“Does your godson know you made these checks?”
“Of course not. He’d be furious if he knew. But I don’t leave things to chance. Not with all we have at stake in Trinity. Not after what happened to Ivan Mikhailovich and the others.”
“I’m glad to hear it,” said Maxim, tightly.
Volkovsky grinned. “Listen, friend, let the young be young! If they want to believe in the beautiful myth of true love – who are we to disillusion them? Life will do it to them soon enough. Now, then – how about another glass of that excellent Georgian wine?”
*
Now, Maxim thought, staring straight ahead of him as the plane dipped and began to make its descent toward Moscow, events this morning in Trinity’s head office had proved both that things were escalating, and that Alexey had plenty of courage. Even if he had also made a grave error putting the intruder in the meeting room. But who was to know Grisha would take a header through a glass window? That was the sort of thing that happened in movies. The only time Maxim had seen it happen, the fool who had tried it had ended up smashed to pieces on the pavement, his throat pierced by broken glass. He didn’t know Grisha Chekushkin – in a city the size of Moscow, no individual could possibly know the name of every inhabitant of the underworld, especially if he was small fry – but he’d make it his business to find out now.
Volkovsky had told him Chekushkin apparently had a good record when the cleaning firm that had the contract for the Trinity offices had hired him. But six months after he started working shifts at the office, and not long after Galkin’s death, Volkovsky had caught the cleaner red-handed, snooping in Barsukov’s office, and sacked him on the spot. It was then discovered that he’d falsified several of his references, and had a hidden drinking problem, though he’d never been drunk at work. The embarrassed cleaning firm had not only barred him from any further employment with them, but also put the word out to other firms that he was not to be trusted. “I don’t know what happened to him after that,” Volkovsky said.
Maxim could imagine what might have. With no qualifications and a black mark against his name, Grisha would have found it impossible to get a legitimate job. That left illegitimate ones, of which there were plenty. And drugs to add to the drinking. All in all, an unsavory character at the end of his tether, an unpredictable quantity on a job like he’d been sent on today. It made it even less likely that Repin was orchestrating these attacks against Trinity, for the gangster might be brutal, but he wasn’t stupid. You asked for trouble, the wrong sort of trouble, employing drug-addled types like Chekushkin. And the claim that the ghost of Alexey’s father had employed him didn’t stack up with Repin’s style, either. He didn’t play those sorts of games. It might just have been a stupid random idea of Chekushkin’s to hide the real identity of the man who’d hired him. But it was more likely that whoever had hired him had given that name deliberately, to rattle Alexey.
The striking thing was, though, that the Moscow thugs, like their counterparts in Petersburg, had shown no sign of knowing about the existence of the Koldun file. They didn’t ask for it to be produced. They didn’t try to search the office. They’d been sent to trash and terrorize. So that meant whoever had hired them didn’t know about it either. Which meant, Maxim thought, either that my theory about the Koldun file being the key to the murders was wrong, or we are dealing with two unrelated criminal plots, and two criminal masterminds. One the murderer, one the vandal. One aware of the Koldun file, the other one not. One, seeking to scare Alexey into giving up Trinity. The other, killing the three directors for a motive as yet shadowy. Two criminals, with two different motives. All in all a most frustratingly complicated prospect, thought Maxim ruefully, as the wheels landed smoothly on the runway.
*
But a little later, in the Makarov apartment with Volkovsky, he cast such speculations aside as Alexey scrolled through the astonishing images on the screen. Beside him, Volkovsky kept uttering exclamations; but Maxim said nothing. Inside him, though, excitement was growing. He’d been right. Not only was the secret file a reality, but he felt more sure than ever that somehow it was the key to the murders. The vague rumor of “something big brewing” that the man Lebedev had mentioned – and he hadn’t been found yet, either – was not just a rumor. The Koldun psychic unit hadn’t been set up within “official” Trinity. But it was possible it had been operating separately, part of the “shadow side” of Trinity that had already been hinted at by the staff. But whatever the outcome, the psychic’s visiting card Alexey had remembered was most interesting, more immediately interesting to Maxim than the reams of coded pages which he knew were likely to take a long time to break.
Alexey had told him about their idea of the book on dreams, or whatever it was, being a possible clue, but also that though they’d searched on Google using the extract, so far they had not found a match, either from a book or a journal. Privately, Maxim rather doubted that the key would turn out to be so simple. He had his own idea about where to start, and after a time, he got up and said, “This is all very interesting, but in the meantime we are forgetting about another important lead.”
“And what’s that?” said Volkovsky, vaguely, still staring at the pages of code as though he’d crack it by sheer willpower.
“Grisha Chekushkin,” said Maxim, calmly. “He might still give us some valuable information, if he can be found. I can track him down through the department’s records. If you’ll excuse me, I will take my leave of you and start on the search right away.”
“Excellent,” said Volkovsky, absently, his eyes turning back to the screen, as if he couldn’t tear his eyes off it. “We will be waiting for you here.”
*
Despite what he’d said, Maxim hadn’t gone to track down Grisha Chekushkin. First, he called in a favor from a pal in immigration and asked him to run certain checks. Then he called records at CID and got them to run Chekushkin’s name through the system and to text him the last known address. The man’s name hadn’t come up at all during the Trinity case, so the inquiry would set off no alarm bells, even if by some remote chance either Korolev or the Organized Crime Unit types got to hear of it.
And then there was the most important thing. The idea that had almost instantly come to him as he sat looking at the Koldun file. The ekstrasens who had come to see him in his office, before Makarov’s death, the one who had made the claims about dark forces and Makarov: he’d dismissed her at the time, of course – anyone would have – but only a fool never changed his mind. He had to speak to her.
The ekstrasens, Anna Feodorovna Dorskova, who went by the professional name of Skorpia, lived in a shabby block of apartments in a northern suburb at the end of one of the Metro lines. He hadn’t expected her to live in a place like this, he thought, as he made his way up the dirty stairs to her third-floor apartment (the elevator being out of order). She had given him to understand business was going well. But then, these sorts of people were born liars, weren’t they?
When she opened the door to him, he saw at once that she recognized him. He also saw she didn’t want to let him in, but no citizen would dare to shut the door in the face of a policeman – not unless that citizen was wealthy and influential, that is. And poor Skorpia was clearly neither.
“I am sorry to disturb you, Anna Feodorovna, but I need to speak to you,” he said, more gently than he’d intended.
She raised an eyebrow. “Really? You couldn’t wait to get me out of your office last time.”
He was glad she still had some spirit. He said, quietly, “I may have missed something, and I need to check with you. Can I come in?”
She gave a little laugh. “As if I have a choice!” But she led him into her living-room, or rather the niche off her kitchen that functioned as that. Her apartment was small and shabby, and she herself looked thinner, jumpier, the hard gloss worn off her since last year, when she’d sashayed so confidently into his office, all blonde hair and tight skirt and killer heels. A little younger
than him – in her late thirties – she was still a nice-looking woman, but nothing like the vamp of last year. The blonde had grown out and faded to an ordinary light brown, the dark eyes were a little bloodshot, her simple skirt and top were workaday rather than glamorous, and she was holding a cigarette in thin fingers, the first of two or three she smoked while he was there. Her kitchen table was covered with a velvet cloth, and on it was a neat stack of Tarot cards, a pendulum, a divining rod, and other bits and pieces, the usual clutter of her trade.
“So, how may I help you today, Senior Lieutenant?” she said, in an ironic tone, motioning him to sit down.
He didn’t beat about the bush. “Your story about Ivan Makarov and the sorcerer – you lied, didn’t you?”
She went red and jumped up, knocking her half-smoked cigarette off the ashtray. “Is that what you’ve come to do? To persecute me?”
“Not at all,” he said, calmly. “Answer the question. You lied, didn’t you? Not about the sorcerer or Ivan Makarov – but about how you knew. You pretended to see it when you put your hand on his photograph. But that was hokum, wasn’t it? You just didn’t want to say that years ago he had come to you as a client. And that you persuaded him there was some kind of sorcery at work on him.”
From red, she went white. She sat down, heavily. She picked up her cigarette and took a long draw on it. She whispered, “How – how do you know?”
“New information has come to light,” he said, coldly, watching her face. “Well?”
“I – it wasn’t persuasion. It was … seeing. A vision.” She swallowed, looked away. “And it wasn’t me.”
He stared at her. “What do you mean?”
“It wasn’t me. I – I just used the story.”
“Whose story?”
“A – a friend of mine.”
“Another psychic?”
She nodded.
“Who? And why didn’t she –”
“He, Senior Lieutenant,” she corrected.
“Well, why didn’t he come forward himself?”
She gave a thin smile. “Lev was troubled about it, but he wouldn’t have talked to the police. It wasn’t his style.”
“Wait a minute. You say wasn’t. Past tense. Does that mean …”
“Yes. He’s dead.” She swallowed. “Regrettable accident, they said. Lost his footing on Metro escalators, broke his neck. At the time, I thought it was true. He was old, you see, and there was no reason to suppose then that anything else had happened. But then he came round.”
Maxim was getting confused. “Who came round?”
“Ivan Makarov, of course.”
“What?”
“Yes, Senior Lieutenant, Ivan Makarov came to see me a few days after my … after the story appeared in the paper. He wanted to know how I knew … He didn’t ask gently.”
“He assaulted you?”
“Gave me a slap or two. I’m not brave, Detective. I told him. And then he said –” She paused. Her fingers shaking, she lit another cigarette from the stub of the last one. “Then he asked me who else I’d told about Lev. I said no one. He said I must have done. That he had tried to protect Lev, but someone had still got to him. But I knew he was lying.”
“What do you mean?”
“The wolf hires himself out cheaply as a shepherd,” she said.
Maxim knew the proverb, and its meaning. “You think he was hinting he’d had your friend murdered?”
“Of course. He was a clever man. He’d never admit it outright. But he was letting me know, so I’d understand. Would keep my mouth shut. And so I did. What else could I do?”
“You could have come to me.”
She laughed without humor. “That’s a good joke, after how you treated me last time.”
“You cannot blame me for your own failure,” he said, tightly. His phone beeped at that moment with a text message. It was the office with Grisha’s address. He went on, “I understand you were afraid of Makarov. But he’s been dead for months now. You could have come forward. He can’t touch you anymore.”
“Can’t he?”
“For God’s sake, you’re not telling me you believe that a ghost can –”
“You forget my profession,” she said, with a rare flash of humor. “I am bound to believe in all kinds of things. But no, I am not talking about a ghost. Or not in the ordinary way. If Ivan Makarov was a koldun, a sorcerer, then you know what they say about sorcery even outlasting death.”
Maxim’s scalp prickled as his whole understanding shifted. “Makarov was a sorcerer himself?”
She looked puzzled. “I thought you said you knew.”
“I only know the bare bones,” he said, blandly. “Not the full extent. Tell me exactly what you know.”
“Lev knew almost at once that Makarov had a latent psychic power. Something that had only just begun to emerge, but that could be powerful if its full energies could be unblocked. You see, though psychic power usually manifests itself when you’re young, in rare cases it can manifest later in life, often in very driven people.” She saw his raised eyebrow, and misinterpreted it. “If you don’t believe what I’m saying, then I don’t see why you …”
“It’s not my job to believe or not,” said Maxim, calmly. “It’s my job to investigate. Continue. Please.”
“Very well. A sudden letting-go of that focus may then allow the psychic energies to start flowing through. And that can be very dangerous, because if you have grown up with your psychic power, you gradually get used to it. But a sudden discovery like that, later in life – it can knock you right off balance. You must learn to channel the energies into something constructive, or God knows what might happen.”
Maxim thought of the Koldun file. Was setting up a psychic spying unit in your own company a constructive way of channeling your new energy? Aloud, he said, “There was no doubt in your friend’s mind, then?”
“Oh no. None at all. Lev was very gifted in recognizing these things. He was the real thing, you see.” She added, quietly, “Not like me. I mean, I do have some – some slight gift, and I dress it up, I admit. A good deal of our work is psychological. Summing up people quickly. Understanding little signals they’re not even aware they give off. But Lev – he was extraordinary. He really saw into people’s hearts. Their souls.”
Maxim said, uncomfortably, “If he knew so much, why didn’t he foresee his own death?”
“Ah. The age-old skeptics’ question. Think of it this way. Even the best of us are only given incomplete knowledge. The gift is not a guarantee. It doesn’t give you access to everything. How could it? If we had such power, we’d be gods then – or demons.”
He looked at her. She smiled. “You’re thinking how surprising it is that a charlatan like me should make so much sense.”
He couldn’t help starting. She smiled again, and crushed out her cigarette. “I told you, any ekstrasens who hopes to make a living must have a little skill in reading people.”
He said, harshly, “Tell me exactly what Lev told you about Ivan Makarov. And when he told you.”
She looked at him. “You must promise not to say you heard this from me.”
He shrugged. “I assure you I am not in the habit of divulging informants’ names.” He saw her mutinous expression. “All right. I give you my word.”
She said, “Very well. Lev told me after Galkin’s death. There was a picture in the paper of the three directors. Lev recognized Makarov. He said he’d come to see him once. He didn’t know who he was – Makarov had given a false name – but he remembered the face. And what happened.”
“Why exactly did Makarov come to your friend?” This would prove if she was telling the truth, he thought.
“Because of the bad dreams.”
“Bad dreams?” he said, casually. “He was a tough businessman.”
“Some dreams are unbearable. Even for tough businessmen. Maybe even for tough policemen,” she added, ironically.
“What were the dreams about?”
>
“I don’t know, other than they were about someone who had – passed on. And that I only know because Lev also had a … a reputation for reaching the dead, for understanding their messages.”
“I see,” he said, coolly. “A man of many talents.”
She didn’t rise to the bait. “He was. But he saw at once, when he was in trance. The dreams weren’t the cause, but the symptom of the crisis in the man’s nature. He wasn’t being literally haunted by a ghost. He wasn’t under a curse or under a psychic attack from someone else. No. The true cause was the power, blocked. The power of the sorcerer. That had passed to him through the blood.”
Maxim looked at her. He thought of the pages of things he’d seen, and Ivan Makarov’s halting, awkward words about his father. He thought of KGB Major Mikhail Petrovich Makarov’s fearsome reputation. Could they have been more than natural, those cruel talents of his? A coldness swept over his body briefly as he said, “How did Makarov react?”
“He took to the idea with remarkable calm, apparently. As if – something had clicked inside him. Lev said he’d never seen anything like it.”
“And then?”
“Makarov asked whether Lev could tell him more. How should he use this power? How great was it? Things like that. Lev told him that wasn’t his province. Makarov would have to go to other people for more information. And to work on things himself, in his own time. But Lev warned him to be careful. Not to make sudden changes in his life, but to allow himself to discover the energy slowly, to release it constructively. Eventually, he’d come to understand what he needed to do.”
“And?”
“And that was it. Lev never saw him again.”
“Are you sure? Makarov didn’t come back and offer him a job?”
She stared at him. “A job? No.”
Trinity: The Koldun Code (Book 1) Page 18
