by G. D. Abson
Outside, she heard heavy, stumbling footsteps on the stairwell but dismissed the thought that Mikhail would be back so early. His drinking sessions with Rogov had an almost mythic status in the department – unless, she realised, he had forgotten his wallet or keys. She keened her ears, listening intently, but heard nothing other than the noise of the traffic in the streets below.
She returned to the keylogger and saw two blocks of numbers separated by a tab. The first was a sort code and she copied, then pasted it onto the first field on the bank’s webpage. She repeated the process with the account number. The keylogger displayed six digits: “060444”, and she pasted them into the security code box. The numbers looked familiar but she couldn’t place them. There was one field left to complete. She flicked back to the keylogger to select the name of the account holder. She saw the letters Mikhail had typed earlier in the evening and felt the urge to laugh: “Misha Buratino.”
Misha, well, that was obvious, but the last name was a joke; it was his way of saying the whole thing was a fairy tale: Buratino was Tolstoy’s version of the Pinocchio story. She cut then pasted the name into the field for “Account Holder” and clicked “Go”. Immediately a new screen appeared and she tapped the Russian flag again. She was in.
Natalya went to the kitchen to refill her glass and listened out for the footsteps she had heard a moment earlier. They had gone and all she could hear was Sergei, the neighbour above them, singing “Everything’s going to be alright” in a mournful voice. He was a retired violin teacher who anaesthetised himself regularly with vodka because it was the only decent painkiller he could get for his back injury. Sergei’s voice slurred to a halt and she caught the clank of weights in the basement of the abandoned office next door where local skinheads had built a makeshift gym; further away, there was the low blast of a ship horn somewhere on the Neva.
Back in the study, she noted that Mikhail’s account was in euros and two hours ago he had transferred enough to cover the bribe for Anton’s university place. That left a new balance. Mikhail had one hundred and two thousand euros held offshore that he had decided not to tell her about. It was tempting to move it all to her personal account then sit back and wait for his reaction. She glanced at the previous transaction, then stared at it in shock; her fingers gripping the wine glass. Exhaustion had set in and she rubbed her eyes, desperately wanting the sleep to make it all go away.
Misha had lied to her. There was a printer option on the screen and she made a hard copy of his account history then folded the pages and tucked them in her handbag.
‘You bastard,’ she muttered.
They had bought the apartment using money his mother, Violka, had left him. He’d made such a show at the time of being surprised that she had put so much away. Except she hadn’t. In front of her, in sober numbers and digits, she could see it had all come from his secret account.
She uninstalled the keylogger and removed it, then deleted her own search history. Before crawling into bed, she grabbed the bottle of Satrapezo to guarantee the next day wouldn’t be any better.
Chapter 19
After putting out some cereal for Anton’s breakfast she left early for the office. She had expected to find Mikhail sleeping on the sofa but there was no sign of him. If he hadn’t appeared by roll call she would check with Oksana and see if he had stayed at Rogov’s. Now that she thought about it, she would call anyway to make sure he hadn’t had an accident – it was odd considering what she had discovered about Mikhail, but when it came to other women she trusted him. After fifteen years in the department she had a very good idea of who screwed around and who didn’t. For all his faults, Mikhail was more respectful to women than any other male ment she had known.
Outside it was grey and wet, and the spray from the Neva mingled with the fine rain to make them indistinguishable: the ideal weather for a Monday morning. From home, Suvorovsky Prospekt was an unpleasant one kilometre walk from the Ploshchad Vosstaniya Metro station or two bus journeys, and so the Volvo was her only option when the weather was bad. Luckily the traffic was light and she was in the station by eight.
The area reserved for detectives was quiet and she found a Post-It note stuck to the receiver of her desk phone. It was from Semion, the barman at Cheka, asking her to call him for another interview. The note was an unsubtle attempt at seduction and she screwed up the message and dropped it in the bin. She made herself a coffee, avoiding the machine which produced something that tasted like ground acorns in mud. Back at her desk, there was a backlog of eighty emails and she started clearing them down.
After half an hour, the rest of the day shift appeared and she kept her head down, not wanting to engage in the joking and teasing that came with the job. She took out a notepad and made a list of her follow-up activities: the civil registration office, ZAGS, might tell her what Zena’s appointment with them had been about; the girl’s last movements, and possibly her assailant’s too, might be on the CCTV footage of the Krestovsky Island Metro; then there were the fingerprints on Zena’s Hermès handbag that Pavel Popovich would need a chase call on; finally, she had to finish the phone conversation with Thorsten Dahl and get him to mail over Zena’s dental records.
At ten minutes to nine, Rogov appeared and sat on the edge of her desk creasing the papers underneath. The smell of mouthwash on him was so strong he could have bathed in peppermint oil.
‘Did Misha find you last night?’
‘Being friendly now?’ He stretched a hand over his face and yawned into it. ‘Yeah, we went out for a little one. He’s gone home for a wash and change.’
She nodded. ‘Thanks.’
Rogov paused, agony corrugating his simple brow. ‘It’s not my place to say this, Natalya, but Misha’s a good man. You two need to talk.’
‘Yeah, you’re right, Rogov.’ She studied his stricken features. ‘It’s not your place to say it.’ She yanked her keyboard from underneath one of his buttocks. ‘Now get off my desk and do some work.’
At roll call in the Zheglov meeting room, she sat on one of the chairs placed against the wall and tuned out her thoughts to focus on Colonel Vasiliev as he addressed the Directorate’s detectives. ‘Captain Ivanova is working on the Dahl case. For those of you unfamiliar with it, Zena Dahl, a nineteen-year-old student from Sweden was last seen on Thursday night, and is believed to be the body discovered in the Maritime Victory Park.’
Vasiliev smoothed hair that required no smoothing. ‘Captain Ivanov, please provide an update to Major Dostoynov on your progress.’
This was new, she thought. Had the new major already succeeded in becoming Vasiliev’s replacement? She shifted in her chair feeling the eyes in the room on her. ‘Major, there are no suspects yet; however, a handbag was found at the scene and Expert Criminalist Popovich will report today with his analysis of the fingerprints. In addition, I will be following up on a number of leads.’
‘Do you need assistance?’ asked Dostoynov.
‘Yes, sir, I need a team to make street enquiries and to—’
‘Good, Captain.’ He looked to Colonel Vasiliev for approval. ‘You can keep Sergeant Rogov. The need for additional manpower will be reviewed this evening. In the meantime, your main priority is the identification.’
‘Yes, Major.’ Her tone was upbeat but she felt anything but optimistic. The Colonel had clearly spoken with the new major before the meeting and put him in charge of the case.
With roll call over she went to the equipment desk and took several deep breaths before wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. The corporal behind the counter handed her a breathalyzer and she blew into the nozzle, conscious that the bottle of Satrapezo she’d been drinking until midnight could deprive her of a departmental car as well as her Makarov. After visiting Yulia Federova she had kept the gun for the weekend – there was no rule requiring her to return the Makarov at the end of her shift – though all the menti generally checked in their weapons to avoid the wrath of senior management; there had bee
n too many incidents involving off-duty policemen.
The corporal rotated a clipboard in her direction. ‘Please sign…and don’t drink so much next time, Captain. You were just under.’
She took her Makarov and the key then found Rogov, who was conspicuously absent from the equipment desk; she presumed because he was over the limit. At the car park she held out the fob at arm’s length and pressed the unlock button to find the vehicle assigned to her. Rogov read it as an invitation and raised his hand for the key. She shook her head and decided not to mention that the mouthwash he had been swilling would be enough to fail a breathalyzer test on its own. ‘We’ll split. I’ll drive first.’
‘OK, boss. Where are we going?’
She held her arm in a different direction and pressed the button on the fob again. This time, the indicators on a dark grey Nissan Primera flashed.
‘To ZAGS.’
‘I didn’t think you cared.’
As she climbed inside, she was hit by the smell of greasy food with the vinegar tang of vomit.
‘Zena went to one of their offices before she disappeared. I want to know which one.’
‘What about Dostoynov’s order?’
‘The one where we behave like a pair of Moscow Watchdogs and leave the detective work to someone else?’
‘That one,’ he smiled.
Had Rogov agreed to keep Dostoynov updated? She didn’t think so; Rogov was Mikhail’s man and – at least for the moment – that guaranteed her some loyalty too.
She started the engine and drove out of the car park, waving at the guard on the barrier. ‘You’re an insubordinate bastard, aren’t you, Rogov?’
‘Yeah,’ he nodded enthusiastically then paused to think and she could almost hear the machinery turning, ‘but I’m with you. I don’t want anyone else taking the credit.’
‘It won’t happen. Thorsten—’
‘Zena’s father, right?’
‘Yes. Misha and I met Dahl on his plane.’
‘I heard.’ Rogov scratched his chin.
‘Well, I’ve asked him for Zena’s dental records. We have a little time before they get here.’
‘Misha said Dahl couldn’t leave the airport because he didn’t have a visa.’ Rogov frowned, ‘But I heard he’s rich.’
‘Like an oligarch.’
‘So why did he lie?’ Rogov whistled through his teeth. ‘With the cabbage he’s got, Dahl could turn up naked at the Russian embassy and expect the ambassador to fix a visa to his puckered zhopa.’
It wasn’t a pleasant image of a bereaved father, but Rogov was right. At the junction to Suvorovsky she teased her phone from her jeans pocket then gestured with a finger for Rogov to be quiet while she called Mikhail.
He answered it immediately. ‘Tasha?’
‘How’s the head?’
He groaned. ‘Like there’s a wolf inside tearing at a reindeer.’
‘What do you know about this new major?’
‘Dostoynov? I have to share an office with him. He doesn’t fart or smoke but there’s still a sulphurous smell to him.’
‘Has Vasiliev anointed Dostoynov yet?’
‘No, but the colonel knows I don’t want the job.’
‘I’m sorry, Misha, it’s my fault. If it wasn’t for me—’
‘Yeah, well. Natasha, I’ve got a lot of work, and the grandfather of all hangovers. How can I help?’
‘I was reminiscing with Sergeant Rogov about the wonderful time we spent on Dahl’s Gulfstream.’
She could hear laughter in the background and wondered how busy Mikhail really was. ‘What about it?’
‘Do you think we were taken in? Rogov thinks Dahl lied about the visa and for once I think he might be right. Surely Dahl could have got one easily enough.’
‘Maybe he was scared to leave the airport. He was here in the nineties and you know what they say about the oligarchs?’
‘What?’
‘Never ask how they made their first million.’
‘Could be…thanks. Can you stay on the line?’
‘Because I’ve got nothing better to do?’
Natalya parked the Nissan then tapped Rogov on the shoulder and pointed out the red-orange building on the opposite street. With its stucco façade and pilasters the civil registration office had the appearance of a wedding cake. ‘Try this ZAGS first.’
Rogov wound down his window then tapped out a cigarette from a soft pack.
‘Wait a minute.’ She tapped Rogov on the shoulder again, then narrowed her eyes and flicked the back of her hand imperiously in the direction of the car door. He took the hint and she watched him dash out into the rain then huddle under the gated archway of the ZAGS building. Soon, smoke billowed out, lending him a demonic aura.
‘Tasha, are you there?’ asked Mikhail.
‘Yes.’ She stared through the water-mottled window of the Primera. ‘I was thinking…on Saturday we all thought Zena had been kidnapped, not murdered. What would you do if someone abducted Anton?’
There was the sound of footsteps over the earpiece and she presumed Mikhail was moving somewhere safer to talk. ‘I’d use a low powered bullet to ricochet inside the skull and turn the brain into soup.’
She felt a chill from his answer. ‘Wrong question. I meant, what if you were Thorsten?’
Mikhail exhaled deeply and she wondered if he and Rogov were subconsciously in tune with their cigarette breaks the same way women aligned their menstrual cycles.
‘OK, Dahl won’t trust us. All those nice Sven newspapers will tell him the menti are no better than crooks.’
She almost gasped at Mikhail’s hypocrisy. ‘So…if you were Thorsten?’
‘I’d hire a Sven to sniff around, or maybe that Russian lawyer of his, Lagunov. Someone who knew how to keep his mouth shut. You’d do the same so why the phone call?’
‘I want to know when Dahl applied for a visa.’
‘The FSB look after immigration now. Ask Dostoynov to check with his old buddies.’
‘He only wants me to get an identification for the body.’
‘It’s sensible. Unless he’s certain of getting the killer he’ll try to ditch the case. If you start digging and bigger dogs get involved, they’ll be able to blame you for fucking it up if they don’t find her killer.’
She snorted. ‘Doesn’t anyone care about Zena?’
‘I didn’t say I agree. I’m just saying Dostoynov will be too used to the FSB’s Machiavellian ways to think like a real policeman.’
She heard him laugh and wasn’t sure if something had happened in the office. ‘I don’t care about getting blamed, I want to make sure we get the bastard who killed her before he does it to someone else. The right bastard too.’
He sighed. ‘OK. I know someone in the Big House: Viktor. He’s FSB but doesn’t stink like the rest of them. We studied law together. I’ll do it on one condition.’
Mikhail did favours the same way cats left pigeons on doorsteps. ‘What?’
‘We’ll stay in tonight and talk. I love you, Angel, I don’t want anything coming between us.’
She glanced at Rogov who was still huddled under the ZAGS archway.
‘Of course…me too.’
Mikhail hung up and she called Rogov over. He tossed the cigarette then pulled the corners of his light blue suit jacket over his head as he walked up to her.
‘If I remember, ZAGS have a centralised booking system. See if you can find out which one Zena went to on June 6th. The appointment was for 9:30 a.m.’
‘Me?’
‘Yes, I’ve got a call to make. Oh, and Rogov’ – she smiled at him – ‘you need to make lots of noise, I don’t think they open on Mondays.’
Rogov rang the bell, the interior of his jacket already stained dark by the rain. After ten seconds he started banging on the door with a fist. There was no answer and he jogged down the street to find a rear entrance, moving surprisingly nimbly for an overweight man.
She stared out of the windo
w, not focusing on anything in particular. Certainly, Mikhail preferred her to be a loyal wife and ignore his dirty money; that wasn’t an option when he’d chosen to make her an accomplice by buying their apartment with it. There was still a hundred thousand euros in the account. All told, that was too much for the occasional bribe. It was the kind of money that put innocent people away in the hell-holes that passed for prisons, and let the guilty go free to rob or kill again.
After ten minutes the door of the ZAGS building was opened by an earnest young man and a sodden Rogov stepped out of it without acknowledgement then paced to the car. He pulled on the Nissan’s door huffily and sat down, his brow streaked by rainwater. She waited for his laboured breathing to calm. ‘What did you find out?’
‘It’s an hour’s drive away,’ he mumbled. ‘The appointment was in fucking Sestroretsk.’
‘The seaside, Rogov. That’s just what you need for a hangover.’
‘You’re not coming?’
‘No, drop me off at Krestovsky Metro. I’ll meet you at the station in two hours – call me if you find anything interesting.’
‘Are you going to be like this all the time?’
‘Like what?’ she smiled.
The spray turned to heavier rain as she started the car and followed the road alongside the treelined gardens of Tauride Palace.
‘How about I smoke with the window open?’ he asked.
‘No.’
Rogov was brooding for a few minutes before he spoke again. ‘What will you do?’
She scrutinised him to see if it was more than a casual question but his expression gave nothing away. ‘There’s nothing more I can do. I told you I’ve already asked Dahl for Zena’s dental records. She was adopted so DNA is no good.’
‘What about the Sven menti?’
She shook her head. ‘There’s been little cooperation since last year.’