Red Moth

by Sam Eastland

  More puzzled than before‚ Kirov made his way up to the ground floor. Instead of leaving the building, he continued to climb the stairs until he reached the records office on the fourth floor. There, he found Elizaveta, sitting with two other women in the tiny, windowless space which served as their break room. They sat on old wooden file boxes, drinking tea out of the dark green enamel mugs which were provided in every Soviet government building, every school, hospital and train station café in the country. One heavy-set woman, with a square face and a tight mesh of grey hair, was smoking a cigarette, which filled the room with clouds of acrid smoke.

  The women were laughing about something but they fell silent as soon as Kirov came to the doorway. Noticing his rank, they eyed him nervously, all except Elizaveta, who smiled and set aside her mug. Rising to her feet, she stepped over the legs of the other women and embraced him.

  Awkwardly, because he was still not used to being seen as part of a couple, Kirov returned the embrace. At the same time, he attempted to smile at the other women, who were now studying him with completely different expressions on their faces. Their fear had vanished. The appraisal had begun.

  ‘This is Yulian,’ said Elizaveta. ‘He is with Special Operations.’

  ‘Special Operations.’ Through crooked lips, the woman with the cigarette whistled out a stream of smoke. ‘You must know Inspector Pekkala.’

  ‘I know him very well,’ said Kirov.

  ‘Is he as handsome as they say?’

  ‘That depends,’ Kirov told her, ‘on how handsome they say he is.’ Before the woman could think of a reply to that, he turned his attention to Elizaveta. ‘Come with me,’ he said.

  ‘But I have work! My break is almost over.’

  ‘No one will notice if you take a few extra minutes.’

  ‘I would notice,’ said the woman with the cigarette.

  ‘This is Sergeant Gatkina,’ explained Elizaveta, ‘keeper of the records office.’

  ‘And her superior,’ added Sergeant Gatkina, stubbing out the remains of the cigarette against the thick sole of her shoe.

  ‘Ah,’ Kirov said quietly. ‘My apologies, Comrade Sergeant.’

  Sergeant Gatkina replied with a grunt.

  ‘I am also her superior,’ said the other woman, a matronly figure, whose face appeared set in a perpetual glare of disapproval. ‘I am Corporal Korolenko and I say . . .’

  ‘Shut up!’ barked Sergeant Gatkina.

  The woman’s mouth snapped closed like a mousetrap.

  ‘I’ll see you later,’ Kirov whispered to Elizaveta.

  He was just about to step out of the room, when Sergeant Gatkina’s voice cut once more through the smoky air.

  ‘Go!’ she commanded.

  ‘I am going,’ Kirov told her.

  ‘Not you!’ growled Gatkina. ‘Kapanina!’

  ‘Yes, Comrade Sergeant?’ answered Elizaveta.

  ‘You will be back in half an hour.’

  ‘Yes, Comrade Sergeant.’

  ‘And then you will tell us all there is to tell about your major.’ As she spoke, she aimed a glance at Kirov, as if daring him to speak.

  But Kirov knew better. Nodding solemnly, he took his leave.

  Outside the building, Kirov and Elizaveta walked out across the Lubyanka Square.

  ‘I hope I didn’t get you in trouble,’ said Kirov.

  ‘As long as Sergeant Gatkina knows she is in charge, and as long as she knows that you know, then there is nothing to worry about.’

  ‘I’m sorry I haven’t come by sooner,’ he said. ‘Things have been very busy since I saw you last.’

  ‘Does this have anything to do with Inspector Pekkala?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Will we not be making dinner for him, after all?’

  ‘He’s doing some work out of town.’

  ‘Will he be returning soon?’

  ‘I don’t know. When I said goodbye to him, he spoke to me as if he knew he wasn’t coming back.’

  ‘Perhaps you’re imagining it.’

  ‘I hope so.’ Kirov breathed in deeply and smiled. ‘There was something else he told me, though. It had to do with you.’

  ‘Yes?’ She sounded suddenly nervous.

  ‘He said it would be a mistake if I ever let you go.’

  She stopped and turned to face him. ‘Well, I still think he’s strange, but I also believe he is right.’

  ‘He was almost killed, you know, right after you first met him.’ Kirov went on to describe the shooting outside the Café Tilsit. ‘I’m supposed to be investigating the case, but there’s not enough evidence, and what little I have had leads nowhere. I can’t shake the idea that, even though it was Pekkala’s friend who died, Pekkala might have been the target, after all.’

  ‘In that line of work,’ said Elizaveta, ‘there must be no shortage of people who would want you dead.’

  As her words sifted into his mind, Kirov thought back to what Pekkala had said to him after Kovalevsky had been killed – ‘It could have been you lying there in the gutter with your throat torn out.’

  Even though Pekkala had taken back everything he’d said, Kirov wondered if he might have been right. Maybe their lives were indeed too fragile to be shared, especially by those who loved them.

  ‘There is no shortage of such people,’ admitted Kirov.

  ‘But fortunately,’ replied Elizaveta, ‘most of those must be in prison now.’

  ‘Most.’ Then suddenly an idea took shape in Kirov’s mind. ‘But not all.’ He stepped back. ‘I have to go.’

  ‘Did I say something wrong?’

  ‘No! Quite the opposite!’ Kirov stepped forward and kissed her. ‘I’ll speak to you soon.’ Then he bolted across Lubyanka Square, headed for the Kremlin.

  ‘Goodbye!’ she called, but by then he was already gone. Returning to work, Elizaveta glanced up at the fourth floor of NKVD Headquarters in time to see the faces of Corporal Korolenko and Sergeant Gatkina staring down at her intently.

  Pekkala watched

  Pekkala watched as the bodies of the executed men were dragged out of sight into the field. ‘Why did you have to kill them?’ he asked Leontev. ‘You only wanted their clothes. Surely something could have been found for them to wear instead.’

  ‘We would have killed them anyway,’ Leontev told him matter of factly. ‘Glavpur does not take prisoners.’

  Stefanov hesitated. ‘Does the Comrade Captain realise what the enemy will do if they capture us in these uniforms?’

  ‘It would be no different,’ replied Leontev, ‘than what we’d do to them if the situation was reversed. Which it often is. Switching uniforms is also a habit of the Germans. They even have a special group known as the Brandenburg Kommando. They entered Smolensk ahead of the main German advance, all wearing Red Army uniforms. They stopped us from blowing up the bridges. That’s why the city fell so quickly. And as for you, our reports indicate that the troops currently occupying Pushkin village are a brigade of cavalry belonging to the Waffen SS. What they’ll do if they catch you will be every bit as vicious if you’re wearing Russian uniforms as it would be if you’re dressed as Germans and they realise who you are.’

  Churikova glanced uneasily at the heap of dirty clothing. ‘There are only two uniforms here.’

  ‘You are better off keeping your clothes,’ advised Leontev. ‘There are plenty of women serving in the Soviet Army, as snipers, stretcher bearers or truck drivers, and their uniforms are nearly the same as those of the men. But the Germans don’t mix women with their front-line troops. Some of these uniforms belong to German Military Police. Travelling together, it will appear that you are a prisoner being brought back for interrogation.’ Leontev jerked his chin at the pile of black leather belts and field-grey wool. ‘The rest of you, find something that fits. Leave everything else behind except your Russian pass books. You will need them to establish your identities once you have returned to our lines.’

  ‘And if they find our pass books o
n us?’ asked Stefanov.

  ‘Then I hope for your sake that you’ll already be dead.’

  Gritting his teeth, Pekkala rummaged through the dead men’s clothes. He selected a tunic belonging to one of the military policemen, some trousers and some boots and carried them into the next room, which was the kitchen. A smell of boiled meat hung in the air. Pekkala was about to lay the clothes upon the pleeta stove when, out of old habit, he spat on the iron plates to check that they weren’t hot.

  After stripping off his own garments, Pekkala dressed in the German uniform. It was still warm from the man’s body heat. Fumbling with the pebbled metal buttons, he smelled the man’s sweat and the unfamiliar machine-oil reek of German wool. It was the socks that troubled him the most, since he had long since grown used to Russian portyanki, which wound about the foot like a bandage. Next, Pekkala picked up a pair of jack boots and held the muddy soles against his foot, trying to gauge their size. He tried the other pair and pulled them on. His own foot settled on the imprint of the dead man’s.

  At that moment, Leontev appeared at the kitchen door, carrying several German helmets, which he tossed into the room. The heavy metal crashed on to the wooden floorboards. He nodded approvingly at Pekkala and Stefanov. ‘Excellent!’ he grinned. ‘I feel like shooting you.’

  ‘These clothes may fit,’ said Pekkala, ‘but the average soldier in this or any other army is a good deal younger than I am.’

  ‘The average soldier, yes, but not the average member of the military police. In wartime, these men are often recruited from the regular police force. As a result, most are older than the people they’re sent to arrest. Chained dogs. That’s what the Germans call their military police. With any luck, as soon as they see those gorgets around your necks, they’ll turn around and walk the other way. Military police do not mix with the rest of the army. They do not sleep in the same barracks. They do not eat at the same tables. They do not drink at the same bars. They prefer to be left alone and the rest of the army, whether it is Russian, German or any other nationality, is most often happy to oblige.’

  The soldiers returned from the field. They washed their hands in a puddle in the road. Then they began setting fire to the barn.

  ‘Take what you can and get out,’ ordered Leontev. ‘They’re burning the house down as well.’

  ‘But why?’ asked Stefanov. ‘This is a Russian farm!’

  ‘We burn everything,’ replied Leontev. ‘By the way, Inspector, I have been told to give you this.’ He held up a grey metal canister, of the type German soldiers used for storing their gas masks, suspended on a heavy canvas strap. ‘A gift from Comrade Poskrebychev. He said you would know what to do with it.’

  Momentarily confused, Pekkala reached out and took hold of the canister. It was heavy. ‘What’s in this?’ he asked.

  ‘Enough explosives to blow us all to vapour. The canister also contains two pencil timers, in case you need to divide the charges.’

  ‘Pencil timers?’

  ‘A glass vial of cupric chloride is housed in an aluminium and copper tube, along with a detonator and a striker, which is held back by a tiny wire made of lead alloy. Break the vial by crushing the copper end of the tube with the heel of your boot, then pull the safety strip on the side of the tube and the timer will begin. There are five timers in the set, each one with a different coloured band, wrapped in a paper bundle which tells you how long each coloured tube will last before it detonates. You have anywhere from ten minutes to an hour, depending on which colour you use. Once you’ve pulled the safety strip, jam the sharp end of the timer into the explosives and get as far away as you can.’

  Cautiously, Pekkala slung the canister across his shoulder.

  ‘There is one more thing they’ve given you, Inspector,’ said Leontev.

  ‘What is that?’

  ‘A coil of wire and a battery, for constructing an instant fuse. Simply cut the wire in half, embed one of each end in the explosives and one of the other ends to the negative battery terminal. As soon as you touch the fourth end to the positive terminal, you will complete the circuit, which sends an electric charge into the explosives and detonates them.’

  ‘Which means I have no chance of escape,’ Pekkala concluded.

  ‘It looks to me, Inspector, that they have put more value on this mission than they have done on your life.’

  Red Army soldiers moved past them and into the house. In a minute, the place was ablaze. They had just left the building, when a heavy thump of mortars sounded on the ridge. Immediately the men set off at a run towards their gun positions.

  ‘Any moment now,’ said Leontev, ‘the Fascists will begin advancing up the slope. When you hear the shooting start, follow the cart path. It veers to the west in a couple of kilometres. You must not talk. You must not smoke. If you get lost, you must not cry out.’ He jabbed two fingers at his eyes, as if he meant to blind himself. ‘Never lose sight of the person in front of you. After one hour, you will come to a river, beside which are the ruins of a house. A man is waiting for you there. He is one of ours. He will show you how to get across the river. From there, the road runs straight to Tsarskoye Selo.’

  The thatched roof was burning now. Whirlwinds of sparks vortexed into the sky. A loud explosion echoed through the trees as a wave of fire rolled across the ridge. More explosions followed, each one a dusty red plume punching out of the darkness.

  Pekkala turned to look for Leontev, but the man had already vanished into the night.

  People’s Commissar Bakhturin

  People’s Commissar Bakhturin sat at his desk, blinking in astonishment at Major Kirov, who had just barged into his office.

  The office consisted of a large corner room on the third floor of a building, which had, before the Revolution, been the home of Count Andronikov‚ the Tsar’s Minister of Agriculture. It had Persian carpets on the floor, paintings on the walls from Bakhturin’s personal collection and ornate pre-Revolution furniture imported from England and France. All of it had been requisitioned from special warehouses where the possessions of enemies of the State were stored until they could be redistributed among the people of the city. Some of the furnishings, such as a Chippendale oak chair and a desk from the workshop of the master carpenter Gustavus de Lisle, had also belonged to Count Andronikov. Having been confiscated, along with the building itself, they had subsequently found their way back to their original home, and were now set aside for the personal use of Commissar Bakhturin. Although the original plan was for such goods to be given out to anyone in good standing with the Communist Party and so dispersing the wealth of the former regime among the masses, it soon became apparent that only those with the right connections, like Viktor Bakhturin , would ever get their hands on luxuries such as these.

  ‘What on earth are you doing?’ demanded Bakhturin. ‘You can’t just walk in here!’

  ‘Where is your brother?’ asked Kirov. ‘He’s out of prison, isn’t he?’

  ‘He served his sentence. He didn’t escape, if that’s what you mean. He was released two weeks ago.’

  ‘I’m not asking where he was,’ said Kirov. ‘I want to know where he is now.’

  Bakhturin hesitated. ‘As a matter of fact, I have no idea. He was supposed to have contacted me immediately after his release from Tulkino, but I never heard from him. He will show up eventually. He’s just enjoying his first few days of freedom before I put him back to work. What is this about, Major Kirov?’

  ‘A man was killed two nights ago, a friend of Inspector Pekkala’s.’

  ‘And you think my brother might have murdered a friend of the Inspector?’ Bakhturin sat back and shrugged. ‘Why would he want to do that?’

  ‘I believe that Pekkala might have been the real target, but the murderer shot the wrong man.’

  ‘Listen to me, Comrade Major. My brother may have been foolish enough to land himself in prison, but he’s not so stupid as to attempt the assassination of Stalin’s most valuable detective.’
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  ‘Your brother owes you a debt.’

  ‘Yes, he does,’ agreed Bakhturin. ‘If it wasn’t for my help, Serge would never have graduated from primary school, let alone found a high-ranking job with the State Railways. But it was always my choice to help him. He never asked for favours, and I never wanted anything in return.’

  ‘Which makes the debt all the more difficult to repay, doesn’t it? You wanted Pekkala brought down. You made no secret of it.’

  ‘If I truly meant to kill Pekkala, I would find a better way of doing it than sending my own brother to carry out the task.’

  ‘And what if Serge decided to carry it out on his own? It was Pekkala, after all, who put him in prison.’

  ‘On his own?’ Bakhturin snorted. ‘Serge wouldn’t dare!’

  ‘And why not?’

  ‘Because then he would have to answer to me, as well as to you, and I can assure you that answering to me is the less attractive of those options for my brother!’

  ‘And the fact that you haven’t heard from Serge since he got out of prison is of no concern to you?’

  Bakhturin stared into a corner of the room. ‘I will admit,’ he said quietly, ‘that this is not like him at all.’

  ‘Prison changes everyone.’

  Bakhturin nodded. ‘The thought had crossed my mind.’

  ‘Then help me to find him,’ said Kirov. ‘Pekkala taught me that it is as important to exonerate an innocent man as it is to bring a guilty one to trial.’

  For a while, Bakhturin remained lost in thought. Then he picked up a pencil and scribbled something down on a sheet of paper. Slowly, he rose to his feet and handed the paper to Kirov. ‘You might find him at this address, or at least someone who knows where he is. I would have gone there myself to find out, except he does not know I am aware of his interest in this place. And he would not want me to know. When you see my brother, Major Kirov, please do not tell him I sent you.’