There are No Ghosts in the Soviet Union

by Reginald Hill

  He paused. Serebrianikov beamed at him with approval.

  ‘See, Boris, these are the facts. Believe them. Accept them. Your future may depend on it. Skeletons in cupboards are one thing; no one achieves power without a few of these; but ghosts in the mind! Any hint of that outside these walls could be fatal to your great future.’

  Bunin stood quite still in the middle of the room, his whole body tense as an athlete’s before some great explosion of effort. Then perceptibly he relaxed.

  ‘You’re quite right, Yuri,’ he said gently. ‘I am being foolish. Forgive me, Inspector Chislenko. I hope you will find only comfort in the realization that those who lead you are human also.’

  Chislenko made a non-committal choking sound. The Minister picked up a framed photograph from his desk and studied it.

  ‘He was so dear to me, you see. So dear. And would have been dear to his country too, had he lived. He had much to offer, much more than I …’

  Serebrianikov rose, gesturing to Chislenko to do the same, and advanced to stand by the Minister.

  ‘There he is, Inspector, so handsome a young man. Those are our parents, that’s me, sprawling on the grass, and there’s our dear friend, Yuri, who has guided me so well during all these years.’

  It was an informal group photograph with a man and woman seated in garden chairs; a blond-haired boy stretched on the grass before them with his tongue poked out at the camera; and behind them, standing, two young men, one an older version of the young boy, with his hands on his mother’s shoulders and a smile on his lips, the other (presumably Serebrianikov, though little was recognizable apart from the watchful eyes) looking self-consciously solemn.

  How useful the KGB man must have been to Boris Bunin in youth, and how useful Bunin must have been to Serebrianikov in age, thought Chislenko. Now perhaps they would both be useful to him. Or dangerous, if things fell out badly.

  Bunin put the photograph down and suddenly he was himself again.

  ‘To business then,’ he said harshly. ‘I’ve thought over what you said about letting Osjanin have a bit more rope. I think for once you’re wrong, Yuri. He has too many friends. Let’s grab him straightaway. Tomorrow he’s due to attend a conference in Kiev. If we pick him up this evening, we can pretend in Moscow he’s gone there and tell the people in Kiev he was taken ill en route and has been hospitalized at, let us say, Gomel. That way we can have him for a couple of days, perhaps even a week, before word gets round and the rats start worrying. Fix it, Yuri. Fix it now. You can use the secure phone in the office.’

  Serebrianikov may not have agreed with this policy, but he clearly knew when to argue, when to defer.

  He went out of the door, closing it gently behind him.

  After a moment Bunin said, ‘Comrade Chislenko, you’ve been recommended as a man of discretion. Does that mean you tell nobody anything, except Comrade Serebrianikov to whom you tell everything?’

  ‘No,’ said Chislenko indignantly. ‘It means I do my job.’

  ‘Is that what it means? Yes, I believe you. In that case, Inspector, as part of your job, I’d like you to do something for me.’

  He twisted the clip which held the back of the photograph frame in place and slipped out the photo.

  ‘I’d like you to show this to the witnesses in the Gorodok Building affair and ask them if they recognize the young man at the back with the fair hair. I’d like you to do this discreetly and report their answers only to me.’

  He looked Chislenko straight in the eyes as he spoke.

  ‘Will you do that?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘No comments, Inspector?’

  ‘Only that for the past half-hour I’ve been wondering how I could get hold of a picture of your brother, sir.’

  Bunin suddenly smiled.

  ‘Curiosity’s a valuable quality in a policeman, I expect. Quickly now, put the picture away.’

  Chislenko slipped the photograph into his side pocket as the door opened. Before Serebrianikov could re-enter, the Minister led Chislenko to the doorway, effectively stopping the old man from coming in and possibly noticing the empty frame.

  With his hand on Chislenko’s shoulder, the Minister said, ‘I was just asking the Inspector here if he was related to the Chislenko who used to play for Dynamo.’

  ‘No, he’s not,’ said Serebrianikov confidentially. ‘Are you, Lev?’

  ‘Actually,’ said Chislenko, ‘he’s my half-cousin. Only it tends to annoy me when everyone keeps asking, so I usually tell lies.’

  ‘Except to Ministers,’ said Bunin, smiling.

  ‘Except to Ministers,’ said Chislenko smiling back.

  8

  On their journey back to town, the old KGB man was very quiet and Chislenko did not make the mistake of prattling nervously to break the silence.

  He’d like to know what the Minister said to me when we were alone, he told himself almost gleefully. And he knows that I’ll either volunteer to tell or hold my tongue.

  The Mercedes halted outside Petrovka and Serebrianikov said, ‘Goodbye to you, Comrade Inspector. I expect we will meet again fairly soon, but for the moment at least, your job is done.’

  Was there a note of warning in his voice?

  ‘Will there be charges against the lift-operator?’ asked Chislenko.

  The old man said, ‘Probably not. It is best to let that affair die quietly, isn’t it? To make a successful court case out of it would probably require you to prove the complicity of one or more of the other witnesses, wouldn’t you agree?’

  Chislenko tried to keep the alarm out of his face. Did the old bastard know about him and Natasha? The answer, almost certainly, was yes!

  ‘The foreign press will have a much tastier morsel to slaver over when they get wind of the Osjanin case,’ continued Serebrianikov. ‘They like nothing better than an opportunity to show that our society is as corrupt and depraved as their own.’

  ‘It doesn’t seem to worry you, Comrade Secretary,’ said Chislenko daringly.

  The old man smiled.

  ‘We’ll let them gloat for a few days before we reveal that, as well as being a corrupt embezzler of public monies, Osjanin is also a paid agent of the CIA. Then watch them try to back-pedal!’

  Chislenko was amazed.

  ‘You mean there’s a security dimension to all this? You never hinted at that before, Comrade Secretary.’

  The old man chuckled musically.

  ‘Maybe I just thought of it, Comrade Inspector,’ he said as he pulled the door shut. ‘Maybe I just thought of it.’

  Chislenko watched the old Mercedes pull away.

  Lev, my boy, he told himself, you’re just a simple cop. Be wise; stay that way; keep your head down, your mouth shut, and do the job, nothing more.

  ‘Are you all right, Lev?’

  It was Kedin coming out of the building and finding him standing as if entranced on the pavement.

  ‘Yes. Fine.’

  It was, he realized, the first time Kedin had used his first name. But it was a mark of respect rather than presumptuous familiarity. Those whom Kedin wished to cultivate were usually clearly marked for the top.

  Kedin’s next comment confirmed this.

  ‘Many congratulations, by the way. The whole place is buzzing with your great coup, though no one seems to know the exact details. Why don’t we have a celebratory drink later and you can fill me in, give me a few tips, maybe?’

  ‘That would be nice,’ said Chislenko.

  ‘Great. See you, Lev.’

  ‘Yes. See you … er …’

  Ivan. He remembered Kedin’s given name as he reached his desk.

  He spent much of the next couple of hours just sitting staring blankly into space, reviewing his dilemma.

  The simplest thing to do was nothing. In a couple of days, he could return the photograph to Bunin saying he had shown it to the available witnesses and none of them had recognized his brother. In the meantime he would avoid going anywhere nea
r the Gorodok Building, or seeing Natasha, so that Serebrianikov would have no reason to suspect his instructions were being ignored.

  That was what a wise young policeman with prospects and ambition would do.

  Chislenko sighed, and the sigh was an acknowledgement that he was not a wise young policeman.

  Quite simply, he had to know.

  But that did not mean he was going to take unnecessary risks.

  He went down to the departmental photocopying room a short while later, choosing the precise moment when the operator, a man of strict habit called Griboedov, would be preparing his afternoon mug of tea. In this wisest of States, private ownership of photocopiers was not possible and those in the public service were strictly monitored, with every copy being registered and counted.

  ‘One document, suspect’s record, one copy,’ intoned Chislenko.

  ‘You pick your fucking moments, don’t you?’ grumbled Griboedov, crouched at his ancient samovar which was as complex and as perilous as a nuclear power station.

  ‘That’s all right. I’ll do it,’ said Chislenko, walking past the reception counter into the photocopying room.

  It was the work of a moment to slip the photograph from beneath the document he was carrying and run it through. Fortunately the copier was the very latest Japanese model and the reproduction was excellent.

  Returning to the counter, he carefully filled in the book. Griboedov rose up with his tea, went to check the number on the copy meter and returned to countersign the entry.

  ‘Nice machine,’ said Chislenko. ‘Japanese, isn’t it?’

  ‘That’s right. Don’t think the little bastards make samovars, do you?’

  Laughing, Chislenko withdrew.

  That night he had a date with Natasha. He broke it without contacting her.

  The following morning he wrote his report to Bunin, enclosed it in a lightly sealed envelope with the photograph, and put it into the Inspectors’ mail-out tray.

  An hour later he returned to the tray with an internal memo he was passing on after initialling it. As he put the memo into the tray, he contrived to look at the envelope addressed to the Minister. It was now heavily stuck down.

  The next day was Sunday. He put on his best, which was to say his other suit and went to visit Natasha, but when he got to her apartment there was no reply. He had been in the police business too long not to be alarmed at a sudden disappearance, and immediately he started banging on a neighbour’s door.

  A young woman in a thin cotton nightgown through which her huge dark nipples peered like a giant panda’s eyes told him yawningly that Natasha’s mother was ill and Natasha had gone off to visit her the previous day.

  Chislenko went back in the evening, but Natasha had not returned.

  He spent a restless night, full of fragmented anguished dreams in which Natasha and her mother ran down endless flights of stairs pursued by Serebrianikov in a lift shaped like a coffin. The following morning as soon as he got to Petrovka, he rang the Gorodok Building and asked for Natasha.

  ‘Junior personnel are not allowed personal calls,’ said the switchboard operator coldly.

  ‘Chislenko, MVD,’ he said, undercutting her by several degrees. ‘Just get her on the phone if she’s there.’

  To his surprise and delight, she was.

  ‘Natasha! It’s Lev,’ he said.

  ‘Yes?’ she said indifferently.

  ‘How are you? How’s you mother?’

  ‘Mother’s fine,’ she said.

  ‘And you? How’re you? You sound tired.’

  ‘Why shouldn’t I? I got back very late last night and I didn’t sleep much the night before either. As for the night before that …’

  ‘Natasha, I’m sorry, I can explain …’

  ‘Can you? I’m not sure if it’s worth it. Now I have to go. I’m not allowed to take personal calls, not even from MVD Inspectors. Goodbye.’

  The phone went dead.

  ‘Oh shit,’ said Chislenko.

  He sat for a moment, then made up his mind.

  When he got down to the car pool, he saw at a glance that his car, or rather the car he’d come to think of as his during the last few days, was gone.

  When he inquired, the man in charge laughed and said, ‘You’re back in the queue now, Comrade.

  Special duty reservation was cancelled as from the weekend.’

  ‘All right. What have you got?’

  ‘Bugger-all at the moment, unless you want to push the thing yourself. Sorry. Put your name down and we might be able to do something for you, this afternoon.’

  ‘Don’t bother,’ said Chislenko.

  He set out for the metro on foot and, after an uncomfortably crowded and inexplicably delayed train journey, wished he’d continued the same way.

  The first person he saw when he entered the Gorodok Building was Muntjan, lounging outside the open lift.

  ‘So you’re back,’ he growled.

  ‘I certainly am, boss,’ said Muntjan happily. ‘Doctor says I’m fit and well. Going up, boss?’

  Suspiciously Chislenko sniffed the lift-man’s breath. There was no trace of alcohol. Obviously the doctor had prescribed some more scientific salve for Muntjan’s troubled nerves.

  He stepped into the lift.

  ‘Eighth floor,’ he said.

  The lift began to rise.

  ‘Do you remember me, Josif?’ he asked.

  ‘I surely do,’ said Muntjan, grinning broadly. ‘You’re the MVD cop who came when I had my nervous trouble.’

  ‘Your nervous trouble?’

  ‘That’s right, boss. I saw my new doctor last Friday and he explained it all to me. Seems I’m highly strung, probably something to do with my distinguished war service, and so I’m more susceptible – is that the word? – to disorders-of-the-subconscious-imagination than ordinary folk. I made him write it down so I could get it by heart. Then he gave me these pills which he said would put me right and make sure I had no more of them delusions.’

  ‘Delusions?’ said Chislenko.

  ‘Like I had when you came round that time. I’m sorry I caused all that trouble, boss, but it’s all down to disorders-of-my-subconscious-imagination brought on by my distinguished war service.’

  Serebrianikov tied up loose ends fast, thought Chislenko admiringly. If it hadn’t been for the uncovering of the Osjanin corruption, poor old Josif would probably have been in the Lubyanka now, getting medical treatment of a very different kind. It was an ill wind and all that.

  They arrived at the eighth floor. Chislenko paused before leaving the lift. He had the photograph in his pocket. Was it worthwhile casually showing it to Josif?

  He looked at the smiling face before him and made up his mind. There was nothing to gain and too much to lose for both of them.

  He said, ‘Thank you, Josif,’ and went in search of Natasha.

  He found her in the tiny office she was so proud of that she’d brought her mother here to show it off. The girl she shared it with was at her desk also.

  Chislenko glared at her sternly and said, ‘MVD. I need to interview Comrade Lovchev privately.’

  The girl rose reluctantly and left. Natasha meanwhile remained still and expressionless at her desk. She was pale and haggard. Like all other conditions, emotional and physical, it became her.

  ‘Hi,’ said Chislenko.

  ‘Hello,’ she said.

  ‘Tell me about your mother.’

  She looked faintly surprised by this approach and said, ‘They found her lying unconscious in the kitchen. At first they thought she’d had a stroke, but by the time I got there, she’d woken up and it turns out she was clambering up on a stool to reach a high shelf and you know how stout she is, well, she’d overbalanced and cracked her head on the tiled floor. There was a bit of concussion, but nothing else, thank God. We’re a hard-headed family, it seems, so she’s really OK, thank you for asking.’

  It came out in a rapid but coherent flow.

  Chislenko
said gently, ‘I’m glad. But it must have been awful for you, travelling up there, not knowing. I wish you’d told me.’

  ‘Told you? You’d have been there when I got the news if you’d bothered to turn up on Friday night!’ she retorted. ‘Yes, it might even have been a help and a comfort to have you there.

  But as you couldn’t even be bothered to let me know you were breaking our date, I hardly felt much impulse to get in touch with you when I heard!’

  ‘No,’ said Chislenko. ‘You wouldn’t. I understand.’

  ‘Do you?’

  ‘Yes. Just as I know you’ll understand when I explain. But the important thing is your mother’s all right and you’re all right. I’m so pleased.’

  ‘Is that what you’ve come to say, then?’ said Natasha, shuffling some papers on her desk. ‘I am rather busy.’

  ‘Natasha, don’t shit me around,’ said Chislenko.

  Her eyes widened in surprise at the coarseness of his phrase.

  ‘Bad temper and common abuse I’ll take,’ he went on. ‘But this cold sophisticated brush-off crap won’t work.’

  ‘For God’s sake, where do you think you are, talking like that?’ she cried. ‘That might be OK down at Petrovka …’

  ‘I love you,’ he said.

  ‘… but unless you can start sounding like a civilized …’

  ‘I love you,’ he said.

  ‘… human being when you’re in the outside world …’

  He leaned over the desk and kissed her.

  When he drew back she regarded him solemnly and then suddenly started giggling.

  ‘Hark at me!’ she said.

  He kissed her again and this time she kissed him back.

  When they broke apart he was breathless.

  ‘Before this thing gets too serious,’ he said, ‘there’s something I want you to look at.’

  ‘I’ve seen it,’ she said. ‘Remember?’

  ‘God, and you say I’m coarse! No, it’s a photo. This man here, the blond, have you ever seen him before?’

  He passed over the photograph and stabbed his finger at the face of Fyodor Bunin.