Tamara laughed bitterly. ‘Disagreement? I suppose you could call it that. You see, Lord Powerscourt, I’d always told Vladimir when Roderick was coming. Always, so it wouldn’t be a surprise. Then,’ she stopped as if trying to fix a date in her mind, ‘round about the middle of last month he heard Mr Martin was coming, coming to St Petersburg. He didn’t believe me when I said I didn’t know. And I didn’t, you’ve got to believe me, Lord Powerscourt. Of course I’d have told him if I’d known, I’d have told all of St Petersburg that he was coming to take me dancing once again, I’d have been so happy.’
Powerscourt was growing used to the shocks now. ‘I believe you, of course I believe you, Mrs Kerenkova,’ he said quickly, and he did, ‘but could I confirm something you just said? You said your husband knew Mr Martin was coming to St Petersburg round about the middle of last month? Is that right?’
The young woman nodded. ‘That’s right. I might be a couple of days out, I can’t remember exactly. Is that important?’
‘It might be,’ Powerscourt replied, ‘but could I just get one thing clear in my mind? Did your husband send you out here because he felt you deceived him about Mr Martin’s visit? Or was there another reason as well?’
Potemkin growled as if he didn’t like the question or the tone. Mikhail scratched his head once again.
‘There was another reason, Lord Powerscourt,’ said Tamara Kerenkova. ‘Vladimir said it wouldn’t have mattered if Mr Martin hadn’t been English. Russian naval people are very annoyed with the English at present. I think our ships sunk a couple of British fishing boats on their way to Japan and the Russians thought the British were making too much fuss. Who cares about a couple of bloody fishermen anyway, was what Vladimir said. He said my affair with Mr Martin could make him very unpopular so he wanted me out of the way for a while.’
‘Quite so,’ said Powerscourt. ‘Did your husband give any idea how he learnt Mr Martin was coming to St Petersburg?’
‘I’m afraid he did not. Could I ask you a question, Lord Powerscourt? Do you know what Mr Martin was doing here, why he came to St Petersburg?’
Now it was Powerscourt’s turn to smile. Potemkin padded off to inspect the snow falling in the garden. ‘If I knew the answer to that question, my dear lady, I would be well on my way to solving the mystery. At the moment, I have no idea.’
‘Can I give you my theory? I believe he must have been sent here on government business. I’m sure your Foreign Office told him he was not to breathe a word to a single soul. Otherwise he would have told me.’
‘How did he usually let you know he was coming?’ asked Powerscourt. Visions of messages in a bottle, of coded signals hidden in the advertisement pages of The Times, of slaves with shaven heads, flashed through his mind. He had visions too of a mythical elderly relative living in a distant part of Britain perhaps, a sort of Scottish Bunbury in Martin’s life, who had to be visited every year in early January.
‘You’re thinking of some romantic roundabout way of letting me know, Lord Powerscourt, I can tell from the look on your face. It was perfectly simple. He wrote to me, that’s all, usually a couple of months in advance.’
‘Did he ever mention Mrs Martin, Mrs Kerenkova?’
‘Very seldom. She had him, Roderick, I mean, for eleven and a half months of the year,’ Tamara Kerenkova said bitterly. ‘I don’t think she knew what she had. I wouldn’t have let him wander off like that if I’d been married to him. Anyway, he wouldn’t have wanted to.’
‘Forgive me this question, Mrs Kerenkova.’ Powerscourt was staring straight into those pale blue eyes. ‘Would you have said your husband was a violent man?’
‘Violent?’ Those pale blue eyes opened very wide suddenly. ‘Of course he is violent. All those naval people are violent, very violent. They’re in charge of enormous guns that can sink a ship in a couple of minutes and drown a thousand sailors. I think that’s a rather naive question, Lord Powerscourt.’
‘I do apologize, Mrs Kerenkova, I wasn’t referring to his professional life.’ Powerscourt said no more. The young woman flushed.
‘If you mean what I think you mean, it is did Vladimir kill Mr Martin, or was he capable of killing Mr Martin? I must tell you the answer is No.’
‘You’re sure about that?’ asked Powerscourt crisply.
‘Lord Powerscourt,’ the young woman said, laying a hand on his arm, ‘I should say that at some point in your life you have been a soldier. I should say that if you were faced, in your professional life, with a charge of your country’s enemies, all racing towards you at full speed like those Zulus with their spears at Rorke’s Drift our governess used to tell us about, you wouldn’t hesitate for a second before you killed as many as you could. But in your personal life, I don’t believe you could kill anybody, unless perhaps it was in defence of your family.’
Powerscourt bowed slightly. Suddenly Potemkin launched into an enormous fit of barking. He raced out of the room towards the front door. There was a tremendous ringing of bells.
‘Please excuse me, gentlemen, I must go and see who that is. Forgive me. I shan’t be long.’
‘Mikhail, what do you think?’ said Powerscourt. ‘Do you believe this Tamara person?’
Mikhail cut himself another piece of cake now the coast was clear. ‘I think she’s a very good actress,’ he said. ‘I think she’s been rehearsing this part for days and days. And I’m sure she’s holding something back but I have no idea what it is.’
Potemkin charged back into the room and sidled up to Mikhail. ‘My uncle used to give his dogs very strange names, Lord Powerscourt. He had a retriever called Raskolnikov once and then he had a pair of hunting dogs called Nicholas and Alexandra, after the Tsar and his wife.’
‘Were they any use?’ asked Powerscourt.
The young man laughed. ‘He had to get rid of them in the end. Said they couldn’t make up their bloody minds which way to go.’
‘Forgive me, gentlemen.’ Tamara Kerenkova was back, smiling at her guests. ‘Those, believe it or not, were my nearest neighbours, only ten miles away, dropping by to invite me to a party at their house next weekend. Now, where were we, Lord Powerscourt?’
‘I am most grateful to you for your time, Mrs Kerenkova. It is nearly time for us to go and catch our train. Let me ask you this though: did Mr Martin ever talk to you about his work at all?’
She paused and looked at the fire. ‘Roderick wasn’t one of those men who have to tell you everything they’ve done during the day the minute they walk in the door. He used to talk to me about his work sometimes at the balls. I was amazed at how many people he knew at these functions, ambassadors, politicians, lawyers, financiers, all sorts of people.’
‘I didn’t so much mean at the grand functions,’ said Powerscourt, ‘rather when you and he were alone together.’
‘Pillow talk, do you mean?’ said the girl, laughing, and then something snapped inside her and her laughter turned into tears, tears which she could not stop.
‘I’m so sorry,’ she said, wiping away the tears with Mikhail Shaporov’s handkerchief, ‘I’m so sorry. You see, I told myself I had to be brave for this meeting and I’ve practised it for days in my head. I’ve tried to lock out of my mind the fact that he’s not here, that I’ll never see him again. It’s hardly any time at all since I heard of Roderick’s death, you see.’ She broke down again. The two men waited. Potemkin came to snuggle up beside his mistress. ‘I wanted to be cheerful and happy and English stiff upper lip and now I’ve let myself down.’
‘You haven’t let yourself down at all, Mrs Kerenkova,’ said Powerscourt in his most emollient tones. ‘You’ve been very brave. Please compose yourself and we’ll take our leave of you.’
The young woman made a desperate effort to control herself. ‘I just want to answer your question, Lord Powerscourt. About Roderick talking to me about his work.’ She blew her nose loudly on the Shaporov handkerchief. ‘It was one day last summer. We’d just gone to bed. He’d been very worried all day and he wouldn’t tell me what it was. I went on and on at him, the way women do about a secret. I was amazed when he told me. “Tamara,” he said at last, “my government are about to do a very foolish thing. They’re going to make an alliance with France and they’re going to call it the Entente Cordiale.” “Surely that’s a good thing, making alliances with your neighbours,” I said, not that I cared very much who was allied to whom, nothing like as interesting as who’s married to whom. Roderick sat up in bed and looked very solemn. “There is only one reason France wants allies,” he said, “and that’s to find other countries to fight Germany. One day we will have to fight Germany because of this alliance with France and it will be terrible.” Then he went straight to sleep.’