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Each morning, for as long as the swans remained at Tsarskoye Selo, the Tsar would rise early for his usual breakfast of green tea and toast before making his way to the Great Pond. There, he would be met by the gardener, Liamin, who was in charge of the watercourses on the estate. Liamin would hand him a clean pair of gloves, along with a basket filled with bread crusts for the swans, which the Tsar had trained to eat out of his hands.

Pekkala was impressed at the amount of detail Detlev had recalled from his days on the Tsarskoye Selo Estate, especially since he had nothing but memory to go by, and given the primitive tools with which he had to work.

Father Detlev showed them to a bare table, and gestured at the only two chairs in the room. Detlev himself sat down on a small barrel, of the type used for storing grain.

Pekkala placed the bundle on the table and pushed it towards the old man.

‘There’s no need for me to see it again,’ said Detlev. ‘I glimpse the icon every time I close my eyes.’

‘I have a few questions,’ said Pekkala.

‘You came here to find out the truth,’ Detlev answered patiently, ‘and I see no reason to keep that from you any longer.’

‘Was this all your idea from the start?’ asked Pekkala.

‘My idea?’ Detlev breathed out sharply through his nose. ‘I would never have dared even to think it!’

‘Then who came to you with the plan?’

‘Rasputin!’ exclaimed the priest.

‘And when was this?’

‘One Sunday afternoon, back in June of 1915. Just as I was leaving the church, a car pulled up at the kerb. Rasputin was behind the wheel. He called my name and beckoned to me.’

‘Had you ever met him before?’ asked Kirov.

Detlev shook his head. ‘I’d seen him in the church from time to time, but we had never spoken until then. He said he had something important to discuss with me and asked if I would drive with him to meet a friend of his. At first, I told him no, but he insisted. “When you meet this person,” he said, “you will know that it was wise to have done as I asked.” I had only just begun my service at the church and I knew that Rasputin was someone of great influence. He may have been a stranger to me, but his reputation was not. In truth, I was afraid to refuse his request. So I got into that fancy car and went with him.’

‘Where did he take you?’ asked Kirov.

‘We drove across the Alexander Park and stopped outside a little house on the far side of the estate. Before we even reached the door, it opened and a woman welcomed us in. I recognised her at once. It was Anna Vyroubova. I often saw her praying at the chapel. She led me into the front room and there, sitting on a chair with a blanket thrown over her knees, was the Tsarina Alexandra. At first, I was so shocked I could not even breathe. I had seen her at the church, of course, but we had never actually met. I was so flustered that I couldn’t recall what I was supposed to do in her presence, so I dropped to my knees!’

‘You know who I am,’ said the Tsarina.

‘Yes, Majesty,’ whispered Detlev.

‘And I know I can count on your loyalty to the Tsar.’

‘Majesty, of course!’ Only now did Detlev raise his head and look the Tsarina in the eye. He had no idea if this was permitted, but his curiosity overwhelmed him.

What he saw was a woman in a lavender dress with a necklace of pearls which formed three strands about her throat. The thing that struck him most about her were the eyes. They looked sad and strangely empty. Deep lines, carved by worry, had trenched themselves into the corners of her mouth and round her eyes.

As the Tsarina returned Detlev’s gaze, her fingers tightened on the cane until the bone handle seemed to merge with her flesh. Then she turned and nodded to Vyroubova.

Vyroubova, who had been standing off to one side, reached behind a curtain and withdrew a small painting in a jewelled frame.

‘
The Shepherd
!’ gasped Detlev. ‘What is it doing here?’

Before the Tsarina could answer, there was a loud popping sound from the kitchen.

‘What was that?’ she demanded angrily.

At that moment, Rasputin appeared from the kitchen, carrying a bottle of champagne and several glasses wedged between his fingers.

‘That’s a Veuve Cliquot 1910!’ exclaimed Vyroubova. ‘I was saving that for a special occasion.’

‘Every day is special when you’re me,’ answered Rasputin. Then he glanced down at Detlev, who was still on his knees. ‘Is that where she put you?’ he asked the priest. ‘Or is that where you put yourself?’

‘Grigori!’ scolded Vyroubova. ‘Does your insolence have no boundaries at all?’

Rasputin fixed Vyroubova with a stare. ‘I take it you won’t be joining us for the champagne.’

‘She’s right, Grigori,’ said the Empress, in a voice whose gentleness caught Detlev by surprise. ‘Now is not the time. Take it away.’

Rasputin shrugged and walked back into the kitchen. A second later, they could hear the rustle of effervescence as he poured himself a glass.

Now the Tsarina turned her attention back to the man who knelt before her. ‘You have been chosen to carry out a very important task, Father Detlev.’

‘I am yours to command,’ Detlev answered solemnly.

‘The country is in danger, and God has chosen us to bring salvation.’

‘But how?’

‘In a few days,’ explained the Tsarina, ‘
The Shepherd
will be moved to the house of my dear friend Grigori.’

‘And you wish for me to guard it?’ asked Detlev, still confused.

‘No,’ Rasputin called from the kitchen, ‘she wants you to steal it from me!’

‘Why would I steal it?’ stammered Detlev, struggling to comprehend.

‘The only way to keep
The Shepherd
safe,’ said the Tsarina, ‘is for the world to believe it has been destroyed.’

‘You want me to
destroy
it?’

‘No.’ Slowly the Tsarina shook her head. ‘But I want you to say that you did.’

‘Say to whom?’

Once more, it was Rasputin who answered. ‘To the police,’ he said, ‘when they come to arrest you for the crime.’

‘I don’t understand!’ protested Detlev. ‘You would have me confess to a crime which I did not commit? Why not just hire a thief? Why give such a task to a priest?’

‘Because a thief would not destroy what he had stolen,’ replied the Tsarina. ‘He would sell it to another thief. But a priest would not do this for money. He would steal the icon and destroy it, because that was what God had told him to do.’

‘But God has not told me!’

‘No,’ said the Tsarina. ‘I have. Now, Father Detlev, you may get up off your knees.’

Detlev climbed unsteadily to his feet. ‘They’ll throw me in jail for this,’ he said.

‘They certainly will,’ she replied, ‘but I’ll see to it that you are freed again, just as quickly as I possibly can.’

‘But what will become of the icon if all the world thinks it is gone?’

‘It will be safe,’ the Tsarina told him. ‘More than that, you do not need to know.’

‘Nobody looks for something that isn’t there,’ added Vyroubova, replacing the icon behind the curtain.

‘And this will somehow save the country?’ Detlev asked incredulously.

‘God willing,’ said the Tsarina.

Rasputin emerged from the kitchen, carrying a glass of champagne in each hand. One of these he handed to the priest. ‘Drink up!’ he commanded.

Detlev stared at the glass in his hand, as if for a moment he had forgotten how it came to be there.

‘Do as he says,’ commanded the Tsarina. ‘It might be your last for a while.’

Slowly, Detlev raised the glass to his mouth, wincing as the sharp, metallic-tasting bubbles crackled in his mouth.

‘And that was the first time, and the last,’ said Detlev, ‘that I have ever tasted champagne.’

‘Why do you think Rasputin chose you for this task?’ asked Pekkala. He wondered if Grigori had simply spotted the priest as he drove past the church and made his decision on the spot to recruit Detlev into the scheme. If it had been anyone other than Rasputin, Pekkala would never have imagined such an impulsive decision, but his old friend had often acted entirely on instinct, and in doing so had walked a tightrope line between the genius that first drew the attention of the Tsarina and the recklessness that ultimately got him killed.

In answer to Pekkala’s question, Detlev only shrugged. ‘Perhaps,’ said the priest, ‘because he knew that I wouldn’t dare refuse.’

‘And how did Rasputin arrange for you to steal the icon?’ asked Kirov.

‘It was very simple,’ replied Detlev. ‘I was given a time to arrive at the house, when Rasputin himself would not be there. The door was unlocked, I walked in, and found the icon lying in an open suitcase on the table in the front room. By then, the frame had already been removed. I closed the suitcase and took it with me down the stairs.’

‘What happened then?’ asked Pekkala. ‘Where did you hide the icon?’

‘I didn’t,’ answered Detlev. ‘I walked to the Potsuleyev Bridge, as I had been told to do and there I met a man who took the suitcase from me.’

‘Can you describe this man?’

‘He was tall and imposing, with a face that belonged in a nightmare. He looked as if he had been summoned from the grave.’

Pekkala thought back to the man who had attacked him with a butcher’s knife. ‘Had you seen him before?’ he asked.

‘Never,’ answered Detlev, ‘and thankfully never again.’

‘Did he say anything to you?’

‘Yes,’ replied Detlev. ‘He said that when the police asked me what I had done with the icon, I should tell them to look in the pavilion on the island of the Lamskie pond on the Tsarskoye Selo estate. And that, you will recall, Inspector, is exactly what I told you when we spoke at Okhrana headquarters all those years ago.’

Pekkala recalled how, after receiving that information from Detlev, he had rowed across the pond to the pavilion. There he had discovered the charred remains of a frame which had once been inlaid with intricate silver filigree and semi-precious stones. Of the icon itself, nothing but ashes remained.

‘What did you do then?’ asked Kirov.

‘I returned to the church, knelt before the altar and prayed. One hour later, the police arrived. There was no trial. I never saw a judge. Within a week, I had been sent here to Karaganda, and I have been here ever since.’

‘When did you realise that the Tsarina wasn’t going to release you, after all?’

‘In 1919, when I heard that she was dead. And even then I hoped that someone might be sent to rescue me. But no one ever did. ’

‘Why did you not say something?’ demanded Kirov.

‘Say what?’ laughed Detlev. ‘That, on the orders of the Tsarina, I had not destroyed the icon, after all, but that I still had no idea where it was? The Tsarina would surely have denied it and who would have taken my word over hers? I am sorry that I lied to you, Inspector. At the time, I didn’t feel as if I had a choice.’

‘You paid for that lie long ago,’ said Pekkala, ‘and I will see to it that you are released.’

‘Thank you,’ said Father Detlev, ‘but I would prefer to stay where I am.’

‘In prison?’ Kirov asked, bewildered. ‘For a crime you didn’t commit?’

‘There was a time when I dreamed of seeing the Church of the Resurrection one last time,’ said Detlev.

Pekkala did not have the heart to tell the priest that the church had been destroyed in a battle that took place on the estate, back in the autumn of 1941.

‘In recent years, however,’ continued Detlev, ‘I have come to believe that there is nowhere else but here for me now. The truth is, I am closer to God in this garden, which I made with my own hands, than I ever was in any church.’

Pekkala thanked him for his time and the two men stood up to leave.

‘Aren’t you curious about where we found the icon?’ asked Kirov, as he gathered the bundle from the table.

‘Beside a corpse, I imagine,’ said Detlev.

‘How did you know that?’ asked Pekkala.

Detlev smiled at him. ‘Because everyone who touches that seems to end up dead before their time.’

As Detlev shook hands with the Inspector, he felt a twinge of guilt, like a pinched nerve in his spine. He had told Pekkala his story, as he promised, but he had not told him all of it. He thought back to that evening, when he and Rasputin had driven back across the estate after the meeting with the Tsarina, the drunken Siberian crashing through the gears of the beautiful car.

Suddenly, Rasputin pulled off the road as if he had lost control of the vehicle.

Detlev cried out and covered his face, convinced they were about to crash.

But there was no sickly thud of engine parts against the nearby tree, nor the glittering spray of shattered glass. There was only the sound of Rasputin, laughing quietly at the sight of the priest, whose arms remained wrapped about his head.

Slowly, Detlev lowered his hands. ‘What’s happening? Why have we stopped?’

‘So that there can be no doubt in your mind about the reason I chose you for this task, Father Detlev.’

‘What do you mean?’ asked the priest.

‘I am referring to a certain file, one with your name on it, safely tucked away, at least for now, within the offices of the Tsar’s Secret Police.’

Detlev’s mouth fell open. ‘That part of my life is over and done with! I made a new start. I am a priest now!’

‘Of course,’ Rasputin lifted one hand in a gesture of conciliation, ‘and we would hate to see any obstacle appear in this new and admirable path on which you find yourself. But a man’s past can come back to haunt him, if he is not careful with the present.’