THREE MONTHS LATER

South-Eastern Rostov Oblast The Sea of Azov

4 July


Nesterov sat with his toes buried in the sand. This stretch of beach was popular with people living in the nearby city of Rostov-on-Don, some forty or so kilometres to the north-east. Today was no exception. The beach was crowded. As if the inhabitants of the town had emerged from hibernation, their bodies were drained of colour by the long winter. Could he guess what kind of jobs people held from the shapes of their bodies? The fatter men were important in some way. Perhaps they were factory managers or Party officials or high-ranking State Security officers, not the kind who kicked down doors but the kind who signed forms. Nesterov was careful not to catch their eye. He concentrated on his family. His two sons were playing in the shallow water, his wife lay beside him, sleeping on her side — her eyes closed, her hands tucked under her head. At a glance they seemed content: a perfect Soviet family. They had every reason to be relaxed — they were on holiday, allowed the use of an official militia car, with a State voucher for fuel, as a reward for the successful, discreet and efficient handling of the two separate murder investigations. He’d been told to take it easy. Those had been his orders. He repeated the words in his head, sucking on their irony.

The trial of Varlam Babinich had lasted two days with his defence lawyer entering a plea of insanity. According to procedure the defence were forced to rely upon the testimony of the same experts used by the prosecution. They couldn’t call their own independent witnesses. Nesterov was no lawyer and didn’t need to be in order to understand the enormous advantage this set-up handed to the prosecution. In Babinich’s case the defence had to prove insanity without being able to call a witness who hadn’t first been groomed by the prosecution. Since there were no psychiatrists working at Hospital 379 a doctor with no specialist training had been selected by the prosecution and called to make a judgement. This doctor had stated that he believed Varlam Babinich understood the difference between right and wrong and knew murder was wrong; the defendant’s intelligence was limited certainly but sufficient to grasp concepts such as criminality, after all he’d said upon arrest:


I’m in so much trouble.


The defence then had no choice but to call the same doctor and attempt to argue a contradictory point of view. Varlam Babinich had been found guilty. Nesterov had received a typed letter confirming that the seventeen-year-old had died on his knees, shot in the back of the head.

Dr Tyapkin’s case had taken less time, barely a day. His wife had testified that he was violent, describing his sick fantasies and claiming that the only reason she hadn’t come forward before was because she’d feared for her own life and for the life of her baby. She’d also told the judge that she renounced her religion — Judaism. She would bring her children up to be loyal Communists. In exchange for this testimony she’d been transferred to Shakhty, a town in the Ukraine, where she could continue her life without the stigma of her husband’s crime. Since no one outside Voualsk had heard of the crime, there wasn’t even any need to change her name.

With these two cases concluded, the court had processed close to two hundred cases against men accused of anti-Soviet behaviour. These homosexuals had received hard-labour sentences of between five and twenty-five years. In order to deal with the sheer number of cases swiftly the judge had devised a formula for sentencing which depended upon their employment record, the number of children they had and finally the quantity of perverse sexual encounters they’d been alleged to have experienced. Being a member of the Party was counted as a strike against the accused since they’d brought the Party into disrepute. They should have known better and their membership was stripped from them. Despite the repetitious nature of these sessions Nesterov had sat through all of them, all one hundred and fifty or so. After the last man had been sentenced he’d left the court only to find himself being congratulated by local Party officials. He’d done well. It was almost certain he’d have a new apartment with the next couple of months, or if not then by the end of the year.

Several nights after the conclusion of the trials, as he’d lain awake, his wife had told him it was only a matter of time before he agreed to help Leo. She wished he’d just get on and do it. Had he been waiting for her permission? Perhaps he had. He was gambling with not only his own life but with those of his family. It wasn’t that he was doing anything technically wrong by asking questions and making enquiries, but he was acting on his own. Independent action was always a risk since it implied that the structures put in place by the State had failed: that the individual could somehow achieve something the State could not. All the same he was confident that he could begin a quiet kind of investigation, a casual investigation which would appear to be no more than conversations between colleagues. If he discovered that there were no similar cases, no other murdered children, then he could be sure that the brutal punishments he’d been instrumental in bringing about had been fair, just and appropriate. Though he mistrusted Leo and resented the doubt he’d stirred up, there was no escaping that the man had posited a very simple question. Did his work have meaning or was it merely a means to survive? There was nothing shameful about trying to survive — it was the occupation of the majority. However, was it enough to live in squalor and not even be rewarded with a sense of pride, not even to be sustained by a sense that what he did served some purpose?

For the past ten weeks Nesterov had operated on his own without any discussion or collaboration with Leo. Since Leo was almost certainly under surveillance the less contact between them the better. All he’d done was to scribble Leo a short note—I’ll help—including instructions to destroy the note immediately.

There was no easy way of accessing regional criminal files. He’d made phone calls and written letters. In both forms of communication he’d mentioned the subject only in passing, praising the efficiency of his department for the swift resolution of their two cases in an attempt to provoke similar boasts. As the replies began to arrive he’d been forced to make several off-duty train journeys, arriving in towns and meeting with his colleagues, drinking with them, discussing relevant cases for no more than a fraction of a minute before boasting about other things. It was an extraordinarily inefficient means of collecting information. Three hours of drinking might provide two minutes of useful conversation. After eight weeks Nesterov hadn’t unearthed a single unsolved crime. At this point he’d called Leo into his office.

Leo had entered the office, shut the door and sat down. Nesterov had double-checked the corridors before returning, locking the office door and reaching under his desk. He’d taken out a map of the Soviet Union, which he’d spread across the desk, weighing down the corners with books. He’d then picked up a handful of pins. He’d stuck two into the map at Voualsk, two in Molotov, two in Vyatka, two in Gorky and two in Kazan. These pins formed a row of towns which followed the train line west towards Moscow. Nesterov hadn’t been to Moscow, deliberately avoiding its militia officers who he’d feared were likely to be suspicious of any enquiries. West of Moscow, Nesterov had been less successful in gathering information, but he’d found one possible incident in Tver. Moving south, he stuck three pins in the city of Tula, two in the town of Orel and two in Belgorod. Now into the Ukraine, he picked up the box of pins, shaking at least twenty into his hand. He continued: three pins in the towns of Kharkov and Gorlovka, four in the city of Zaporoshy, three in the town of Kramatorsk and one in Kiev. Moving out of the Ukraine, there were five pins in Taganrog and finally six pins in and around the city of Rostov.

Nesterov had understood Leo’s reaction — stunned silence. In many ways he had collected this information in a comparable frame of mind. At first he’d tried to dismiss the similarities: the ground-up material stuffed into the children’s mouths, whether officers called it soil or dirt, the mutilated torsos. But the points of similarity were too striking. There was the string around the ankles. The bodies were always naked, the clothes left in a pile some distance away. The crime scenes were in forests or parks and often near train stations, never household crimes, never interior. Not one town had spoken to another even though some crimes had occurred less than fifty kilometres apart. No connecting line had been traced, joining up these pins. They’d been solved by blaming drunks or thieves or convicted rapists — undesirables, to whom any allegation would stick.

By his count there were forty-three in total. Nesterov had reached over, taken another pin from the box and stuck it into the centre of Moscow, making Arkady child 44.


Nesterov awoke to find the side of his face pressed against the sand, his mouth open. He sat up, brushing the sand off. The sun had disappeared behind a sheet of cloud. He looked for his children, searching the stretch of beach, the people playing. His eldest son, Efim, seven years old, sat near the water’s edge. But his youngest son — only five years old — was nowhere to be seen. Nesterov turned to his wife. She was cutting slices of dried meat, ready for their lunch.

— Where’s Vadim?

Inessa looked up, her eyes immediately finding their eldest son but not their youngest. Still holding the knife, she got up, turning around, checking behind her. Unable to see him, she dropped the knife. They both moved forward, arriving by Efim, kneeling down beside him, one on either side.

— Where’s your brother?

— He said he was going back to you.

— When?

— I don’t know.

— Think.

— Not long ago. I’m not sure.

— We told you to stay together.

— He said he was going back to you!

— He didn’t go out into the water?

— He went that way, towards you.

Nesterov stood again, staring into the water. Vadim hadn’t gone out into the sea, he hadn’t wanted to swim. He was on the beach, somewhere amongst these hundreds of people. Images from the case files rose into his mind. One young girl had been murdered off a popular riverside trail. Another young girl had been murdered in a park, behind a monument, one hundred yards from her house. He crouched beside his son:

— Go back to the blankets. Stay there no matter who talks to you, no matter what they say. Even if they’re your elders and demand your respect, you remain in the same place.

Remembering how many children had been persuaded into disappearing into the forest he changed his mind, taking his son’s hand.

— Come with me. We’ll both look for your brother.

His wife went up the beach, in the opposite direction, while Nesterov walked down, weaving in and out of people, walking at a brisk pace, too quick for Efim so he picked his son up, carrying him. The beach came to an end, tapering off into long grass and reeds. Vadim was nowhere to be seen.

Efim knew a little about his father’s work. He knew about the two murdered children in his home town because his parents had spoken to him about them, although they’d made him swear not to mention the murders to anyone. No one was supposed to be worried about them. They were meant to be solved. Efim knew his little brother was in danger. He was a talkative, friendly boy. He’d find it difficult to be rude to anyone. Efim should’ve kept a better watch on him and realizing he was to blame he began to cry.

At the other end of the beach Inessa called for her son. She’d read the documents pertaining to her husband’s investigation. She knew exactly what had happened to these missing children. Panicking, she blamed herself entirely. She’d told her husband to help Leo. She’d encouraged him, advising on basic precautions to keep the investigation a secret. He was by nature blunt and this work needed caution. She’d read his letters before they were posted, suggesting the insertion of certain phrases should the letters be intercepted. When he’d shown her the map marked with pins; she’d touched each pin individually. It was an impossible number and that night she’d slept in the same bed as her sons. Tying their holiday into the investigation had been her idea. Since the greatest concentration of murders had taken place in the south of the country, the only way Nesterov could make a substantial expedition unnoticed would be to use his family holiday as a cover. Only now did she fully understand that she’d put her children in danger. She’d taken them into the heartland of this mysterious evil. She’d underestimated the power of this thing they were searching for. No child was safe. They were seemingly taken at will, murdered only metres from their homes. Now it had taken her youngest son.

Short of breath, shouting for her son, calling his name into the face of the bathers, her eyes filled with tears. People circled her with their dumb, unconcerned eyes. She begged them to help her.

— He’s only five years old. He’s been taken. We have to find him.

A stern-looking woman tried to take hold of her.

— He’ll be here somewhere.

— You don’t understand: he’s in terrible danger.

— From what?

She pushed the woman out of the way, turning around and around, calling his name. Suddenly she felt a man’s strong hands on her arms.

— My little boy’s been taken. Please help me look for him.

— Why don’t you calm down?

— No, he’ll be killed. He’ll be murdered. You have to help me find him.

The man laughed.

— No one is going to be killed. He’s quite safe.

She began to struggle but the man wouldn’t let her go. Surrounded by pitying faces, she tried to break free.

— Let go of me! I need to find my son.

Nesterov pushed through the crowd, breaking through to his wife. He’d found his youngest son playing in the tall reeds and was now carrying both his children. The man let go of his Inessa’s arm. She took hold of Vadim, clutching his head as though it were fragile and might break. They stood together as a family, surrounded, hostile faces all around. Why had they behaved like that? What was wrong with them? Efim whispered:

— Let’s go.

They left the crowd, hurriedly collecting their stuff and heading to the car. There were only four other cars parked by the dirt road. The rest of the bathers had arrived by tram. Nesterov started the engine, driving off.


On the beach a thin woman with a touch of grey in her hair watched as the car disappeared. She’d made a note of the number plate, having decided this was a family that needed investigating.

Moscow

5 July


Until yesterday, if Leo had been arrested, there was nothing directly linking Raisa to his unauthorized investigation. She could have denounced him and there might have been a chance she’d survive. That was no longer true. On a train nearing Moscow, travelling under false papers, their guilt was indivisible.

Why had Raisa boarded the train, accompanying Leo? It went against her governing principle — survival. She was accepting an immeasurable risk when an alternative presented itself to her. She could’ve stayed in Voualsk and done nothing or, to be safer still, she could’ve betrayed Leo and hoped that this betrayal would have secured her future. It was an unpleasant strategy, hypocritical and despicable, but she’d done many unpleasant things in the name of survival, including marrying Leo, a man she’d loathed. What had changed? This wasn’t about love. Leo was now her partner, not in the straightforward marital sense. They were partners in this investigation. He trusted her, listened to her — not as a courtesy but as an equal. They were a team, sharing a common goal, united behind a purpose more important than either of their lives. Energized, excited, she didn’t want to return to her former subsistence existence, wondering how much of her soul she’d have to slice off and sell in order to survive.

The train came to a stop at Yaroslavavski Vokzal. Leo was all too aware of the significance of returning here, travelling across the very train tracks where Arkady’s body had been found. They were returning to Moscow for the first time since their exile four months ago. They had no official business here. Their lives and investigation depended on being undiscovered. If they were caught they would die. The reason for their venture was a woman called Galina Shaporina, a woman who’d seen the killer, an eyewitness who could describe this man, put an age on him, flesh him out — make him real. Currently neither Leo nor Raisa had any idea of what kind of man they were searching for. They were clueless as to whether he was old or young, lean or heavy, scruffy or well dressed. In short, he could be almost anyone.

In addition to speaking to Galina, Raisa had proposed talking to Ivan, her colleague from school. He was well read in censored Western material and had access to restricted publications, magazine articles, newspapers and unauthorized translations. He might be aware of case studies about comparable crimes from abroad: random, multiple, ritualized murders. Raisa knew only about such crimes in the barest of detail. She’d heard about an American, Albert Fish, who’d murdered children and eaten them. She’d heard stories about a Frenchman, Dr Pettiot, who, during the Great Patriotic War, had lured Jews to his cellar offering safety, and then killed them, burning their bodies. She had no idea whether this was merely Soviet propaganda about the decay of Western civilization, killers depicted as products of a flawed society and perverse politics. From the point of view of their investigation a determinist theory was useless. It meant that the only suspect they could be looking for was a foreigner, someone whose character had been determined by living in a capitalist society. But clearly the killer was moving around the country with ease; he spoke Russian and charmed children. This was a killer operating within the fabric of their country. Everything they knew or had been told about this type of crime was either false or irrelevant. They had to unlearn every presumption and start afresh. And Raisa believed that Ivan’s access to sensitive information was crucial to re-educating themselves.

Leo appreciated that such material would be of benefit but equally he was also keen to reduce their interaction to as few people as possible. Their primary objective was speaking to Galina Shaporina, Ivan was secondary. Leo wasn’t entirely convinced that he was worth the risk. However, he was aware that his evaluation was tainted by personal factors. Was he jealous of Ivan’s relationship with his wife? Yes, he was. Did he want to share their investigation with Ivan? Not for a second.

Leo glanced out of the window, waiting for everyone to disembark. Train stations were patrolled by undercover and uniformed agents. All major transport junctions were deemed to be vulnerable as points of infiltration. There were armed checkpoints on the roads. Ports and harbours were under constant surveillance. Nowhere was layered in more levels of protection than Moscow. They were attempting to sneak into the most heavily policed city in the country. Their only advantage was that Vasili had little reason to suppose they’d be reckless enough to embark on such a venture. About to step off the train, Leo turned to Raisa.

— If you happen to catch their eye, a guard or anyone else, even someone who appears to be a civilian, don’t immediately look away. Don’t smile or make any gestures. Just hold eye contact and then look at something else.

They stepped down onto the platform, neither of them carrying much luggage. Large bags were more likely to draw attention. Walking briskly, they had to stop themselves from rushing. Leo was thankful that the station was busy. All the same he could feel his shirt collar becoming damp with sweat. He tried to reassure himself that there was almost no chance any of the agents here were looking for them. They’d already been careful to shake any possible surveillance back at Voualsk. They’d established that they were going on a walking holiday in the mountains. Applications had to be made for vacations. Because of their limited status they’d only been able to get a couple of days. Under extreme time pressure, they’d set off into the forest, trekking in a loop, making sure they weren’t being followed. Once they were confident they were alone they’d returned to the forest near the station. They’d changed out of their muddy clothes, buried them and their camping equipment, and sat waiting for the train to Moscow to arrive. They’d boarded it at the last minute. Should all go according to plan they’d collect the eyewitness report, return to Voualsk, slip into the forest, retrieve their equipment and change back into their muddy clothes. They’d re-enter the town from one of the northern forest trails.

They were almost at the exit when a man behind them called out:

— Papers.

Without hesitating, Leo turned. He didn’t smile or try to appear relaxed. The officer they were dealing with was State Security. But Leo didn’t recognize him. That was fortunate. He handed over his papers. Raisa handed over hers.

Leo studied the man’s face. He was tall, stocky. His eyes were slow, his movements sluggish. This was nothing more a routine stop and search. However, routine or not, the papers he now examined were fake and at best only a passable imitation. In his days as an agent Leo would never have been fooled by them. Nesterov had helped provide them, doctoring them with Leo’s assistance. They’d worked hard but the more they’d worked the more he’d become conscious of their weakness: the scratches on the paper, the points where the ink bled, the double lines where it had been stamped twice. He now wondered how he could’ve put his faith in these documents and realized he hadn’t — he’d hoped they wouldn’t be checked.

Raisa watched the agent pore over the writing and realized the man could barely read. He was trying to hide this fact by pretending to be extremely thorough. But she’d seen too many children struggle with the same problem not to be able to spot the signs. The man’s lips moved as his eyes scanned the lines. Aware that if she gave any indication of knowing his weakness he’d almost certainly lash out, she maintained her look of fear. She reasoned he’d appreciate being feared: it would soothe any anxiety that he might be feeling. Sure enough the agent checked on their expressions, not because he had some suspicion regarding the document but because he was worried they’d become less afraid of him. Satisfied that he was still a man to be feared, he slapped the documents against the palm of his hand, making it clear that he was weighing them up, that he still had power over their lives.

— Let me see your bags.

Leo and Raisa opened their small bags. They carried nothing more than a change of clothes and some basic essentials. The officer was becoming bored. He shrugged. In reply they nodded reverentially at him, moving towards the exit, trying not to walk too fast.

Same Day

Having quashed Fyodor’s own investigation into the murder of his son, cajoled and bullied him into silence, Leo was about to ask for his help with the same subject. He needed Fyodor to take him to Galina Shaporina’s apartment since he’d been unable to find the address. Indeed, it was possible that he couldn’t even remember her name correctly. He hadn’t been paying much attention at the time and so much had happened since then. Without Fyodor there was little hope of finding this witness.

Leo was prepared for humiliation, the loss of face; he was braced for scorn and contempt, just as long as he secured that eyewitness account. Although Fyodor was an MGB agent, Leo was banking on the fact that his loyalty would be to the memory of his son. No matter how much hatred Fyodor felt towards Leo, surely his desire for justice would force them into an alliance? With that said Leo’s assessment of the situation four months ago had been correct. An unauthorized investigation into the death of his son would put his entire family at risk. Perhaps Fyodor had come to terms with that assessment. Better to protect the living, better to turn Leo over to the State, that way he benefited from both safety and revenge. What would he decide? Leo knocked on the door. He was about to find out.

Apartment Block 18, fourth floor, an elderly woman opened the door — the woman who’d stood up to him, the woman who’d dared to call a murder by its name.

— My name is Leo, this is my wife, Raisa.

The old woman stared at Leo, remembering him, hating him. She glanced at Raisa.

— What do you want?

Raisa answered, her voice low:

— We’re here about the murder of Arkady.

There was a long silence, the old woman studying both their faces before replying:

— You’ve come to the wrong address. No boy was murdered here.

As she went to close the door, Leo put his foot forward.

— You were right.


Leo expected anger. But instead the elderly woman began to cry.

Fyodor, his wife and the elderly woman, Fyodor’s mother, stood together, a civilian troika—a citizen’s tribunal — watching as Leo took off his coat, dropping it on the chair. He pulled off his jumper and began unbuttoning his shirt. Underneath, taped to his body, were the details of the murders — photos, descriptions, statements, maps showing the geographical spread of the crimes: the most important pieces of evidence that they’d accumulated.

— I had to take certain precautions in carrying this material around. These are the details of over forty murders, children, both boys and girls, murdered across the western half of our country. They’ve been killed in almost exactly the same way, the same way as I now believe your son was killed.

Leo pulled the papers free from his chest: the ones closest to his skin were damp with sweat. Fyodor took hold of them, glancing through. His wife stepped forward, as did his mother. Soon all three were reading the documents, passing them between each other. Fyodor’s wife spoke first.

— And if you catch him, what will you do?

Remarkably, it was the first time Leo had been asked that question. Until now they’d concentrated on whether it was even possible to catch him.

— I’ll kill him.

Once Leo had explained the nature of his personal investigation, Fyodor wasted no time with insults or recriminations. It evidently didn’t cross his mind to refuse them assistance or doubt their sincerity or worry about the repercussions. Nor did those thoughts occur to Fyodor’s wife or his mother, at least not in any significant way. Fyodor would take them to Galina’s apartment immediately.

The shortest route there involved crossing the railway tracks, where Arkady had been found. There were several train tracks running parallel, a wide space, lined with ragged shrubs and trees. With the fading evening light, Leo appreciated the appeal of this secluded no man’s land. In the heart of the city it felt eerily empty. Had the boy run across these sleepers, chased by that man? Had he fallen to the ground, desperate to get away? In the dark, had a train raced past, indifferent? Leo was glad to get off the tracks.

Nearing the apartment, Fyodor argued that Leo should remain outside. Galina had been terrified by him before: they couldn’t risk him scaring her into silence again. Leo agreed. It would just be Raisa and Fyodor.

Raisa followed Fyodor up the stairs, reaching the apartment door and knocking. She could hear the sound of children playing inside. She was pleased. Of course she didn’t believe a woman had to be a mother to appreciate the gravity of this case but the fact that Galina’s own children were in danger should make her easy to enlist.

The door was opened by a gaunt woman in her thirties. She was wrapped up as though it was the middle of winter. She appeared ill. Her eyes were nervous, taking in every detail of Raisa’s and Fyodor’s appearance. Fyodor seemed to recognize her.

— Galina, you remember me? I’m Fyodor, father of Arkady, the little boy who was murdered. This is my friend Raisa. She lives in Voualsk, a town near the Urals. Galina, the reason we’re here is because the man who murdered my son is murdering other children, in other towns. That is why Raisa has travelled to Moscow, so that we can work together. We need your help.

Galina’s voice was soft, barely a whisper.

— How can I help? I don’t know anything.

Expecting such a reply, Raisa pointed out:

— Fyodor isn’t here as an officer of the MGB. We’re a group made of fathers and mothers, any citizens outraged at these crimes. Your name won’t appear in any documents; there are no documents. You’ll never see or hear from us again. All we need to know is what he looks like. How old is he? Is he tall? What colour is his hair? Were his clothes expensive or cheap?

— But the man I saw wasn’t with a child. I told you that.

Fyodor answered:

— Please, Galina, let us in for a second. Let’s talk out of the hallway.

She shook her head.

— I can’t help you. I don’t know anything.

Fyodor was becoming agitated. Raisa touched his arm, silencing him. They had to remain calm, they couldn’t bully her. Patience was the key.

— OK, that’s OK, Galina. You didn’t see a man with a child. Fyodor explained that you saw a man with a tool bag, is that right?

She nodded.

— Can you describe him for us?

— But he didn’t have a child with him.

— We understand. He didn’t have a child with him. You’ve been clear about that. He just had a tool bag. But what did he look like?

Galina considered. Raisa held her breath, sensing she was about to break. They didn’t need the information written down. They didn’t need a signed testimony. They just needed a description, thrown away, deniable. Thirty seconds, that was all it would take.

Suddenly Fyodor cut through the silence, saying:

— There’s no harm in telling us what a man with tool bag looked like. No one can get in trouble for describing a railway worker.

Raisa stared at Fyodor. He’d made a mistake. People could get in trouble for describing a railway worker. They could get in trouble for much less. The safest course of action was always to do nothing. Galina shook her head, stepping back from them.

— I’m sorry, it was dark. I didn’t see him. He had a bag, that’s all I remember.

Fyodor put his hand on the door.

— No, Galina, please…

Galina shook her head.

— Leave.

— Please, please…

Like a panicked animal, her voice became shrill with worry:

— Leave!

There was silence. The noise of the children playing stopped. Galina’s husband appeared.

— What’s going on?

In the corridor apartment doors opened, people were staring, observing, pointing: alarming Galina further. Sensing that they were losing control of the situation, that they were about to lose their eyewitness, Raisa moved forward, hugging Galina, as if saying goodbye.

— What did he look like?

Cheek to cheek, Raisa waited, closing her eyes, hoping. She could feel Galina’s breath. But Galina did not reply.

Rostov-on-Don

Same Day


The cat perched on the window ledge, its tail flicking from side to side, its cool green eyes following Nadya around the room as if it were considering pouncing on her, as if she were nothing more an over-sized rat. The cat was older than her. She was six years old; the cat was eight or nine. That fact might go some way to explain why it had such a superior attitude. According to her father the area they lived in had a problem with rats and therefore cats were essential. Well, that was partly true: Nadya had seen plenty of rats, big rats and bold too. But she’d never seen this cat do anything useful about them. It was a lazy cat, spoilt rotten by her father. How could a cat think itself more important than her? It never allowed her to touch it. Once, as it had happened to pass by, she’d stroked its back, to which it had replied by twisting around, hissing, before bolting to the corner with its fur stuck out as though she’d committed some sort of crime. At that point she’d given up trying to befriend it. If the cat wanted to hate her, she’d hate it back twice as much.

Unable to remain in the house any longer with the cat staring at her, Nadya set off, even though it was late and the rest of her family were in the kitchen, preparing uzhin. Knowing that she’d be refused permission to go for a walk she didn’t bother asking, slipping on her shoes and sneaking out of the front door.

They lived on a bank of the river Don, her younger sister, her mother and father, in a neighbourhood on the outskirts, cratered streets and brick hut-houses. The city’s sewage and factory waste fed into the river just upstream and Nadya would sometimes sit and watch the patterns of oils, filth and chemicals on the water’s surface. There was a well-trodden path along the riverbank which ran in both directions. Nadya turned downstream, out towards the countryside. Even though there was very little light she was confident of the route. She had a good sense of direction and as far as she could remember she’d never been lost, not once. She wondered what kind of jobs a girl with a good sense of direction might get when she grew up. Maybe she’d become a fighter pilot. There was no point becoming a train driver since they never had to think about where they were going: a train could hardly get lost. Her father had told her stories about female bomber pilots during the war. That sounded good to her, she wanted to be one of them, her face on the front of a newspaper, awarded the Order of Lenin. That would get her father’s attention; that would make him proud of her. That would distract him from his stupid cat.

She’d been walking for a little while, humming to herself, pleased to be out of the house and away from that cat, when suddenly she came to a stop. Up ahead she could see the outline of a man walking towards her. He was a tall man but in the gloom she couldn’t tell much else about him. He was carrying some kind of case. Normally the sight of a stranger wouldn’t have bothered her in the least. Why would it? But her mother had recently done a peculiar thing: she’d sat Nadya and her sister down and warned them not to talk to any strangers. She’d even gone as far as telling them it would be better to be impolite than to obey a stranger’s request. Nadya looked back towards her house. She wasn’t all that far from home; if she ran she could get back in less than ten minutes. The thing was, she really wanted to walk to her favourite tree further downstream. She liked to climb up and sit in it and dream. Until she’d done that, until she’d reached that tree, she didn’t feel like the walk had been a success. She imagined that this was her military mission: to reach the tree and she couldn’t fail. Making a snap decision, she decided she wouldn’t talk to this man: she’d just walk straight past him and if he spoke to her, she’d say good evening but not stop walking.

She continued along the path with the man getting nearer. Was he walking faster? He seemed to be. It was too dark to see his face. He was wearing some sort of hat. She moved up the edge of the path, giving him plenty of room to pass by. They were only a couple of metres apart. Nadya felt afraid, an inexplicable urge to hurry past him. She didn’t understand why. She blamed her mother. Bomber pilots were never afraid. She broke into a run. Concerned this would insult the gentleman, she called out:

— Good evening.

With his free arm, Andrei grabbed her around the waist, lifting her small frame clear off the ground, bringing her face close to his, staring into her eyes. She was terrified, holding her breath, her little body rigid with tension.

And then Nadya began to laugh. Recovering from her surprise, she put her arms around her father’s neck and hugged him.

— You scared me.

— Why are you out so late?

— I wanted to walk.

— Does your mother know you’re outside?

— Yes.

— You’re lying.

— No, I’m not. Why are you coming from this direction? You never come from this direction. Where have you been?

— I’ve been working. I had some business in one of the villages just outside the city. There was no way to get back except to walk. It was only a couple of hours.

— You must be tired.

— Yes, I am.

— Can I carry your case?

— But I’m carrying you so even if I gave you my case I’d still be carrying its weight.

— I could walk by myself and carry your case.

— I think I can manage.

— Father, I’m glad you’re home.

Still carrying his daughter, he used the base of his case to push open their door. He stepped into the kitchen. There was affection from his youngest daughter who ran over to greet him. He watched his family’s pleasure at his return. They took it for granted that when he went away, he’d come back.

Nadya had her eye on the cat. Evidently jealous of the attention she was getting from her father, the cat jumped down from the window, joining the family reunion, rubbing itself against her father’s leg. As Andrei lowered her to the floor she accidentally dropped her foot onto the cat’s paw, causing it to screech and dart away. Before she could enjoy any small sense of satisfaction her father took hold of her wrist, crouched down, staring at her through his thick square glasses, his face trembling with anger.

— Don’t ever touch her.

Nadya wanted to cry. She bit her lip instead. She’d already learned that crying made no impression on her father.

Andrei let go of his daughter’s wrist, standing up straight. He felt flustered and hot. He looked at his wife. She hadn’t moved forward, but she smiled at him.

— Have you eaten?

— I have to put my things away. I don’t want anything to eat.

He wife didn’t attempt to hug or kiss him, not in front of the children. He was strict about these things. She understood.

— Was your work successful?

— They want me to go away again in a couple of days. I’m not sure for how long.

Without waiting for a reply, he was already feeling claustrophobic, he moved to the door that led to the basement. The cat followed him, its tail up high, excited.

He locked the door behind him, descending the stairs, immediately feeling better now that he was on his own. An elderly couple had previously occupied this downstairs space but the woman had died and the man had moved into his son’s apartment. The housing bureau hadn’t sent another couple to replace them. It wasn’t a nice room: a basement sunk into the riverbank. The bricks were always wet. In winter the room was freezing. There was a burzhuika, a wood-fired stove, which the elderly couple had been forced to keep running for eight months of the year. Despite the basement’s many disadvantages it had one advantage. It was his space. He had a chair in one corner and a slender bed which had belonged to the elderly couple. He occasionally slept down here when the conditions were tolerable. He lit the gas lamp and before long another cat had entered through the space in the wall where the pipes from the burzhuika ran outside.

He opened his case. Amongst his papers and the remains of his lunch there was a glass jar with a screw-top lid. He unscrewed the lid. Inside the jar, wrapped in an old issue of Pravda, sodden with blood, was the stomach of the girl he’d murdered some hours ago. He peeled the paper away, carefully making sure no paper was stuck to the flesh. He put the stomach on a tin plate, slicing it into strips then again into cubes. Once he’d finished he fired up the stove. By the time it was hot enough to cook the meat there were six cats circling him. He fried the meat, waiting till it had turned brown before tipping it back onto the tin plate. Andrei stood watching the cats around his feet, enjoying the spectacle of their hunger, holding the food, teasing them, watching them yelp. They were desperately hungry, frenzied by the smell of cooked meat.

After he’d had his fill of teasing them he put the food down. The cats squeezed together in a circle around the plate and began to eat, purring with delight.


Upstairs, Nadya stared at the basement door, wondering what kind of father preferred cats to children. He was only going to be home for two days. No, she was wrong to be angry with her father. She refused to blame him, the cats were to blame. A thought came into her mind. It wouldn’t be all that difficult to kill a cat. The hard part would be getting away with it.

Same Day

On Vorovski Street, Leo and Raisa joined the back of the grocery-store queue. The queue would take several hours before it reached inside, where each person would place their order before being made to wait in a second queue to pay for the item. After those two queues there was a third queue to collect the item. They could easily remain in these various lines for up to four hours, waiting inconspicuously for Ivan to come home.

Having failed to persuade Galina Shaporina to speak, they were in danger of coming away from Moscow with nothing. Raisa had been pushed out of the apartment, the door shut in her face. Standing in the hallway, surrounded by staring neighbours, many of whom might be informers, there was no way they could try again. It was possible that Galina and her husband had already notified the State Security forces. Leo didn’t think that was likely. Galina clearly believed that doing as little as possible was the safest course of action; if she tried to inform there was a possibility she’d be incriminating herself, drawing attention to herself. That was a small consolation. Their only achievement so far was to recruit Fyodor and his family into their investigation. Leo had instructed Fyodor to send any information he might be able to discover to Nesterov since mail addressed to Leo was being intercepted. Even so, they were no closer to identifying the kind of man they were looking for.

In these circumstances Raisa had pushed hard to speak to Ivan. What other options did they have except to leave the city empty-handed? Leo had reluctantly agreed. Raisa hadn’t been able to get a message to Ivan. There was no way they could post a letter or make a call. She’d taken a calculated risk hoping that he’d be here. But she knew he rarely left Moscow, certainly not for any length of time. He didn’t holiday, had no interest in the countryside. The only reason she could think that he wouldn’t be at home was if he’d been arrested. On that front she could only hope that he was safe. Even though she was looking forward to seeing him again she was under no illusions — this was going to be an awkward encounter. She was with Leo, a man Ivan hated as he hated all officers of the MGB, a rule to which he made no exceptions. There were no good ones. However, it wasn’t his dislike for Leo which worried her most. Rather, it was her affection for Ivan. Though she’d never cheated on Leo sexually, she’d cheated on him with Ivan in almost every other way, intellectually, emotionally, criticizing him behind his back. She’d struck up a friendship with a man defined by being against everything Leo had stood for. There was something awful about bringing these two men together. She wanted to tell Ivan as quickly as possible that Leo wasn’t the same man and that he’d changed, that his blind faith in the State had been broken, smashed. She wanted to explain that she’d been wrong about her husband. She wanted them both to see that the differences between them were smaller than they’d ever realized. But there was little hope of that.

Leo wasn’t looking forward to meeting Ivan — Raisa’s kindred spirit. He’d be forced to watch as the connection sparked between them, forced to see up close the kind of man Raisa would’ve married had she been free to choose. That still hurt him, more than his loss of status, more than his loss of faith in the State. He’d blindly believed in love. Perhaps he’d clung to the notion as a way of counteracting the nature of his work. Perhaps subconsciously he needed to believe in love as a way of humanizing himself. That would explain the extreme justifications he’d created to rationalize her coldness to him. He’d refused to contemplate the possibility that she hated him. Instead, he’d closed his eyes and congratulated himself on having everything. He’d told his parents that she was the wife he’d always dreamt of. He’d been right — that was all she’d been, a dream, a fantasy and she’d shrewdly agreed to play along, all the time being terrified for her own safety, confiding in Ivan her true feelings.

This fantasy had been shattered months ago. Yet why wouldn’t the wounds heal? Why couldn’t he move on as he’d moved on from his devotion to the MGB? He’d been able to swap devotion to the MGB with another cause, devotion to this investigation. But he had no one else to love; there’d never been anyone else. The truth was that he couldn’t let go of the small hope, the fantastical notion that maybe, just maybe she could love him for real. Although he was reluctant to trust his emotions since he’d been so categorically wrong before, he felt that he and Raisa were closer than they’d ever been. Was that merely as a result of their working together? It was true they no longer kissed or had sex. Since Raisa had told him the truth about their history it hadn’t felt right. He’d been forced to accept that all their previous sexual experiences had meant nothing to her — or worse, they’d been unpleasant. Yet far from circumstance being the only thing keeping them together—You have me. I have you. — Leo preferred to think that circumstance had been keeping them apart. Leo had been a symbol of the State and one that Raisa had loathed. But now he no longer represented anything other than himself, divested of authority and stripped out of the system she so hated.

They were almost at the shop door when they saw Ivan approach from the other end of the street. They didn’t call out or draw attention to themselves, they didn’t move from the line, watching as he entered his apartment building. Raisa was about to leave the queue when Leo touched her arm, stopping her. They were dealing with a dissident: it was possible he was under surveillance. It occurred to Leo that maybe the hollow coin had belonged to Ivan: maybe he’d been the spy. What was it doing in amongst Raisa’s clothes? Had she undressed in Ivan’s apartment, picked up the coin by mistake? Leo pushed the thoughts aside, aware that his jealousy was playing tricks on him.

Leo checked the street. He couldn’t see any agents taking position around the apartment. There were several obvious places — the foyer to the cinema, this grocery queue, sheltered doorways. No matter how well trained the agents might be, keeping watch on a building was difficult since it was such an unnatural action: remaining stationary, alone, doing nothing at all. After several minutes he was confident there was no one following Ivan. Without bothering to give a reason or make a pantomime of having forgotten a wallet, they left the queue exactly at the point when they were finally about to enter the shop. It was suspicious but Leo could count on the fact that most people were smart enough to mind their own business.

They entered the apartment building, walking up the stairs. Raisa knocked on the door. Footsteps could be heard inside. A voice, nervous, asked through the door.

— Yes?

— Ivan, it’s Raisa.

A bolt was pulled back. Ivan cautiously opened the door. Upon seeing Raisa his suspicions dropped away and he smiled. She smiled in reply.

A couple of steps back Leo watched their reunion in the gloom of the hallway. She was pleased to see him, they were easy together. Ivan opened the door, moving forward, hugging her, relieved that she was still alive.

Ivan noticed Leo for the first time. His smile fell away like a picture falling off a wall. He let go of Raisa suddenly unsure, glancing at her expression, checking that this wasn’t a betrayal of some kind. Sensing his unease, she remarked:

— We have a lot to explain.

— Why are you here?

— It would be better to speak inside.

Ivan didn’t seem convinced. Raisa touched his arm.

— Please, trust me.

The apartment was small, well furnished, polished-wood floors. There were books: at a glance they all seemed to be authorized texts, Gorky, political tracts, Marx. The door to the bedroom was shut and there was no bed in the main room. Leo asked:

— Are we alone?

— My children are with my parents. My wife is in hospital. She has tuberculosis.

Raisa touched his arm again.

— Ivan, I’m so sorry.

— We thought you’d been arrested. I feared the worst.

— We were lucky. We’ve been relocated to a town just west of the Urals. Leo refused to denounce me.

Ivan couldn’t keep the surprise from his face, as if such a thing were remarkable. Stung, Leo held his tongue as Ivan stared at him, evaluating.

— Why did you refuse?

— She isn’t a spy.

— Since when has the truth stopped you?

Raisa interrupted:

— Let’s not get into that now.

— But it matters. Are you’re still MGB?

— No, I was demoted to the militia.

— Demoted? You escaped lightly.

It was a question, accusatory.

— It’s only a temporary reprieve, demotion, exile — a prolonged punishment in obscurity.

Seeking to comfort him, Raisa added:

— We weren’t followed here. We’re sure of that.

— You’ve travelled all the way to Moscow? Why?

— We need help.

At this, he was puzzled.

— What could I possibly help you with?

Leo took off his coat, his jumper, his shirt — retrieving the files taped to his body. He summarized the case, offering the papers to Ivan. Ivan accepted the papers but didn’t look at them, sitting down on a chair and placing the evidence on the table beside him. After a moment he stood again, collecting a pipe, carefully filling it.

— I take it the militia itself isn’t investigating these murders?

— All these murders have been solved incorrectly, covered up or blamed on the mentally ill, some political enemy, a drunk, a vagrant. No connection has been drawn between them.

— And you two are working together now…?

Raisa blushed.

— Yes, we’re working together.

— You trust him?

— Yes, I trust him.

Leo was forced to remain silent as Ivan questioned his wife, scrutinizing the integrity of their relationship in front of him.

— And together you plan to solve this crime?

Leo answered:

— If the State won’t, then the people will have to.

— Spoken like a true revolutionary. Except, Leo, you’ve spent your entire life murdering for the State — whether in war or peace, whether they be Germans or Russians, or whoever else the State tells you it hates. Now I’m supposed to believe you’re bucking the official line and thinking for yourself? I don’t believe it. I think this is a trap. I’m sorry Raisa, I think he’s trying to win his way back into the MGB. He’s duped you, and now he wants to hand them me.

— He’s not, Ivan. Look at the evidence. This is real, not some trick.

— I haven’t trusted paper evidence for a long time, nor should you.

— I’ve seen one of these bodies, a young boy, his stomach cut open, his mouth filled with bark. I’ve seen it, Ivan. I was there. Someone did this to a child, someone enjoyed doing this and they’re not going to stop. And they’re not going to get caught by the militia. I know you have every right to be suspicious of us. But I can’t prove it to you. If you can’t trust me, then I’m sorry for coming here.

Leo stepped forward, ready to collect up the files. Ivan put his hand on top of them.

— I’ll take a look. Close the curtains. And both of you sit down, you’re making me nervous.

With the room cut off from the world outside, Leo and Raisa sat beside Ivan and narrated the specifics of the case, reciting as much information as they thought was useful. Leo summed up his own conclusions.

— He persuades these children to come with him. The footprints in the snow were side by side, the boy had agreed to walk into the forests. Even though this crime seems insane, an obviously insane man would ramble, make no sense, an obviously insane man would scare these children.

Ivan nodded.

— Yes, I agree.

— Since it’s very difficult to move about this country without a designated reason, he must have a job, one that involves travel. He must have papers, documents. He must be integrated into our society; he must be acceptable, respectable. The question we can’t answer is—

— Why does he do it?

— How can I catch him if I don’t understand why? I have no image of him in my mind. What kind of man is he? Is he young or old? Is he rich or poor? We simply have no idea what kind of person we’re looking for — beyond the basics, that he has a job and must appear on the outside at least, to be sane. But that is almost everyone.

Ivan was smoking his pipe, absorbing everything Leo had said.

— I’m afraid I cannot help you.

Raisa sat forward.

— But you have Western articles about these kinds of crime, murders that aren’t conventionally motivated?

— What will they tell you? I might be able to get together a couple of articles. But they wouldn’t be enough to give you an image of this man. You can’t build a picture of him from two or three sensational pieces of Western journalism.

Leo sat back: this had been a wasted journey. More worrying than that: had they set themselves an impossible task? They were hopelessly ill-equipped both materially and intellectually to tackle these crimes.

Ivan drew on his pipe, watching their reactions.

— However, I know a man who might be able to help. His name is Professor Zauzayez, a retired psychiatrist, a former MGB interrogator. He lost his sight. Going blind gave him a change of heart, an epiphany, just like you, Leo. He’s now quite active in underground circles. You could tell him what you’ve told me. He might be able to help.

— Can we trust him?

— As much as you can trust anyone.

— What exactly can he do?

— You’ll read him these documents, describe the photos: perhaps he’ll be able to shed some light on the kind of person who’d do this such as his age, his background — that kind of thing.

— Where does he live?

— He won’t allow you to go to his apartment. He’s very cautious. He’ll come here, if he’ll come at all. I’ll do my best to convince him, but I can make no guarantees.

Raisa smiled.

— Thank you.

Leo was pleased: an expert was certainly better than some journalistic scraps. Ivan stood up, putting his pipe down, moving to the side cabinet, the telephone.


The telephone.


This man had a telephone, in his apartment, his tidy, well-furnished apartment. Leo took in the details of the room. Something was wrong. This was no family apartment. Why did he live in such comparative luxury? And how had he managed to escape arrest? After their exile he should’ve been taken in. After all, the MGB had a file on him: Vasili had showed Leo the photos. How had he evaded the authorities?

The call had been set up. Ivan was now speaking on the phone.

— Professor Zauzayez, Ivan Sukov here. I have an interesting task I need your help with. I can’t speak about it on the phone. Are you free at the moment? Could you to come to my apartment? Yes, immediately if that’s possible.

Leo’s body tensed. Why did he call him professor—if they were so close? Why call him that unless it was for their benefit? This was wrong. Everything was wrong.

Leo leapt up, his chair flying back. He was across the room before Ivan had a chance to react, grabbing the phone and twisting its cord tight around Ivan’s neck. Leo was behind him now, back pressed up against the corner of the room, throttling him, tightening the cord. Ivan’s legs were slipping on the polished floor, he gasped, unable to speak. Stunned, Raisa got out of her chair.

— Leo!

Leo raised his finger, indicating that she remain silent. With the cord still wrapped around Ivan’s neck he lifted the receiver to his ear.

— Professor Zauzayez?

The phone went dead. They’d hung up. They were on their way.

— Leo, let him go!

But Leo tightened the cord. Ivan’s face was turning red.

— He’s an operative, he’s under cover. Look at how he lives. Look at his home. There is no Professor Zauzayez. That was his State Security contact; he’s on his way to arrest us.

— Leo, you’re making a mistake. I know this man.

— He’s a fake dissident, placed underground, flushing out other anti-authority figures, accumulating evidence against them.

— Leo, you’re wrong.

— There is no professor. They’re on their way. Raisa, we don’t have much time!

Ivan’s fingers were frantically clasping at the cord. Raisa shook her head, prising her fingers under the cord, relieving the pressure on his neck.

— Leo, let him go, let him prove himself.

— Haven’t all your friends been arrested, every one, except for him? That woman Zoya, where do you think the MGB got her name from? They didn’t arrest on her on the basis of her prayers. That was just their excuse.

Unable to get free, Ivan’s legs began slipping across the floor, forcing Leo to take his full weight. Leo couldn’t hold him for much longer.

— Raisa, you never spoke to me about your friends. You never trusted me. Who did you confide in? Think!

Raisa stared at Leo then at Ivan. It was true: all her friends were dead or arrested, all except him. She shook her head, refusing to believe it — it was the paranoia of today, the paranoia created by the State that any allegation no matter how far-fetched was enough to kill a man. She caught sight of Ivan’s hand reaching for the cabinet drawer. She let go of the cord.

— Leo, wait!

— We don’t have time!

— Wait!

She opened the drawer, riffling through. Inside was a letter-opener, sharp — the item Ivan was reaching for to defend himself. She could hardly blame him for that. Behind that was a book, his copy of For Whom the Bell Tolls. Why was it not hidden? She picked it up. A sheet of paper was inside it. On it was written a list of names: people the book had been loaned to. Some of the names were scored through. Her name had been scored through. On the other side of the page was a list of people he intended to loan the book to.

She turned to Ivan, raising the sheet of paper to his face, her hand shaking. Was there an innocent explanation? No, she already knew there wasn’t. No dissident would be foolish enough to write down a list of names. He loaned the book to incriminate.

Leo was struggling to hold Ivan.

— Raisa, turn away.

She obeyed, walking to the other side of the room, the book still in her hand, listening as Ivan’s legs kicked the furniture.

Same Day

Since he was a State Security operative, Ivan’s death would immediately be catagorized as murder, an outrage that must have been committed by someone opposed to the system, an anti-Soviet element. The culprit was an outsider, a non-believer, so legitimizing the launch of a comprehensive investigation. There was no need to cover it up. Fortunately for Leo and Raisa, Ivan must have had many enemies. He was a man who’d lived his life betraying intrigued citizens, attracting them with the promise of censored material as a predator might attract its prey with alluring bait. The censored material had been provided to him by the State.

Before leaving the apartment, Raisa had taken the list of names, crumpling the paper into her pocket. Leo had hurriedly gathered together the case file. They had no idea how long it would take the State Security to respond to Ivan’s call. They’d opened the front door, running down the stairs before approximating calmness as they walked away. As they’d reached the end of the street they’d glanced back. Agents were entering the building.

No one in Moscow had any reason to believe Leo and Raisa had returned. They wouldn’t be immediate suspects. The officers in charge of the investigation, if the connection even occurred to him, would check with the MGB in Voualsk and discover that they were on a walking holiday. That excuse might hold unless a witness identified a man and a woman entering the apartment building. If that happened then their alibi would come under closer scrutiny. But Leo knew all of these facts were of only the slightest importance. Even if there was no evidence, even if they really had been on a walking holiday, this murder could be used as a pretext to arrest them. The weight of evidence was totally irrelevant.

In their current predicament trying to see his parents was an act of sheer brazenness. But there was no train back to Voualsk until five in the morning and more to the point Leo understood this would be his last chance to speak to them. Although he’d been refused contact with them since leaving Moscow and been given no details of their whereabouts, he had acquired the address several weeks ago. Knowing that the State departments tended to operate in autonomy, he’d felt there was a chance that an enquiry to the Department of Housing about Stepan and Anna wouldn’t be automatically flagged up and passed on to the MGB. As a precaution he’d given a false name and tried to make his request seem as though it was official business, asking for a selection of names, including Galina Shaporina. Although all the other names had drawn a blank he’d managed to locate his parents. Vasili might have been expecting such an attempt; indeed, he might even have given orders for the address to be released. He knew Leo’s weakness in exile would be his parents. If he wanted to catch him violating orders then his parents were the perfect trap. But it seemed unlikely that his parents would be under permanent surveillance for as long as four months. More probable was that the family they were forced to share with were also doubling as informers. He had to reach his parents without the other family seeing or hearing or knowing. His parents’ safety depended upon this secrecy as much as their own. If they were caught, they’d be tied to Ivan’s murder and Leo’s entire family would die, perhaps even before the night was over. Leo was prepared to take the risk. He had to say goodbye.

They’d arrived on Ulitsa Vorontsovskaya. The house in question was an old building, pre-Revolutionary — the kind that had been sliced into a hundred tiny apartments, partitioned by nothing more than dirty sheets hanging off lengths of rope. There would be no amenities, no running water and no indoor toilets. Leo could see pipes jutting out of the windows to release the smoke from the wood stoves, the cheapest and dirtiest form of heating available. Surveying the property from a safe distance, they waited. Mosquitoes landed on their necks forcing them to continually slap their skin until their hands were spotted with their own blood. Leo knew no matter how long he stood here there was no way he could ascertain if this was a trap. He’d have to go in. He turned to Raisa. Before he could speak, she said:

— I’ll wait here.

Raisa felt ashamed. She’d trusted Ivan; her opinion of him had been based solely on the trappings of his books and papers, his musings on Western culture, his alleged plans to help key dissident writers smuggle their works out to the West. Lies: all of it — how many writers and opponents of the regime had he snared? How many manuscripts had he burnt so that they were lost to the world? How many artists and free-thinkers had he directed the Chekists to arrest? She’d fallen for him because of his obvious differences to Leo. The difference had been a disguise. The dissident had been the policeman and the policeman had become the counter-revolutionary. The dissident had betrayed her, the policeman saved her. She could hardly say goodbye to Leo’s parents, side by side with her husband, as though she’d been a loyal, loving wife. Leo took her hand.

— I’d like you to come with me.

The communal door was unlocked. The air inside was hot, stale and they immediately began to sweat: their clothes clung to their backs. Upstairs, apartment 27, the door was locked. Leo had broken into many properties. The older locks were normally more difficult to pick than the modern ones. Using the tip of a flick knife, he unscrewed the plate, revealing the lock mechanism. He inserted the blade but the lock refused to open. He wiped the sweat from his face, stopping for a moment, breathing deeply, closing his eyes. He dried his hands on his trousers, ignoring the mosquitoes — let them have their fill. He opened his eyes. Concentrate. The lock clicked open.

The only light came from the window facing the street. The room stank of sleeping bodies. Leo and Raisa waited by the door, adjusting to the gloom. They could distinguish the outline of three beds: two of the beds contained adult couples. A smaller bed appeared to have three children sleeping in it. In the kitchen area two small children slept on rugs on the floor like dogs under a table. Leo moved towards the sleeping adults. Neither of them were his parents. Had he been given the wrong address? Such incompetence was commonplace. Maybe the wrong address had been given to him deliberately?

Seeing the outline of another door, he moved towards it, the floorboards straining under each step. Raisa was just behind and of much lighter tread. The couple in the nearest bed began to stir. Leo paused, waiting for them to settle down. The couple remained asleep. Leo continued, Raisa following. He reached out, taking hold of the door handle.

There were no windows in this room, no light whatsoever. Leo had to keep the door open in order to see anything. He could make out that there were two beds and barely a gap between them. Not even a dirty sheet partitioned them. One bed contained two children. In the other bed there was an adult couple. He moved closer. These were his parents, sleeping pressed against each other, in a narrow single bed. Leo stood up, returning to Raisa and whispering:

— Shut the door.

Forced to move in total darkness, Leo felt his way along the bed until he was crouched on the floor beside his parents. He listened to them sleep, glad it was dark. He was crying. The room they’d been forced into was smaller than the bathroom of their previous apartment. They had no space of their own and no way of cutting themselves off from this family. They’d been sent here to die in parallel to their son’s intended demise: humiliated.

At exactly the same time he placed his hands over their mouths. He could feel them waking, startled, tense. To stop them from calling out he whispered:

— It’s me. Leo. Don’t make a noise.

The tension in their bodies disappeared. He removed his hands from their mouths. He could hear them sitting up. He felt his mother’s hands on his face. Blind, in this darkness, she was touching him. Her fingers stopped moving when they felt his tears. He heard her voice, barely a whisper:

— Leo…

His father’s hands joined hers. Leo pressed their hands against his face. He’d sworn to look after them and he’d failed. All he could do was mutter:

— I’m sorry.

His father replied:

— You’ve nothing to apologize for. We would’ve lived like this all of our life had it not been for you.

His mother interrupted, her mind catching up with all the questions she wanted to ask:

— We thought you were dead. We were told you’d both been arrested.

— They lied. We’ve been sent to Voualsk. I was demoted, not imprisoned. I’m now working for the militia. I wrote to you many times, asking the letters be forwarded to you but they must have been intercepted and destroyed.

The children in the nearby bed stirred, their bed frame creaking. Everyone fell silent. Leo waited until he could hear the children’s deep, slow breathing.

— Raisa is here.

He guided their hands to her. All four of them held hands. His mother asked.

— The baby?

— No.

Leo added, not wanting to complicate this reunion:

— Miscarriage.

Raisa spoke again, her voice broken with emotion.

— I’m sorry.

— This is not your fault.

Anna added:

— How long are you in Moscow for? Can we meet tomorrow?

— No, we shouldn’t be here at all. If we’re caught we’ll be imprisoned and you will be too. We leave first thing in the morning.

— Shall we come outside so we can talk?

Leo thought about this. There was no way they’d all be able to leave the apartment without waking some of the family.

— We can’t risk waking them. We have to talk here.

No one spoke for a while, four sets of hands clasped together in the darkness. Eventually Leo said:

— I have to get you a better place to live.

— No, Leo. Listen to me. You’ve often behaved as if our love was dependent on the things you could do for us. Even as a child. That is not true. You must concentrate on your lives. We’re old. It doesn’t matter where we live any more. The only thing that has kept us alive is waiting for some news from you. We must accept that this will be the last time we meet. We mustn’t make futile plans. We must say goodbye while we have the chance. Leo, I love you and I’m proud of you. I wish you could’ve had a better government to serve.

Anna’s voice was now quite calm.

— You have each other, you love each other. You will have a good life, I believe that. Things will be different for you and for your children. Russia will be different. I feel very hopeful.

A fantasy, but she enjoyed believing it and Leo said nothing to contradict it.

Stepan took hold of Leo’s hand, placing in it an envelope.

— This is a letter I wrote to you many months ago. I never had the chance to give it to you because you were sent away. I didn’t want to post it. Read this when you’re safely on the train. Promise me not to read it earlier. Promise me.

— What is it?

— Your mother and I considered very carefully the contents of this letter. It contains everything we wanted to say to you but were unable to for one reason or another. It contains all the things we should’ve spoken about a long time ago.

— Father…

— Take it, Leo, for us.

Leo accepted the letter and in the darkness the four of them hugged for the last time.

6 July

Leo approached the train, Raisa beside him. Were there more officers than usual on the platform? Was it possible they were already looking for them? Raisa was walking too fast: he took hold of her hand, briefly, and she slowed. The letter written by his parents had been stashed with the case file attached to his chest. They were almost at their carriage.

They boarded the crowded train. Leo whispered to Raisa.

— Stay here.

She nodded. He entered the cramped toilet, locking the door behind him, dropping the toilet lid to reduce the smell. Taking off his jacket, unbuttoning his shirt, he removed the thin cotton bag he’d stitched to hold the case file. It was soaked with sweat and the ink from the typed documents had made an impression on his skin, writing printed across his chest.

He found the letter, turning it over in his hand. No name on the envelope, it was crumpled, dirty. He wondered how his parents had managed to keep it a secret from the other family, who inevitably would’ve searched through their belongings. One of them must have kept the letter on their person at all the times, morning and night.

The train began to move, leaving Moscow. He’d kept his promise. He was now allowed to read it. He waited until they’d left the station before opening the envelope and unfolding the letter. It was his father’s handwriting.

Leo, neither your mother nor I have any regrets. We love you. We always expected there would come a day when we’d talk to you about this matter. To our surprise that day never came. We thought you would raise it when you were ready. But you never did, you’ve always acted as though it never happened. Perhaps it was easier to teach yourself to forget? This is why we said nothing. We thought this was your way of dealing with the past. We were afraid that you’d blanked it out and that bringing it up again would only cause hurt and pain. In short, we were happy together and we didn’t want to ruin that. That was cowardly of us.


I say once again, both I and your mother love you very much, and neither of us have any regrets.


Leo—

Leo stopped reading, turning his head away. Yes, he remembered what had happened. He knew what the letter would go on to say. And yes, he’d spent his whole life trying to forget. He folded the letter before carefully ripping it into small pieces. He stood up, opening the small window, throwing the fragments out. Caught in the wind, the uneven squares of paper rose up into the air and disappeared out of view.

South-Eastern Roston Oblast Sixteen Kilometres North of Rostov-on-Don

Same Day


Nesterov had spent his last day in the oblast visiting the town of Gukovo. He was now on the elektrichka, travelling back towards Rostov. Though the newspapers made no mention of these crimes, the incidents of murdered children had entered the public domain in the form of whispers and rumour. So far the militia in their closed localities had refused to see each murder as anything other than an isolated occurrence. But people outside of the militia, unburdened by any theory regarding the nature of crime, had begun to thread together these deaths. Unofficial explanations had begun to circulate. Nesterov had heard it stated that there was a wild beast murdering children in the forests around Shakhty. Different places had conjured different beasts, and supernatural explanations of one kind or another were being repeated all across the oblast. He’d heard a fearful mother claim the beast was part man part animal, a child brought up by bears who now hated all normal children, making them its food source. One village had been sure it was a vengeful forest spirit, the inhabitants performing elaborate ceremonies in an attempt to mollify this demon.

The people living in the Rostov oblast had no idea that there were similar crimes hundreds of kilometres away. They believed this was their blight, an evil that plagued them. In a way Nesterov agreed with them. There was no doubt in his mind that he was in the heartland of these crimes. The concentration of murders was far higher here than anywhere else. While he had no inclination to believe the supernatural explanations, he was in part seduced by the most persuasive and widespread of the theories, the notion that Nazi soldiers had been left behind as Hitler’s final act of revenge: soldiers whose last orders were to murder Russia’s children. These Nazi soldiers had been trained in the Russian way of life, blending in, while systematically murdering children according to a predetermined ritual. It would explain the scale of the murders, the geographical scope, the savagery but also the absence of any sexual interference. There wasn’t one killer but many, perhaps as many as ten or twelve, each acting independently, travelling to towns and killing indiscriminately. This theory had developed such momentum that some local militia, who’d paradoxically claimed to have solved all the crimes, began questioning any man who could speak German.

Nesterov stood up, stretching his legs. He’d been on the elektrichka for three hours. It was slow and uncomfortable and he wasn’t used to sitting still for so long. He walked the length of the carriage, opening the window, watching the lights of the city approach. Having heard about the murder of a boy named Petya living on a collective farm near Gukovo he’d travelled there this morning. Without too much difficulty he’d found the parents of the boy concerned. Though he’d given a false name he’d truthfully explained that he was working on an investigation involving the similar murders of a number of children. The boy’s parents had been staunch advocates of the Nazi-soldier theory, explaining that the Germans might even have been helped by traitorous Ukrainians, assisting them to integrate into society before murdering at random. The boy’s father had shown Nesterov Petya’s book of stamps, which the couple kept in its wooden box under their bed, a shrine to their dead son. Neither of them could look at the stamps without crying. Both parents had been refused access to their boy’s body. But they’d heard what had been done to him. He’d been savaged as if by an animal, dirt thrust in his mouth as if to spite them further. The father, who’d fought in the Great Patriotic War, knew that the Nazi soldiers were given drugs to ensure they were vicious, amoral and merciless. He was sure that these killers were the products of some such Nazi-created drug. Maybe they’d been made addicted to children’s blood, without which they’d die. How else could these men commit such crimes? Nesterov had no words of consolation except a promise that the culprit would be caught.

The elektrichka arrived at Rostov. Nesterov disembarked, confident only that he’d found the centre of these crimes. Having once been a member of the militia in Rostov before being transferred to Voualsk four years ago he’d had little difficulty gathering information. According to his most recent count fifty-seven children had been killed in what he considered to be comparable circumstances. A high portion of those murders had taken place in this oblast. Was it possible that across the entire western half of the country Nazi infiltrators had been left behind? An enormous stretch of land had been occupied by the Wehrmacht. He himself had fought in the Ukraine and encountered first-hand the rape and murder by the retreating army. Deciding not to commit himself to one theory or another, he pushed these explanations to one side. Leo’s mission in Moscow would be crucial to bring some kind of professionalism to the speculation of the killer’s identity. Nesterov had been tasked with the accumulation of facts regarding the killer’s location.

During their vacation his family had been staying in his mother’s apartment in the New Settlement, built during one of the postwar accommodation programmes with all the usual characteristics: constructed to fulfil a quota rather than to be lived in. They were already in a state of decay: they’d been in a state of decay before they were even finished. With no running water or central plumbing, they were similar to his home back in Voualsk. He and Inessa had agreed to lie to his mother, assuring her that they were now living in a new apartment. His mother had been comforted by the lie as though she herself was now living in that new apartment too. Approaching his mother’s house Nesterov checked his watch. He’d left at six this morning and it was now coming up to nine in the evening. Fifteen hours had been spent for the gain of no real information. His time was up. Tomorrow they were returning home.

He entered the courtyard. Washing hung from side to side. He could see his own clothes amongst them. He touched them. They were dry. Moving through the washing he approached the door of his mother’s apartment, entering the kitchen.

Inessa was seated on a wooden stool, her face bloody, her hands tied. Behind her stood a man he didn’t recognize. Without trying to figure out what had happened or who this man was Nesterov strode forward, overwhelmed with anger. He didn’t care that the man was wearing a uniform: he’d kill him all the same, whoever he was. He raised his fist. Before he could get close pain engulfed his hand. Looking to the side he saw a woman, perhaps forty years old. She was holding a black truncheon. He’d seen her face before. He remembered now — on the beach, two days ago. In her other hand she held a gun, casually, enjoying her position of power. She gestured to her officer. He stepped forward, throwing a selection of papers onto the floor. Falling around their feet was every document he’d accumulated over the past two months, photos, descriptions, maps — the case file of the murdered children.

— General Nesterov, you’re under arrest.

Voualsk

7 July


Leo and Raisa got off the train, waiting on the platform, pretending to fix their bags until all the other passengers had moved into the main building. It was late but not yet dark and feeling exposed they climbed off the platform, hurrying into the forest.

Reaching the spot where they’d hidden their belongings, Leo stopped, catching his breath. He stared up at the trees, wondering at his decision to destroy the letter. Had he done his parents a disservice? He understood why they’d wanted to write down their thoughts and feelings: they’d wanted to make their peace. But Raisa had been right about him when she’d said:


Is that how you’re able to sleep at night, by blanking events from your mind?


She was more right than she knew.

Raisa touched his arm.

— Are you OK?

She’d asked him what was in the letter. He’d considered lying and telling her it contained information about his family — personal details that he’d forgotten. But she’d have known he was lying. So, instead, he’d told her the truth that he’d destroyed the letter, ripped it into a hundred pieces, thrown it out of the window. He didn’t want to read it. His parents could rest easily believing that they’d unburdened themselves. To his relief she hadn’t questioned his decision and hadn’t mentioned it since.

Using their hands they dug away at the cover of leaves and loose soil, unearthing their belongings. They took off their city clothes, intending to change back into the trail gear they’d set out in — a necessary part of their cover. Undressed, alone, they paused, naked, staring at each other. Perhaps it was the danger, perhaps it was opportunistic, but Leo wanted her. Uncertain about her feelings for him, he did nothing, waiting, afraid to make the first move, as though they’d never had sex before, as though this was their first time with both of them unsure of the boundaries, unsure what was acceptable and what wasn’t. She reached out, touching his hand. That was enough. He pulled her towards him, kissing her. They’d murdered together, deceived together, plotted and planned and lied together. They were criminals, the two of them, them against the world. It was time to consummate this new relationship. If only they could stay here, live here in this exact moment, hidden in the forests, enjoying these feelings forever.


They rejoined the forest trail, walking into town. Arriving at Basarov’s they entered the main room. Leo was holding his breath, expecting hands to grab his shoulders. But there was no one here, no agents and no officers. They were safe, at least for another day. Basarov was in the kitchen and didn’t even turn round when he heard them arrive.

Upstairs, they unlocked their room. A note had been pushed under the door. Leo put his bags down on the bed. He picked up the note. It was from Nesterov, dated today.

Leo, if you’re back as planned, meet me tonight in my office at nine. Come alone. Bring all the documents relating to the matter we’ve been discussing. Leo, it’s very important that you’re not late.

Leo checked his watch. He had half an hour.

Same Day

Even back in the militia headquarters, Leo was taking no chances. He’d hidden the papers in official documents. The blinds to Nesterov’s office were drawn shut and it was impossible to see in. He checked his watch: he was late, two minutes late. Unable to see how that would matter particularly, he knocked on the door. Almost as soon as he did the door was opened, as though Nesterov had been waiting behind it. Leo was ushered in with a sudden, inexplicable urgency, the door shut behind him.

Nesterov was moving with an uncharacteristic impatience. His desk was covered with documents from the case file. He took hold of Leo by the shoulders and spoke in a hushed, hurried voice.

— Listen very carefully and don’t interrupt. I was arrested in Rostov. I was forced to confess. I had no choice. They had my family. I told them everything. I thought I might be able to persuade them to help, persuade them that they should to elevate our case to an official level. They reported it back to Moscow. They’ve accused us of anti-Soviet agitation. They think this is a personal vendetta you have against the State, an act of revenge. They dismissed our findings as an elaborate piece of Western propaganda: they’re certain that you and your wife are working as spies. They offered me a choice. They’re prepared to leave my family alone if I give them you and all the information we’ve collected.

Leo’s world fell away. Even though he’d known danger was close he hadn’t expected it to cut across his path just yet.

— When?

— Right now. The building’s surrounded. Agents will enter this room in fifteen minutes, arresting you in this office and collecting every piece of evidence we’ve amassed. I’m to spend these minutes finding out all the information you discovered in Moscow.

Leo stepped back, looking at his watch. It was five past nine.

— Leo, you have to listen to me. There’s a way for you to escape. But for this to work don’t interrupt, don’t ask any questions. I’ve come up with a plan. You’re going to hit me with my gun, knocking me unconscious. You’re then going to leave this office, go down one flight of stairs and hide in the offices to the right of the stairway. Leo, are you listening? You need to concentrate. The doors are unlocked. Go into them, don’t turn on the lights and lock the doors behind you.

But Leo wasn’t listening — all he could think about was.

— Raisa?

— She’s being arrested as we speak. I’m sorry but there’s nothing you can do about her. You need to concentrate, Leo, or this is over.

— This is over. This was over the moment you told them everything.

— They had everything, Leo. They had my work. They had my file. What was I supposed to do? Let them kill my family? They still would’ve arrested you. Leo, you can get angry with me, or you can escape.

Leo shook free of Nesterov’s grip, pacing the office, his mind trying to catch up. Raisa had been arrested. They’d both known this moment would come but had understood it only as a concept, an idea. They hadn’t understood what it would mean. The prospect of never seeing her again made it difficult to breathe. Their relationship, their relationship reborn, consummated barely two hours ago in the forest, was over.

— Leo!

What would she want? She wouldn’t want him to get sentimental. She’d want him to succeed, to escape, to listen.

— Leo!

— All right, what’s your plan?

Nesterov continued, recapping the first part:

— You’re going to hit me with my gun, knocking me unconscious. You’re then going to leave this office, go down one flight of stairs and hide in the offices to the right of the stairway. Hide in those offices; wait until the agents enter the building. They’ll come up to this floor, passing you by. Once they’ve gone past, you descend to the ground floor, exiting through one of the windows at the back. There’s a car parked there. Here are the keys, which you will have stolen from me. You have to leave town, don’t look for anyone or stop for anything, just drive. You will have a small advantage. They’ll believe that you’re on foot, somewhere in the town. By the time they realize you’ve taken a car, you should be free.

— Free to do what?

— To solve these crimes.

— My trip to Moscow was a washout. The eyewitness refused to talk. I still don’t have any more of an idea of who this man is.

That took Nesterov by surprise.

— Leo, you can do this, I know it. I believe in you. You need to head to Rostov-on-Don. That’s the centre of these crimes. I’m convinced that’s where your efforts must be focused. There are theories about who is killing these children. One involves a group of former Nazi—

Leo interrupted.

— No, it’s the work of an individual, acting alone. He has a job. He appears normal. If you’re sure the concentration of murders is Rostov then it’s likely he lives and works there. His job is the connection between all these locations. His job means that he travels: he kills as he travels. If we can work out his job, then we have the man.

Leo checked his watch. There were only minutes left before he’d have to leave. Nesterov put his fingers on the two towns in question.

— What is the connection between Rostov and Voualsk? There have been no murders east of this town. At least that we know of. That suggests that this is the end point, this is his destination.

Leo agreed.

— Voualsk has the car assembly plant. There are no other significant industries here other than the lumber mills. But there are lots of factories in Rostov.

Nesterov knew both locations better than Leo.

— The car factory and the Rostelmash share close ties.

— What is the Rostelmash?

— A tractor factory, enormous, the biggest in the USSR.

— Do they share components?

— The tyres for the GAZ-20 come from there while engine components are shipped south in exchange.

Could that be the connection? The murders followed the train lines up from the south and across into the west, point to point. Running with this theory, Leo remarked.

— If the car plant sends deliveries to the Rostelmash factory then that factory must employ a tolkach. Someone travels here to make sure the car plant fulfils its quota obligations.

— There have only been two child-murders here and they were recent. The factories have been working together for some time.

— The murders in the north of the country have been the most recent. That means he’s just got this job. Or that he’s only just been posted along this route. We need the employment records at Rostelmash. If we’re right, by cross-referencing those records with the locations of these murders we’ll have the man.

They were close. If they weren’t being hunted, if they had the freedom to act at their leisure, they could’ve discovered the killer’s name by the end of the week. But they didn’t have a week, or the support of the State. They had four minutes. It was eleven past nine. Leo had to leave. He took one document — the list of murders, compiled with dates and locations. That was all he needed. Having folded it into his pocket he moved to the door. Nesterov stopped him. He was holding his gun. Leo took hold of the weapon, delaying for a moment. Nesterov saw this hesitation and remarked:

— Or my family will die.

Leo struck him across the side of his head, splitting the skin and sending him to his knees. Still conscious, he looked up.

— Good luck, now hit me properly.

Leo raised the gun. Nesterov closed his eyes.

Hurrying into the corridor, Leo reached the stairs only to realize he’d forgotten the car keys. They were on the table. He turned around, ran back down the corridor into the office, stepping over Nesterov, grabbing the keys. He was late — nine fifteen, agents were entering the building. Leo was still in the office, exactly where they wanted him. He ran out, down the corridor, down the stairs. He could hear footsteps coming up towards him. Reaching the third floor he darted to the right, grabbing hold of the nearest office door. It was unlocked, as Nesterov had promised. He entered, locking the door behind him just as the agents ran up the stairs.

Leo waited in the gloom. All the blinds had been closed so that no one from outside could see in. He could hear the clump of footsteps. There were at least four agents on this stairway. He was tempted to remain in this room, behind this locked door, in temporary safety. The windows opened out onto the main square. He glanced out. There was a ring of men outside the main entrance. He pulled away from the window. He had to reach the ground floor and the back. He unlocked the door, peering out. The corridor was empty. Shutting the door behind him he moved to the stairway. He could hear an agent’s voice below him. Leo ran to the next stairway. He couldn’t see or hear anyone. As soon as he began running, shouting broke out on the top floor: they’d found Nesterov.

A second wave of agents entered the building, alerted by the calls of their colleagues. It was too much of a risk going down another flight of steps, and abandoning Nesterov’s plan, Leo remained on the first floor. He only had moments of confusion to exploit before the men organized themselves into search teams. Unable to reach the ground floor, he ran along the corridor, entering the toilet, a room facing out onto the back of the building. He opened the window. The window was high up, narrow, barely wide enough to squeeze through. The only way he’d fit was if he clambered head first. Checking outside, he couldn’t see any officers. He was maybe five metres above the ground. He pulled his body through the window, hanging above the ground, supported by his feet. There was nothing to grab onto. He’d have to let himself fall, protecting his head with his hands.

He hit the ground with his palms, his wrists snapping back. He heard a shout, looked up. An agent was at the top-floor window. Leo had been spotted. Ignoring the pain in his wrists, he stood up, running towards the side street where the car was meant to be parked. Shots rang out. Puffs of brick dust exploded to the side of his head. He dropped down, crouching, still running. More shots rang out, pinging off the street. He turned the corner out of the line of fire.

The car was there, parked, ready. He clambered in, slotting the key in the ignition. The engine spluttered and died. He tried again. It wouldn’t start. He tried again—please—this time it started. Putting the car into gear, he pulled out, accelerating, careful not to let the tyres screech. It was crucial that the agents following didn’t see the car. He’d be one of the few cars on the streets. Since it was a militia vehicle, hopefully any officers who saw it would presume he was on their side whilst they continued their search on foot.

There was no traffic. Leo was driving too fast, too ragged, heading out of the city. Nesterov was wrong: he couldn’t drive all the way to Rostov. For a start it was several hundred kilometres, he didn’t have anywhere near enough petrol and he had no way of getting any more. More importantly, once they figured out that he’d taken a car they’d shut down all the roads. He had to get as far away as he could then dump the car, conceal it and slip into the countryside, before boarding a train. As long as they didn’t find the abandoned car his chances were much better without it.

He accelerated onto the only major connecting road which led in and out of the town, travelling west. He checked the rear-view mirror. If they were going to organize a comprehensive search of the nearby buildings, believing him to be on foot, then he might have at least an hour or so head start. He increased his speed, reaching the car’s top speed of eighty kilometres per hour.

Up ahead there were men standing on the road clustered around a parked car: a militia car. It was a roadblock. They’d taken no chances. If the road west was blocked so was the road heading east. They’d closed down the entire town. His only hope now lay in punching through the roadblock. He’d pick up enough speed, smash into the car positioned across the road. The car would be knocked aside. He’d have to control the impact. With their car damaged, they wouldn’t be able to pursue him immediately. It was desperate, shortening his advantage to a matter of minutes.

The agents up ahead began firing. Bullets hit the front of the car, sparking against the metal. A bullet punctured the windscreen. Leo lowered himself behind the steering wheel, no longer able to see the road. The car was in position: he just had to hold steady. Bullets continued smashing through the windscreen. Fragments of glass showered down. He was still on course — braced for the collision.

The car lurched down and to the side. Sitting back up in the seat, Leo tried to maintain control but the car veered left, pulling away from him. The tyres had been shot out. There was nothing he could do. The car flipped onto its side, the window smashing. He was thrown against the door, millimetres from the road, skidding, sparks flaring up. The front smashed into the other car, spinning Leo’s car around. It rolled onto the roof, running off the road into the verge. Leo was tossed from the door to the roof where he lay huddled as the car finally came to a stop.


Leo opened his eyes. He wasn’t sure if he could move and he couldn’t muster the strength to find out. He was staring up at the night sky. His thoughts moved slowly. He was no longer in the car. Someone must have dragged him out. A face appeared above him, blocking the stars, looking down at him. Concentrating, Leo focused on the man’s face.

It was Vasili.

Rostov-on-Don

Same Day


Aron had been under the impression that a job in the militia might be exciting or at least more exciting than working on a kolkhoz. He’d always known it didn’t pay very well but the upside was that competition wasn’t fierce. When it came to looking for work he’d never been a strong candidate. There was nothing wrong with him. In fact, he’d done well at school. However, he’d been born with a deformed upper lip. That’s what the doctor had told him — it was deformed and there was nothing he could do. It looked as though a portion of his upper lip had been cut away and the remaining bits stitched together so that the lip went up in the middle, revealing a portion of his front teeth. The overall result was a permanent sneer. Although this made no difference to his ability to work it certainly made a difference to his ability to get a job. The militia had seemed like the perfect solution, they were hungry for applicants. They’d bully him, make comments behind his back — he was used to that. He’d put up with it all just as long as he got to use his brain.

Yet here he was, in the middle of the night, sitting in the bushes, getting bitten by bugs, watching a bus shelter for signs of


unusual activity.


Aron hadn’t been told why he was sitting here or what unusual activity might possibly mean. As one of the youngest members of the department, only twenty years old, he wondered if this was some kind of initiation ritual — a test of loyalty, to see if he could follow orders. Obedience was valued more than anything else.

So far the only person around was a girl at the nearby bus stop. She was young, maybe fourteen or fifteen, but she was trying to look older. She seemed drunk. Her shirt was unbuttoned. He watched her straighten her skirt and play with her hair. What was she doing at the bus stop? There were no buses until the morning.

A man approached. He was tall, wearing a hat and long coat. His glasses had lenses as thick as glass bottoms. Carrying a smart case, he stood by the timetable, reading it with his finger. As though the girl was some kind of scantily clad spider, waiting in the corner she immediately got up, moving towards him. He continued reading the timetable as the girl circled him, touching his case, his hand, his jacket. The man seemed to ignore these advances until finally he looked away from the timetable, studying the girl. They spoke. Aron couldn’t hear what they were saying. The girl disagreed with something, shaking her head. Then she shrugged. They were in agreement. The man turned around and seemed to stare straight at Aron, looking right at the undergrowth beside the shelter. Had the man seen him? It didn’t seem likely — they were in light, he was in shadow. Both the man and girl began walking towards him, straight towards the place where he was hiding.

Aron was confused, checking his position — he was completely hidden. They couldn’t have seen him. Even if they had, why were they walking towards him? They were only metres away. He could hear them talking. He waited, crouched into the undergrowth, only to find that they’d walked straight past him, heading into the trees.

Aron stood up.

— Stop!

The man froze, his shoulders hunched up. He turned around. Aron did his best to sound authoritative.

— What are you two doing?

The girl, who didn’t seem at all afraid or concerned, answered:

— We were going for a walk. What happened to your lip? It’s really ugly.

Aron flushed with embarrassment. The girl was staring at it with obvious disgust. He paused for a moment, composing himself.

— You were going to have sex. In a public place; you’re a prostitute.

— No, we were going for a walk.

The man added, his voice pathetic, barely audible:

— No one has done anything wrong. We were just having a conversation.

— Let me see your papers.

The man stepped forward, fumbling for his papers in his jacket. The girl hung back, nonchalant: no doubt she’d been stopped before. She didn’t seem fazed. He checked the man’s papers. The man was called Andrei. The papers were in order.

— Open your case.

Andrei hesitated, sweating profusely. He’d been caught. He’d never imagined this would happen: he’d never imagined his plan would fail. He lifted the case, opening the buckle. The young officer peered in, his hand tentatively searching through. Andrei stared down at his shoes, waiting. When he looked up the officer was holding his knife, a long knife with a serrated blade. Andrei felt close to tears.

— Why do you carry this?

— I travel a lot. Often I eat on trains. I use the knife to cut salami. Cheap, tough salami but my wife refuses to buy any other kind.

Andrei did use the knife for lunch and dinner. The officer found half a stick of salami. It was cheap and tough. The edge was rough. It had been cut by the same knife.

Aron lifted out a glass jar with a sealed top. The jar was clean and empty.

— What’s this for?

— Some of the component parts I collect, as samples, are fragile, some are dirty. This jar is useful for my work. Listen, officer, I know I shouldn’t have gone off with this girl. I don’t know what came over me. I was here, checking the times for the buses tomorrow and she approached me. You know how it is — with urges. One came over me. But look in the pocket of the case, you’ll find my Party membership card.

Aron found the card. He also found a photograph of the man’s wife and two daughters.

— My daughters. There’s no need to take this any further, is there, officer? The girl is the one to blame: I would’ve been on my way home by now otherwise.

A decent citizen momentarily corrupted by a drunken girl, a reprobate. This man had been polite: he hadn’t stared at Aron’s lip or made any disparaging comments. He’d treated him as an equal even though he was older with a better job and a member of the Party. He was the victim. She was the criminal.

Having felt the net close around him, Andrei realized he was almost free. The photograph of his family had proved invaluable on numerous occasions. He sometimes used it to persuade reluctant children that he was a man who could be trusted. He was a father himself. In his trouser pocket he could feel the coarse length of string. Not tonight; he’d have to exercise patience in the future. He could no longer kill in his home town.

Aron was about to let the man go, putting the card and photograph back, when he caught sight of something else in the case: a slip of newspaper folded in half. He pulled it out, opening it up.

Andrei was unable to watch this idiot with his revolting lip touch that piece of paper with his dirty fingers. He could barely stop himself from snatching it from his hands.

— May I have that back, please?

For the first time the man’s voice had become agitated. Why was this paper so important to him? Aron studied the page. It was a clipping from several years ago, the ink had faded. There was no text, no copy — that had all been cut away so that it was impossible to tell which newspaper it had come from. All that remained was a photograph taken during the Great Patriotic War. It showed the burning wreck of a panzer. Russian soldiers stood with guns triumphantly pointing into the air, dead German soldiers at their feet. It was a victory photo, a propaganda photo. With his deformed upper lip Aron understood all too well why this photo had been printed in a newspaper. The Russian soldier at the centre of the photo was a handsome man with a winning smile.

Moscow

10 July


Leo’s face was swollen, tender to touch. His right eye remained closed, hidden beneath folds of puffy skin. There was intense pain down the side of his chest as though he’d broken several ribs. He’d been given basic medical assistance at the scene of the crash, but as soon as it had been ascertained that his life wasn’t in danger he’d been loaded into a truck under armed guard. On the journey back to Moscow he’d felt each bump in the road like a punch in the gut. Without painkillers on the journey he had passed out several times. His guards had woken him by prodding him with the barrels of their guns, fearful of him dying on their watch. Leo had spent the journey alternating between feverish heat and freezing cold. These injuries, he accepted, were merely the beginning.

The irony of ending up here — secured to a chair in a basement interrogation cell in the Lubyanka — hadn’t escaped his attention. A guardian of the State had become its prisoner, a not uncommon reversal of fortunes. This is what it felt like to be an enemy of his country.

The door opened. Leo raised his head. Who was this man with sallow skin and yellow-stained teeth? He was a former colleague, he remembered that much. But he couldn’t remember the man’s name.

— You don’t remember me?

— No.

— I’m Dr Zarubin. We’ve met on a couple of occasions. I visited you when you were ill not so many months ago. I’m sorry to see you in this predicament. I say that not as a criticism of the action being taken against you; that is just and fair. I simply mean that I wish you hadn’t done it.

— What have I done?

— You’ve betrayed your country.

The doctor felt Leo’s ribs. Each touch caused him to clench his teeth.

— Your ribs aren’t broken, as I was told. They’re bruised. No doubt it’s painful. But none of your injuries require surgery. I’ve been ordered to clean up the cuts and change the dressings.

— Treatment before torture, a quirk of this place. I once saved a man’s life only to bring him here. I should have let Brodsky drown in that river.

— I don’t know this man of whom you speak.

Leo fell silent. Anyone could regret their actions once the tables had been turned. He understood, more clearly than ever, that his only chance of redemption had slipped through his fingers. The killer would continue to kill, concealed not by any masterful brilliance but by his country’s refusal to admit that such a man even existed, wrapping him in perfect immunity.

The doctor finished patching up Leo’s injuries. Such assistance was intended to guarantee full sensitivity to the torture which would follow. Make them better so they could be hurt to a greater extent. The doctor leaned down and whispered into Leo’s ear.

— I’m now going to tend to your wife. Your pretty wife, she’s tied up next door. Quite helpless, and it’s your fault. Everything I’m going to do to her is your fault. I’m going to make her hate the day she ever loved you. I’m going to make her say it aloud.

As though it had been spoken in a foreign language it took a while for Leo to comprehend what was being said to him. He had no grudge against this man. He’d barely recognized him. Why was he threatening Raisa? Leo tried to stand up, lunging for the doctor. But his chair was secured to the floor and he was secured to the chair.

Dr Zarubin pulled back, like a man who’d put his head too close to a lion’s cage. He watched Leo strain against his restraints, his veins bulging in his neck, his face red, his eye pathetically swollen. It was intriguing — like watching a fly trapped under a glass. This man didn’t understand the nature of his predicament.


Helplessness


The doctor picked up his case and waited for the guard to open the door. He expected Leo to call out after him, perhaps threaten to kill him. But on that front, at least, he was disappointed.

He walked down the basement corridor, a matter of metres, arriving at the adjacent cell. The door was opened. Zarubin entered. Raisa was seated and secured in exactly the same way as her husband. The doctor was excited by the prospect of her recognizing him and recognizing that she should have accepted his offer. If she had, she would’ve been safe. She was evidently not the skilled survivor he’d taken her for. She had extraordinary beauty, something she’d failed to capitalize on, opting instead for fidelity. Perhaps she believed in an afterlife, a heaven where her loyalty would be rewarded. It had no value here.

Convinced that he’d find her regret stimulating, he expected her to beg:


Help me.


She’d accept any conditions now: he could ask anything of her. He could treat her like filth and she’d willingly accept it and plead for more. She’d submit to him completely. The doctor opened the grate on the wall. Although the grate appeared to be part of a ventilation system, in fact it was designed to carry sound from one cell to another. He wanted Leo to listen to every word.

Raisa stared up at Zarubin, watching as he struck a look of pantomime sadness, no doubt trying to communicate a sense of pity, as if to say:


If only you’d accepted my offer.


He put his case down and began examining her even though she had no injuries.

— I need to study every part of you. For my report, you understand.

Raisa had been taken without any fuss. The restaurant had been surrounded: agents had entered and secured her. As she’d been escorted out, Basarov had shouted with predictable malice that she deserved whatever punishment she got. Tied up in the back of a truck, given no information, she had no idea what had happened to Leo until she overheard an officer say they’d got him. She guessed, from the satisfaction in his voice, that Leo had at least attempted to escape.

She tried to remain looking straight ahead as the doctor’s hands crept across her body, as though he wasn’t there. But she couldn’t help stealing glances at him. His knuckles were hairy, his nails perfectly clean and carefully cut. The guard behind her began to laugh, a childish laugh. She concentrated on the idea that her body was out of his reach and no matter what he did, he wouldn’t be able to lay a finger on her. It was an impossible idea to sustain. His fingers moved up the inside of her leg with awful and deliberate slowness. She felt tears in her eyes. She blinked them away. Zarubin moved closer: his face close to hers. He kissed her cheek, sucking her skin into his mouth as though about to take a bite.

The door opened. Vasili entered. The doctor pulled back, stood up, stepping back. Vasili was annoyed.

— She’s not injured. There’s no need for you to be here.

— I was just making sure.

— You may leave.

Zarubin took his case and left. Vasili closed the grate. He crouched down beside Raisa, observing her tears.

— You’re strong. Maybe you think you can hold out. I understand your desire to stay loyal to your husband.

— Do you?

— You’re right. I don’t. My point is it would be better for you if you told me everything immediately. You think I’m a monster. But do you know who I learnt that particular line from? Your husband, that’s what he used to tell people before they were tortured — some of them in this very room. He meant it sincerely, if that matters.

Raisa stared at this man’s handsome features and wondered, as she had in the train station all those months ago, why he appeared ugly. His eyes were dull, not lifeless or stupid, but cold.

— I’ll tell you everything.

— But will that be enough?


Leo should have been conserving his strength until there was an opportunity to act. That moment wasn’t now. He’d seen many prisoners waste their energy banging fists against doors, shouting, relentlessly pacing their tiny cells. At the time he’d wondered why they couldn’t see the futility of their actions. Now that he was in that same predicament he finally appreciated how they felt. It was as if his body was allergic to this confinement. It had nothing to do with logic or reasoning. He simply couldn’t sit and wait and do nothing. Instead, he strained against his restraints until his wrists began to bleed. Some part of him actually believed he might be able to break these chains even though he’d seen a hundred men and women secured to them and not once had they broken. Lit up with the notion of a great escape, he ignored the fact that this kind of hope was as dangerous as any torture they could inflict.

Vasili entered, gesturing for the guard to place a chair opposite Leo. The guard obeyed, positioning it just outside of Leo’s reach. Vasili stepped forward, picking up the chair and moving it closer. Their knees were almost touching. He stared at Leo, taking in the way his whole body was straining against his restraints.

— Relax, your wife is unharmed. She’s next door.

Vasili waved the guard towards the grate. He opened it. Vasili called out:

— Raisa: say something to your husband. He’s worried about you.

Raisa’s voice could be heard like a faint echo:

— Leo?

Leo pulled back, relaxing his body. Before Leo could answer the guard slammed the grate shut. Leo looked at Vasili.

— There’s no need to torture either of us. You know how many sessions I’ve seen. I understand there’s no point in holding out. Ask me any question, I’ll answer.

— But I already know everything. I’ve read the files you collected. I’ve spoken to General Nesterov. He was very keen that his children shouldn’t grow up in an orphanage. Raisa has confirmed all his information. I only have one question for you. Why?

Leo didn’t understand. But his fight was gone. He just wanted to say whatever it was this man wanted to hear. He spoke like a child addressing a teacher.

— I’m sorry. I mean no disrespect. I don’t understand. You’re asking why…?

— Why risk the little you had, the little we allowed you to keep, for this fantasy?

— You’re asking about the murders?

— The murders have all been solved.

Leo didn’t reply.

— You don’t believe that, do you? You believe that someone or some group of people are randomly murdering Russian boys and girls up and down this country for no reason at all?

— I was wrong. I had a theory. It was wrong. I retract it fully. I’ll sign a retraction, a confession, an admission of guilt.

— You realize you’re guilty of the most serious act of anti-Russian agitation. It feels like Western propaganda, Leo. That, I could understand. If you’re working for the West then you’re a traitor. Maybe they promised you money, power, the things you had lost. That I could at least understand. Is this the case?

— No.

— That is what worries me. It means you genuinely believe these murders were connected rather than the actions of perverts and vagrants and drunks and undesirables. To be blunt, it is madness. I’ve worked with you. I’ve seen how methodical you are. And if the truth be told, I even admired you. Before, that is, you lost your head over your wife. So when I was told of your new adventures it didn’t make sense to me.

— I had a theory. It was wrong. I don’t know what else I can say.

— Why would anyone want to kill these children?

Leo stared at the man opposite him, a man who’d wanted to execute two children for their parents’ association with a vet. He would’ve shot them in the back of the head and thought nothing of it. Yet Vasili had asked this question in earnest.


Why would anyone want to kill these children?


He’d murdered on a scale comparable to the man Leo was hunting, perhaps even greater. And yet he scratched his head over the logic of these crimes. Was it that he couldn’t understand why anyone who wanted to kill simply didn’t join the MGB or become a Gulag guard? If that was his point then Leo understood it. There were so many legitimate outlets for brutality and murder, why choose an unofficial one? But that wasn’t his point.


These children.


Vasili’s confusion came from the fact that these crimes were apparently motiveless. It wasn’t that the murder of children was unfathomable. But what was the gain? What was the angle? There was no official need to kill these children, no notion of it serving a greater good, no material benefit. That was his objection.

Leo repeated.

— I had a theory. It was wrong.

— Perhaps being expelled from Moscow, from a force you’d loyally served for so many years, was a greater shock than we expected. You are a proud man, after all. Your sanity has clearly suffered. That is why I’m going to help you, Leo.

Vasili stood up, mulling the situation over. State Security had been ordered, after Stalin’s death, to cease all use of violence against arrestees. A creature of survival, Vasili had adapted immediately. And yet here was Leo in his grasp. Could Vasili just walk away and leave him to face his sentencing? Was that enough? Would that satisfy him? He turned towards the door, realizing that his urges towards Leo were now as much a danger to himself as they were to Leo. He could feel his usual caution giving way to something personal, something a little like lust. He found it impossible to resist. He gestured for the guard to approach.

— Bring Dr Hvostov.

Even though it was late, Hvostov didn’t feel put out by the abrupt call to work. He was curious as to what could be so important. He shook Vasili’s hand and listened as the situation was summarized, noting that Vasili referred to Leo as a patient not as a prisoner. He understood that this was necessary to guard against the accusation of physical harm. Having heard in brief the patient’s elaborate delusions about a child-killer, the doctor ordered the guard to escort Leo to his treatment room. He was excited about picking away at what lay beneath this outlandish notion.

The room was exactly as Leo remembered it: small and clean, a red leather chair bolted to the white-tiled floor, glass cabinets filled with bottles and powders and pills, labelled with neat white stickers and careful, tidy black handwriting, an array of steel surgical instruments, the smell of disinfectant. He was secured to the same chair Anatoly Brodsky had been secured to; his wrists, ankles and neck were fastened with the same leather straps. Dr Hvostov filled a syringe with camphor oil. Leo’s shirt was cut away, a vein was found. Nothing needed to be explained. Leo had seen it all before. He opened his mouth, waiting for the rubber gag.

Vasili stood, trembling with anticipation as he watched the preparations. Hvostov injected Leo with the oil. Seconds passed by, suddenly Leo’s eyes rolled back in his head. His body began to shake. It was the moment Vasili had dreamt of, a moment he’d planned in his head a thousand times. Leo looked ridiculous, weak and pathetic.

They waited for the more extreme physical reactions to calm down. Hvostov nodded, approving.

— See what he says.

Vasili stepped forward and untied the rubber gag. Leo vomited gobs of saliva onto his lap. His head fell forward, slack.

— As before, ask simple questions to start off with.

— What is your name?

Leo’s head rolled from side to side, more saliva dribbled from his mouth.

— What is your name?

No reply.

— What is your name?

Leo’s lips moved. He said something but Vasili couldn’t hear. He moved closer:

— What is your name?

His eyes seemed to focus — he looked straight ahead and said:

— Pavel.

Same Day

What is your name? Pavel.


Opening his eyes he saw that he was standing ankle deep in snow, in the middle of a forest, a bright moon above him. His jacket was made of coarse grain sacks, stitched together with care, as though made of the finest leather. He lifted one foot out of the snow. He wasn’t wearing shoes; instead, wrapped around each foot were rags and a strip of rubber, tied together with string. His hands were the hands of a child.

Feeling a tug on his jacket he turned around. Standing behind him was a young boy dressed in the same kind of coarse sacks. On his feet were the same kind of strips of rubber and rags tied together. The boy was squinting. Snot ran down from his nose. What was his name? Clumsy and devoted and silly — his name was Andrei.

Behind him a scrawny black-and-white cat began to screech, struggling in the snow, tormented by some unseen force. It was being pulled into the forest. There was string around the cat’s paw. Someone was tugging the string, dragging it across the snow. Pavel ran after it. But the cat, still struggling, was being pulled faster and faster. Pavel increased his pace. Looking back he saw that Andrei, unable to keep up, was being left behind.

Suddenly he came to a stop. Standing in front of him, holding the end of the string, was Stepan, his father, not as a young man but as an elderly man, the man he’d said goodbye to in Moscow. Stepan picked up the cat, snapped its neck and dropped it into a large grain sack. Pavel walked up to him.

— Father?

— I’m not your father.


Opening his eyes, he found himself inside the grain sack, his head caked in blood, his mouth as dry as ash. He was being carried, bouncing against a grown man’s back. His head hurt so much he felt sick. There was something underneath him. He reached down, touching the dead cat. Exhausted, he closed his eyes.

Feeling the heat of a fire, he awoke. He was no longer in a sack; he’d been emptied onto the mud floor of a farmhouse. Stepan — now a young man, the man in the woods, gaunt and fierce — was sitting beside the fire holding the body of a young boy. Beside him was Anna: she was young again too. The boy in Stepan’s arms was part human, part ghost, part skeleton — his skin was loose; his bones protruding, his eyes enormous. Stepan and Anna were crying. Anna stroked the dead boy’s hair and finally Stepan whispered the boy’s name.

— Leo.

This dead boy had been Leo Stepanovich.

Finally Anna turned around, her eyes red, and asked.

— What is your name?

He didn’t reply. He didn’t know his name.

— Where do you live?

Yet again he didn’t know.

— What is your father’s name?

His mind was blank.

— Could you find your way home?

He didn’t know where home was. Anna continued:

— Do you understand why you are here?

He shook his head.

— You were to die, so that he might live. Do you understand?

He did not. She said:

— But our son cannot be saved. He died while my husband was hunting. Since he is dead, you’re free to go.

Free to go where? He didn’t know where he was. He didn’t know where he’d come from. He didn’t know anything about himself. His mind was empty.

Anna stood up, walking towards him, offering her hand. He struggled to his feet, weak and dizzy. How long had he been in that sack? How far had he been carried? It had felt like days. If he didn’t eat soon he’d die. She gave him a cup of warm water. The first sip made him feel sick, but the second was better. She took him outside where they sat, wrapped up together under several blankets. Exhausted, he fell asleep against her shoulder. When he awoke Stepan had come outside.

— It’s ready.

Entering the farmhouse, the boy’s body was gone. On the fire was a large pot, a bubbling stew. Guided by Anna he sat down close to the heat, accepting the bowl which Stepan filled to the brim. He stared down at the steaming broth: crushed acorns floated on the surface alongside bright white knuckles and strips of flesh. Stepan and Anna watched him. Stepan said:

— You were to die, so that our son might live. Since he has died, you can live.

They were offering their own flesh and blood. They were offering their son. He raised the broth to his nose. He hadn’t eaten for so long that he began to salivate. Instinct took over and he reached in.

Stepan explained.

— Tomorrow we begin our journey to Moscow. We cannot survive here any longer. I have an uncle in the city, he could help us. This was to be our last meal before our journey. This meal was to get us to the city. You can come with us. Or you can stay here and try and find your own way home.

Should he stay here, with no idea of his identity, no idea of where he was? What if he never remembered? What if nothing came back to him? Who would look after him? What would he do? Or should he go with these people. They were kind. They had food. They had a plan, a way to survive.

— I want to come with you.

— You’re sure?

— Yes.

— My name is Stepan. My wife’s name is Anna. What is your name?

He couldn’t remember any names. Except for one, the name he’d heard earlier. Could he say that name? Would they be angry with him?

— My name is Leo.

11 July

Raisa was shunted forward towards a line of tables, each manned by two officers, one seated checking a stack of documentation while the other frisked the prisoner. No distinctions were made between men and women: they were all searched together, side by side in the same rough fashion. There was no way of knowing which table held your particular documentation. Raisa was pushed to one table, waved to another. She’d been processed so quickly that her paperwork hadn’t caught up. Something of an irritation, she was taken aside by the guard accompanying her, the only prisoner with her own escort, bypassing this initial part of the process. These missing papers contained the statement of her crime and her sentence. All around prisoners listened blankly as they were told they were guilty of AKA, KRRD, PSh, SVPsh, KRM, SOE or SVE, indecipherable codes which determined the rest of their lives. Sentences were thrown out with professional indifference:


Five years! Ten years! Twenty-five years!


But she had to excuse these guards their callousness — they were overworked, they had so many people to deal with, so many prisoners to process. As they called out the sentences she observed the same reaction from almost every prisoner: disbelief. Was any of this real? It felt dreamlike, as though they’d been plucked out of the real world and thrown inside an entirely new world where no one was sure of the rules. What laws governed this place? What did people eat? Were they allowed to wash? What did they wear? Did they have any rights? They were newborn with no one to protect them and no one to teach them the rules.

Guided out of the processing room onto the station platform, her arm held by the guard, Raisa didn’t board the train. Instead, she waited as all the other prisoners were loaded onto the row of carriages, converted cattle carts used to transport prisoners to the Gulags. The platform, though part of Kazan station, had been constructed so as to be hidden from the view of regular passengers. When Raisa had been moved from the basement of the Lubyanka to the station she’d been transported in a black truck with the words FRUIT VEGETABLES painted across it. She understood this was no cruel joke on the part of the State but part of the attempt to conceal the scale of arrests. Was there a person alive who didn’t know someone who’d been arrested? And yet the pretence of secrecy was zealously maintained, an elaborate charade fooling no one.

At a guess there were several thousand prisoners on the platform. They were being forced into carriages in such a way that it seemed as if the guards were trying to break some record, hundreds being beaten into spaces which, at a glance, should take no more than thirty or forty. But she’d already forgotten — the rules of the old world no longer applied. This was the new world with new rules and space for thirty was space for three hundred. People didn’t need air between them. Space was a precious commodity in the new world, one that couldn’t be wasted. The logistics of moving people were no different from the logistics of moving grain; pack it in and expect to lose five per cent.

Amongst these people — people of all ages, some in fine tailored clothes, most in tattered rags — there was no sign of her husband. As a matter of routine families were broken up in the Gulags, sent to opposite sides of the country. The system took pride in breaking bonds and ties. The only relationship which mattered was a person’s relationship with the State. Raisa had taught that lesson to her students. Presuming that Leo would be sent to another camp she was surprised when her guard stopped her on the platform, ordering her to wait. She’d been made to wait on the platform before, when they’d been banished to Voualsk. This was a particular trait of Vasili, who seemed to delight in witnessing as much of their humiliation as possible. It wasn’t enough that they suffer. He wanted a ringside seat.

She saw Vasili coming towards her, leading an older man with a stooped back. Less than five metres away she recognized this man as her husband. She stared at Leo, bewildered at his transformation. He was frail, aged by ten years. What had they done to him? When Vasili let go of him he seemed ready to fall over. Raisa propped him up, staring into his eyes. He recognized her. She placed her hand on his face, feeling his brow:

— Leo?

It took him an effort to reply, his mouth shaking as he tried to pronounce the word.

— Raisa.

She turned to Vasili, who was watching all of it. She was angry that there were tears in her eyes. He’d want that. She wiped them away. But they wouldn’t stop.

Vasili couldn’t help feeling disappointed. It wasn’t that he didn’t have exactly what he’d always wanted. He did, and more. Somehow he’d expected his triumph, and this was the crowning moment of it, to be sweeter. Addressing Raisa, he said:

— It’s usual for husbands and wives to be separated. But I thought you might like to take this journey together, a small act of my generosity.

Of course, he meant the words ironically, viciously, but they stuck in his throat and gave him no satisfaction. He was curiously aware of his actions as pathetic. It was the absence of any real opposition. This man who’d been his target for so long was now weak, beaten and broken. Instead of feeling stronger, triumphant, he felt as if some part of him had been damaged. He cut short the speech he’d planned and stared at Leo. What was this feeling? Was it a kind of affection for this man? The idea was ridiculous: he hated him.

Raisa had seen that look before in Vasili. His hatred wasn’t professional; it was an obsession, a fixation, as if unrequited love had grown awful, twisted into something ugly. Though she felt no pity for him she supposed that once upon a time there might have been something human inside of him. He gestured at the guard, who shoved them towards the train.

Raisa helped Leo up into the carriage. They were the last prisoners to be loaded in. The door slid shut after them. In the gloom she could feel hundreds of eyes staring at them.

Vasili stood on the platform, his hands behind his back.

— Have arrangements been made?

The guard nodded.

— Neither of them will reach their destination alive.

One Hundred Kilometres East of Moscow

12 July


Raisa and Leo crouched at the back of the carriage, a position they’d occupied since boarding the previous day. As the last prisoners on, they’d been forced to make do with the only space left. The most coveted positions, the rough wooden benches which ran along the walls at three different heights, had all been taken. On these benches, which were little more than thirty centimetres wide, there were up to three people lying side by side, pressed together as close as if they were having sex. But there was nothing sexual about this terrified intimacy. The only space Leo and Raisa had found was near a hole the size of a fist cut out of the floorboards — the toilet for the entire carriage. There was no division, no partition, no option but to defecate and urinate in full view. Leo and Raisa were less than a foot from the hole.

Initially, in this stinking darkness, Raisa had felt uncontrollably angry. The degradation wasn’t only unjust, appalling, it was bizarre — wilfully malicious. If they were going to these camps to work, why were they being transported as if they were intended for execution? She’d stopped herself from pursuing this line of thought: they wouldn’t survive like this, fired up with indignation. She had to adapt. She kept reminding herself:


New world, new rules.


She couldn’t compare her situation to the past. Prisoners had no entitlements and should have no expectations.

Even without a watch or a view of the world outside, Raisa knew it must be past midday. The steel roof was being cooked by the sun, the weather collaborating with the guards, inflicting a steady punishment, radiating an unrelenting heat on the hundreds of bodies. The train moved with such sluggishness that no breeze came through the small slits in the timber walls. What little breeze there might have been was soaked up by the prisoners lucky enough to sit on the benches.

Forced to let go of her anger, these intolerable temperatures and smells became tolerable. Survival meant adjusting. One of the prisoners had chosen not to accept these new rules. Raisa had no idea exactly when he’d died: a middle-aged man. He’d made no fuss — no one had noticed him or if they had, no one had said anything. Yesterday evening, when the train had come to a stop and everyone had disembarked for their one small cup of water, someone had called out that a man was dead. Passing his body, Raisa suspected that he’d decided this new world was not for him. He’d given up, shut down, turned off, just like a machine — cause of death: hopelessness, uninterested in surviving if this was all there was to survive for. His body was slung off the train, rolling down a bank, out of sight.

Raisa turned to Leo. He’d slept for most of the journey so far, resting against her, childlike. When he was awake he appeared calm, neither uncomfortable nor upset, his mind and thoughts elsewhere; his brow furrowed as though he was trying to make sense of something. She’d searched his body for signs of torture, finding a large bruise on his arm. Around his ankles and wrists there were red strap marks. He’d been tied down. She had no idea what he’d been through, but it was psychological and chemical rather than crude cuts and burns. She’d rubbed his head, held his hand — kissed him. This was all the medicine she was able to offer. She’d fetched his chunk of black bread and single strip of dried salty fish, their only meal so far. The fish, with its small crunchy white bones, had been so crystallized in salt that some prisoners had held it in their hands, desperately hungry and yet agonized by the prospect of eating it without water. Worse than hunger was thirst. Raisa had brushed off as much of the salt as she could before feeding it to Leo in small pieces.

Leo sat up, speaking for the first time since boarding the train, his words barely audible. Raisa leaned closer to him, straining to hear.

— Oksana was a good mother. She loved me. I left them. I chose not to go back. My little brother always wanted to play cards. I used to say I was too busy.

— Who are they, Leo? Who is Oksana? Who is your brother? Who are you talking about?

— My mother refused to let them take the church bell.

— Anna? You’re talking about Anna?

— Anna is not my mother.

Raisa cradled his head, wondering if he’d gone insane. Surveying the carriage, she was conscious that Leo’s vulnerability made him an easy target.

Most of the prisoners were too terrified to be of any threat except for the five men in the far corner perched on a high bench. Unlike the other passengers they were fearless, at ease in this world. Raisa guessed that they were professional criminals with sentences for theft or assault, crimes which carried far shorter sentences than the political prisoners around them, the teachers, nurses, doctors, writers and dancers. Imprisonment was their turf, their element. They seemed to understand the rules of this world better than the rules of the other world. This superiority came not only from their evident physical strength; she noted power was conferred on them by the guards. They were spoken to as equals, or if not equals at least as a man might speak to another man. Other prisoners were afraid of them. They made way for them. They were able to leave their bench, use the toilet and fetch their water, all without fear of losing their prized spot. No one dared take their place. They’d already demanded that one man, who they apparently did not know, give them his shoes. When he’d asked why they’d explained, in a matter-of-fact tone, that his shoes had been lost in a wager. Raisa had been thankful that this man didn’t question the logic of this:


New rules, new world.


He’d handed over his shoes, receiving a tattered pair in exchange.

The train came to a stop. Calls for water sounded out up and down, from every carriage. These were ignored or imitated, spat back at them:


Water! water! water!


As though the request was somehow repugnant. It seemed as if all the guards were clustering around their carriage. The door was opened, orders shouted out for the prisoners to keep back. The guards called for the five men. They swung down from their bench like jungle animals, pushing through the prisoners, leaving the train.

Something was wrong — Raisa lowered her head, breathing fast. It was not long before she could hear the men return. She waited. Then, slowly, she lifted her head, glimpsing the men as they climbed back into the carriage. All five were staring at her.

Same Day

Raisa took hold of Leo’s face.

— Leo.

She heard them approaching. There was no way to move through the crowded carriage without pushing a path through the prisoners on the floor.

— Leo, listen to me, we’re in trouble.

He didn’t move, didn’t seem to understand, the danger didn’t seem to register.

— Leo, please, I’m begging you.

It was no good. She stood up, turning to face the approaching men. What else could she do? Leo remained crouched on the floor behind her. Her plan: resist as much as she could.

The leader, and the tallest of the men, stepped forward grabbing her arm. Expecting such a move, Raisa struck him in the eye with her free hand. Her nails, uncut and filthy, jabbed into the skin. She should have ripped his eye out. The thought crossed her mind, but instead all she managed was a gash. The man tossed her to the floor. She landed on prisoners who scuttled out of the way. This wasn’t their fight and they weren’t going to help. She was on her own. Trying to scramble away from her attackers, Raisa found that she couldn’t move. Someone was holding her ankle. More hands grabbed her, lifting her up and flipping her onto her back. One man dropped to his knees, holding her arms, pinning her down whilst the leader kicked open her legs. In his hand he held a shard of thick, jagged steel, like an enormous tooth.

— After I fuck you I’m going to fuck you with this.

He gestured to the steel shard which, Raisa understood, had just been given to him by the guards. Unable to move her body, she turned to Leo. He was gone.

Leo’s thoughts had shifted away from the forest, the cat, the village, his brother. His wife was in danger. Struggling to assess the situation, he wondered why he was being ignored. Perhaps these men had been told that he was insensible and posed no threat. Whatever the reason, he’d been able to stand without them reacting. The leader was unbuttoning his trousers. By the time he’d noticed that Leo was standing, there was only an arm’s length between them.

The leader sneered and swung around, punching him in the side of the face. Leo didn’t block or duck, falling to the floor. Lying on the wooden planks, his lip split, he listened to the sound of the men laughing. Let them laugh. The pain had done him good, focusing him. They were over-confident, untrained — strong but unskilled. Making a deliberate show of being shaky and clumsy, he slowly stood up, keeping his back to the men, an inviting target. He could hear someone moving towards him, someone had taken the bait. Glancing over his shoulder, he saw the leader lunge at him with the steel shard, intending to finish him off.

Leo sidestepped, moving with a speed that took the man by surprise. Before he could recover, Leo punched the man’s throat, winding him. The man gasped. Leo caught hold of his hand, twisting the shard free and jabbing the tip into the side of the man’s muscular neck. Leo hit the shard again, plunging it all the way in, severing every sinew, vein and artery in its path. He pulled the weapon free and the man collapsed, clasping the wound in his neck.

The nearest member of his gang stepped forward, arms outstretched. Leo allowed the man to grab hold of his neck, in reply pushing the shard into his stomach, through the man’s shirt, dragging it sideways. The man was gurgling but Leo kept on dragging the steel, cutting through skin and muscle. Releasing his grip on Leo’s neck, the wounded man stood, peering down at his bleeding stomach, as though puzzled by it, before slumping to his knees.

Leo turned to the remaining three men. They’d lost all interest in the struggle. Whatever deal they’d been offered wasn’t worth the fight. Maybe all they’d been promised was better rations or easier work at the camp. One of the men, perhaps identifying this as an opportunity for promotion within his gang, took charge.

— We have no quarrel with you.

Leo said nothing, his hands covered in blood, the steel shard jutting out of his hand. The men pulled back, leaving their dead and injured. Failure was quickly disowned.

Leo helped Raisa up, hugging her.

— I’m sorry.

They were interrupted by the injured man calling for help. The first man, the man with his neck cut open, had already died. But the man with the cut stomach was alive, conscious, clutching the injury. Leo looked down at him, assessing his injury. He would take a long time to die: it would be painful and slow. He deserved no mercy. But on balance it was better for the other prisoners that he should die quickly. No one wanted to listen to his screams. Leo crouched down, locking the man’s neck in a grip, choking him.

Leo returned to his wife. She whispered:

— Those men were ordered to kill us by the guards.

Considering this, Leo replied:

— Our only chance is to escape.

The train was slowing down. When it eventually stopped the guards would open the doors, expecting to find Leo and Raisa dead. When they discovered two of their assassins dead instead, they’d demand to know who’d killed them. Some prisoner would almost certainly speak up, out of fear of torture or desire for reward. It would be more than enough of a pretext for the guards to execute Leo and Raisa.

Leo turned to face the prisoners. There were pregnant mothers, elderly men too old to survive the Gulags, fathers, brothers, sisters — ordinary, unremarkable, the kind of people that he himself had arrested and taken to the Lubyanka. Now he was forced to ask for their help.

— My name is not important. Before I was arrested I was investigating the murder of over forty children, murders which stretched from the Ural Mountains down to the Black Sea. Boys and girls have been killed. I know that this crime is hard to believe, perhaps even impossible for some of you. But I have seen the bodies for myself and I’m sure they’re the work of one man. He doesn’t kill these children for money or sex or any reason that I can explain. He’ll murder any child, from any town. And he will not stop. My crime was to investigate him. My arrest means he is free to continue killing. No one else is looking for him. My wife and I must escape to stop him. We cannot escape without your help. If you call for the guards, we’re dead.

There was silence. The train was almost at a stop. At any second the doors would slide open, guards would enter, guns at the ready. Who could blame them when faced with the barrel of a gun not to tell the truth? A woman on one of the benches called out:

— I’m from Rostov. I’ve heard of such murders. Children with their stomachs cut out. They are blaming them on a group of Western spies who have infiltrated our country.

Leo replied:

— I believe the murderer lives and works in your city. But I doubt he’s a spy.

Another woman cried out:

— When you find him you’ll kill him?

— Yes.

The train stopped. The guards could be heard approaching. Leo added:

— I have no reason to expect your help. But I ask for it all the same.

Leo and Raisa crouched down among the prisoners. She wrapped her arms around Leo, covering up his bloodstained hands. The doors slid open, sunshine flooded the carriage.

Finding the two bodies, the guards called out for an explanation.

— Who killed them?

They were answered with silence. Leo looked over his wife’s shoulders at these guards. They were young, indifferent. They’d obey orders but they wouldn’t think for themselves. The fact that they hadn’t personally killed Leo and Raisa meant that they hadn’t been given instructions to do so. It had to be done on the sly, through a proxy. Without explicit authorization they wouldn’t act. These guards had no initiative. However, given some slight justification, they might seize the opportunity. Everything depended upon the strangers in this carriage. The guards were shouting, pushing guns into the faces of those nearest them. But the prisoners told them nothing. They selected an elderly couple. They were frail. They’d talk.

— Who killed these men? What happened here? Speak!

One of the guards raised his steel-capped boot above her head. She wept. Her husband pleaded. But neither of them replied to their questions. A second guard moved towards Leo. If he made him stand up he’d see the bloodied shirt.

One of the remaining gang, the man who’d told Leo there was no longer any quarrel between them, got down from his bench approaching the guards. No doubt he’d now claim the reward promised to them. The man called out:

— Leave them alone. I know what happened. I’ll tell you.

The guards stepped away from the elderly couple, stepped away from Leo.

— Tell us.

— They killed each other, because of a card game.

Leo understood that there was a perverse logic to the gang’s refusal to give them up. They were prepared to rape and murder for a small profit. But they were not prepared to snitch, to be a guard’s stool pigeon. It was a question of status. If the other urki, the members of their criminal fraternity, found out they were selling inmates for perks they would never be forgiven. They would probably be killed.

The guards looked at each other. Unsure of what to do, they decided to do nothing. They were in no rush. The journey to Vtoraya Rechka, on the Pacific coast, would take weeks. There would be plenty of opportunities. They would await further orders. They’d come up with another plan. One of the guards addressed the whole carriage.

— As a punishment we will not offload these bodies. Soon, in this heat, they will begin to rot and stink and you will all become ill. Perhaps then you will talk.

Proud of himself, the guard leapt off the carriage. The other guards followed. The door was shut.

After a while the train began to move again. A young man with broken spectacles, peering at Leo through a cracked lens, whispered:

— How will you escape?

He had a right to know. Their escape now belonged to everyone in the carriage. They were all in it together. In reply Leo raised the bloody steel shard. The guards had forgotten to take it back.

Two Hundred and Twenty Kilometres East of Moscow

13 July


Leo was lying flat on the floor, his arm squeezed through the small hole used by the prisoners as a toilet. With the steel shard he scratched at the iron nails fastening the plank to the underside of the carriage. None of the nails were accessible from inside: they’d all been hammered in the underside. The only access point was this small hole not much wider than his wrist. Leo had taken the dead man’s shirt and cleaned the area as best he could. It was not more than a token effort. To reach the three iron nails he was forced to bring his face down flat against the stinking piss- and shit-sodden wood, retching while blindly groping, guided by touch alone. Splinters dug into his skin. Raisa had offered to do the work instead since her hands and wrists were smaller. While this was true Leo had a longer reach and at full stretch it was just possible to reach each of the three nails.

With a strip of shirt tied around his mouth and nose as limited protection from the stench, he picked at the third and last nail, scraping, cutting at the wood, gouging the timber and giving himself just enough space to wedge the tip under the nail-head and lever it out. It had taken many hours to remove two nails since the work had to be interrupted by any prisoner needing the toilet.

This final nail was proving the hardest. Partly that was due to tiredness — it was late, maybe one or two in the morning — but something else was wrong. Leo could get his fingertip under the nail’s head but it wasn’t coming loose. It felt crooked, as if it had been banged in at an angle, the body of the nail bent by the blows. It wouldn’t pull out. He’d have to dig further into the wood, perhaps all the way through. At this realization, that it would take maybe another hour, a wave of exhaustion came over him. His fingers were bloody and raw, his arm ached — he couldn’t get the stink of shit out of his nose. Suddenly the train jolted to the side, he lost concentration, and the steel shard slipped from his fingers, clattering onto the tracks below.

Leo pulled his hand out of the hole. Raisa was beside him.

— Is it done?

— I dropped it. I dropped the shard.

Furious with his own stupidity at discarding the other nails he no longer had any tools.

Seeing her husband’s bloody fingers, Raisa grabbed hold of the plank and tried to lift it. One side of it rose up, fractionally, but not enough to grip underneath it, not enough to pull it free. Leo wiped his hands, looking around for something he might use.

— I have to scratch through the wood and get to the base of that last nail.

Raisa had seen every prisoner comprehensively searched before being allowed on the train. She doubted if anyone had metal implements of any kind. Contemplating the problem, her eyes drifted towards the nearest of the dead bodies. The man was lying on his back, his mouth open. She turned to her husband.

— How long or sharp does it need to be?

— I’ve done most of it. I need anything harder than my fingertip.

Raisa stood up, walking to the body of the man who had tried to rape and murder her. With no sense of justice or satisfaction, only a feeling of disgust, she positioned the dead man’s jaw so that it faced upwards. She raised her shoe directly above his jaw, hesitating, looking around. Everyone was watching. She closed her eyes, bringing her heel down against his front teeth.

Leo crawled over, feeling the inside of the man’s mouth and pulling out a tooth still affixed to a stump of bloody gum, an incisor, not ideal but sharp enough and hard enough to continue the scraping already done. He returned to the hole, lying on his front. Holding the tooth, he squeezed his arm through, finding the remaining nail and continuing to pick away at the wood, pulling off the splinters as they came loose.

The nail was completely exposed. Holding the tooth in the palm of his hand, in case further excavation was necessary, Leo gripped the head of the nail but his fingertips were raw and he was unable to get a fix on it. He pulled his arm out, wiping the sweat and blood off his fingers, wrapping them in a shredded strip of shirt before trying again. Struggling to remain patient, he tugged at the nail, incrementally pulling it free from the plank. That was it: it was done. The third nail had been removed. He checked the wood, feeling for other nails, but there were no more, at least that he could find. He sat up, pulling his arm out of the hole.

Raisa sunk both her hands through the hole, gripping the plank. Leo added his hands. This was the test. They both pulled. The top side of the plank lifted up while the bottom of the plank remained secured. Leo moved over, grabbing the end and lifting it as high as he could. Looking down, he could see the train tracks below the carriage. The plan had worked. Where the plank had lain there was now a gap of about thirty centimetres in width and over a metre in length, barely enough for a person to lower through, but enough all the same.

It would’ve been possible with the help of the other prisoners to snap the plank. But worried that the sound would alert the guards they decided against this. Leo turned to his audience.

— I need people to hold this plank up while we drop through the gap, down onto the tracks.

Several volunteers stood up immediately, coming forward and taking hold of the plank. Leo assessed the space. After they’d squeezed through, they’d fall straight down, directly underneath the train. The distance from the underside of the carriage down to the tracks was perhaps a little over a metre, maybe a metre and a half. The train was travelling slowly but still fast enough for the fall to be dangerous. However, they couldn’t wait. They had to go now, whilst the train was moving, during the night. When the train stopped at daybreak, they’d be seen by the guards.

Raisa took hold of Leo’s hands.

— I’ll go first.

Leo shook his head. He’d seen the blueprints to these prisoner transports. They faced one more obstacle: a final trap for prisoners about to attempt exactly this kind of escape.

— On the underneath of this train, at the very end, the last carriage, there are a series of hooks which hang down. If we fell onto the tracks right now and waited, as the last carriage passed overhead the hooks would snag us, dragging us with the train.

— Can’t we avoid them? Roll out of the way?

— There are hundreds of them, hanging on wires. There’s no way we’d slip through. We’d get tangled up in them.

— What are supposed to do? We can’t wait till the train stops.

Leo examined the two dead bodies. Raisa stood beside him, evidently unsure of his intentions. He explained:

— When you drop down to the tracks, I’ll throw one of these bodies after you. Hopefully it will land somewhere near you. Wherever it lands, you’ll have to crawl to it. Then, once you reach it, lie under it. Position it exactly on top of you. As the last carriage passes overhead the body will get hooked and snagged. But you’ll be free.

He dragged the bodies close to the loose plank, adding.

— Do you want me to go first? If it doesn’t work then you should stay here. Any other death would be better than being dragged along by this train.

Raisa shook her head.

— It’s a good plan. It will work. I’ll go first.

As she was ready to climb down, Leo reiterated his instructions:

— The train isn’t moving fast. The fall will be painful but not too dangerous, make sure you roll with the impact. I’ll throw down one of the bodies. You won’t have much time—

— I understand.

— You must collect the body. When you get it, put yourself underneath it. Make sure no part of you is exposed. If even one hook gets into you, you could be dragged along.

— Leo, I understand.

Raisa kissed him. She was shaking.

She squeezed through the gap between the planks. Her feet were dangling above the tracks. She let go of the plank and fell, disappearing from view. Leo grabbed the first body and lowered it through the gap, squeezing it through. The body dropped onto the tracks, out of sight.


Raisa had landed awkwardly, bruising her side and tumbling. Disorientated, dazed, she lay still for a moment. Too long, she was wasting time. Leo’s carriage was already far away. She could see the body which Leo had thrown down and began to crawl towards it, in the same direction as the train. She glanced behind her. There were only three carriages until the end of the train. But she couldn’t see any hooks. Perhaps Leo had been wrong. There were now only two carriages left. Raisa still hadn’t reached the body. She stumbled. There was now only one carriage separating her from the end of the train. With only metres before the final carriage passed over her, she saw the hooks — hundreds of them, all attached to fine wires, at different heights. They covered the entire width of the carriage, impossible to avoid.

Raisa got up, crawling again, as fast as she could, reaching the body. It was laying face down, head nearest her. She didn’t have time to turn it around so she turned herself around, lifting up the body and crawling under this man, positioning her head under his head. Face to face with her attacker, staring into his dead eyes, she made herself as small as possible.

Suddenly the dead body was wrenched off her. She saw wires all around her, like fishing lines, each one barbed with many jagged hooks. The body lifted up, as though alive, a puppet, tangled up, no longer even touching the tracks. Raisa remained flat on the tracks, perfectly still. She could see the stars above her. Slowly she stood up. No hook had caught her. She watched the train move away. She’d done it. But there was no sign of Leo.


As he was larger than Raisa, Leo had figured that he needed the bigger of the two dead men, he’d need more body mass to protect him from the hooks. However, this dead man was so large he didn’t fit through the gap in the planks. They’d stripped him in an effort to reduce his width but he was too broad. There was no way to get him through the hole. By this point Raisa had been on the tracks for several minutes.

Desperate, Leo lowered his head though the gap. He could see a body caught at the end of the train. Was it Raisa or the dead man? It was impossible to tell from this distance. He had to hope it was the dead man. Adjusting his plan, he supposed that if he positioned himself correctly he could escape underneath this tangled body. That body would have caught all the hooks in that section. He’d be free to pass underneath it. He said goodbye to the other prisoners, thanked them, and dropped onto the tracks.

Rolling close to the enormous steel wheels, he pulled himself away, facing the end of the train. The body in the wire was rapidly approaching, tangled up on the left-hand side. He positioned himself accordingly. He could do nothing but wait, making himself as small and as flat as possible. The end of the train was nearly over him. He lifted his head up off the ground just long enough to see that it wasn’t Raisa. She’d survived. He had to do the same. He lay down flat and closed his eyes.

The dead body brushed over him.

Then, pain — a single stray hook caught his left arm. He opened his eyes. The hook had cut through his shirt, into his flesh. With only a fraction of a second before the wire went taut, pulling him along, he grabbed hold of the hook and tugged it out, taking a clump of skin and flesh with it. He clutched his arm: feeling dizzy as blood seeped from the wound. Staggering up, he saw Raisa hurrying towards him. Ignoring the pain, he put his arms around her.

They were free.

Moscow

Same Day


Vasili wasn’t well. He’d done something he’d never done before — he’d taken time off work. Not only was such behaviour potentially dangerous, it was out of character. He’d rather be ill at work than ill at home. He’d managed to rig his accommodation arrangements so that he was, for the most part, able to live alone. He was married, of course; it was unthinkable that a man could remain single. It was his social duty to have children. And he’d followed the rules accordingly, marrying a woman with no opinions, or at least none that she expressed, a woman who’d dutifully given birth to two children — the minimum acceptable if no questions were to be asked. She and the children lived in a family apartment on the outskirts of the city while he occupied an inner-city work address. He’d arranged this ostensibly so that he could have his pick of mistresses. In fact, he partook in extra-marital affairs only very occasionally.

After Leo’s exile to the Urals, Vasili had petitioned to move into Leo and Raisa’s apartment; apartment 124. He’d got his wish. The first few days had been enjoyable. He’d ordered his wife to go to the spetztorgi, the restricted shops, to buy fine food and drink. He’d held a work party in his new apartment, no wives allowed, where his new deputies drank and ate and congratulated him on his success. Some of the men who’d served under Leo now reported to him. Yet despite all these ironies and the delicious reversal of fortune he hadn’t enjoyed the party. He felt empty. He no longer had anyone to hate. He no longer had anyone to scheme against. He was no longer irritated by Leo’s promotion or efficiency or popularity. There were other men who he competed with but the feeling wasn’t the same.

Vasili got out of bed and decided he’d drink himself better. He poured a large measure of vodka and stared at the glass, swishing the liquid from side to side, unable to raise it to his lips. The smell made him feel sick. He put the glass down. Leo was dead. Soon he would receive official notification that the two prisoners had not arrived at their destination. They’d died en route as so many did, after getting into a fight over shoes or clothes or food or whatever. It was the final defeat of a man who’d humiliated him. Leo’s very existence had been a kind of perpetual punishment for Vasili. So, then, why did he miss him?

There was a knock. He’d expected the MGB to send round men to authenticate his illness. He walked to the door, opening it, seeing two young officers standing before him.

— Sir, two prisoners have escaped.

He could feel the dull ache inside him vanishing as he said the name:

— Leo?

The officers nodded. Vasili was feeling better already.

Two Hundred Kilometres South-East of Moscow

Same Day


Half running, half walking, constantly looking behind them — their speed depended on whether fear or exhaustion had the upper hand. The weather was in their favour: weak sunshine and thin cloud, not too hot, at least compared to the inside of that carriage. Leo and Raisa knew from the position of the sun that it was late afternoon but had no way of knowing the exact time. Leo couldn’t remember where or how his watch had been lost or if it had been taken. He estimated they had at the most a four-hour head start on their guards. A rough calculation put their speed at eight kilometres an hour whilst the train had been moving not much more than an average of sixteen, putting a distance of some eighty or so kilometres between them. That was a best-case scenario. It was possible the guards might have been alerted to the escape much sooner.

They broke out of woodland into open countryside. Without the cover of trees they were visible for kilometres. They had no choice but to continue, exposed as they were. Seeing a small river at the bottom of an incline they adjusted direction, picking up speed. It was the first water they’d come across. Reaching it they dropped to their knees drinking greedily, cupping their hands, scooping it into their mouths. When this wasn’t enough, they submerged their faces. Leo joked:

— At least we’ll die clean.

The joke had been misjudged. It wasn’t enough that they do their best to stop this man. No one would appreciate their attempt. They had to succeed.

Raisa focused on Leo’s injury. The gash wasn’t closing; it wouldn’t stop bleeding, too much of the skin and flesh had been ripped. The strip of shirt they’d tied around it was now soaked with blood. Leo unpeeled the shirt.

— I can put up with it.

— It’s leaving a powerful scent for the dogs.

Raisa stepped out of the river, approaching the nearest tree. A spider’s web had been spun between two branches. Very carefully she broke the web with her fingers, transferring it whole and laying it across the ripped flesh of Leo’s upper arm. Immediately blood seemed to solidify upon touching the thin silver lines. She worked for several minutes, searching for more webs, finding them, collecting them and layering them, until the injury was criss-crossed with silky threads. By the time she’d finished the bleeding had stopped.

Leo remarked:

— We should follow this river for as long as possible. The trees are the only cover and the water will hide our smell.

The water was shallow, knee deep at the deepest point. Not fast enough or powerful enough so that they could float and drift with the current. Instead they had to walk. Hungry, exhausted, Leo knew there was only so long they could keep this up.

While guards were indifferent to whether prisoners lived or died, escape was unpardonable. It made a mockery not only of the guards but of the entire system. No matter who the prisoners were, no matter how unimportant, their escape made them important. The fact that Leo and Raisa were already classified as high-profile counter-revolutionaries would make their escape a matter of countrywide significance. Once the train had come to a stop and the guards had noticed the dead body caught up in the wire a count would be done of all the prisoners. The escapees’ carriage would be identified; questions would be asked. If answers weren’t given prisoners might be shot. Leo hoped that someone would be sensible enough to tell the truth immediately. Those men and women had already done more than their share to help them. Even if they confessed there was no guarantee that the guards wouldn’t make an example out of the entire carriage.

The hunt would begin along the tracks. They’d use dogs. A pack of trained dogs travelled with every train, kept in far better conditions than the human cargo. If a sufficient distance had been established between their point of escape and the point at which the search began then the beginning of the scent trail would be difficult to find. Considering the fact they’d been on the run for maybe three-quarters of a day without sight of their pursuers Leo could only presume this was the case. It meant Moscow would be notified. The search would be broadened. Trucks and cars would be mobilized — the possible escape area divided up into grids. Planes would scour the countryside. Local military and security organizations would be informed, their efforts coordinated with national organizations. They would be hunted with a zeal that went far beyond professional duty. Rewards and bonuses would be offered. There was no limit to the manpower and machinery that could be thrown after them. He should know. He’d been involved in these hunts himself. And that was their only advantage. Leo knew how their hunts were organized. He’d been trained by the NKVD to operate unseen behind enemy lines and now the enemy lines were his own borders, borders he’d fought to protect. The size of these searches made them heavy handed, difficult to manage. They’d be centralized, vast in sweep but inefficient. Most importantly he hoped they’d target the wrong area. Logically Leo and Raisa should be heading to the nearest border, towards Finland, the Baltic coast. A boat was their best chance of getting out of the country. But they were heading south — through the very heart of Russia, towards the city of Rostov. In this direction there was almost no chance of freedom, no promise of safety at the end.

Walking through the water, moving at a much slower pace, they frequently stumbled and fell; each time it was harder to get up. Not even the adrenaline from being hunted could sustain them. Leo was careful not to let the web wash off his arm, keeping it raised. So far neither of them spoke about their predicament, as though their existence was on too short a lease to even make plans. Leo guessed that they were about two hundred kilometres east of Moscow. They’d been on the train for almost forty-eight hours. Speculatively this put them somewhere near the town of Vladimir. If he was right then they were now travelling in the direction of Ryazan. Ordinarily from this point, travelling by train or car, Rostov was at least a twenty-four-hour journey south. However, they had no money, no food; they were injured, dressed in filthy clothes. They were wanted by every national and local State Security apparatus.

They came to a stop. The river flowed in between two halves of a small village, a collective farm. They stepped out of the water, some five hundred paces up stream from the huddle of houses. It was late, light was fading. Leo said:

— Some of the villagers will still be working; they’ll be on their land. We can sneak in, unnoticed, see if we can find some food.

— You want to steal?

— We can’t buy anything. If they see us, they’ll hand us in. There’s always a reward for escaped prisoners, far more than these people make in a year.

— Leo, you’ve worked in the Lubyanka for too long. These people have no love of the State.

— They need money like everyone else. They’re trying to survive like everyone else.

— We have hundreds of kilometres to cross. We can’t do it alone. We just can’t. You must realize that. We have no friends, no money, nothing. We have to convince strangers to help us — we’ll have to sell them our cause. That’s the only way. That’s our only chance.

— We’re outcasts, harbouring us will get them shot, not just for the individual who helps us but the entire village. State officials wouldn’t think twice about sentencing all of them to twenty-five years, deporting the whole population, children included, to a northern encampment.

— And that’s exactly why they’ll help us. You’ve lost faith in the people of this country because you’ve been surrounded by the people in power. The State doesn’t represent these villages, it doesn’t understand them and it doesn’t have any interest in them.

— Raisa, this is city-dissident talk. It’s not relevant to the real world. It would be insanity for them to help us.

— You have a short memory, Leo. How did we just escape? We told the inmates of that carriage the truth. They helped us, all of them, several hundred, probably about the number that live in this village. The prisoners in our carriage will almost certainly face some sort of collective punishment for not alerting the guards. What did they do it for? What did you offer them?

Leo remained silent. Raisa pressed her point.

— If you steal from these people, you’ll be their enemy when we are in fact their friends.

— So you want to walk into the centre of the village, as if we were family, and greet them?

— That’s exactly what we’re going to do.

Side by side, they walked into the centre of the village as if they were returning from work, as if they had a right to be here. Men and women and children gathered around them, surrounding them. Their houses were made of mud and wood. Their farm equipment was forty years out of date. All they had to do was turn them over to the State and they’d be richly rewarded. How could they refuse? These people had nothing.

Encircled by hostile faces, Raisa spoke up.

— We’re prisoners. We’ve escaped from the train transporting us to the Kolyma region, where we would’ve died. We’re now being hunted. We need your help. We ask for this help not for ourselves. Eventually we’ll be caught and killed. We’ve accepted that. But before we die there is one task we have to perform. Please let us explain why we need your help. If you don’t like what we tell you, then you should have nothing to do with us.

A man stepped forward, in his mid-forties, an air of self-importance about him.

— As chairman of this kolkhoz, it is my duty to point out that it would be in our best interests to turn them over.

Raisa glanced at the other villagers. Had she been wrong? Had the State already infiltrated these villages, planted their own spies and informers in the management system? A man’s voice called out.

— And what would you do with the reward, hand that over to the State too?

There was laughter. The chairman went red, embarrassed. Relieved, Raisa realized this man was a comic figure, a puppet. He wasn’t the real authority. From the back of the crowd an elderly woman spoke out:

— Feed them.

As though an oracle had spoken, the debate was over.

They were led into the largest house. In the main room, where food was prepared, they were seated and given cups of water. A fire was stoked. All the while their audience grew until the entire house was crowded. Children filled the spaces in between the adults’ legs, staring at Leo and Raisa as children might stare in a zoo. Fresh bread, still warm, was brought from another house. They ate with their wet clothes steaming in front of the fire. When a man apologized for not being able to offer them a new set of clothes, Leo merely nodded, disorientated by their generosity. He could offer them a story; that was it. Finishing his bread and water, he stood up.

Raisa watched the men, women and children as they listened to Leo. He began with the murder of Arkady, the young boy in Moscow, a murder he’d been ordered to cover up. He spoke of his shame at having told the boy’s family that it was an accident. He went on to explain why he was expelled from the MGB, sent to Voualsk. He explained his amazement when he’d found another child had been murdered in almost exactly the same way. The audience gasped, as though he was performing some magic trick, when they were told that these murders were being committed across their entire country. Some parents ushered their children out of the house as Leo warned them of what he was about to describe.

Even before Leo had finished his story his audience had formed ideas as to who could’ve been responsible. None of them supposed these murders were the work of a man with a job, a man with a family. The men in the audience found it hard to believe that this killer couldn’t be immediately identified. All of them were certain they’d know he was a monster just by looking him in the eyes. Glancing around the room, Leo realized their perspective on the world had been shaken. He apologized for introducing them to the reality of this killer’s existence. In an effort to reassure them he outlined the murderer’s movements along the railways, through the major towns. He killed as part of his routine; a routine wouldn’t bring him into villages like this.

Even with these assurances, Raisa wondered whether or not these people would any longer be so trusting and welcoming. Would they feed a stranger? Or from now on would they fear that strangers were hiding some evil they couldn’t see? The price of this story was the audience’s innocence. It wasn’t that they hadn’t seen brutality and death. But they’d never imagined that the murder of a child could give pleasure.

It was dark outside and Leo had been speaking for some time, well over an hour. He was nearing the end of his story when a child ran into the house.

— I saw lights on the northern hills. There are trucks. They’re coming this way.

Everyone got to their feet. Reading the faces of those around him Leo knew that there was no chance these trucks could be anything other than the State. He asked:

— How long do we have?

Asking that question, he’d already grouped himself with them, presumed a connection when in fact there was none. They could quite easily surrender them and claim their reward. Yet it appeared as if he was the only one in the room even contemplating such an idea. Even the chairman had surrendered to the collective decision to aid them.

Some of the adults hurried out of the house, perhaps to see for themselves. Those remaining quizzed the boy.

— Which hill?

— How many trucks?

— How long ago?

There were three trucks, three sets of headlights. The boy had seen them from the edge of his father’s farm. They were coming from the north, several kilometres away. They’d be here in minutes.

There was nowhere to hide in these houses. The villagers had no belongings, no furniture to speak of. And the search would be thorough, brutally so. If there was a hiding place it would be found. Leo knew how much pride was at stake for the guards. Raisa took hold of his arms:

— We can run. They’ll have to search the village first. If they pretend we were never here, we can get ahead, maybe hide in the countryside. It’s dark.

Leo shook his head. Feeling his stomach tense, his thoughts were thrown back to Anatoly Brodsky. This is what he must have felt when he’d turned around to see Leo on the crest of the hill, when he’d realized that the net had closed around him. Leo remembered how that man had paused, staring for a moment, unable to do anything other than contemplate that he’d been caught. On that day he’d run. But there was no way to outrun these guards. They were rested, equipped to hunt — long-range rifles, telescopic sights, flares to light up the sky and dogs to pick up suspicious trails.

Leo turned to the young boy who’d seen the trucks.

— I need your help.

Same Day

Nervous, his hands shaking, the boy crouched in the middle of the road in almost complete darkness, a small bag of grain spilled before him. He could hear the trucks approaching, the tyres kicking up dirt: they were only a couple of hundred metres away, coming fast. He closed his eyes, hoping they’d see him. Was it possible they were going too fast to stop in time? There was a screech of brakes. He opened his eyes, turning his head, caught in the beam of powerful headlights. He raised his arms. The trucks lurched to a stop, the metal bumper almost touching the boy’s face. The door to the front cabin opened. A soldier called out.

— What the fuck are you doing?

— My bag split.

— Get off the road!

— My father will kill me if I don’t collect it all.

— I’ll kill you if you don’t move.

The boy wasn’t sure what to do. He continued picking at the grains. He heard a metallic click: was that the sound of a gun? He’d never seen a gun: he had no idea what they sounded like. Panicking, he continued picking at the grains, putting them in the bag. They wouldn’t shoot him: he was just a boy picking up his father’s grain. Then he remembered the stranger’s story: children were being killed all the time. Maybe these men were the same. He grabbed as much grain as he could, picked up the bag and ran back towards the village. The trucks followed him, chasing him, beeping their horns, getting him to run faster. He could hear soldiers laughing. He’d never run so fast in his life.

Leo and Raisa were hiding in the only place they could hope the soldiers wouldn’t search — underneath their own trucks. While the boy was distracting the soldiers, Leo had sneaked under the second truck, Raisa under the third. Since there was no way of telling how long they’d have to hold on for, perhaps for as long as an hour, Leo had wrapped their hands in ripped shreds of shirt in an attempt to ease the pain.

As the trucks came to a stop, Leo wedged his feet around the axle shaft, his face close to the wooden underside of the truck. The planks strained towards him as the soldiers walked across it, jumping off the back of the truck. Looking down over his toes, he saw one of the men crouch down to tie his bootlaces. All the man had to do was turn around and Leo would be seen and caught. The soldier stood up, hurrying towards one of the houses. Leo hadn’t been seen. He repositioned himself so he was able to get a view of the third truck.

Raisa was afraid but mostly she was angry. This plan was smart, that was true, and she hadn’t come up with anything better but it depended entirely on their ability to cling on. She wasn’t a trained soldier: she hadn’t spent years crawling through ditches, climbing over walls. She didn’t have the upper-body strength needed to make this work. Already her arms were aching, not just aching, they were hurting. She couldn’t imagine how she was going to manage another minute, let alone an entire hour. But she refused to accept that she was going to be the one to get them caught just because she wasn’t strong enough, refused to accept the idea that they’d fail because she was weak.

Fighting the pain, silently crying with frustration, she could no longer hold on, she had to lower herself to the ground and rest her arms. However, even with a rest, she’d recover only enough to hold on for another minute or two. The length of time she’d be able to hold herself up would rapidly decrease until she couldn’t do it at all. She had to think around this problem. What was the solution that didn’t rely on strength? The strips of the shirt — if she couldn’t hold on, she’d tie herself on, tie her wrists to the axle shaft. That would be fine as long as the truck was stationary. All the same she’d still have to lower herself to the ground for a couple of minutes while she bound herself. Once on the ground, even still under the truck, the chances of her being seen increased dramatically. She looked sideways, checking right and left, trying to get a sense of where the soldiers were. The driver had remained guarding the vehicle. She could see his boots and smell his cigarette smoke. Actually, his presence suited her just fine. It meant they were unlikely to suspect that anyone could’ve clambered underneath it. Slowly, carefully, Raisa lowered her legs to the ground, trying not to make a noise. Even the smallest of slips would alert that man to her presence. Unwinding the strips of shirt she fastened her left wrist to the shaft before partially tying her right wrist. She had to finish the knot with her already bound-up hand. Done, secured, pleased with herself, she was about to lift up her feet when she heard a growl. Looking sideways, she found herself staring at a dog.

Leo could see the pack of dogs being held beside the third truck. The man with them wasn’t aware of Raisa, not yet. But the dogs were. He could hear the snarling: they were at the perfect eye level. Unable to do anything, he turned his head and saw the boy, the boy who’d helped them on the road. No doubt fascinated by events, he was watching from the inside of his house. Leo lowered himself to the ground, getting a better look. The soldier in charge was about to move off. But one of the dogs in particular was straining at the leash, almost certainly having seen Raisa. Leo turned to the little boy. He’d need his help again. He gestured at the dogs. The boy hurried out of the house. Leo watched — impressed at the boy’s cool head — as he moved towards the pack of dogs. Almost immediately all the dogs turned on the boy, barking at him. The soldier called out:

— Stay in your house.

The boy reached out, as though to stroke one of the dogs. The soldier laughed:

— It’ll bite your arm off.

The boy pulled back. The soldier led the dogs away, repeating his order that the boy return to his house. Leo pulled himself back up, pressing himself flat against the underside of the truck. They owed that boy their lives.

Raisa had no idea how long she’d been tied under the truck. It felt like an impossibly long time. She’d listened as the soldiers carried out their search: furniture was kicked over, pots upturned, objects smashed. She’d heard the dogs barking and seen the explosion of light as flares were fired. The soldiers were returning, moving back to the trucks. Orders were being shouted. The dogs were loaded into the back of her truck. They were about to leave.

Excited, she realized the plan had worked. Then the engine started. The axle shuddered. In a couple of seconds it would start spinning. She was still tied to it. She had to get free. But her wrists were bound and it was difficult to untie the knots, her hands were numb, her fingers unresponsive. She was struggling. The last of the soldiers were in the truck. The villagers were crowding round the trucks. Raisa still wasn’t free. The trucks were about to drive off. She leaned forward, using her teeth, tugging at the knot. It came undone and she dropped to the ground, landing with a thump on her back, a noise masked by the sound of the engines. The truck drove off. She was in the middle of the road. In the light of the village she’d be seen by the soldiers sitting at the back of the truck. There was nothing she could do.

The villagers moved forward, clustering. As the truck drove off, leaving Raisa on the road, they surrounded her. Looking back the soldiers saw nothing unusual. Raisa was hidden amongst the villagers’ legs.

Raisa waited, still on the road, curled up. Finally a man offered his hand. She was safe. She stood up. Leo wasn’t there. He wouldn’t have risked letting go until the trucks were in the dark. She guessed he was worried about being seen by the driver of the third truck. Perhaps he’d wait until they were turning. But she wasn’t worried. He’d know what to do. All of them waited in silence. Raisa took the young boy’s hand, the boy who’d helped them. And before long they could hear a man running towards them.

Moscow

Same Day


Despite the many hundreds of soldiers and agents now searching for the fugitives, Vasili was convinced that none of them would succeed. Although the odds were heavily weighted in the State’s favour, they were chasing a man who’d been trained to avoid detection and survive in hostile territory. There was a belief in some quarters that Leo and Raisa must have had assistance, either from treacherous guards or from people waiting at a designated location on the railway line who’d orchestrated the breakout. This had been contradicted by the confessions of the prisoners who’d been travelling in Leo’s carriage. They’d declared, under duress, that they’d escaped alone. That wasn’t what the guards wanted to hear — it embarrassed them. So far the search had focused on possible approach routes towards the Scandinavian border, the northern coastline and the Baltic Sea. It was taken for granted that Leo would try and cross into another country, probably using a fishing boat. Once in the West he’d connect with senior government figures who’d gladly aid and shelter him in exchange for information. For this reason his capture was considered a matter of the highest urgency. Leo had the potential to inflict untold damage on Soviet Russia.

Vasili dismissed the idea that Leo’s escape had been assisted. There was simply no way anyone could have known which train the prisoners would be on. The process of getting them on a Gulag transport had been hurried, improvised and last-minute. He’d pushed it through without the proper paperwork or procedure. The only person who could’ve helped them escape was him. This meant that there was a chance, no matter how ridiculous the notion, that he’d be blamed. It seemed that Leo had the potential to ruin him after all.

So far none of the search groups had found any trace of them. Neither Leo nor Raisa had any family or friends in that area of the country — they should be alone, in rags, penniless. When he’d last spoken to Leo the man hadn’t even known his own name. Evidently he’d regained his wits. Vasili had to figure out where Leo was going: that was the best way to trap him rather than searching the countryside at random. Having failed to recapture his own denounced brother, he must succeed in capturing Leo. He wouldn’t survive another failure.

Vasili didn’t believe that Leo had any interest in fleeing to the West. Would he return to Moscow? His parents lived here. But his parents couldn’t help him and they’d lose their life if he turned up on their doorstep. They were now under armed surveillance. Perhaps he’d want revenge, perhaps he’d turn up to kill Vasili? He mulled over this idea briefly, flattered by it, before rejecting it. He’d never felt anything personal about Leo’s dislike of him. There was no way he’d risk his wife’s life for an act of revenge. Leo had an agenda and it was rooted in the pages of this captured case file.

Vasili studied the stack of documents accumulated over the past months by both Leo and the local militia officer whom he’d convinced to help him. There were photos of murdered children, witness statements. There were court documents about convicted suspects. During his interrogation Leo had denounced this work. Vasili knew that denunciation was a lie. Leo was a believer and he believed in this fanciful theory. But what exactly did they believe? A single killer was responsible for all these motiveless murders — murders spread over many hundreds of kilometres in over thirty different locations? Aside from the theory itself being bizarre, it meant they could be heading anywhere. Vasili could hardly pick one of these locations and wait. Frustrated, he re-examined the map marked with each alleged murder, numbered chronologically.


Vasili’s finger tapped the number. He picked up the phone.

— Bring me Officer Fyodor Andreev.

Since Vasili had been promoted he’d been rewarded with his own office — a small space, admittedly, but one of which he was immensely proud as if each square metre had been personally conquered during a military campaign. There was a knock on the door. Fyodor Andreev entered, now one of Vasili’s subordinates: a youngish man, loyal, hardworking and not too bright, perfect virtues in a subordinate. He was nervous. Vasili smiled, gesturing for Fyodor to sit down.

— Thank you for coming. I need your help.

— Certainly, sir.

— You’re aware that Leo Demidov is a fugitive?

— Yes, sir, I’ve heard.

— What do you know of the reasons behind Leo’s arrest?

— Nothing.

— We believed that he was working for Western governments, collecting information — spying. But that turns out not to be true. We were wrong. Leo wouldn’t tell us anything during his interrogation. Now, belatedly, I’ve found out that he was working on this.

Fyodor stood up, staring at the case file on the table. He’d seen these documents before. They’d been taped to Leo’s chest. Fyodor was beginning to sweat. He leaned forward, as though examining these papers for the first time, trying to hide the fact that he was trembling. Out of the corner of his eye he could see that Vasili had moved and was now standing beside him, staring down at the pages, as though they were working together, partners. Vasili’s finger slid across the map, slowly, reaching Moscow and tapping:


Fyodor felt sick. He turned his head to see Vasili’s face close to his own.

— Fyodor, we know Leo came to Moscow recently. I now believe that rather than spying, this journey was in fact part of his investigation. You see, he believes that a murder took place here. Your son was murdered, am I correct?

— No, sir. He was killed in an accident. He was cut down by a train.

— Leo was sent to deal with the matter?

— Yes, but—

— And at the time you believed that the boy was murdered, am I right?

— At the time, I was upset, it was very difficult…

— So, when Leo came back to Moscow to investigate, it wasn’t your child that he was interested in?

— No, sir.

— How do you know?

— Sir?

— How do you know what Leo was or wasn’t interested in?

Vasili took a seat, glancing at his fingernails, pretending to be hurt.

— Fyodor, you obviously have a very low opinion of me.

— That’s not true, sir.

— You must understand that if Leo is right, if there is a child-murderer, then he needs to be caught. I want to help Leo. Fyodor, I have children of my own. It is my duty as a father and as an officer to stop these terrible crimes. This supersedes any personal animosity that exists between Leo and myself. If I wanted Leo dead, I would simply do nothing. At the moment everyone considers both him and his wife to be spies. They will be shot on sight and I fear their investigation will be lost. More children will die. However, if I had all the facts, I might be able to persuade my superiors to call off the man hunt. If I don’t, what chance do Leo and Raisa have?

— None.

Vasili nodded, pleased with the confirmation. It was true, then: Leo was convinced that there was one man responsible for all these deaths. Vasili continued.

— My point exactly, they have no money; they’re hundreds of kilometres from their destination.

— Where did they escape?

Fyodor’s second mistake, revealing that he too believed Leo would be intent on catching this killer. All Vasili needed now was the destination itself. He pointed east of Moscow, the train lines, and watched as Fyodor’s eyes moved from that position, across the map, southwards. Leo was heading south. But Vasili still needed a name. Coaxing Fyodor, he remarked:

— The majority of the murders are taking place in the south.

— Just from glancing at this map…

Fyodor paused. It was possible to tip Vasili off without incriminating himself. They could then jointly petition their superior officers to change their mind about Leo and Raisa. Fyodor had been looking for a way to help them. This was it: he’d turn them from villains into heroes. When they’d met in Moscow, Leo had mentioned that a militia officer had travelled to Rostov to confirm that the city was the most probable location of the killer. Fyodor pretended to scrutinize the papers.

— Judging from the concentration of the murders, I’d say the city of Rostov-on-Don. All the early murders were in the south. He must live there or somewhere near there.

— Rostov?

— What do you think is the best way of convincing our superiors?

— I need to understand everything. We’d be taking a great risk, putting our necks on the line. We have to be sure. Show me again, why do you believe this killer lives in the south?

With Fyodor engrossed in the documents, talking about this and that, Vasili stood up, stepped around the desk, drew his gun and aimed at Fyodor’s heart.

South-Eastern Rostov Oblast

14 July


Leo and Raisa were in a crate one metre high and two metres wide: human cargo — contraband — in the process of being smuggled south. After the military had completed their search of the kolkhoz, the villagers had taken Leo and Raisa by truck to the nearest town, Ryazan, where they’d introduced them to friends and family. In the stifling heat of a small apartment filled with an audience of nearly thirty and the fog of cheap cigarette smoke, Leo had told the story of their investigation. No one needed any convincing as to the urgency of the objective and no one had any difficulty believing that the militia had proved useless in dealing with the killer. They’d never turned to the militia for help or taken their disputes to the authorities, always depending on each other. This was the same, except at stake were the lives of an unknowable number of children.

Together, as a collective, plans were laid to transport them south. One member of the audience worked as a truck driver shuttling loads between Moscow and towns such as Samara and Kharkov. Kharkov was some three hundred kilometres north of Rostov, half a day’s drive. Though it was decided that driving into Rostov itself was too risky since the driver had no business there, he’d be prepared to take them to the nearby town of Shakhty. He could legitimately pass off this diversion by claiming that he was visiting family. That same family would, after listening to the story, almost certainly agree to help Leo and Raisa travel into the city.

At the very least they had a day and a half in this crate, cooped up in complete darkness. The driver was transporting bananas, luxury exotic goods intended for the spetztorgi. Shops for high ranking Party figures, the kind of shops Leo and Raisa once bought their own groceries in. Their crate was positioned at the back of the truck wedged under other crates all filled with precious fruit. It was hot and dry and the journey uncomfortable. There were breaks every three to four hours when the driver would stop, slide off the crates above them, letting his human cargo stretch their legs and relieve themselves by the side of the road.

In complete darkness, with their legs crossed over each other, in opposite corners of the crate, Raisa asked:

— Do you trust him?

— Who?

— The driver.

— You don’t?

— I don’t know.

— You must have some reason for asking?

— Of all the people listening to the story he was the only one who didn’t have any questions. He didn’t seem to engage with it. It didn’t shake him as it shook the others. He seems blank to me, practical, unemotional.

— He didn’t have to help us. And he’s not going to be able to betray us and then go back to his friends and family.

— He could make something up. There was a roadblock. We were caught. He tried to help us but there was nothing he could do.

— What do you suggest?

— At the next stop, you could overpower him, tie him up and drive the truck yourself.

— You’re serious?

— The only way to be sure, to be absolutely certain, is to take his truck. We’d have his papers. We’d have our lives back in our hands, back under our control. We’re helpless like this. We don’t know where he’s taking us.

— You were the one who taught me to trust in the goodness of strangers.

— This man isn’t like the others. He seems ambitious. He spends his entire day transporting luxury items. He must think: I want that, I want those fine textiles, those rare foods. He understands that we’re an opportunity. He knows how much he can sell us for. And he knows the price he’ll pay for being caught with us.

— I’m hardly the one to say this, Raisa, but you’re talking about an innocent man, a man who seems to be risking his life to help us.

— I’m talking about guaranteeing that we reach Rostov.

— Isn’t this how it starts? You have a cause you believe in, a cause worth dying for. Soon, it’s a cause worth killing for. Soon, it’s a cause worth killing innocent people for.

— We wouldn’t have to kill him.

— Yes we would, because we couldn’t leave him tied up on the roadside. That would be a far greater risk. We either kill him, or trust him. Raisa, this is how things fall apart. We’ve been fed, sheltered and transported by these people. If we turn on them, execute one of their friends for no reason other than as a precaution, I’d be the same man you despised in Moscow.

Even though he couldn’t see her, he knew she was smiling.

— Were you testing me?

— Just making conversation.

— Did I pass?

— That depends on whether we get to Shakhty or not.

After a stretch of silence, Raisa asked.

— What happens once this is over?

— I don’t know.

— The West will want you, Leo. They’ll protect you.

— I’d never leave this country.

— Even if this country is going to kill you?

— If you want to defect, I’ll do everything I can to get you onto a boat.

— What are you going to do? Hide in the hills?

— Once that man is dead, once you’re safely out of the country, I’m going to turn myself in. I don’t want to live in exile, among people that want my information but hate me. I don’t want to live as a foreigner. I can’t do it. It would mean that everything these people in Moscow have said about me would be true.

— And that’s the most important thing?

Raisa sounded hurt. Leo touched her arm.

— Raisa, I don’t understand.

— Is it that complicated? I want us to stay together.

Leo said nothing for a moment. Finally he replied:

— I can’t live as a traitor. I can’t do it.

— Which means we’ve got about twenty-four hours left?

— I’m sorry.

— We should make the most of this time together.

— How do we do that?

— We tell each other the truth.

— The truth?

— We must have secrets. I know I have some. Don’t you? Things you’ve never told me.

— Yes.

— Then I’ll go first. I used to spit in your tea. After I heard about Zoya’s arrest, I was convinced you’d reported her. So, for about a week, I spat in your tea.

— You spat in my tea?

— For about a week.

— Why did you stop?

— You didn’t seem to care.

— I didn’t notice.

— Exactly. OK, your turn.

— Truthfully—

— That’s the point of this game.

— I don’t think you married me because you were afraid. I think you scouted me out. You made it look like you were scared. You gave me a false name and I pursued you. But I think you targeted me.

— I’m a foreign agent?

— You might know of people working for Western agencies. Maybe you were helping them. Maybe that idea was at the back of your mind when you married me.

— That’s not a secret, that’s speculation. You have to share secrets — hard facts.

— I found a kopek among your clothes, the coin could be split it in two — it’s a device for smuggling microfilm. Agents use them. No one else would have one.

— Why didn’t you denounce me?

— I couldn’t do it.

— Leo, I didn’t marry you as a way of getting close to the MGB. I told you the truth before, I was scared.

— And the coin?

— That coin was mine…

Her voice drifted off, as though weighing up whether or not to continue.

— I didn’t use it to carry microfilm. I used it to carry cyanide paste, when I was a refugee.

Raisa had never spoken about the period after her home had been destroyed, the months on the road — the dark ages of her life. Leo waited, suddenly nervous.

— I’m sure you can imagine the kind of things that happened to women refugees. Soldiers, they had needs, they were risking their lives — they were owed. We were their payment. After one time — and there were several — I hurt so much, I swore if it ever happened again, if it ever looked like happening again, I’d rub that paste across his gums. They could kill me, hang me, but maybe it would make them think twice about doing it to another woman. Anyway, it became my lucky coin because as soon as I started carrying it I never had any problems. Maybe men can sense a woman with cyanide in her pocket. Of course, it didn’t cure the injuries I’d sustained. There was no medicine. That’s the reason I can’t get pregnant, Leo.

Leo stared into the darkness, at the place where he imagined his wife must be. During the war women had been raped during the occupation and then raped again by their liberators. As a soldier he knew such activity had been sanctioned by the State, considered part of the fabric of war and an appropriate reward for a brave soldier. Cyanide had been used by some to take their own lives in the face of impossible horrors. Leo supposed that most men might’ve checked the woman for a blade or a gun but a coin — that would’ve slipped their attention. He rubbed the palm of her hand. What else could he do? Apologize? Say he understood? He’d framed that newspaper clipping, hung it on the wall, proud, oblivious to what the war meant to her.

— Leo, I have another secret. I’ve fallen in love with you.

— I’ve always loved you.

— That’s not a secret, Leo. You’re three secrets behind.

Leo kissed her:

— I have a brother.

Rostov-on-Don

15 July


Nadya was alone in the house. Her mother and sister had gone to visit their grandmother and although Nadya had initially accompanied them, as they’d approached her grandmother’s apartment block she’d feigned a stomach ache and begged to be allowed to return. Her mother had agreed and Nadya had hurried back home. Her plan was simple. She was going to open the basement door and find out why her father spent so long downstairs in what must be a dark cold room. She’d never been down there, not once. She’d walked around the building feeling the damp bricks and imagining what it must be like inside. There were no windows, just a ventilation hole for the stove. It was strictly forbidden, out of bounds, an unbreakable rule of the house.

Her father was on a work trip at the moment. But he’d be back soon, perhaps as early as tomorrow, and she’d heard him talk about improving their home, which included building a new door for the basement. Not the front door, not the door that everyone used and which kept the warmth in. His first priority was the basement door. Admittedly it was flimsy but all the same. Why was it so important? In a couple of days he’d have fitted a new door which she wouldn’t be able to open. If she wanted to break in, if she wanted answers to her questions, she had to do it now. The lock was a simple latch. She’d studied it carefully and tested it to see if a knife could be squeezed in between the door and the frame, lifting up the latch. It could.

The latch raised, Nadya pushed the door open. Excited, afraid, she took a step down. She released the door and it swung shut. Some light crept in behind her, under the door and around the sides. Other than that the only light came through the ventilation hole downstairs. Adjusting her eyes to the gloom she reached the bottom of the stairs and surveyed her father’s secret room.

A bed, a stove, a small table and a chest — there was nothing mysterious. Disappointed, she snooped around. An old lamp hung on the wall and pinned up beside it were a series of newspaper clippings. She walked towards them. They were all the same: a photograph of a Russian soldier standing beside a burning tank. Some of the photographs had been cropped so that all you could see was the soldier. He was handsome. She didn’t recognize him. Puzzled by this collage she picked up a tin plate which had been left on the floor, no doubt for the cats. Turning her attention to the chest, she put her hands on the top and lifted, just a little, just to see if it was locked. The wooden lid was heavy but it wasn’t locked. What was inside? She lifted it a little more; suddenly she heard another noise — the front door.

There were heavy footsteps, too heavy for her mother. Her father must have returned early. Light appeared as the door to the basement was opened. Why was he back so soon? Panicking, Nadya lowered the lid, trying not to make a noise, listening to her father’s footsteps coming down the stairs. With the lid closed she dropped to her knees and clambered under the bed, squeezing herself into the small space, watching the bottom step. There they were — his big black boots, coming right towards her.

Nadya closed her eyes, expecting when she opened her eyes to see his furious face inches away from her. Instead, the entire bed creaked and sank. He was sitting on it. Opening her eyes she had to scramble out of the way. With the gap between the bed and the floor even smaller she watched as he began to untie his bootlaces. He didn’t know she was here. The latch must have locked after she’d shut it. She hadn’t been caught, not yet. What was she going to do? Her father could spend hours down here. Her mother would return and be alarmed that Nadya wasn’t home. Perhaps they’d think she was missing and go looking for her. If they did she’d be able to sneak upstairs and tell some lie about where she’d been. That was her best hope. Until then she had to remain where she was and keep very quiet.

Her father pulled his socks off and stretched his toes. He stood up, the bed rising with him, and fired up the lamp, which gave out a weak light. He walked towards the chest. Nadya could hear the top of the chest being opened but couldn’t see what he’d taken out. He must have left the lid open because she didn’t hear it close. What was her father doing? Now he was sitting at one of the chairs, tying something around his foot. It was a strip of rubber. Using string and rags he seemed to be making some kind of homemade shoe.

Aware of something behind her, Nadya turned her head and saw the cat. It had seen her too, its back was arched, its fur stuck out. She didn’t belong down here. It knew that much. Scared, she turned to see if her father had noticed. He dropped to his knees, his face appearing in the gap under the bed. She didn’t know what to say, didn’t dare move. He said nothing, standing up, lifting the entire bed upright, exposing her curled up in a ball.

— Stand up.

She couldn’t move her arms, her legs — her body didn’t seem to be working.

— Nadya.

Hearing her name, she stood up.

— Step away from the wall.

She obeyed: stepping towards him, her head down, staring at her father’s one bare foot and his other foot wrapped in rags. He lowered the bed, putting it back in position.

— Why are you down here?

— I wanted to know what you do.

— Why?

— I want to spend more time with you.

Andrei could feel that urge again — they were alone in the house. She shouldn’t have come down here: he’d told her that for her own sake. He was a different person. He was not her father. He stepped away from his daughter until his back was pressed against the wall, as far from her as the room would allow.

— Father?

Andrei raised a finger to his lips.


Control yourself.


But he could not. He took his glasses off, folding them up and putting them in his pocket. When he looked at her again she was nothing more than a blurred outline, no longer his daughter — just a child. Indistinct, fuzzy, any child he chose to imagine.

— Father?

Nadya stood up, walking right up to her father and taking his hand.

— Don’t you like spending time with me?

She was too close now, even without his glasses on. He could see her hair, her face. Wiping his brow, he put his glasses back on.

— Nadya, you have a younger sister — why don’t you like playing with her? When I was your age, I spent all my time with my brother.

— You have a brother?

— Yes.

— Where is he?

Andrei pointed at the wall, the photos of the Russian soldier.

— What’s his name?

— Pavel.

— Why doesn’t he visit us?

— He will.

Rostov Oblast Eight Kilometres North of Rostov-on-Don

16 July


They were seated on an elektrichka, travelling towards the outskirts of the city, edging closer to their destination — the centre of Rostov-on-Don. The truck driver hadn’t betrayed them. He’d taken them through several checkpoints and dropped them at the town of Shakhty where they’d spent the night with the driver’s mother-in-law, a woman called Sarra Karlovna, and her family. Sarra, in her fifties, lived with some of her children, including a daughter who was married with three children of her own. Sarra’s parents also lived in the apartment, a total of eleven people in three bedrooms; a different generation in each bedroom. For the third time Leo had told the story of his investigation. Unlike the towns in the north they’d already heard of these crimes — the child-murders. According to Sarra there were few people in this oblast who weren’t aware of the rumours. Even so, they knew no facts. When confronted with the estimated number of victims the room had fallen silent.

It had never been a question of whether or not they’d agree to help: this extended family had immediately set about making plans. Leo and Raisa had decided to wait until dusk before travelling into the city since there’d be fewer people at the factory at night. There was also a greater chance the killer would be at home. It had also been decided that they shouldn’t travel alone. For this reason they were now accompanied by three small children and two energetic grandparents. Leo and Raisa were playing the parts of a mother and father while the real mother and father remained in Shakhty. This semblance of a family was a precautionary measure. If the hunt for them had reached Rostov, if the State had guessed that their objective wasn’t to flee the country, then they’d be looking for a man and woman travelling together. It had proved impossible for either of them to change their appearance to any significant degree. They’d both cut their hair short, they’d been given a new set of clothes. Even so, without the family surrounding them, they would’ve been easy to spot. Raisa had expressed concerns about using the children, worried she was putting them in danger. It had been decided that if something should go wrong, if they were caught, then the grandparents would claim that Leo had threatened them and that they feared for their lives if they didn’t help.

The train stopped. Leo glanced out of the window. The station was busy: he could see several uniformed officers patrolling the platform. The seven of them got off the train. Raisa was carrying the smallest child; a young boy. All three children had been instructed to behave boisterously. The older of the two boys understood the nature of the deception and played their part, but the youngest boy was confused and merely stared at Raisa, his lips downturned, sensitive to danger and no doubt wishing he was at home. Only the most observant of officers would suspect that this family was a fraud.

There were guards dotted around the platform and concourse, too many for an ordinary day in an ordinary station. They were looking for someone. Though Leo tried to reassure himself that there were many people being hunted and arrested, his gut told him that they were looking for them. The exit was fifty paces away. Concentrate on that. They were almost there.

Two armed officers stepped in front of them.

— Where you are travelling from and where are you travelling to?

For a moment Raisa couldn’t speak. The words evaporated. In order not to appear frozen, she moved the young boy from one arm to the other arm and laughed.

— They get so heavy!

Leo stepped in.

— We’ve just visited her sister. She lives in Shakhty. She’s getting married.

The grandmother added:

— To a man who’s a drunk, I disapprove. I told her not to do it.

Leo smiled, addressing the grandmother.

— You want her to marry a man who only drinks water?

— That would be better.

The grandfather nodded before adding.

— He can drink but why does he have to be so ugly?

Both grandparents laughed. The officers did not. One of them turned to the little boy.

— What’s his name?

The question was directed at Raisa. Once again her mind went blank. She couldn’t remember. Nothing was coming to her. Plucking a name from her memory.

— Aleksandr.

The boy shook his head.

— My name is Ivan.

Raisa laughed.

— I like to tease him. I’m always getting the brothers’ names muddled and it drives them mad. This young man I’m carrying is Ivan. That is Mikhail.

That was the middle child’s name. Raisa now remembered that the eldest was called Aleksei. But for her lie to work he would have to pretend his name was Aleksandr.

— And my eldest boy is called Aleksandr.

The boy opened his mouth to contradict but the grandfather quickly stepped in and rubbed his head affectionately. Annoyed, the boy shook his head.

— Don’t do that. I’m not a child any more.

Raisa struggled not to let her relief show. The officers stepped out of their way and she led her imitation family out of the station.

Once they were out of sight of the station they bade farewell to the family, splitting up. Leo and Raisa got into a taxi. They’d already given Sarra’s family all the information pertaining to their investigation. If Leo and Raisa failed for whatever reason, if the murders continued, then the family would inherit the investigation. They’d organize others in an attempt to find this man, making sure that if any one group failed there would be another ready to take their place. He mustn’t be allowed to survive. Leo appreciated that it was a mob execution, no court, no evidence or trial — an execution based upon circumstantial evidence — and that in trying to exact justice they were forced to imitate the very system they were up against.

Sitting in the back of the taxi, a Volga, almost certainly one produced in Voualsk, neither Leo nor Raisa spoke. They didn’t need to. The plan was in place. Leo was going to enter the Rostelmash factory and break into the employment records. He didn’t know how exactly, he’d have to improvise. Raisa was going to remain with the taxi, convincing the driver if he became suspicious that all was well. He’d been paid in advance and generously to keep him placid and obedient. Once Leo had found the killer’s name and address they’d need the driver to take them to where the killer lived. If the killer wasn’t home, if he was travelling, they would try to find out when he’d be back. They’d return to Shakhty, remain with Sarra’s family and wait.

The taxi stopped. Raisa touched Leo’s hand. He was nervous, his voice barely a whisper.

— If I’m not back in an hour.

— I know.

Leo got out, shutting the door.

There were guards stationed at the main gates, although they didn’t seem to be particularly alert. Judging from the security arrangements, Leo was almost certain no one in the MGB had guessed that this tractor factory was his destination. There was a chance that the front guards had been deliberately reduced in number as a way of luring him in, but he doubted it. They might have guessed that he was heading to Rostov but they hadn’t figured out where exactly. Walking around the back, he discovered a point where the wire fencing was sheltered from view by the side of a brick building. He clambered up, straddling the barbed wire, and lowered himself down. He was in.

The factory ran a twenty-four-hour production line. There were shift workers but not many people around. The grounds were vast. Several thousand people must be employed here, Leo reckoned as many as ten thousand — bookkeeping, cleaning, shipments and the production line itself. With the additional split between day- and night-workers he doubted if anyone would recognize him as a stranger. He walked calmly, purposefully, as if he belonged here, making his way towards the largest of the buildings. Two men exited, smoking, heading in the direction of the front gates. Maybe they’d finished for the night. They saw him and paused. Unable to ignore them Leo waved, moving towards them.

— I’m a tolkach working for the car factory in Voualsk. I was meant to arrive much earlier but my train was delayed. Where’s the administrative building?

— It doesn’t have a separate building. The main office is inside, on one of the upper floors. I’ll take you there.

— I’m sure I’ll find it.

— I’m not in any rush to get home. I’ll take you there.

Leo smiled. He couldn’t refuse. The two men said goodbye to each other and Leo followed his unwanted escort into the main assembly plant.

Stepping inside Leo briefly forgot himself — the sheer size, the high roof, the noise of the machinery — all creating a sense of wonder normally reserved for religious institutions. But, of course, this was the new church, the people’s cathedral, and a sense of awe was almost as important as the machines it produced. Leo and this man walked side by side, making idle conversation. Leo was suddenly glad of his escort; it meant no one looked twice at them. All the same, he wondered how he was going to get rid of him.

They took the stairs off the main factory floor, climbing up towards the administrative department. The man said.

— I don’t know how many people are going to be there. They don’t normally work night shifts.

Leo still didn’t have a clear idea of what he was going to do next. Could he bluff his way through? It seemed unlikely considering the sensitive information he needed, they wouldn’t just give it to him no matter what excuse he came up with. If he’d still had his State Security identification card, it would’ve been easy.

They turned a corner. The corridor leading to the office had views over the factory floor. Whatever Leo decided to do he’d be visible to the workers below. The man knocked on the door. Everything now depended on how many people were inside. The door was opened by an older man, a bookkeeper perhaps, dressed in a suit, with sallow skin and a bitter expression.

— What do you want?

Leo peered over the bookkeeper’s shoulder. The office was empty.

Leo swung around, punching his escort in the stomach, causing him to double up. Before the bookkeeper had time to react Leo had his hand tight around the old man’s neck.

— Do as I say and you’ll live, understand?

He nodded. Leo slowly released his neck.

— Close all the blinds. And remove your tie.

Leo pulled the younger man, who was still wheezing inside. He shut the door, locking it behind him. The bookkeeper took off his tie, throwing it to Leo before moving to the windows, shutting out the view over the factory. Using the tie, Leo secured the young man’s hands behind his back, all the time keeping his eye on the bookkeeper. He doubted if there was a weapon or alarm in here, there was nothing worth stealing. With the blinds closed the man turned back to Leo.

— What do you want?

— The employment records.

Baffled but obedient, the man unlocked the filing cabinet. Leo moved forward, standing beside him.

— Stay there, don’t move and keep your hands on top of the cabinet.

There were thousands and thousands of files, extensive documentation not just for the current work force but for people who’d left. Tolkachs weren’t supposed to exist, since their necessity implied some fault in distribution and production. It was unlikely they’d be listed under that title.

— Where are the files on your tolkachs?

The old man opened up a cabinet, taking out a thick file. The front was marked RESEARCHERS, a cover. As far as Leo could tell there were five tolkachs currently on the payroll. Nervous — their entire investigation rested on these documents — he checked the employment history of these men. Where had they been sent and when? If these dates corresponded to the murders he would have found the killer, at least in his own mind. If it was enough of a match he’d go to the man and confront him — he was sure face to face, confronted with his crime, the killer would crack. He ran his finger down the list, comparing it to the dates and places held in his memory. The first list didn’t match. Leo paused for a moment, wondering about his own powers of recall. But the three dates he couldn’t forget were the murders in Voualsk and the murder in Moscow. This tolkach had never been there or anywhere along the Trans-Siberian railway line. Leo opened the second file, ignoring the personal information and moving to the employment record. This person had only started working last month. Leo pushed the files aside, opening the third file. It didn’t match. There were only two files left. He flicked to the fourth.

Voualsk, Molotov, Vyatka, Gorky — a row of towns which followed the train line west towards Moscow. Moving south from Moscow, there were the towns of Tula and Orel. Now into the Ukraine, Leo saw the towns of Kharkov and Gorlovka, Zaporoshy and Kramatorsk. In all these towns there had been murders. He shut the file. Before he studied the personal details he’d check the fifth file. Barely able to concentrate he ran his finger down the list. There were some cross-references but no perfect fit. Leo returned to the fourth file. He flicked to the front page, staring at the small black-and-white photo. The man was wearing glasses. His name was Andrei.


Same Day

Vasili sat on his hotel bed, smoking, dumping ash on the carpet and drinking straight from the bottle. He was under no illusions: if he didn’t hand his superior officers the fugitives Leo and Raisa, they would almost certainly look upon the death of Fyodor Andreev with unkind eyes. That had been the deal they’d struck before he’d left Moscow. They’d believe his story about Fyodor working with Leo, they’d believe that when Fyodor had been presented with the truth he’d tried to attack Vasili, only if he brought them Leo. The MGB were embarrassed at their inability to catch this unarmed, penniless married couple who seemed to have melted away. If Vasili could catch them they were prepared to forgive him any sin. Officials were preparing for the fact that Leo was already abroad in the clutches of Western diplomats. Their own foreign agents had been briefed. Photos of Leo and his wife had already been sent out to embassies across the world. Plans to assassinate them were being drawn up. If Vasili could save them the trouble of launching an expensive and diplomatically complicated international man hunt, then his slate would be wiped clean.

He dropped his cigarette stub on the carpet, watched it smoulder for a moment before crushing it under his heel. He’d been in contact with the State Security in Rostov, a ragtag bunch. He’d given them photos. He’d told the officers that they should bear in mind Leo might have grown a beard or cropped his hair short. They might not be travelling as a couple. They might have parted ways. One of them might be dead. Or they might be travelling in a group, assisted by others. Officers should pay little attention to paperwork, all of which Leo knew how to fake. They should detain anyone they considered even remotely suspicious. Vasili would make the final decision as to whether to release them or not. With thirty men in total he’d set up a series of checkpoints and random searches. He’d ordered every officer to log all incidents, no matter how trivial, in order that he’d be able to check them himself. These reports were brought to him, day and night.

There had been nothing so far. Would this prove another opportunity for Leo to humiliate him? Perhaps that idiot Fyodor had been wrong. Maybe Leo was heading somewhere completely different. If that was the case then Vasili was dead.

There was a knock on the door.

— Come in.

A red-faced young officer stood to attention holding a sheet of paper. Vasili gestured for him to give it to him.


Rostelmash factory. Administrative section.

Two men attacked, employment files stolen.


Vasili got to his feet.

— He’s here.

Same Day

They stood side by side, fifty paces from the front door. Leo glanced at his wife. She was unaware of this madness that had descended upon him. He felt giddy: as though he’d ingested some narcotic. He half expected that the feeling would fade and normality would return, there’d be another explanation and that this wouldn’t be the house belonging to his little brother.


Andrei Trofimovich Sidorov.


But that was his little brother’s name.


Pavel Trofimovich Sidorov.


And that had been his own name, until he’d shed his childhood identity as a reptile sheds its skin. The small photo on the employment file had confirmed it was Andrei. The features were the same — a lost expression. The glasses were new. But that’s why he’d been so clumsy, he was short-sighted. His awkward, shy little brother — murderer of at least 44 children. It made no sense and yet it made perfect sense: the string, the ground-up bark, the hunt. Forced to concentrate on the memories he’d banished, Leo recalled teaching his little brother how to make a string snare, he’d told him to gnaw on the bark of trees to suppress hunger. Had those lessons become the template for some kind of psychotic frenzy? Why hadn’t Leo made the connections before? No, it was ridiculous to have expected him to. Any number of children had been taught the same lessons and shown how to hunt. Upon seeing the victims these details hadn’t registered any deeper into Leo’s mind. Or had they? Had he chosen this path or had it chosen him? Had this been the reason he’d been drawn into the investigation when there was every reason to look the other way?

When he’d seen his brother’s name printed in black and white Leo had been forced to sit down, staring at the file, checking the dates, checking and rechecking. He’d been in shock, oblivious to the dangers around him. It wasn’t until he noticed the bookkeeper sidestepping towards the phone that he snapped back. He’d secured the bookkeeper to a chair, disabled the phone and locked both men in the office, gagging them. He had to get out. He had to pull himself together. But going down the corridor he hadn’t even been walking straight, lurching from side to side. He’d felt dizzy. Having made it outside, his thoughts still scrambled, his world still upside down, he’d instinctively turned towards the main gates, too late realizing that it would’ve been far safer to climb over the fence as he’d done before. But he’d been unable to change direction; the guards had seen him approach. He’d have to walk right past them. He’d begun to sweat. They’d let him go unchallenged. Once in the taxi he’d told the driver the address, ordering him to hurry. He’d been shaking, his legs, his arms — he’d been unable to stop. He’d watched as Raisa had studied the file. She now knew the story of his brother: she knew his first name but not their full name. He’d watched her reaction as she studied the papers. She hadn’t put the two together, she hadn’t guessed. How could she? He’d been incapable of telling her.


That man is my brother.


There was no way of knowing how many people were inside his brother’s house. The other inhabitants posed a problem. They were almost certainly unaware of the nature of this man, this killer, unaware of his crimes — surely part of the reason he murdered away from home. His little brother had created a split identity, his home life and his life as a killer, just as Leo had cleaved his own identity in two, the boy he’d been and the boy he’d become. Leo shook his head: he had to stay focused. He was here to kill this man. The question was how to get past the other occupants. Neither he nor Raisa had a gun. Raisa sensed his hesitation and asked:

— What’s worrying you?

— The other occupants of that house.

— You saw this man’s face. We’ve seen the photo. You can slip in and kill him while he sleeps.

— I can’t do that.

— Leo, he deserves nothing more.

— I have to be sure. I have to talk to him.

— He’s only going to deny it. The longer you speak to him, the harder it becomes.

— That might be true. But I won’t kill him in his sleep.

They’d been given a knife by Sarra. Leo offered it to Raisa.

— I won’t be using this.

Raisa refused to take it.

— Leo, this man killed over forty children.

— And I will kill him for it.

— What if he defends himself? He must have a knife. Maybe even a gun. He might be strong.

— He’s no fighter. He’s clumsy, shy.

— Leo, how do you know that? Take the knife. How can you kill him with your bare hands?

Leo gave her the knife, pressing the handle into her hand.

— You forget: this is what I was trained to do. Trust me.

It was the first time he’d ever asked for her trust.

— I do.

There was no future for them, no hope of escape, no hope of being together much beyond the events of tonight. Raisa realized that some part of her wanted this man not to be at home, she wanted him to be away on some trip, then they’d have a reason to stay together, evading capture for at least another couple of days, before returning to finish the job. Ashamed of this thought she pushed it aside. How many people had risked their lives so that they might be here? She kissed Leo, willing him to succeed, willing that man dead.

Leo moved towards the house leaving Raisa hidden. The plan was already agreed. She was to remain set back from the house, watching and waiting. If the man tried to escape she’d intercept him. If something went wrong, if Leo failed for whatever reason, she’d make a separate attempt on the man’s life.

He reached the door. There was a dim light inside. Did that mean someone was awake? He tentatively pushed on the door, which swung open. Before him was a kitchen area, a table, a stove. The light came from an oil lamp: a flame flickered inside a sooty glass bulb. He stepped into the house, moving through the kitchen into the adjoining space. To his surprise there were only two beds. In one of the beds two young girls slept together. Their mother slept in the second bed. She was alone: there was no sign of Andrei. Was this his brother’s family? If so then was it his family too? Was this his sister-in-law? Were these his nieces? No, there might be another family downstairs. He turned. A cat was staring at him, two cool green eyes. Its coat was black and white. Though it was better fed than the cat in the forest, the cat they’d hunted and killed, it was the same colours, the same kind. Leo felt as if he was in a dream, with fragments of the past all around him. The cat squeezed through a second door, going downstairs. Leo followed.

The narrow stairway led down to a basement illuminated by a dim light. The cat descended the stairs and turned out of sight. From the top step most of the room was concealed. All Leo could see was the edge of another bed. It was empty. Was it possible Andrei wasn’t home? Leo moved down the stairs, trying not to make any noise.

Reaching the bottom he peered around the corner. A man was seated at a table. He wore thick square glasses, a clean white shirt. He was playing cards. He looked up. Andrei didn’t seem surprised. He stood up. From where Leo was standing he could see on the wall behind his brother, as though flowering out of his brother’s head, a collage of newspaper clippings taped up, the same photo over and over again, the photo of him — Leo, standing, triumphant, beside the smoking wreck of a panzer, the hero of the Soviet Union, the poster boy of triumph.

— Pavel, what took you so long?

His little brother gestured at the empty seat opposite him.

Leo felt powerless to do anything except obey, aware that he was no longer in control of the situation. Far from being alarmed or caught off guard, far from stumbling over his words or even running away, Andrei seemed prepared for this confrontation. In contrast Leo was disorientated, confused: it was hard not to follow his brother’s instructions.

Leo sat down. Andrei sat down. Brother opposite brother: reunited after more than twenty years. Andrei asked.

— You knew it would be me from the beginning?

— The beginning?

— From the first body you found?

— No.

— What body did you find first?

— Larisa Petrova, Voualsk.

— A young girl, I remember her.

— And Arkady, Moscow?

— There were several in Moscow.

Several, he used the word so casually. If there were several, then they’d all been covered up.

— Arkady was murdered in February this year, on the railway tracks.

— A small boy?

— He was four years old.

— I remember him too. They were recent. I had perfected my method by then. Yet you still didn’t know it was me? The earlier murders weren’t as clear. I was nervous. You see, I couldn’t be too obvious. It needed to be something only you would recognize. I couldn’t just have written my name. I was communicating with you, and only you.

— What are you talking about?

— Brother, I never believed you were dead. I always knew you were alive. And I have only ever had one desire, one ambition…to get you back.

Was that anger in Andrei’s voice or affection or both emotions together? Had his only ambition been to get him back or get back at him? Andrei smiled, it was a warm smile — wide and honest — like he’d just won at cards.

— Your stupid, clumsy brother was right about one thing. He was right about you. I tried telling Mother that you were alive. But she wouldn’t pay any attention to me. She was sure someone had caught you, killed you. I told her that wasn’t true, I told her you’d run away, with our catch. I promised to find you and when I did I wouldn’t be angry, I’d forgive you. She wouldn’t listen. She went mad. She would forget who I was and pretend that I was you. She’d call me Pavel and ask me to help her, as you used to help her. I would pretend to be you, since that was easier, since that made her happy, but as soon as I made a mistake she’d realize I wasn’t you. She’d become furious, she’d hit me and hit me until all her anger was gone. And then she’d mourn for you again. She never stopped crying over you. Everyone has a reason to live. You were hers. But you were mine too. The only difference between us was that I was sure you were alive.

Leo listened, like a child seated in front of an adult in rapt silence as the world was explained. He could no more lift his hands, stand up — do anything — than he could interrupt. Andrei continued:

— Whilst our mother let herself fall to pieces, I looked after myself. Luckily for me the winter was coming to an end and things slowly got a little better. Only ten people survived from our village, eleven including you. Other villages were completely dead. When the spring came and the snows thawed they stank, entire villages were rotting and diseased. You couldn’t go near them. But in the winter they were quiet, peaceful, perfectly still. And all through that time I went hunting through the forest, every night, on my own. I followed tracks. I searched for you and called your name, shouted it out to the trees. But you did not return.

As though his brain was slowly digesting the words, breaking them down, Leo asked — his voice hesitant:

— You killed those children because you thought I’d left you?

— I killed them so you would find me. I killed them to make you come home. I killed them as a way of talking to you. Who else would’ve understood the clues from our childhood? I knew you’d follow them to me, just as you’d followed the footprints in the snow. You’re a hunter, Pavel, the best hunter in the world. I didn’t know whether you were militia or not. When I saw that photo of you, I spoke to the staff of Pravda. I asked for your name. I explained that we’d been separated and that I thought your name was Pavel. They said Pavel wasn’t your name and that your details were classified. I begged them to tell me which division you were fighting in. They refused to even answer that. I was a soldier too. Not like you, not a hero, not the elite. But I understood enough to realize you must have been in a special force. I knew from the secrecy regarding your name that there was a strong chance you’d either be in the military or the State Security or the government. I knew you’d be an important person, you couldn’t be anything else. You’d have access to the information regarding these murders. Of course, that didn’t necessarily matter. If I killed enough children, in enough places, I was sure you’d come across my work, whatever your occupation. I was sure you’d realize it was me.

Leo leaned forward. His brother seemed so gentle, his reasoning was so careful. Leo asked:

— Brother, what happened to you?

— You mean after the village? The same thing that happened to everyone: I was conscripted into the army. I lost my glasses in battle, stumbled into German hands. I was caught. I surrendered. When I returned to Russia, having been a prisoner of war, I was arrested, interviewed, beaten. They threatened to send me to prison. I told them, how could I be a traitor when I could hardly see? For six months I had no glasses. The world beyond my own nose was a blur. And every child I saw was you. I should’ve been executed. But the guards used to laugh at me bumping into things. I used to fall over all the time, just as I did as a child. I survived. I was too stupid and clumsy to be a German spy. They called me names, beat me and let me go. I returned here. Even here I was hated and called a traitor. But none of that bothered me. I had you. I concentrated my life on a single task — bringing you back to me.

— So you started murdering?

— I started in this area first. But after six months I had to consider the fact that you might be anywhere in the country. That’s why I got a job as a tolkach, so that I could travel. I needed to leave the signs spread across the whole of our country, signs for you to follow.

— Signs? These were children.

— First I killed animals, catching them as we caught that cat. But it didn’t work. No one paid any attention. No one cared. No one noticed. One day a child stumbled across me in the forest. He asked what I was doing. I explained I was leaving bait. The boy was the same age as you were when you left me. And I realized that child would make a far better bait. People would notice a dead child. You would understand the significance. Why do you think I killed so many children in the winter months? So you’d follow my tracks through the snow. Didn’t you follow my boot prints deep into the forests, just like you followed the cat?

Leo had been listening to his brother’s soft voice as if it was a foreign tongue he could barely understand.

— Andrei, you have a family. I saw your children upstairs, children just like the children you’ve killed. You have two beautiful girls. Can you not understand that what you’ve done is wrong?

— It was necessary.

— No.

Andrei banged the table with his fists, furious.

— Don’t take that tone with me! You have no right to be angry! You never bothered to look for me! You never came back! You knew I was alive and you didn’t care! Forget about stupid clumsy Andrei! He’s nothing to you! You left me behind with a crazy fucking mother and a village full of rotting bodies! You have no right to judge me!

Leo stared at his brother’s face, twisted with anger, suddenly transformed. Was this the face the children saw? What had his brother been through? What impossible horrors? But the time for pity and understanding had long since been passed. Andrei wiped the sweat from his brow.

— It was the only way I could make you find me, the only way I could get your attention. You could’ve looked for me. But you didn’t. You cut me out of your life. You put me out of your mind. The happiest moment of my life was when we caught that cat, together, as a team. When we were together I never felt the world was unfair, even when we had no food, even when it was bitterly cold. But then you went away.

— Andrei, I didn’t leave you. I was taken. I was hit over the head by a man in the woods. I was put in a sack and carried away. I would never have left you.

Andrei was shaking his head.

— That’s what mother said. But it’s a lie. You’d betrayed me.

— I almost died. That man who took me — he was going to kill me. They were going to feed me to their son. But when we arrived at the house, their son had already died. I was concussed. I couldn’t even remember my own name. It took me weeks to recover. By that time I was already in Moscow. We’d left the country behind. They had to find food. I remembered you. I remembered our mother. I remembered our life together. Of course I did. But what was I supposed to do? I had no choice. I had to move on. I’m sorry.

Leo was apologizing.

Andrei picked up the cards and shuffled them.

— You could’ve looked for me when you were older. You could’ve made some effort. I haven’t changed my name. I would’ve been easy to find, particularly for a man in power.

That was true, Leo could’ve found his brother; he could’ve sought him out. He’d tried to bury the past. And now his brother had murdered his way back into his life.

— Andrei, I spent my whole life trying to forget the past. I grew up afraid to confront my new parents. I was afraid to remind them of the past because I was afraid to remind them of the time when they’d wanted to kill me. I used to wake up every night — sweating, terrified — worried that they might have changed their minds and that they might want to kill me again. I did everything in my power to make them love me. It was about survival.

— You always wanted to do things without me, Pavel. You always wanted to leave me behind.

— Do you know why I’ve come here?

— You’ve come to kill me. Why else would a hunter come? After you kill me, I’ll be hated and you’ll be loved. Just like it has always been.

— Brother, I’m considered a traitor for trying to stop you.

Andrei seemed genuinely surprised.

— Why?

— They’ve blamed your murders on other people — many innocent people have died directly and indirectly from your crimes. Do you understand? Your guilt is an embarrassment to the State.

Andrei’s face remained blank. Finally he said: —I’ll write a confession.

Another confession: and what would it say?


I — Andrei Sidorov — am a killer.


His brother didn’t understand. No one wanted his confession, no one wanted him to be guilty.

— Andrei, I’m not here to collect your confession. I’m here to make sure you don’t kill any more children.

— I’m not going to stop you. I’ve achieved all I set out to achieve. I’ve been proved right. You’ve been made to regret not looking for me sooner. If you had, think how many lives would’ve been saved.

— You’re insane.

— Before you kill me I would like to play one hand of cards. Please, brother, it is the least you can do for me.

Andrei dealt the cards. Leo looked at them.

— Please, brother, one game. If you play, I’ll let you kill me.

Leo took up his cards, not because of his brother’s promise, but because he needed time to clear his mind. He needed to imagine Andrei was a stranger. They began their game. Concentrating, Andrei appeared perfectly content. There was a noise to the side. Alarmed, Leo turned around. A pretty little girl was standing at the bottom of the stairs, hair dishevelled. She remained on the bottom step, most of her body concealed, a tentative voyeur. Andrei stood up.

— Nadya, this is my brother, Pavel.

— The brother you told me about? The one you told me was coming to visit?

— Yes.

Nadya turned to Leo.

— Are you hungry? Have you travelled far?

Leo didn’t know what to say. Andrei answered instead.

— You should go back to bed.

— I’m awake now. I won’t be able to go back to sleep. I’d just lie upstairs listening to you talk. Can’t I sit with you? I’d like to meet your brother too. I’ve never met any of your family. I’d like that very much. Please, Father, please?

— Pavel has travelled a long way to find me. We have a lot to talk about.

Leo had to get rid of the little girl. He was in danger of being entrenched in a family reunion, glasses of vodka, slices of cold meat and questions about his past. He was here to kill.

— Perhaps we could have some tea, if there’s any?

— Yes. I know how to make that. Shall I wake Mother?

Andrei remarked:

— No. Let her sleep.

— I can do it by myself, then.

— Yes, do it by yourself.

She smiled and ran back upstairs.

Excited, Nadya climbed the stairs. Her father’s brother was handsome and she could tell that he had many interesting stories to tell. He was a soldier, a hero. He could tell her how to become a fighter pilot. Maybe he was married to a pilot. She opened the door to the living room and gasped. There was a beautiful woman standing in her kitchen. She stood perfectly still, with one hand behind her back, as if a giant hand had reached in through the window and placed her there — a doll in a dolls’ house.

Raisa held the knife behind her back, steel pressed against her dress. She’d waited outside for what felt like an impossibly long time. Something must have gone wrong. She’d have to finish this herself. As soon as she’d stepped though the door she realized to her relief that there were very few people in this house. There were two beds, a daughter and mother. Who was this girl in front of her? Where had she come from? She seemed happy and excited. There was no sense of panic or fear. No one had died.

— My name is Raisa. Is my husband here?

— Do you mean Pavel?

Pavel — why was he calling himself Pavel? Why was he calling himself by his old name?

— Yes…

— My name is Nadya. I’m pleased to meet you. I’ve never met any of my dad’s family.

Raisa kept the knife positioned behind her back. Family — what was this girl talking about?

— Where is my husband?

— Downstairs.

— I just want to let him know I’m here.

Raisa moved to the stairs, placing the knife in front of her so Nadya couldn’t see the blade. She pushed open the door.

Walking very slowly, listening to the sound of measured conversation, Raisa descended the stairs. She held the knife in front of her, outstretched, trembling. She reminded herself that the longer she took to kill this man, the more difficult it would become. Reaching the bottom of the stairs she saw her husband playing cards.


Vasili ordered his men to circle the house — there was no way anyone could escape. He was accompanied by fifteen officers in total. Many of them were local and he had no relationship with them. Fearful that they’d do things by the book, arrest Leo and his wife, he would have to take matters into his own hands. He’d end this here, making sure he destroyed any evidence which might mitigate in their favour. He moved forward, gun ready. Two men moved with him. He gestured for them to remain where they were.

— Give me five minutes. Unless I call for you don’t enter. Is that clear? If I’m not out in five minutes storm the house, kill everyone.


Raisa’s hand was shaking, holding the knife in front of her. She couldn’t do it. She couldn’t kill this man. He was playing cards with her husband. Leo stepped towards her.

— I’ll do it.

— Why are you playing cards with him?

— Because he’s my brother.

Upstairs, there were screams. The little girl was screaming. There was the sound of shouting, a man’s voice. Before anyone could react Vasili appeared at the bottom of the stairs, his gun raised. He surveyed the scene. He too appeared confused, staring at the cards on the table.

— You’ve travelled a long way for a game of cards. I thought you were hunting for a so-called child-killer. Or is this part of your reformed interrogation process?

Leo had left it too late. There was no way he could kill Andrei now. If he made any sudden movement he’d be shot and Andrei would remain free. Even with his brother’s declared reason for killing — their reunion — removed, Leo didn’t believe Andrei would be able to stop. Leo had failed. He’d talked when he should’ve acted. He’d lost sight of the fact that far more people wanted him dead than his brother.

— Vasili, I need you to listen to me.

— On your knees.

— Please…

Vasili cocked his gun. Leo dropped to his knees. All he could do was obey, beg, plead, except this was the one man who wouldn’t listen, who cared about nothing other than his own personal vendetta.

— Vasili, this is important—

Vasili pressed the gun against his head.

— Raisa, kneel beside your husband, do it now!

She joined her husband, side by side, in imitation of the executions outside the barn. The gun was moved behind her head. Raisa took hold of his hand, closing her eyes. Leo shouted:

— No!

In response Vasili tapped the barrel of the gun against her head, teasing him.

— Leo…

Vasili’s voice trailed off. Raisa’s grip tightened around Leo’s hand. Seconds passed; there was silence. Nothing happened. Very slowly, Leo turned around.

The serrated blade had entered Vasili’s back and exited through his stomach. Andrei stood there, holding the knife. He’d saved his brother. He calmly picked up the knife — he hadn’t stumbled or fallen over — and he’d stabbed this man cleanly and quietly, skilfully. Andrei was happy, as happy as he’d been when they’d killed the cat together, as happy as he’d ever been in his life.

Leo stood up, taking the gun from Vasili’s hand. Blood snaked from the corner of Vasili’s mouth. He was still alive but his eyes were no longer calculating, plans were no longer being formed. He raised a hand, placing it on Leo’s shoulder, as if saying goodbye to a friend, before collapsing. This man, whose whole being had been bent on Leo’s persecution, was dead. But Leo felt neither relief nor satisfaction. All he could think about was the one task he had left to perform.

Raisa got up, standing beside Leo. Andrei remained where he was. No one did anything. Slowly, Leo raised the gun, taking aim, just above the bridge of his brother’s glasses. In the small room there was barely a foot between the barrel of the gun and his brother’s head.

A voice cried out:

— What are you doing?

Leo turned. Nadya was at the bottom of the stairs. Raisa whispered:

— Leo, we don’t have much time.

But Leo couldn’t do it. Andrei said:

— Brother, I want you to.

Raisa reached out, put her hand around Leo’s hand. Together they pulled the trigger. The gun fired, recoiled. Andrei’s head jerked back and he fell to the floor.

At the sound of the shot, armed officers stormed the house, running down the stairs. Raisa and Leo dropped the gun. The lead officer stared at the body of Vasili. Leo spoke first, his hand shaking. He pointed to Andrei — his little brother.

— This man was a murderer. Your superior officer died trying to apprehend him.

Leo picked up the black case. With no idea if his guess would prove correct, he opened it. Inside there was a glass jar lined with paper. He unscrewed the lid, tipping the contents onto the table, onto his game of cards. It was the stomach of his brother’s last victim, wrapped in an edition of Pravda. Leo added, his voice almost inaudible:

— Vasili died a hero.

As the officers moved around the table, examining this gruesome discovery, Leo stepped back. Nadya was staring at him, her father’s fury in her eyes.

Moscow

18 July


Leo stood before Major Grachev in the office where he’d refused to denounce his wife. Leo didn’t recognize the major. He hadn’t heard of him. But he wasn’t surprised that someone new was in charge. No one lasted long in the upper echelons of the State Security force and four months had passed since he’d stood here. This time there was no chance that they’d be punished with unsupervised exile or sent to the Gulags. Their executions would happen here, today.

Major Grachev said:

— Your previous superior was Major Kuzmin, a Beria appointee. Both have been arrested. Your case now falls to me.

In front of him was the battered case file confiscated in Voualsk. Grachev flicked through the pages, the photographs, the statements, the court transcripts.

— In that basement we found the remains of three stomachs, two of which had been cooked. They’d been taken from children, although we’re still trying to find out who these victims might be. You were right. Andrei Sidorov was a murderer. I’ve reviewed his background. It seems he was a collaborator with Nazi Germany and was mistakenly released back into society after the war instead of being correctly processed. That was an unpardonable error on our part. He was a Nazi agent. They sent him back with instructions to take revenge on us for our victory over the Fascists. That revenge has taken the form of these terrible attacks on our children; they targeted the very future of Communism. More than that, it was a propaganda campaign. They wanted our people to believe our society could produce such a monster when in fact he was corrupted and educated by the West, transformed by his time away from home and then returned with a poisoned, foreign heart. I notice that not one of these murders took place before the Great Patriotic War.

He paused, looking at Leo.

— Was this not your thinking?

— That was exactly my thinking, sir.

Grachev offered his hand.

— Your service to your country has been remarkable. I’ve been instructed to offer you a promotion, a higher grade of position within the State Security organs, there’s a clear route to a political role if you should want it. We’re in new times, Leo. Our leader Khrushchev considers the problems you faced in your investigation part of the unpardonable excesses of Stalinist rule. Your wife has been released. Since she assisted you in hunting this foreign operative any question of her loyalty has now been answered. Both your records will be wiped clean. Your parents will have their old apartment back. If that is not available, then they will have a better one.

Leo remained silent.

— You have nothing to say?

— That is a very generous offer. And I’m honoured. You understand that I acted without any thought of promotion or power. I merely knew this man had to be stopped.

— I understand.

— But I would like permission to turn down your offer. And instead make a request of my own.

— Go on.

— I want to take charge of a Moscow homicide department. If such a department does not exist I would like to create it.

— What need is there of such a department?

— As you already said yourself, murder will become a weapon against our society. If they cannot spread their propaganda through conventional means, they will use unorthodox means. I believe crime will become a new front in our struggle with the West. They will use it to undermine the harmonious nature of our society. When they do, I want to be there to stop it.

— Go on.

— I would like General Nesterov transferred to Moscow. I would like him to work with me in this new department.

Grachev considered the request, nodding solemnly.


Raisa was waiting outside, staring up at the statue of Dzerzhinsky. Leo exited the building and took her hand, a brazen display of affection no doubt scrutinized by those staring out of the Lubyanka. He didn’t care. They were safe, at least for the time being. That was long enough; that was as long as anyone could possibly hope for. He glanced up at Dzerzhinsky’s statue and realized that he couldn’t remember a single thing that man had ever said.

Загрузка...