“He encouraged her?”

“Yes.”

“He encouraged her to get a job at Livadia?”

“Yes.”

“This would have been… what year exactly?”

“Nineteen ten.”

“How old was she then, Anna?”

“She was fifteen.”

“Did Ella tell you why he’d encouraged her to apply for a job at the royal palace?”

Anna didn’t understand the significance of the question. “Her father had died,” she said defensively. “It was a difficult time for both of us, of course. Ella was at that age… she wanted to find her own feet. It was understandable.”

“But the American specifically encouraged her to get a job in the imperial household?”

“My husband had been in the guards. He had always hoped she would find employment at Livadia, but…”

“She had initially been reluctant to work in the imperial household?”

Anna stared at her hands. “She was just a young girl.”

“She didn’t like doing her father’s bidding?”

“A lot of people filling her head with silly ideas.” Anna smiled. “We dealt with it. After the move to Petersburg, it was so much better.”

“Silly ideas?” Ruzsky asked.

Anna did not answer.

“Revolutionary ideas?”

Anna looked worried again, until she realized that her daughter’s death had absolved her of any need to fear this point at least. She sighed. “It was different in Petersburg,” she repeated.

“White was a revolutionary and Ella was influenced by him?”

“My husband would not allow discussion of politics in the house. They… he and Ella argued in the last year of his life. It upset him greatly.”

“She met the American in revolutionary circles in Yalta?”

Anna looked at Pavel and then back at Ruzsky. “I don’t know about that, but I didn’t like him. After my husband died, I wanted to move away. It would be good to begin again. It was my gift to him.”

“To your husband?”

“Yes.”

“He had been very worried about Ella?”

“She would never have brought the American to the house when her father was alive.”

“Did the American ever explain what he was doing in Yalta, Anna?”

“Traveling, he said.” Anna shrugged contemptuously. “Just traveling. That was all he said. Ella told me his father was a millionaire from America and he liked to travel to other parts of the world. He boasted that he had no need to work.”

Ruzsky could see how the the poor, respectable Kovyils must have hated the charming interloper who had bewitched their daughter with strange ideas and the prospect of another life.

“Did you meet any of Ella’s other friends from the same circle?”

“From the same circle?”

Ruzsky tried to remember the name of the man they had found at the Lion Bridge this morning. “Boris Markov? Perhaps just Borya?”

“I don’t know.”

Ruzsky dug the man’s identification papers from his pocket and showed her the dark, smudged photograph. But she just shook her head.

“Who did the men this morning ask you about?”

Anna looked at him blankly as she handed back the papers. “I’m not very good with names.”

“What did they want to know?”

“If Ella had brought him home, and whether I had met him.”

“The American?”

“Yes.”

“And had you, this time?”

Anna’s face quivered briefly before she recovered her composure. “How could I know she had taken up with him again?” She shook her head. “I thought he was on the other side of the world, where he belongs.”

“Did she bring him here?”

“No, but I knew he had come here.”

Ruzsky could tell he was upsetting Anna, who once again stared at him in a kind of trance. He crouched down in front of her. “Anna, can you think of anything over the last few months that would give us an indication of why someone would want to kill Ella?”

Anna looked at him, tears welling up in her eyes. “She was a loving girl, Officer, so loving.”

“When did you last see her?”

Anna turned to the photograph of her daughter on the mantelpiece and the religious icon hanging above it. “Last Sunday. She always came to see me on a Sunday. It was her day off and she would catch the train into town and we would go to church together.”

“And what happened last Sunday?”

Anna stared at the wall. The silence dragged on, but Ruzsky did not wish to push her.

“It was just a Sunday,” she said. “Like all Sundays.”

“You went to church?”

“She was so happy, Officer. That smile, I wish you could have seen it. She was such a pretty girl.”

“Why was she so happy, Anna?”

“I thought she was just… happy. To be with me. To be close to the Lord. Such a fine, clear, bright day; the city so beautiful. I felt happy too; happier, I think, than on any day since I came here. It was wonderful to see her so bursting with joy.”

“What did you do?”

Anna shrugged. “We came home. She had brought us some food. She was a kind girl.”

“Did she tell you any special reason why she was so happy?”

She couldn’t hold her emotions in check any longer. She suddenly collapsed, burying her face in her hands, thin shoulders heaving. Pavel held her. “It’s all right, Anna,” he said quietly. “It’s all right.”

Ruzsky took hold of her arm and squeezed gently. She was all skin and bone.

They waited until the convulsions had stopped and then stepped back and averted their eyes while she composed herself. She took out a handkerchief and blew her nose. “I cannot bear the thought of it, do you understand?” she said simply. “Those Sundays were my life.”

Anna wept once more.

“We’re intruding,” Ruzsky said. He stood. “Perhaps we could come back another time.”

“No, please.” She wiped her eyes again. “I would like to help.” Anna put the handkerchief away. “Please ask me whatever you wish.”

Ruzsky sat down. “Was there anything unusual about that Sunday, Anna? Did she say or do anything out of the ordinary?”

“There was an argument, that’s all I can think of. Not even an argument.”

“What about?”

“She asked me a question and I was offended.”

“What did she ask you?”

“It was unlike her. And I said her father would have been disgusted.”

“What did she ask you?”

Anna stared at Ruzsky. She was uncertain again. She glanced at Pavel for reassurance and then steeled herself. “She asked me whether I thought it was possible that the Empress and Rasputin had enjoyed intimate relations. Whether they had been lovers.”

“Why do you think she asked that?”

“I don’t know.”

“Surely, Anna, your daughter, more than anyone, would have been in a position to know the answer to that question.”

Anna shook her head sorrowfully.

“Do you think she was seeking reassurance for something she already suspected?”

“Someone had been poisoning her mind.”

“There have been many rumors. You must have heard them.”

“The work of revolutionaries. What do they want, these people?”

Ruzsky rose again and moved to the mantelpiece. “Anna, your daughter knew Rasputin. On the records kept by the household staff, it is said that she met him both at the palace and in Petersburg.”

Anna stared at the floor. “She would never have consorted with such a man.”

“By all accounts, he was able to cure the Tsarevich of his bouts of hemophilia, or so the Empress believed. That would have encouraged Ella’s approbation.”

Anna did not answer.

“Did she give any intimation as to why she was asking you the question?”

Anna shook her head.

Ruzsky glanced at Pavel, then took a pace forward. “We must go. Thank you for your assistance.” He leaned forward to touch her shoulder. She did not stand to see them out.

As they stepped out into the corridor and pulled the door gently shut behind them, they heard her begin to sob violently again.

They listened for a few moments, wondering whether to go back in and try to comfort her once more.

“God in heaven,” Pavel said, as they began to walk away.