by William Ryan
‘This isn’t so bad, is it?’ Korolev said, glancing around him. ‘A cell to yourself? Clean, more or less, and a bench to sleep on? You’re lucky if you ask me. You should see the cage I’ve just passed. Some real types in there I can tell you – they’d have fun with a cultured man like you.’
‘I saw the cage,’ Lomatkin said, his voice measured. ‘Is that how it works? If I don’t tell you whatever it is you want to hear you put me in there with them?’
‘No,’ Korolev said, pretending to consider it. ‘I always think information gained in such a way is unreliable.’
‘You’re a paragon of virtue,’ the journalist replied.
Korolev laughed and took a packet of cigarettes from his pocket.
‘These all right for you? They didn’t have a wide selection at the kiosk. Mind you, they could have had old boots and I’d have bought them. I’d smoked my last one after Andreychuk’s autopsy and this case needs tobacco. As well as a few answers from you, of course.’
Lomatkin took one, running its length underneath his nose as though it were the finest cigar. Korolev offered him the packet again.
‘Take a few, for later.’
‘Later?’ Lomatkin asked.
‘Well,’ Korolev said, shrugging his shoulders, ‘you must see how things stand. You won’t be buying cigarettes for yourself for a while.’
‘I’d nothing to do with Andreychuk’s escape, or his death. I’ve told you that already. I shouldn’t be here. Now or later.’
‘The evidence doesn’t back you up, Citizen, and that’s the truth of it. In fact the evidence points to you having let the fellow loose and then conspiring with a person or persons to plant a bullet in his skull. But let’s leave that aside for the moment. Let’s talk about something else. Let’s talk about crimes against the State. Let’s talk about espionage.’
Now Lomatkin’s eyes were like a pair of car headlights – as if someone had seized him by the nether parts and treated them unkindly. Korolev forced himself to be patient, allow the fellow to sweat. He deliberately settled back onto his chair, moving from side to side to extract every possible fraction of comfort from its hard frame, uncrossed his arms and slipped his hands into the pockets of his overcoat.
‘Yes,’ he continued, when he’d finished. ‘I know all about it. Forget Andreychuk is my advice, you have bigger problems. What’s the local equivalent of the Butyrka in these parts? I hope the cells are as nice as this.’
‘You know . . .’ Lomatkin began eventually, before his voice tailed off. Maintaining an impassive expression, Korolev considered what he knew and what he was guessing. Putting facts together and producing possibilities from them was what being a detective was all about, of course, but in this case he didn’t have many facts to back his supposition up – all he had was Kolya’s suggestion that Lenskaya had been bringing valuable secret information to the Ukraine that was being traded for guns. The girl had been killed, so it seemed likely to Korolev that she’d been killed because of her espionage activities, although he wasn’t certain of that by any means. But if her death had been to do with spying, it seemed probable she’d died because she’d been a threat to the traitors in some way. And Lomatkin’s relationship with her, his arrival the day after her death, his assistance in Andreychuk’s escape, his visit to Krasnogorka – whether or not with the intention of escaping across the border – all pointed to him being involved. And, with him being a defence journalist for Izvestia, why shouldn’t he be the source of this mysterious secret information? The Germans wouldn’t hand out guns for statistics about road-building in Kazakhstan – no, they’d want military information, and Lomatkin could have been the man to provide it.
‘I don’t know everything,’ Korolev continued, ‘but I know enough. It occurs to me that you could avoid the worst of what’s in store for you if you’re frank with me – the guns are what I’m after at this stage. If you help me prevent them falling into the traitors’ hands, then I’ll help you, you’ve my word on it. You made a mistake, your record will stand you in good stead if you’re open and straightforward with me. And if you aren’t – well – there are others who will ask the same questions in a different way.’
‘Guns, Korolev? Guns? I don’t understand a word of what you’re saying. And I don’t know what this espionage talk is about either.’
Imagine if they’d managed to find the dead girl’s diary that Yasimov had mentioned, Korolev thought to himself. Imagine if it had made life easy for them by explaining exactly what was going on here. The journalist had certainly reacted to the suggestion of espionage – he was sure of that. But the mention of guns seemed to have given the fellow confidence again. Perhaps he didn’t know about the guns.
Korolev decided to take a risk.
‘We found her diary, Lomatkin.’
‘Her diary?’
‘Her diary. You knew she kept one, surely? So we know she was bringing information down from Moscow – and your role in it. What you might not know is that your information was being passed on for guns, German guns. That’s what she was killed for. We know about your role. It’s the others we’re after now. Tell me everything, Lomatkin, and you might get out of this in one piece. Did they have something on you? Was it the drugs, or something else?’
Korolev hoped his face didn’t betray his own fear. If he’d got this wrong, if Lomatkin turned out to have nothing to do with anything, then Korolev had revealed Kolya’s information and the journalist might blather about it to Mushkin or someone similar and Korolev was pretty confident that the Chekists would be interviewing this fellow sooner or later. Korolev scanned Lomatkin’s face for reassurance, a small sign of guilt, but it was as if the journalist’s expression was frozen solid – only his eyes seemed alive, staring at Korolev with unnatural intensity, and he had a sudden temptation to lean across and twist the man’s nose. What a strange impulse, he thought to himself, holding Lomatkin’s gaze and doing his level best not to blink. And it was an impulse that was still there, making his fingers twist in his pocket, when they rubbed against a piece of paper, which suddenly seemed a most useful thing to produce.
‘We also found this, Lomatkin. Lenskaya typed it just before she died.’ And Korolev handed him the typed page he’d found the night before in the book of Stalin’s speeches.
Lomatkin looked at the piece of paper for a long time, his mouth moving slowly as he read it. Perhaps his English wasn’t that good – but Korolev was confident the journalist understood it all right.
‘She wasn’t religious, you know,’ Lomatkin said.
‘It doesn’t matter to me if she was or she wasn’t.’
‘But this psalm meant something to her – I suppose it means something to all of us these days.’
Korolev waited as a frown darkened the journalist’s face. It was as though Lomatkin was asking himself a difficult question – and after a time, it seemed he’d found an answer to it.
‘What did she write about me in the diary?’ he asked. The journalist spoke quietly and Korolev had the feeling that Lomatkin was bracing himself for a dead lover’s recriminations. But it occurred to Korolev that if he were in the journalist’s shoes he’d like to hear he’d been forgiven, if there was anything to be forgiven for.
‘She cared about you, Lomatkin,’ Korolev said, a sombre tone deepening his voice. ‘She loved you, it seems. She didn’t hold you responsible for the mess she found herself in.’
Lomatkin smiled sadly, turning his eyes up to meet Korolev’s. ‘You never found a diary, did you?’
Korolev started to speak, but before he could think of anything to say Lomatkin shook his head to stop him.
‘Don’t bother, Korolev, it doesn’t matter. I’ll be open with you. I knew it would end up like this. But I’d nothing to do with her death and nothing to do with Andreychuk’s escape, I promise you that much.’
‘I’m listening,’ Korolev said, hope stirring.
‘You know about my indiscretions – my dubious past as you c
alled it. Perhaps that’s what first made them think they could blackmail me. After all, these days an anonymous denunciation based on lies can result in a ten stretch. And they had more than lies, Korolev. But they were clever, they dug a little and must have found out about Masha’s past along the way. I might have risked the consequences of what they knew about me – it was mostly gossip and I have friends who could have helped me – but Masha’s father having been a Petlyurist officer and her living under a false identity, well, those things alone would have resulted in her death. I know enough about Ezhov to know that much. It would have been done quietly, but he couldn’t have allowed her to live.’
It was true, Korolev thought: to be discovered having a dalliance with the daughter of a counter-revolutionary would have been a political disaster for the Central Committee member responsible for State Security, no matter what Comrade Stalin said about the sins of the parents not being visited on their children. No, someone with a class background like Lenskaya’s, particularly someone who’d obscured it so effectively, would be an Enemy of the Revolution in the eyes of the Party, and a traitor to the State.
‘To start with they didn’t seem to want much from me,’ Lomatkin continued. ‘Nothing more than what they could have read in Izvestia two days later anyway. They just wanted to know the stories I was working on – the launch of a new submarine, the range of a fighter bomber. Really, it was the kind of thing I’d have told anyone over a glass or two of beer.’
‘They were leading you on.’
‘Of course. I closed my eyes to the risks at first. I knew the man who approached me. A Ukrainian, like me. Living in Moscow, like me. A Party member, like me. When he started talking about a separate Ukrainian state with support from European powers I realized the mess I was in, but by then they’d enough on me to have me shot four times over, and in my own handwriting no less. Then they squeezed me, and they squeezed me till there was nothing left.’
‘So what was the information you provided after that?’
‘More confidential, much more confidential. Detailed plans for a new tank, inch-accurate maps of the western defences, locations of armaments factories, our preparations against chemical warfare. In my position I had access to such information on a regular basis, and when I did I passed it on. I was afraid of ending up in a place like this, and of Masha ending up here as well, but now that I’m here, and Masha’s dead, well, there’s nothing to be afraid of, is there?’
Korolev wasn’t sure about that, but he let it go.
‘How did they find out about her, do you think?’
‘It must have been when she came down here scouting for the film location. I suppose she was curious to see where she came from and it was she who suggested to Savchenko that they shoot down here. That her father turned out to be the caretaker at the College was a complete coincidence, I think. They kept it a secret between them, I’m sure of that – I didn’t even know about it. But someone must have known.’
‘Who?’
‘I’ve no idea. It must have been someone who knew her father well. Perhaps someone who knew her mother too. That would be my guess. Masha’d kept her mother’s maiden name – someone must have been able to put the names together, do the research, find the evidence.’
‘What evidence?’
‘They had a baptism record. I showed her a copy.’
‘She knew about the blackmail?’
‘I told her it was just for money and that I’d dealt with it. I never put Andreychuk and the baptism certificate together, though. He’d changed his name, of course.’
‘Of course,’ Korolev agreed. ‘Why do you think they killed her?’
‘It was my fault,’ Lomatkin said. ‘I kept her out of it as much as I could, but when Masha started coming down here so often, their man in Moscow, the Ukrainian, wanted me to slip the documents into her belongings. Sometimes microfilm was hidden in the binding of a book and when she arrived here the book would be swapped for a duplicate, and the film retrieved. It was their idea, not mine. But I should have resisted because, you see, she must have found it this time. That’s why I had to come down so suddenly. They’d put something in the binding of a report she was working on, but when they went to find it, it was gone.’
Belakovsky’s report on his plans for a Soviet Hollywood. Korolev whistled. This wasn’t something a Moscow flatfoot should be involved in. This was something for Rodinov when he arrived. No matter what the risk. He’d have to tell the colonel everything now and the sooner the better.
Lomatkin went on. ‘They must have thought she was going to expose them. Whoever it was, I don’t think Andreychuk had any part in it – but if he was a Petlyurist during the Civil War . . . well, who knows?’
‘I don’t think Andreychuk was responsible – I’m not sure who was, though,’ Korolev said. ‘This report – it was for Belakovsky? Some idea he has for a film town – Kinograd, I think.’
‘Yes, I believe so.’
‘It was missing when he went to look for it,’ Korolev told him, wondering what its absence might mean. ‘Tell me, we found a fingerprint that puts your friend Les Pins at the spot where Lenskaya was found hanging. What do you make of that?’
‘Les Pins? He can’t have been involved in this, can he? What would a Frenchman have to do with this?’
It occurred to Korolev that, all things considered, Lomatkin was remarkably calm – especially given that his life expectancy had radically shortened in the last couple of minutes. But that was sometimes the way it went with criminals who’d been living with guilt for a long period of time – when they were finally uncovered it was almost a relief. He extracted his cigarette packet and offered the journalist one.
‘I’m guessing it’s to do with these guns,’ Korolev said as he lit up.
‘I know nothing about guns,’ Lomatkin said, and Korolev noticed how his face had grown a little paler. It could be the effects of the cigarette but more likely it was the mention of that terrible word, plural. Guns would mean the NKVD wouldn’t go easy on him when he fell into their clutches, and into their clutches the journalist was inevitably going to fall.
‘The information you were passing on through Lenskaya has been exchanged for a shipload of Mausers, or so I’ve been told.’
‘Mausers? Do you know how many?’
‘I don’t. But if there are guns coming from abroad to counterrevolutionary terrorists then things aren’t good. And it occurs to me that the only foreigner we have in the locality is a certain Monsieur from France – if that’s where he really is from. What do you know about him?’
‘Les Pins? A journalist – a friend of the Socialist movement. His articles on Spain were published all over the world – in Pravda as well. I’m sure he must be a Party member. Wasn’t he wounded in the fighting for Madrid? I know he met Savchenko in America back in ’thirty-four, and that’s why he’s visiting here before going on to Moscow. He’s giving speeches in support of the Spanish comrades – I believe he’s to meet Comrade Stalin himself. I can’t see him being mixed up with German guns.’
‘But you say he was in America? Did Lenskaya know him from there? Wasn’t there a traitor involved in that delegation to America?’
‘There was – Danyluk. He wasn’t someone she had much to do with, thankfully, but I don’t know if he knew Les Pins. All I know is that Masha didn’t come across Les Pins on the delegation, or if she did, she never told me.’
This was a new angle, and one whose ramifications Korolev could only begin to consider. If Les Pins was yet another who’d been in America, why had no one mentioned it before? And who else had been there? Danyluk, the traitor – of course. The dead girl – yes. Savchenko and Belakovsky – indeed; although neither could have had anything to do directly with the girl’s death.
‘Was there anyone else in America at the time? Anyone who might have had contact with Les Pins or this fellow Danyluk? Anyone involved in the film’s production, perhaps.’
Lomatkin shook his head,
looking utterly exhausted now. ‘I wasn’t there. I wouldn’t be the person to ask. And I know nothing about the guns, Korolev, or I’d have spoken up before – the man I had contact with in Moscow is called Topolski. Babel knows him, he’s a member of the Writer’s Union and easy enough to track down. Give him my regards when you do.’
‘I will,’ Korolev said, and was about to go on when he was distracted by the sound of footsteps approaching quickly along the corridor outside. Generally, in the cells, things moved slowly – there was no rush, the prisoners and their guards had all day long to do whatever they had to do – but here were people moving with intent and urgency, and coming towards their cell.
‘In here,’ a voice said, then a key turned in the lock.
‘Chief,’ Slivka said when the guard had opened the door, her face almost as pale as Lomatkin’s. ‘I got through to my mother.’
Chapter Twenty-Two
KOROLEV’S mind felt assaulted by suggestions, identities, locations, timings, possibilities and a hundred other scraps and facts – and this great swirl of information was twisting and turning and colliding and fragmenting as it rattled round the inside of his skull so that he couldn’t even begin to put it into any semblance of order. Instead he found himself concentrating, with a certain amount of self-pity, on the small ache in his forehead that all this thinking was making appreciably worse. What this case needed was someone with a bit more brain power and that was the truth.
‘They’re both missing?’ he managed to ask, speaking quietly in case they could be overheard. ‘Both of them?’
‘I’m not sure missing is the correct word to use, Chief. But they can’t be found, that’s true enough.’
Korolev looked at Slivka quickly to see if she was making fun of him.
‘But Gradov is a Militiaman – a sergeant no less.’ Korolev could hear the plaintive note in his voice, and so he allowed himself a brief pause to pull himself together before proceeding in a more appropriate growling whisper. ‘He’s in charge of the damned station, the dog – he can’t just go wandering off whenever he wants to.’