The group at the next table were now staring at them and Ruzsky felt a powerful urge to turn and look at the Grand Duke on the far side of the room, but he resisted it.

“It’s disgusting.” Dmitri drained his glass again. “It is all disgusting. But it is all over. We are on the edge of the abyss now, there is no question about it, and you should be careful, Sandro.”

“About what?”

“You see yourself differently from the way others perceive you. You know you’re Sherlock Holmes, but the mob doesn’t have the faintest idea who he is.”

“The mob? Isn’t that going a bit far?”

“No.”

Ruzsky shrugged. He thought the champagne was forming his brother’s words. “I’ll be all right.”

“You think so? Do you know that…” Dmitri looked ostentatiously around the room. “I’m prepared to make you a very large wager. Your annual police department salary, or more, that at every single table in this room, conversation has already turned to how much longer Nicholas II is going to be the Tsar of all the Russias. Boris Vladimirovich wouldn’t give him more than a month. And that’s just as a result of the five plots he’s involved in.”

“They always talk.”

“It’s gone beyond that.” Dmitri leaned forward and almost knocked over his glass. “They killed Rasputin for Christ’s sake.” Dmitri had spoken loudly and now they were definitely attracting disapproving glances. “The woman’s lover. And got away with it!”

“Keep your voice down.”

“Why? Surely you don’t think that is heresy anymore? Look in the faces of soldiers you pass in the street. All those who have been to the front know the truth. The regime is morally bankrupt. Finished. The occupants of this room chit and chat about what will replace it; the rest of the world waits for the whole thing to go up with an enormous bang.”

A waiter arrived with their fish. Ruzsky examined it for a moment, turning the plate in his hand. “C’est bien, monsieur?”

“Bien sûr.” Ruzsky smiled. “Bien sûr.”

“When was the last time you had anything decent to eat?”

Ruzsky peeled back the skin, then took another sip of champagne. “I don’t know.”

“You should come around to the house during the day, when Father’s at work. One of the servants will feed you.”

“Irina is there.”

“Of course.” Dmitri showed no interest in eating his food. He refilled his own glass once more. “Why is she there, anyway?”

“She enjoys the effect it has on me.”

“Surely even she is not that…” Dmitri smiled again. “All right, she is that evil.”

“How is Ingrid? You didn’t really say.”

“She is fine. Fine, fine, fine. Always fine. We tolerate each other. We always do.”

“She tolerates your wandering still?”

“In a manner of speaking. From time to time, I even wander into the marital bed, though I can’t say it is exactly a stimulating experience… It’s good to see you smile, brother Sandro.” Dmitri shook his head. “However, my occasional forays into doing my duty do not seem to have achieved the requisite result. We are heirless, unlike you.”

“Another reason why Irina stays at home.”

“I still don’t understand that. Her own parents are alive.”

“But not as rich.”

“She is a witch!” Dmitri laughed. Ruzsky had forgotten how much he enjoyed his brother’s company. “Burn her!”

The old men at the next table frowned at them again, but now Ruzsky was also enjoying their discomfort. He refilled his own glass before the waiter could reach the bucket.

“Actually,” Dmitri said, with a sly smile, “I have acquired another little asset.”

“Who is she?”

“That’s for me to know and you to speculate about.”

“So are you going to tell me, or do I have to beat it out of you?”

“You have my permission to try and drink it out of me.” Dmitri raised the champagne bottle. “Another, Armand!” He looked at Ruzsky. “After all, it is not every day you have a reunion with your long lost, deeply loved, elder brother.” He held up his glass. “I drink to you, Sandro. The only true Ruzsky among us all. And to the end of the Empire.”

This was too much for the men at the next table. Rather than risk a scene, they waved across the head waiter and demanded to move. The only vacant table was right at the back of the room, underneath the picture of the Standart. They glowered as they went.

“Pompous farts,” Dmitri said. He leaned forward. “They think they’re saving us, you know, with all this talk, but we’re doomed, and they don’t know it.”

Ruzsky didn’t reply. He finished his fish. “Have mine,” Dmitri said, pushing his plate clumsily across the table.

“I’m not that hungry.”

“You look thin.”

“I never look thin.”

Dmitri watched as Ruzsky cleared his plate as well. “So tell me about her?” Ruzsky asked. “This ‘little asset.’ ”

“I know what you’re thinking, but it’s different.” Dmitri waved his finger. “Three years, and no one else.”

“Apart from your wife.”

“Don’t mock. I’m a new man.”

“No more carousing until dawn? No more scandalizing society? Just one mistress?”

“You can laugh at me all you like.”

Ruzsky looked into his brother’s bloodshot eyes. “So you’re telling me you’re in love?”

“It is not, you know, solely the preserve of Sandro the poet.”

“Is she married?”

“No. She lost the love of her life shortly before we first met. Off to the war, I suppose.”

“She wishes to be your wife or is she happy to be your mistress?”

“She revels in the term.”

“Does she know Ingrid?”

“Now you are joking.”

“So who is she?”

“It’s a secret, damn it.”

“I’m not going to beg you to tell me.”

“It would make no odds if you did.”

“Nothing is a secret in Petersburg. It never has been.”

“Well you’re the chief investigator. You find out.” Dmitri smiled. A wave of hair flopped down onto his forehead. His nose and cheeks were red. “I shall tell you one day.”

“I won’t hold my breath.”

Dmitri looked up. “You know,” he said, “I would do anything for her. Anything.” He paused. “Have you ever been in love, Sandro? Truly in love.”

“I don’t know.”

“We talked about it so many times.”

“You scorned the idea of it, as I recall.”

Dmitri stared into his glass, then drained it.

“How are your soldiers here?” Ruzsky asked.

“My soldiers?” Dmitri laughed, perhaps pleased that his brother had changed the subject. “They’re a rabble, worse than a rabble. Do you know, there is not a single regular battalion in Petrograd. All the units you see are reserve battalions, full of peasants. Every time we go out on a training exercise, I feel this itch in the middle of my back and wonder which of them will shoot me first. It’s pathetic, not like the old days at all, but that’s what happens if you send Russia ’s best to be mowed down. Father came to dinner at the mess last week and complained bitterly on the way out about the slovenly way some of the men had dressed and how he’d seen several slouching while on duty.” Dmitri laughed. “As I’ve said, the older generation thinks everything is somehow going to stay the same.”

“If things are as bad as you say, what will you do?”

“What do you mean, what will I do?”

“You will leave Petersburg?”

“Of course not. Don’t be a fool, man. I’ve survived the front. What could be worse than that? If it is as bad as we all fear, I will go down in flames, all hands on deck, firing until the good ship disappears below the waves. Armand! Where’s our main course?” The waiter hurried away again and Dmitri leaned forward. “The service here is a disgrace.” He took hold of his brother’s arm. “I’ll assist you, Sandro, in any way that I can. I’ll bring Michael and we can arrange to meet. Every day, if you like. Ingrid will help. She loves Anton, and anyway, Irina is always out in the afternoons.”

Ruzsky felt his cheeks flushing again. Despite himself, the idea of Irina hurrying from the house to spend her afternoons with the bloated figure behind him-no doubt in a suite at the Astoria or the Hôtel de l’Europe-gnawed away at him. He thought of Michael playing alone in the garden.