by William Ryan
‘Larisa, is it true?’
‘It’s true, Comrade Belakovsky, it’s true,’ Larisa wailed, and Korolev, following behind the girl, saw her bury herself in Belakovsky’s overcoat.
‘Hello again, Comrade Belakovsky,’ Korolev said and Belakovsky nodded a greeting, before turning his attention back to Larisa.
‘Mikhail told me. I didn’t believe him.’ Then he paused, looking back to Korolev, recognizing him yet again, with a look of surprise.
‘Comrade Korolev?’
‘Yes, a coincidence. I’m a friend of Babel’s. I’d no idea we were visiting the same place.’
‘You have to understand – a colleague has died unexpectedly. She was one in a thousand. A vital part of this production, of course, but more than that. Much more than that.’
Behind him stood a sorry-looking man whom Korolev deduced was Mikhail, the bearer of bad news. The other occupant of the car – Lomatkin, the journalist – was leaning against the car door for support, as pale as the dead girl’s ghost. It seemed as though Masha Lenskaya had made quite an impression during her short life.
‘Korolev,’ Belakovsky said, as though thinking aloud. ‘Didn’t you say you were a detective – from Petrovka Street?’
‘I didn’t. You did and I’m on holiday,’ Korolev replied, perhaps a little too quickly.
Belakovsky glanced at the house, and if it wasn’t to see where Mushkin was, Korolev would have been most surprised. The NKVD definitely had a thing or two to learn about secrecy, even if they were always asking it of other people.
‘On holiday?’ Belakovsky repeated slowly, probably remembering how that fellow Bagraev had been booted off the plane. ‘What a coincidence. And perhaps fortunate for us. What did you say your specialization was?’
‘Petrovka Street normally handles the more serious crimes. And I’m an experienced detective.’
‘I see – bank robbery, that sort of thing. Murder perhaps?’ The fellow was putting two and two together and making four, so Korolev nodded politely, and felt in his overcoat pocket for his cigarettes, pleased that at least this time it was a deliberate rather than instinctive action.
‘Yes, I’ve handled the odd murder or two,’ he said, lighting the cigarette off the one in his mouth.
Another black car hove into view as they stood there weighing each other up, and when it pulled to a halt disgorged a stocky Militia colonel, who looked at them anxiously. He was followed by a tough-looking young woman in a leather jacket and a bald man carrying a doctor’s case. No sooner had the first car been emptied of its occupants than another arrived and three uniforms under a sergeant’s command scrambled out. It was turning out to be quite a party, and right on cue the guest of honour arrived.
‘Did you hear, Comrade Mushkin?’ Belakovsky said. ‘Korolev here is a Militia detective from Petrovka Street, visiting Babel.’
‘Indeed,’ Mushkin said, with a sliver of a smile, and Korolev deduced that the Major wasn’t too burnt-out to appreciate the humour inherent in the play they were all acting out. But for whose benefit, God alone knew.
Chapter Five
KOROLEV had never been in an ice house before. Of course, he was aware that before the Revolution the rich had tried to preserve some of winter’s bite to relieve the summer’s swelter: he wasn’t uncultured after all and he took an interest in the wider world – as any Soviet citizen should. Indeed, in any other circumstances he would have found it interesting to stand in this small, brick-lined cave and to be lectured on its construction and significance. But this was not the time, in his opinion, or the place.
Shymko ran a hand along a line of bricks, his voice barely a whisper but clear in the silence of the artificial cave.
‘Two hundred peasants worked for an entire summer under the direction of an Englishman – shifting the earth to build the hill in which we stand. They say he laid each brick himself, the Englishman,’ Shymko said in his quiet voice. ‘Look how careful he was, Comrades.’
It was true, the brickwork was indeed a curious relic of that previous phase of society’s historical evolution, but the dead girl was the reason they were all here and Korolev found it difficult to look at anything other than her white face. They’d laid her out on a trestle table, her head supported on what looked like a sandbag, her skin stretched over the cheekbones where death had pulled it taut. She could have been sleeping, and her features wouldn’t have given the lie to it, were it not for the raw marks on her neck where the rope had caught her. As always in the presence of a corpse, he found himself struck by how fragile life was, and amazed that such an intangible thing as consciousness should cause such a change to the physical appearance of a person. The characteristics that had seemed to colour the girl’s photograph were now absent, as if paint had been rubbed from a picture to reveal the plain canvas underneath.
‘Captain Korolev?’ Mushkin said and Korolev found himself the centre of attention. Major Mushkin, Marchuk the Militia colonel, Peskov the bald Odessa pathologist, Shymko and the thin-lipped young woman in the leather jacket were all waiting for him to do or say something, and he wasn’t quite sure what.
‘I’ve seen him work before, Comrades. He spends a lot of time just looking, but the things he sees, the things he sees . . .’
And Babel, of course. How could he have forgotten Babel? How the hell had he managed to wangle his way in here anyway?
‘Seeing as we have a comrade from the famous Petrovka Street with us so fortuitously,’ Mushkin said, pronouncing the last word ironically, ‘perhaps he might look over the body? I’m sure Dr Peskov won’t mind. Dr Peskov, you don’t mind, do you?’
The bald pathologist shook his head so hard that his round spectacles nearly fell off.
‘I’m no pathologist, Major,’ Korolev began and wasn’t surprised to see a muscle in the major’s jaw clench with irritation, ‘although it’s true I’ve seen a few dead bodies. Maybe the Comrade Doctor should carry on with his preliminary examination as he would normally and I can observe over his shoulder. I’m sure his experience in this area is far greater than mine, but an extra pair of eyes is always useful.’
Peskov glanced at the colonel, who, in turn, looked towards Mushkin just as a nervous gundog might to his master. Eventually Mushkin nodded his agreement, but not before giving Korolev a long, thoughtful look which the detective was unsure how to interpret. The doctor stepped forward and stood at the end of the table, picking up the dead girl’s head in both his hands, leaning forward. His fingers felt underneath her neck as though searching for something. Korolev also approached the body and bent forward to look more closely.
‘No saliva,’ Korolev said quietly, for the doctor’s ears as opposed to anyone else’s.
‘No, but someone may have cleaned her up.’
‘What was that?’ Major Mushkin was interested despite himself.
‘Saliva, Major,’ Peskov said. ‘With self-asphyxiation, there is invariably a flow of saliva from the mouth, down the chin and straight onto the chest. If the body is hung after death, this doesn’t happen, the production of saliva being a living act.’
‘But it could have been cleaned away, you say?’
‘Possibly. There would usually remain some signs on the clothing, however.’
‘Shymko?’ Mushkin turned to the production coordinator.
‘She wasn’t cleaned up,’ Shymko answered, his voice hushed at the realization of what this implied.
‘What happened to the rope she was found hanging from?’ Korolev asked.
‘There.’ Shymko pointed to a coil that sat on the ground beneath the table, about three-quarters of an inch thick. Korolev nodded and leant down to examine it.
‘Doctor?’ Korolev said, and the pathologist squatted beside him, feeling the rope’s texture.
‘Yes, I see what you mean,’ he said.
‘What do you see? What does he mean?’ Marchuk asked, glancing at Mushkin for some direction. The Militia colonel sounded panicked – as well he might, thou
ght Korolev.
The doctor pointed to the marks on the girl’s neck. ‘With a suicidal hanging the marks of the rope or ligature are generally above or on the thyroid cartilage, and carried obliquely upwards. Do you see?’ He mimed a rope holding his own neck up, and ran his finger at an angle from underneath his jaw to the back of his head. ‘We have such a mark here.’ He pointed to the girl’s neck. ‘And you see this rope? It’s thick enough, yes?’
‘Peskov, pull yourself together.’ Colonel Marchuk’s cheeks were reddening as he inclined his head towards Mushkin. ‘This is no time for blathering.’
‘My apologies, Comrade Colonel.’ The doctor’s face seemed to become even paler in the solitary light bulb’s glow. ‘But this is an important point. It implies that the rope she was found hanging from was not the cause of death. Do you see here, the long thin bruising, below these other marks? See how it is horizontal rather than oblique? This was caused by something much finer – a cord of some sort, I should think. In short, it seems likely that the girl was dead before she was hung from this rope. In fact it seems most probable she was strangled – from behind if you want an instant view – and that the thicker rope was applied after death. To an extent this is conjecture. I’ll have to examine her thoroughly in the proper conditions. There is generally internal damage to the laryngeal cartilage and other bones in the neck. I’ll know for certain . . .’ He looked at his watch. ‘. . . Later tonight.’
There was silence after the doctor finished speaking. Shymko looked dour, the colonel as though he might be ill and Mushkin grim as a tombstone.
‘You’re saying she was murdered.’ The major paused. ‘You’re saying it wasn’t suicide but murder.’
‘I’d like to undertake a full autopsy, if that’s possible, back at the hospital. I’ll call for an ambulance immediately.’ The doctor looked up at Mushkin. ‘I understand this is a priority and you’ll have my findings as soon as humanly possible – but I will have to examine her properly.’
‘But that’s your initial view?’ The major looked at the doctor and then at Korolev. Peskov shrugged, deferring to Korolev.
‘I think we should treat her death as suspicious, Comrade Major,’ Korolev said, feeling about as unhappy at the prospect as Mushkin looked, thinking that the odds on a quick return to Moscow and the chance to visit his son in Zagorsk had just lengthened considerably. ‘That would seem to be the most sensible approach. And we should not discount murder.’
Korolev’s last word seemed to echo as first Babel, somewhat enthusiastically, then Peskov, in quiet agreement, and finally Marchuk, in horror, all repeated it. Korolev saw the colonel begin a movement with his right hand that looked suspiciously like the sign of the cross, but he’d remembered where he was by the time his hand touched his forehead, and instead began to rub his eyebrows with his fingers, looking furtively at Major Mushkin out of the corner of his eye.
‘Murder?’ Shymko said, long after everyone else. ‘But Citizen Lenskaya was a model worker, an activist of the highest standing.’
‘Maybe that’s why they killed her,’ Mushkin replied, and for a moment Korolev thought he’d made a very dark joke. ‘Well, it will be for Colonel Marchuk to find out.’
Marchuk’s drooping head started up as though he’d been half-asleep and someone had kicked his chair.
‘Perhaps Captain Korolev . . . ?’ the colonel began, his voice dropping to a whisper in the face of Mushkin’s impassive stare. ‘We’re short of good men. It’s the drive on hooligans and bandits. It’s time-consuming.’
‘And you’d like Korolev to break his holiday to investigate one of your cases because you have too many hooligans and bandits in Odessa.’ Mushkin folded his arms and gave the colonel a parody of a stern look. ‘An amazing suggestion.’
‘My men are stretched thinly,’ Marchuk said, even more unsure of himself now. ‘And maybe it would be best for a senior detective to handle a crime like this.’
The colonel opened his hands in a gesture of supplication and Korolev allowed himself the luxury of pretending to consider the request. One sharp glance from Mushkin was enough to speed up his decision-making, however, and he nodded his assent.
‘If you think I can be of assistance, Comrade Colonel, then I’m at your service. General Secretary Stalin tells us we should always be ready to sacrifice personal happiness for the greater good. I’m not some petty individualist.’ Which he managed to say with a straight face, even if a large part of him was wishing he could indeed be a petty individualist – a thousand kilometres away from this cursed corpse and in the company of his only son.
‘You’re on holiday and yet you offer it up for the greater good.’ Mushkin’s approval seemed almost genuine. ‘Your loyalty to the State is an example to us all.’
‘I’m sure we’d all do the same in a similar situation. Of course I’ll need to check with my chief, and I’ll need help – as many uniforms as you can spare, a competent junior detective who knows the lie of the land, a forensics team.’
‘You work for Popov, don’t you?’ Mushkin asked. ‘Marchuk and I will call him. What shall we say – initially for a week or so, perhaps? Unless the matter is resolved earlier, or a suitable replacement becomes free. Or, of course, if Dr Peskov’s examination makes it clear that it was suicide after all.’
‘We’d be grateful, Captain Korolev,’ Marchuk said. ‘A crime such as this – I couldn’t turn it over to a junior detective. It would be irresponsible.’
Mushkin nodded to Shymko, then Babel, and turned to leave. The colonel followed with the doctor, who paused for a moment to smile at Korolev. Shymko was about to follow when Korolev put a hand on his sleeve.
‘One moment, Comrade. If I’m to look after this business I’ve a few questions I need to ask you.’
The production coordinator turned back and Korolev wasn’t surprised to see concern in his face. The Militia had a reputation for not always being too picky when seeking out the perpetrators of serious crimes.
‘Comrade Captain?’
‘You found the body?’
‘Well, Andreychuk the caretaker was the one who opened the door to the dining room – but, yes, I suppose I did – I was right behind him.’ Shymko seemed to weigh the words to see if the truth in them could somehow be evaded.
‘And you were the first ones to return to the house?’
‘Andreychuk had locked up while everyone was down at the night shoot. Except for Lenskaya, of course, although I think she had her own key.’
‘I see. Tell me what you saw when you found her.’
Shymko did as he was told, describing the limp body hanging just inside the dining room, how Andreychuk had dropped to his knees in shock, and how they’d released her from the rope and lowered her to the ground.
‘She was cold to the touch. Dead.’
Korolev nodded, distracted by a notebook not dissimilar to his own which the leather-jacketed young woman had opened up.
‘Comrade?’ Korolev looked at her, raising an eyebrow at her notebook.
‘Comrade Captain?’ she asked in turn, and Korolev could have sworn she gave him the tiniest of mischievous smiles.
‘What are you doing?’
‘Taking notes.’
‘I can see that,’ he said. ‘Why are you taking notes?’
‘I always take notes. A note doesn’t get forgotten.’ She looked down at his hands as if to say he could do with taking a few more notes himself. The worst thing was she’d just quoted his own favourite mantra to junior detectives who didn’t yet realize that the brain was an erratic recorder of useful information.
‘So, Comrade?’ he said, trying to ignore the smirk on Babel’s face.
The girl smiled and extended her hand. ‘Slivka, Comrade. Nadezhda Andreyevna. Sergeant – Odessa CID. Unless the Comrade Colonel just wanted to take me for a drive in the country, my guess is I’m your junior detective. I’ll help you track down whoever did this – don’t you worry, Comrade Captain.’
Korolev shook the offered hand and allowed himself to return the smile. A bit of spirit wasn’t such a bad thing in a young detective.
‘Well then. Good,’ he said. ‘Anything you’d like to ask?’
‘Yes,’ the young female detective said, looking down at her notebook. ‘Comrade, is Andreychuk the only one with keys to the house? Apart from the deceased, that is.’
‘Lord no,’ Shymko began, before collecting himself when Babel tutted at his careless use of the Lord’s name – as close to blasphemy as it got these days.
‘No,’ he continued with more care, feeling his way into each word now – apparently having decided that in the kind of company that wrote down everything you said, words could run amok and bite a man where it hurt.
‘You’d have to ask Comrade Andreychuk,’ he continued, ‘but I have one, and I know the director of the kolkhoz keeps one in his office. Then there’s Elizaveta Petrovna, of course.’
‘Elizaveta Petrovna?’
‘Elizaveta Petrovna Mushkina,’ Shymko clarified, emphasizing the surname.
‘Major Mushkin’s mother,’ Babel said, his voice coming from behind Korolev. ‘She’s the director of the Agricultural College. But before that she was a Party boss in Odessa.’
‘I met her earlier,’ Korolev said, remembering the elderly lady with her walking stick.
‘A hero of the Revolution,’ Shymko added in a hushed tone.
‘And before that,’ Babel said. ‘She was in Siberia with Stalin. That’s how far she goes back.’
‘Stalin?’ Korolev repeated, not quite believing his ears. Could this get any worse? Now he had to deal with someone who was an old comrade of Stalin’s.
‘She calls him Koba,’ Babel said with a significant look.
Korolev swallowed, then decided it was best to get on with the job in hand.
‘We’ll need a list of who had access to keys and where all the keys were last night. Slivka?’