Child 44

by Tom Rob Smith

  The girls sat in silence, staring at Leo, staring at Raisa. They’d made no reaction and they hadn’t changed position, still sitting on the chairs holding hands. Raisa remarked:

  —You are free to say yes or no. You can ask us to find you a different family. It’s entirely up to you.

  Leo stood up:

  —My wife and I will go for a walk. We’ll let you talk about it, the two of you, alone. You’ll have this room to yourself. Make whatever decision you like. You have no reason to be afraid.

  Leo walked around the girls and opened the door. Raisa stood up and stepped out into the hallway; Leo followed, shutting the door behind them. Together they walked down the corridor, as nervous as they’d ever been in their lives.

  BACK IN THE OFFICE Zoya gave her little sister a hug.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I’ve been lucky to have the support of a wonderful agent, St. John Donald at PFD, who nudged me toward writing this book. For that nudge—and many other things besides—I’m extremely grateful. Thanks also to Georgina Lewis and Alice Dunne for their help along the way. Through the various drafts I had feedback from Sarah Ballard, which was the perfect mix of criticism and encouragement. Finally—and it’s clear I owe a lot to PFD—I’d like to thank James Gill for taking on the book once it was finished, only for him to tell me it wasn’t finished at all, making me rewrite it again. His enthusiasm at that stage was much needed and much appreciated.

  My editors, Suzanne Baboneau at Simon & Schuster UK and Mitch Hoffman at Grand Central Publishing, have been amazing. I’ve loved working with both of them. Thanks also to Jessica Craig, Jim Rutman, and Natalina Sanina. Natalina was kind enough to point out some of the errors I made in regard to Russian names and Russian life in general.

  Special mention must go to Bob Bookman at CAA for all his advice and for putting me in contact with Robert Towne. A writing hero of mine, Robert took time to share his thoughts with me on a late draft of the book. Needless to say, they were inspirational.

  Outside of the professional sphere, I’ve had a handful of great readers. Zoe Trodd helped me enormously. Alexandra Arlango and her mother, Elizabeth, read numerous incarnations of the novel and at each stage offered detailed and invaluable comments. I cannot thank them enough. As it happens, Alexandra, through Qwerty Films—working with Michael Kuhn, Emmeline Yang, and Colleen Woodcock—gave me my first break at writing. And it was while researching a screenplay I was writing for them that I stumbled across the real-life case of Andrei Chikatilo and the events around it.

  Many people assisted the completion of this book but none more so than Ben Stephenson. I’ve never been as happy as I have been during these past few years.

  FURTHER READING

  There would have been no way to write this story without having first read the memoirs, diaries, and histories of a number of authors. I’ve enjoyed the research as much as writing, and the body of work on the subjects touched upon in this book is of an awesome quality. What follows is a small selection of these works. I should point out that any liberties with the truth or historical inaccuracies in my novel are purely my own doing.

  Janusz Bardach’s memoir, Man Is Wolf to Man (co-written by Kathleen Gleeson, Scribner, 2003), offers a powerful portrait of trying to survive in the Gulags of Stalinist Russia. On that subject both Anne Applebaum’s Gulag (Penguin, 2004) and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn,’s The Gulag Archipelago (Harvil, 2003) have been essential reading.

  For general historical background I’ve found Robert Conquest’s The Harvest of Sorrow (Pimlico, 2002), Simon Sebag Montefiore’s Stalin (Phoenix, 2004), and Shelia Fitzpatrick’s Everyday Stalinism (Oxford University Press, 1999) extremely useful.

  Regarding Russian police procedure, Anthony Olcott’s Russian Pulp (Rowman & Littlefield, 2001) went into detail not only about the justice system itself but also literary representations of that system. Boris Levytsky’s The Uses of Terror (Coward, McCann & Geoghegan Inc., 1972) was invaluable when it came to understanding, or at least trying to, the machinations of the MGB. Finally, Robert Cullen’s The Killer Department (Orion, 1993) provided a clear account of the real-life navigation into the crimes of Andrei Chikatilo.

  I cannot recommend any of these books highly enough.