For many days Hadfield saw only the warders and a doctor who stubbornly refused to say more than he deemed professionally necessary. The beating had left him with superficial injuries, but fearful the bruises would precipitate a scandal, the governor of the Preliminary had placed him under close medical supervision.
For half an hour each day, he shuffled in silence round the edge of the frozen exercise yard with the other inmates. He listened to messages painstakingly tapped on the pipes and memorised the names of ‘politicals’ from every corner of the empire and the distinctive chinking rhythm of their spoons. It was from one of these he learnt of Sophia Perovskaya’s arrest.
‘Is there word of Anna Kovalenko?’ he tapped slowly on his own pipe. No one had news of her. But after that he asked the question every day.
It was the powerlessness he found most oppressive. His fate in the hands of others, and even the smallest details of his life determined without reference to him. Finally, in his third week of captivity, he received a visitor.
His Excellency General Glen was standing by the mantelpiece in the governor’s office, resplendent in the Finance Ministry uniform, the gold and silver stars on his coat twinkling in the light of a lively fire. The governor was at his side but withdrew with a respectful nod of the head.
Hadfield stood in the middle of the rug, conscious of the sorry figure he cut in his prison greys, his hand clutching the top of his trousers. General Glen did not move from the fire, pity and contempt written in the lines of his face. Only when the door closed quietly behind the governor did he speak.
‘What have they done to you?’
‘This?’ asked Hadfield, touching the yellow bruises on his cheek and about his eyes. ‘It’s not as bad as it appears.’
‘Pity. Damn it, you deserve it.’
They stood gazing at each other in awkward silence. Hadfield wanted to say he was sorry but he was sure it would be like lighting a blue touchpaper.
But an apology was what the general was waiting to hear. ‘What do you say for yourself, sir?’
‘That I deeply regret the pain and the embarrassment I have caused you and my aunt after all the kindness you have shown me.’
‘But why, sir? Why?’ The muscles in the general’s face were twitching as he fought to hold his anger in check. ‘You’ve disappointed everyone. The ambassador, the British government… Lord Dufferin was obliged to assure the emperor that no one at the embassy had the slightest inkling you were involved with these people, this woman… and I have had to apologise to His Majesty. Lady Dufferin feels you betrayed her trust. We all do. Explain yourself, sir.’
Hadfield took a deep breath, as if collecting his thoughts, but there was nothing he wished to say. He could not speak of his feelings. There was no need. A ferocious diatribe burst from his uncle like warm champagne from a bottle: the disgrace his nephew had brought upon him, his aunt’s pain and the disappointment of his cousin Alexandra. ‘And your mother. Did you think of her? How could you allow yourself to be deceived by this Romanko woman?’
‘Do you know if she is still-’
‘Your mistress is not my concern.’
‘Don’t call her that.’
General Glen looked away for a few seconds, his face puce, hands balled, as if struggling to contain an urge to punch his nephew. ‘My only concern is that we avoid a public trial,’ he said at last. ‘We’re going to have to dress this up as an unfortunate affair of the heart, of course, a dangerous infatuation.’
‘Of course.’
General Glen took a menacing step closer: ‘Damn fool. I’m only doing this for your mother and your aunt’s sake.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘You have your aunt and cousin to thank for my presence here today.’
Hadfield nodded. ‘Please give them my-’
‘There is no reason to be optimistic,’ said the general, cutting across him impatiently. ‘The Ministry of Justice is pressing for trial and an exemplary sentence. You are fortunate Lord Dufferin is still willing to speak on your behalf as a British subject.’
‘Yes. Thank you.’
‘I don’t want your thanks, sir. I want to see the back of you.’ He stared at Hadfield for a moment, then walked over to the governor’s desk and sat down. ‘Who was responsible for those?’ he asked, pointing at Hadfield’s face.
‘An officer of the Gendarme Corps.’
The general listened to a description of the attack with his head bent, turning the signet ring on his right hand distractedly, interrupting only once to check and make a note of Barclay’s name.
‘Not the behaviour of a proper gentleman,’ he observed dryly when his nephew had finished. ‘But he may have unwittingly done you a good turn. And this fellow Dobrshinsky?’
‘I haven’t seen him for two or three weeks.’
‘Did he strike you? Is there anything I should know about his conduct?’
For a fleeting moment, an image of the special investigator’s pallid face, his small brown eyes and trembling hands, flitted through Hadfield’s mind. He dismissed the thought at once.
‘Nothing? Damn fellow,’ said General Glen, rising from his chair. ‘It was his job to prevent this whole sorry business.’ There the interview ended, cold, businesslike, without affection and with the presumption their paths would not cross again.
Within a few days the emptiness of the prison filled his mind once more. The only relief came with the patient tapping of the pipes. More arrests, and there was to be a trial in the court building next to the prison. One of the warders was unable to contain his excitement.
‘Tomorrow. They’re here in the prison already. I’ve been to take a look at Zhelyabov. Is it true he was sleeping with the aristocrat?’ But he knew nothing of a Kovalenko or a Romanko.
Hadfield heard his first word of Anna the following morning as the courtroom was beginning to fill. Clink, clink, clink. A frenzy of tapping and a bittersweet message for the doctor: ‘Anna sends love.’
On his knees, spoon in hand: ‘Where is Anna?’
He heard his question passed down the pipe by his neighbour. Half an hour later there was a reply: ‘Here.’
Unable to contain his disappointment, he jumped to his feet, pacing, spinning in his tiny cell, struggling to hold in check an urge to shout, bellow, beat on the door. Oh God. What now? Trapped, helpless, there was nothing he could do but tell her he loved her too. Sinking back to his knees, he chinked it on the pipe, over, and over and over.
After that he fretted about Anna and their baby constantly, searching every few hours for an excuse to send her a message by the prison telegraph. But there was no reply. He lay for hours on his bed, churning the same fears over and over until he reached the pitch of misery beyond which only madness lay. Once he dreamt he passed invisible through his door on to the landing and was drawn by fairy tale light to her cell where, to his surprise, the ceiling seemed to dissolve into a starry night sky, and he bent beneath it to kiss her tenderly. But a door clanged shut on the landing below, resounding in the well and forcing him back to the complete darkness of his own cell.
The trial lasted only three days, the verdict never in doubt.
‘Were you a friend of Sophia Perovskaya’s, Doctor?’ One of the younger warders asked at breakfast one morning.
‘An acquaintance.’
‘They say she’s the only one who may escape. The emperor would have to confirm her sentence personally because she’s nobility.’
But the new tsar was not inclined to show clemency. No exceptions would be made for sex or birth and the sentences were confirmed on all five of the regicides. The news travelled along the pipes to every corner of the prison and, when everyone knew, there was silence. Even the warders seemed to step more lightly on the iron stairs. In his mind’s eye Hadfield could see Anna curled in misery, with thoughts of the ordeal her comrades must face, and his heart ached for her and with the fear that one day the same harsh justice might be meted out to her too. In desperation he sought the governor’s permission to write to his uncle and to the embassy. He would acknowledge his unborn child and request it be given the protection any British subject was entitled to. For a day he heard nothing. Then he received word the governor was seeking guidance. And, on the eve of the executions, a visit at last.
‘But who were you expecting, Doctor?’ asked Dobrshinsky. He paused for a few seconds, his eyebrows raised in a quizzical expression: ‘Your uncle again? You know, he has done you great service. Sit down, please.’
Hadfield did as he was bidden.
‘First let me apologise for Major Barclay’s behaviour. He was overwrought but that is not to excuse him. He was most ungentlemanly.’
‘Yes.’
‘I have just visited the condemned cells. You know the regicides are to be executed in the morning?’ The special investigator’s voice was reflective, his eyes fixed for a moment on the middle distance. There was the same sickly pallor in his cheeks, his skin drawn tighter across the bone.
‘Have you tried to imagine how you would behave if you were the condemned man?’ Again the curious cold tight-lipped smile. ‘Or woman?’
‘Is it possible to imagine?’
‘You are fortunate you will not have to try. But your friend Anna Petrovna…’ Dobrshinsky’s voice tailed off suggestively. ‘Of course, you know she is a prisoner here,’ he added. ‘Is it your child? I thought so.’
‘Has she seen a doctor?’ Hadfield asked, trying hard not to betray any emotion in his voice.
‘Would you like to examine her yourself?’
‘And the price for this act of humanity?’
Dobrshinsky winced and lifted a trembling hand to his temple as if to soothe a stab of pain.
‘The old problem?’
The special investigator frowned and dropped his hand behind his back. ‘I am quite well, thank you, Doctor. We are still in need of a little help — an address, two addresses actually. Vera Figner and the printing press.’
‘And you want me to ask Anna? I took you for a more astute fellow.’
‘You would need to tease it from her. Do you have any conception of what will happen to your baby if you don’t?’ And he explained that the infant would be taken from Anna and placed in a state orphanage with no name and no registered parents.
‘But the baby is mine and I am a British subject!’
‘I believe the state prosecutor will take the view that it is only possible to be certain of the baby’s mother.’
Hadfield rose angrily to lean across the table. ‘That is an ungentlemanly slur.’
‘You have become involved in an ungentlemanly business, Doctor,’ said Dobrshinsky coldly. ‘Your own conduct is hardly above reproach. I can help Anna Petrovna, but only if you can offer me some assistance. Believe me, I have no wish to condemn a child to misery before it is born but my hands are tied. Reflect, Doctor, I beg you. We will talk again.’
Hadfield spent a long night brooding upon the collegiate councillor’s words, grasping first the hope he was being bullied by an idle threat then slipping back into a pit of misery. In the early hours his thoughts turned to the vigil the condemned were keeping and he felt sure Anna would be watching through the night too. Close to dawn, he fell into an exhausted sleep, but was woken after only a short time by boots on the landing outside his cell. Before he could rise, the door opened and a warder stood before him, silhouetted against the gaslights on the wing: ‘Wake up, Doctor, we’ve a surprise for you.’
His head still thick with sleep, they bundled him out of the cell and down the iron stairs to the visiting room. His own clothes had been laid out on the table, still dusty, the sleeve of his coat torn in the scuffle with the gendarmes. He was ordered to dress quickly, and as soon as he had he was escorted to a closed prison carriage.
‘Where are you taking me?’
But they refused to answer.
It was early, perhaps seven o’clock, but to judge from the street noise, remarkably busy, and before long the carriage horses were obliged to slow to a fast walk. Above the rumble of the wheels he could hear the murmur of a great number of people, and he realised with a start that they were gathering for the executions. The driver began shouting for a passage, enlisting the support of the soldiers lining the route, but after only a few minutes they came to an abrupt and final halt. Even in the darkness, Hadfield was conscious of the huge crowd swelling round the carriage like the tide about a rock. The doors were flung open and for an instant he was blinded by spring sunshine. Curious faces turned towards him, excited whispers, and rising from the bench, his eyes were drawn across the sea of heads to the scaffold with five ropes hanging from its cross-beam. And as he gazed at it, he was gripped by the breathless fear he was to witness Anna’s death.
‘Why am I here?’
Again the gendarmes did not answer but pulled him roughly from the carriage and began leading him in a catatonic daze towards the platform. The parade ground had been churned by horses and the boots of thousands and, after a few steps, he stumbled, falling to one knee in a dirty puddle before being hauled back to his feet.
‘Why am I here?’ he asked again, making no effort to keep the desperation from his voice. ‘Please tell me.’
The older of the two gendarmes — a sergeant with a bold cavalry moustache — gave an unpleasant barking laugh. ‘Calm down. It’s not your day.’
‘Then why am I here?’
‘Orders,’ and that was all he would say.
He took in the scene as a series of disparate sounds and images only; green and gold uniforms, the cotton-wool sky and domes of the regimental cathedral, six black steps up to the platform, the humiliation posts with chains and manacles, and the red-bearded hangman with the five criminals who were to act as his assistants. In front of the foot guards about the platform was a seated area reserved for the privileged with tickets and police officials, and it was to here the gendarmes led him. A tall but slightly stooped figure in a German hat stepped forward to meet him. ‘You are in good time, Doctor.’
Collegiate Councillor Dobrshinsky looked deathly pale in the sunshine and in his sombre black suit, as if he had crept from the cells of the Secret House.
‘Why am I here?’ Hadfield asked at once, his voice shaking with anxiety.
‘To help you make up your mind.’
‘So Anna is-’
‘Not this time.’
Relief washed through his body and soul, leaving him reduced and trembling inside. Then, in its wake, a shameful euphoria.
The gendarmes escorted him to the rear of the enclosure to stand with the foot guards at his back. Dobrshinsky sat a short distance from him with a man in the dark green uniform jacket of the Justice Ministry.
‘Fifty thousand people,’ Hadfield heard the gendarme on his right say.
‘Closer to a hundred,’ replied the sergeant on his left. He was shifting his weight restlessly from foot to foot, pulling at the chain about Hadfield’s wrists, clearly delighted to enjoy such a privileged view of the spectacle.
There was a rustle of excitement then a hush as the carriages carrying the priests and coffins rumbled up to the steps of the platform. In the distance Hadfield could hear the strains of the military band marching in front of the carts of the condemned. Closer, closer it came, a jaunty march tune so inappropriate and macabre it made him shudder.
A moment later the tumbrels rattled into view, the five terrorists strapped by the waist to an iron bar and mounted in chairs for all to see. They were dressed in black, with a placard about their necks that bore the single word ‘Regicide’. In the second cart, Sophia Perovskaya’s tiny frame was wedged between two of her comrades. And the savage relief Hadfield had felt was gone, forgotten, replaced by disgust and guilt that he was to witness their humiliation. Handcuffed, legs fettered, they were helped from the carts then up the steps to the platform where the executioner and his assistants chained them to the posts. The priests offered the condemned the cross to kiss and all of them accepted this small comfort. The tallest — Zhelyabov — was craning his neck about in an effort to speak to Sophia. And as Hadfield watched him straining at the post, he felt a knot like the executioner’s noose tighten in his own throat. The waste. He closed his eyes and groaned: ‘Anna, Anna, Anna.’
An official read the sentence in a voice almost no one could hear and the prisoners were unchained and allowed to exchange kisses. Then they were drawn forward to stand beneath the gallows. A white cowl with a broad slit in the neck for the rope was placed over each in turn. Five white figures on the black platform.
A rumble of muffled drums. At precisely 9.20 a.m. the executioner removed his coat. A small stand of three steps was slipped into place before the first prisoner. Blind and fettered, he was led step by step by step to the top. The rope was drawn tight about his neck.
‘Oh, Anna, Anna.’ Hadfield held his breath. He must watch for her sake. The executioner bent to draw away the steps. There was a sigh like a gust of wind from the crowd as the prisoner hung free, struggling then twitching as life was choked from him. Then it was the turn of the second man, but the drunken sot of a hangman made a 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 roman policier, with the loose threads gathered in the final pages. And yet the story was not over. How could it be?
‘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.’
The light from the window seemed to flicker as von Plehve shifted awkwardly from foot to foot.
‘His Excellency appreciates your contribution in bringing the terrorists to justice — The People’s Will is broken,’ he paused, then added pointedly, ‘even if the Figner woman is still at liberty.’
‘There will be others. After the grisly spectacle today, there will be more assassinations, more bombs.’
‘Yes, there will be…’ Von Plehve hesitated to consider his next words carefully. ‘But ours is not to question… we are servants of a tsar. To consider moderate measures is useless when circumstances and the hour are set at extremes.’
Dobrshinsky nodded slowly then pushed his chair away and walked round his desk to join the chief prosecutor at the window. They were only an arm’s length apart, the view on to the street between them.
‘You look ill. You must rest,’ said von Plehve with a soapy pretence at concern. ‘Of course your old post will be held for you at the Ministry of Justice.’
Dobrshinsky gazed out on to the Fontanka below, as he had done on his first day. The ice was melting at last and the dirty snow on its surface would soon be washed away. The sun was lost in a low grey Petersburg sky that seemed to leach colour from the mansions opposite.
‘Will we live to see it?’ he asked suddenly.
‘You mean…?’ Von Plehve was alarmed by the directness of his question and the implied pessimism. ‘I take you to mean a revolution? Speaking for myself, I feel sure I won’t.’
Dobrshinsky was still standing at the window a few minutes later as the count climbed the steps into his carriage. A lawyer, a politician, the director of the new Okhrana — oh yes, Dobrshinsky was sure he was to be the first — von Plehve would act without scruple in defence of divinely inspired order. But he bore him no ill will. He felt no anger, and only a little regret. He felt relief that it was over and a hunger for his dark corner and un etat oubli.