by William Ryan
Weiss smiled but it wasn’t a smile with much joy in it.
“I work with senior people, but that can be a problem in itself these days. Such people might think that my being denounced reflects on them—support is therefore the last thing I could expect. No, the fact is I was out on a limb and Shtange’s intervention was remarkably brave. Believe me, Korolev, it may not be like this within the Militia—but elsewhere people are like starving wolves—always searching for the weakest to hunt, always trying to show they aren’t the weakest. I sometimes wonder where it will end, or even if it can end. It has taken on a momentum of its own.”
“Did you know Shtange well?” Korolev asked, finding himself casting a nervous glance at the ventilation grilles.
“Beforehand?” Weiss seemed to consider his answer for a moment or two. “No, I barely knew him. I’d met him at faculty meetings, knew of him professionally, of course, but not much socially. Of course, he was a person of some importance among the students. Even before he came to Moscow, he was known to them through his work with the university flying club in Leningrad—he organized joint exercises, not just in flying but other activities as well. He was much respected and admired for it. He never usually intervened in Works Meetings; he’d only recently joined us, after all, so when he did so on my behalf, I think everyone took note—and the students were inclined to support him. And perhaps most of the Party activists knew what Azarov was up to by then. Not all of them are blind to that sort of thing.”
Weiss smiled at Korolev’s reaction—but it was unusual to hear someone even implicitly criticize Party activists these days. A fellow could be excused a raised eyebrow.
“Do you know why Azarov denounced you?”
“I suspect he must have heard the same story you did—about Irina. I can’t think of any other reason. Shtange told me afterward that our affair was often hinted at in the medical faculty—I think it was one of the reasons he decided to intervene. I can only imagine how the rumor started—people draw conclusions from the smallest things. So someone drew a conclusion and then someone, maybe even that same someone, must have told Azarov. Shtange saw the Works Meeting being used to settle a personal score and said as much. The fact that he didn’t like Azarov one little bit probably influenced him as well.”
“Did he dislike him enough to kill him?” Korolev asked.
“No, absolutely not. Shtange was less than impressed with him and his institute but he’d never have killed the man.”
“He told you that? About the institute?”
“He knew I had advisory responsibilities at the Ministry of Health, particularly in relation to Moscow. He’d reservations about the way the institute approached its research and the plausibility of some of its aims. He wondered whether action shouldn’t be taken.” Weiss spoke carefully, as if weighing each word. And given his surprising openness up until this point, Korolev wondered why the doctor had suddenly had a change of heart.
“Did he give details?”
“Yes, but—well—it was State Security business. I knew nothing could be done, except at the highest level.” He pointed a finger at the ceiling, and Korolev wasn’t sure whether he was referring to God, Stalin, the devices in the ventilation system—or perhaps just the person who lived upstairs. It was that kind of building.
They sat there for a moment, looking at each other. Both of them, Korolev suspected, uncomfortable with the direction the conversation had taken. Korolev prayed it wasn’t being listened to.
Weiss sighed. “Look, Korolev, the fact is there are too many scientists taking short cuts these days. It’s one of the problems with Five Year Plans—science doesn’t develop according to a strict schedule or a set objective. It meanders along, finds its own path. It helps if you think you know where you’re going, but sometimes it’s what you see on the way that turns out to be the key that unlocks the door to an important discovery. And what you thought you were looking for turns out to be irrelevant, as often as not. Science is full of happy accidents. As for what was being researched at the institute—if what I’ve heard is true, I doubt it’s possible, or desirable.”
“I’d treat any information you gave me with complete discretion,” Korolev said, more in hope than expectation.
Weiss gave a short laugh—not one of amusement.
“Discretion? For all my talk, I know the limits of discretion these days, particularly when matters such as this are concerned. Still, I’d like to help.”
Weiss seemed to consider how this might be done, and Korolev had to restrain himself from pressing him.
“The thing is,” Weiss said eventually, “you never know these days whether certain information is dangerous to disclose, or whether it’s perfectly safe to do so. I’m not just talking about myself, of course, but my family. And others as well. Then there’s the institute itself. Vasin, a fellow who worked in the office next to mine at the university until a few months back, also worked at Azarov’s institute. But then you see he was arrested, and I didn’t ask why; no one does these days. Shtange worked there and he’s dead. Azarov himself is dead. So all that doesn’t reassure me. And who is to say that any information I have, or any suggestion I’ve heard, is true. Even if it were, the Party takes a wider view of these things than I can—rightly so. May I consider this for a little while, discuss it with someone I trust, and—how can I put it—review what I may or may not know, and the information I may or may not have? I want to be cooperative. I feel it’s my duty to be cooperative, but I can’t rush into this. I have responsibilities to others—you know the way things are.”
He picked up the toy plane again and Korolev knew what he meant by “responsibilities.” If Korolev was in his shoes he’d have the same misgivings about passing on sensitive information concerning the institute. But Korolev had his own responsibilities. He might not be able to force Weiss, but he could at least remind him of his obligation to the dead man.
“I’d be grateful if you could have your discussions as soon as possible,” he said. “Dr. Shtange helped you out of a tight spot. I think you should remember that.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
The former Ivanovsky Convent had been a place of religious worship for several centuries before it had become home to the Moscow Militia’s Central Forensics and Technical Department. The bookcases and filing cabinets that surrounded the desks where Sergei Ushakov and his team worked were weighed down with microscopes, piles of reference manuals, mysterious machines with foreign lettering that ticked ominously, plaster casts of various dimensions, boxes, bags, and the Lord alone knew what else—but behind the shelving and the drawers and their multifarious contents, a very different world was represented in the murals that adorned the walls. Here, small scurrying figures ran either toward salvation, or from damnation, while angels watched calmly from the sky. Over there an ancient city was surrounded by high walls from which mail-coated soldiers stared out at a white-flecked sea. What were they waiting for, Korolev wondered. If his mother had still been alive and standing there beside him, she could have told him—no doubt of it. Most likely she’d also have been able to put a name to each of the bearded saints, one alongside another, row upon row of them, their haloed heads stretching up to the domed ceiling.
“I wonder why they never repainted this place?” Korolev asked, surprised the decoration had lasted the twenty years since the Revolution.
“Culturally significant, so they said. We had to ask permission to put electric lighting in.” Ushakov pointed to the three large lights that dangled from the ceiling. “The electricians had to be watched over by some art historian. I can’t remember who painted it all, someone who knew what they were doing, no doubt.”
Korolev nodded, feeling comforted by the hundreds of sympathetic eyes gazing down at him, following his every movement. Fearing for his eternal soul, most likely.
“You got my message?” Ushakov said, and Korolev saw that his expression was unusually grave.
They were the only two in the
room and Korolev had the sense that this was deliberate on Ushakov’s part. He took a seat.
“Yes, the new doorman at Leadership House passed it on. Here, I have some fingerprints I need you to look at for me. If you lifted them from Shtange’s apartment, then we have a winner. At least for Dr. Shtange.”
Ushakov took the fingerprint card Zaitsev had provided and read the name.
“Priudski? That fellow who was hanging around the professor’s place? He’s in NKVD custody?”
“It seems so.”
“I see. We had these already, you know.”
“State Security were kind enough to give me a copy to pass on again, just in case.”
“That’s kind of them, I have a few things for you, as well,” Ushakov said, but Korolev hadn’t finished. He pulled out Chestnova’s small recepticle, with the bullet rattling inside it, and the brown paper bag containing the three apple cores.
“This is the bullet Chestnova pulled from Azarov’s head,” he said, handing it over.
“Is it, now?” Ushakov took it from him and unscrewed the lid. Then he pulled a small set of weighing scales across the desk and decanted the bullet onto a small brass plate before adding tiny weights to the other side.
“It’s an unusual bullet. We don’t produce ammunition like it in the Soviet Union—but your Sergeant Belinsky sent over the firearm certificates they had in their files for the building yesterday. One of the guns is a match—an up-and-under Derringer, owned by one A. A. Bramson. Two barrels—two shots.”
“Bramson? A Bramson lived in Azarov’s apartment.”
“A coincidence, isn’t it?”
More than a coincidence, thought Korolev, given that Azarov had apparently denounced the former occupant in order to obtain the apartment. But Bramson and his wife had been arrested over a year before.
Ushakov picked up the firearm certificate from a small pile of papers and passed it to Korolev.
“A Derringer isn’t much good at a shooting range—its muzzle velocity is less than half of a Nagant’s, for example. Also these bullets most probably were manufactured before the Revolution—or maybe even before the German War. That’s why such a large-caliber bullet barely dented the table.”
“Yes, Chestnova said she was surprised by how little damage the bullet did. Inside his head, that is.”
“It will kill a man if it hits him in the right place from close up—which, of course, Professor Azarov is proof of.”
Korolev considered the evil-looking piece of lead, small enough to get lost in a man’s pocket, but not it seemed in his head.
“The low velocity—might it also explain the miss?”
“It might do. These guns aren’t completely inaccurate at short range—and the killer can’t have been more than a few feet away, given the size of the room; but, as I said, it’s not a precision weapon. Of course, I can’t be certain the weapon was Bramson’s Derringer, but it’s the only gun we know of connected to the building that takes bullets of this size.”
“I’m sure it’s the gun—it has to be. But Bramson was arrested by State Security—his wife as well. I’d have thought any weapon they’d owned would have been confiscated. If it wasn’t, however—perhaps it came into Azarov’s possession. Priudski’s fingerprints come with a confession, you see.” Korolev paused, collecting himself—remembering the script he had to keep to. “It indicates Shtange was the killer—perhaps he took the Derringer from Azarov and then used it on him.”
Ushakov gave him a quick glance and Korolev wondered, for the briefest of moments, whether the forensics man had spotted his skepticism about the Shtange story.
“I can’t tell you anything more without the gun itself, Korolev—that’s the fact of the matter. If you find it, I might be able to tell you something else—certainly I could tell you whether the bullet came from that gun. Might Shtange have hidden it somewhere?”
“Maybe,” Korolev said, while his mind focused, not for the first time that day, on whoever had been in the cramped ventilation space, one of the grilles to which had been at the precise angle that the bullet must have come from. That same grille, it had emerged when he’d examined it in Azarov’s apartment, had been unscrewed at some stage from the professor’s side, so that it could easily be opened from within the ventilation space. Korolev indicated the paper bag.
“What do you make of those?”
Ushakov opened the bag. “I make of it three former apples, mostly consumed. Should I make anything else of them?”
“I found them in a place the professor’s murderer may or may not have been hiding. Therefore I think these apples may or may not have been eaten by the killer.”
Ushakov picked up one of the apples by its stem.
“I can’t even tell you what size it was for certain, Korolev. Maybe if I knew exactly where it was found and could recreate the environment over a long enough period and had a sufficient number of different-sized apple cores, each eaten in exactly the same way, then I could tell. Maybe. If not, at least I’d have eaten a lot of apples.”
Korolev took the core from Ushakov and returned it to the bag, sighing. Then he tossed it into the nearby bin.
“I’m sorry, Korolev.”
“I thought it was a long shot.”
Ushakov pulled a glass box down from a shelf.
“I have something else however. Levschinsky spent a happy couple of hours putting this little work of art together for you.”
“What the hell is it?” Korolev asked, playing along—he had a good idea what it was.
“Your Dr. Shtange’s floor. This is the carpet, these the floor boards.” He indicated the layers of fabric and wood. “The blood goes through the gap between the boards, of course. Then there’s a layer of dust and rubble. Then the plaster ceiling. We cut that from the flat below so it’s probably accurate enough. Strangely the neighbor was quite keen to get rid of that part of his ceiling, and the building management committee was happy enough to arrange its replacement.”
The layers were balanced on a wooden frame that matched the distances between them. Much of the construction was caked with a dark-red, almost black crust.
“It’s not something he can be too precise on, but he reckons a minimum thirty minutes for the blood to go through. If anything, the summer heat would have made it take longer.”
Korolev leaned down to look more closely and, as he did so, caught a whiff of the caked blood that made him think better of the idea.
“That reduces the timings for us, thank you,” he managed to say, his stomach rolling as he straightened. Ushakov glanced up at him.
“Yes, it’s beginning to get a bit pungent, isn’t it?”
“A little.”
“Pig’s blood. Well, it’s going into the incinerator in about five minutes’ time, unless you want me to keep it.”
Korolev shook his head.
Ushakov smiled and returned the glass box to the shelf, then opened a small wooden box with brass corner fittings—inside was a rack of sample slides.
“As it happens, we came across something else interesting about the blood—not the stuff on the carpet, but where the murderer cleaned themselves—in the sink in the kitchen. We took some samples and not all the blood there was Shtange’s. Not, at least, unless he was a miracle of modern medicine and possessed two different blood groups.”
Korolev looked at the slide Ushakov was holding toward him. “I’ll take your word for it,” he said. “Tricky things, knives, particularly when you’re stabbing someone and there’s blood all over the handle. Easy to lose your grip and cut yourself.”
“Indeed. Find me the knife, of course…”
“And you could tell me more?”
“Yes, and if you have a suspect—I might be able to tell you something more again.”
Ushakov’s demeanor had been becoming increasingly serious as the conversation had progressed, and now it was close to funereal. He opened a drawer in his desk to remove from it a thick brown envelope. He put
it on the tabletop and tapped it, as though considering something.
“You said you thought Dr. Shtange may have had something to do with the professor’s murder?”
“It seems that way.”
“But you’re not sure?”
“There are some inconsistencies.” Korolev chose his words carefully. “But it seems the story isn’t impossible. The doorman, Priudski, let Shtange into the apartment, it seems.”
“That’s interesting—because we’ve got one of Priudski’s fingerprints in Azarov’s study. On the door handle.”
Korolev shook his head sadly. “There’s an explanation, I’m afraid—he was in the apartment when the Militia arrived. The maid called him up.”
“We didn’t think to check if Priudski had been in Shtange’s apartment, of course.”
“Why would you?”
Ushakov tapped the envelope once again and Korolev wondered what the hell was in it.
“I can tell you half of Moscow had trundled in and out of that place by the time we got there. I’m presuming the blood in the sink belongs to the murderer, but who knows what our colleagues got up to in there over two whole days.”
“Nothing untoward, I’m sure,” Korolev said when the momentary pause lengthened.
“Of course not,” Ushakov said quickly.
“And the maid mentioned the blood in the sink,” Korolev said. “I’m sure it’s as you say.”
Ushakov finally picked up the envelope again, and sighed.
“Well, we had better luck with the crime scene in Professor Azarov’s study anyway. We picked up prints for the maid, the wife, the professor, and this Priudski fellow. And one other person’s.”
“Go on,” Korolev said, taking the envelope that was now offered to him and looking inside. There was a blood-browned document—about fifty pages thick, he guessed.
“I’ve written everything up for you, Korolev—but I’ve left this bit out. It’s the document the professor was reading at the time he was shot.”
“I remember it now,” Korolev said. “I’d forgotten we had it. I think I’d presumed our colleagues would have taken it.”
