Given how Sofya looked, Paul wondered if Valentine might suspect him of having compromised their security by engaging some Petersburg drudge to see to his material comforts.
‘My cousin,’ Paul told him. ‘Mikhail’s sister.’
Valentine threw one last look up the alley before ushering them into the house. He closed the door.
They had been speaking in English and Paul began making a formal introduction.
‘Sofya Ivanovna Rostova, this is—’ he stopped, realising he had no idea what Valentine’s Christian name was.
Sofya offered Valentine her hand. ‘How do you do?’ she said in perfect English.
Valentine glowered at her. Remembering the Cheka agent on the steamer, Paul couldn’t be sure whether Valentine would shake her hand or strangle her. In the event, Valentine bowed stiffly in the Russian aristocratic manner and said, ‘Honoured,’ without enthusiasm. ‘My name is Olyen. A nom-de-guerre, you understand. But if it’s all the same to you I think we had better converse in Russian. These days one never knows who’s listening.’
‘You said Lenin has been assassinated?’ Paul repeated once more, this time in Russian.
‘Well, as good as,’ Valentine said. ‘He was shot three times outside a factory in Moscow. They doubt he’ll live.’
‘Who did it?’
‘Some girl or other. They say her name’s Dora Kaplan and that she’s a Left Social-Revolutionary. Doesn’t deny doing it in the least. Maintains Lenin betrayed the revolution.’
‘Did she do it on her own or was it a plot of some sort?’
‘More trouble in the workers’ paradise, you mean? No, it doesn’t have anything to do with Uritsky’s assassination. It might be that Kaplan acted alone but it doesn’t mean the Bolsheviks won’t make the most of it. Relations between them and the SRs have been bad since the SRs tried the counter-coup at the All-Russian conference in Moscow last month.’
Cumming had said something about that to Paul in London while explaining the Allied reasoning for the intervention. The attempted coup had followed the SR assassination of the German ambassador, Count Mirbach.
‘We only got the Bolshevik side of that in the Petersburg press,’ Sofya said.
Valentine looked at her obliquely.
‘Look, old man,’ he said to Paul switching back to English again, ‘how much have you told—’
He stopped abruptly as if remembering Sofya spoke the language.
‘The Left Socialist Revolutionaries didn’t support peace with Germany,’ Sofya said to Paul, ignoring Valentine. ‘We knew there’d be trouble even though they backed the Bolshevik coup in October. They disagree with Lenin over the peasants as well as the war. They even supported the Ukrainians when Germany invaded.’
‘You keep up with political events, Miss Rostova,’ Valentine said to her.
‘A means to an end,’ she told him.
‘What end would that be?’
‘Keeping my head.’
Valentine chuckled.
Sofya didn’t share his amusement. ‘They arrested all the Left SR leaders. Even Spiridonova.’
‘And who is Spiridonova?’ Paul asked.
Valentine made an elaborate show of deferring to Sofya.
Sofya scowled at him then said to Paul, rather sarcastically Paul thought, ‘Maria Spiridonova? Hasn’t your mother told you about her?’
‘I’ve been rather preoccupied with the war lately,’ Paul replied tartly, not enjoying being caught between Valentine and Sofya’s barbs.
‘She’s the darling of the Party,’ Sofya went on regardless. ‘When she was twenty-one she assassinated Luzhenovsky at a railway station. She tried to kill herself but the Cossacks got hold of her first.’
It seemed to Paul that assassination was a habit the Social-Revolutionaries found hard to break.
‘Had a bad time of it,’ Valentine said. ‘Pretty little thing.’
‘She was gang raped,’ Sofya stated flatly.
For a moment no one spoke. Then Valentine rubbed his hands together.
‘Well, why don’t we have some tea?’ he said and looked around with the air of a man waiting for a volunteer.
Sofya sighed irritably when no one else offered. ‘Where is it, then?’
‘The samovar’s through there,’ Valentine said cheerfully, gesturing to the back of the house. ‘You’ll find everything you need on the table.’
Sofya stomped off down the passage.
‘She’s rather an ill-tempered young lady, this cousin of yours,’ Valentine remarked once Sofya was in the kitchen. He took Paul’s arm and steered him into another room.
It was dank and smelt of mould. Motes drifted on shafts of sunlight streaming through holes in the tattered curtains. The floor was littered with newspapers, books and a miscellany of other rubbish. Valentine picked his way through, kicking the mess aside. Against one wall a sagging sofa was half hidden under rumpled bedding. A rough pine table and two chairs stood next to it. Valentine pulled one of the chairs out and sat down. Behind him an icon had been fixed in a corner of the wall, bracketed by two candles. A cobweb hung between them suggesting it had been some while since devotions had been paid.
‘Exactly how much have you told her,’ Valentine finally finished asking, returning to English once again.
‘Only what I had to,’ Paul said defensively, taking the other chair. ‘Since I came here to find Mikhail, Sofya was the obvious place to start.’
‘You didn’t find him, I take it?’
‘No. I did find out that he already knows Admiral Kolchak, though. It seems the admiral was involved with the Kornilov coup as well. And Kerensky’s war minister, a chap named Savinkov.’
‘Boris Savinkov?’
‘Oh, you know him, do you?’
‘Not personally,’ Valentine said. ‘He founded the Union for the Regeneration of Russia with some of the other Right SRs — Lebedev and Sorokin. A strange bedfellow for your cousin and Kolchak, don’t you think? Savinkov instigated a rising again the Bolsheviks in Yaroslav, on the Volga. This happened before we left home. The Bolsheviks put it down, and pretty brutally too, by all accounts. They shelled the city and used poison gas. A lot of dead.’
‘Poison gas?’
‘Pretty gruesome, old man,’ Valentine agreed. ‘Does Miss Rostova know where her brother is?’
‘No. He left Petersburg a few weeks ago. He didn’t tell her where he was going.’
Valentine raised a sceptical eyebrow. ‘Do we believe that? Odd he didn’t take her with him. I suppose he didn’t want to saddle himself with a girl, even if she is his sister.’
Valentine’s implication was obvious. Paul had saddled himself with the girl. He felt a wave of irritation. It was all very well for Valentine, appearing and disappearing like some Indian swami whenever he chose, apparently without the slightest regard for his associates. Paul had fewer options. He felt more like a chess pawn. He’d been limited to a few jerky moves while Valentine seemed able to leap around with knightly disregard.
‘You might have let me know you were getting off the steamer at Copenhagen,’ he said, picking at an old wound.
Valentine waved an airy hand. ‘Last minute decision, I’m afraid. Couldn’t let the old girl telegraph ahead, could we?’
‘How—’ Paul bit off the rest of the question. He’d rather not know. He hadn’t yet rid himself of the vision of Tamara Oblenskaya disappearing over the side of the Hesperus. The expression on the girl’s face was still apt to creep up on him in idle moments.
‘I don’t suppose there’s a chance you brought my portmanteau with you, is there?’ Valentine asked.