The sky is still blue and the clouds white and innocuous, but twenty minutes later a thunderhead rolls in. Having decided to walk to the railway station, Nicolas is at risk of being drenched. He takes cover under an awning where a newspaper-seller is sheltering too. He hands over a two-sous piece for an evening newspaper, thinking he can improvise a temporary umbrella from its pages while he hails a cab. Then he reads the headline.

‘It said, “Murder: Jewish Plot Suspected”.’

General Skobelev’s body was found laid out on a pile of boxes in his hotel room, killed with a single pistol-shot to the head. The paper decribes him as ‘an ardent nationalist and supporter of the Tsar’. The inside pages have a diagram of the crime scene and are full of humiliating details: the hero of the Russo-Turkish War was naked except for his underpants; there was an empty brandy bottle and a book containing ‘the most scandalous photographic images’.

The circumstances certainly suggest some kind of honey-trap, but the leader-writers are careful to warn against a rush to judgement. It seems that, departing in haste, the assassin may have accidentally dropped another clue to his identity. The police are reluctant to release too many particulars, but sources say that a document has been recovered suggesting the manoeuvrings of a conspiracy: a cabal of powerful Jews, trying to profit from political unrest.

It is too soon to know, the editorial concludes, whether this will be borne out by the investigation, but the public interest will only be met by a full inquiry. In the meantime, community leaders must make clear where their allegiances lie. France has a proud tradition of offering sanctuary to refugees, and for this to continue, people must be left in no doubt: there is no room in a secular democracy for extremists of any kind. The paper calls upon the nation’s Jews to condemn the actions of this fanatical – though entirely putative – minority.

Subsequent newspaper reports suppress the more lurid details of Skobelev’s death and the Russian government brings his body back to Saint Petersburg for a state funeral.

Nicolas treasures a single memory of the general in his pomp, ten years earlier, in December 1877, graciously complimenting the defeated Osman Pasha on his defence of Plevna, while the mud around them lay thick with discarded Peabody–Martini rifles.

‘I was almost afraid to see him in the flesh,’ the general confided to Nicolas and MacGahan afterwards, ‘but he had the face of a hero.’

Whatever his failings, with his generosity in victory and personal bravery, Skobelev seemed to Nicolas to epitomise the virtues of manhood. Now the old warrior’s body is being carried joltingly by rail back to the country he has defended so long with his life.

‘I received a letter from my brother.’

The four foolscap pages of Yiddish contain enquiries for his health, affirmations of brotherly love, and the most harebrained idea Nicolas has ever heard. Avram’s planning to leave Kiev for good, with his mother, sisters, wife and children, and emigrate to Palestine.