“Who have you come to see?”

“Madame Vyrubova.”

“Vyrubova?”

“Yes.”

“You have made an appointment?”

“No. I’m afraid not.”

The officer looked suspicious. “I’ll have to ask you to wait while I telephone.”

“Of course.”

The policeman retreated to the small wooden box beside the gate, the guards alongside him. Ruzsky walked forward to the railings and looked through to the yellow and white colonnades. It was infinitely more modest than the Catherine Palace, its neighbor.

He turned around, took out his case, and lit a cigarette. It was almost warm now that the sun was out, though his feet were still numb with cold. He bashed them together.

He noticed two faces in an upstairs window of the house closest to the gate. He assumed they were also officers of the palace police, watching the entrance.

The aura of calm was deceptive.

He faced the gate again and watched a gardener chipping ice from outside the steps to the nearest wing of the palace.

Ruzsky thought about the faces of those waiting in the bread queue. Were they really talking about revolution? Now that people discussed it openly, he found himself recoiling from his earlier insistence that change was inevitable and desirable in whatever form. He realized now that it frightened him. He no longer believed that change always made things better.

He thought of the arguments with his father.

If only they had spent less time being so certain they were right… but then, the same could be said for the country as a whole.

“All right, Chief Investigator. I’ll get someone to accompany you.”

Ruzsky was so surprised that he did not answer. The man returned to his box and Ruzsky waited, his hands thrust into his overcoat pockets.

There was a sudden burst of activity as three soldiers ran down from the near wing to open the gate. A long, low black saloon car followed them, the yellow and black imperial flag fluttering over its hood.

It skidded on the ice as it swung out onto the road, affording Ruzsky a brief glimpse of the man inside. The Tsar of all the Russias glanced at him, before settling back into his seat.

One of the soldiers walked over. “I will take you.”

Ruzsky heard himself say: “I thought the Emperor was at the front.”

The guard gave him a sour look, but did not deign to reply.

They began walking, stepping onto the side of the road, into the snow, where the footing was surer. “How is Petrograd?” the man asked.

“Cold.”

“We hear only bad things.”

“It will be better when there is more bread.”

They rounded the corner of the Alexander Palace and saw a group of children playing beneath the terrace. They were making something from the snow-from here it looked like a house-helped by two men and a woman. As they moved closer, Ruzsky recognized two of the grand duchesses, the Tsar’s daughters, and the Tsarevich, his only son.

Ruzsky could not take his eyes from them. Just as with the car a moment ago, it was almost like seeing an apparition. If he’d told Pavel he’d witnessed the Tsar’s children playing in the snow-just like any in Russia -the big detective would never have believed him.

It reminded Ruzsky of his own conviction as a child that the Tsar was not in fact a mere man, but a being from another world. It was an impression that he could still not entirely dispel, even though he had once exchanged a few words with the young Nicholas Romanov at a New Year’s Day reception at the Winter Palace.

The Tsarevich laughed. He was a pale child, with a thin white face, but there was no sign of the hemophilia with which rumor said he was inflicted. As the guard led him toward the group, Ruzsky tried to tear his eyes away from the boy, but could not.

“Madam Vyrubova,” the guard said.

A round-faced woman looked over toward them. She was dressed in a long white coat with a fur collar.

“This gentleman has come to see you. He is the chief investigator for the Petrograd police.”

The woman frowned. The two grand duchesses looked at Ruzsky with frank curiosity. They were strikingly beautiful. The men-tutors, he assumed-stopped what they were doing and appraised him also. Both were dressed in long overcoats and suits.

Ruzsky realized he was staring at them as he would at caged animals. He had to force himself to look away.

“I’ve not seen him before,” Vyrubova said.

The Tsarevich looked like his own son. They shared the same gentle solemnity. As he watched, the woman drew the boy to her, but the gesture was proprietorial rather than affectionate.

“I’m new,” Ruzsky said, realizing he was required to offer an explanation.

“You’re too late.”

Alexei slipped his other arm through that of the older of his two sisters. This must be Olga, Ruzsky thought, or perhaps Tatiana. It was many years since he’d seen either of them. They were pretty girls. They projected a luminous innocence. Ruzsky thought of the caricature he had seen on the wall of the office earlier depicting their half-naked mother dancing with Rasputin.

“Take him to my house. I will see him there,” Vyrubova said. Her manner was imperious and dismissive. He turned reluctantly and the guard led him away down the central path.

Ruzsky glanced back. The group still watched him.

He was chivied on by the guard. The icy path had been scattered with small stones to give them a measure of grip, but his footing was still uncertain.

The path ran through a long line of trees which stood out starkly against the snowy landscape around them. Ruzsky could see the Catherine Palace to his left and he stopped as he reached the point where the paths leading to both palaces met. He could still see the children playing beneath the curved terrace behind him. The guard chivied him again.

They passed a chapel. “Is that where they buried him?” Ruzsky asked. “Rasputin, I mean.”

The guard stopped suddenly, his face severe. “You have no power or jurisdiction here, is that understood?” Ruzsky noticed how red the man’s cheeks were from the cold, the capillaries so pronounced that they reminded him of the painted wooden maps they’d studied at school. “This is the home of the Tsar of all the Russias. You will confine yourself to addressing Madam Vyrubova, and no one else.”

Ruzsky concealed his irritation at this unnecessarily heavy-handed approach and the man turned around and marched him swiftly down to a small house in the far corner of the park. It was a pavilion that had been transformed into a comfortable, solid residence, with a white wooden fence around its garden and roses curling over the sloping roof of the veranda.

Inside it was neatly, but not lavishly, furnished. The guard left him at the door in the hands of a young housekeeper with pretty dark eyes. She smiled and led him through to a drawing room. He accepted her offer of tea.

The room was bright, sunlight spilling in through large windows. Ruzsky stood with his back to a fire that crackled on the hearth. There was a framed photograph of Rasputin on the far wall with a collection of icons beneath it. Next to it was a picture of Anna Vyrubova sitting alongside the Tsar himself on a thin strip of sand in what looked like the Crimea. The last picture-next to a bookcase-was of Anna surrounded by the Tsar’s five children.

Ruzsky took a step toward her desk. It was arranged neatly, a pen and inkwell placed next to a pile of writing paper. On the right-hand side, alongside a small carriage clock, the Tsarina stared out at him severely from an ornate silver frame.

He heard someone coming through the front door and returned to his position in the center of the room.

Vyrubova looked at him for a moment as she entered. “What do you want?”

“I-”

“You didn’t come and see us about Father Grigory. If you are indeed the chief investigator, we should have seen you then.”