But the bloody face haunts him for a long time. He thinks of Bessie. He thinks: Judas.

*

FATHER DAVID, the priest who received Nicolas into the Church, retains a soft spot for his converted Jew. Nicolas brings him a fine old burgundy and tries to articulate his feelings of betrayal and loss.

‘What is bitter is truly sweet, and what is sweet truly bitter,’ says the priest, who has a fondness for paradox. ‘The gift of poverty is to make us more attentive to the world; the gift of pain is to open our hearts to the suffering of others.’

The priest’s words are no comfort whatsoever.

‘Suvorin came to Paris.’

It’s strange to see Suvorin the newspaper magnate in these unfamiliar surroundings. He’s here on unspecified business, has taken an apartment on Quai des Célestins and invited Nicolas to dinner. Suvorin’s tired from the train journey so they order room service and Suvorin tucks into the minibar, mixing himself a Cuba libre with miniatures of rum and a tiny can of Diet Coke.

‘So what did you think of Demons?’ Suvorin wants to know.

Nicolas has read it finally and thinks it’s a surprisingly bad book: unlikely characters, a poorly worked-out plot, and a first-person narrator who can’t possibly have witnessed any of the things he’s talking about. Technically, it’s all wrong. But there are a couple of scenes that stand out with an unearthly power: the dissolute characters visiting the holy fool, Tikhon; the young people desecrating the icon. ‘I loved it,’ Nicolas lies. ‘So well achieved, and prescient.’

Some part of that is true. The book, now ten years old, eerily foreshadows the activities of People’s Will. Pyotr Verkhovensky, the novel’s dark and charismatic anti-hero, is a dead ringer for Pierre Verzilov.

‘We lost a prophet when Dostoevsky died,’ sighs Suvorin. ‘The last of the great ones.’

‘Well, there’s still Tolstoy,’ ventures Nicolas.

Suvorin waves a dismissive hand. ‘I liked his early stuff, but he’s lost the plot: all this vegetarianism, pacifism, bearded-guru shit. You know he even makes his own shoes? What’s up with that?’

‘I’ve been meaning to ask. They never said what happened to Verzilov.’ Nicolas picks up his club sandwich with great care and poses the question as though wondering aloud: ‘How did he actually die?’

‘He fell out of a window, trying to escape.’

‘From the basement?’ says Nicolas, unable to conceal his incredulity.

Suvorin gives him a sharp, reproving look. ‘One of the upper storeys,’ he says, through a mouthful of French fries. ‘Ganz told me you helped to ID the body. It was probably in a bad way.’

Nicolas nods and his appetite for food dies as he fails to suppress the recollected image of Verzilov’s mutilated face. He puts the sandwich back down on the plate.