Ruzsky went back onto the platform and returned to the relative shade of its central section. Shafts of sunlight illuminated the dust in the hazy air. Ruzsky gave a brief description of Prokopiev, but although the men at least appeared to understand him, they all shook their heads.

Ruzsky gave up. He scoured the platform as he returned to where he’d left Maria.

But when he reached the road, she wasn’t there. He waited for a few minutes and concluded she had probably gone to excuse herself.

Ruzsky took out his cigarette case, then returned it to his pocket. He closed his eyes and enjoyed the feel of sunlight upon his face.

Time stretched out. He waited ten minutes or more, then checked his pocket watch. Confusion gave way to very mild irritation.

Ruzsky returned to survey the platform once more and then came back out into the sunshine. Almost all of the passengers had gone.

He tried to relax, but a tiny kernel of doubt had entered his mind.

On the far side of the road, a lone troika driver was still waiting for his passengers. Ruzsky wandered slowly over and asked him whether he had seen a tall and beautiful dark-haired woman carrying a simple leather case. Although the man’s accent was thick, Ruzsky understood from his answer that he was certain he had. She’d climbed onto a car with two men and driven up the hill, in the direction of Yalta.

Ruzsky argued with him, but the man was emphatic and then curtly dismissive. Ruzsky turned around. There were two more automobiles waiting in a rank outside the station-no doubt to ferry rich bankers from Moscow to their homes on the coast. He reached into his pocket, pulled out a wad of money, and began to count it.

The driver said the journey would take three hours in a car-much quicker than the last time Ruzsky was here-and the first hour consisted, as he recalled, of a comfortable journey across the dusty plain past occasional monuments to ancient battlefields.

After that, they wound up through valleys and golden hills to the gray gateway of Aie Petri miles above the sea. As they passed it, Ruzsky began to feel sick and grew tired of the interminable twists of the descent, past crowded Tartar villages and great white villas with stone-walled gardens and baby cypress trees.

Their journey was slowed by the many simple Tartar pony-trap carriages, but eventually Ruzsky caught sight of the bay of Ghurzuf and the white town huddled untidily along the shore, brilliant in the midday sunshine.

He pulled himself upright as the cab wound slowly down toward the bay. It was just as he remembered it: an azure sea beneath cloudless skies. In more than just a geographical sense, this elegant town was a long way from the Empire’s frozen capital. A two-day journey transported one to a different world.

Ruzsky asked to be dropped off at the top of the hill and, with his bag on his shoulder, he strolled briskly down narrow alleys, past colorful Tartar houses, to the seafront.

The Oreanda Hotel, with its giant blue awning, faced the promenade and Ruzsky had fondly imagined that they would be able to claim they were on police business and insist on staying here for nothing, but the hotel was smarter than he recalled and he doubted the wisdom of this plan as he walked through its cool, airy hallway to the reception desk.

In front of him, a swarthy man in a dark red and gold uniform was talking to a colleague next to a tall palm tree. A fan turned on the desk. The man ambled forward, smiling. “Can I help you, sir?”

“I’m here to check in. Chief Investigator Ruzsky from Petrograd.”

“Yes, sir.” Ruzsky had wanted the attendant to be impressed, but he wasn’t. “Your colleague told us you would be arriving.”

“Is he here?”

“I do not believe so. I have not seen him this morning.” The man turned and examined the rack behind him for Pavel’s key. “He must have taken his key with him, sir.”

“Is there a message?”

The attendant shook his head.

“Which room is he in?”

“Number eleven. Next to your own.”

Ruzsky filled out the form he was given and took possession of his key. He waved away the offer of assistance from the porter and climbed the wide stone steps to the first floor. He knocked on the door of number eleven, but there was no answer, so he slipped into his own room. It was large and airy with a small balcony overlooking the sea. It had dark wooden floors and a large, four-poster bed. Ruzsky stepped onto the balcony. Even though it was only one floor up, the breeze seemed stronger here.

Ruzsky put his hands in his pockets and gazed out over the shimmering water. Above him, craggy mountains rose majestically toward the sky. It was the most romantic place in the world, and the thought left a dull ache in the pit of his stomach.

Ruzsky slipped back inside and tried to turn his mind to the job he had come here to do. He shut the windows, then sat at the desk and wrote Pavel a note on the headed paper the hotel provided, the sun streaming onto his face.

Outside, he knocked once more on Pavel’s door to be sure he was not there and then slipped the note beneath it.

34

T he chief of police in Yalta ’s tiny station was a more important post than this leafy, sun-kissed town might otherwise have merited, on account of the proximity of the Tsar’s summer palace at Livadia, a car or troika journey up the hill.

Godorkin was still older than Ruzsky had expected. He was tall and lean, with wavy brown hair and a clean-shaven, narrow, but pleasant face. He had steady eyes and a relaxed air and held himself like the former military officer that Ruzsky soon learned he was. He’d come here for the weather, he said. His family was from outside Odessa. There were sketches on the wall depicting officers of the Ataman Cossacks regiment on horseback, and photographs of five children on his desk. Godorkin was not, Ruzsky was relieved to conclude, Vasilyev’s man.

He sat, legs crossed, behind a wide teak desk. He lit a cigarette and offered Ruzsky one.

As he sucked in the smoke, Ruzsky tried to imagine Vasilyev sitting in that chair and wondered what kind of ambition could drive a man from such serene and peaceful surroundings to the frozen back alleys of the nation’s capital.

“Did you know Vasilyev?” Ruzsky asked.

“Met him once. Years ago. There have been two other chiefs between us. And three governors.” He leaned back in his chair and smiled, blowing a plume of smoke up toward the roof. “The weather didn’t agree with them.” There was a quiet knock and Godorkin’s plump secretary bustled in with a tray and two cups of tea. She smiled shyly and withdrew.

Ruzsky considered asking about Maria’s father, but thought better of it. Perhaps later.

Godorkin leaned forward and pushed a sheet of paper across the desk toward him. “Your colleague left this list with us, just in case we could come up with something else, but I’m afraid we haven’t.”

It was a note of the victims in Petersburg in Pavel’s handwriting: Ella Kovyil. Robert White/Whitewater. Boris Markov.

“As I told your colleague,” Godorkin said, “Whitewater is on our wanted list. That’s why I responded to your telegram.”

“Wanted for what?”

“Armed robbery. He is suspected of having held up the train from Simferopol to Kharkov.”

“Recently?”

“In 1910.”

Ruzsky frowned. “Not on his own?”

Godorkin shrugged. “He had accomplices, of course.”

Perhaps it was his imagination, but Ruzsky sensed that the genial detective was embarrassed. “It was before your time?”

“Yes, I’m glad to say.” Godorkin leaned forward on his desk, suddenly every inch the army officer. “There’s no excuse for it. Just because a case is old, it doesn’t mean that it should be forgotten.” He leaned back again, waving his arm. This was clearly not the first time he had been exercised by this subject. “It’s damned difficult getting to grips with old cases when there are no files.”