you do, exactly?' He sounded intrigued.

She leaned forward and glanced across the dining room, pretending to check that no one was listening. 'If I told you, I'd have to kill you,' she said.

Dmitry laughed and covered his mouth with his napkin.

'So I'll be back in time for the big day.'

'It'll be quite a spectacle.'

So Tamara had heard, but still she felt a certain trepidation. Konstantin would be there, and if she found herself a lucky place in the crowd, she would see him, but he would not see her. Or if he did see her, he would pretend that he didn't. It would be the first time that, in her eyes, he had been a grand duke rather than a man. She hadn't asked Yudin for the posting on the imperial train, and soon realized how Konstantin would see it. He would put her down on his list of women who had wanted too much of him; at his age, a short list perhaps she would have the honour of being at the top of it. But she couldn't disregard orders. She could only hope that Konstantin did not catch sight of her.

'And it'll mean that you'll see your papa soon,' she said. 'Aleksandr will announce an amnesty.'

Dmitry nodded. 'It seems certain.'

'You're not pleased?' He certainly didn't sound it.

'I'd forced myself to give up hope. It's hard to revive it.'

Tamara had never given up hope of finding her parents, and the imperial decree that brought Dmitry's father back to him would bring her closer to the truth. Domnikiia, Aleksei's mistress and Tamara's nanny, would be returning too. Once Tamara had made the connection between them, it hadn't taken many hours in the archives to discover that Domnikiia had followed her lover out to Siberia and was still there with him. She, if anyone could, would be able to tell Tamara the truth. It was Dmitry who had given her the clue, and yet they had not spoken about it since. With all the upheaval over Raisa, the moment had not occurred. Now was the time.

'What were you doing at my parents' house the other week?' she asked.

'When?'

'The day after you told me about Domnikiia Semyonovna.'

He answered smoothly, but she noted that he didn't comment on being told a name that he had claimed not to remember. 'I thought I'd pay them a call. Talking to you reminded me. I hadn't seen them for years.'

'Thirty years,' said Tamara.

'I suppose so, yes.'

'That's when you used to stand there and look up at my room, when I was a little girl. Why was that, Dmitry?'

He flushed and began to open his mouth, but this time no words came to him. She had been right to think he knew more than he had been telling. Perhaps she wouldn't need to wait for Domnikiia's return after all.

'Why, Dmitry?' she repeated.

She never heard his answer.

'Thank G.o.d I've found you!'

They both turned. It was Yudin. He was fl.u.s.tered, out of breath. He had a wad of papers clutched to his chest.

'What is it?' asked Dmitry, reflecting Yudin's urgency.

'I tried your rooms,' explained Yudin, 'then Degtyarny Lane, and they said Tamara was here, so I guessed you might be too.'

'But what's the problem?'

Yudin paused. He glanced at Dmitry, then Tamara, then back to Dmitry. 'Mitka,' he said with a sigh, 'I've never told you fully what it is I do for His Majesty, and I don't propose to now, but one of the tasks that falls to me, or my department, is the censorship of mail.'

He paused, waiting for Dmitry to respond, but the younger man took the revelation easily in his stride.

Yudin continued. 'Normally, I don't bother with the detail. I leave it to Gribov. But I can't blame him. We've never bothered with letters sent over such short distances. If conspirators wanted to communicate between here and Klin, they'd do it face to face.'

'Klin!' Dmitry pounced on the name of the town.

Yudin nodded. 'I happened to be looking over his shoulder, and I saw her name.'

'Raisa?'

Yudin placed the letter on the table in front of him. 'I knew that the handwriting wasn't yours.'

Dmitry s.n.a.t.c.hed the letter up and began to read. Tamara saw his eyes darting back across the page as he took in each new line.

'It sounds like they've been corresponding for some time,' Yudin explained to Tamara while Dmitry read. 'But I can only guess what was said.' He glanced over at Dmitry, who had just turned to the second page. 'I only wish we could have intercepted one of the letters back from her.'

'She replied?' asked Tamara.

Yudin looked at her sharply, but answered her question. 'Gribov remembers the letters coming across his desk. He just never bothered to look at them.'

'It's from Tyeplov,' said Dmitry. He had finished reading.

'You're sure?' asked Tamara.

'He's signed the f.u.c.king thing,' Dmitry snapped. 'He says he's going to visit her. Tonight. He's taking the slow train. He wants her to meet him at the station in Klin, at four in the morning.'

'When does the train leave Moscow?' asked Tamara.

'In ten minutes,' said Yudin.

'What?' shouted Dmitry.

'You may still have time,' said Yudin.

'But if she hasn't received the letter, she won't go to meet him,' said Tamara.

'I'm not taking that chance,' said Dmitry. With that he was gone. The door out of the restaurant swung closed behind him.

'I've been a fool,' said Yudin, sitting in Dmitry's chair and putting his head in his hands.

'We'll be even bigger fools if we let him go after Tyeplov alone.'

Yudin looked at her. 'You're right, of course,' he said. He rose to his feet at the same time as she did. When he saw it, he raised his hand to her. 'No, Tamara Valentinovna, not you. This is man's work, and you can't be any part of it. That's an order.'

Tamara sat back down and watched him depart through the same door that Dmitry had just used. She waited for precisely half a minute, counting the seconds in her head. Then she threw some banknotes on the table in settlement of the bill, and followed them both out into the street.

Outside the restaurant, Yudin turned right. From the corner of his eye he glimpsed Dmitry, trying to hail a carriage in the street. He turned right again, into an alleyway, where his own coach was waiting, as instructed. He boarded it and told the driver to make for the station, as fast as possible. They were there within five minutes. Kalanchyovskaya Square wasn't busy, but as soon as he entered the station, he found himself buffeted from every angle. The train was at the platform and its steam was up, ready for departure. All around him men clambered on board. It was officially a freight train, but the cheap carriages for the slow journey were becoming ever more popular. Second-cla.s.s pa.s.sengers got covered wagons, but at this time of year, when the weather was usually fine, third-cla.s.s travel meant a s.p.a.ce on a bench on a flatcar, and the feeling of the wind rushing by.

He caught sight of Tyeplov, standing back just as Yudin had told him, waiting to move. It was a good job he was so tall, head and shoulders above most of the crowd. Dmitry was of a similar stature. There was no risk that they would not see one another. Yudin waved curtly and Tyeplov nodded in response.

Now they swapped roles. Tyeplov stepped out into the middle of the platform where he could be clearly seen, while Yudin ducked back into the shadows, close to the station entrance. The crowd seemed to part and move around the obstacle that Tyeplov presented, but if they felt any resentment towards his standing in their way, they did not dare show it.

Moments later, Dmitry arrived, pushing his way through the crowd and standing on tiptoe to make himself even taller than he already was. Yudin was about to follow him, ploughing through the crowd in his wake, when he noticed another figure had walked on to the platform a woman. She was not distinctive by virtue of her height, indeed there were few in the bustle around the train who were shorter than her, but what made her unmistakable was the flash of bright, auburn hair that shone through whenever a gap in the crowd appeared.

Tamara's arrival was an irritation. If she got in the way, he would have to deal with her, but it was unlikely she would be able to see what was going on. Yudin pressed on through the crowd, getting as close behind Dmitry as he could. He slipped his hand into his pocket and curled his fingers round the revolver. Tyeplov would not attempt to board the train until he was sure that Dmitry had seen him and standing where he was, he would be impossible to miss.

Tyeplov began to move, heading for the second-cla.s.s wagon with determined strides, pushing aside the teeming crowds. Yudin took a final glance around him, but could see no sign of Tamara. Tyeplov stepped on to the train and gave one final look down the platform so that Dmitry could not fail to understand where he was going. Yudin was right behind Dmitry now. He raised his hand, with the pistol in it, and brought it down heavily on the back of Dmitry's neck.

Dmitry slumped forward and Yudin managed to catch him before he even hit the ground, using the body to hide his hand as he slipped the gun back into his pocket. He slapped Dmitry on the cheeks lightly, as if trying to rouse him, but he knew it would take a few minutes yet.

The train whistle blew and the conductor on the end carriage disconnected the brake. Yudin heard the same sound from each wagon, and then from the distant locomotive came a whoosh of steam, and the train began its slow, relentless movement out of the station.

'How do you feel?' said the white blob in the middle of the red blur.

'What?' said Dmitry.

'It was Mihailov Vasiliy Innokyentievich saw him.' The white blob seemed to grow a little and the red aura receded, both sharpening into focus and revealing Tamara's face looking down on him.

'Mihailov?'