‘You’ve done incredibly well, Grandmama. I’m so proud of you. Now tell us about Tamara Kerenkova,’ said Natasha.
‘I will when you’ve run and fetched us all some champagne, my child.’ Elizabeth Bobrinsky’s success had brought a flush to her cheeks and new energy to her demeanour. ‘I’ve always said that vodka is a drink for peasants and factory workers. Did you know Mr Martin, Lord Powerscourt?’
‘I’m afraid I did not,’ Powerscourt replied. ‘He was an English diplomat. I have been sent by my government to find out what happened to him.’
‘I don’t think I want to know about that,’ said the old lady. ‘Look at the trouble I got into for knowing poor Mr Martin in the first place, all this rootling about in my memory like an old dog in an attic. Ah, the child has brought some champagne.’
As they toasted the old lady in Taittinger, Powerscourt waited for Natasha to ask the question. He hadn’t thought it fair to pursue it while she was out of the room.
‘Tell us about Tamara Kerenkova, Grandmama,’ she said.
‘She was a Bukilov before she married. I knew her people a little. Clever family, artistic rather than military.’
‘And what happened to Mr Kerenkov?’
‘He was a naval gentleman, I think. Maybe he still is. He was probably away at the time of the ball.’ Powerscourt thought that the Kerenkovs would not be the first naval couple to embark on manoeuvres while the husband was away. And he was quick to observe that there was no whiff of censure or disapproval of a married woman attending a ball without her husband.
‘You wouldn’t know where she lives, this Tamara, would you, Grandmama?’
‘Give me till tomorrow, my child, I’m sure old Maria Bukilov will tell me in the morning.’
Powerscourt suddenly remembered the words of the first Detective Inspector of the Metropolitan Police he had ever worked with in a case of a corpse with no name. ‘Give me a name and I’ll get you an address. Give me an address and I’ll get you people who knew the dead man. Give me people who knew the dead man and I’ll get you a murderer.’
8
Johnny Fitzgerald had decided to tidy up his study before he began work on Powerscourt’s queries. The study was Johnny’s special sanctum, a large room at the top of his house, twenty-eight feet by twenty-four, with fine views over the gardens of South Kensington. Very few people were allowed in. At this point Johnny was approximately halfway through the writing of his third book about British birds, The Birds of the West, which covered the country from Devon and Cornwall, north into Somerset and Glamorgan and onward into North Wales. Johnny reckoned he had stayed in all the cheap hotels he ever wished to see, though he remained resolutely cheerful to the landladies. A visitor to this room would have found it hard to tell whether there was carpet or rugs on the floor or even whether there was any floor at all. Papers covered it as the waters had covered the earth in Noah’s flood. They were stacked several layers high at the corners of the room. Ranged around the centre were drawings of some of the birds Johnny had encountered during his research, great birds of prey in flight across moorland or coastline, delicate warblers and finches and chaffinches to be found in the hills and the wooded quarters inland, gulls and cormorants and skuas that patrolled the cliffs and the sea. If asked, Johnny would have said that he loved them all, with a love so simple and pure he could not imagine transferring it to the more perilous world of human relationships. And, oddly enough, if you had asked him, he could have told you the exact whereabouts of every piece of paper he had worked upon. He had charted their position as accurately as any vessel surveying the waters of the great oceans of the world. He stood for some time, this January morning, wondering how to strike his camp. He looked rather sadly at some of the drawings, particularly of the seabirds, as though he was going to miss them. Then he got down on his hands and knees and made a series of piles of paper running in sections down the room. When they were all together he tied each one firmly with string and lined them up in order of assembly on a gap in his bookshelves. Johnny reckoned he could reproduce the chaos more or less as he had created it.
Johnny had already written to William Burke outlining Powerscourt’s concerns about the finances of Roderick Martin. He had launched inquiries in travel arrangements to and from St Petersburg with Rosebery’s butler. Now he was going to read all he could about Russian politics in a local library where they kept back copies of the newspapers. He didn’t want to sound ignorant in St Petersburg. It would, he thought, be bad enough with them all talking in Russian all day. Johnny had had a low opinion of Russian and Russians ever since he discovered they used a different alphabet. Different words were bad enough in his view, but different letters were beyond the pale. Like the bloody Indians, he said to himself. And after his session with the press, he was going to take tea with Lady Lucy Powerscourt and her family. Johnny Fitzgerald was godfather to the boy twin, Master Christopher Powerscourt, now almost three years old. He took his responsibilities very seriously, Johnny, specializing in crawling races across the floor and piggy-back rides up and down the staircase.
At around the same time Mikhail Shaporov, Natasha Bobrinsky and Lord Francis Powerscourt were having an urgent meeting to discuss what to do about Tamara Kerenkova, dancing partner of the late Roderick Martin. They had secured an address for her from Natasha’s grandmother’s connections near the Alexander Nevskii Monastery at the far end of the Nevskii Prospekt. Now what were they to do? Natasha was for immediate action.
‘We must go at once, all three of us, and call on her. We can’t afford to waste time. There is not a moment to lose.’
‘I’m not sure all three of us barging in on the poor woman would be a very good idea,’ said Mikhail. ‘It might put her off.’
‘Off what?’ said Natasha angrily. ‘Off telling us the truth?’
‘Well,’ said the young man, trying to be tactful, ‘how would you feel if three complete strangers were to call on you and ask you about your intimate relations with some strange Englishman? You’d have to ask some pretty delicate questions too.’
Such as, was he your lover? Powerscourt thought. And if so, for how long? If the affair collapsed, did you kill him? Or did your husband kill him? And where is your husband now, madam?
‘Lord Powerscourt,’ said Mikhail, ‘could you give us the benefit of your experience here?’
‘Well,’ said Powerscourt, smiling at the two of them, ‘first of all we do not know if she is still at this address. And however much we might all want to meet the lady, I do not think three of us is a good idea. I have had some experience of dealing with people in these tricky situations. The most important thing is to make sure that they do not feel threatened. In London I used to invite them to come to my house rather than my going to theirs. I felt they would feel less vulnerable in my home. Their own house with all its connotations and memories would not be contaminated by this awkward and difficult knowledge. So I think the first thing to do is to send Mrs Kerenkova a note asking her if she would like to come here for morning coffee or afternoon tea. And, I’m sorry, Natasha, I think Mikhail and I should see her in the first instance so he can translate for me. When we see how that goes we can bring you in later.’