Red Moth

Kirov and Pekkala

Kirov and Pekkala sat in the Emka, which was still in the middle of the road.

‘You’ve been in the Amber Room, haven’t you?’ asked Kirov.

‘Of course,’ replied Pekkala. ‘I met the Tsar there many times.’

‘Then can you tell me why the Fascists would be so concerned with getting their hands on it?’

‘If you had ever seen it for yourself,’ Pekkala told him, ‘you wouldn’t need to ask the question. And if the sight of it wasn’t enough to convince you, then consider that the amber in that room is worth ten times its weight in gold.’

‘And how much amber is in the room?’

‘Seven tons of it,’ replied Pekkala.

‘What are they planning to do?’ asked Kirov. ‘Tear the walls apart?’

‘They wouldn’t have to,’ Pekkala informed him, ‘because the amber is not actually embedded in the walls. It’s fitted into panels, some about twice the height of a man and others which would come up to your waist. Once those had been removed, the room would be an empty shell.’

‘I am beginning to understand,’ said Kirov. ‘We should go straight to the Kremlin. Now that you’ve figured out the purpose of the map, Comrade Stalin will want to know immediately.’

‘Not before I have confirmation from Lieutenant Churikova that my assumptions are correct. There are still many questions which have yet to be answered. Like why those two men would have been transporting the map when it was already too late to get their hands on the amber.’

‘Why is it too late?’

‘The contents of the room, including the amber, were evacuated to safety, along with most of the other treasures in the palace. Everything has been boxed up and shipped east of the Ural mountains. The Amber Room is somewhere in Siberia by now. I heard about it on State radio over two weeks ago, but it’s only been seventy-two hours since the two men who were carrying the painting went down over our lines.’

‘Perhaps they didn’t hear the broadcast,’ suggested Kirov. ‘I know I didn’t.’

‘The Germans monitor Russian State Radio, just as we monitor all of their radio stations. They would have known‚ for sure. And there’s something else I can’t figure out.’

‘What’s that, Inspector?’

‘The location of the Amber Room is not a secret. It has been there for two hundred years. Why would someone go to the trouble of preparing an elaborately coded message to inform the Germans of something they could find out from any art history book?’

‘A pity we don’t have Comrade Ostubafengel to speak with,’ said Kirov, remembering the word they had found scrawled on the back of the canvas. ‘I’m sure he could have told us everything.’

‘Let’s hope Lieutenant Churikova has the answers,’ Pekkala remarked as he put the car in gear and steered them back on course towards the train station.

On their previous visit to Ostankinsky, they had found the place almost deserted. Now hundreds of soldiers crammed the railyard. Some lay sleeping on the ground, using their rucksacks as pillows. Other sat in tight circles, playing cards or coaxing mess tins full of water to the boil over fires made from twigs.

Many looked up when they heard the growling of the Emka’s engine, hoping that some other form of transport might have arrived at last. Seeing only one four-seater car, the optimism faded from their eyes.

‘All the trains must be held up because of the bombing last night,’ said Pekkala. ‘She’s probably still here.’

‘But how are we going to find her in that crowd?’ wondered Kirov.

Pekkala turned to him. ‘I believe I have the solution.’

Five minutes later, Kirov was making his way along the spine of the steeply angled roof, his arms held out to the side and wobbling unsteadily, like a tightrope walker high above the big ring of a circus.

By now, every pair of eyes in the railyard was following his progress.

‘Go on, Commissar!’ shouted a soldier, who wore a filthy greatcoat so long that it trailed along the ground as he walked towards the station house. ‘Jump! Jump!’

Arriving at the centre of the roof, Kirov came to a stop. Slowly, he turned to face the crowd and cupped his hands to his mouth. ‘I am looking for a woman!’

At first, the soldiers simply stared at him in confusion.

Then, one by one, came the replies.

‘Let me know when you find her!’ shouted a soldier, rising slowly to his feet, a fan of playing cards clutched in his fist.

‘I am also looking for a woman!’ boomed another man, raising his rifle in the air. ‘She must report to me at once!’

‘Come down here, Comrade Commissar,’ called a broad-faced man with piggy eyes, his head so closely shaved that his scalp gleamed in the sun. Unlike the others, this man did not smile as he hurled his insults at the figure on the roof. ‘Come down here and. . ’

A shot rang out across the station yard.

Hundreds of men flinched simultaneously. The laughter ceased abruptly.

Kirov waited until the last sliver of smoke had escaped from the barrel of his Tokarev before replacing the weapon in its holster. ‘Her name,’ he called into the silence, ‘is Lieutenant Churikova!’

There was a creaking sound, which seemed to come from directly beneath Kirov’s feet. It crossed his mind that the roof might be collapsing under him.

But the sound was from the door of the station house, which now fell back with a clatter against its crooked frame.

A soldier walked down the three steps of the station house into the dust of the railyard, then stopped and turned. It was Churikova. She squinted up at Kirov, half blinded by the sun behind his back. ‘I didn’t think I’d seen the last of you‚’ she said.

On the ground once again, Kirov led Churikova to the Emka, where Pekkala handed her one sketch after another as he explained what they had learned about the map.

Churikova examined each one, carefully and in silence.

‘Well?’ Pekkala asked‚ unable to disguise his impatience. ‘What do you think?’

It was a moment before she replied. ‘I think you are correct,’ she said at last, ‘but even if you have deciphered this Baden-Powell diagram, the map contained within it has no purpose any more. You must have heard the broadcast on State Radio, reporting that the Amber Room has been removed from the Palace. What’s more, even if the Kremlin hasn’t admitted it yet, every soldier in that railyard knows that the Germans will soon be at the gates of Leningrad. The Catherine Palace lies directly in the path of their advance. Whatever information this map might have provided is useless now. You might as well throw it away.’

‘Before I can do that,’ replied Pekkala, ‘there is someone who will want to hear the opinion of an expert. For that, I must bring you back to Moscow.’

‘Who is this person?’

‘You will know him when you see him.’

‘But I have a train to catch,’ protested Churikova. ‘I must rejoin my battalion.’

Kirov and Pekkala exchanged glances, realising that the results of last night’s bombing raid had either been suppressed by the authorities, or else had not yet reached the Ostankinsky railyard.

Pekkala opened the door of the Emka, gesturing for Churikova to take a seat. ‘Please, Lieutenant,’ he said gently.

Driving back to Moscow, Pekkala relayed the grim details about the train which had been hit.

Churikova struggled to absorb the information. ‘Surely they weren’t all killed, Inspector? There must have been survivors.’

Pekkala thought of what Poskrebychev had told him about the wheel which had been found over half a kilometre from the wreck. He imagined it, smouldering in the dirt like a meteor which had just collided with the earth. ‘I am told that there were none.’