The folded Archer printout in his pocket, he headed out the door and outside. The three-story main library was only three blocks away. His karakul collar up against the cold, he waded through the heavy snow, stepping into the street where it was plowed until he reached the library.
At eight thirty in the morning the place was still closed, so he retreated to a café with a lone sad-faced waitress, six small metal tables and chairs, and a grease-spattered kitchen. On the wall hung a painting of the original Yekaterina’s palace gaudily painted to fit the painter’s vision. Fireworks darkened the sky behind the building—or perhaps it was cannon fire.
As the lone patron, he listened as the radio droned on with news stories about the mounting tension between the Ottoman regime and the Chinese Empire. Both were saber rattling again and demanding that the other reduce their strategic build-up of arms along the border between the two powerhouse nations. The Union of American Nations, a coterie of small states from South and Central America along with the United States, had joined with the Anglo-German Empire to urge calmer heads to the table. Of course, Fergana sat in the middle of this hot spot, armies crowding her borders, but a point of calm reason between the two fractious nations like the eye of a growing typhoon. The international community was suggesting mediation.
A further story spoke of government corruption in the lease of mineral rights in the Fergana mountains. The opposition party was screaming that the president should step down. Pundits were interviewed about the heir apparent to replace him. They mentioned Boris Bure and the Reformation Party.
In other news, two children were rescued from a collapsed well in Kokand. In America, the latest president of the eastern seaboard country refused to give into Anglo-German pressure to stop slavery and more sabers were rattling on that continent over Anglo-German North America refusing to return runaway slaves. The Anglo-German empire had demanded that independent African states cease their human traffic, though Ottoman North Africa still continued shipments. The Anglo-German navy had had skirmishes with the Ottomans when they tried to cut off shipments. As a result, America was implementing a government breeding program to “produce superior workers to support domestic industry.”
Kazakov shuddered and let the drone of the announcer sweep over him. The shipment of human cargo. Wasn’t that what had brought Maria here, too? For all the self-righteous posturing of the Anglo-Germans, slavery was happening right in their own backyard. It must not have been easy for Maria and the others like her. Perhaps she had tried to thank him in the only way she knew how.
Perhaps he had been too hard.
Considering this, he sipped sweet milk tea and feasted on a simple breakfast of heavy rye bread, fresh butter, and piping hot sausage that leaked warm grease into the bread. The sausage popped with each bite and the bread required good teeth, just as this case required much thinking. He needed to visit AngloTec Industries to gain further insight into Collin Archer. Perhaps the man was on holidays so he had not been missed. He needed to visit Archer’s apartment, too.
Beyond the frosted front windows, the city slowly woke, cars droning down the plowed street while shop owners arrived and slowly shoveled a trail through the snowbanks that the plows had created.
He nursed his meal and his tea until nine thirty and then paid his bill before shoving out the door. Across the street, the library had just opened and he headed to the entrance, following behind another patron, a woman, bundled against the cold. He pushed inside behind her as she pulled her scarf from her hair. Blonde. Slim.
Then he caught her profile. Natania Bure stood in front of him, unaware of who had followed her in the door.
He hung back with the draft by the door, surprised that she could be here.
Logic said he should leave her alone. Bure had the power to make Kazakov’s life hell for bothering Bure’s wife. But a coincidence like this was too good to be ignored. It was as if the universe had brought her to him. It was his chance to talk to her again. To gain a better understanding of what had happened within the family and perhaps of who had killed Yekaterina. Instead of heading to the periodicals section, he hung back and followed her inside.
Natania Bure opened her coat and threaded through the lines of book shelves as if she knew exactly where she was going. Though she had a book bag in her hand, she neither returned a book nor picked anything up from the shelves. At the rear of the library she settled at one of the tables, pulled a magazine out of her bag, and began to read. Her face, never fleshy, looked gaunter than when he’d last seen her and, though she had not been a big woman before, now her sweater set hung from her shoulders and her no-nonsense black boots were scuffed. Even her tightly coiffed hair seemed to have loosened, letting fly-away hair escape around her face.
The past month had not been kind to Natania Bure.
Kazakov picked up a random book from a shelf and found a chair where he could pretend to read while watching. For fifteen minutes the woman neither looked up nor checked her watch as if she was waiting. No, this was more the look of a woman who was, for a few minutes at least, escaping into a place that was purely hers. Interesting. Perhaps her home life was not the perfect place she attempted to present to the world.
When he finally decided that no one was joining her, he sauntered over, stood across the table, and waited.
Three beats of his heart and she raised her gaze to his. Her eyes widened and her lips moved.
“You,” she mouthed, but her voice was silent. She closed her magazine.
“Mrs. Bure,” he said, keeping his voice pleasant. “Such a pleasant chance this is. How have you been?”
Her mouth moved again and finally words came out. “How do you expect after the loss of a child?”
Now, finally, she sounded more like a bereaved mother. He looked down at the table and chair between them. “Do you mind?” he asked as he pulled out the chair and slid in to face her. “I expect you must miss Yekaterina terribly. She was, after all, your only child. I am still sorry for your loss.”
As she met his sympathetic gaze her fingers white-knuckled her magazine into a cylinder as if he was a fly she would smash.
“What do you want?” she asked. “My daughter is dead.”
“I know,” he said. “And I don’t go through a day without thinking of Yekaterina. I wake at night wishing I’d found the culprit. Don’t you wonder who did it? Don’t you wish he was caught?”
Her gaze slid away from him down to the magazine and she made a show of flattening it out on the table. A simple magazine of Russian crafts. A typical magazine found in many Russian homes.
Finally she nodded. “Every day.”
It was what he’d hoped to hear and he leaned forward. “Then help me. Talk to me and tell me what you know. What happened that last night at home? What was going on between her and Semetai Manas? What do you know about the murdered boy?”
It was wrong—wrong to inundate her with so many questions, but it was as if a flood gate opened and the questions spewed through the spillway of his mouth to crash over Natania Bure. Her gaze, tentative at first, turned frightened and she looked around as if seeking rescue.
Then she folded the magazine again and stuffed it into her bag. “I can’t speak to you. I need to go.”
Kazakov caught himself. “Why can’t you speak to me? Has someone told you not to?”
She hesitated and looked at him. Shook her head and buckled the book bag closed.
“You know I’m still searching for her killer. I will find the truth for you.”
The bookbag slammed onto the tabletop, and she leaned forward, her face skeletal, her expression as ferocious as a mother protecting her child. “Don’t. Just don’t. There are some truths that should not see the light of the world. Do you understand? Don’t help me. God help me, don’t look any further—not if you truly care for Yekaterina.”
She yanked on her coat and he knew he only had a moment. One more question. One more chance.
“Have you ever met
a man named Collin Archer?” he asked, watching her face for signs.
Hat and bookbag in hand, she glanced at him one last time. “Do not follow me again, Detektiv.”
Then she was gone—almost running toward the door.
Kazakov sank back in his chair. He had not meant for it to go like that. He certainly hadn’t meant to spook her or cause more pain. He should have spent time enquiring as to her health and welfare. He should have asked her about crafts she enjoyed—anything to build rapport. Instead he had done what even the most rookie investigator knew not to do—he had gone for the jugular and elicited a reaction. Clearly her daughter’s death caused Natania Bure significant concern. He did not understand what had her too afraid to help find her daughter’s murderer. It made no sense. He tilted his head back and closed his eyes. But he had the answer at least to his final question. He’d seen the flare of recognition in her gaze.
He’d found a connection between the cases.
When he left Natania’s table, he returned to the front of the library and the quiet bustle of kiosks opening and the calming scent of dust and old paper. He inhaled the scent that had been so much of his childhood. His father had never had time for a child after Kazakov’s mother had died. So Kazakov spent his free hours here or with books borrowed from the library, burying himself in fairy tales as a child and in adventure fiction as he got older. Even at the dacha he had often preferred to read rather than accompany his father when hunting.
He went through the archway to the newspaper archive section. Gradually the Fergana State Library was following the example of the great libraries of Europe and Asia by saving the newpapers electronically to reduce the space they took, but in Fergana—often a late adopter of new technology—they were just at the beginning of the process.
The newsprint archive was a separate room at one end of the huge block building. The room was a cavernous hall under low ceilings with flickering fluorescent lighting, filled with long rows of shelves hung with yellowing copies of newspapers like so many parchment bodies. He found the librarian, an ancient, wizened man with bent back and head almost devoid of hair save for dense sproutings out of both ears and a ring of gossamer white around the back and sides of his skull. He wore a dusty-looking, green cardigan and shiny, baggy gray trousers.
“I’m looking for articles on a company called AngloTec,” Kazakov said.“Can you tell me where I might find them?”
For all his age, the librarian’s gaze was particularly sharp. “Anything in particular?”
“No.” Kazakov shook his head. “I’d like to look at everything.”
The librarian pursed his lips. “That’s a lot of reading.”
Kazakov considered the man. There was something about him that was vaguely familiar. “I’m looking for articles that give me some insight into the company and in particular for information about its executive team.”
The librarian thought a moment. “Take a seat. I will be right back.”
He shuffled off into the dusty rows of yellowing paper and the reek of printer’s ink and Kazakov settled into an old straight-backed chair at a scarred table. Soon the librarian shuffled back, his dragging feet on the concrete floors sounding like he walked though old leaves. He dumped a heavy pile of yellow newspaper sheaves on the table.
“Start with these. If you narrow your search, ask.”
He walked away, his work done, and settled behind a desk in the corner. He picked up a book, but slowly his head began to nod, his chin slipping lower until is hit his chest. The fluorescent lights glimmered on his smooth head.
Kazakov turned back to the stack of papers and began flipping through. In a paper dating back about five years, he found the first excited announcement that AngloTec was building its factory. It was a government press release speaking of the many jobs the corporation would provide to Fergana’s economy and how the brain-drain to the world’s scientific hubs of Constantinople, Nanjing, London, and Berlin would stop.
He flipped through more papers. More announcements. More background on AngloTec as a foremost research center and producer of domestic and military technology. Status reports on the selection of the factory site. Then came the big announcement of the ground breaking. There was an artist’s rendition of what the factory park would look like—a spacious, low slung building surrounded by mature leafed trees and actual parks for the neighboring town to use. This was followed, about a year ago, by a front-page article about the grand opening. It included photos of the people attending the ribbon cutting.
There, smiling up at him from the middle of the group of dignitaries, was Collin Archer, looking far different than the corpse in the morgue. Two men over stood another familiar figure. Boris Bure glared at the camera over a crescent of too-large, bared teeth.
Kazakov sat back. So Archer had obviously been in Fergana before receiving the visa that brought him here six months ago. Interesting. How long had he been traveling to Fergana and for how long had AngloTec had a Chinese spy working for them? Did they know? Was that what his murder was about?
The photo also confirmed what Natania Bure had revealed. Bure and Archer knew each other. The question was how well and for what purpose. Of course, at an event like this there would be many people in attendance, swirling around, trying to catch the opportunity for brief conversations with important men. Bure could have been there in that capacity—or as the up-and-comer that others wanted to know and be noticed by. Bure didn’t have to know Archer—simply be aware of him. A photo like this didn’t mean they were friends, just that they might have met each other. But there had been Natania’s reaction. That would seem to indicate more.
And there was the Red Veil connection. Coincidence?
He set the newspaper article aside to copy and kept reading. There was nothing else there.
Easing his back, he realized he’d been there two hours already. He went to the librarian’s desk, and the old man stirred as if he was an automaton with a movement sensor like those found in the cheap dioramas of the Russian Museum. He blinked up at Kazakov as if he didn’t know him, but then his rheumy gaze cleared.
“Yes? You found what you wanted?”
Kazakov laid the newspaper with the photo on the desk. “I have found something, but I don’t know what. What can you find me about these men? Do they know each other beyond this event?” He tapped the group photo without singling out either Archer or Bure, but the old librarian’s eyes widened.
“I—I’ll see what I can find.” He rose, his knees crackling, and shuffled off again, his trouser bottoms dragging as he disappeared into the rows of paper.
Kazakov made a photocopy of the photo and set the newspapers aside for filing. The old man’s shuffle slowly returned and he appeared carrying an armload of newspapers that looked precariously close to toppling. Kazakov hurried to help him.
After depositing his gleanings on the scarred table, the librarian dusted off his clothing and looked over his shoulder as Kazakov settled back in his chair. The old man leaned in and flipped the top newspaper open to a business page that provided an executive profile. Collin Archer smiled out from a photo that was clearly professionally done outside of Fergana, for it showed the blurred background of an Anglo garden behind him. “Here he is. There are similar articles on all but one of the others.”
The librarian leaned in close enough that the dusty scent of unwashed old skin filled Kazakov’s nose. “Have a care. The other one is not anyone’s friend.”
Then the old man was gone, shuffling to his desk again as if nothing had been said.
Kazakov looked from the paper to the old man. Was he right to think the old man was talking of Bure? Surely he was a known entity? A government executive become politician. His biography should be on file; the media would demand it. And with the rumors of grooming for political roles, wouldn’t that be doubly important?
He read through the ten-month-old article on Archer. Born of an old Anglo family in a place named Devon, schooled at a place called
Oxford. He had graduated with a degree in science and had a higher degree in technology before being recruited away by a headhunter from AngloTec. At least that was the story the newspaper told. An eligible bachelor, patron of the arts, skilled marksman and horseman and practitioner of the ancient art of fencing, he had purchased a penthouse apartment in downtown New Moscow. The quote from Archer said the usual pap about being impressed with the lovely city of New Moscow and its historic past.
Kazakov flipped through the papers. There were small articles here and there that mentioned Collin Archer and similar profiles of the other men in the photo. All except Bure. There were mentions of Bure’s presence at gallery openings or during government announcements. There was nothing placing them together or even running in the same circles until he came to an article in a newspaper dated six months ago that the old librarian had marked with a dog-eared page corner.
The sports page showed photos of a charity polo event, a mass of horses and riders slashing mallets at a dying goat as the game had originally been played. Beneath the photo, the article talked about the charity—an event to fund ongoing conferences that would bring together gifted musical students from across New Moscow. The article said nothing more of the event, but listed the players. Because of their last names, two names stood out together at the top of the list: Collin Archer and Boris Bure. They both played for the same team funded by AngloTec. He scanned down the list and noted another name he’d heard before: Enver Pasha, the Red Veil’s neighbor.
Kazakov sat back in his chair, feeling breathless. Was this event related to the conference where Yekaterina and Semetai met? He glanced at the old man who once more appeared to doze in his chair. There was more going on there, Kazakov was sure, but what would an Ottoman functionary, a Chinese spy, and a Ferganese government official have in common aside from polo? Could Yekaterina Weber and Semetai Manas have even been there? He could imagine that potential patrons might want to meet some of the students they would be helping. Could the two youngsters have seen or heard something that led to their deaths?
After Yekaterina Page 15