A Game of Soldiers. Stephen Miller

by all means. Let’s be seen to do the decent thing,’ Andrianov said, marvelling at the gullibility of ‘patriotic’ men.

       FOUR

      Barely awake, Pyotr Ryzhkov was the last one to climb out of the carriage that had drawn to a halt on the shady side of the Nevsky Prospekt. It was his team and he had the training, the seniority, the responsibility…and the list. Hokhodiev and Dudenko waited while he fished it out of his pocket, and then stepped back to look at the numbers on the building. Behind him a troop of cavalry passed noisily down the wide boulevard. It was only the beginning of what would probably be an excruciatingly long day – a series of extravagant military ceremonies designed to ennoble the Tsar’s dedication of a new dock on the Admiralty Quay, a break for tea, followed by a special performance at the opera – all of it more of the tercentenary celebrations.

      ‘This is it, right here,’ Ryzhkov told them. It was a storefront with ornate bars that protected the glass windows: Nevka Fine Sterling. There was a pair of golden double-eagle warrants painted on the glass to show that the shop served the households of the Tsar and Dowager Empress. He went over to the door and tried it. Locked. He tapped with one knuckle on the glass as he looked through the window.

      Ryzhkov thought he saw a light inside. He tapped again, harder; held the list up to the window. The silversmith was a little man, maybe in his sixties, perhaps older. White wisps of hair that had come astray and a black apron protecting his white shirt.

      ‘We’ve closed for the celebrations, excellency.’ The old Jew was bowing and backing through the showroom as Ryzhkov pushed his way into the shop. An equally old woman peeked out from the back. The daughter came down the stairs. She was dressed in black and held a pair of binoculars in her hand.

      ‘You have to leave, Father,’ Ryzhkov said, smiling. ‘Sorry.’

      ‘But we’re closed, and…’

      ‘Hey!’ Hokhodiev said sharply from over in the corner where he was inspecting a display of silver samovars. The family had taken all of their merchandise out of the window for the day. There was an extra rack of bars that closed over the window from the inside of the shop. They probably had a safe in the back somewhere, Ryzhkov thought.

      ‘We’ve got you on our list. You have to clear out, eh?’ Ryzhkov held up the list so the old man could see it. As if the presence of the paper explained why a Jewish silversmith might be suspected of wanting to murder the Tsar.

      ‘We’re closed,’ the girl on the stairs said.

      Dudenko walked over to the bottom of the stairs. ‘You have to close and lock the upstairs windows, too. Didn’t they tell you that?’ The mother came out from the back and scurried over to put herself between Dudenko and her daughter. ‘I’ll do it,’ the girl said to her mother.

      ‘Go up with them,’ Ryzhkov said. ‘Don’t worry,’ he said to the old man. ‘He’s from Kiev.’

      ‘We were going to watch from upstairs, where will we go?’

      ‘Go home, or watch down on the corner, what about that?’ Ryzhkov said, trying to help a little. There were a lot of things about his job that he didn’t like, things he couldn’t escape, things that were just part of the atmosphere.

      ‘Yes…’ the old man said, staring at Ryzhkov’s chest, his hands clutching his apron. Upstairs Ryzhkov could hear Dudenko and the women shutting up the windows.

      ‘How did a family of Jews wind up with a shopfront on the Nevsky?’ he finally said, to break the silence while they waited.

      The old man looked up at him, a little confused. ‘We inherited from my wife’s uncle. We were very fortunate,’ the old man trailed off. Ryzhkov shook his head. Why they wanted to watch the Tsar ride by when an Imperial eye-blink could exile them all to the Pale mystified him. ‘Well, just go for a walk somewhere. Anything. But you can’t stay here.’

      Hokhodiev had lifted the samovar and was checking the workmanship on the base. The old man was watching him with alarm, one hand floating out, too frightened to ask him to put it down. The girl had come back down.

      ‘How long is this going to take?’ she said. Her voice was sullen and her face was red.

      ‘Well, how can I say? It’s not up to me. You know these priests, they go on and on. No one knows. When the Tsar is ready to go home, I suppose. Come back around two, that ought to be long enough,’ Ryzhkov said, trying to smile a little so she’d go along with the dance.

      ‘Yes, yes, of course. Two.’ The old man had overcome his fear, slipped around Ryzhkov and was heading for Hokhodiev, who had turned his attention to the valves on the samovar, screwing them this way and that. ‘Are you interested in this item, excellency?’

      ‘What? Oh, no. Just looking. Nice stuff, some of this.’

      ‘Yes, thank you, thank you.’ The old silversmith settled the samovar back on its base.

      ‘They can’t pray for all that time,’ the girl was still complaining. She had put on a jacket.

      ‘Probably not, but just lock up, now. We’ll stick around to make sure, eh?’ Ryzhkov said, and headed for the door.

      ‘Everything’s closed upstairs,’ Dudenko said, looking the girl over as he passed behind her at the bottom of the stairs.

      ‘Look,’ the girl started, still not giving up. ‘This doesn’t make sense –’

      ‘Don’t,’ said Ryzhkov, tired of it all, tired of cajoling. The girl stopped when she heard the edge in his voice. All of the policemen were looking at her. Ryzhkov reached into his pocket and pulled out his disc. He held it up so the Jews could all see that they weren’t just ordinary cops. ‘We don’t want to make any trouble. It shouldn’t be that hard for you to find somewhere to spend the day. Go and sit in a restaurant, but hurry up. We have others. We have a whole list to do before the procession starts.’

      He turned to the old man. ‘Tell her what’s what,’ he said quietly.

      ‘Yes. Yes, of course.’

      They went outside and stood around watching the street start to fill up. Women, children, families all dressed up for the occasion. Little flags on sticks for the children to wave when the Imperial family passed by. Dudenko looked around and saw Ryzhkov’s sour expression and then looked away out into the street. Sometimes it was better to just leave Ryzhkov alone when he was looking like that.

      ‘What’s wrong?’ Hokhodiev asked, seeing Ryzhkov’s expression and watching him reach up and rub his jaw. ‘Are you sick? Toothache?’

      ‘I don’t know, maybe.’

      ‘Hmm. You’re not going to make a mess, are you?’ Hokhodiev asked, frowning.

      ‘No. It’s not like that,’ Ryzhkov muttered. The pain went away as fast as it had come.

      Ryzhkov consulted the list and they moved further down the wide limestone pavements of the Nevsky. They followed the Jews to make sure they didn’t just come straight back. Dudenko still had his eyes on the girl. Hokhodiev looked over and nudged the young man out of his reverie. ‘You could convert, eh? I think she liked your dominating personality back there, you know? Having you visiting her bedroom, and all,’ he laughed.

      ‘Go screw yourself, Kostya,’ Dudenko said, but he still kept looking at the girl.

      ‘Here we are. This place here.’ Ryzhkov had found the next address. They ascended a narrow staircase that led to a set of offices used by three different suspect newspapers. The names of the publications had been painted on one of the glass doors, Beacon, Russian Alert! and Popular Knowledge. They banged on the main door that was marked as the entrance, and then went along the corridor banging on all the doors but no one answered.