Child 44

by Tom Rob Smith

  Several nights after the conclusion of the trials, as he’d lain awake, his wife had told him it was only a matter of time before he agreed to help Leo; she wished he’d just get on and do it. Had he been waiting for her permission? Perhaps he had. He was gambling not only with his own life but with those of his family. It wasn’t that he was doing anything technically wrong by asking questions and making inquiries, but he was acting on his own. Independent action was always a risk since it implied that the structures put in place by the State had failed: that the individual could somehow achieve something the State could not. All the same he was confident that he could begin a quiet kind of investigation, a casual investigation which would appear to be no more than conversations between colleagues. If he discovered that there were no similar cases, no other murdered children, then he could be sure that the brutal punishments he’d been instrumental in bringing about had been fair, just, and appropriate. Though he mistrusted Leo and resented the doubt he’d stirred up, there was no escaping that the man had posited a very simple question. Did his work have meaning or was it merely a means to survive? There was nothing shameful about trying to survive—it was the occupation of the majority. However, was it enough to live in squalor and not even be rewarded with a sense of pride, not even to be sustained by a sense that what he did served some purpose?

  For the past ten weeks Nesterov had operated on his own without any discussion or collaboration with Leo. Since Leo was almost certainly under surveillance, the less contact between them the better. All he’d done was to scribble Leo a short note—I’ll help—including instructions to destroy the note immediately.

  There was no easy way of accessing regional criminal files. He’d made phone calls and written letters. In both forms of communication he’d mentioned the subject only in passing, praising the efficiency of his department for the swift resolution of their two cases in an attempt to provoke similar boasts. As the replies began to arrive he’d been forced to make several off-duty train journeys, arriving in towns and meeting with his colleagues, drinking with them, discussing relevant cases for no more than a fraction of a minute before boasting about other things. It was an extraordinarily inefficient means of collecting information. Three hours of drinking might provide two minutes of useful conversation. After eight weeks Nesterov hadn’t unearthed a single unsolved crime. At this point he’d called Leo into his office.

  Leo had entered the office, shut the door, and sat down. Nesterov had double-checked the corridors before returning, locking the office door, and reaching under his desk. He’d taken out a map of the Soviet Union which he’d spread across the desk, weighing down the corners with books. He’d then picked up a handful of pins. He’d stuck two pins into the map at Voualsk, two in Molotov, two in Vyatka, two in Gorky, and two in Kazan. These pins formed a row of towns which followed the train line west toward Moscow. Nesterov hadn’t been to Moscow, deliberately avoiding its militia officers, who he’d feared were likely to be suspicious of any inquiries. West of Moscow he had been less successful in gathering information but he’d found one possible incident in Tver. Moving south he stuck three pins in the city of Tula, two in the town of Orel, and two in Belgorod. Now into the Ukraine, he’d picked up the box of pins, shaking at least twenty into his hand. He continued: three pins in the towns of Kharkov and Gorlovka, four pins in the city of Zaporoshy, three in the town of Kramatorsk, and one in Kiev. Moving out of the Ukraine there were five pins in Taganrog and finally six pins in and around the city of Rostov.

  Nesterov had understood Leo’s reaction—stunned silence. In many ways Nesterov had collected this information in a comparable frame of mind. At first he’d tried to dismiss the similarities: the ground-up material stuffed into the children’s mouths, whether officers called it soil or dirt, the mutilated torsos. But the points of similarity were too striking. There was the string around the ankles. The bodies were always naked, the clothes left in a pile some distance away. The crime scenes were in forests or parks and often near train stations, never household crimes, never interior. Not one town had spoken to another even though some crimes had occurred less than fifty kilometers apart. No connecting line had been traced, joining up these pins. They’d been solved by blaming drunks or thieves or convicted rapists—undesirables, to whom any allegation would stick.

  By his count there were forty-three in total. Nesterov had reached over, taken another pin from the box, and stuck it into the center of Moscow, making Arkady child 44.

  NESTEROV AWOKE TO FIND the side of his face pressed against the sand, his mouth open. He sat up, brushing the sand off. The sun had disappeared behind a sheet of cloud. He looked for his children, searching the stretch of beach, the people playing. His eldest son, Efim, seven years old, sat near the water’s edge. But his youngest son—only five years old—was nowhere to be seen. Nesterov turned to his wife. She was cutting slices of dried meat, ready for their lunch.

  —Where’s Vadim?

  Inessa looked up, her eyes immediately finding their eldest son but not their youngest. Still holding the knife, she got up, turning around, checking behind her. Unable to see him she dropped the knife. They both moved forward, arriving by Efim, kneeling down beside him, one on either side:

  —Where’s your brother?

  —He said he was going back to you.

  —When?

  —I don’t know.

  —Think.

  —Not long ago. I’m not sure.

  —We told you to stay together.

  —He said he was going back to you!

  —He didn’t go out into the water?

  —He went that way, toward you.

  Nesterov stood again, staring into the water. Vadim hadn’t gone out into the sea, he hadn’t wanted to swim. He was on the beach, somewhere among these hundreds of people. Images from the case files rose into his mind. One young girl had been murdered off a popular riverside trail. Another young girl had been murdered in a park, behind a monument, one hundred yards from her house. He crouched beside his son:

  —Go back to the blankets. Stay there no matter who talks to you, no matter what they say. Even if they’re your elders and demand your respect, you remain in the same place.

  Remembering how many children had been persuaded into disappearing into the forest, he changed his mind, taking his son’s hand:

  —Come with me. We’ll both look for your brother.

  His wife went up the beach, in the opposite direction, while Nesterov walked down, weaving in and out of people, walking at a brisk pace, too quick for Efim, so he picked his son up, carrying him. The beach came to an end, tapering off into long grass and reeds. Vadim was nowhere to be seen.

  Efim knew a little about his father’s work. He knew about the two murdered children in his hometown because his parents had spoken to him about them, although they’d made him swear not to mention the murders to anyone. No one was supposed to be worried about them. They were meant to be solved. Efim knew his little brother was in danger. He was a talkative, friendly boy. He’d find it difficult to be rude to anyone. Efim should’ve kept a better watch on him, and realizing he was to blame, he began to cry.

  At the other end of the beach Inessa called for her son. She’d read the documents pertaining to her husband’s investigation. She knew exactly what had happened to these missing children. Panicking, she blamed herself entirely. She’d told her husband to help Leo. She’d encouraged him, advising on basic precautions to keep the investigation a secret. He was by nature blunt and this work needed caution. She’d read his letters before they were posted, suggesting the insertion of certain phrases should the letters be intercepted. When he’d shown her the map marked with pins, she’d touched each pin individually. It was an impossible number and that night she’d slept in the same bed as her sons. Tying their holiday into the investigation had been her idea. Since the greatest concentration of murders had taken place in the south of the country, the only way Nesterov could make a substantial expedition
unnoticed would be to use his family holiday as a cover. Only now did she fully understand that she’d put her children in danger. She’d taken them into the heartland of this mysterious evil. She’d underestimated the power of this thing they were searching for. No child was safe. They were seemingly taken at will, murdered only meters from their homes. Now it had taken her youngest son.

  Short of breath, shouting for her son, calling his name into the face of the bathers, her eyes filled with tears. People circled her with their dumb, unconcerned eyes. She begged them to help her:

  —He’s only five years old. He’s been taken. We have to find him.

  A stern-looking woman tried to take hold of her:

  —He’ll be here somewhere.

  —You don’t understand: he’s in terrible danger.

  —From what?

  She pushed the woman out of the way, turning around and around, calling his name. Suddenly she felt a man’s strong hands on her arms.

  —My little boy’s been taken. Please help me look for him.

  —Why don’t you calm down?

  —No, he’ll be killed. He’ll be murdered. You have to help me find him.

  The man laughed.

  —No one is going to be killed. He’s quite safe.

  She began to struggle but the man wouldn’t let her go. Surrounded by pitying faces, she tried to break free:

  —Let go of me! I need to find my son.

  Nesterov pushed through the crowd, breaking through to his wife. He’d found his youngest son playing in the tall reeds and was now carrying both his children. The man let go of Inessa’s arm. She took hold of Vadim, clutching his head as though it were fragile and might break. They stood together as a family, surrounded, hostile faces all around. Why had they behaved like that? What was wrong with them? Efim whispered:

  —Let’s go.

  They left the crowd, hurriedly collecting their stuff and heading to the car. There were only four other cars parked by the dirt road. The rest of the bathers had arrived by tram. Nesterov started the engine, driving off.

  ON THE BEACH a thin woman with a touch of gray in her hair watched as the car disappeared. She’d made a note of the number plate, having decided this was a family that needed investigating.

  MOSCOW

  5 JULY

  UNTIL YESTERDAY, if Leo had been arrested, there was nothing directly linking Raisa to his unauthorized investigation. She could have denounced him and there might have been a chance she’d survive. That was no longer true. On a train nearing Moscow, traveling under false papers, their guilt was indivisible.

  Why had Raisa boarded the train, accompanying Leo? It went against her governing principle—survival. She was accepting an immeasurable risk when an alternative presented itself to her. She could’ve stayed in Voualsk and done nothing, or, to be safer still, she could’ve betrayed Leo and hoped that this betrayal would have secured her future. It was an unpleasant strategy, hypocritical and despicable, but she’d done many unpleasant things in the name of survival, including marrying Leo, a man she’d loathed. What had changed? This wasn’t about love. Leo was now her partner, not in the straightforward marital sense. They were partners in this investigation. He trusted her, listened to her—not as a courtesy but as an equal. They were a team, sharing a common goal, united behind a purpose more important than either of their lives. Energized, excited, she didn’t want to return to her former subsistence existence, wondering how much of her soul she’d have to slice off and sell in order to survive.

  The train came to a stop at Yaroslavskiy Vokzal. Leo was all too aware of the significance of returning here, traveling across the very train tracks where Arkady’s body had been found. They were returning to Moscow for the first time since their exile four months ago. They had no official business here. Their lives and investigation depended on being undiscovered. If they were caught they would die. The reason for their venture was a woman called Galina Shaporina, a woman who’d seen the killer, an eyewitness who could describe this man, put an age on him, flesh him out—make him real. Currently neither Leo nor Raisa had any idea what kind of man they were searching for. They were clueless as to whether he was old or young, lean or heavy, scruffy or well dressed. In short, he could be almost anyone.

  In addition to speaking to Galina, Raisa had proposed talking to Ivan, her colleague from school. He was well-read in censored Western material and had access to restricted publications, magazine articles, newspapers, and unauthorized translations. He might be aware of case studies about comparable crimes from abroad: random, multiple, ritualized murders. Raisa knew only about such crimes in the barest of detail. She’d heard about an American man, Albert Fish, a man who’d murdered children and eaten them. She’d heard stories about a Frenchman, Doctor Petiot, who during the Great Patriotic War had lured Jews to his cellar, offering safety, and then killed them, burning their bodies. She had no idea whether these were merely Soviet propaganda about the decay of Western civilization, killers depicted as products of a flawed society and perverse politics. From the point of view of their investigation a determinist theory was useless. It meant that the only suspect they could be looking for was a foreigner, someone whose character had been determined by living in a capitalist society. But clearly the killer was moving around the country with ease, he spoke Russian and charmed children. This was a killer operating within the fabric of their country. Everything they knew or had been told about this type of crime was either false or irrelevant. They had to unlearn every presumption and start afresh. And Raisa believed that Ivan’s access to sensitive information was crucial to reeducating themselves.

  Leo appreciated that such material would be of benefit, but equally he was also keen to reduce their interaction to as few people as possible. Their primary objective was speaking to Galina Shaporina. Ivan was secondary. Leo wasn’t entirely convinced that he was worth the risk. However, he was aware that his evaluation was tainted by personal factors. Was he jealous of Ivan’s relationship with his wife? Yes, he was. Did he want to share their investigation with Ivan? Not for a second.

  Leo glanced out of the window, waiting for everyone to disembark. Train stations were patrolled by undercover and uniformed agents. All major transport junctions were deemed to be vulnerable as points of infiltration. There were armed checkpoints on the roads. Ports and harbors were under constant surveillance. No place was layered in more levels of protection than Moscow. They were attempting to sneak into the most heavily policed city in the country. Their only advantage was that Vasili had little reason to suppose they’d be reckless enough to embark on such a venture. About to step off the train, Leo turned to Raisa:

  —If you happen to catch their eye, a guard or anyone else, even someone who appears to be a civilian, don’t immediately look away. Don’t smile or make any gestures. Just hold eye contact and then look at something else.

  They stepped down onto the platform, neither of them carrying much luggage. Large bags were more likely to draw attention. Walking briskly, they had to stop themselves from rushing. Leo was thankful that the station was busy. All the same he could feel his shirt collar becoming damp with sweat. He tried to reassure himself that there was almost no chance any of the agents here were looking for them. They’d already been careful to shake any possible surveillance back at Voualsk. They’d established that they were going on a walking holiday in the mountains. Applications had to be made for vacations. Because of their limited status they’d only been able to get a couple of days. Under extreme time pressure, they’d set off into the forests, trekking in a loop, making sure they weren’t being followed. Once they were confident they were alone, they’d returned to the forests near the train station. They’d changed out of their muddy clothes, buried them and their camping equipment, and sat waiting for the train to Moscow to arrive. They’d boarded it at the last minute. Should all go according to plan they’d collect the eyewitness report, return to Voualsk, slip into the forests, retrieve their equipment, and cha
nge back into their muddy clothes. They’d reenter the town from one of the northern forest trails.

  They were almost at the exit when a man behind them called out:

  —Papers.

  Without hesitating Leo turned. He didn’t smile or try to appear relaxed. The officer they were dealing with was State Security. But Leo didn’t recognize him. That was fortunate. He handed over his papers. Raisa handed over hers.

  Leo studied the man’s face. He was tall, stocky. His eyes were slow, his movements sluggish. This was nothing more than a routine stop and search. However, routine or not, the papers he now examined were fake and at best only a passable imitation. In his days as an agent Leo would never have been fooled by them. Nesterov had helped provide them, doctoring them with Leo’s assistance. They’d worked hard, but the more they’d worked the more he’d become conscious of their weakness: the scratches on the paper, the points where the ink bled, the double lines where it had been stamped twice. He now wondered how he could’ve put his faith in these documents and realized he hadn’t—he’d hoped they wouldn’t be checked.

  Raisa watched the agent pore over the writing and realized that the man could barely read. He was trying to hide this fact by pretending to be extremely thorough. But she’d seen too many children struggle with the same problem not to be able to spot the signs. The man’s lips moved as his eyes scanned the lines. Aware that if she gave any indication of knowing his weakness he’d almost certainly lash out, she maintained her look of fear. She reasoned he’d appreciate being feared: it would soothe any anxiety he might be feeling. Sure enough, the agent checked on their expressions, not because he had some suspicion regarding the document but because he was worried they’d become less afraid of him. Satisfied that he was still a man to be feared, he slapped the documents against the palm of his hand, making it clear that he was weighing them up, that he still had power over their lives: