by William Ryan
Then there was Andreychuk’s escape. Somebody had helped him. And if anyone would know who might go out on a limb like that for the fleet-footed caretaker, it would be Mushkina. Another conversation with the major’s mother should be a priority. The sergeant had seen her out and about around the time the cell had been emptied of its occupant, and she’d approached him only an hour or so before about getting Andreychuk out of prison, hadn’t she? It was a ridiculous thought, but what if she’d been the one who’d helped the caretaker out of his cell?
Chapter Seventeen
It had been a long day and Korolev went in search of nourishment, but as he passed the dead girl’s office he found himself opening the door. His stomach could hold out for another five minutes.
The desk, the shelves bent under ranks of books, the papers and typewriters, the panoramic view over the lake and the snow-decked woodland – all were unchanged since the last time he’d stood there. He thought of the girl and wondered if the last thing she’d seen had been that same moon, now a luminous orb hanging low over the lake, and he hoped the morphine had done its work and that her end had been quick.
He started on the top bookshelf – Lenin, Marx, Stalin, Engels. He opened each book and flicked through the pages, just in case something might have been left there. Savchenko’s Theory of Film, a well-thumbed volume, seemed to have been more diligently read than those of Lenin, Marx and the others; then a slew of books in English – beyond his powers of translation except for the words Cinema and Film , which reassured him he was looking at technical manuals. One of the thicker volumes, filled with diagrams and pictures of cameras and other equipment, also contained a brightly coloured postcard with the word ‘Hollywood’ in inch-high red letters on top of which was draped a reclining blonde beauty wearing not very much at all.
‘A crucial piece of evidence?’
The suggestion came from behind him and for a moment he felt the urge to put the postcard back in the book as though he’d never seen it, but he recognized the voice, and the amusement in it, and so he held it up for Les Pins to see better.
‘They have a different climate there,’ the Frenchman said.
‘It gets hot here in the summer,’ Korolev replied, which it did. In three months’ time the sun would be a constant pressure on the landscape, the windows here would be wide open and the room full of the scent of flowers and the buzz of insects. He turned the card over, but there was no message.
‘I take it you’re not searching Lenskaya’s room for souvenirs of Los Angeles, Korolev?’
Korolev put the postcard back where he’d found it and replaced the book on the shelf.
‘Can I help you?’ he said, making an attempt at politeness.
‘I was thinking I might help you. I heard you trying to pronounce the titles of those English books.’
‘Trying to pronounce?’ He thought he’d been doing a pretty good job himself.
‘Anyway,’ Les Pins continued, ‘if I can be of any assistance, it would be my pleasure.’
Korolev considered the man: an irritating smile on his face that the fellow must think made him irresistible, grey eyes that appeared benevolent but were more likely to be concealing some self-serving motivation. Unless he was wrong, he’d a good idea what the fellow was after. Information, damn him. This fellow would publish his own living mother’s obituary while she was still walking around if he thought it would earn him a few more roubles or whatever it was that they paid the Frenchman in.
‘It’s all right, Comrade Les Pins,’ Korolev said. ‘I’m sure you have other things to keep you occupied.’
‘Not really. I’m here to recuperate as much as anything, you see. A fascist put a small hole in my shoulder in Spain, and the comrades there thought I needed a break. Now that I’m here, I’m bored. I’d be happy to help. I’ll put it more strongly,’ he said, smiling that priest’s smile of his again, ‘I’d be grateful.’
Korolev had picked a collection of Stalin’s speeches from the bookshelves and had opened it idly while they were engaged in conversation. Inside it was a piece of paper, folded in four and typed with Latin lettering.
‘What’s that you have there?’ Les Pins asked.
Korolev’s English wasn’t up to an instantaneous translation, but it seemed to be some sort of poem.
‘The twenty-third psalm,’ Les Pins said quietly, reading it over his shoulder, ‘from the King James Bible. “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil. For thou art with me.”’
A smart girl – she knew her geography if nothing else. She’d been in that valley all right, even if everywhere nearby was flat. The paper felt crisp enough to have been newly folded – was this what she’d been typing when Mushkina had passed by, before the typewriters had been switched? Was it a message and, if so, who for?
‘Curious,’ the Frenchman said. ‘It’s as though she had a presentiment of death.’
‘You’ll excuse me, Comrade. I thank you for the translation, but I must ask you to leave.’
‘Yes, yes. I’m sorry, Captain. I was only trying to offer my assistance.’
‘It isn’t required, but thank you.’
‘A shame,’ Les Pins said, not moving away, instead gracing him with a look of sympathetic concern. ‘But it must be difficult for you. I can understand why you don’t want a foreign journalist involved in a murder like this.’
There was something loaded in his tone. Enough to make Korolev give the Frenchman his full attention.
‘What do you mean, Comrade? Are you suggesting something?’
‘Suggesting something? Me? Not at all. I hear the caretaker has run away. Did you arrest him for the murder?’
‘No. For something else,’ Korolev replied.
The Frenchman smiled – a confident smile, the smile of a gambler with a card up his sleeve.
‘Just as well, I should think,’ he said, mischief in his eyes, ‘what with her being such a good friend of Comrade Ezhov’s.’
Korolev felt a chill at the back of his neck. ‘The Militia investigates every crime with the same diligence,’ he said eventually, as carefully as a man walking through a minefield, and holding Les Pins’ gaze.
Now the Frenchman laughed before looking away.
‘But seeing as you’re here, Comrade,’ Korolev said, trying to steer the conversation onto a different track, ‘perhaps you could tell me where you were on the night of the murder. And whether you saw anything suspicious.’
‘Suspicious?’ The Frenchman shrugged his shoulders. ‘No. I went down to watch the night shoot. Everyone was there, I think.’
‘Would you be prepared to give us a list of who you saw, and when? What you remember of the evening – even the most trivial details – might provide invaluable assistance.’ Korolev kept his gaze steady on Les Pins, and his voice quiet, but he spoke as forcefully as he dared. And the Frenchman seemed no longer to find the situation quite so amusing.
‘With pleasure, Comrade Captain. I’ll let you have it tonight.’
‘And were you outside this afternoon? At around six o’clock perhaps?’
‘Me? No, I was in my room reading – was that when Andreychuk bolted?’
Korolev said nothing, just looked at the Frenchman unblinkingly until Les Pins glanced away once again, and Korolev saw the fellow’s throat move as he swallowed.
‘Your recollections from the evening in question would be most useful, Comrade Les Pins,’ Korolev said and turned back to the books, waiting until Les Pins left the room before he allowed himself to breathe deeply.
Korolev thought about the significance of the typed psalm as he walked back towards the stable block carrying a small enamel pot by its handle. He’d liked to have eaten his dinner in the dining room, but the reaction when he’d walked in – twenty-five pairs of gawking eyes, several pairs belonging to actors familiar throughout the Soviet Union, and complete silence – well, it had been enough to persuade him to ask the girl serving the food
if he could take it back to the investigation room, and the enamel pot, lid and handle included, had been quickly forthcoming.
At least the case was making some progress – they now had an ever-lengthening list of people who were accounted for during the crucial time period. And their questioning was revealing more and more about the dead girl, some of which was perhaps a little worrying, but definitely progress. Of course, this Andreychuk business was a disaster and he prayed the border guards or one of the Militia roadblocks would pick him up, and alive, as it seemed likely that the caretaker would have something to tell him about the murder, and maybe about this conspiracy Kolya had told him of as well – and he was desperate to talk to him. It was frustrating, but he felt the investigation was now in the hands of others. He was waiting for a phone call, either to hear from Kolya where this ‘delivery’ was taking place, or to be told someone had picked up Andreychuk. He saw Slivka coming out of the investigation room and raised a hand in greeting.
‘Any news on our runaway?’ he asked her.
‘Shymko dug out the name of the church they were supposed to have been visiting – you were right. It’s in Angelinivka. Right on the border, quite close to Krasnogorka. The border guards are searching the area as we speak.’
‘Any sign of the truck?’
‘Not yet, although it’s possible Andreychuk could have abandoned it somewhere and be making his way on foot. But the steppe will be no place to hide come the morning.’
‘No,’ Korolev agreed. Apart from the lines of trees that split up the fields there wasn’t much vegetation in this part of the world, and even the trees wouldn’t provide much in the way of cover at this time of year. ‘If we could find out who helped him out of his cell, they might tell us which way he was headed.’
‘Firtov and the Greek think they have some good fingerprints. Whether they can match them to anyone is the question. Anyone other than the uniforms from the station, that is.’
‘We’ll see what comes of it,’ Korolev muttered, conscious that his stew was getting cold. ‘And we’ll take a drive out to this place Angelinivka in the morning and see what we see.’
Korolev remembered he hadn’t told Slivka about his conversation with Kolya, and wondered how to approach it.
‘Your uncle called,’ he said, after a moment or two, having decided there was no way to broach the issue other than directly – particularly not with a hot dinner in his hand that was making his stomach hollow with hunger. Slivka’s eyes seemed to widen slightly, but it was difficult to tell in the darkness. He took a look around, just in case they could be overheard.
‘That thing we spoke of? With the guns?’ he said, lowering his voice. ‘He thinks it will happen tomorrow.’
Slivka spat on the ground. It was difficult to tell what the action signified. He wished he could see her face more clearly. He wasn’t much used to women spitting, if the truth were told, and it left him feeling nonplussed, but he supposed that these days it was her right to behave in just as uncultured a way as her male comrades, just as it was to do the same job.
‘What do we do about it, Chief?’ she said after a long pause.
‘That’s the question, Slivka. We don’t know where or when it will happen yet, or even if it will happen. But you’re to call your mother.’
‘Call my mother?’
‘I don’t think it’s to enquire about her health. I think Kolya will let us know what’s happening through her. Anyway, get yourself some food, let’s send Larisa off to bed and we’ll have a think about it. A collective decision is always better.’
Larisa looked up as he entered the investigation room. The girl’s fingers must be worn to nothing from rattling that machine for most of the day and a lot of the evening. She looked exhausted. He pointed a thumb over his shoulder towards the Orlov House.
‘Larisa, there comes a time when even you must rest. Now’s the time. We’ll see you tomorrow morning. Thank you for all your efforts.’
The girl didn’t argue, just nodded, quickly put the papers she’d been working on in order, and then left, her arms crossed and her head hanging forward.
‘Thank you again, Comrade,’ Korolev said as she passed, touching her shoulder with his hand. Then he shut the door behind her, made his way to the desk, opened the enamel pot and inhaled – it was good, very good. These film people lived well. He picked up the fork they’d given him with one hand and the receiver with the other, and, his mouth already half-occupied with a succulent piece of meat, asked the operator to put him through to Yasimov’s communal apartment in Moscow.
Unsurprisingly it took a while for the operator to call him back. Moscow was a thousand kilometres away and, as a man who’d walked a few kilometres in his time, he knew that was some distance. But eventually he was connected. A child’s voice answered. Korolev checked his watch – it was late for a youngster to be up and about.
‘Dmitry Alexandrovich, please.’
‘Captain Yasimov?’
‘The very same.’
‘I’ll get him.’
There was the sound of revelry in the background and then a glass breaking to the sound of a cheer. Someone picked up the receiver in the kommunalka.
‘Yasimov,’ a voice said, Mitya’s voice.
‘A party going on there, I can hear.’
‘Lyoshka,’ Yasimov said. ‘Khabarov’s son got married. I’m turning a blind eye to the samogon.’
If Korolev could judge from Yasimov’s voice, he wasn’t just turning a blind eye to the moonshine, he was testing it to make sure it was what it purported to be. He’d be lucky if he didn’t end up turning two blind eyes to it, given the quality of some of the stuff that was going around these days.
‘My congratulations to the groom.’
‘I’ll pass them on. Listen, Lyoshka, I was going to call you first thing. I asked around about your girl.’
‘Any luck?’
‘Let me step into my office.’
Korolev had visited Yasimov’s kommunalka – a former merchant’s residence that had been divided, sub-divided, and then divided once again so that there were now seventeen rooms in which bakers, factory workers, teachers, accountants and one Militia detective and his family sweated and froze hip to hip. For privacy Yasimov would take the receiver into the toilet beside the phone, if by some miracle the convenience was free.
‘There we go,’ Yasimov said as the background noise diminished considerably. ‘In here I’m a king as well, you know. Sitting on my throne.’
Korolev laughed at the wordplay on his name, as much for the pleasure of hearing a joke he’d heard a hundred times before as anything else.
‘What have you got for me?’ he asked.
‘You sound dreadful – got a cold or something?’
Korolev felt his shoulders relax and a smile tug at the straight line of his mouth. ‘Mitya, it’s good to hear your voice, I can tell you.’
‘Now, don’t get all emotional on me. Everything all right down there?’
‘Could be better – the local uniforms have just managed to let our main suspect escape. And the likelihood is he’s doing his best to slip across the border as we speak.’
There was a pause, and he could almost hear Yasimov doing the computations. Korolev knew what conclusion his fellow detective would come to – a mishap like this wasn’t good news for Korolev, of course, but it probably wouldn’t be much better for people he knew and worked with. In other words, Yasimov.
‘But you’re on it, right? You’ll catch up with him.’ Yasimov’s voice had an edge to it now.
‘I hope so. I don’t think the fugitive killed the girl, which is something at least, and we’ve a good chance of picking him up before he gets too far. We’ll see. Anyway, what did you find out about her?’
‘Some things, I’m not sure how useful, though. The orphanage people spoke highly of her – proud, they were. I didn’t find out much about her background for you, except for the name of her mother. Elizaveta Andreyevna Lens
kaya. From down that way.’
‘Her mother?’
‘Yes, when she died the girl was sent to the orphanage.’
‘I think that’s her aunt – one moment.’ Korolev flicked back through his notebook. Andreychuk’s wife was dead all right, she’d died back in ’thirty-three. What had her name been? Here it was. Anna. Anna Andreyevna Andreychuk. The patronymic was the same – Elizaveta must have been the sister who’d lived in Moscow. The one whose death had resulted in Lenskaya ending up in the orphanage.
‘Yes – her aunt, most probably – but I thought they didn’t have any information on her family.’
‘I’m guessing someone tidied the official file up a bit – it had that feel to it. But when we looked back at the admissions book the details were all there. The older Lenskaya was from some place called Angelinivka down near you – age at at time of death thirty-three, occupation wages clerk. They lived in a communal apartment in Presnaya, but no one remembered them there. I dropped in and had a look around all the same. According to the housing office records, they shared a room with a family of five, so the orphanage was probably a change for the better.’
‘Angelinivka, you say?’
‘That’s what it says in the register.’
‘A place I’m visiting tomorrow, as it happens. Anything else?’
‘Well, I asked around about her out at Mosfilm – a nice enough girl, I was told. Ambitious. By that they meant-’
‘That she was friendly with Belakovsky?’
‘That’s the fellow. No one could think of a reason why she’d be murdered, though. I have the names of some other men she’d been friendly with. One will be familiar to you.’
