'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 a.s.sembly 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 a.s.sured 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 emba.s.sy. 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.'

For a time, Dobrshinsky remained in the a.s.sistant governor's bare office, reflecting in a haze of cigarette smoke. What was it von Plehve had said? 'Your future will depend upon making progress'. It had been impossible not to smile. No one was more adept at claiming credit and reapportioning blame than the chief prosecutor. A Supreme Security Commission would ask questions the count would have to answer, so it was important for him to be able to pa.s.s the responsibility for failure on to others. Vanity, ambition, fear came in so many guises. What was there of substance to distinguish the chief prosecutor in his immaculate ministry uniform from the helpless Jew in his prison greys? Goldenberg was naive, vain, despicable, but at least he believed in something. Dobrshinsky was almost sorry for him. He leant forward to grind his cigarette into an ashtray, a spiral of smoke still curling before him like a temple offering. Really, was stupidity the worst crime?

Taking headed paper from the pile on the desk and the pen from the silver stand, he wrote a short note, slipped it into an envelope and addressed it in a careful hand: Dr Frederick Hadfield, The Nikolaevsky Hospital.

'See this is delivered at once,' he said, dropping the letter in front of the a.s.sistant governor's clerk as he left the office. It was time he met this English spy.

25.

The first time Anna asked Hadfield for money he gave it without question. The second time, she told him she needed a little for clothes.

'Of course, darling,' he said, running his hand over her smooth skin and leaning forward to kiss her forehead. 'How much?'

The third time he refused to give more. They were lying together on the old mattress, the diffuse light of a Sunday morning in January creeping into the makeshift bedroom, their conversation conducted in whispers lest they wake the old lady and her granddaughters.

'You're still wearing the same clothes,' he said.

Anna was lying on her back staring at the ceiling, but even in the dim light he saw her face stiffen to a scowl.

'Why are you wearing the same clothes?'

Ignoring his question, she gathered the sheet to her shoulder and turned to lie on her side with her back towards him. And at once he felt a pang of regret. How could he refuse her? It was money, nothing more. He reached out to stroke her hair. 'Of course I'll give you money. You don't need to lie to me.'

She turned sharply to look at him, the sheet sliding from her chest. 'What do you mean?'

'Don't tell me you want money for clothes. Don't tell me anything.'

She blushed a little and her face softened. 'No. I won't.' And she leant forward to kiss him tenderly, her fingers resting on his cheek.

But Anna did not ask for more money. She asked him to pay the party in kind. On the first occasion, he arrived home late one evening to a note urging him to 'come at once' to the Ekaterininsky Embankment. A 'friend' was in great need of medical care. The dvornik's brain was too fuddled with alcohol to be sure when the note had been delivered.

It was close to midnight when the droshky dropped him in front of a smart terracotta-coloured mansion near the Voznesensky Bridge. To his surprise, the door was opened by a young footman in a blue and gold uniform.

'Doctor Hadfield I've been asked to call.' He gave the flunky his card. A moment later, he was being shown up the stairs to the first floor and into an elegant drawing room. Anna was standing before a large pier gla.s.s between the windows with Sophia Perovskaya.

'Why has it taken you so long?'

He was irritated by her proprietary manner. 'I came as soon as I received your note.'

'Thank goodness you've come,' said Sophia with more grace, holding out her hands to greet him.

'The midwife is with her but there are complications,' said Anna, her face tense with anxiety.

'Who is this woman?'

'Does it matter? She needs your help.'

The young woman had been struggling for more than fourteen hours and was in great distress. The midwife had done what she could but the baby was breech.

'This woman should be in hospital! Why have you waited so long?'

'She can't go to hospital, she'd be arrested,' said Sophia. 'They would question her if she's feeling weak she will give too much away . . .'

Sophia's face was milky white and she flinched as the woman screamed in pain.

'You're prepared to take the risk of losing mother or baby, or both?' Hadfield asked incredulously.

'Can't you do anything for her here?'

'I may have to perform a Caesarean. Pray to G.o.d I don't,' he said, rolling up his shirt sleeves.

Two hours later the baby was born, his exhausted mother weeping tears of relief and pain and grat.i.tude. He had to cut her, but he was able to deliver the boy without an operation. Nineteen-year-old Tatiana was strong. 'Congratulations,' he said, sweeping damp hair from her face. She was lying in a nest of pillows, her baby pressed naked against her breast. The midwife was hovering on the opposite side of the bed with a swaddling sheet. There was a knock at the door and it opened a few inches.

'Can we come in?' Anna's voice trembled a little with emotion.

'For a moment. She needs to rest.'

Anna and Sophia tiptoed across the room as if frightened of what they would find.

'Dark eyes like his father,' said Tatiana when they were at her bedside. She bent to kiss his little head. 'Would you like to hold him, Sophia?'

'I would like to,' said Anna, and she lifted him with the confidence of one used to holding babies. She held him close, her cheek brushing his head, and when she looked up again Hadfield saw that her eyes were wet with tears.

'I will come back tomorrow,' he said, as they left the room.

'It would be best if you came late in the evening,' Sophia replied. 'This house belongs to a friend of the party but we don't want to draw attention to our presence.'

'Is Tatiana safe here?'

'For now, yes.'

'And the father?'

'He's in the "Preliminary" awaiting trial. He was caught distributing copies of the party's paper at the university. He may not see his baby before the revolution.' Sophia seemed detached, as if speaking of the everyday, a tram ride into the city, shopping at the market.

'A terrible price to pay.'

'But his son will live in a better world.'

That night Hadfield persuaded Anna to return to his apartment and they made love without the inhibitions of others close by. There was an additional strange intensity to their lovemaking, as if the birth of the baby had left its emotional stamp on both of them.

'I saw you wipe away a tear,' he whispered, his cheek against hers, their naked bodies together.

She did not reply.

'It will be so hard for her,' he said.

'She should have been more careful.'

'Careful?' he asked, edging from her a little to look at her face.

'Revolutionaries shouldn't have children.'

'Ah yes, revolutionaries can't be happy. I forgot.'

'Don't be sarcastic. It's cruel, a sin to have children when we could lose our freedom or our lives at any time.'

'All this talk of martyrdom and sin,' he said, leaning forward to kiss her lips. 'I thought you were no longer a believer.'

'Don't tease me. Go to sleep. I don't want to talk about it.' She turned abruptly from him.

But he could not sleep. Curled about her, her skin warm to his, his mind restless, he felt sad. If it was foolish for a revolutionary to have a family, was it foolish to risk love and tenderness too? What were her feelings for him? He pressed closer, trying to empty his mind of all but the happiness he felt lying at her side.

A few days later his surgery a.s.sistant brought him another note from 'a friend of Anna's'.

'The messenger says it's urgent and that he'll wait for a reply,' his a.s.sistant said apologetically.

The note was in a scruffy hand and badly spelt: an emergency, a 'comrade' badly hurt, 'come at once'. A friend of Anna's? He cursed quietly under his breath: what on earth was she thinking? He would not become the party's physician of choice. The messenger was standing, cap in hand, at the waiting-room door. It was evident from his manner and dress that he was a worker at one of the factories or shipyards on the island.

'Your Honour, it's only a short walk. We must hurry.'

Instructing his a.s.sistant to rearrange appointments, Hadfield grabbed his coat and medical bag and followed the man from the surgery. At the end of Line 7, they turned on to one of the island's arteries, bustling with horse trams and cabs and traders at their stalls, stamping their feet, blowing into frozen hands. Hadfield did his best to make conversation but his guide was tongue-tied, incapable of more than a 'yes' or 'no' to simple questions. They slithered along the icy pavement for five minutes, turning left at Line 11 and walking on until they reached the door of a run-down three-storey house at the far end of the street. His guide gave two sharp knocks, paused for a few seconds then gave two more. The door was opened with an impatient jerk by a dishevelled man in his twenties who was plainly suffering from shock, for his face was drained of colour, his pupils abnormally dilated.

'Thank goodness come . . . come in . . . come in,' he stammered. 'It's poor Valentin this way, please.'

Hadfield followed him along a short corridor and into a ground-floor apartment.

'We wouldn't have brought you here but Anna . . .'

'Is she here?'

'No, no.'

'Where's the patient?' Hadfield snapped.

'In here, please.' He held the door open.

The injured man was sitting on a damp mattress with his back to the wall, a bundle of b.l.o.o.d.y rags round his right hand. There was a deathly pallor to his face and he had clearly lost a lot of blood because his shirt was stained red, and there were dark patches on his woollen waistcoat and trousers.

'Valentin, I've brought a doctor.'

The injured man nodded weakly but did not open his eyes. The room was furnished with nothing more than the mattress and a simple wooden chair.

'You, what's your name?' Hadfield turned to the first man.

'Kibalchich, Nikolai Ivanovich, at your service.'

'Well, Nikolai Ivanovich, I need water, towels, soap, and quickly.'