‘“Ee, preedya na mesto, nazivayemoye Golgofa, shto znacheet: Lobnoye Mesto . . .”’ Kyesha recited the words in a monotone, as if he had learned them by rote, long ago, as any good Christian should have. ‘Matthew 27:33,’ he added.

  ‘And they came to a place named Golgotha, which means: the Place of the Skull . . .’ At least, that was how the French described it, presumably from the Greek. The literal meaning of the Russian term ‘Lobnoye Mesto’ was closer to ‘the Place of the Forehead’, though that sense was usually forgotten. It was now a phrase that, in reality, meant simply ‘the Place of Execution’. Either way, it was just a description of a rocky outcrop near Jerusalem two millennia before which had a passing resemblance to a human skull, and whatever the etymology, this place represented to the Orthodox Church and to many Russians the spot upon which Christ was crucified.

  Aleksei suddenly felt uncomfortable, sitting in the dark in this holy place, gambling with knucklebones, even if they weren’t playing for money. ‘Can we go?’ he said.

  ‘Just one more round,’ said Kyesha. ‘Look – I’ve already cast.’ Four bones lay on the stone floor, and Kyesha had already picked up the fifth, ready to throw it. ‘Who did kill Maks? For two.’

  Aleksei shook his head. He had no reason not to answer the question, but he felt a sudden urge to make life difficult for Kyesha.

  ‘For three?’

  ‘For four,’ said Aleksei.

  Kyesha considered for a moment, then nodded. He threw the bone into the air, no higher than he had done for earlier rounds. His hand moved at tremendous speed across the stone slabs as it picked up the other bones, faster than Aleksei could have managed – faster than any human could have managed, and the implication was not lost on Aleksei. Kyesha had plenty of time to pluck the last, falling bone from the air before it was anywhere near the ground.

  ‘So . . .’ he said.

  ‘Maks was killed by six Wallachian mercenaries, from a group that at the time numbered nine in total. We called them the Oprichniki, as a joke.’ Aleksei could not recall a moment when it had been funny. ‘Originally there were twelve of them, but Maks had handed three over to the French, who executed them. That’s why the others wanted revenge.’ There had been a time – a very brief period – when that was essentially the story as Aleksei himself had believed it, before he had discovered that all but one of those mercenaries were in fact vampires. He doubted whether Kyesha would have gone to all this effort if his concerns were not in some way related to that fact – it was more than conceivable that he was a voordalak himself; Aleksei had never seen him in daylight. But that sort of information could keep until Aleksei was more certain of its value.

  ‘What were their names?’ asked Kyesha.

  Aleksei pushed the knucklebones towards him. ‘That’s another question,’ he said.

  Suddenly, the dais in which they were sitting was filled with light. They both looked towards it. Aleksei’s eyes adjusted, and he saw that its source was no more than a lantern.

  ‘You can’t sleep here,’ said a voice emanating from behind the light. Aleksei was taken back for a moment to the French occupation, when enemy soldiers had constantly harassed him and other Russians who had remained in the city. But this voice spoke in Russian, not French. It was one of the guards from the nearby Saviour’s Gate of the Kremlin. Aleksei rose to his feet. He would have needed only to show the guard his identification papers for the man to be running back and forth between the Kremlin and the Lobnoye Mesto, bringing them tea and vodka and anything else they might ask for, but he preferred to let the evening end there.

  He walked down the stone steps, back into Red Square. Kyesha followed him. The soldier stood above them, at the entrance to the platform, waiting to see that they left.

  ‘Until tomorrow,’ said Kyesha. He gave a half-hearted salute and then turned away, heading down the hill towards the river. Aleksei’s journey took him north. When he was halfway across the square he glanced back and could see the glimmer of the guard’s lantern as he stood waiting at the Place of the Skull. The next time he looked, the light had gone.

  Domnikiia was not asleep when Aleksei slipped into bed beside her. He had kissed Tamara lightly on the forehead as she slept, and she had not woken.

  ‘Where have you been?’ asked Domnikiia.

  It wasn’t a question she normally asked. She knew the nature of his work, and knew therefore that there was much he could not share with her.

  ‘Just . . . seeing people,’ he said. ‘You know.’ He gazed up into the darkness, fixing his eyes on a ceiling he could not see. He felt Domnikiia roll over towards him. Her cool, naked thigh curled over his and he felt her cheek on his chest. Her arm reached across him and she squeezed him tightly to her. He stroked her long, dark hair. She said nothing. There was a melancholy to her that he had only known once before, many years ago.

  ‘What is it?’ he asked.

  ‘They’re back, Lyosha,’ she said softly.

  He was tempted to reply with a patronizing ‘Who?’, but Domnikiia knew him well enough not to be fooled by it. Ever since he’d seen that red lettering scrawled on the walls of his study in Petersburg, he’d known that, in some sense or other, they were back.

  ‘How do you know?’ he asked.

  ‘Yelena Vadimovna told me. There’s been a murder – at least, that’s what they’re calling it. A man. They found him out near . . . near where I used to work. But it wasn’t murder. She told me about the body. The blood. The throat. It sounds just like Margarita.’ The image of the corpse of Domnikiia’s friend and colleague Margarita Kirillovna lying on her bed, naked, with her throat ripped open flashed into Aleksei’s mind. Once he had had no further use for her, Iuda had slaughtered her. Of course, Iuda was not a voordalak, but in killing he had impersonated one. And though Domnikiia had not, Aleksei had seen the bodies of enough victims of true vampires to know that it was a precise impersonation.

  ‘That could be just exaggeration,’ said Aleksei. ‘Someone’s throat is slit and rumour blows it out of all proportion. It would have been at least third hand by the time it got to Yelena.’

  ‘I’d have thought that, if you hadn’t come dashing down here to see who left you that message. Did you find him?’

  Aleksei had not told her anything since his visit to the theatre. She had not asked, but now that she did, she deserved an answer.

  ‘He claims to be Maks’ brother.’

  ‘Maks didn’t have a brother,’ she said, with no pause for consideration.

  ‘Are you sure?’ Aleksei had thought the same, but did not share Domnikiia’s glib certainty.

  She got out of bed, and Aleksei heard her walk over to her dressing table. A light flared as she lit a candle. Aleksei watched as she bent forward and opened a drawer. She brushed her hair back over her shoulder, revealing her breast. He still felt thrilled by her. She turned her face to him, detecting his gaze, and smiled a short tight smile that said so much about their relationship. Then she delved into the drawer and pulled out a battered old notebook. She returned to the bed, placing the candle on the table beside him, and slipped back under the blankets. She flicked through the book, not reading in detail, but just glancing at each page, as if looking for something in particular.

  ‘You know you were always impressed by my memory,’ she said.

  ‘I still am.’

  ‘Well, I cheat.’ She held the book out to him; it was folded back so that he could only see one page. It was a blur to Aleksei. He had not noticed many signs of old age encroaching upon his body, but his worsening eyesight was one of them. He pushed Domnikiia’s wrist, moving the page further away from him, and held the candle close to it. The writing at the top of the page was largest.

  Snowman.

  He narrowed his eyes and read on.

  Aleksei Ivanovich Danilov. Captain. Lyosha.

  ‘What is this?’ he asked.

  ‘It’s my client notes,’ she said. ‘Every man who ever paid me to lie back and convince him he was the greatest fuck I’d ever known. And to convince them of that, you have to pretend that they made an impression. And to do that, it helps if you remember things about them.’

  ‘And Snowman?’ he asked.

  ‘I gave you all nicknames. Some didn’t tell me their names at all. Most lied. A nickname is easier to remember.’

  ‘But why Snowman?’

  ‘You saved me from a vicious snowball attack, remember?’

  He laughed and she bent forward to kiss him. He felt her lips touch his, but his eyes remained on the page. There was a huge amount of information, with little structure to it, just added as it was discovered.

  No uniform. Married. Son. Dmitry. Fingers. Marfa.

  Two brothers.

  There were dozens of small details about his life, his habits, his interests. And amongst all that, with increasing frequency and candour, descriptions of activities which Aleksei could not even have begun to describe in words, and yet every one of which he recognized with a mixture of embarrassment and pleasure.

  The last thing on the page was about halfway down – a single short phrase. The rest was blank.

  Miss him.

  Aleksei looked over at Domnikiia. Her eyes glistened. He stroked her forearm gently with his thumb.

  ‘You were very professional,’ he said.

  ‘Mostly.’

  ‘But I don’t think we want anyone else to see this, do we?’ he said, reaching forward and pretending he was about to tear the page from the book.

  ‘Hang on!’ She snatched the book from him. ‘I still need to check things sometimes.’

  He took hold of her wrist and pulled her down on to him. They kissed again, then he tried to grab the book off her, but she held it away at arm’s length.

  ‘Anyway, why are you showing me this now?’ he asked.

  She rolled off him and turned her attention back to the book. ‘Because of Maks,’ she said.

  Aleksei was glad she had her back to him, so that she couldn’t see the smile on his face deflate. It was no secret that she had slept with Maks, but it had for years been unspoken. There was nothing wrong in it. It was her job, but the depth of Aleksei’s affection meant that it pained him even now; not his affection for Domnikiia, great though that was, but his affection for Maks.

  ‘Here we are,’ she said, showing him another page, but keeping her hand over the bottom half.

  Robespierre.

  Eyeglasses. Maksim. Maks. Lukin.

  The nickname was apt. Domnikiia had shown an appreciation for Maks’ true nature that Aleksei had only learned much later. He scanned further down the pages.

  Mother in Saratov. Yelizaveta Malinovna. Two sisters.

  Only brother died in infancy. Don’t bring up. Innokyentii.

  ‘Innokyentii – that’s the name he’s using. Or, at least, Kyesha.’

  ‘So he’s not Maks’ brother, but he knows what he’s talking about,’ said Domnikiia. Aleksei had to agree, but his mind had already moved on from there. He’d never heard of Maks having a brother until Kyesha had mentioned it. Now he could see, almost at first hand, that the idea was based on fact. The question that now presented itself was, how had Kyesha got the information? He couldn’t help wondering whether the answer was staring him in the face.

  ‘Let me see the rest,’ he said. Domnikiia’s hand still covered the bottom of the page.

  ‘No!’ she exclaimed. ‘You don’t really want to see what it was that turned Maks on, do you?’

  ‘Don’t be silly. What I want to see is if there are any other details I can use to check whether Kyesha has got his facts right.’

  Domnikiia reluctantly removed her hand. The paper beneath it was blank.

  ‘There wasn’t really anything very special about him,’ she said, as though it were a confession. ‘But I didn’t have very long to get to know him before you scared him off.’

  Aleksei could understand how she might want to protect Maks’ memory by hiding how small an impression he had made on her, but it did not matter. Maks’ greatness had lain elsewhere. The more significant discovery was that Kyesha had not got his information from this book. It was preposterous to think that he might have, but the seeds of doubt Iuda had sown could germinate at any time, however stony the ground might appear.

  ‘So is he a vampire, this Kyesha?’ asked Domnikiia.

  ‘I don’t know, but it’s a possibility.’

  ‘And will you kill him, if he is?’

  Aleksei nodded. ‘Oh, yes.’ It was a conclusion he had come to within hours of first discovering that the voordalak was more than a phantom from his grandmother’s tales – that all such creatures must die. Nothing he had learned about them since had changed his mind. It had to be said, though, that beyond those he had encountered in 1812, he had not come across a single other example of the species. He had been on several wild goose chases since then – six, to be precise – but they had all ended in natural explanations, fortunately for the suspects in question. He would treat Kyesha with the same dispassion.

  Domnikiia took the book and put it back in the drawer. Then she snuffed out the candle and crawled back into bed beside Aleksei. They lay in silence for several minutes, but her breathing did not slow down to the settled murmur of sleep.

  ‘Do you have to?’ she asked eventually.

  ‘He’s come after me. I have to do something.’

  ‘What does he want?’

  ‘I don’t know, yet.’

  ‘You were lucky before, you know that. And now you have Tamara to think of.’

  ‘I had Dmitry then,’ he said. She rolled over so that her back faced him and said nothing more, but he knew that she understood what he had to do, for both his children. He reached over and his hand found hers. Her five fingers squeezed his three.

  Aleksei could not guess how long he had lain there. He had not slept, nor had he been wide awake, but as the day’s events tumbled through his mind he had realized that there was one problem, quite unrelated to Kyesha, that he had to deal with. He pulled his hand away from Domnikiia. In sleep, her fingers did not try to restrain him. He slipped on his robe and went into the next room.

  He had few possessions which he kept here; most were at the hotel in Zamoskvorechye, which he tried to visit at least once a day, if only to collect his mail. In the corner of the room lay a battered leather saddlebag – acquired even before Austerlitz – where he kept those things from which he dared not be parted. He lit the lamp and hauled the bag on to the desk. He knew that what he was after was in the small, left-hand pouch. Five thin sheets of paper folded into three: the list of members of the Northern Society he had stolen in Petersburg. He unfolded it and peered at the text. The writing was even smaller than Domnikiia’s. He could make nothing of it.

  He reached into the bag again, and his fingers felt what he needed. He brought out the spectacles. They had been Maks’. Aleksei had taken them from his body before burying it, all those years before. One lens had been broken, but Aleksei had had no practical use for them, not then. It had been soon after Tamara’s birth that he first noticed he had trouble reading. He had tried the spectacles, but even the single lens that was intact did nothing to help – in fact it made matters worse. Aleksei had struggled to remember a long-forgotten conversation with Maks about them. Maks could not see at a distance, but he could see close up. Old people – that had been Maks’ term, and Aleksei knew that it now applied to him – found it hard to see to read. A different-shaped lens was needed to fix each of the two problems.

  ‘And what will you do when you’re old?’ Aleksei had asked. ‘Two pairs of lenses?’

  ‘I’ll turn to Benjamin Franklin,’ Maks had replied, with a smile.

  ‘A long way to America. And isn’t he a little . . . dead?’

  ‘A man’s ideas live after his death,’ Maks had explained. ‘And you’re right: Franklin’s invention was two pairs of lenses, bound together in a single frame. One for when you’re looking out in front of you, one when you’re looking down at a book. I know a man in Petersburg who can grind them for me – when the time comes.’

  But for Maks, the time had never come, nor had any other of those signs of ageing that Aleksei had feared in his youth but embraced in his middle age as reminders of the fact that he had survived to grow old. He could still see at a distance, but he had gone, when reading had become too difficult, to that same optician in Petersburg, and had him make some lenses to fit Maks’ old frames. He avoided wearing them in front of Domnikiia – that was why he had struggled on in the bedroom reading her book. But now he slipped them on and looked at the names on the list.

  Fortunately, they were alphabetical. He found what he was after about two thirds of the way down page two.

  Grigoriev, V. F.

  Gusev, I. B.

  Danilov, A. I.

  Danilov, D. A.

  Demidov, E. B.

  Dmitriev, P. P.

  So Dmitry was more than just the piano player; Aleksei had never really thought otherwise. Dmitry would never have got into the club if he had not been trusted, and the look Aleksei had seen in his son’s eye had told him the truth. This was mere confirmation. But it left many questions unanswered. Simply being a supporter of the Northern Society did not mean being a supporter of all its methods – most, in fact, did not know the detailed plans. Only the inner circle into which Aleksei had insinuated himself was aware of the scheme, vague though it still was, to assassinate the tsar. That was, in part, why he had revealed the information to Obukhov, and intended to reveal it to others; in the hope that the realization of what was being planned would shock the Society into collapse from the roots upward. But Obukhov had not been shocked. Would Dmitry be, when he discovered the truth?

  Another question that raised its head was why Aleksei had never heard a hint that he and his son were, ostensibly at least, working for the same cause. Of course, Dmitry himself would not have mentioned it, but why had there not been even a word of congratulation from Ryleev or Obolensky, who clearly knew? Perhaps they understood security better than they seemed to – that any unnecessary discussion of other members, even fathers and sons, was a potential risk. Perhaps they simply hadn’t thought the issue important enough to raise.