I look across to the next table. Yuri Sirko is smiling at me.
“Yuri! How on earth?…”
“Off duty. It is Christmas, after all. But I could hardly get all the way back to my mother’s home in Astrakhan… So I came to Ivangorod, for a brief visit: tomorrow I travel back to St Petersburg, although my duties are changing.”
“Changing – in what way?”
“Mr Bukin has had enough of me. He’s releasing me from his services, and I’m returning to my regiment, who are now based in the St Petersburg Garrison. But tell me about yourself, Agnes – why on earth are you back in this town?”
I’m getting over my surprise. I look at his smiling face. Despite the cold outside, it’s warm in this café; the collar of his serge jacket is open. Silly doubts still run occasionally through my mind about Yuri, and I can’t help glancing at his neck. There’s no silver necklace. I answer him.
“I’ve been at the Winter Palace Hospital, working as a nursing auxiliary. They sent me here to cover a staff shortage. Professor Axelson works at the Winter Palace too, although every time I see him, he can talk of nothing but Mr Bukin’s injustice, keeping us in Russia against our will.”
“And have you discovered anything else about Miss Håkansson’s death?”
I tell Yuri about Rasputin, ending with what I saw from the Petrovsky Bridge. He shakes his head sadly. “You are right. Rasputin didn’t deserve to die like that. He was no killer: just a con-man with powerful friends – and a thousand enemies. Anyway… would you mind waiting here for me, for a few minutes?”
“Of course.”
He pulls on an enormous fleece-lined coat, its collar decorated with odd triangles of coloured silk; he sees me staring at it.
“My own coat – much better than standard Russian Army issue! This is my most prized possession. It comes all the way from the Aral Sea; I bought it from a caravan of Uzbek traders in Astrakhan. So I will be warm enough for a little adventure outdoors. But will you?”
“I’ll be absolutely fine.”
In five minutes he’s back, his military haversack over his shoulder. “I have a suggestion, Agnes, as to how you and I might usefully spend Christmas Day. I came to Ivangorod in order to go on a little adventure, alone. But it would be much more pleasant to go together. So – would you like to see Tri Tsarevny again?”
Although there is no snow, white frost glistens on every surface. A rimed, rutted road winds its way out of the town into the countryside. It may be Christmas, but Russians are still working. An old woman walks along, bent under a bundle of firewood, and a man carries over his shoulder the bundle of dead rabbits he’s trapped. The scene looks like a painting by Pieter Bruegeclass="underline" I feel I’ve travelled back in time to the Middle Ages.
On one side the road is bounded by a high brick wall, clad in icicles and extending as far as the eye can see. Yuri points to a low arched doorway in the wall.
“We are now on the far side of the Tri Tsarevny estate from the main Dacha. That door is the servants’ entrance to the estate.”
“It will be locked, won’t it?”
“And I have a key. Bukin gave me one last summer, so he could send me on errands into Ivangorod.”
We step through the doorway in the wall into a silent world. The oak and ash trees that surround us, and the carpet of long-fallen leaves, sparkle with glittering ice crystals. There are no footprints anywhere on the frosty ground, but the line of the servants’ path is clear; it’s the only open space in these woods.
“Why has no-one been along the path, Yuri?”
“Because Tri Tsarevny is completely deserted. Petrov, who hires out horses in Ivangorod, told me that all his horses were requisitioned in September, to help transport stuff out of the place. Every item of value was taken, so as to deter thieves from coming here. Petrov also told me that now the winter has come, the man they pay to patrol the estate doesn’t bother to do his duties; he prefers to sit by a warm fire. No-one at all has been here, for a month or more.”
“So what might we find?” My voice sounds oddly muffled, as if the crystallized trees around us absorb all sound.
“Nothing, I expect. Miss Håkansson’s murder will probably remain an unsolved mystery. But at least you and I can tell ourselves that we tried.”
The path through the trees opens out. We’re standing on the frost-crusted shore of a frozen lake. Satin-smooth ice, gleaming in the pale sunshine, stretches maybe half a mile across to the line of little islands. I can even see the tiny coloured domes of the three Princesses. Beyond them, a dumpy hill is crowned by the many-gabled Dacha, jutting into the turquoise winter sky.
“If you prefer, we can walk around the shore of the lake; it’s about two miles. But I was planning to get there another way, Agnes.”
Yuri opens his haversack, and takes out four battered ice-skates. “I hired a pair in the town. Then when I bumped into you at the café, I went back and hired an extra pair for you. I hope?—”
“Yes. I love skating.”
“Then let’s go.”
I push off, one foot then another, then the momentum carries me forward. The glassy ice glides under my feet. Yuri sails along beside me: our breath fills the air in little puffs, like steam trains. He laughs.
“You’re not much of a detective, Agnes! Not like that famous Mr Sherlock Holmes. I have read some of those stories.”
“I’m not like Sherlock Holmes in any way! But why do you say that?”
“Because you should be interrogating me! After all, I’m a murder witness. The first duty of a detective is to interview witnesses. But you’ve not even asked me what I was doing on the day of Svea Håkansson’s death – that is, before I found the body.”
“All right. What were you doing that day?”
“Just after lunch, I’d gone over to the Third Princess; Rasputin had called for me. He told me he was worried about security.”
“In what way, worried?”
“I think he had a fevered imagination. But he told me that at night he liked to commune with God, by walking along the jetty in the dark.”
“Walking past the Second Princess island, by any chance?” I think of what Rasputin said about Svea. Ahead, the Princess islands are approaching us fast across the ice; I can now make out the low gray line of the causeway, on the far side of the islands.
“Yes – Rasputin said that was exactly where he’d been standing, the previous night. He told me that, when he was standing there, he had seen what looked like a human figure, going along the causeway in the dark. Rasputin said that the figure came from the garden below the main Dacha, and it went onto that little island with the storeroom on it. ‘You must take a look in that old store, Captain Sirko’ he said. ‘No-one ever goes in there. An intruder could have a hideout inside it, and never be spotted.’ Then he looked at me with those eyes… and at that exact moment, we heard a shot.
Rasputin and I were inside his house, near the porch. He was very alarmed, and said ‘Go and see what’s happening. I’m not coming out: someone might try to shoot at me.’ I went out onto the porch and looked around. I shouted to him that I could see nothing. After a few minutes he joined me on the porch, still looking terrified. He was staring anxiously here and there, but neither of us could see anything out of the ordinary. So I told him to stay inside, then I ran out of Rasputin’s house, along the causeway to the next island – and found the body.”
We’re skating fast; getting close to the Three Princesses. The birch trees that grow on the little islands look like clumps of white feathers, shining with frost. The only colour is the domes – gold, silver and copper – reflected on the lake-ice. We slow to a halt, and Yuri smiles at me.
“If the legends are true, we have accomplished a great feat, Agnes. We have skated over the top of a bottomless chasm.”