Danilov looked at his watch in the harshly white, deadening light. It was four thirty. ‘Home. I’ll call Lapinsk from there.’ Leonid Lapinsk was the General commanding the murder investigation division at Petrovka: he was only two years from retirement with an undisguised ambition to see that time out as quietly as possible: tonight was going to set his ulcers on fire.
‘He’ll kill again,’ predicted Pavin, gazing down at the chalked outline of where the body had been. It was a distant remark, the man practically talking to himself.
‘Of course he will,’ said Danilov.
The apartment, off Kirovskaya and conveniently close to the metro at Kazan for someone who did not currently have a car, was in the twilight of approaching dawn when Danilov got back. He considered vodka but dismissed it at once. He couldn’t be bothered with coffee, which — in contrast with his now spurned gift-receiving days — was Russian, not imported: powdered grains that floated on top of the cup, like dust, no matter how hot the water. And tea was too much trouble.
Danilov settled, head forward on his chest, in his personal but now lumpy-seated chair, just slightly to the left of the ancient and constantly failing TV that had been a grateful present from Eduard Agayans when he had commanded his own Militia district with such personal discrimination, before the transfer to Petrovka.
The investigation had been difficult enough already. But this morning — this gritty-eyed, cold, gradually forming morning — the murder of an unknown American girl was going to compound his problems in ways he couldn’t even guess. There was one easy surmise, though: Pavin was probably right about the Cheka or the KGB or whatever they wanted to call themselves. They wouldn’t consider an investigator from the People’s Militia — even the senior investigator with the rank of Colonel — qualified to head an inquiry like this. Domestic homicides or quarrel killings, maybe: they were ordinary, unimportant. But the murder of an American was different: that became political, exterior: something possibly to focus international attention upon Moscow and the disintegrated Soviet Union. What if they took over? Danilov confronted the possibility. If it was an official decision, there was nothing he could do to oppose it. But if it stayed just below that authoritative level he would resist any attempt to shunt him aside. In Russian law, the law that almost miraculously was increasingly being the law, despite the failures of the other reforms, the stabbing and the defilement of a dark-haired, brown-eyed girl of about thirty was the indisputable responsibility of the homicide division of the duly appointed Criminal Investigation Department of the Moscow Division of the People’s Militia. His responsibility. The most difficult case of his life, Danilov thought again. Did he want such a responsibility? Wouldn’t the safest way, professionally, be to surrender, after a token protest, to pressure from the Federal Security Agency, just as he’d always taken the easy way in other directions when he’d been a uniformed, more persuadable officer? Undoubtedly. So why didn’t he just back off? He didn’t want to, he decided. The old, look-the-other-way days had gone and the benefits with them. And he didn’t mourn or regret their passing. Rather, he enjoyed the self-respect, a self-respect he knew no one else would understand, with which he felt he ran his life at Petrovka.
It was barely five fifteen. Still too early to disturb his commanding General. Larissa would be stirring soon: this week she was on early shift. It would be difficult for them to meet as regularly as they normally did if he was allowed to remain in charge of the investigation. He’d be under too much scrutiny for unexplained, two- or three-hour disappearances. What about the hypocrisy of sleeping with another man’s wife? And the deceit of cheating his own? Where was the integrity and honesty in that? Not the same as work: quite a different equation. One he didn’t want to examine.
He wished he wasn’t so tired. He needed to be alert for all the unknowns there would be before the day was out. Instead, before anything had really started, he felt exhausted. It would be better when those unknowns became known: the adrenalin would flow then, to keep him going. He hoped. Wise, upon reflection, not to have taken any vodka. Alcohol would have dulled him even more.
Olga’s voice startled him and Danilov straightened almost guiltily in the chair, realizing he’d dozed. ‘What?’
‘I said what are you doing in the chair?’ She was standing at the bedroom door, her brown hair dishevelled and her face still puffed from sleep. She hadn’t tied the robe around her and the nightdress beneath had a dark grey stain over her left breast. The slippers were partially split at both heels: she had to scuff to keep them on when she walked.
‘I was called out.’
‘I didn’t feel you get up.’
‘I didn’t want to disturb you.’ It was seven fifteen: almost time to call the Director.
Olga shuffled towards the kitchen area. ‘I’ll make tea.’
‘That would be good.’ He still felt tired, despite the doze.
‘Who was it?’ She had her back to him in the kitchen annex, filling the kettle to brew the tea and prepare the Thermos, the modern Russian equivalent of the samovar, to keep the water hot.
‘A girl.’
‘Bad?’
Could a murder ever be good? ‘We think she’s American.’
Olga looked across from the stove. ‘That’s going to be complicated, isn’t it?’
‘Yes.’
‘Where?’
‘In the street: near Gercena.’
‘How?’
‘Stabbed.’ He wouldn’t tell her of the connection. Or the details. He didn’t think she would be interested anyway.
‘Sexual?’
‘It doesn’t seem so.’
‘That’s something at least.’
But not much, Danilov thought. He watched his wife filling the teapot, wondering what the stain was on her nightdress.
‘Do you want your tea there?’
‘I’ll speak to Lapinsk first.’
The commanding General picked up his receiver on the second ring. ‘Something difficult?’
Danilov recounted the similarity before disclosing the possibility of the girl’s nationality.
When he was stressed Lapinsk would punctuate his conversation with short, throat-clearing coughs. There was a burst now. He said: ‘That couldn’t be worse.’ There was another rattle of coughing. ‘There’s no question of it fitting the pattern?’
‘The buttons are something new.’
‘It’s the same man,’ the General accepted.
‘I want to approach the American embassy: I need it arranged, through you. Do we have to clear it with anyone? A ministry?’
There was another series of short coughs. ‘I’ll advise the Foreign Ministry. And call the embassy at nine.’
‘What about the Cheka?’
‘They’ll probably try to take over,’ agreed Lapinsk.
‘It’s our jurisdiction.’
‘Rules can be changed.’ Lapinsk sounded hopeful.
Danilov felt some pity for the Director. Lapinsk despised and habitually derided the former KGB for its arrogance and imagined superiority. But with so little time before retirement it was easy to understand the man’s anxiety to avoid a murder inquiry like this. Everyone searching for the easy life, thought Danilov: the Russian way. He said: ‘It’s already an established, ongoing investigation.’
‘Tell me the moment you have an identity,’ Lapinsk parried.
‘Novikov is the pathologist.’
‘Bugger!’ Lapinsk knew of the antipathy.
‘I want the autopsy today: he told Pavin there are others ahead of me.’ Danilov didn’t enjoy asking for further intercession.
‘I’ll fix it. Be careful at the embassy. I don’t want any problems beyond what we’ve already got.’
‘If she’s not a diplomat, it might be difficult getting an identity. She could be officially registered at the embassy, but it’s not a requirement.’
‘What if she’s not?’
‘We’ll check the Intourist guides and the foreign visito
r hotels first. Then the visa records, for a photograph. The death pictures will be unpleasant.’
‘Too bad to publish in newspapers to get an identity?’
‘Probably,’ warned Danilov. That death snarl would be a further denial of dignity for whoever she had been: they could wait, he supposed, until the rigor relaxed.
‘I’ll clear my diary, after talking to the embassy. And be in the office all the time. If there is any difficulty, call me.’
Olga had poured the tea, despite being asked not to: it was cold by the time he sat down opposite her at the kitchen table. She hadn’t cleaned off the previous day’s make-up, heavy blue around her eyes. He added more water from the prepared Thermos, to warm the tea.
‘Lapinsk will be shitting himself,’ Olga said.
‘Your nightdress is stained.’
Olga looked down curiously, seemingly aware of it for the first time. She rubbed at it, half-heartedly. The stain remained. ‘It’s an old nightdress. I used to be able to get them from the importer, remember?’
Without payment of course, Danilov recalled. Like the television set that had now developed picture slip that couldn’t be corrected. He’d personally liked Eduard Agayans, the moustachioed, fiercely nationalistic Armenian who’d always insisted on toasts in his republic’s best brandy before any favour-for-favour conversation. The document-switching entrepreneur had maintained his largest warehouse in Danilov’s old Militia district and was always generously grateful for Danilov’s guarantee of unimpeded delivery of double the quota registered on the import manifest it was the Militia’s duty to check. ‘Why not buy more?’
Olga laughed derisively. ‘Which of the hundred well stocked designer shops in Moscow would you suggest I try first?’
‘Why not just look around,’ suggested Danilov, indifferently.
Olga continued to examine the stain. ‘It looks like oil. But it can’t be.’
Danilov saw she’d spilled tea — or something — on another part of the nightgown, near her waist. ‘Why not wash it?’
‘The communal machine isn’t working. And our own is broken: you know that.’
Their personal machine had been another gift from Agayans, who had been his chief source of unobtainable luxuries. ‘You could handwash it.’
‘Do you want anything to eat? Breakfast?’
He never ate at the beginning of the day, but this day had begun a long time ago. He still wasn’t hungry. ‘I don’t think so.’
‘Elena wants me to go to the cinema tonight. It’s a war movie: I don’t know which one. She’s asked Larissa, as well.’
Larissa had already warned him: told him she was going because the hotel shifts were convenient. Elena was the supervisor in the Agriculture Ministry post-room where Olga was a typist. ‘Why don’t you do that? I’m involved now, day and night.’
‘We might eat afterwards. Elena says she knows somewhere you don’t have to wait: one of those trade-run cafes, a writers’ place.’
Danilov had heard of such restaurants, set up by craft unions whose members no longer accepted the delays of ordinary Moscow eating houses. ‘Get a taxi home.’
‘Why?’
‘It’s safer.’
‘I’ll need some money.’
Danilov handed twenty roubles across the table. Olga smiled acceptance and put it into the pocket of the loose dressing-gown. There were no thanks. ‘Definitely get a taxi home,’ insisted Danilov. A long time ago he’d discovered Olga hoarded money he gave her: he pretended not to know about the leather satchel in which she kept it, in the box that contained all her family memorabilia.
‘All right,’ she said, too easily.
Danilov pushed aside the tepid tea, half drunk. He looked down at himself as he stood from the table. Slumping in the chair — and then dozing — had concertinaed his suit: he guessed the back of the jacket would be worse than the trousers. Be careful at the embassy, he remembered: it would be careful to dress smartly. ‘I have to change.’
‘Why?’
‘It’s necessary.’
His other suit, the grey one with the faint stripe, was jammed at the far end of their shared closet, crumpled where one lapel had been bent backwards by a dress of Olga’s being thrust in too closely against it. Danilov tried to smooth and then flatten it out: it was better but the crease mark was still visible. His black shoes needed cleaning and he wasn’t sure if there was polish back in the kitchen: he hadn’t noticed before the actual tear in the paper-thin leather on the left toe. Black polish would cover it. Danilov unsuccessfully searched the top level of the chest of drawers where his shirts were kept and then checked, equally unsuccessfully, the drawer below. The second drawer held Olga’s blouses, crisply folded: there was one, patterned in red check, which reminded him of the shirt the dead girl had been wearing. When he returned to the main room, Olga was still sitting at the kitchen table, both hands around the tea which now had to be completely cold.
‘I can’t find a clean shirt. I need a clean shirt.’
‘There should be one.’
‘There isn’t.’
‘I told you the communal machine isn’t working: they promised it would be fixed by tomorrow. People stuff too much in.’
Although the apartment was theirs alone, they had to share certain facilities. A basement washing machine was one. ‘So I haven’t got a clean shirt?’
‘Not if there isn’t one in the drawer.’
Each shirt in the laundry bag was as badly creased as the other. He took a blue patterned one with the cleanest cuffs and collar and said: ‘Could you press this for me?’
‘It’s not washed.’
‘I know. I’ve just got it from the dirty bag.’
‘I’ll be late for work.’
‘Fuck your being late for work!’
Olga looked at him in astonishment. ‘What the hell’s wrong with you!’
‘Please! I just want a shirt ironed.’ He wouldn’t bother about the shoes: it was only a tiny tear.
Begrudgingly Olga got up from the table and noisily took the ironing board from its crevice between the cooker and the store cupboard. Searching for an attack point, she said: ‘The cuffs are frayed: the left one, at least. You need more shirts: shall I look while I’m choosing nightdresses?’
Danilov didn’t want to fight. ‘The fray won’t show.’
Abruptly, confusingly at first, she said: ‘Would it have hurt: what happened to the girl last night? Would it have hurt?’
‘Horribly.’
‘I’ll definitely get a taxi.’
Danilov supposed he should have warned Larissa, as well. He’d have to remember to do so.
The hum was discordant, high and low, high and low, without a tune: it was good to hum. He liked it. It was noise: noise was safe. Not always, of course. Not just before it happened. Noise was dangerous then. Had to be quiet, like a shadow. Only safe to hum afterwards. Like now. They said it was an indication to hum, all those experts, but they were wrong. About humming anyway. He wasn’t mad. The opposite. Clever: always clever. Clever enough to know all the signs but stop them showing.
The hair had this time been more difficult to tie neatly in its tiny, preserved bunch, like a wheat sheaf: kept slipping out, before the cord was properly secured. All right now. A neat, tidy bunch — always important, to be neat and tidy — with the top cleanly trimmed completely flat. Perfect match with the other one. It had been right to take the buttons. She’d been a woman: got it all right last night. Especially the buttons. A neat and tidy pattern, red ones and green ones and a brown one, all assembled in their perfect arrangement on the special souvenir table, together with the hair-clipping scissors. Always had to have buttons, from now on. And always a woman then. Important to plan for the future, always to stay ahead. The knife had to be sharpened, stropped like a razor, to slide in like silk. That was the good part, the way the knife slid in. Just like silk. That and buttons. Felt happy, to have got the buttons. There’d be the challenge, soon: a hunt. Th
ere had to be a hunt. That was going to be the best part: what he was looking forward to. Look, fools, look! But they never would. Not properly. Just a little longer, touching the souvenirs. Holding them. Exciting, to hold them. Then put them away. Safely, for later. Another one soon. Always women, from now on. And buttons.
Chapter Three
Pavin drove the car, drawn from the Militia pool. He did so meticulously, as in everything else, observing all the signals and keeping strictly within the speed restrictions. He did not, however, attempt to use the central reserved lane, which they could probably have done as an official car on official business, automatically waved through every possible junction obstruction by the GAI police in their elevated glass control boxes, like goldfish out of water. Not that there had been obstruction: it had been nearly ten o’clock before Lapinsk returned the authorizing call to go to the American embassy, so the morning traffic had cleared. As they made their way towards Ulitza Chaykovskaya, Pavin said the house-to-house inquiries hadn’t found a single witness. He was still trying to work out how many extra officers it would need to carry out the search of psychiatric hospital records: it would be a lot.
‘Novikov is being ordered to do the autopsy immediately,’ said Danilov.
‘That’ll annoy him.’
‘Everything annoys him,’ dismissed Danilov.
They turned into Chaykovskaya, towards the embassy. Pavin nodded ahead and said: ‘It’ll be difficult for me to keep a proper record, without the language.’
‘We’ll stay in Russian,’ Danilov decided. ‘If the man we’re going to see doesn’t speak it there’ll be an interpreter.’ Lapinsk had arranged the meeting with someone named Ralph Baxter, a Second Secretary. From the diplomatic lists he’d already studied, Danilov knew nearly everyone was described as a Second Secretary.
‘You’re not going to tell them?’ Pavin smirked, appreciatively.
Danilov had read English, with French as a second subject, at Moscow University: just prior to graduation he had considered a career utilizing linguistics but the Militia had a better pay structure, more privileges and inestimably more practical benefits for an easy life, so he hadn’t pursued the idea. Occasionally, watching on television interpreters at the shoulder of Russian leaders on overseas summits, Danilov regretted the decision. Interpreters didn’t get woken in the middle of the night to look at dead bodies, for one thing. He said: ‘Not at the beginning: it might be useful, being able to understand what they say among themselves.’ Be careful at the embassy. He thought the potential advantage outweighed any later recrimination.
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