Siberian Red

roses, which had been brought by express train from France.
    The festivities began at Khodynka long before the Imperial couple were due to arrive. At one point, reacting to a rumour that the food tents were running out of beer, the crowd stampeded. More than a thousand people were crushed to death, many of them falling into shallow drainage ditches dug in lines across the field.
    As the royal procession began its journey to Khodynka, the dead and dying were loaded on to carts and transported from the field, forming a macabre procession of their own. In the confusion, cartloads of disfigured corpses ended up amongst the lines of ornate coaches bearing the jewel-encrusted guests who had been invited to the coronation ceremony.
    To make matters worse, the Imperial couple were persuaded to continue with their schedule and attend the French Embassy gathering.
    Although guests at the party remarked on the obvious distress of the Emperor and his bride, the image of them waltzing, surrounded by thousands of bouquets of roses, remained in the minds of the Russian people. The royal couple had danced while their subjects were dying. And for a couple who were every bit as superstitious as the people whom they ruled, the omen seemed clear from the start.
    ‘In my dream,’ the Tsar told Pekkala, ‘it is after the coronation. I am at the French Embassy, greeting the guests. But there are no ambassadors, no heads of state, no cousins who are kings. Instead, it is the dead from the Khodynka Field. They trail their blood into the hall and the orchestra plays and they cling to each other with their mangled fingers and dance on their shattered limbs, staring into each others’ faces with their bulging eyes.’
    ‘The dead are dancing?’
    ‘All around me. The music never stops.’ The Tsar inhaled on his cigarette. A moment later, two grey jets of smoke streamed from his nose. ‘And they are laughing.’
    ‘But why?’
    ‘Because they don’t know they are dead.’ The Tsar swung his legs down from the bed and walked over to the window. Drawing back the curtains, he stared out at the velvet sky.
    ‘Why did you send for me?’ asked Pekkala. ‘You know I can’t protect you from your dreams.’
    ‘That may be true,’ replied the Tsar, ‘but with all that Finnish witchcraft in your blood, I thought perhaps you might be able to tell me what it means.’
    He already knows, thought Pekkala, only he cannot bring himself to say the words. That is why the dream comes back to him and why he will run from it for the rest of his life, scattering gold and jewels in its path in the hope of distracting the beast which is pursuing him. But the beast does not care about his treasure, and it will hunt him down and kill him in the end.

‘Four-seven-four-five!’
     
     
    ‘Four-seven-four-five!’
    Pekkala’s heart lurched as the barracks door flew open and a guard walked in, calling out Pekkala’s prison number.
    It was still the middle of the night.
    Awakened from his waltzing trance, Larchenko tottered back to his chair by the door.
    ‘Four-seven-four-five!’ the guard called out again.
    Pekkala climbed out of his bunk and stood to attention, bare feet cringing against the cold floorboards.
    The guard’s flashlight sliced through the musty air of the bunkhouse, until it finally settled upon Pekkala. ‘Put your boots on. Come with me.’
    Pekkala wedged his feet into the wooden-soled boots he had been issued and clumped after the guard. As he emerged into the Siberian night, the first breath felt like pepper in his lungs.
    He followed the guard across the compound until they reached the Commandant’s office.
    ‘In there,’ said the soldier and, without another word, he trudged back to the guard house.
    *
     
    While Pekkala was being marched across the compound, Commandant Klenovkin had been watching.
    Ever since Klenovkin had learned that Pekkala would be handling the investigation, he’d been dreading this meeting with his former prisoner.
    When Klenovkin had mentioned the murder of Ryabov in his weekly report, he’d had no idea that Stalin would come to hear about it, much less put Pekkala on the case. Nothing good can come of this, he thought, as anxiety twisted in his guts. One way or another, those White Russians of the Kolchak Expedition had been the source of all his troubles. As soon as they arrived, they had formed themselves into a gang which virtually took over the camp and even though most of them had died from