“Where are they?”

“They’re in the front room. I was going to throw them in the fire, seeing as we are running out of wood to burn-”

Before Kirov had finished his sentence, Pekkala dashed out of the room.

“They’re mostly landscapes, nothing important,” called Kirov. “You won’t find the Tsar in any of them!”

A moment later Pekkala returned. A sheaf of photographs was clutched in his fist. There were about two dozen of them, their ends curled up and torn. A haze of fingerprints stained the images. Most were pictures of the town. The church with its onion dome spire. The main street, with the Ipatiev house in the distance and a blurred, ghostly image of a horse and cart crossing in front of the camera’s view. There was a pond, with the same church in the distance. On the other side of the water, a woman in a long skirt and headscarf stooped to gather something in the weeds. A few of the photos were of the nuns whose images he had seen on the walls of the convent. On these, it looked as if Katamidze had been trying to color them but had given up halfway through the process.

“These must be his rejects,” muttered Pekkala. He sat back and rubbed his tired eyes.

“I told you they weren’t important,” said Kirov.

Each man speared a potato and began to eat, puffing their cheeks with the heat.

Anton stumbled in, his breath a fog of pickled beets and Lake Baikal sprat. These fish, dried and shriveled to the shape of crumpled cigars, hung threaded on wires above the bar, their tiny bones like musical notes under the hard, translucent flesh. If a customer wanted a fish, he simply reached up and twisted the body, snapping off its head, which remained on the wire. Men with no money would then pick off the head and eat it, chewing the metallic-tasting cartilage until nothing remained.

Anton tossed a notebook on the table. “It’s all in there,” he said.

Pekkala picked up the notebook and flipped through it. “These pages are blank.”

“You must be a detective, after all,” said Anton.

“You call this help?” asked Pekkala, struggling to contain his anger.

Anton sat down at the table. He spotted the photographs and picked them up. “Ooh, pictures.”

“They belonged to Katamidze,” explained Kirov.

“Any naked ones?” asked Anton.

Kirov shook his head.

“I bet Mayakovsky has them. He seems to have everything else.”

“I told you not to drink,” said Pekkala.

Anton dropped the stack of photos. “You told me?” he asked. Then he slammed his hand down on the table. “You mean you ordered me! You can’t go to a tavern and not drink! I did my job, just like you told me to, so you can just lay off me, Inspector.” He hawked out the last word as if it were a chunk of fat. “The tavern is where people tell their secrets! That’s what you said.”

“But you have to be sober to hear them!” Pekkala snatched the wooden apple which lay on the table and threw it at his brother.

Anton’s hand shot up. The apple slapped into his palm and he closed his fingers around it. He gave his brother a triumphant look.

“Did you offer to rescue the Tsar?” asked Pekkala.

The gloating look sheared off his face. “What?”

“You heard me,” replied Pekkala. “When you were guarding the Romanovs, did you offer to let him and his family escape?”

Anton laughed. “Have you completely lost your mind? What possible reason would I have for helping them? There was a time when all I wanted was a place among the Finnish Regiment, but you stole that from me. I had to make some different plans, which did not include the Tsar.”

“You could have rejoined the Regiment!” said Pekkala. “They didn’t kick you out for good.”

“I was going to come back, until I found out you were on your way to Petrograd to take my place. Did you honestly expect me to endure that humiliation? Why didn’t you stay home and take over the family business the way our father planned for you to do?”

“The way he planned?” repeated Pekkala. “Don’t you realize he was the one who sent me to take your place in the Regiment?”

Anton blinked. “He sent you?”

“After we received the telegram that you had been suspended. We didn’t know that it was only temporary.”

“But why?” Anton stammered. “Why didn’t you tell me back then?”

“Because I couldn’t find you. You had disappeared.”

For a long time, nobody spoke.

Anton seemed rooted to the spot, too stunned to move. “I swear I didn’t know,” he murmured.

“It doesn’t matter anymore,” Pekkala told him. “It’s too late now.”

“Yes,” Anton replied, speaking like a man in a trance. “It is too late.” Then he walked out into the courtyard.

“Perhaps,” said Kirov, after a moment, “one of the other Cheka guards made an offer to the Tsar. Your brother might not have known anything about it.”

“You mean he was too drunk to know,” Pekkala said.

Both men looked out at Anton, who stood slumped against the wall, one arm held up against the stone for balance. A bright arc of piss splashed down onto the ground. Then he walked out of the courtyard, into the street, and was gone.

“He’s going straight back to the tavern,” said Kirov.

“Perhaps,” Pekkala agreed.

“They’ll beat him up all over again.”

“He doesn’t seem to care.”

“At the Bureau,” said Kirov, “when they assigned me to the case, I was told his drinking might be a problem.”

“He’s not as drunk as he wants us to believe.”

“What do you mean?”

“Did you see the way he caught the apple?”

“You were testing his reflexes?”

Pekkala nodded. “If he had been really drunk, he would never have reacted that quickly.”

“Why would he pretend to be drunk?”

“Because he’s hiding something,” said Pekkala, “but whether it has to do with this investigation or if it is something from our past, or both, I do not know.”

“Are you saying we can’t trust him anymore?” asked Kirov.

“We never could,” Pekkala answered.

“There is something we would like to know,” said Stalin. “Eventually you will tell us. The only variable in this equation is what remains of you, physically and spiritually, by the time you have answered the question.”

Pekkala felt almost relieved that the process had begun. Anything was better than the agony of standing hunched inside that chimney of a cell. It was the curve of the ceiling which terrified him most, as if the room were slowly caving in. Every time he thought of it, fresh sweat beaded on his face.

“Fortunately,” continued Stalin, “we only have one question for you.”

Pekkala waited.

“Would you like a cigarette?” Stalin asked. From his trouser pocket, he removed a red and gold box with the word MARKOV on the cover.

Pekkala recognized them as the brand which Vassileyev used to smoke.

“The former director of the Okhrana was kind enough to leave behind a considerable supply in his office,” explained Stalin.

“Where is he now?”

“He is dead,” said Stalin matter-of-factly. “Do you know what he did? When he knew we were coming to arrest him, he filled his artificial leg with explosives. Then, in the police van on the way to this prison, Vassileyev set off the bomb. The axle of the van ended up on the roof of a two-story building.” Stalin laughed softly. “Explosives in a wooden leg! I can’t deny he had a sense of humor.”

He held out the box of cigarettes, awkwardly rotating his wrist so that the white sticks faced Pekkala.

Pekkala shook his head.

Stalin snapped the box shut. “In the days ahead, I ask you to remember that my first offer to you was one of friendship.”

“I won’t forget,” said Pekkala.

“Of course you won’t. That famous memory of yours would not allow it. That is why I am confident that you will be able to answer my question.”

“What do you want to know?”

“Where are the Tsar’s reserves of gold?”

“I have no idea.”