“I know how it might look,” Ruzsky said softly, “but it’s not like that.”

“Love is blind.”

Ruzsky shook his head. “I understand what you say and why, but it’s-”

“It’s about faith.”

“Yes.”

“Well… I trust your judgment. More than anyone’s,” Pavel said.

“Why don’t you stay here. I’ll-”

“From now on, we stick together. What was Borodin doing in Yalta?”

“I don’t know,” Ruzsky replied.

“This is the same man… the Bolshevik?”

“I assume so.”

“Well, what about the American. What was he doing here?”

Ruzsky shook his head.

36

T he sanatorium stood high on the hill overlooking the bay and Ruzsky and Pavel watched its entrance closely as the red dawn stole through the trees around them.

A nurse in a starched white apron with a cross on her chest wheeled an officer in uniform out of the wide doorway and slowly down the gravel drive. On the still morning air, Ruzsky heard a terrible, hacking cough from inside the hospital’s entrance.

They could discern no sign of Prokopiev’s men, but Ruzsky found it difficult to concentrate on the possibility of danger. If Maria had no sister here, as Pavel suspected, she was a liar and he’d been played for a fool.

Ruzsky stood. He nodded at Pavel and walked down the grassy bank to the curved stone porch. The sign next to the entrance announced that this was the Yalta Convalescent Home, but a newly painted one above the reception desk bore the title Tatyana Committee Convalescent Home. A large icon hung on the wall next to it.

The charitable initiatives of the Tsar’s second daughter still had a long reach.

The elderly porter summoned a nurse. She was a stiff, formal woman in her fifties or sixties with dark hair pulled back from her forehead and tied behind her neck. Ruzsky realized that he must look disheveled and scruffy. He had not shaved and could feel the fatigue behind his eyes.

“Popova?” she said, in response to his inquiry. “No. We have no one of that name.”

The nurse frowned in response to the desolation he could not keep from his face. An intense blanket of loneliness enveloped him. “Who are you, may I ask?” she went on.

Ruzsky responded slowly, pulling the papers from his pocket. “Chief Investigator Alexander Ruzsky,” he said quietly, “Petrograd City Police Criminal Investigation Division.”

The nurse looked at his papers, examining the photograph and then checking his face. She handed them back. “You are a long way from home, Chief Investigator.” Her voice and expression were sympathetic, as though she sensed something of the scale of his anguish, if not its cause.

He did not respond. It was not possible, he told himself, that the emotion of those days at Petrovo was an illusion.

It still felt utterly real.

“What is it that you seek?”

Ruzsky felt suddenly, crushingly tired. He wondered if he should leave immediately; was this another trap? He scanned the lobby and looked over his shoulder toward the bank where Pavel was hiding. He could make out nothing amiss.

“What is it that you want?” the nurse repeated.

“We were looking for a woman called Maria Popova,” Ruzsky said. “But it is no matter.”

“Why do you seek her?”

Ruzsky saw that she was curious. “I’m conducting a murder investigation.”

“Is she a suspect?”

It was an odd question. “No.”

The nurse looked at him steadily. “I don’t know a Maria Popova,” she said. “Did you expect her to be a patient?”

“No.”

“A nurse, then?”

“No, not a nurse. She came down to Yalta from Petrograd to see her sister. She told me the girl was a patient here.”

Ruzsky saw a flicker of recognition and his pulse quickened.

The nurse shook her head carefully. “We have no one called Popova.”

“But the name is familiar to you?”

“No.”

Ruzsky waited.

“The woman I seek,” he said, “is tall, with long dark hair. She is strikingly beautiful. She-”

“We have a Catherine Bulyatina. She has a sister named Maria who came to visit her from Petrograd yesterday.”

Ruzsky’s spirits rose. “Bulyatina?”

“Yes.”

“Catherine Andreevna?” Ruzsky asked. Maria’s patronymic was also Andreevna. It was too much of a coincidence. They must share the same father. One or other had changed her surname. “The girl here is Catherine Andreevna?”

“That is correct, yes. Kitty.”

“Is she here now? Might I see her?”

“No. I’m afraid that will not be possible.”

The woman’s eyes were steely. Despite his fatigue, Ruzsky tried to summon up the energy to be charming. “We have come a long way…” He sought her name.

“Eugenia Sergeevna.”

“Eugenia Sergeevna,” he repeated, smiling. “It is a sad case. A young woman and her lover stabbed on the frozen river Neva.”

“I’m sorry for it.”

“It would help-”

“You said the woman is not a suspect.”

“No.” He inclined his head. “No, no, she is not. But she may be at risk.”

Eugenia Sergeevna hesitated, her eyes narrowing. “You would not come all this way for such a reason.”

“She has information that may place her at risk.”

“Information that you want?”

Ruzsky did not know what answer to give. His relief that Maria had been telling the truth was clouding his mind. “Yes.”

She seemed satisfied that he had conceded. “It is a long journey,” she said to herself. “Difficult in these times.” What she meant was that the reason for such a trip must be compelling. “Why could she be at risk?”

“The victims were colleagues of hers… friends.”

“Friends?”

“Yes.”

She hesitated for a moment more, then shook her head. “Maria Bulyatina returned to Petrograd last night.”

“Are you sure?” Ruzsky tried to keep the disappointment from his voice. But it did not matter, he assured himself. She had come here to see her sister, just as she had told him.

“I’m certain.”

“Would it really not be possible to speak to Kitty? Under your supervision, of course.”

“No, I’m afraid not. Her health is… fragile.”

“Miss Bulyatina must love her sister a great deal,” Ruzsky said quietly, “to come such a long way for only one day.”

The nurse appraised him carefully. “The war has changed many things, Detective, but not love.”

“Perhaps especially not that.”

“Perhaps. To make such a journey… yes, it is a mark of love. Sadly, it was not-” She checked herself. “I must be getting back to my work. I’m sorry we cannot be of more assistance.”

Ruzsky was taken aback by the sudden change in her mood. “Would you ask Kitty if she would speak to me?”

“No.” She shook her head. “I’m afraid that would not be appropriate.”

“Have you known the family long?”

“No,” she said.

Eugenia Sergeevna had half turned away, but something was causing her to hesitate. “Maria Bulyatina is truly at risk?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“Why?”

Ruzsky thought carefully before responding. This was not a woman to be fobbed off with half-truths. “A group of people she was once involved with… some time ago, here in Yalta, has become the target of a killer. Three have been murdered already, in Petrograd. So far as we can tell, the group had only three other members. Maria was one of them.”

“What kind of group?”

“A… political group.”

“Revolutionaries?”

He hesitated once more. “Yes.”

“Bolsheviks?”

“It is not clear.”

Eugenia considered this and then shook her head. “She did not strike me as that type of girl.”

“No.”

“You know her?”

“A little.”

Eugenia shook her head. “It’s not possible.”

Ruzsky did not answer. It was heartening to hear someone so formidable echoing his own judgment.

“You wish to arrest her?”

“No.”

“You are a policeman, however.”

“But not an agent of the Okhrana.”