The Beast in the Red Forest

by Sam Eastland

  ‘It’s almost ready,’ Antonina called to him from the next room. ‘It took a little longer than I expected.’

  ‘I will miss your cooking when I’m transferred to Moscow.’

  ‘You don’t have to miss it. You don’t have to miss anything at all.’

  Yakushkin gave a nervous laugh. Antonina had made no secret of the fact that she wanted to accompany him to Moscow. He was her ticket out of this godforsaken place, for which her skill in the kitchen was not the only talent she seemed willing to provide. And now she spoke of Moscow as if he had already agreed to take her there, which he most definitely had not.

  It was common practice for women to accompany high-ranking officers in the field, although spouses left at home were kept as ignorant as possible of the existence of these campaign wives. But Yakushkin didn’t have a wife at home and he didn’t want one out here either, especially one sporting a black eye; the result, she had told him, of trying to restrain a delirious patient at the hospital. What Yakushkin wanted was a decent cook, who would place his meal upon the table and then leave him to eat it in peace, rather than engage in banter whose horizontal outcome was never in serious doubt.

  Antonina’s smiling face appeared around the corner, her forehead glistening with sweat from working over the stove. ‘Won’t it be nice to have a family to come home to in Moscow?’

  ‘A family?’ he spluttered. ‘Well, I don’t know . . .’

  ‘You seem so uneasy, my love,’ she said. ‘Do you not enjoy our time together?’

  ‘Of course I do!’ Yakushkin gazed disconsolately at the empty plate. For pity’s sake, he thought, just bring out the food and stop talking.

  ‘When will we be leaving for Moscow?’

  We, he thought. There is no we. The moment was fast approaching when Yakushkin would need to explain this to Antonina, but he had delayed this conversation for as long as possible, because he was in little doubt as to how disappointed she would be. And disappointed women were rarely good cooks. ‘It all depends upon those blasted partisans,’ he told her. ‘If things go the way they seem to be headed, my soldiers will soon be killing them in the hundreds.’

  ‘How could that be, after everything we have endured together in this war against the Fascists?’

  ‘I have asked myself that same question many times, darling. But as with everything in war, the answer is seldom what it should be. I believe these partisans, living behind the lines, have become infected with ideas that do not correspond to those of Comrade Stalin and the Central Committee. The simplest thing would be for them all to lay down their guns, come out of their forest lairs and place their collective fate in the hands of the Soviet Union, as it was before the war began. But it appears from recent events that this isn’t what they want.’

  ‘Then what do they want?’

  Yakushkin shrugged. ‘I’m damned if I know. I don’t think they know either. And they just killed Colonel Andrich, the only man who might have had a clue.’

  ‘You really think the partisans killed him?’

  ‘Certainly. Who else?’

  ‘But what about the partisan leaders who died with him?’

  ‘They were leaders, yes, but each of his own tiny kingdom. Every partisan band has its own allegiance, and its own ideas about the future of their country. The only dream they have in common is to live in some fantasy of a world that never existed and never will. Hiding out in the woods for all those years has given them an illusion that such fantasies are possible. Whoever murdered the colonel and the others must have been convinced that this future did not include cooperating with the Soviets. The colonel was their best, perhaps their only hope. If Andrich had lived another month, he might have been able to win over enough of the Atrads that all the others would have followed. Instead, he was butchered by the very people he was trying to help. And now,’ Yakushkin clenched his fists and held them out, ‘the partisans and the Red Army are like two trains, racing towards each other on the same track. And I tell you, Antonina,’ He drew his fists together, cogging the knuckle bones, ‘those trains are about to collide.’

  Just then, Yakushkin heard a noise somewhere behind him. It was a faint scuffling sound, but unmistakable. Turning suddenly, his hand reached out for the gun. But there was only the wall and a chest of drawers. He blinked in confusion. ‘Is someone else here?’ he asked.

  ‘Somebody else? Besides your bodyguard, you mean?’

  Yakushkin pointed at the chest of drawers. ‘What is behind that wall?’

  ‘The next door neighbour’s apartment, but I think it’s empty now. Why?’

  Yakushkin shook his head. ‘I thought I heard someone.’

  ‘This old house is full of noises,’ she told him. ‘It’s probably just the storm outside.’

  More likely a rat, Yakushkin thought to himself.

  At that moment, the door opened downstairs as Molodin stepped in out of the rain, closing the door behind him.

  Yakushkin didn’t mind Molodin coming into the house without permission, but he felt a twinge of embarrassment that his bodyguard would now be able to overhear the silly things he was forced to say to Antonina. ‘Don’t worry, Molodin!’ he called out. ‘I promise to save you some food.’

  ‘Here it is!’ said Antonina, as she came around the corner with the glazed earthenware pot containing the stew.

  Yakushkin clapped his hands together. ‘At last!’ Just then, he heard the stairs creak as Molodin began making his way up to the apartment. ‘Not yet, Molodin!’ he called out. ‘I have not even begun the meal!’

  Antonina placed the pot before Yakushkin, handed him a serving ladle, then took her seat at the opposite side of the table.

  Yakushkin rose to his feet, like a man about to give a speech. ‘Beautiful,’ he said, as he gazed into the stew, breathing the fragrant steam which dampened his red face. ‘Truly a wonder of the world!’ In that moment, Yakushkin’s heart softened and he felt ashamed. What a fool I’d be, he thought, if I let this woman go. Of course I will take her to Moscow and we will be that happy family she spoke about.

  Lifting his eyes, Yakushkin cast an adoring glance at Antonina, but was surprised to see she wasn’t looking back at him. Instead, she was staring at the doorway with a startled expression on her face.

  He turned to follow her gaze.

  In the doorway stood a captain of the Red Army, his tunic darkened by the freezing rain which had soaked him to the bone. His hands were tucked behind his back, as if standing at ease on a parade ground. Water dripped from his elbows on to the scuffed floorboards.

  ‘Who are you?’ Yakushkin demanded angrily. ‘Has something happened at the garrison? Speak up, Captain! State your business and be gone.’

  But the man said nothing, and he made no move to leave. Instead, he turned and stared at Antonina.

  They know each other, thought Yakushkin. And suddenly he felt the burn of jealousy for a woman he had never wanted until now. He rounded upon Antonina. ‘Who is this man to you?’ he asked.

  ‘I’ve never seen him before!’ replied Antonina, her voice quavering as she spoke. ‘I swear.’

  Yakushkin didn’t believe her. ‘I trusted you,’ he snapped, ‘but I promise that is over now!’

  ‘Yes,’ said the officer. ‘It’s over now.’ From behind his back he drew a gun.

  A wave of helpless dread passed through Yakushkin’s mind. He glanced down at his Tokarev, which lay beside the empty dinner plate. The captain had already drawn his gun. Yakushkin knew it was too late to save himself. He looked across at Antonina. ‘I could have loved you,’ he said, and then he snatched up the pistol and shot her in the chest.

  At that same instant, a bullet crashed through the back of Yakushkin’s skull. He fell forward on to the table, which collapsed beneath his weight. The contents of the earthenware pot spilled across the floor and cutlery crashed to the ground.

  Antonina was still alive, but barely. The force of the bullet had knocked her out of her chair. Now she lay on h
er back, her legs askew like those of a dropped marionette. She tried to speak, but her words were lost in the blood which spilled from the corners of her mouth.

  The man stepped carefully across the room, avoiding the steaming pieces of sliced apple, boiled sausage and shattered crockery. Curiously, he looked at the woman. From the look on his face, it would have been clear to Yakushkin that these two had never met before. He bent down and gently put his hand upon her forehead. ‘Where is the major you treated at the hospital?’ he asked quietly. ‘The one named Kirov. Where is he now?’

  ‘Still there,’ she whispered.

  ‘No,’ the man told her. ‘He’s gone. Where did he go?’

  She stared at him blankly.

  ‘You don’t know, do you?’ asked the man.

  Her lips moved feebly, but she made no sound.

  Slowly he moved his hand down from her forehead, until he was covering her eyes. Then he set the pistol against her left temple and pulled the trigger. The gun bucked and, in the flash of burning powder, some of her hair caught fire. He brushed it away from her face. Reeking metallically, the burned strands crumbled into ash.

  The man stood and made his way back down the stairs. Before he vanished out into the storm, he paused to glance at Molodin, who lay in the hallway, tongue protruding from between his purple lips, and eyes bulging grotesquely from the garrotting wire sunk into his neck.

  Memo from Joseph Davies, US Ambassador to Moscow, Yacht ‘Sea Cloud’, Stavanger, Norway to Counsellor Richard Sparks, Acting Supervisor of US Embassy, Moscow. December 21st, 1937

  I order you to terminate the employment of Samuel Hayes, secretary at the Embassy, effective immediately. His gross negligence with regard to a recent inquiry into the arrest of a Soviet citizen has caused grave and unnecessary friction between this office and the office of the Kremlin, notwithstanding the considerable efforts made by me personally into resolving the case. Had I been aware of the facts, now provided to me by the Soviets, I would never have taken such steps. Mr Hayes’ obligation to pursue the facts before risking an international incident was entirely neglected. His conduct, which is entirely out of keeping with the highest standards of the US Diplomatic Corps, merits nothing less than his dismissal and return to the United States on the next available transport.

  Signed – Joseph Davies, Ambassador

  PS See to it that the cases of champagne ordered for the upcoming reception of Soviet dignitaries are kept at a suitable temperature until ready for use.

  Minutes after leaving the safe house, the Hanomag truck pulled up beside the building where Yakushkin and the nurse had been killed. Outside its front door, a partisan stood guard. He was tall and bony, with sunken cheeks, narrowed eyes almost hidden under a floppy, short-brimmed cap, and armed with a German MP40 sub-machine gun. He wore a mixture of military and civilian gear: grey wool riding breeches, worn through at both knees and with leather panels along the inside of each thigh, had been tucked into knee-length lace-up boots. His jacket was a lumpy woollen thing, oddly tight about the shoulders but with arms so long the man had been forced to roll them up, revealing the black and white striped lining. The garment had been cinched around his waist with a German leather belt. The aluminium buckle, once emblazoned with an eagle, a swastika and the words ‘Gott Mit Uns’, had been ground down and polished smooth, and the shape of a red star cut out of the centre, a common modification among the partisans.

  ‘Good morning, Malashenko.’ Pekkala nodded to the partisan as he and Barabanschikov climbed down from the truck.

  ‘Good morning, Inspector,’ replied the man. He stood aside to let Pekkala by, but when Kirov tried to pass, the partisan blocked his way. ‘Not you, Commissar.’

  ‘The commissar is helping us,’ said Barabanschikov.

  Malashenko shot a questioning glance at his commander, and for a moment seemed ready to defy him. ‘First time for everything,’ he muttered, as he grudgingly moved out of the way.

  Barabanschikov rested his hand upon Pekkala’s shoulder. ‘I must leave now, but Malashenko will remain with you for protection.’

  ‘I don’t need a bodyguard,’ said Pekkala.

  ‘Consider it as insurance against your ending up as the next man on this assassin’s list of victims. Use the safe house for as long as you need it. Our patrols will keep an eye on the place.’ With those words, Barabanschikov climbed into the truck and the Hanomag disappeared down the road in a blue cloud of diesel exhaust.

  ‘Why haven’t the police been informed about this?’ Kirov asked Malashenko.

  ‘There are no police,’ he answered. ‘Not any more.’

  ‘Then what about the Red Army? Why aren’t they guarding the crime scene?’

  ‘Because they haven’t found it yet.’

  ‘So who reported the incident?’

  ‘The locals did. To us. We are the only ones they trust, Commissar, and there is good reason for that.’

  Now Pekkala turned to Malashenko. ‘Does anyone at the garrison know that Yakushkin is even missing?’

  ‘They knew he was gone from the barracks last night,’ replied the partisan, ‘but no one looked for him until this morning. They are aware that he had been spending time with Antonina Baranova, the woman who lived in this house. It won’t be long before they find out he was here.’

  ‘And where is this woman?’

  ‘Upstairs with a bullet in her brain,’ Malashenko told him, ‘the same as Commander Yakushkin.’

  ‘How long have we got to examine the crime scene?’ asked Pekkala.

  ‘Five minutes, maybe less. But we need to be gone before then. Once those soldiers realise their commander is dead, they’ll arrest every partisan they can lay their hands on.’

  ‘We’ll be as quick as we can,’ Pekkala assured him.

  In the front hallway, Kirov almost tripped over the body of Yakushkin’s bodyguard, Molodin. No one had touched him. He straddled the narrow space of the hallway, neck bent against the lower part of the wall so that his head was upright. Molodin’s left arm had been dislocated in the struggle and now his hand hung poised above his face, fingers strangely clawed, as if to cast a spell upon himself. The dead man’s lips had turned a livid purple, as had the tips of his fingers and his skin was grey and patched with blooms of yellowish-blue.

  At the top of the stairs, Kirov and Pekkala entered the little dining room where the two murders had taken place. The air smelled of the stew which Antonina had prepared. Congealed fat merged with the blood of the victims, staining the bare wooden floor. Lying in among the broken plates, the knives and forks and the remains of the uneaten dinner, lay the bodies of Yakushkin and the woman.

  Kirov gasped as he realised she was the nurse who had treated him at the hospital.

  Antonina lay on her back, eyes half open and the side of her skull shot away. Her teeth had been stained red with her own blood.

  Pekkala crouched over Yakushkin’s body, which lay rigor-mortised like a statue tumbled from its pedestal. The commander lay on his right side, his right arm tucked under him and his left stretched out in front of him, as if reaching towards the gun he had been carrying. The point-blank shot which killed him had done so much damage that if it were not for the insignia on his uniform, he might have been unrecognisable.

  ‘That appears to be the general’s gun.’ Kirov pointed at the Tokarev lying on the floor. ‘He must have drawn his weapon, but by then it was too late to use it.’

  ‘Possibly.’ Pekkala lapsed into silence as he stared at the corpse of the woman.

  ‘Why “possibly”?’ asked Kirov. ‘You think he might have wounded the assassin?’

  Pekkala nodded towards the dead woman. ‘Look at the placement of the shots.’

  ‘One to the head and one to the chest.’

  ‘Which tells you what, Kirov?’

  ‘That the woman wasn’t killed by the first bullet that struck her.’

  ‘Not killed, perhaps,’ agreed Pekkala, ‘but mortally wounded for certain.�
��

  ‘I don’t see what you’re getting at, Inspector.’

  ‘The first bullet struck her dead centre in the chest, as if she was a target at a shooting range. After sustaining that injury, she had, at best, a few minutes left to live. Nothing could have saved her. The assassin would have realised that.’

  ‘And you’re wondering why he bothered to administer a coup de grace when he knew she would be dead before he even reached the street?’

  Just then, Pekkala spotted something. He bent down over the shellac of congealed blood which had seeped out around the corpses.

  Kirov clenched his teeth as he watched Pekkala’s fingers reach into the gore.

  When Pekkala straightened up, he held in his hand three empty pistol cartridges.

  ‘Are they the same kind we found in the bunker?’ asked Kirov.

  Pekkala examined them closely. ‘Two of them show signs of having been reloaded,’ he replied, ‘but the third one does not.’

  Kirov picked up the commander’s gun and removed the magazine. ‘There is one bullet missing from the magazine. The rest are standard ammunition.’

  ‘Which means that the assassin fired twice,’ Pekkala pointed at the two bodies, ‘and that Yakushkin’s final act was to murder the woman with whom he was just sitting down to dinner.’

  ‘Why would he fire at her and not at the man who was trying to kill him?’ Kirov wondered aloud. ‘Could she have been the murderer’s accomplice?’

  ‘The general must have thought so,’ said Pekkala, ‘but what I don’t understand is why the gunman would take the time to finish her off when every second spent at the crime scene increased his chances of being caught as he tried to escape?’

  ‘He must have chosen not to let her suffer any longer than was absolutely necessary.’

  ‘Because she was a woman?’ suggested Pekkala.

  ‘That can’t be it,’ replied Kirov. ‘He didn’t hesitate when he killed those two secretaries in the bunker.’