She hugged the basket to her chest. “Well, I guess everyone has heard about them.”

“You were standing right there.” Pekkala pointed at her. “Right there where you are now.”

“Oh, that picture.” She lowered the basket again. “I remember now. He said he wasn’t happy with it.”

“How well did you know Katamidze?”

“I knew him,” she began, “but not the way people say I did. He’s gone, you know. He doesn’t live here anymore. He lost his mind. That night he went to photograph the Tsar. He said he saw them slaughtered right before his eyes. I found him hiding in his attic, talking some gibberish about how he’d come face-to-face with the Devil.”

“Have you told this to anyone else?”

“When the Whites were here, they came to my house. But by then Mayakovsky had sold them some pictures. I never told them I’d seen Katamidze that night, and they never asked me about it. All they wanted to know was where they could get some more photos.”

“What happened to Katamidze after you found him in the attic?”

“He was in a bad state. I told him I would send for a doctor. But before I could do anything to help him, he ran out of the house. He never came back. A couple of years later, I heard that he had ended up in prison.”

“This person he came face-to-face with…”

“Katamidze said he was a beast on two legs.”

“But a name. Did Katamidze hear a name?”

“He said that when the Tsar saw this man, he called out a word. Then they got into an argument, but Katamidze didn’t know what it was about.”

“What word did the Tsar call out?”

“Nothing that made any sense. Rodek. Or Godek. Or something.”

Pekkala felt suddenly cold. “Grodek?”

“That’s it,” said the woman, “and then the shooting started.”

A suffocating weight bore upon Pekkala. With his pulse thumping in his neck, he rode back to the Ipatiev house, arriving in the courtyard just as Anton carried out a handful of dishes to wash at the pump. He had taken off his tunic. The sleeves of his shirt were rolled up and his suspenders stretched across his shoulders.

As Anton cranked the squeaky iron pump handle, a gush of water spilled out on the cobblestones, bright as mercury in the night. He sat on an upturned bucket and began to scrub the dishes with an old brush, its bristles splayed out like the petals of a sunflower. He glanced up just in time to see his brother bearing down on him. But it was too late. Pekkala towered over Anton, his face contorted with anger.

“What’s the matter with you?” Anton asked.

“Grodek,” snarled Pekkala.

Anton’s face turned suddenly pale. “What?”

Pekkala lunged at him, grabbing Anton by his shirt collar. “Why didn’t you tell me it was Grodek who murdered the Tsar?”

The dish slipped from Anton’s hands. It shattered on the stones. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You send me to look for a murderer and all the while you know exactly who it is. I don’t care how much you hate me, you still owe me an explanation.”

For a moment, Anton’s face remained a mask of surprise. He seemed about to deny everything. Then, suddenly, he faltered. With the mention of that name, a scaffolding of lies collapsed inside him. The mask he had been wearing fell away. In its place was only fear and resignation. “I told you we should have left.”

“That is not an answer!” Pekkala shook his brother.

Anton did not resist. “I’m sorry,” he mumbled.

“Sorry?” Pekkala let go of his brother and stood back. “Anton, what have you done?”

Wearily, the older man shook his head. “I would never have dragged you into this if I had known about our father sending you to join the Finnish Regiment. All this time I thought it was you who made that choice. I have spent years hating you for something that wasn’t your fault. I wish I could go back and change things. But I can’t.”

“I thought Grodek was in prison. He was supposed to be in there for life.”

Anton stared down at the cobblestones. All his energy seemed to have gone out of him. “When the Petrograd police barracks were stormed, back in 1917, the rioters burnt all the records. Nobody knew who was in jail for what, so when they took over the prison later that same day, they decided to release all the prisoners. As soon as Grodek got out, he joined the Revolutionary Guard. Eventually, he was recruited by the Cheka. When he heard that a group of Cheka were being assigned to guard the Romanovs, he volunteered for the job. I only found out who he was when we arrived here in Sverdlovsk. I had never met him before then.”

“And you didn’t think to tell me this?”

“I didn’t tell you because I didn’t think you would agree to help with the investigation if you knew Grodek was out. The only way the Bureau would let me hold on to my promotion was if I persuaded you to investigate the case.”

“And is it true? Did Grodek offer the Tsar a chance to escape when he was stationed at the Ipatiev house?”

“Yes. In exchange for the Tsar’s gold reserves. Grodek swore that he would free the family if the Tsar would lead him to where they were hidden. The Tsar agreed. It was all worked out.”

“And you were helping him, weren’t you?”

Anton nodded. “Grodek needed someone to create a diversion while he led the family out of the house and drove them away in one of our trucks.”

“And what were you supposed to get in exchange?”

“Half of everything.”

“And what was this diversion?”

“Grodek and I told the other guards that we were going to the tavern. We’d been going every night, so nobody thought it was unusual. I broke into the police chief’s office and put in the call to the Ipatiev house. I said I was from the garrison at Kungur, just on the other side of the Ural Mountains. I said that the Whites had bypassed Kungur and were heading for Sverdlovsk. I told them to send all available men to set up a roadblock. Then I would join the other guards at that roadblock, saying that I had just come from the tavern. I’d tell them that Grodek was too drunk to come with me. Then I’d make sure we stayed at the roadblock as long as possible, so that Grodek would have time to free the Romanovs.”

“If that was the plan, then why bring Katamidze into it?”

“We knew that at least two guards would be left behind to watch the Romanovs while the others were setting up the roadblock. The Tsar was afraid that his family might be hurt while the guards who stayed behind were being overpowered. He refused to agree to the rescue until Grodek came up with the idea of having a photographer sent over. That way, he could make sure they were all gathered safely in the basement until the guards had been disposed of.”

“But wouldn’t the guards think it was suspicious that Katamidze arrived after dark?”

“No. The times were crazy. We received orders at all hours of the day and night. Commands issued by Moscow sometimes took six hours to reach here. By that time, it could be the middle of the night for us, but if the order said it had to be carried out immediately, that was what we had to do.”

“So Grodek planned to kill two of your own men as part of this rescue?”

Slowly, Anton raised his head. “Have you forgotten what you trained him to do? Grodek set up a Revolutionary cell with the sole purpose of assassinating the Tsar. And then, when those people learned to trust Grodek with their lives, he betrayed every last one of them. They all died because of Grodek, even the woman he loved. What were two more lives after that?”

“More than two,” said Pekkala. “Because he never intended to free the Tsar, did he?”

“The Tsar had told Grodek that the treasure was hidden nearby. He said he could lead Grodek to it that same night. Grodek’s plan was to accompany the Tsar to the hiding place, get the gold, and then kill him and the Tsarina. We discussed letting the children go free. Grodek promised he wouldn’t kill them unless he had to. Afterwards, he would say that the Tsar and the Tsarina had been shot while trying to escape. But that’s not what happened. It all went wrong.”