People Who Walk In Darkness (Inspector Rostnikov)

by Stuart M. Kaminsky

  It was almost one in the morning, and the slow dance of head lamps and glowing green overhead lights made Rostnikov slightly sleepy. His eyes were closed when, a bit over two minutes later, Boris announced, “Here.”

  Karpo stopped the cart and they all stepped out. Rostnikov and his alien leg came last.

  “Three tunnels,” said Boris, turning his head to each of the dark entrances.

  “Which one did the Canadian go in?” asked Rostnikov.

  Boris pointed to the one on the left.

  “It does not go very far. There was a pipe there many, many years ago but it ran out.”

  “Why is it not sealed?” asked Karpo.

  “Why?” said Boris. “Why should it be? No one goes in there.”

  “The Canadian went in there,” Karpo reminded him.

  “I told him it was pointless. He insisted. Americans do not listen,” said Boris.

  “He was not an American.”

  “He was a North American,” Boris said. “The difference can be measured with the thinness of a single sheet of very fine paper.”

  “The ghost girl,” Rostnikov prompted.

  “Yes, that is the tunnel in which the girl died in 1936 or 1942 or 1957, depending on who tells the tale.”

  “And the other day,” injected Rostnikov, “Anatoliy Lebedev, which tunnel did he go in?”

  “I do not know. I found him out here. Right there, where you are standing.”

  Rostnikov turned his head downward. The beam of his hard hat revealed nothing, not even a stain of blood.

  “I am going in that tunnel,” Rostnikov said, nodding at the tunnel on the left into which the Canadian had walked. “You two go in the other tunnels, the middle one first. How far does that go?”

  “Maybe a quarter of a mile,” said Boris. “Maybe . . .”

  “Forty feet short of a quarter of a mile,” said Karpo, looking at the Orlov map in his hands.

  “Go in, to the end. Check the small caves marked on the map,” said Rostnikov.

  Karpo nodded his understanding of the order and started into the middle tunnel with Boris shuffling behind him. Rostnikov stood watching the light from the bouncing lamps on the hats of the two men slowly grow more and more dim as they moved away.

  Rostnikov moved to the tunnel on the left and stepped in. It was definitely too small for the golf cart and not as flat as the tunnel out of which he was stepping. There were no green overhead lights glowing here. Only his lamp illuminated the dark tunnel.

  He walked, his bandit leg protesting.

  “The cave is not far,” he told the leg softly. “Tonight I will clean you, oil you, dry you, and place you on a pillow on the bed.”

  This failed to appease the leg dragging along the rocky ground.

  The small cave was exactly where the Orlov map showed it. Rostnikov removed the boards that covered it and peered inside. It appeared to be an empty space big enough for someone to fit in by crouching. On the floor of the cave, in a far corner, Rostnikov could see something crumpled on the floor. Rostnikov went down and awkwardly crawled forward until he could reach what he had seen. There was barely enough room for him to turn around and sit.

  He did not bother to examine the walls for traces of diamonds. He knew there was no real chance of his recognizing a pipe of diamonds or even a real diamond among the stones next to him. What did interest him were the two empty candy bags. He picked up the first and smelled the inside. This was no ancient relic. It could not have been more than a day old, if that.

  Rostnikov turned to his side and folded the two empty bags into his pocket. There was nothing else to see in the tiny cave. He began to ease himself out, this time feet first. Then he stopped. A light glowed outside the cave. Rostnikov pulled himself back inside the cave as the music began. It was a child’s voice, high and plaintively sweet singing “Evening Bells.”

  “ . . . tam slyshal zvon. f pasledni ras. I heard this sound there for the last time.”

  Rostnikov sang the next verse. His singing voice was not sweet, and he sounded not like a bell, but he could hold a tune.

  “I skolkikh nyet uzhe v zhivyky, tagda vesyolykh maladykh. And how many no longer are among the living now, who were happy then, and young.”

  The singing of the child had stopped and was replaced by a deep male voice singing, “I krepok ikh magilny son. Deep in their sleep, in their tombs.”

  “You have a fine voice, Viktor Panin,” said Rostnikov, “as does your son.”

  “How did you know?”

  “That you were the killer, or that the ghost girl was a boy?”

  “Both.”

  Panin was on one knee now looking into the small cave.

  “The report of the naked ghost girl,” said Rostnikov.

  It was quite uncomfortable in the small cave. He shifted, but it did not help very much.

  “Why would someone write a false report about a fifty-year-old sighting of a naked ghost girl? Answer: Because the person writing the report wanted me to look for a girl and not consider a boy. I met some very nice girls, but concluded that none of them was the girl.”

  “And me?” asked Panin.

  “You,” said Rostnikov. “When you killed Lebedev you left a very tiny piece of your knife blade inside him. On the blade was a faint trace of something my scientist friend Paulinin discovered. There were also faint traces of the same substance on the clothes and neck of poor Lebedev.”

  “What was this substance?” asked Panin.

  “Chalk. Not the blue chalk next to the pool tables in the recreation room, but the white chalk of the workout room. I am sure I still have traces of it on my sweat suit. I know it takes a very long time to be absorbed by the skin or washed away. I made inquiries and found that you have a boy who is on the Devochka Children’s Choir, a boy who, I am sorry to say, has great musical talent but is more than a bit backwards.”

  “I must kill you, Porfiry Petrovich,” Panin said. “For my family.”

  “Well, I must stay alive for mine. How do you propose killing me? There is not enough room for you to get in here with me, and even if your son is very small I doubt if he could overcome me.”

  “I would not ask him to do that.”

  “Then . . .”

  “I could shoot you.”

  “Too much noise. Karpo and Boris would hear.”

  “We would be gone by the time they got here,” said Panin.

  “Perhaps, but Emil Karpo is fast, and he will quickly be on your trail through the tunnel. One question,” said Rostnikov. “You hid your son down here during the day before the gate was locked for the night.”

  “It was not difficult.”

  “And then he came out and opened the gate from inside.”

  “Yes.”

  “And the other ghost girls, over the many years before you were old enough to do this, before you had a son to do this? All the children of people, like you, who stole diamonds and smuggled them to Africans in Moscow?”

  “Yes.”

  “Only you had no daughters, only sons.”

  “Now you know.”

  “Thank you. If you would help me out . . .”

  “I am going to have to kill you, Porfiry Petrovich. Do you not understand?”

  “It would be pointless. Emil Karpo is a very good shot and I believe he is somewhere behind you, watching, at this very moment.”

  Just outside the small cave the darkness of the tunnel was illuminated by two sudden beams, one fixed on the kneeling Panin, the other on his son of no more than nine or ten, who stood in dress and wig, a thumb to his mouth.

  “You tricked me,” said Panin, with a deep sigh of resignation.

  Rostnikov slid out of the cave on his back. Stones and pebbles tore at his jacket.

  “We trapped you,” said Boris triumphantly. “Do I get a medal? I would rather have that free trip to St. Petersburg and a job there.”

  “I will arrange it,” Rostnikov said, accepting a helping hand from Panin who pull
ed him to his feet easily.

  The child looked at his father and the three other men and began to sing again, but Panin stopped him by gently placing two fingers on the boy’s mouth.

  “There is one more thing you could tell us,” said Rostnikov.

  “No.”

  “I thought not,” said Rostnikov, knowing that his jacket was torn and, if he were lucky, his back only minimally scratched.

  “It is over?” asked Boris.

  “Yes,” Porfiry Petrovich Rostnikov lied.

  Oxana had a key to Jan’s apartment.

  Jan did not know this. It made no difference to Jan at the moment because the final few beats of his bleeding heart and faint pulse were marking the end of his life.

  Oxana listened at the door. Nothing. She knocked. No answer.

  She used her key. If luck were with her, she could search for the diamonds, find them, and deal with Jan later.

  She stood in the open doorway trying to make sense out of what she was seeing.

  Jan lay on the floor on his back. His shirt was covered with blood. Blood pulsed weakly from a black-red gash in his neck. Standing next to him, a pouch in one hand, a bloody knife in the other, stood Rochelle. She looked, as composed as ever, as she said,

  “Oxana, he called me, told me to get right over. He said you were in trouble.”

  Rochelle took a step toward Oxana.

  “He had a knife,” said Rochelle. “This knife. He told me to undress. He put the knife down and . . .”

  “What is in the bag?” asked Oxana, taking the gun out of her purse and pointing it at the French woman.

  “I do not know,” Rochelle said, looking at the pouch as if she had no idea what it was doing in her hand. “He had it, and . . .”

  “Put the bag on the floor. Put the knife on the floor and step back,” said Oxana.

  “What?”

  “On the floor. Step back.”

  “Is there blood on my dress?” asked Rochelle.

  It was Oxana’s turn to say, “What?”

  “I cannot go out covered in blood.”

  “Put the ba—”

  Rochelle dropped the bag. Oxana watched it hit the floor and open enough to reveal three small glittering stones. When Oxana’s eyes were fixed on the stones, Rochelle leapt forward and threw her elbow into the face of the startled model.

  Oxana went down on her back, her jaw searing, throbbing with pain.

  The door to the apartment was still open. It could not be helped now. Oxana would have to be killed quickly and the door kicked closed.

  “Rochelle,” Oxana gasped. “We can . . .”

  “No, we cannot.”

  And then there was another voice, this time from the doorway, saying, “The knife, on the floor. Now.”

  Oxana turned her head, and Rochelle looked at the doorway, where Elena stood, weapon in hand.

  Rochelle did not drop the knife. Elena fired across the room, through the window.

  “Drop the knife, Balta,” Elena said.

  Balta smiled and dropped the knife. The woman in the doorway had her knees slightly bent, and she held her weapon in two hands. She was solidly built and rather pretty, not a beauty like Rochelle, certainly not a beauty like Oxana, who was certain that her jaw was broken.

  Balta might have been able to dash the five steps across the room and plunge the knife into Elena, but it was a risk he did not have to take. He had a great deal with which to bargain.

  Balta dropped the knife. Rochelle’s voice was replaced by a somewhat deeper voice as he raised his hands and said, “You have me.”

  “Turn around,” Elena ordered.

  Oxana sat blinking her eyes, trying to understand her pain, Jan, and what was happening. Her gun lay on the floor next to the pouch leaking diamonds. Before she could consider what her possibilities might be, Elena kicked the little gun across the room.

  “You too, get up,” Elena said to Oxana. “Now.”

  Oxana managed to rise in agony.

  “Together. Backs to me,” said Elena.

  Oxana looked down at the body of Jan Pendowski. Her knees were weak, not because of what she saw, but for the pain in her jaw.

  Something clicked around her right wrist behind her. Oxana looked back to watch herself being handcuffed to Rochelle.

  “Ya ne pani’mayu. I do not understand,” Oxana managed.

  “To begin, you stupid department store dummy,” Balta said, opening his eyes wide, “I am a man.”

  Sergeants Moseyovich and Sworskov had gone to work doing what they did best. They closed off the street and called in the cleaning trucks and ambulances. Within half an hour the street was clean and empty, and traffic was moving again.

  Three miles away, in the back room of a church that had been converted to a small museum of icons, sat Iosef Rostnikov, Akardy Zelach, a young portly man who insisted that his full name was Laurence, and a very badly beaten James Harumbaki.

  They sat and said nothing while Iosef listened to the call that had come on his phone. He had said,

  “I understand.”

  And then he hung up.

  “Christiana Verovona,” said Iosef.

  There was no reaction.

  “She was murdered on a train coming from Kiev. She was carrying money just received from a model named Oxana Balakona for your diamonds.”

  Neither black man said anything.

  “I know this because the man who killed Christiana Verovona just told a police officer in Kiev,” said Iosef. “The officer has the money and the diamonds. I have been instructed by my Chief Inspector to let you get your passports, providing you have them, and escort you to the next airplane to Botswana. You will go as you are. Nothing but the clothes you are wearing. No money. You are never to return to Russia. If you do, you will be killed while attempting to rob an undercover police officer.”

  James Harumbaki considered asking “Why?” but he did not.

  “You agree to these terms?” asked Iosef.

  “We agree,” said James Harumbaki.

  Iosef had been informed by Porfiry Petrovich, who had been informed by the Yak, that it would be more convenient simply to get the Africans out of the country than to deal with the ramifications of their being in Russia.

  “Good,” said Iosef rising. “Then your stay in Russia is over.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  The meeting with General Frankovich could not have gone better. Yaklovev had arrived armed with a report on the successful breakup of the diamond smuggling network that stretched from Siberia to Moscow to Kiev, and probably well beyond. He also had some audio tapes and a thick file discretely marked “Frankovich” which he placed next to himself at the conference table, where he sat next to the General. The directors of three other departments and a Kremlin representative were also at the table.

  Yaklovev reported, was congratulated by the Kremlin representative and informed that the Office of Special Investigations had done an outstanding job. The Kremlin representative added that President Putin himself was going to send a letter of commendation to Yaklovev.

  Throughout the meeting, General Frankovich said not one word.

  Sasha appeared at the door of his wife’s apartment one minute after seven o’clock. He brought with him a small yellow stuffed bear for Pulcharia and a picture book about airplanes for his child, whom he had resolved to call Taras until the bearer of the Ukrainian name grew tired of it.

  Pulcharia opened the door. She wore a green dress he had never before seen. Over her shoulder she called out, “It is the policeman father.” And then to Sasha, “Did you bring a gun?”

  “No,” he said.

  She shrugged in disappointment and accepted the bear.

  Sasha stepped inside as his daughter closed the door.

  “Taras is here,” his son giggled.

  “I see,” said Sasha, handing him the book.

  Brother and sister, without a word, exchanged gifts.

  “Come in,” said Maya. “Dinner
is ready.”

  There was to be no small talk in the living room, just conversation over dinner at the small table Maya had set up there. Taras, who constantly repeated his new name, rocked back and forth in his chair and smiled at Sasha, who smiled back and, from time to time without success, attempted conversation. Pulcharia played with her beet borscht, filling her soup spoon and dribbling it on a tender square of floating meat. The main dish was sichenyky, ground meat patties. For dessert, Maya had purchased a medium-sized babka. Sasha noted that nothing on the table was Russian. He noted, but he did not speak.

  When they were finished, except for Pulcharia who continued to play with her food, Sasha rose to help clear the table.

  “Stay, talk to the children,” Maya said.

  This was just the thing that Sasha did not want to do. He wanted to talk to Maya, to try again to persuade her. He did not wish to hear his son rock from side to side saying “Boyka” and his daughter creating a tepid volcano from a mound of floating beets.

  Sasha grabbed some dishes and followed Maya into the kitchen alcove where he reached past her to place his stack in the sink.

  “When?” he asked.

  “We shall see.”

  “You mean never.”

  “I mean never.”

  “If I do not see the children regularly, they will forget me. If I do not see you . . . the Swede?”

  Maya did not answer.

  The children were no more than a dozen feet away, and Sasha had to admit that he was beginning to look forward to leaving the apartment. His children were perfect in the abstract, but not unflawed in reality. It depressed him. It made him feel guilty.

  “You want to leave,” Maya said, taking two dishes from Pulcharia, one of which tottered dangerously.

  “No,” he said.

  She paused and turned to face him as Pulcharia headed back to the table.

  “You are lying.”

  Sasha did not answer.

  “If you cannot stand them for an hour, how would you stand them for many hours each day? You would make excuses to be elsewhere. It is what you did. It is what you would do.”