The Holy Thief

by William Ryan

  He poured the last of the bottle into the glass and drank.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  There was only a slight disturbance in the snow outside the carriage entrance when Korolev passed the next morning. On the cobblestones inside the arch, however, he spotted three discarded papirosa tubes and an empty packet of Belomorkanal, the red star on the map of the White Sea Canal clearly visible on the crumpled box. He didn’t stop to examine them, but kept on moving. It proved nothing, he reasoned. Even if someone had been there during the night, who was to say that Korolev was the target of their attention? He pulled his chin a little lower into his collar and put the matter from his thoughts.

  By the time he reached Petrovka Street, work parties were already shifting the snow from the street and most of Number 38’s courtyard had been cleared by a group of pale-faced cadets wielding wide-bladed shovels who ignored him as he climbed the steps. Inside the foyer there was activity as well, workers in dirty overalls installing a freshly cast statue of Lenin where Yagoda’s had stood. You knew where you were with Vladimir Ilyich, Korolev mused as he climbed the stairs. He, at least, was unlikely to fall out of favor, being safely dead already.

  Entering Room 2F, he nodded to Yasimov and was promptly bustled out of the way by a harassed-looking young woman in a white headscarf pushing in the door behind him. He smiled as she placed several envelopes and circulars on the table and then rushed out. His smile ended up being directed to the closing door.

  “No manners, these young people,” he said as he placed his coat on the rack.

  “No sense, anyway,” Yasimov said, pointing at a report he was writing. “Two students thought it would be amusing to give a half-bottle of vodka to the bear in Yaroslavl Market.”

  “That old one on the chain? What a waste.”

  “Oh, he wasn’t too old to enjoy it. He broke the chain in two, helped himself to anything that took his fancy on the nearby stalls and gave one of the students a proper chewing. Some uniforms had to shoot the poor creature. The bear, of course—they took the student to hospital. Giving vodka to a bear? How can youngsters afford such extravagance? That’s what I’d like to know.”

  Korolev found an envelope addressed to him in the pile of post. It contained a short typed letter and two photographs, one of which was of Mary Smithson.

  Dear Captain Korolev,

  Further to our conversation yesterday, I attach the visa photographs of Citizeness Maria Ivanovna Kuznetsova (alias “Mary Smithson”) and Citizeness Lydia Ivanovna Dolina (alias “Nancy Dolan”), in order to assist you with your inquiries. It has been confirmed that Citizeness Dolina is also a cultist nun. You will, as discussed, exercise extreme discretion with any investigation relating to these persons and, if in doubt, contact myself for instructions on how to proceed.

  Gregorin

  (Staff Colonel)

  Korolev looked at the picture of Dolan. Pretty, like the other one—dark eyes, a long neck and pale skin. There was humor in her expression, and to judge from the picture she had a cheerful disposition. Her gaze was directed to the left of the picture, as if avoiding the camera, and her dark hair was cut into an elegant bob, something that would stand out in Moscow, where only the wives of specialists or party cadres had access to the quality hairdressers. It was said that Central Committee members had to intervene personally to arrange appointments at Master Paul’s on the Arbat. If the truth be told, she didn’t look much like any nun he’d ever seen, but he presumed Gregorin’s information must be correct.

  He reached for the packet of Little Star he kept in his top drawer for moments such as these. He was about to light up when the phone rang.

  “Korolev,” he said, through the corner of his mouth, picking up his receiver.

  “Alexei Dmitriyevich? Popov here.” The general sounded like he’d been rudely awakened from hibernation. “I read your report. Come up with Semionov, please. Larinin as well.”

  “They’re not in the office at the moment, Comrade General.”

  “When they arrive then—the lazy rascals. In the meantime send up Yasimov. Tell him I hope he’s made progress on that damned bear.”

  “Of course, Comrade General.”

  The general hung up and Korolev lit the cigarette with a sigh that was more sadness than satisfaction. An angry General Popov was not an ideal way to start the morning and took some of the sweetness from the smoke. He caught Yasimov’s eye and pointed the orange tip at the ceiling.

  “The boss wants an update on the bear. By the sound of things they were related.”

  . . .

  Half an hour later it was the turn of Korolev and his two colleagues. Korolev summarized the developments from the previous day and, at the general’s suggestion, informed Larinin of Mary Smithson’s identity and the NKVD’s involvement. As Korolev spoke, he saw Larinin’s face gradually pale. He still looked like a pig, but not a happy pig. In fact, he looked like a pig who’d just discovered what sausages were made from.

  “Comrade General,” Larinin began, but he got no further.

  “Don’t waste your time, Larinin. The Thief was yours, so you’re not ducking out, and I’ll be keeping an eye on you to make sure you don’t try. Any questions?”

  All eyes turned to Larinin. His mouth was slightly open as though still trying to speak, but then he shook his head.

  “Good,” Popov said. “Now, today—what have you in mind, Alexei Dmitriyevich?”

  “It seems to me we need to try and identify the car. We think it’s a black Emka, but perhaps Comrade Larinin could see if his former colleagues in the traffic department are able to narrow the search. If we had an idea of how many Emkas there are in Moscow and which organizations they’ve been allocated to, that would help. Then whether any identifiable vehicles were seen in the neighborhood of the stadium or the church on the nights in question. Anything would be useful.” The general nodded his agreement.

  “Also Comrade Semionov should follow up with the interviewees,” Korolev continued. “And there were some street children around at the time the nun’s body was discovered—I think I might see if I can talk to them this morning.”

  “What about friend Tesak?”

  Semionov and Korolev turned toward Larinin.

  “I’m still going through the mugshots—nothing so far. I’ll try showing the autopsy pictures around to the other investigators when they’ve been developed—see if anyone recognizes him.” Larinin’s voice sounded tired.

  “And this new girl, Dolina? Or Dolan, is it?” Popov said.

  “I’ll show the photograph to Schwartz.” Korolev considered what he was about to say next. “If she does have a link with Mary Smithson then we should start looking for her, quietly. She’s an American, in their eyes anyway, but it’s probable she’ll have assumed a Russian identity. Even so, we could maybe have a discreet look at the places Americans frequent. The embassy, I suppose, the hotels.”

  Popov cut him off with an upheld hand. “No. Don’t piss on the NKVD’s lamp post—believe me they’ll smell it straight away if we do. Steer clear of hotels and embassies. Get Gueginov to make bigger copies if he can and we’ll circulate her picture to the stations as a missing person. That’s as far as we can go. And keep it low key.”

  Korolev nodded in agreement. “I’ve already asked him. How about informers with cult contacts?”

  “I’ll see what can be done. Do you really think your writer friend will be able to arrange a meeting with the Thieves?”

  “It’s worth a try. If Count Kolya will talk, he might be able to explain some things. About the icon for a start, and perhaps why Tesak ended up as he did.”

  “A Thief won’t talk to you,” Larinin said. Korolev looked at him, expecting to see contempt, but Larinin’s frown seemed to be from doubt more than anything else.

  “I could offer him Tesak’s body.”

  Larinin’s chin dropped the fraction of a millimeter it took to reach his neck. General Popov merely grunted and pointed at Semionov.
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  “If there’s a meeting, take him with you. And keep your safety catches off. Only give him the body in exchange for good information. Anything else?”

  Korolev thought of mentioning his overnight watcher and the tail he thought he’d detected the day before, but decided there was no point. After all, he’d nothing concrete to tell them, only a feeling which he wasn’t too sure about himself.

  “Off you go,” Popov said and the three investigators rose as one.

  Larinin looked at Korolev as they left and shook his head in bewilderment. “I’ll keep on with the mugshots,” he said. “First things first.” His sad, pale face reminded Korolev of a circus clown’s.

  By the time Korolev and Semionov reached the Razin Street Militia station, the clouds had darkened from white to gray and were becoming blacker by the minute. The remaining snow was being washed into clumps of dirty ice by the curtain-like drizzle and the broken windscreen in the Ford had left Korolev’s coat soaked through. He nodded to Semionov as he stepped out of the car.

  “I’ll meet you back here,” Korolev said, wiping rain from his face. “If the witnesses have anything interesting, ask Brusilov to hold onto them till I come back.”

  Korolev didn’t really mind the rain; after all, what could you do about weather? It was what it was. Maybe, in the future, Soviet science would be able to control it, turn it on and off or adjust it like a radiator, but for now it was something that only God could influence, and today God had decided to let it wash Moscow’s skies clear of the factories’ smog and drop it onto her streets as murky puddles and black sludge. Korolev suspected the chances of finding the street children would be few in this muck, but there was a Militia post near the church which was manned during the day so he decided to ask there just in case.

  The Militiaman, a sergeant, looked at his identification with great care. Korolev had a suspicion that he was spelling the words out to himself one by one.

  “Ko-ro-lev?” The elderly sergeant said with a frown, as though unsure of the pronunciation. Despite the roof on the small hut, it was open to the sides and his gray beard and eyebrows were greasy with rain. He looked like a damp St. Nicholas.

  “From Petrovka Street. I’m investigating the murder earlier in the week.”

  “Ach,” the sergeant said in disgust, “What’s the world coming to, Comrade? When they kill a young girl in God’s own house? Things must be bad. Well, we’re all atheists, of course, but some things just shouldn’t happen. It’s the Devil’s work. I remember you, now I think of it. You were here the morning we found her. In your uniform, weren’t you?”

  Another atheist like myself, thought Korolev. There are a lot of us around.

  “That was me. Listen, Comrade, there were some besprizorny at the church that morning—have you any idea where I might find them? They were very young, under ten I’d say. One had red hair, blue eyes, a thin, bony face and a big padded jacket—ring any bells?”

  “That little one rings all the bells in Moscow, Comrade Captain—a hooligan in the making of the first degree called Kim Goldstein. His parents got caught up in something or other, you know the way it is—who knows where they ended up and best not to ask I should think. Left him to fend for himself, anyway, and the rascal’s been running wild ever since—I’ve felt his collar in my hand once or twice, but I haven’t had the heart to hold onto it. Although maybe I should, maybe I should—he hasn’t an ounce of flesh on him and won’t last the winter if I don’t, that’s for certain.”

  “Any idea where I might find him?”

  “Yes, and I’ll show you and willingly, Comrade. Let me just call in and tell the station I’m leaving my post.”

  Korolev wondered whether the boy’s parents had called him for the Kipling character or the Soviet acronym for the International Communist Youth Movement. He hoped it was the former, given where the young lad had ended up. A bit of resourcefulness would not be a bad thing.

  Ten minutes later, Korolev stood at the end of an alley, watching some dilapidated stables that were scheduled to be knocked down for a telephone exchange. In the meantime, it was the besprizorny hideout. He heard the sergeant blow his whistle as he entered the stables from the other end, and almost immediately ten or twelve young children burst out into the alley, rather than the three or four Korolev had been expecting. They came to a halt when they saw him, looking uncertainly behind them as the sound of the whistle came closer.

  “Hey, old-timer! Don’t get in the way of the Collective!” a voice came from the back.

  “Listen to that, Grandad. There are no fortresses we can’t storm!”

  The voices were absurdly young, but their angry eyes were like searchlights in the wet gloom. Korolev almost reached for his pistol, but that would have been ridiculous. They were just a bunch of kids shouting slogans from the movies.

  “Now just stay there, I’m a Militia investigator,” Korolev said in what he hoped was a firm voice, but at that moment the sergeant appeared at the stable doors and then the whole bunch were pelting toward him. Korolev, bending down to their level, picked out Goldstein from the charge and decided it might as well be him as any other. He grabbed hold of the boy around the stomach, felt the padded jacket squirm in his hands as the boy nearly dropped out of the bottom of it, but managed to catch a leg. He’d expected the others to run on past, but instead he felt feet kick at him, hands pull at his hair and then the excruciating pain of a small fist punching him repeatedly in the testicles. He swung Goldstein around like a weapon and then the sergeant was roaring above him and laying into the slower children with his night stick.

  “Rats! Rats! Rats!” the sergeant bellowed at the retreating figures and then leaned against the alley wall breathing heavily. “They mug drunks like that, Comrade. At night. A little swarm of them. Once the fellow goes down, he doesn’t have a chance. They’ll kill someone one of these days. Look at your coat, if you don’t believe me.”

  A long straight cut ran downward from beneath his armpit. He checked it quickly with his free hand. No blood.

  “God above,” he said. “How the hell will I get that mended?”

  “Sew it yourself, you old woman.” The voice came from the bundle of legs and coat he had pinned to the alley wall. As if on cue, stones and pieces of wood began to thud into the ground around them as the children, regrouped, now advanced to recover the captive.

  “Hey, hey. Stop that, you little shits,” Korolev shouted, allowing his annoyance about the slashed coat and bruised testicles to come through. “I’m not going to hurt any of you unless I have to, and I’m not going to take young Goldstein in either. I just want to ask a few questions. I’m a detective, from Petrovka Street.”

  Everyone knew about Petrovka Street and the boys, and what looked like one or two girls, stopped their bombardment. Korolev took the opportunity to arrange Kim Goldstein’s clothing so that his face was visible.

  “See? He’s fine,” Korolev said, keeping his hands well clear of Goldstein’s teeth and stopping his kicking by holding the boy’s legs flat against the brickwork.

  “Do you remember me? From outside the church where the lady was murdered?”

  “What do you want, Ment?” the boy said, his voice low with indignation, but at least he’d stopped struggling.

  “Information. There’ll be a few roubles in it for you.”

  “We don’t grass people up, not us.”

  A rare distinction, thought Korolev, in a city where so many denunciations came to Petrovka Street each day that they had a team of eight officers just to read through them.

  “Look, I’m after a murderer who tortures young women to death. He’s a monster, not some regular fellow from the neighborhood who buys and sells a few vegetables down at Sukharevka market. I need your help.”

  The children looked at him, considering the proposal.

  “Like the Baker Street Irregulars?” a small blonde girl asked. She had a dirty face and a filthy but well-cut woolen overcoat.

  “Y
ou like Sherlock Holmes?” Korolev asked. Several of the children nodded and one of them produced a savagely mangled copy of The Sign of Four. “Well, you can be the Razin Street Irregulars, if you’d like. A rouble for a prime piece of information.”

  “A rouble? Forget it.”

  Korolev looked down at the scornful face of young Goldstein, noting his obvious interest. He felt it safe to loosen his grip now it had become a matter of price rather than principle.

  “I could go a little higher,” Korolev said, wondering how he would explain this to the general, who didn’t approve of paying informers at the best of times.

  “Five.”

  “If it’s very good, yes. Otherwise, we’ll have to see.”

  Two shrewd eyes stared up at him from beneath red hair, curled thick with grime.

  “Well then,” the boy said, which seemed to constitute an acceptance of the offer. The others came closer, although the sergeant still kept his night stick ready and Korolev made sure to keep the children where he could see them.

  “All right, Citizens. My name’s Korolev. Alexei Dmitriyevich. First things first—this is the lady who was murdered. Does anyone recognize her?”

  He showed around Mary Smithson’s passport photograph, but there was no response apart from ghoulish interest and a quiet sob from the little girl. He tried again.

  “Some witnesses may have seen her at around midnight on the day in question. Were any of you up then? There may have been a car parked further along the street. Anyone see that?”

  “There was a black Emka, right enough. Remember? Near the cigarette stall?” This from a scrawny child in a flat cap and a stretched and worn jumper. Two others nodded agreement.

  “I remember it, toward the Kremlin it was. On the same side of the street as the church.”

  “Yes, and there was a fellow in the driver’s seat smoking, remember?”

  “Anyone get a look at him?”

  “No, we thought it was some high-up’s driver, or a Ment. Stayed well clear.” The other two nodded agreement with flat cap.