by William Ryan
It was the voice of a person who had a gun pointed at a fellow’s back and a bullet ready to plant a hole the size of a baby’s fist between his shoulder blades if he should so much as shiver. But Korolev started to turn anyway. After all, he recognized the voice well enough.
‘That’s enough, Korolev. Put your gun and the torch on the table beside you.’
‘As you wish,’ Korolev said, placing Sharapov’s Nagant down as instructed and noting without surprise that Blumkin had recovered his pistol and was pointing it straight at his throat.
‘Damienko, pick up that gun and take the torch.’
‘What’s going on, Comrade Mushkina?’ the tall man asked.
‘Trouble is what’s going on, Damienko. And your only way out of it is to do as I say.’
Mushkina’s voice had enough iron in it to armour a tank and the stranger did as he was told, checking the magazine of Sharapov’s Nagant and making sure there was a bullet in the firing chamber. Whoever he was, he’d handled a gun before. Korolev was conscious of the weight of the Walther in his pocket, but with three guns now trained on him it seemed to him the best place for his hands was pointing upwards, which was where he put them.
‘What happened to Les Pins?’
‘We found him searching for certain information. A guest who overstayed his welcome – in more ways than one – and a loose end that needed tying up.’
Korolev sighed: it didn’t take much detective work to realize he was another loose end that needed tying up – permanently. Still, he had a gun in his pocket and Slivka was out there somewhere. The game wasn’t over yet – not for as long as he was allowed to keep playing it, anyway.
‘So it was you, all along, Comrade Mushkina. Pulling the strings, finding enemies and counter-revolutionaries and bringing them together. Killing anyone who stood in your way.’
‘Finding them, Korolev?’ she repeated bitterly. ‘That wasn’t hard – there isn’t a man, woman or child in this part of the world doesn’t know that the Revolution has failed them. I don’t have to search for people who are against the Revolution – around here everyone is against the Revolution. Ask people in the village about hunger and they’ll tell you stories that will turn your blood to ice. They were left with nothing for a long winter – but I know where it all went. Do you know where, Korolev? Abroad. To the Capitalist countries. To the imperialists and bankers. To prop up fascists and oppressors while our own people starved. And there’s nothing that wasn’t eaten here at that time. Leather, grass, the bark of trees and worse, much worse than that. This is what the Revolution gave these people – the same people it was meant to be freeing from tyranny and want. Let me tell you, Korolev, the tsars were better to the people round here than Stalin, and that’s the truth of it.’
Korolev turned to look at the elderly woman. The light from the torch held on him by Damienko showed the silver in her hair, the dark hollows of her eyes and cheeks. There was no doubting her sincerity.
‘I don’t involve myself in political matters, I’m a detective.’
‘You were sent by the Lubianka, Korolev. You’re no ordinary detective.’
‘I was sent here, as you say, by the Lubianka – but I’m no Chekist. And, believe me, if I had my way I’d be in my bed in Moscow right now rather than having guns pointed at me. But you know who the murdered girl was connected to, and it was my misfortune to come to his attention on another case. Political matters aren’t for the likes of me, Comrade, but I go where I’m sent. That’s what an ordinary detective has to do – his duty.’
‘Ordinary, you say? Do you know how much trouble you’ve caused us?’
‘My job is to investigate crimes, Comrade. I don’t apologize if I make it inconvenient for the criminals.’
As soon as he’d said it, Korolev regretted the comment. It wasn’t the time to be pointing a finger at people who were pointing guns at him.
‘We’re no criminals, Korolev,’ Mushkina eventually said, her voice seeming a little quieter than before. ‘The criminals are Stalin and the Party, who’ve murdered the People. I know the truth.’
Korolev wanted a cigarette and he wanted to see his son Yuri one more time. To ruffle his fingers through the boy’s soft hair and hear him laugh. It looked as if the odds on seeing Yuri were long, but he might have a chance with a cigarette.
‘Mind if I smoke? I’ve some in my pocket. I even have a few spare.’ Well, why not offer them round? The likelihood was he wouldn’t be finishing them himself.
‘I have some questions that need answering,’ Mushkina said by way of agreement.
‘I’ve a few of my own,’ Korolev responded, his fingers reaching slowly for the breast pocket of his overcoat. ‘But I’ll answer yours better if I have some smoke in my lungs.’
‘Slowly, then.’
When he struck the match, the spark’s light briefly showed the faces of his captors: Blumkin looked determined, Damienko as if he wanted very much to be somewhere else and Mushkina could just as easily have been discussing the weather as aiming a loaded gun at a Militiaman’s head. The Frenchman, on the other hand, looked as dead as ever.
Korolev’s cigarette tip glowed orange as he blew out the match.
‘How did you find out about the guns?’ Mushkina asked, her voice gentle.
‘A fellow I know told me about them. It seems you tried to force the wrong people to shift them for you.’
‘Not my work. Some men must always take the hardest way. I choose the way that gets me to the destination safely. I knew it was an error to cross the Odessa Thieves.’
‘You know what happened, then?’
‘In the catacombs? Yes. Some of our people escaped.’
‘Not for long. When I left Odessa the place was crawling with Militia and Chekists. A mouse in a bread-bin had better have his papers in order tonight.’
‘Not so many that I couldn’t make my way out, Korolev – age and standing in the Party count for something, even these days. Tell me, how did you find out about Les Pins and Gradov? We know you were looking for them. Blumkin here was ordered to hold them on sight.’
‘Gradov? Well, it was his habit of losing guns that turn up in dead men’s hands, and given Andreychuk had escaped on his watch – well, even I began to wonder whether he might be worth talking to. As for Les Pins, we found his fingerprint on the bracket the girl was hung from. And Sharapov spotted the morphine tablets he used to drug her in his bedroom.’
‘The girl was another mistake. She could have been dealt with a different way.’
‘I wanted to ask you why she was killed. You must have known she was Ezhov’s lover – everyone else did. Surely killing her could only cause you trouble.’
‘I knew it, but this fool didn’t. And didn’t bother asking either.’ She flicked the barrel of her gun in the dead Frenchman’s direction. Korolev didn’t need to see her face to be certain it reflected the contempt in her voice. ‘And then it turned out she was Andreychuk’s daughter. If I could have talked to her, I would have reminded her that our exposure was her own death sentence, but he was an adventurer, an amateur. How he pulled the wool over the eyes of the Comrades in Spain, I’ve no idea.’
‘Who was he?’
‘A Russian mother, a French father, a German spy. He was with the French in Odessa when they intervened in ’nineteen, and stayed on as an observer with the Whites. When he became involved with the Germans I don’t know, but fascists have their own loyalties. To him, we were a means to an end. To us, he was a source of guns, so much the same. We gave him something he wanted and he gave us what we wanted. But then he decided he should be the one making the decisions, and some of our people agreed with him. And I was overruled.’
‘And they paid the price?’
‘They listened to him when he said they could force the Thieves to ship in the guns. And look where that got them.’
‘Why did he kill the girl?’
‘She found out what she was bringing in from Moscow.’
‘And what? Threatened to reveal everything to the authorities?’
‘Not quite – she realized Lomatkin was compromised and wanted an end to the arrangement. Les Pins overreacted, and before the information had been recovered as well.’
‘It was him who drugged her?’
‘Yes, although Gradov was the one who killed her.’
‘And then he killed Andreychuk as well?’
‘I don’t know – I’d arranged to get him across the border, but when the boat came for him, they found him dead. Perhaps it was Gradov, or perhaps someone else. Andreychuk was a good man – he fought with my husband in the war – but maybe Les Pins only had one way of dealing with problems like that.’
‘So that’s how you knew Andreychuk.’
‘My husband was a Party member before the Revolution, but when he was asked to betray the Petlyurists he was dealing with to the Whites, he refused and went over to them. Now, of course, I see he was right – but then . . .’
‘And your son, he came to the same conclusion?’
‘Him? He’s still as loyal to the Party as a dog.’
Korolev could hear something close to hatred in her voice.
‘But he was involved in your conspiracy, wasn’t he? Isn’t that why he was here?’
‘Him? Never – the strain of being a butcher for twenty years is the reason he’s here, nothing else. If he’d known one tiny fraction of this – well, you must know what would have happened.’
At that moment, two quick bursts of electricity energized the filaments of the light bulbs in the room to dramatic effect. It was like seeing two photographs, almost identical, each for a fraction of a second. The first flash of light left them all dazzled, but Korolev was sure he could see a figure standing in the doorway behind Blumkin and the peasant, wearing a greatcoat. Slivka? If it was her, Mushkina saw her as well because she called out a warning and there was a gunshot. Then the lights came on once again, illuminating a scene that was more confused than the first. Blumkin’s eyes were wide open and his body seemed to be lifting off the ground, blood spurting from a bullet wound in his shoulder. Damienko had disappeared, probably hiding under the table. But the figure in the doorway and Mushkina were standing still, each with a pistol aimed in the other’s direction, both guns blazing.
Korolev dropped to the floor, pulling out his Walther as shot after shot blasted across the room, and the shooting didn’t slacken for an instant when the lights went out again. It was like a wall of noise, so quickly were they firing, and the muzzle flashes showed Mushkina standing there shooting towards the doorway and Blumkin firing at random, the wall slick with his blood as he slipped lower and lower. It was impossible to work out what was happening and a bullet hitting the table beside his head convinced Korolev it was safer not to try. Finally there was a pause, then one last shot and then nothing more.
What followed the explosion of light and gunfire was silence, broken only by a long whistling sigh from somewhere near the doorway and then a single word.
‘Mother.’ It was more like a long exhalation than anything and it sounded like Mushkin’s voice. Still, Korolev stayed where he was.
At first he could hear nothing except for the truck’s engine outside, still turning over, then he heard running feet from the direction of the Orlov House and the distinctive sound of empty brass cartridges falling nearby onto a wooden surface – someone in the room was alive and reloading.
‘Chief?’ called a voice from outside, and Korolev felt his spirits rise. It was Slivka – he might get out of this yet – and now a torch’s beam was angling in through the window, cutting into the darkness.
‘Come out with your hands up,’ Slivka demanded, and then Korolev heard another familiar voice in the background.
‘That’s Militiaman Blumkin by the wall, over there,’ a boy’s voice called out. It was young Riakov.
But there was no response from the room and no sound other than Korolev’s pulse thudding in his ears and his unnaturally rapid breathing. More people were coming at a run now and Slivka was telling them to keep back. Somewhere outside he could hear Belakovsky’s voice asking what was happening. Sorokina was proclaiming that it was a terrorist attack on the film while Shymko was telling everyone to stay where they were.
‘Be careful, Slivka,’ Korolev said quietly, ‘take your time. I’m beside the table but I can’t see anything.’
There was a gunshot and a bullet cracked over his head and both he and Slivka fired in response; then there was more silence. Slivka’s torch shone into the room once again.
‘Are you all right?’ she asked.
‘I’ll live.’
‘I think one of us just shot Comrade Mushkina,’ Slivka said, unsure, by the sound of it, that this was a positive development.
‘Good,’ he said. ‘Who was it in the doorway?’
‘Major Mushkin,’ Slivka said. ‘He’s not looking good. Finished, I’d say.’
‘And Blumkin?’ he asked.
‘In a bad way, but still conscious.’
‘There’s a fellow called Damienko in here as well.’
‘I surrender,’ Damienko said. ‘Don’t you worry about that.’ And there came the sound of a gun skittering across the floor.
Then Korolev rose to his feet just as the light came back on and he looked around him at the dead and the wounded and thanked the Lord for preserving his poor sinner’s life once again.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
KOROLEV stood beside Slivka’s car on the village’s solitary street thinking back to the night before. When the lights had come on again, it had been chaos. There’d been actors and technicians, production girls and all sorts swarming into Mushkina’s cottage as soon as it was clear it was safe, and more histrionic dramatics than on a bad night at the Bolshoi. In the end, he’d had to fire a shot into the ceiling, and even then it had required a firm talking to and a reminder of his duty as a loyal Pioneer to persuade young Riakov to leave.
After that, it had been a question of waiting until reinforcements arrived and adding up the butcher’s bill. Mushkin had caught a bullet in the chest and was dead, his face a mask of pain – and Korolev couldn’t help thinking it was the knowledge that his mother had probably fired the bullet more than the injury. Blumkin and Mushkina were both clinging to life and had been ambulanced to the care of Dr Peskov’s colleagues at the university hospital in Odessa, along with the concussed Sharapov. Damienko had emerged from his hiding place uninjured but terrified and was now sitting in a cell in the Militia station, not twenty metres away from where Slivka and Korolev were standing, having a mysterious conversation with the newly arrived Colonel Rodinov.
Snow had fallen throughout the night and most of the morning and it had pushed up against the walls of the village in deep drifts. Korolev, after all the excitement of the previous days, was utterly exhausted. He rubbed his hands together and stamped his feet to try and revive the circulation.
‘He’s taking his time,’ he said, turning to Slivka.
‘I wonder why he wanted to talk to him.’
‘Best not to ask, and even better not to know,’ Korolev answered. He’d spoken to Rodinov the night before, immediately after the gunfight in Mushkina’s cottage, and a lengthy silence had followed his report of the events that had taken place.
‘This Damienko fellow – you said he looked as though he’d handled a gun before.’
‘Yes,’ Korolev had answered. ‘A soldier at some stage, I’d imagine. I haven’t asked him yet – I thought I’d speak to you first.’
‘Good. Hold him at the village station. Have that pathologist fellow of yours take Les Pins and Mushkin into his morgue – but not under their own names. I’ll talk to Colonel Marchuk to make arrangements. This fellow Blumkin – what is his condition?’
‘Conscious. More than that I can’t say.’
‘And Mushkina?’
‘She took a few bullets.’ Omitting to mention that they’d come from Slivka and himself. ‘S
he’s not talking much, but she’s tough.’
‘And you really think she shot Mushkin?’
‘It looks that way. It wasn’t me and Damienko’s gun wasn’t fired. It could have been Blumkin, but my money would be on Mushkina.’
‘A husband and a son,’ Rodinov said, and there was a note of admiration in his voice. Korolev made no comment. It wasn’t the kind of statement that required one.
‘He was loyal all along – Mushkin, that is. You know that now, don’t you? He even had suspicions about his mother, but I didn’t believe him. I thought his exhaustion was playing tricks on him.’
‘I see it now. I had my doubts.’
‘He had his doubts about you as well, Korolev.’
‘Yes, Comrade Colonel.’
‘But you got the job done between you.’
‘I hope so, Comrade Colonel.’
‘The guns are safe, and most of the conspirators in custody – I’d say you completed the task assigned to you. But what happens to them now you don’t need to bother about.’
‘As you say, Comrade Colonel.’
There was a pause that reminded Korolev, yet again, of the precariousness of his situation. He opened his mouth to say something, but what could he say? After a few moments, Rodinov spoke again. The voice was slow and deliberate, each word weighted with menace.
‘You said the film people thought it was a terrorist attack.’
‘That was their initial reaction.’
‘Don’t disagree with that explanation, Korolev. Tell them the matter is still under investigation. Where possible, encourage them in their belief but without confirming it. Understood?’
‘Of course, Comrade Colonel,’ Korolev replied.
There was another pause.
‘No one, including you, is to speak to this Damienko until I arrive. The same applies to Mushkina and Blumkin. I will talk to Petrenko and Marchuk to ensure this happens, but this instruction applies to you more than anyone. Just in case you were to become confused about the extent of your responsibilities in the meantime, this matter is now in my hands – no one else’s. Is that clear?’