I go in search of Mr Sokolov. He’s taken refuge in the kitchen. His face is white; his hands shake. I stand in front of him and look into his wavering eyes.
“We’ve read your telegram.”
“Residents are not supposed to read the communications, Miss Frocester… But I left the telegram on the desk, so you would see it and understand. Whatever happened on your trip today, it is nothing to do with me. I had no idea that anything sinister was planned.”
“I understand that now. You told us the other residents were not coming with us today because they had already been to the ice caves – but they never did, did they? If they’d visited the caves, Dr Günther would no doubt have collected some fossil samples there.”
“It wasn’t a very good lie. I didn’t want to deceive you. But I had to follow the orders I was given.”
“Come back and make it up with Emily. She flies into rages; it’s her personality. But also – we have a visitor for you to meet.”
It’s taken me a while, but I’ve warmed to Emily. We’ve been thrown into each other’s company, and many people have assumed wrongly that she and I are alike. That annoyed me, I must admit. Also, she struck me as quick to judge others, and opinionated in her communist beliefs. I saw her bravery in the February Revolution, but since then I’ve spent a lot of time listening to her strongly-expressed views. But she came through for us today, that’s for sure.
She, Rufus and I are in the sitting room. A farmer who spotted the straying horse kindly brought us back to Yermak. Throughout the journey, Rufus shivered with shock and cold, and could hardly speak. Now, he sits wrapped in Mr Sokolov’s dressing-gown, which is rather too small for his well-built frame. He’s been told that he can stay at Yermak as another of our motley crew oresidents, which he seemed delighted to hear. He grasps a mug of hot cocoa – a rare luxury – in both hands, and sips it, savouring the taste. Like long ago, his manner reminds me of a wilful and rather spoilt schoolboy.
“How did you get here, Rufus? And on a sled – with Ivan Horobets? It makes no sense at all.”
“Actually, it’s less of a coincidence than you might think. The reason why I’m here, of course, is Lord Buttermere. And because of you too, Agnes.”
He smiles at me under his brown handlebar mustache, which is now fringed with drops of cocoa.
“I’ll start my story at the very beginning. Back in 1913, as you know, I was at the top of my career: a celebrated pilot, on the brink of founding his own passenger air-line. That was my idea, you remember? For a few months, I was a household name on both sides of the Atlantic.”
Emily grins. “Even I’d heard of you – so you must have been famous.”
“It was the high life, you know. But it spiralled in the wrong direction. I was partying every night, drinking far too much. I hadn’t actually piloted an airplane in months. But worst of all, I was receiving letters – demands for money.”
“Blackmail?” I think back to what I learned about Rufus’ private life.
“Yes. I’d been watched, over a period of months, in London. I’d been seen with one particular gentleman friend – he and I had been spotted about town, if you know what I mean. There are people who are black-hearted enough to try to use that kind of information to their advantage. I thought I might have to quit England forever. In fact, ladies, I was at rock-bottom.”
Emily looks at me, an eyebrow raised. She’s realised what I already know about Rufus. I think about the way that, like Oscar Wilde, he would be an easy target for slanderers and extortioners. He sighs, and carries on.
“Lord Buttermere, of course, knows everything that goes on in English society. So I wasn’t surprised when, early in 1914, he contacted me and said that he knew all about the blackmail. But I was surprised – very pleasantly surprised – when he said he wanted to offer me an escape route.
I’d written several articles and such-like about my flying exploits; they’d been widely published. Lord Buttermere said they were well written, indeed inspiring. He said I had as much talent for writing as I had for flying.”
Rufus pauses. Looking at him, I think how easy it would have been for Lord Buttermere to manipulate him with a little well-directed flattery. He sips his cocoa again.
“Lord Buttermere suggested that I would be the ideal person to fill a newly-created post of Writer-in-Chief at the Anglo-Russian Bureau.”
Emily snorts. “Did you speak Russian?”
“I was put on a crash course to learn the language. It was hard work, I can tell you. Not my sort of thing at all.
I sailed to St Petersburg in May 1914. In Lord Buttermere’s view, war was imminent. German-produced leaflets were already circulating in St Petersburg, to tell ordinary people that the Tsar is a war-monger, that the Germans were their friends, and so on. There were also other leaflets, being produced by Communists and others in Russia. They were less subtle than the German leaflets. They simply aimed to incite anger against the Tsar’s regime.”
I nod. “I saw leaflets like that. They were horrible.”
Rufus can’t resist a snigger. “Mmm – you mean the naughty picture, showing Rasputin and Alexandra having sex! In fact, those leaflets did exactly what they were trying to achieve. They stirred people up against the imperial family.”
Emily buts in. “The leaflets were effective all right – because they showed what a lot of ordinary Russians were already thinking.”
I look from her to him. “I don’t quite understand. What had all that to do with you, Rufus?”
“The purpose of my new job was propaganda. I was to write materials to counter the effect of the German and Communist leaflets. The ‘hearts and minds war’, Lord Buttermere called it. The Anglo-Russian Bureau would publish the leaflets, and Okhrana would ensure their distribution.
It went passably well for a year or so. I enjoyed the work. And St Petersburg, as you may be aware, is a beautiful city, and the bath-houses are an especially civilized place of relaxation: London has no equivalent.
However, there was another side to my job. Once the war started, I began to receive messages from British Intelligence. It was my job to pass all that information on to Okhrana. For a while I was based in Ivangorod, and I saw there how Okhrana used that information. They executed a group of men as war traitors and saboteurs, on the flimsiest of evidence. It was sickening.”
He closes his eyes and shakes his head as he recalls the events. Then he then looks directly at me and Emily, his blue eyes wide again, as he carries on.
“There were other issues, too. Russia had taken me away from the blackmailers – but it hadn’t, I’m afraid, taken me away from my other problems.”
“You mean, alcohol.”
“Yes. I’m ashamed to admit it, but after those executions in Ivangorod, I just fell apart with guilt and horror. I sought oblivion in bottles of vodka. I still do.”
I reach out and touch his hand. “I’m sorry to hear that. Lord Buttermere told me about what happened in Ivangorod. He was crystal clear that those deaths were nothing to do with your actions. They are simply an example of the way Okhrana used to work.”
“Well – I took that business in Ivangorod very hard. Months passed in a haze of drink, trying to forget what had happened. But I had to keep on going with my work. My next instructions came from Lord Buttermere as a result of him meeting you, Agnes.”
“Really?”
“He met me in person in Ivangorod, in September 1916. He said that you and Professor Axelson were tangled in a web surrounding the murder of Svea Håkansson, and that someone had tried to kill you both. His intelligence suggested that your attacker was called Ivan Horobets. Horobets was, he said, a former Cossack soldier who worked as personal operative for a General Aristarkhov – a senior military man with strong connections to Okhrana.”