by Sam Eastland
The other boy tried desperately to stuff the gun into his pocket but it wouldn’t fit.
‘Where did you get that?’ demanded Kirov, having realised that the gun was not, in fact, a toy.
‘I found it!’ shouted the boy. ‘It’s mine!’
‘Just show it to me,’ said Kirov.
‘Let me go.’
‘First show me that gun.’
As the boy held it out, muttering under his breath, Kirov saw that it was only part of a gun, specifically the barrel section of a revolver, including the cylinder. It was from a type of gun which, when reloading, would be opened on a hinge that allowed the front section to swing forward like a shotgun. Other revolvers had cylinders that opened out to the sides. There were markings on the cylinder, but they were very small and he could not make out what they meant. The hinge which joined the two parts of the gun had been wrenched violently away. The gun had not been well cared for. The bluing on the barrel was stained and faded and there were flecks of rust inside the cylinder.
Although Kirov had seen revolvers like this before – in fact Pekkala’s Webley operated on the same principle – he had never come across one exactly like it.
‘Where did you find this?’ Kirov asked the boys.
‘Over there,’ the boy pointed towards where the laundry water pipe emptied into the sewer. ‘It was lying right next to the hole.’
‘Was there another piece with it?’
‘No. Maybe the rest of it fell down the drain.’
‘When did you find it?’
‘This morning,’ said the boy with the rabbit-ear hat.
‘Was there anything else lying around?’
‘No. Can I have it back?’
Kirov lowered himself down on one knee. ‘I can’t do that‚’ he said‚ ‘but I can make you a detective in a murder investigation.’
The boy’s eyes grew big and round.
‘What about me?’ shouted the other boy. ‘I saw it first.’
‘But I picked it up. That’s what counts!’
‘You can both be part of the investigation‚’ he assured them. Ten minutes later, with the remains of the revolver bound up in a handkerchief, Kirov set off for NKVD headquarters, leaving the two boys, each now bearing the rank of honorary commissar, lying beside the drain, up to their armpits as they reached down into soapy water, searching for the rest of the gun.
Having left behind the town
Having left behind the town of Chertova, the truck carrying Pekkala, Lieutenant Churikova and Rifleman Stefanov passed along a straight road bordered by tall trees with dappled bark. Beyond the trees, fields of ripened barley, left to rot, spread out on either side.
With the front line now only a few kilometres away, heavy gunfire could be heard over the rumble of the truck’s engine. In spite of the canvas roofing, dust from the road filled the air in the back of the truck. Through tears in the cloth, bolts of sunlight stabbed into the darkness.
As they jostled over the uneven road surface, Pekkala explained their mission to Stefanov.
The son of the gardener of Tsarskoye Selo listened in silence, his eyes wide with amazement. ‘Under the wallpaper?’ he stammered.
‘That is correct,’ Pekkala replied, ‘and if we are successful, that is where it will remain.’
The ZiS-5 motored over gently rising ground towards some woods on the horizon. They had just reached the crest of a thickly wooded ridge when a Russian soldier stepped out on to the road. He held up a rifle in one hand and crossed his other arm over the rifle to make an X, indicating that they were to stop.
The truck skidded to a halt.
Now Stefanov saw movement. More soldiers, dozens of them, lay on the damp ground, with rain capes pulled over their heads.
The sun was going down, detonating in silent poppy-coloured explosions through clouds on the horizon.
The man in the road lowered his rifle and walked towards them. He had a heavy, dimpled chin and dark brown eyes. A tiny pair of crossed cannons on his faded olive collar tabs marked him as a sergeant of artillery.
The driver pulled his orders from under the chest flap of his raincoat. After brushing off some flecks of mud, he handed his papers to the soldier.
As the sergeant was flipping through them, Pekkala climbed down from the back of the truck and stood on the road.
Filing past him in the opposite direction were a dozen German soldiers. At the front marched an officer, his tunic unbuttoned down to the thick black belt at his waist. Behind him walked two men in long rubberised canvas coats. Half-moon-shaped discs on chains around their shoulders bore the word Feldgendarmerie, indicating that they were members of the military police. The rest, judging from the yellow piping on their collar and shoulder boards, were a squad of reconnaissance troops. All of the soldiers moved with their fingers laced together behind their necks. A few still wore their helmets, sweat-greased leather chinstraps dangling down the sides of their faces. With the exception of the officer, who stared straight ahead as he walked, the rest looked down at the dusty-yellowed boots of the man walking in front.
The prisoners were flanked by two soldiers carrying rifles, which brought back to Pekkala memories of the guards at Lubyanka and the long, silent, dread-filled journeys he had made as a prisoner from his cell to the interrogation room.
The soldiers marched down a dirt track towards a cluster of farm buildings whose whitewashed walls glowed like glacier ice in the twilight. Still with their hands behind their necks, the soldiers were herded into a thatch-roofed barn.
‘Come with me, Inspector,’ ordered the sergeant of artillery.
The two men made their way into the pine woods. Light winked through beads of sap oozing from the green pine cones above their heads. They passed a row of six heavy mortars camouflaged under green netting. The mortar crews sat cross-legged against tree trunks, eating rations of boiled buckwheat and sausage. The odour of machorka tobacco, which smelled to Pekkala like a new pair of shoes, mixed with the sweet dry balsam of the pines.
At the edge of the trees, they came upon a man peering through a pair of large scissor-shaped artillery binoculars which had been set up on a tripod. Vines were woven around the legs to mask the tripod’s shape. The man wore a baggy pea-green smock camouflaged with brown splotches, like drops of vinegar in olive oil. Methodically, he scooped roasted sunflower seeds out of his trouser pocket and squeezed them into his mouth. Fragments of chewed shells littered the ground at his feet.
The sergeant tapped the camouflaged man on the arm. The two of them spoke for a moment. Then the man looked back at Pekkala and, with leather-gloved hands, waved him to approach. He had the look of a Frontovik – a man who had been fighting a long time. It was the eyes that gave away a Frontovik – never still, always glancing nervously from side to side. Over the years, Pekkala had encountered many such men, veterans of the Great War. Unable to settle back into civilian life, they had turned instead to crime. Too often, these men found themselves cornered in the back streets of Moscow and staring down the barrel of a Webley.
The Frontovik took off one leather glove and shook Pekkala’s hand. ‘Leontev,’ he said, ‘Captain. Glavpur.’
From far across the valley came the tearing sound of heavy machine guns and the hollow boom of tanks firing.
‘How close are we to the Catherine Palace?’ asked Pekkala.
Leontev gestured to the binoculars. ‘See for yourself.’
Pekkala set his brow against the greasy Bakelite eyepieces. What he saw startled him. There, in the distance, he could make out the rooftops of Tsarskoye Selo. At the edge of the Alexander Park, he spotted the White Tower and the Children’s Pavilion. Smoke was rising from behind the Pensioners’ Stable.
‘Are any Red Army troops still on the grounds of the estate?’ asked Pekkala.
‘None who are still breathing,’ replied Leontev. ‘The Germans’ main assault force has already moved on from there.’
‘Where are they headed?’
&n
bsp; ‘Straight for us,’ Leontev told Pekkala. ‘We are expecting an attack just after dark. The Fascists will move along the main road which cuts across this ridge. Once the attack has begun, we will take advantage of the confusion to get you through the lines.’
‘How?’
‘It has all been arranged,’ was all that Leontev would say, as he went back to peering through the binoculars.
A soldier wandered past, carrying a handful of nettles in a black handkerchief. He crouched by a smouldering fire. The cruciform bayonet of his Mosin-Nagant rifle balanced on two forked sticks. Suspended from the bayonet was a battered mess kit filled with boiling water. As the soldier sprinkled in the nettles, their serrated, pale green leaves folded away into steam.
The evening sky turned periwinkle blue as the landscape dissolved into shadows.
‘I can see them now,’ said Leontev.
Peering into the twilight, Pekkala glimpsed the lumbering hulks of tanks as they moved across the floor of the valley, squads of infantry fanned out behind them.
‘It’s time.’ Leontev tapped Pekkala on the arm and the two men made their way down through the trees towards the whitewashed house.
Churikova and Stefanov were already there, waiting in the trampled mud of the farmyard.
Setting the steel-shod toe of his boot against the door, Leontev shoved it open, leaving the dent of hobnails pock-marked on the paint.
The three of them followed him in.
Inside the house, Leontev took down a kerosene lantern from a nail by the door. After lighting it, he trimmed the wick. A warm glow spread around the sparsely furnished room, glancing off the blackened metal buttons of Stefanov’s tunic, each one of them emblazoned with a crossed hammer and sickle.
On the kitchen table, Leontev laid out a map of the Leningrad Sector.
At first, the tangle of roads and towns and thumb-print contours of the land confused Pekkala, but like a person whose eyes were growing used to the dark, familiar names slid into focus – Kolpino. Tosno. Vyrica. Volosov.
‘Here is our position,’ explained Leontev, edging his dirt-smeared thumb along a ridge which cut across the map. ‘Our mortars will fire upon the Fascists as they begin to climb the ridge. There is a small cart path to the north. It’s not on the map, so I don’t believe they are aware of it. If you follow that track, you should reach the Catherine Palace by morning. We will get you some clothes from those prisoners we picked up. Once you are beyond the lines, if anybody asks, you can tell them you’re heading back with the wounded.’
Stefanov thought of the injured Russians he’d seen streaming away from the front – on stretchers, on borrowed bicycles, slumped on the shoulders of their friends – any way they could move, towards dressing stations so crowded that they would have to wait hours before some doctor even looked at them. ‘Comrade Major,’ he pleaded, ‘I barely speak a word of German.’
‘Our intelligence reports that there are also Belgians, Danes, Dutch and Finnish volunteers among the advancing troops. Just pretend that you are one of them.’
‘But I don’t speak their languages either!’
‘Neither do most of the Germans,’ replied Leontev, ‘and do not stay one minute longer than you have to. As soon as you have your prisoner, get back as fast as you can. You will be soldiers returning to the front. No one will get in your way if you are heading towards the fighting. Once you have passed through our lines, dispose of your German uniforms as quickly as you can. Then find yourself some Russian clothes and notify Glavpur . . .’
A series of muffled gunshots made them jump.
Leontev pushed back the sleeve of his camouflage smock and squinted at his watch. ‘As soon as the mortars open up, we will send you on your way. Have you had anything to eat?’
‘Not for some time,’ replied Pekkala.
From the pocket of his coat, Leontev produced a handful of dark bread cakes known as sukhavi. He handed them around.
Working their jaws, Pekkala and the others ground the flinty biscuits into paste, leaving a taste like campfire smoke in their mouths.
There was a quiet knocking on the door. Two soldiers walked in, laden down with pieces of German uniform. Boots, belts, shirts. Even underclothes. Behind him came another man, laden with Mauser rifles and two Schmeisser sub-machine guns gathered from the battlefield. After depositing the clothes and the weapons in a heap upon the floor, the soldiers saluted and left.
Then Stefanov watched as three dead Germans were dragged through the open door by their arms into the muddy street. In the darkness, their stripped bodies looked obscenely white. The soldiers pulled the corpses across the street and out into a field of barley. The executed men, their faces branched with blood, vanished into the shifting grain.
By the time Kirov
By the time Kirov reached NKVD headquarters, he was drenched in sweat. He had run the whole way, having left behind the Emka at his office. Waving his pass book in the face of the guard at the entrance, he clattered down the stairs to the armoury and found Captain Lazarev in the middle of his lunch. Scattered among weapons parts, cleaning rods and loose rounds of ammunition lay a slice of raw potato, a piece of dried fish and a jar of sauce made from raisins and sour cream.
‘Ah!’ Lazarev held out his arms and waggled his fingers, like a child waiting to be picked up. ‘What have you brought me now?’
Kirov untied his handkerchief bundle and presented the gun fragment to Lazarev. ‘It was in a drain, just up the street from where the shooting took place.’
With a sweep of his arm, the Chief Armourer cleared a space on the cluttered counter top, jumbling bullets and dried fish into a heap. He fixed his gaze upon the revolver and wiped his sour-cream-smeared fingertips across the chest of his grimy shop coat. Slowly, he reached down, picked up the barrel and squinted at the tiny symbols etched in a circle across the back end of the cylinder.
‘Well?’ asked Kirov, unable to wait any longer for an answer.
‘Type 26,’ replied Lazarev. ‘Koishikawa Arsenal.’
‘Koish . . .?’
‘. . . ikawa. It was standard issue for Japanese non-commissioned officers.’
‘You think they had something to do with this?’
Lazarev smiled. ‘I can say almost for certain that they didn’t.’
‘And why are you so confident?’
‘Because,’ said Lazarev, ‘it hasn’t been standard issue since 1904. It was still in use as late as the 1920s, but has since been replaced by the Nambu Mark 14.’
Kirov stared at Lazarev, trying to make sense of the dates and numbers which were now rattling around inside his head.
‘What you have here, Major,’ explained Lazarev, ‘is a souvenir of the Russo-Japanese War, and one which long ago ran out of ammunition.’
‘What do you mean “ran out”?’
‘The Type 26 requires a special cartridge. Whoever used this did not have access to such particular ammunition. That’s why those Mauser bullets had been modified. As you can see, it was in poor condition even before someone tried to smash it to bits. It looks as if it has been stored in a barn or a damp cellar somewhere. It hasn’t been oiled recently. It’s surprising that the weapon worked at all.’
‘I don’t understand,’ said Kirov. ‘In a time when there are tens of thousands of soldiers passing through this city every day, each one of them armed with a modern gun, why would someone take the risk of using a relic like this when they could have borrowed or stolen one from a member of the Red Army?’
‘You are right that all those soldiers carry guns, Major, but most of them are Mosin-Nagant rifles, unsuitable for the purposes of an assassin. What this person wanted was a handgun, which, as a general rule, are issued only to officers and security personnel. It cuts down on the chances of stealing such a weapon, and also on the chance of persuading someone to part with it temporarily.’
‘And also on the odds of the killer being an officer.’
‘Or a member of State Security. Such
as yourself.’
‘You talk as if you think I killed this man,’ objected Kirov.
‘No, Major. That isn’t what I think, although I know you could have done. You have won the NKVD marksmanship award six years in a row.’
Kirov had the little NKVD trophies lined up on his mantelpiece at home, but those weren’t his only awards. He had dozens of others: for rifle shooting, pistol shooting, clay pigeon shooting. Kirov didn’t know why he was a good marksman. He had received no particular training, other than the basic courses in weapons handling that all NKVD men received. There were many things, most things in fact, at which Kirov had to struggle even to be average. But the aiming of a gun, the measured breathing and the gentle closing of his finger on the trigger all came naturally to him, as if he had been born with the skill.
‘You might be surprised,’ continued Lazarev, ‘at how many times I have been consulted by members of NKVD about shootings which turned out to have been carried out by members of our own branch of service. In this case, however, I do not believe we are dealing with a professional.’
‘You may be wrong there, Comrade Lazarev. I was able to trace the path of the bullet, and I can tell you it was a magnificent shot.’
‘Luck can also be magnificent. We may never know what role was played by skill and what by chance. But ask yourself this, Major.’ Lazarev held up the remains of the gun by the tip of its barrel and swung it back and forth as if it were a pendulum. ‘Why would an assassin entrust his task to a weapon as old and decrepit as this?’
‘He might have had no other choice.’
‘Precisely, and the choice of those who have no other choice is invariably the Black Market, which has always been a reliable, if eccentric, source of weaponry,’ said Lazarev. ‘Relics like this Type 26 are the orphans of war. After being picked up off the battlefield, they are sold or traded, stolen or misplaced. Eventually, they just fall through the cracks and are left to gather rust and dirt until at last they end up in the hands of people who cannot pick and choose the tools with which to carry out their crimes. I think you will find that the shooter, whoever he may be, was neither an agent of a foreign country, nor someone for whom killing is a trade.’