Red Moth

While Pekkala reported

While Pekkala made his report about the map to Stalin, Kirov and Churikova waited in the outer office.

‘You should have told me we were coming here!’ she whispered urgently to Kirov.

‘Would it have made any difference if I had?’

‘Perhaps she would have told you no,’ remarked Poskrebychev‚ ‘as perhaps she already has.’ He had not only been eavesdropping on their conversation but had also been listening to them in the next room via the intercom that connected the inner and outer offices.

Kirov shot him a hostile glance. ‘You are an irritating little man, Poskrebychev.’

‘And you are not the first to tell me so.’

Behind the closed doors, Stalin sat in his red leather chair, a cigarette wedged between his fingers. Several piles of paperwork had been swept aside to make room for the canvas, which Stalin examined carefully as Pekkala, standing on the other side of the desk, explained where the maps lay buried in the picture. ‘Remarkable,’ muttered Stalin. Not taking his eyes from the picture, he fitted the cigarette between his lips. The tip glowed red, crackling faintly and Stalin drew the smoke into his lungs. ‘Devious. Diabolical!’

‘It may be all those things,’ Pekkala told him, ‘but it is also useless now, as Lieutenant Churikova will explain to you.’ Pekkala gestured towards the door. ‘If you will permit me to bring her in.’

‘Before you bring in this expert, tell me what you think. Have we deciphered the full meaning of the map or haven’t we?’

‘Not all of my questions have been answered,’ admitted Pekkala, ‘such as who made it and who was its intended recipient‚ but I do think the map no longer serves the purpose for which it was intended. As you will recall from the broadcast on State Radio, the amber itself has been moved to a safe location in the Ural mountains, along with all the other treasures in the palace. .’

‘Ah.’ Stalin leaned back in his chair, stroking his moustache with tobacco-yellowed fingertips. ‘Then we may have a problem, after all.’

‘What kind of problem, Comrade Stalin?’

‘The removal of those treasures was not carried out as efficiently as the news broadcast implied.’

‘You mean they didn’t move the art works?’

‘Oh, they moved some of them.’ Stalin brushed his hand casually through the air, ‘but there were too many objects and too little time. The curators ran out of packing materials. In the end, they resorted to using the Tsar’s collection of luggage, which was itself extremely valuable, for transporting things out of Pushkin. Huge statues had to be protected. They couldn’t be moved, so engineers blasted craters in the palace ground and buried them. It was a monumental task, but, in the end, dozens of paintings, priceless vases and entire rooms of furniture were left behind.’

‘But what about the Amber Room, Comrade Stalin? Surely that would have been a top priority.’

‘Indeed it was. The panels were to have been included in the first transport and, if everything had gone according to plan, they would, by now, be safe from the clutches of the Fascists. But when the curators attempted to remove the panels from the walls, they turned out to be too fragile. The curators quickly realised that the amber would never have survived the journey to Siberia.’

‘So what did they do instead?’ asked Pekkala.

‘The curators decided that their only option was to leave the panels where they were, but to conceal them beneath layers of muslin cloth, which were then papered over in order to give the impression that the space had been transformed into an ordinary room.’

Pekkala tried to imagine the amber muffled behind wallpaper, but in his mind its honeyed light kept burning through, as if the whole palace was blazing.

‘Afterwards,’ continued Stalin, ‘I approved an announcement on our national radio that the amber had been transported far from the palace. We knew that the Germans would be listening to the broadcast, and gambled that they might believe what they were hearing, especially when all they found was ordinary paper on the walls. Adding to the illusion, I also declared the Amber Room to be an irreplaceable State treasure, banking on the fact that the Germans would never believe I would do such a thing unless I knew the amber was safely out of their reach. If the gamble paid off, and the Amber Room was not discovered, then it would, in fact, be safer in its original location than if we were to try to move it the entire length of Russia.’

‘So whoever made that painting,’ said Pekkala, ‘must have known that the radio reports were false. They were trying to warn the Germans that the amber was still at the Palace. It’s fortunate that we intercepted the map before it could be delivered.’

Viciously, Stalin stubbed out his cigarette in the already overflowing ashtray on his desk. ‘But it still means we have traitors among us!’

Their conversation was interrupted by loud voices coming from the outer office. A moment later, the door burst open and Churikova stepped into the room.

Close behind her was Poskrebychev. ‘Comrade Stalin, I apologise! I tried to stop her!’

Stalin fixed his eyes on the woman. ‘You must be the expert‚’ he said.

‘Comrade Stalin,’ Pekkala announced, ‘this is Lieutenant Churikova of the Army’s Cryptographic Section. She has assisted us in this investigation.’

‘Ostubafengel,’ Churikova blurted out. ‘I’ve just figured out what it means!’

Stalin glanced towards Pekkala. ‘What is she talking about?’

‘The word on the back of the canvas. Ostubafengel.’

Frowning, Stalin picked up the painting, flipped it over and squinted at the letters. ‘Well?’ he asked.

‘It represents a name,’ explained Churikova. ‘The person to whom it was supposed to be delivered is called Engel.’

‘And the rest of it?’

‘Ostubaf is the abbreviation for a rank in the German military, specifically the SS. It means Obersturmbannfuhrer. Ostubaf.’

‘What rank is this man?’ asked Stalin.

‘The equivalent of a lieutenant colonel in our military,’ replied Churikova. ‘Since the war began, we’ve intercepted many such abbreviations, particularly from the SS, in which the system of ranking is not only different but abbreviated by the men who use it. For example, they use the word “Ustuf” for Untersturmfuhrer, “Stubaf” for Sturmbannfuhrer and so on. I had never come across Ostubaf before, but when the Inspector spoke the word aloud while we were driving here, I began to put the pieces together in my head. Forgive me for intruding, Comrade Stalin, but the meaning only just became clear to me, and I assumed you would want to know immediately.’

‘I don’t see how this helps,’ he told her bluntly. ‘Now we know there is some colonel in the SS who hasn’t got his painting. What good does that do us?’

‘It would do us no good at all, Comrade Stalin,’ said Churikova, ‘except I know this man.’

Stalin’s expression froze. ‘Go on,’ he said quietly.

‘Before I joined the army,’ she explained, ‘I was an art student at the Leningrad Institute. As part of my studies, I was sent to work with the authenticator, Valery Semykin, in order to learn about the detection of forgeries. He had many contacts in the art world, and was often brought in to appraise whole museum collections. One of these collections was the paintings of the Romanov family, located at the Catherine Palace.’

‘Ah, yes.’ Stalin nodded. ‘I remember. That was in July of 1939, not long before we signed the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact with Germany. As a gesture of good will, the Germans had offered to return several paintings which had been stolen from us in the last war. In return, their Ministry of Culture requested the opportunity to view the art collections of the Catherine and Alexander Palaces. We granted the request, as a way of greasing the wheels of the upcoming diplomatic talks.’

Churikova told the rest. ‘The director of antiquities at Pushkin, Professor Urbaniak, was assigned the task of formally accepting those paintings from the Germans, which were to be presented at the time of their visit to the palaces. Semykin and I were brought in to examine the paintings as soon as they’d been handed over.’

‘You mean in case they tried to pass off forgeries to you?’ asked Pekkala.

‘Yes, but, as it turned out, the paintings were genuine. All of them.’

‘Only the treaty was fake,’ grumbled Stalin. ‘As we have now learned, the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, which was supposed to have guaranteed peace between our countries for the next ten years, wasn’t worth the paper on which it was written.’

‘Go on,’ Pekkala urged the lieutenant. ‘What happened when you arrived at the palace?’

‘We got there before the presentation of the paintings had taken place. While we waited, Semykin asked Professor Urbaniak for permission to inspect the art works which were already part of the Catherine Palace collection. He gave us the go-ahead and it so happened that we were viewing the art works at the same time as the delegation from the German Ministry of Culture. Most of them just looked like graduate students to me, but one man was clearly in charge. He was older than the rest, and wore a heavy three-piece suit. Semykin and I had taken the opportunity to view the palace collections for ourselves. That was when we ran into the man in charge of the German delegation. He introduced himself to us as Professor Gustav Engel, head curator of the Konigsberg Castle Museum. He already seemed to know a great deal about the paintings in the Catherine Palace and he seemed particularly fascinated by the Amber Room.’

Stalin turned his head towards the door. ‘Poskrebychev!’ he boomed.

In the outer office, there was the sound of a chair scudding back across the floor. A moment later, the door opened and Poskrebychev stepped into the room. ‘Comrade Stalin!’ he shouted as he crashed his heels together in salute.

‘See if we have a file on Gustav Engel, Head Curator of the museum at Konigsberg Castle. If we have one, bring it to me now.’

‘Yes, Comrade Stalin.’ Moving with the confidence and gracefulness he had perfected during his many years as Stalin’s secretary, Poskrebychev exited the room. But the second the door closed behind him, the secretary hurled himself into motion. He pushed past Kirov, who had wisely remained in the outer room when Churikova paid her unannounced visit to Stalin, and set off at a sprint towards the department of records. With his arms flailing and head thrown back, he propelled himself down the long hallway like a man pursued by wolves.

Behind the doors of Stalin’s office, Churikova was still answering questions.

‘When you ran into this man Engel,’ continued Stalin, ‘did Semykin already know him?’

‘By reputation, I believe, although I don’t think they had ever met.’

Stalin turned to Pekkala. ‘Go to Semykin. See if he can tell you what a museum curator is doing in the SS.’

The thought of another visit to Lubyanka sent a jolt of dread crackling like static electricity across Pekkala’s mind.

Moments later, Poskrebychev returned, red-faced and panting, a dull grey file clutched in his hand. The folder had a green stripe running vertically down the centre, indicating that it contained documents relating to a foreign national who was of interest to Internal State Security. He lifted his chin, breathed deeply, then opened the door and walked in. Advancing stiffly towards Stalin’s desk, Poskrebychev placed the file before his master.

Without even a glance at Poskrebychev, Stalin opened the file. Hunched over his desk, his face only a hand’s length from the print, he squinted at the documents. ‘Where is the man’s picture?’ he asked.

‘No picture was obtained,’ replied Poskrebychev.

‘Everyone who has a file must have a picture,’ Stalin told him in a low voice. ‘How are we supposed to find the man if we don’t even know what he looks like?’

Nervously, Poskrebychev cleared his throat. ‘No picture was-’

‘It must have fallen out.’

‘No, Comrade Stalin. It says quite clearly in the file that no picture-’

‘I don’t care what it says!’ roared Stalin‚ bringing his fist down with a crash onto the desk. ‘All files are to contain a photograph of the subject. Go and find it. Now, you fool!’

On the other side of the room, Churikova shuddered, as if the rage in Stalin’s voice had struck her physically.

But Pekkala had been present at many such exchanges between Stalin and Poskrebychev. Now he stood by, his jaw clenched, silently waiting for Poskrebychev’s customary subservient bow, followed by the man’s swift return to the labyrinth of the Kremlin records office. But something was different this time. Poskrebychev remained frozen to the spot, his eyes fixed upon the Boss. An expression of disbelief spread across the face of Stalin’s secretary, but for once the source of Poskrebychev’s perpetual anxiety did not seem to be Stalin. Instead, it appeared to be coming from Poskrebychev himself, as if he were suddenly unsure whether he could control the secret thoughts which were parading through his skull.

‘What is the matter with you?’ demanded Stalin. ‘Did you not hear what I said?’

Without a word Poskrebychev spun on his heel and left the room.

As Pekkala watched him go, he wondered how much of Stalin’s bullying Poskrebychev could stand before he cracked. A man like that, moving almost unnoticed through the halls of power, could change in an instant from a harmless, grovelling servant into someone who could bring down an Empire.

‘What is wrong with that man?’ Stalin muttered to himself.

Pekkala felt a drop of sweat run down his cheek, wondering how close Stalin had just come to being murdered by a man whose blind loyalty he took for granted with a blindness even greater than his servant’s.

Stalin returned to his inspection of the file. ‘Medium height, regular features, dark hair. Approximately fifty-five years old. Known to be employed at Konigsberg Castle, where he has been curator of antiquities since 1937. Member of National Socialist Party since 1936. Applied for permission to visit Catherine and Alexander Palaces. Permission granted by Minister of Cultural Affairs. Arrived August 1939. Departed August 1939. Appeared to be fluent in Russian.’ He stopped abruptly.

‘What else does it say?’ asked Pekkala.

‘Nothing,’ replied Stalin. ‘The file was only opened on him when he came to visit the Catherine Palace. Before that, it’s as if he didn’t exist.’

‘And after his visit?’

‘He vanished back to Germany and that’s the last we heard from him.’

‘Until now.’

Stalin closed the file, pushed it away to the corner of his desk and turned his attention to Polina Churikova. ‘That is if these two men are the same person, and I am beginning to think they are not. The man in this file is fifty-five years old, which makes him a little too old for someone with the rank of lieutenant colonel. Someone of this age would either have been promoted or would have retired by now. So you see‚ Comrade Churikova‚ it is clear you are mistaken.’

‘But, Comrade Stalin. .’ she began, but then words seemed to fail her.

Stalin had made up his mind. Now he behaved as if Churikova was no longer in the room. He reached for his box of cigarettes and then began patting his pockets as he searched for his lighter.

Pekkala touched Churikova on the arm. ‘It’s time for us to go,’ he said quietly.

‘It is him,’ Churikova insisted to Pekkala as they stepped into the narrow side street where Kirov had left his car waiting. ‘It’s Gustav Engel. That Gustav Engel‚ I’m telling you.’

‘Even if it was,’ said Kirov, ‘what good would the knowledge do us now?’ He opened the rear door of the Emka for Churikova, who climbed into the back seat. Then he opened the passenger side door for Pekkala.

‘I must return to Lubyanka,’ said Pekkala, ‘for another conversation with Semykin.’

‘That may prove difficult,’ replied Kirov. ‘It was hard enough getting him to talk on our first visit. You’ll be lucky to get anything out of him at all this time.’

Pekkala nodded. ‘It will be an uphill climb, for certain, but I think I might be able to persuade him. There’s no need to drive me. I’ll walk.’

‘All the way to Lubyanka?’

‘There is some business I must attend to first.’

Kirov realised from the tone of Pekkala’s voice that it would be no use trying to persuade him otherwise. ‘Very well, Inspector.’

Pekkala nodded towards Churikova. ‘Where will you take her?’

‘Back to the barracks, I expect,’ replied Kirov. ‘There must be someone who can reassign her to another cryptographic unit.’

Pekkala cast a glance at Churikova, his mind a confusion of pity and regret, then turned and walked away across Red Square.