Viktor lowered his gaze. He remembered the meeting. Not with any clarity; what lingered was his impression of his father’s unease and the sense of menace that the stranger emanated. But he knew the stranger’s name all right.
‘Serov,’ he told his father quietly. ‘The captain’s name was Nikolai Serov.’
*
It was only three thirty when Viktor walked out of the gates of the First Municipal Hospital but already the sky was darkening. There was the promise of more snow in the air, which tasted fresh and good after the ward. He felt guilty to be so glad to be breathing it while his father lay dying.
Tannoy strains of martial music reached him, rising and falling in volume as the wind shifted. Gorky Park lay just behind the hospital grounds, more or less merging with them; some skaters were testing the ice.
‘Life goes on, Papa.’
A yellow Volga taxi drew up by the main entrance. As its passengers got out Viktor hurried across and took it over from them, in case it might be the only free one he’d find.
‘Moscow State University,’ he told the driver.
He wiped a space in the steamed-up window while the car swung around, then huddled in the underheated interior to peer out as they waited to turn south-west onto Lenin Prospekt.
‘You a student?’ the driver asked. ‘A teacher maybe?’
Viktor saw that he was watching him in the rear-view mirror. ‘I used to study at Moscow State,’ he replied.
‘You’re the wrong colour for the other university.’ The car heaved itself suddenly into the traffic and Viktor was thrown back in his seat.
They passed the Academy of Sciences on their right. Across the way was the Don Monastery, in whose gardens he used to stroll with Anna, and beyond it, all but hidden from view, Patrice Lumumba University. Third World students came to the Patrice Lumumba, officially to study, unofficially to be trained by the KGB for other purposes in their homelands. It was their brown and black faces, so conspicuous in Moscow, that had prompted the driver’s comment.
‘You an out-of-towner?’ the man was asking now. ‘Please excuse my curiosity, comrade. It’s the only thing that keeps me in this job. I like to meet people. You know?’
‘I’m a Muscovite.’
‘It’s the way you’re staring at everything, you see.’
‘I’ve been away for a time.’
‘In the sticks?’
‘No.’ Viktor paused. ‘In another country. With my job.’ The driver whistled softly. ‘You must have a big job, my friend.’
‘I wouldn’t say that.’
‘Another country. Far?’
‘England. London.’
The driver peered harder into the mirror. ‘Should I know you? Are you government or some big shot?’
Viktor shook his head, smiling. ‘I’m nobody special.’
The driver shrugged philosophically. ‘I suppose if you were a big shot you wouldn’t be riding in my cab.’
They slowed down to join the traffic tailing back from the pedestrian crossing lights on Gagarin Square. The area all around the square and the Metro station was busy with people.
‘Look at them,’ the driver grumbled. ‘Going home already. Nobody works a full day any more.’
On either side of the avenue reared two semicircular apartment blocks, each wider than the Moskva and crowned by massive, spire-topped towers. They bounded the square like monstrous walls.
‘Remember the day Gagarin came to Moscow?’ Viktor said suddenly. ‘After that first space flight?’
‘Who doesn’t? This was where they gave him his hero’s welcome. Did you go along?’
‘My father brought me. He knew some people who lived up there –’ He pointed at the block on the right. ‘They let us watch from their window.’
The driver was grinning. ‘I got drunk, so drunk. We all got drunk.’
Viktor laughed. ‘I was too young. But yes, it was a big day.’ It was one of the best days he could remember; one of those rare days when his father was all his.
‘That’s a memory I can hold on to, Papa,’ he said quietly.
‘What’s that, comrade?’
‘Nothing. Thinking aloud.’
‘Try getting drunk these days,’ the driver mused. ‘You could die of thirst in this city.’
‘What do you mean?’
The driver chuckled. ‘You’re right – you have been gone a while. They’re cutting vodka supplies. Like in the joke.’
‘What joke?’
‘I thought everybody knew this one!’ The driver slapped his thigh. ‘Ivan Ivanovich joins the queue outside a liquor shop. After three hours there’s still sixty people in front of him. Ivan can’t stand it any more. Pulls a big knife from his belt. “I’ll fix Gorbachev!” he says and off he goes. But he’s back half an hour later and rejoins the queue, right at the end! So now there’s ninety people in front of him. His friend up ahead spots him. “Ivan! You fixed Gorbachev?” Ivan shakes his head. “No,” he says. “The queue at the Kremlin was even longer.”’ The driver whooped with laughter. ‘It’s good?’
‘It’s good,’ Viktor said, grinning. ‘But don’t you think you’re taking a chance?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Telling a joke like that to a complete stranger. How do you know I’m not a Chekist?’
‘KGB?’ The driver glanced in his mirror again, studied the thin face and tired eyes, and grew serious. ‘Not you, comrade. You’re like the rest of us. Enough trouble. of your own. You’re not out to make any for anybody else.’
Viktor said no more.
After Gagarin the road forked in three. They filtered off to the right and picked up the Vorobyovskoye Shosse, curving past the Palace of Pioneers, all fountains and flags, and followed the long loop of the Moskva where it cut through the lower reaches of Leninskiye Gory, the Lenin Hills. They began to climb with the contours of the land and Viktor watched the city spread out below him, a panorama of lights.
‘Where do you want?’ the driver asked. ‘Which part?’
The skyscraper block of the university was looming up on their left, crowning the hill. The driver slowed down as he approached the junction with Prospekt Vernadskovo, in case Viktor wanted him to take it and go on up.
‘Straight on is fine,’ Viktor instructed. ‘Drop me at the next junction. I’m not going anywhere in particular. Just a walk.’
‘In this weather? You know, comrade, I was right. You must have a lot on your mind if you need a walk that bad. Or a guilty conscience.’
‘Maybe,’ Viktor mumbled.
*
The morgue was full of echoes. Vladimir Chernavin was wishing he hadn’t worn his shoes with the little steel studs that saved wear on the leather. Clackety-clack, clackety-clack they went as he puffed along beside the morgue superintendent.
‘Here we are!’ the superintendent said. He stopped abruptly beside a pair of black rubber doors with A23 stencilled on them. Chernavin skidded slightly on the marble floor. The superintendent was peering through the perspex window in one of the doors.
‘It’s as I told you,’ he said. ‘Your colleagues are here already.’
‘No colleagues of mine.’ Chernavin’s eyes narrowed as he saw the two CID men. The superintendent pushed the door open and led him in.
‘Afternoon, comrades!’ the superintendent called. ‘One more for the fun and games.’
He grabbed the naked corpse laid out on the bench between the policeman and shook him vigorously.
‘Wake up, old son! You’re missing the fun! And it’s all in your honour!’
‘All right, all right,’ snapped the senior-looking of the CID officers. ‘Why don’t you leave us to it? We’ll let you know if we need any help.’
The man went off, smirking.
‘Are you Chernavin?’ asked the officer who had already spoken.
‘Senior Special Inspector Chernavin. By the way, I wish you people wouldn’t queer things for the rest of us.’
The CID m
an flipped his notebook shut. ‘What are you on about?’
‘One bottle of vodka used to be enough to get in here without a proper letter of authority from the prosecutor’s office. Today it cost me two – because that’s what you’d already handed over. Thanks a lot.’
The CID men didn’t respond. Instead the younger one lifted the corpse’s arm and rolled him onto his side, then began looking closely at his back and neck.
‘My name’s Mukhin, by the way,’ said the senior man. ‘He’s Stepun. We don’t worry too much about rank but for those interested in such matters I’m a major, he’s a captain. You’re the chap who cleaned up Yeliseyev’s, I hear.’
Chernavin stood a little taller. ‘You heard right.’
‘Nice piece of work. Pity you lost Gulyaev. I understand he was the only one who could’ve led you to Mr Big.’
Chernavin shrugged but didn’t feel like saying anything.
Mukhin poked the corpse’s belly. ‘Pity about this one as well.’ He opened his notebook again. ‘Aleksandr Petrovich Burinski. Late of Mytishchi region, where he was a respected member of the community and was employed as Manager Responsible for Deliveries Planning in the District Food Trade Administration depot. Survived and mourned by widow, Helga, and one daughter.’ He glanced up at Chernavin. ‘I suppose he would have been your next port of call, comrade Inspector. Like I said – pity. Now, what did they tell you about how he came to be in our tender care?’
‘Only that he was found floating in the Moskva last night. Face down by the Proletarskiy Prospekt bridge at the Southern River Terminal.’
Mukhin nodded and went back to the notebook. ‘Distance between bridge and water – twenty-two metres. Enough to make sure that he broke through the ice when he hit. When dragged out, he’d been dead between eighteen and twenty-four hours. Pathologist says he drowned. Probably unconscious when he went into the water. So full of vodka he could have pickled just as easily. How about that – pickled and frozen. Still, rotten luck, comrade – a fellow has a few drinks and stumbles into the Moskva, with no one around to pull him out. You’d be surprised how often it happens in this city. Especially these days.’
‘Accident, my arse,’ Chernavin grumbled quietly.
‘I note your scepticism, Inspector. You would perhaps suggest that the nasty bruise on the back of his head – show the inspector, Stepun – may have precipitated his tumble, rather than being a result of, say, connecting with the ice as he hit.’
‘Something like that.’ Chernavin bent down to look at the swelling.
‘Well, you’re free to believe what you please. Play the detective by all means. Good luck to you. Maybe you’ve got a point: we have a suspicious death on our hands. Persuade my forensic people to come up with some evidence.’ He leant across the corpse to put his face close to Chernavin’s. ‘But I don’t know where it’s going to take you in the end, comrade Inspector. Which is why I’m not too keen to put my department’s time into it.’ He snapped the notebook shut. ‘So if you’ll excuse us, we’ve got other cases to deal with.’
‘Plenty of others,’ chipped in Stepun. Disregarding Chernavin, he pushed bloated, dead Burinski onto his back again and went to the sink, where he began scrubbing his hands.
‘Like the poor sods whose car blew up this morning,’ he called over his shoulder to Mukhin.
‘That’s right, Captain. Now there’s a sorry case.’
Chernavin tugged at the corpse to get it onto its side again. He began probing the bruise at the base of Burinski’s scalp, parting the hair to see better.
‘Blown to pieces, four healthy men,’ Mukhin was saying. ‘At least, it looks like four, as far as we can make out from the bits. Several funny aspects to the case, Captain, when you think about it. According to the car’s details, as I recall, the driver was a long way from home. With no good reason that we can make out. Wasn’t there some odd coincidence or other you were drawing my attention to?’
‘Yes, sir. The car driver’s place of employment.’
Chernavin looked up sharply.
‘Ah yes,’ Mukhin drawled. ‘Wasn’t it the FTA depot at Mytishchi – same as poor old Burinski here.’
‘What’s that?’ scowled Chernavin. ‘What did you say?’ Burinski flopped onto his back again.
Mukhin looked at Chernavin as if he’d just discovered he was still there.
‘By the way, comrade Inspector – you know what you were saying about those two bottles of vodka?’
Chernavin nodded. ‘What about them?’ Then he shook his head. ‘Who gives a shit?’
‘You seemed to earlier. It wasn’t true, you know, what you were saying. We only gave one bottle. You’ve been conned, comrade.’
Stepun shook his head, tut-tutting. He and Mukhin were through the door before Chernavin could stop them.
‘Wait a minute!’ he shouted. His voice echoed through the hall and made him jump. In his exasperation he meant to slap the bench but his hand connected with Burinski. It had the sound of dead meat. Chernavin looked down at the man in horror.
‘My apologies, comrade!’
Then he ran clackety-clack after the two CID men.
*
The phone started ringing just as Serov was turning the key in the door of his apartment. He got in as quickly as he could, dumped the grip bag he was carrying and hurried to take the call.
Marshal Georgi Zavarov’s voice, distorted by distance and a poor radio connection, was barely recognisable.
‘Where in hell have you been? I tried to reach you all last night and this morning. Listen – I’ve been hearing stories.’
‘What stories?’
‘I can’t say on this line. Don’t you realise where I’m calling from?’
‘I read the papers.’
‘That’s more than I can do right now. But word travels. These stories – do I believe them or not?’
‘Things are becoming difficult.’
‘How difficult?’
Serov took his time and settled himself on the arm of a chair. He lit a cigar before answering, knowing the delay was making Zavarov sweat.
‘The problems have been contained.’ He exhaled a long breath of smoke. ‘You’re safe, for the present – that’s what you really want to know, isn’t it? So am I. But it’s only a matter of time, in my opinion.’
‘A matter of time! Then we’ve got to do something!’
Serov smiled. His gaze fell on the bookcase. Behind it was the wall safe where he had deposited the Aganbegyan report.
‘Maybe there’s a way out,’ he said. ‘Maybe. I have an idea but it’s still rough. It needs something to clinch it. I’m prepared to talk it through with you. But as I said, there’s only so much time – who knows how much?’
‘Next week. I’ll be back in Moscow next week. I don’t know what day.’
‘I’ll call you. We won’t meet in Moscow anyway. I’ll be going to Molodechno. We’ll meet there.’
‘You want me to go all the way down to Molodechno! That won’t be easy for me.’
‘Tough, Marshal. Tough.’
Serov hung up, went through to the bedroom, and began packing fresh clothes to take back to Galina’s.
*
Viktor Kunaev stood by the white church with its holy pictures painted on the walls and watched the taxi drive away. He was completely alone. On his right was the broad quadrangle where, in spring and summer, newlyweds came to drink cheap champagne and have their photographs taken with the city as a backdrop. He and Anna had done that. He kicked a layer of snow aside; underneath was a litter of champagne corks, empty cigarette packets and film cartons. He smiled wryly; in some regards a least, times hadn’t changed.
Beyond the quadrangle towered the artificial ski slope, silhouetted like a huge children’s playslide against the skyline. Viktor’s gaze followed it down to its base, where the snowy park sloped away to a swathe of darkness that was the river. On the far bank was the oval sweep of the Lenin Stadium. A few beams had been switched o
n among its batteries of floodlights, enough to show it off. Beyond the stadium the land, locked in the Moskva’s oxbow, flattened out to stretch into the distance and towards the Kremlin.
He took the narrow path downhill and through the trees, drawing his collar high against the sharp wind that was shaking snow from the branches and onto his forehead and lips. Underfoot the drifts grew deeper as he descended, deeper than his overshoes. Snow trickled inside them and began to melt, making his socks and the ends of his trouser legs wet.
He crunched on until he was beyond the cadmium glow of the streetlamps. In the darkness the city’s distant lights seemed brighter. From this distance, the traffic noise was no more than a whisper. Far away to his right a Metro train on the Kirovsko–Frunzenskaya line emerged briefly from its tunnel and hurried through the darkness, the light from its windows warm and inviting, then vanished underground again.
‘If something’s no good any more, throw it out and make do with the memory.’
The words rang in his head like a bell tolling his fate. The city lights grew blurred as he started to sob.
10
‘Good morning, Nikolai.’
It took a moment before the voice speaking softly in Serov’s ear registered.
‘Galya?’
He opened his eyes to find her leaning over him. She was in her dressing gown but had climbed back into bed. She kissed him lightly on the lips.
‘Coffee,’ she said. ‘Sit up.’
He took the cup she was reaching to him from the tray on the bedside table and studied her for a moment before speaking.
‘Welcome back.’
A tight smile in response.
He sipped the coffee, still watching her. ‘How much do you remember?’
She sat back against the pillows, drew her knees up and wrapped her arms about them. ‘A few things since I’ve been home.’
‘How much about the day it happened?’
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