The Case of the General's Thumb

by Andrei Kurkov

  Next day, while Sakhno was out sunning Nina on the grass, the phone rang.

  “Well?”

  “It went OK. Four dogs.”

  “And you phoned? Splendid. Ring you tomorrow.”

  Replacing the receiver, Nik wondered what their unseen controllers would make of the newspaper report concerning Pogodinsky.

  “Quick!” panted an alarmed Sakhno appearing at the door. “She’s run away!”

  “Who has?”

  “Nina! I was just sitting there, and suddenly, she was gone!”

  They raced down the stairs and out into the courtyard.

  “She was here.”

  “She can’t have gone far.”

  Twice they circled the block and were searching under the ornamental shrubs at the base of street lamps, when a little old lady leaned from a window and asked what they were up to.

  “We’ve lost our tortoise,” said Nik.

  Shutting the window, the old lady came out, and almost at once found Nina behind a litter bin beside the bench Sakhno had been taking his ease on.

  While Nik thanked the old lady, Sakhno took Nina up to the flat.

  “You must come in for a cup of tea some time,” she said. “I don’t see much of my son. He’s in the police.”

  48

  The last day of the conference saw Vika playing diligent interpreter on the bank processing of dirty money, as if their night together had never been.

  At the coffee break, she was smiling intimacy again, but only to ask a favour.

  “Could you help by making your number with your Federal Russian colleague, Refat Sibirov, over there?”

  “Saying what?”

  “You tell him what you’re up to, and he’ll tell you what he is.”

  “He won’t. We’re both bound to official secrecy.”

  “Still, give it a try,” Vika urged. “At least make yourself known to each other for the future.”

  Viktor stood for a while with his milky coffee, then moved in the direction of Refat who was standing speaking English with two other delegates.

  “They’re talking English,” he said, returning to Vika. “Come and introduce me.”

  But no sooner were introductions and handshakes completed than the coffee break was over, and they all hurried back to the conference hall.

  After the final session Vika dashed off, and Viktor and Wojciech went to a pub, to kill time until the farewell buffet supper at 7.30.

  “Learnt anything?” asked Wojciech.

  “No,” confessed Viktor. “I know damn all about finance. Haven’t even got a bank account.”

  “Re the case you, me and Refat are concerned with, was what I meant.”

  There must, Viktor saw, drinking beer, be more to Bronitsky’s death than met the eye. Something way beyond his own small time inexperience.

  “Perhaps we should talk,” he said.

  “We can. When do you go back?”

  “In three days’ time.”

  “I leave the day after tomorrow. Refat flies to Germany tomorrow evening.”

  “Any idea why?”

  “Ask him. Supposing we meet at 1.00 tomorrow in his room?”

  “Fine,” said Viktor, resolving to say nothing about going to see Bronitsky junior. Getting to Cambridge would be a problem, but Vika would see to that.

  No sooner had he changed and was relaxing on his bed than Refat rang.

  “Could you come up for a minute?”

  He found Refat in a towelling bath robe, fresh from the shower.

  “Why the hell set that interpreter woman on me?”

  “She insisted. Could be she fancies you.”

  “More than you?” Refat quipped.

  “She did, though. On behalf of the Embassy.”

  “Interesting.” He thought for a moment, then said, “All right, I suppose she’s harmless. At least you and I can now chat at the supper this evening. See you here, tomorrow at 1.00.”

  At the farewell supper, Vita, expensively coiffured and attractively gowned, began by making up to the German from the Plaza dinner, and finished by leaving with Refat.

  “Our Moscovy Tartar has all the luck!” sighed Wojciech.

  Next day at 1.00 Viktor found Wojciech and Refat studying the menu, and joined Refat in opting for crab soup, vegetable salad and lamb chop with parsley sauce, while Wojciech preferred pork to lamb. Refat phoned through their orders, then poured himself fruit juice. Wojciech produced Polish vodka for Viktor and himself.

  “To success!” he said, and they clinked glasses.

  “Now,” said Refat, looking keenly at Viktor, “it’s just a question of our reaching an understanding. Things are moving, and we could get in first, and make a good job of it. It’s time we agreed to pool what we know.”

  “About Bronitsky’s killers?”

  “Look, let’s not play the innocent. It’s billions we’re after, not killers. They won’t bring us any closer to the money.”

  “Us – how do you mean?” The sum was as astonishing as the fact of being made privy to it.

  “That can wait, but there’ll be no cause for complaint.”

  A waiter knocked, wheeled in a trolley, served them, and went out.

  For a while they ate in silence. Then, after suitably recharging all their glasses, Wojciech raised his to Viktor.

  “Well?”

  Smiling, Viktor raised his glass to Wojciech.

  “Right then,” said Refat, “here’s something more for you. One of those tailing our two fugitives to the German frontier was Captain Kylimnik, Ukrainian Border Troops, presently at Border Troops HQ. A year back he was taken off the Ukraino-Russian Frontier Delimitation Commission. Why, we don’t know. You could find out more easily in Kiev. He’d once been on good terms with Bronitsky.”

  Useful stuff, something to go on, except that he’d have to sift what and what not to pass on to Georgiy. Keeping Refat and Wojciech out of the picture wouldn’t be easy, even supposing, as was by no means certain, that their co-operation was genuine.

  49

  Nik slept badly, his head muzzy from Sakhno’s cannabis, his mind racing with the need to shoot dogs and ring 546-33. He went for a drink of water, and on his way back noticed the carrier bag with Pogodinsky’s notebooks. Struck by a sudden thought, he took one of them over to the window, where, by the light of the street lamp, he saw that 546-33 was Weinberg’s number. His, then, were the dogs they had thrown fish to and shot. A wealthy man, on the face of it, connected with Pogodinsky in some way, and still driving the crimson Jaguar which the police were looking for.

  Was it Weinberg who had murdered Pogodinsky?

  Nik and Sakhno’s rôle had been purely and simply to rattle the bars of Weinberg’s cage, frighten and unsettle him into betraying some lead, possibly to the money Ivan Lvovich had spoken of.

  He seemed suddenly to see what the link might be between the opulent Weinberg behind his two-metre wall and the wretched Pogodinsky, restaurateur, chef, waiter, dishwasher all in one, living above tiny premises. Weinberg would have been the Cashier, to whom Pogodinsky would have paid a percentage of profits – until the break up of the Soviet Union. Told, six years later, to make good arrears, he’d been unable to. Weinberg’s visits would have been to put the squeeze on, rather than murder and string the man up. That would have been someone else’s handiwork.

  The man who phoned gave no why or wherefore for his instructions. Why? Security reasons? Or because, being disposable, he and Sakhno had no need to know?

  Emerging from the shower, Sakhno drank the coffee Nik had ready, and asked for another.

  “Weren’t you going to give me some money?”

  “What money?”

  “My half of what was sent.”

  “Actually, no.”

  “Let’s have five hundred, then.”

  “Don’t I get something towards the cost of food?”

  “We’ll sort that out. Come on.”

  Nik handed him five hundred-mark notes.
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  Sakhno dressed slowly, and drank a glass of water.

  “Back tonight,” he said, and left.

  Nik went back to bed, and slept.

  In the clear-headedness of waking, he saw the folly of giving Sakhno so large a sum of money, against which had to be set the satisfaction of being rid of him for a while.

  He showered. It was 2.30. He put fresh lettuce down for Nina, he dressed, and went out.

  As he stood in the square, taking in church, chemists, cafés, Norma supermarket and a butcher’s, a bus drew up, the door opened and the driver waited for him to board.

  Nik shook his head. The bus moved off. Someone waved. He waved back. It was the little old lady who had helped to find Nina.

  Discovering a pleasant café, he treated himself to a coffee and a white fruit-fudge mouse.

  Then he proceeded through a light warm drizzle to the post office, bought an envelope, paper and stamps for Russia, and standing at a high table, wrote:

  My dear Tanya and Volodya,

  I keep wondering how you are, what you’re doing, whether you’re cold at the dacha. Things are dragging a bit, but I’m sure another month or two will see us reunited in Kiev. I’m fine, but travelling Europe. Interesting, but dull without you. One day we’ll both come to this café where I’ve just had coffee and tried German fruit fudge.

  If it gets really cold, borrow from your people and rent a flat. I’ll send money just as soon as I can.

  With love, kisses and best wishes to all, Nik.

  He sighed and crossed out the bit about sending money. Much as he wanted, he couldn’t send money to Saratov from here. He addressed the envelope, sealed it, and licked the stamp, overlooking the damp pad provided.

  Leaving the post office and the yellow post box in the wall outside, he walked, through a steady drizzle, past other boxes, reluctant to post what he knew he should not have written.

  At last, too sodden to post, the letter slipped from his fingers, and he let it lie.

  50

  Taking off from Gatwick, Viktor felt weary, puzzled, disappointed. He’d soon be back in Kiev in his office. Georgiy would want to be told the next to nothing Viktor had to tell, while having vastly more to tell him.

  With the help of a travel bureau where they spoke Russian, he’d made his own way to Cambridge, and had no sooner stepped from the train, than he came across two young women speaking Russian, who, being at the language school he sought, kindly took him there and translated for him.

  Bronitsky, it emerged, had been collected by Embassy car. Something to do with his mother had made it necessary for him immediately to fly back to Kiev.

  Thanking his young helpers, Viktor returned to his London hotel and rang Vika.

  The Embassy knew nothing of Bronitsky. What he’d been told in Cambridge had no basis in reality. The Embassy possessed only two cars and they were in constant use. In circumstances such as he described, the Embassy would simply telephone or write. It was no part of Embassy duties to put people on planes to Kiev. The young man might well have been collected by a personal courier service.

  The in-flight lunch did much to improve Viktor’s mood. As to Bronitsky junior, God alone knew what had happened, but in Kiev so would he. In an hour or two Georgiy would be ringing, and he must think out what to tell him. Wojciech’s photographs, safe in his breast pocket, inspired for the moment a sense of his own superior worth. For once, he, Viktor, was one up on the invariably better informed Georgiy, and he smiled at the thought.

  51

  Next morning, Sakhno stood for a while at the window enjoying the warm autumn sun, then dressed, and without a word to Nik went out, taking Nina with him. Nik saw him sit on the bench, putting Nina beside his feet on the grass.

  She’ll wander off again, he thought, putting the kettle on the stove. He made himself coffee and took another look out of the window. Sakhno was still sitting on the bench, bent forward, eyes fixed on Nina, immobile on the grass in the sun.

  He had time to breakfast and shave before Sakhno came back, looking more his old self, and cut thin slices of cucumber, which he arranged around the edge of a saucer, slightly overhanging it.

  “To give her a change from lettuce,” he explained. “Can you lend me two hundred?”

  “Shall I ever get it back?”

  “Yes.”

  Without a word he pocketed the money, picked up the case containing the rifle, and let himself out.

  “What’s that for?” Nik called, dashing after him.

  “No need to shout. Back this evening,” came the reply.

  Nik decided to repeat his walk of the day before, leaving the flat empty, except, of course, for Nina, who would ignore the phone, were it to ring with further unwelcome instructions.

  Over coffee and a fudge mouse, he wondered at the number of chemists he could see from the window. Maybe there was a lot of sickness. On the other hand, maybe people were living longer and needing tablets and vitamins.

  The little old lady who had helped to find Nina appeared, pulling a shopping trolley. Seeing Nik, she waved, parked her trolley outside the café, and came in.

  “Hello, young man,” she smiled. “How’s your tortoise?”

  “Fine.”

  “Not been here long, have you? How do you like it?”

  “It’s a nice town.”

  “Like to join me in a bite to eat? Keep me company? I never see much of my son. It’s cabbage soup.”

  Nik thanked her.

  “12.30, then. Flat 3.”

  Nik presented himself at Flat 3 with an offering of supermarket gateau.

  “Your phone’s been ringing,” she said. “Such thin walls. Building’s not what it was before the war.”

  Her flat was just like theirs, but better furnished.

  “I can hear you moving about, you know,” she said, pointing to the ceiling. “And when I’m in the bath and your phone goes, I think it’s mine. Except that nobody rings me, except for the doctor and my son. Where are you from?”

  “The Volga.”

  “A Volksdeutscher, then. Well, let’s eat.”

  The soup was indeed cabbage, and nothing else, apart from potato.

  As the little old lady served the gateau, Nik’s telephone began to ring.

  “Off you go, there’ll be tea when you come back,” she said, opening the door.

  Nik took his time, but the phone was still ringing when he got there.

  “Taken short or something? Where’ve you been?”

  “I was out.”

  “So I gathered. Now listen carefully. Today you ring 546-33 three times from the flat. Prefix 0450. ‘Coming with questions the day after tomorrow,’ is the recorded message you leave. Make the first call now, the next at 6.00, then one at 10.00. Tomorrow you ring five times saying, ‘Correction: not tomorrow, today.’ ”

  “What if he answers before the machine?”

  “Tell him you’ll ring back and ring me on 48-04. Got it? Call you tomorrow evening.”

  Nik drank tea, ate a slice of gateau with the little old lady, thanked her, and returned to his flat to ring Trier.

  52

  During Viktor’s brief time in England, autumn had come to Kiev. Red leaves, yellow leaves crackled underfoot. Warmer clothes were the order. Bright sun was offset by an icy wind.

  Zanozin met him at the airport in the Mazda, and as they headed along the Borisopol Highway, Viktor’s mobile rang.

  “Welcome back! Not alone, I take it.”

  “Correct.”

  “And heading for home?”

  “Correct.”

  “Ring you in forty minutes.”

  Viktor turned to Zanozin. “What’s been happening?”

  “Next to nothing as regards Bronitsky. But a cull of Assembly candidates seems to have started. Two murdered in Kiev, one in Simferopol, one in Dnepropetrovsk – all in the same week.”

  “Not our pigeon.”

  “Except that District may have to take on responsibility for the
security of certain candidates, so General Voronov said at an Internal Affairs Ministry conference. ‘Certain candidates’ being those put forward by the Ministry.”

  “Take the car back to Division, I’ll make my own way,” Viktor said, getting out outside his block and retrieving his bag from the back seat. “I’ll be there in two hours’ time, tell the Major.”

  He watched the Mazda drive slowly away.

  The flat was clean and bright, as if to welcome his return, and Ira was pleased to see him.

  “Have a wash and come and eat.”

  “Where’s Yana?”

  “Asleep.”

  He tucked into the meat dumplings with relish, filled with an optimism only partly to do with the bright sun. Success was within his grasp. Those photographs bade fair to lead to those whose admissions would set the seal on the Bronitsky affair. He could now out-trump even Georgiy.

  “What are you smiling about?” asked Ira.

  “Just thinking.”

  “Of Yana’s birthday, for instance?”

  “But it isn’t.”

  “To the age of one she has a birthday every month.”

  “So?”

  “Have you got her a present?”

  For Ira he’d bought a £20 set of toiletries in the Gatwick Duty-Free, after seeing what a young woman bought for herself.

  “I’m afraid not.”

  “Don’t worry, we’ll get her something here. More dumplings?”

  As they were drinking coffee his mobile rang.

  “Nice shower?”

  “And a nice meal.”

  “The news is that Widow Bronitsky died this morning.”

  Ira crept from the room, taking her coffee with her.

  “Knocked down walking home. No witnesses. What about the son?”

  “Collected from the school three days ago in an Embassy car. Needed back in Kiev. Something had happened to his mother. The Embassy disclaims all knowledge.”

  “And as regards the mother, a curious time lag between us and England. So you had a wasted journey?”

  “Not entirely. We had lectures on mafia money-laundering, and I’ve a list of suspect banks.”