The Holy Thief

by William Ryan

  “Comrade Korolev? Anna Solayevna—I have some interview notes for you from Captain Brusilov over at Razin Street. One of his men dropped them off. I thought they might be urgent, so I brought them up myself. Here they are.”

  “Thank you.”

  “It’s a pleasure, Comrade. Particularly if it helps you catch that poor girl’s killer.” She paused and gave a nervous smile. “I’m sorry, Comrade, you said that the report was not suitable for the younger girls so I typed it myself. The poor child—what he did to her.”

  She was about five years younger than him, light brown hair, a round face, brown eyes, a little careworn perhaps but still a good-looking woman.

  “We’re doing our best to track him down, believe me. We’ll have a look through these; there may well be something useful. Thank you for bringing them up.”

  She nodded and backed out the door.

  “Hmm, individual service. A little against the collective mentality, some people might say.”

  Korolev turned toward Semionov and frowned. “Well, is that all you have for me? Some wheel measurements and a drunken nightwatchman’s hung-over recollection?”

  Semionov’s smile broadened.

  “There’s something else. The cigarette packet. No fingerprints, I’m afraid, but I know the outlets.” Semionov pointed at the piece of paper in front of him and Korolev held out his hand.

  “You’re a real shock worker today, I see,” Korolev said. Apart from the Metropol and the other central hotels, every other outlet was a closed shop, open only to senior Party members or privileged specialists attached to a particular workplace or organ of government. The NKVD stores were on the list, as were those of the Moscow Party’s Central Office. “Your friend must be very well connected or very well off to smoke such a brand.”

  Semionov shrugged his shoulders. “There are other outlets, of course, and they have a certain prestige, this brand. But the other outlets wouldn’t be exactly ‘approved.’ ”

  “You did well,” Korolev said, relenting. He flicked through the list once again. “It’s good detective work, this. I’m not sure I much like the direction it’s pointing us in, but it doesn’t exactly come as a surprise.”

  “It doesn’t change anything, does it? If there’s a bad apple in the Party then they need to be dealt with.”

  “Of course, of course. It’s just we’ll have to proceed carefully: things are not always straightforward. I found out some things today as well, things that you need to be aware of.” And Korolev began to tell him about Mary Smithson, Nancy Dolan and the mysterious icon.

  “The only problem is I’m not sure where we go from here,” he said when he’d finished. “I know this is going to be a dangerous case to investigate. It may mean stepping on some people’s toes, political toes. Whoever is behind this is probably a traitor of the worst possible kind. I’ve considered it carefully, Comrade, and I’d like you to consider stepping aside from the investigation. You’re too young, Vanya. I won’t take the risk.”

  “Oh, come on, Comrade.” Semionov was indignant. “How old were you when you went to the trenches? Surely fighting the Germans was a little more dangerous than a Moscow murder investigation, political or not. This is 1936, Comrade, in the Soviet Union, and we are Militia investigators. There’s nothing we should be frightened of.”

  “That’s not the point, and it was a different situation back then.”

  Semionov’s jaw hardened. “I don’t know what’s going on here, Alexei Dmitriyevich, but it doesn’t matter to me who the criminals are. All the better, as far as I’m concerned, if they turn out to be Party members. A Party member who commits a crime is worse than an ordinary criminal because he’s guilty not only of the crime, but also of betraying the Party. If I can help catch such a traitor, then I should be given the opportunity to do so. That’s my duty and, as Comrade Stalin says, ‘Duty comes first.’ ”

  Korolev looked at his colleague and saw that there was no budging him. He’d known it would be this way, but he wouldn’t have been able to forgive himself if something happened to the young fellow later on and he hadn’t tried. At least he’d given him a choice. He shrugged his shoulders and waved Semionov to sit down.

  “Then it’s agreed, you stay on the case. Just trust me to handle some things alone until the situation is a little clearer. That’s not an insult or a lack of trust on my part—just common sense. There’s no point in putting us both at risk. I think I was followed here after I met the American. So you see? I may already be marked—no point in adding you to their list as well. Anyway, there’ll be plenty of things for you to do, believe me. Just let me look after the political aspects for the moment.”

  Semionov thought about it and then spoke quietly. “I’ll accept that, but let me help as much as I can. I’m not afraid of the consequences.” He held Korolev’s gaze. “So what’s our next step?”

  Korolev tapped the interviews in front of him. “Well, let’s work our way through these for a start.”

  “Agreed,” said Semionov with a grin.

  Korolev took the top half of the papers and slid them across to Semionov.

  “Make notes as you go—anything remotely relevant or even just unusual. Remember, we don’t know what we’re looking for necessarily, so look for what shouldn’t be there.”

  Semionov nodded and opened his notebook beside the first interview. He was soon making notes. Korolev picked up an interview from his own pile and began to read, hoping a nugget might be hidden among the gossip and denunciations that made up the first few interviews. Why was it, he wondered, that if you put a policeman in front of a Muscovite these days they’d use the opportunity to denounce half the people they knew? Here was another one, a single man with no apparent job, out all night and possessed of a large room all to himself, while Citizeness Ivanova, her husband and four children were crammed into a smaller room that they had to share with a young couple and a baby. How had the rascal managed it? Citizeness Ivanova asked. A drug dealer and a male prostitute was her answer. Korolev was almost tempted to look into it, but then it would probably turn out the fellow’s uncle was a senior Party member or the like.

  He plowed his way through the grimy reality of Soviet life from one end of Razin Street to the other. Primus stoves missing from the communal cooking area, drunkenness in Metro Workers’ Dormitory Number 12, a single mother’s string of male visitors: it would be better soon, he hoped, for the next generation anyway. A thought occurred to him and he flicked through the interviews to confirm it. No one had spoken to any of the street children who’d been outside the church. It might be worth tracking them down—children often noticed things adults took for granted. He made a quick note.

  It was tedious work, but the best way to approach interview notes was to read with a sort of double focus. You obviously had to take in every detail, no matter how mundane it seemed, and then you had to fit that detail into the wider picture. As it turned out, Brusilov’s men had done a good job. Korolev wasn’t surprised—you didn’t last long on Brusilov’s beat if you weren’t up to scratch. It was an uphill struggle for the Militia in Moscow at the best of times, but the last few years had seen huge numbers of peasants coming in from the countryside, driven by a combination of hunger at home and the prospect of work in one of the big factories or on the many construction sites. Getting a residence permit was tough, but that didn’t stop them; if they got a job they’d probably get the permit. In fact, getting a permit wasn’t that difficult compared to finding a scrap of dry floor to lie down on at the end of the day’s work. There were people sleeping on stairs, on trams, in the Metro. The Militia uniforms moved them on when they found them, but there were so many. And the hardness of life led to other problems as well. The incomers made fools of themselves when they managed to get enough money together for drink, not that native Muscovites were much better, and the drunkenness led to violence, rape, sometimes murder. But Brusilov had a lid on things around Razin Street and mischief-makers avoided the ar
ea.

  Perhaps as a result of this, Brusilov’s men had found the local residents helpful or at least very talkative when they’d asked them whether they’d seen anything unusual on the night of the murder. Korolev suppressed a smile when one interviewee in a communal apartment claimed that her neighbors, recently arrived from some far-off village to work at the Red October factory, were keeping a pig in the shared bathroom. Korolev was fairly comfortable that this was both unlikely and unconnected to his case, although, on second thought, he’d heard stranger tales about communal apartments, where collective insanity, after years of living in strangers’ armpits, was not unusual.

  In among the gossip and recriminations, however, two interviewees mentioned a black car parked on Razin Street, close to the church. One remembered nothing more than the color of the car, but the second, a teenage boy, was absolutely certain that the car was a GAZ M1. The “M” in the car’s name referred to Molotov, the Commissar for Foreign Affairs, and so the car was known to all as the Emka, the car Semionov suspected the murderers might have been driving out at Tomsky. Korolev made a note. It was surprising anyone had mentioned a Black Crow at all, the nickname for the black cars associated with the security Organs, particularly the NKVD, who had production priority. He usually refused if Morozov offered him one; the old Model T might have a broken windscreen, but at least people didn’t turn away when they saw it, not immediately anyway. Finishing the pile, he looked up at Semionov, who was waiting patiently.

  “I’ve two people who saw a black car that night,” Korolev said. “One of them, at least, saw an Emka.”

  “I’ve a black car parked near the church,” Semionov said.

  “It doesn’t prove anything, of course, but I think we should re-interview those witnesses. Ask them if they remember anything about the number plate. This boy who identified it as an Emka might remember something. He seems something of an enthusiast. Anything else?”

  “This one here might be worth following up: an old woman who lives a few doors away from the church saw a drunk girl being guided along Razin Street by two men in heavy overcoats—just after midnight. She knew it was after midnight because she’d just heard the ‘Internationale’ on the radio and then, because she lives so close to the Kremlin, she heard the bells from the Spassky tower ring the time as well. What do you think?”

  Korolev was too long a detective to be surprised that an old lady would be scanning the street at midnight.

  “Two men—same as the stadium. Any description of the girl?”

  “Black coat, short hair—it could be her.”

  “Maybe the killers drugged her before taking her to the church. Where’s the old lady in relation to where the car was parked? That’s what we have to check. We’ll have to go round to all of these witnesses again. Draw it out on a map.”

  Korolev pushed the pile of interviews to the back of his desk. “Well, a few things to follow up, at least. I’ll ask Staff Colonel Gregorin if he can help us with the Emka, but a registration number is what we really need.”

  “What about identifying the dead Thief?”

  “Larinin’s looking through the mugshots and files, but if you could look through them as well, that would help. We’ll see if we can get a picture to show around the stations. He’s been through the Zone so there should be something.”

  “Of course, Alexei Dmitriyevich. And thank you. I won’t let you down.”

  “I know. Get on home now, I’ll write up this report and we’ll talk tomorrow.”

  Semionov didn’t need to be told twice and with a quick farewell was on his way. Korolev looked at the younger man’s empty seat, put his concerns about the lad behind him and started to write down the latest developments. It didn’t take long: after all there were only so many of the day’s revelations that he could put in writing. The rest would have to be communicated verbally.

  He’d just finished and was checking over it for spelling mistakes when he heard a gunshot, muffled, but sounding as though it came from inside the building. He stood, slipped the Walther from his shoulder holster, pushed a round into the chamber, flicked the safety catch back and opened the door very slowly. Across the hall he could see the occupants of 2C and 2D also maneuvering out into the corridor, guns first. He held his automatic up toward the ceiling and whispered across to Paunichev from 2C.

  “Hey, Semyon. What the hell was that?”

  Paunichev kept his eyes on the corridor he was slowly moving down and whispered back, “We’ll find out soon enough.”

  Then a loud voice came from the stairwell up ahead. “It’s all right, boys. Just an accident.”

  Korolev recognized General Popov’s voice and slid his safety catch back on, the click it made echoed by several others along the corridor. Korolev stood upright and walked toward the stairwell, which was ringed on every floor by curious faces, some in uniforms and some not. The general looked down from the third-floor landing.

  “Andropov had an accident, nothing to worry about. An ambulance is on its way.” His face looked pale in the electric light. “Go on, back to work or off to a bar. If you all stand on the staircase at once, it might give way.”

  There was a low rumble of laughter and the Militiamen started to disperse. Korolev took the opportunity to pick up the report he’d written and take it down to typing. Anna Solayevna was leaning out of the hatch to the typing harem, her face white in the shadows.

  “What happened?” she asked in a whisper. “I heard a shot.”

  “It was nothing. An accident I think.”

  But neither of them believed it.

  Korolev returned to his office and read through the interview notes once more, in case they’d missed anything, until the clock reminded him that it was nearly seven and time to go home. He collected his coat and hat and stopped at the canteen on the first floor for his weekly food parcel, which he slipped under his arm, where it was joined by the freshly typed daily report, handed to him by a proud Anna Solayevna as he passed the typing pool. She must have typed like a demon to have it ready in time, he thought to himself as he thanked her.

  The temperature outside was so cold it hurt his eyes. He was turning up the collar of his coat when he saw the general standing beside an ambulance, watching a stretcher being loaded. A blanket covered the body but Korolev presumed it was Andropov—a fatal accident then. He walked over, murmuring a prayer for the dead man and removing his hat as he did so. Other people leaving the building had stopped, and five or six of them came closer to form a clump of dark solemnity on the wide steps that graced the front of the building. They waited until the ambulance pulled away. No one said a word—there was nothing to be said. Perhaps it really had been an accident, but now it had become yet another hole in the chronology to be carefully avoided. Korolev replaced his hat and walked away, not looking at the others. As far as he’d known, Andropov, a colonel, had been a happily married man with two children and a good apartment. A lucky man. Something had happened to change that, he supposed.

  He watched the ambulance turn a corner, then walked out of the gates to join the dark crowds of silent pedestrians walking into the Moscow night.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Gregorin’s Emka was waiting for him when he reached Bolshoi Nikolo-Vorobinsky and, as he approached, the door opened and Gregorin stepped out. He leaned back into the car and spoke a few words to the driver, a large black shape behind the steering wheel. Gregorin looked at his watch and smiled.

  “A few minutes late. Busy day?”

  There was something in his cheerful demeanor that infuriated Korolev. The feeling was so intense that he could feel it twisting his face into a snarl. He tried to suppress it but Gregorin was already giving him a quizzical look.

  “Is there something wrong, Comrade?”

  “Nothing. I watched an ambulance take away a colleague’s body not thirty minutes ago. Perhaps it’s that.”

  “I’m sorry to hear it. What happened to him?”

  “An accident, they
say.”

  “I see. There are a lot of accidents these days. Your friend Chestnova is kept busy.”

  “Yes, it seems so.”

  Gregorin shrugged his shoulders. Korolev knew what he was thinking—this was just the way things were these days.

  “Have you brought today’s report?” the colonel asked.

  “Yes,” Korolev said, patting the front of his jacket with his free hand.

  Inside the car, Korolev placed his food parcel at his feet. Gregorin switched on a small roof light, gesturing toward the driver as he began to read.

  “This is Volodya, my driver. We can talk in front of him.”

  Volodya turned his head toward Korolev. Everything about the face seemed to bulge, except for the eyes that peered out at him through pillbox slits. A massive hairy hand gave Korolev an incongruous thumbs up. Korolev nodded back, aware of the smell of sausage wafting up from the parcel on the floor. Krakow sausage. Korolev hoped this wouldn’t take too long.

  “Interesting, the tattoos. You’ll have a full autopsy report tomorrow?”

  “Yes, and hopefully an identification as well. There’s bound to be a file on him—probably has a filing cabinet to himself if the tattoos are anything to go by.”

  “And the car?”

  “If it’s an Emka—well, they’re not easy to get access to.”

  “No,” Gregorin said, with a smug smile.

  “We’ll do our best, Comrade Colonel, but it might be that the NKVD would have more success tracking it down.”

  “We’ll certainly be looking into it,” Gregorin said, turning the last page and then switching off the light.

  “What about the American?”

  “It was an off-the-record conversation, for what that’s worth.”