He wore an old Mackintosh-type raincoat, frayed at the wrists. His wife had fixed up the lining more than once, but she couldn’t do anything about the fraying. He loved this old jacket though, loved even the disrepair it was in. The raincoat lived his life with him from the start of fall until it got cold enough for a wool coat, then again from midspring to summer. And he always preferred these middle seasons to the winter cold or the intense summer heat. Between seasons, when the sun shone gently and the air was wet and carried a stronger smell of gasoline, it was easier for him to believe what his heart could see. What he saw now were not the cars flashing by, the tacky billboards, the sordid advertisements, or the current of people flowing past him, none of whom even noticed the man in the decrepit old raincoat and scuffed shoes, the man with the face that looked tired of life.
No, he had become invisible even to himself, like the changeable air in those times between the seasons, and he could see the urban landscape around him changing as well. The walls of Bely Gorod rose up, the walls Boris Godunov had called Tsargrad, the white rock emerging to conceal the river of filthy garbage below. Above the walls there was only the sky, the same as it had been in 1593, when Fyodor Kon finished the construction, and the Khan and his marauders rode right up to the fortress walls and left again empty-handed. He smiled cunningly, as if he himself were sitting under that pyramid of a roof and watching the Tatar horde retreat into the distance.
He had almost reached his second-to-last stop: an enormous C-shaped building with three wings just off the Boulevard Ring. One wing had an exit onto Znamenka Street, the “Street of the Sign.” He thought he’d walk along that street, too, afterward. Then he’d get to see two small churches before him, through the advancing dusk, as if they had never been demolished: the Church of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker, with its three domes and bell tower, where they had built a garish new chapel, and the Church of the Sign of the Holy Mother, where now there was nothing but a playground. He’d need only half an hour to do his work, and then he’d take a leisurely walk to Borovitskaya Square, and from there, on to the waterfront.
He showed his ID at the desk and they handed him a pass. MMMD, the pass read. Main Military Medical Directorate of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation. The corner of the little card featured a complicated emblem: the traditional serpent, wrapped around a chalice. And there was something inside the cup. A dagger? A mortar? Oak branches on each side, an eagle posed above it, a red cross below. My, oh my! He chuckled. Such ridiculous heraldry.
He knocked at the door. The secretary had already left, as he had anticipated, and he walked in, welcomed by a low, rumbling voice. Leontiev even stood up to greet him. There was a certain apprehension in his eyes. Clearly, he wondered what the prosecutor might want from him. But in the end, you don’t turn down meetings with people like Herr Prosecutor, even after you’ve worked your way into a directorship, into a vast office with a view of the Kremlin. They shook hands, and then Leontiev sat down in his leather chair at the end of a long table, polished till it gleamed like ice. He gestured with one broad hand that his visitor should have a seat, too.
“I’ve heard of you, of course!” he boomed, taking a look at the man in the old raincoat. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”
The man smiled, baring some poorly made dentures.
“Oh, I’ll be quick. I know your time is valuable. Just one small question,” he said. “I’ve received some information about a series of suicides. Or, I should say, apparent suicides. All the men who killed themselves had been soldiers in Afghanistan. Now, here’s what I figured out.” Was the man in the raincoat’s smile turning into a sneer, or had it always been that way? “I learned that they all had been denied wheelchairs. That same decree—dictated, officially speaking, by the need to conserve resources—also canceled the veterans’ prescription-medicine discounts.”
“I’m not sure I understand your interest in this ministry’s affairs.” Leontiev was trying to remain polite, but on the open face that had been such an asset in his career, a hint of annoyance was visible. “You know as well as I do how much the federal budget has shrunk.”
The man nodded in time with the tapping of his old shoe on the floor, and he went on as if nothing had happened. “However, according to the information I have, at the same time, a new suite of furniture was purchased for your office.” He ran a finger gently over the shining tabletop. “Cherry, is it?”
Leontiev nodded.
“For a little more than five million rubles,” the man continued. “All of this carving work, the bronze and the good leather, it all costs good money, doesn’t it?” He stood up and walked around the table, very close to Leontiev, his voice friendly. “Doesn’t all this expensive garbage give you a rash on the ass?”
“What is the meaning of this?” Leontiev was rising slowly out of his chair, upholstered in that incriminating leather. Standing, he was the same height as this uncouth prosecutor. Suddenly he heard a click. His eyes darted to one side, and there, just an inch from his temple, another eye stared at him, unblinking—the barrel of a pistol. He also saw, for the first time, the eyes of the man in the ragged raincoat. Compared to them, the pistol looked almost kind.
“What are you—?” Leontiev began, but the man ordered him to shut his mouth, and with the easy gesture of a practiced magician, pulled a gag over Leontiev’s head and fastened it tight around his mouth. From the other pocket of his raincoat, the man took a roll of packing tape, which he used to tie Leontiev to his extravagant chair. There was a moment when Leontiev could have broken free. But that pistol . . . And the prosecutor seemed so sure of himself, not even the slightest bit nervous. Now he laid an ordinary black briefcase on the table. In no more hurry than before, he began taking wooden pegs out of the case, one after another, and he arranged them neatly on the table.
Leontiev thought he must be going mad. The events taking place here in his office, with no particular ceremony, simply did not compute. What could the man need those pegs for? Before Leontiev found an answer, his eyes stopped darting around like a frightened bird’s and he froze. Moving just a little, he rolled closer to the table. The new furniture did not creak, and the carpet concealed the sound. With the sole of one long soft-leather dress shoe, Leontiev felt for the alarm button under the table. There was the usual button that alerted building security, but there was a second one with a direct connection to the police. One more inch, just one more . . . He coughed a little, to distract the prosecutor from what he was doing, and finally—oh, thank God!—his foot hit the alarm button.
ANDREY
The call came in when they were almost back in the city. Fomin was shouting into the phone that headquarters had gotten an emergency call relaying audio from an important functionary’s office.
“I heard him ranting and raving about something!” Fomin yelled, excited. “A thin voice, like a woman’s, but it wasn’t a woman, and it was—”
“Where?” Andrey asked, cutting him off.
“The army medical office, on Znamenka Street. There’s an entrance on the Boulevard Ring.”
“Why aren’t you there?”
“We’re driving over now, Captain. We’ll be there in five minutes, ten tops. It’s rush hour, you should see the fucking traffic.”
“That was part of his plan,” Andrey said quietly. “Fine, go ahead, do what you can.”
“What was he ranting about?” Masha asked Fomin. She had not missed one shouted word of the phone conversation.
“They sent me the recording,” Fomin said. “I’ll play it, you can listen.”
Andrey switched to speakerphone. At first, all they could hear was a muffled moaning.
“He gagged him,” Masha whispered.
Then there was a terrible voice, high and thin, chanting, “Here we were met by the evil spirits of the last and twentieth Torment, the station of Heartlessness and Cruelty. Cruel are the tormentors of this place, and their prince is terrible, dry and depressed of countenance.
Even if a man performs the most outstanding deeds, mortifies himself by fasting, prays ceaselessly, and guards and keeps the purity of his body, if he has been merciless, then from this station he is cast down into the abyss of hell and will receive no mercy in all eternity. I sentence you, sinner, to a hasty descent into hell, by impalement.”
“Did you hear that?” It was Fomin’s voice on the line again. “Creepy, right? Okay, we’re here.”
“Stay on the line,” Andrey told him. He groped under his seat for his police lights, and without slowing down reached out the window and shoved them into place on the roof of the car. They could move faster now, but their progress was still slow, monstrously slow. Meanwhile, Fomin provided them with terse narration.
“We’re here, boss. We’re surrounding the entrance. We’re inside. We’re splitting up, one group on the stairs, the other on the elevator.”
Masha sat next to Andrey, on the edge of her seat. They could hear the pounding footsteps, then a fire-escape door opening with a creak, then more footsteps, and a pause. There was the crash of a door getting blasted open, and then—silence.
“Fomin! Are you okay?” Andrey shouted. “What do you see?”
“Oh my God,” Fomin breathed into the phone. “I’m here. We’re all okay. But this guy—”
“Ask him to describe it,” Masha whispered.
“Uhhh,” Fomin began. “There’s a man sitting in a chair. The chair’s on the table, like a monument or something. There’s, uhhh, stakes sticking out of his ribs. Like a fucking bloody porcupine, for God’s sake.”
There was a sudden burst of shouting, and Fomin’s voice filled the whole car.
“He’s alive! Get him down, he’s alive!”
Masha and Andrey sat transfixed. At the other end, they could hear chaos, chairs crashing to the floor.
“No,” someone else said. “His body was just spasming before death. Get the forensics guys over here.”
Fomin spoke up. “That’s it. He’s dead.”
“Fomin. Listen to me.” Andrey was speaking slowly, knowing that poor Fomin must be in shock. “Go down to the reception desk. Look at the list of visitors the dead man had this afternoon. Look to see when they came and when they left. Hurry! I’ll still be on the line.”
He asked Masha to use her phone to call Anyutin.
“Colonel, sir,” said Masha, her voice shaking. “We know who the Sin Collector is. It’s Nikolay Nikolayevich Katyshev.”
Anyutin coughed carefully. “Intern Karavay, forgive me, but are you feeling all right?”
But Andrey had already grabbed her phone.
“Colonel, we were at his dacha. We found everything. Maps, torture tools. There’s no doubt it’s him. I don’t have time to explain more. We’ve just found a new body. I need you to spread the word, okay? Alert all the traffic checkpoints, send SWAT teams to his home address and to his dacha.”
“What about you?” Anyutin asked. Judging from his lack of objections, Anyutin must believe him. There was something in Andrey’s voice that could not be denied.
“I’ll call you back, sir,” Andrey answered, and he hung up.
MASHA
At almost exactly the same time, Fomin came back on the other line.
“Okay, I have the visitor log. Today the victim had three afternoon meetings. Here’s the last one: N. N. Katyshev. In at 7:15, out at 7:45.”
“Which door did he use? Did he leave through the reception area?”
“Well, yeah,” said Fomin, not understanding. “It was all by the book. Here’s the signature, they gave him a pass—”
Andrey swore, glancing at Masha. “Get back to Petrovka,” he ordered Fomin. Furious, he slammed the phone down on the dashboard.
Masha knew why he was so livid. It wasn’t even eight o’clock yet. They had come so close. The killer could have been any one of the ghostly silhouettes of pedestrians hurrying by.
“He’ll never go home again,” Masha said quietly. “And I doubt he’ll go back to the dacha. Let me think.”
They parked, and Masha spread the map from the cellar across her knees. She peered at the web of downtown streets and at the holes from the pins scattered here and there over the pale-green background. So, Masha thought. Now we look at it the other way around. She started very methodically, one by one, to count off the places the murders had been committed. Bersenevskaya waterfront. Lenivka. Pushkin Square. Kolomenskoye. As she counted, she smoothed over each pinhole in the paper with her finger. She felt as if she were releasing those old names of the streets and squares from their terrible history, setting them free again. Her finger faltered for a moment when she came to Poklonnaya Hill. Andrey opened the window and smoked a cigarette, never taking his eyes off of her. Lubyansky, Nikolskaya, Prechistenka. One remained. One mark, almost in the center of the map, where there were already more than enough pinholes.
Masha picked up the map and held it closer to her eyes. She read the name, then turned her pale face to Andrey.
“There it is,” she said. “Do you see? He had everything ready for us.”
“What do you mean?” Andrey tossed his cigarette out the window and took the map from her.
“A few of the tollhouses, a few of the murders, were missing. I thought that Nick-Nick—that the killer—must have committed them, but we didn’t know where to look. But here on the map, there are exactly enough pinholes for every victim we’ve found, including the murder he committed today . . . and one more. There was an extra pin on the map, Andrey.”
“And what does that mean?”
Masha spoke slowly. “I think he allowed for the possibility that we might find his lair. And if we did, and found his map, then he would have no way back. So he left just one extra pin on the map, a place he could return to, if necessary, after he made it through all the tollhouses. That pin marked a place we haven’t connected with a killing yet. But . . .” Masha paused, then went on, her voice flat. “But it was on the list that Kenty made.”
“Are you saying he’s asking the two of us for a meeting?” asked Andrey, incredulous.
Masha nodded.
“At”—Andrey squinted and read the tiny lettering, barely legible in the dim light of the car—“Vasilevsky Slope?”
“At Vasilevsky Slope.”
MASHA
“You stay in the car,” Andrey told her.
He kissed her, his lips taut, then pulled a gun out of the glove compartment and left. There were fewer lights here, and it was completely dark. A few lingering tourists wandered around the square, on the hill leading from St. Basil’s down to the Moskva, where it flowed past the Kremlin. Masha sat there terrified as the air inside the car gradually got colder.
Maybe I should call Anyutin? Why did Andrey go by himself? Or maybe he called everyone as soon as he got out of the car and the place is already surrounded? In that case, why haven’t they gotten all these foreigners out of the area?
Masha thought time must have stopped. She looked around. This was the obvious place to meet, now that she thought about it. The perfect scene for the final act in this nightmare. The Kremlin wall seemed higher here than anywhere else. This road flowed like a wave, in a wide ribbon, down to the river, crowned on the high end of the slope by St. Basil’s Cathedral. The building was brightly lit, and from here, it looked like an elaborate gingerbread house. It was a favorite spot for teens and tourists to come for pictures, the kind of place where you could reduce a complex, amazing city to one nice glossy picture.
As Masha looked at the wall of the ancient fortress, almost black in the night, she thought about how the history of any city, any point on the map where people have lived pressed close together for centuries, was a history of blood and cruelty. Human beings were pitiless creatures. If all the blood that had ever been spilled on the streets of those ancient cities were to rise up over the cobblestones, we’d all be wading around in it up to our ankles, maybe our knees. And we’d never agree to live in a city again, because of all the cities in cr
eation, only one was free of sin—and nobody had ever seen it. The City of God, Heavenly Jerusalem.
A phone rang, and Masha realized in horror it was Andrey’s. He had left it on the dashboard, which meant he couldn’t call anyone for help. And that meant he was out there alone in the dark, hunting for a killer, who was lying in wait for him in some dim shadow of the fortress wall!
In one swift move, Masha grabbed the phone, tumbled out of the car, and, like a baby bird fallen from its nest, helplessly looked around in all directions. The phone had stopped ringing and she couldn’t see Andrey anywhere. People hurried by, intent on their own business, and she suddenly wanted to take a deep breath of the cold, wet river air and shout at them all, Get out of here! Save yourselves! Instead she let out a short, spastic breath and started scrolling through the phone’s contact list for Anyutin’s number.
“Mashenka,” a quiet voice said then, and for a split second she sighed with relief. Thank God, Nick-Nick was here! He’d know what to do! But then she remembered, and she froze.
He was standing right behind her. Masha thought she could even smell his old-man breath.
“Mashenka,” he said again, in a voice that was at once dear to her and utterly repulsive. “Your papa would have been proud of you. You always were a very smart and very stubborn girl.” He chuckled softly, sounding pleased with himself. “And I very much believed that you and I would meet one day, right here, at the end of my journey. I really had no desire to be here by myself. But I was sure you would seek me out! Fyodor also trusted me at the beginning, do you see? But that night he started asking questions. Before I had even answered, he knew. He knew me so well, Fyodor! We were best friends! Nobody else could see through my lies, but he always knew!”
Masha gritted her teeth and turned to face him. Nick-Nick was standing with his hands stuffed into the pockets of his ripped old raincoat. Masha remembered that jacket. It must have been fifteen years old. Nick-Nick smiled at her, a smile that was tired and sad.
The Sin Collector (Masha Karavai Detective Series) Page 28
