The Bearpit

21

By the time Alexandr Bogaty arrived at the scene the street was sealed, with closed-sided trucks drawn across either end and the technicians of death, the forensic experts and photographers and a pathologist, busy around the body, scraping and measuring and picturing and examining. There were two uniformed militia men at either end of the street, reinforcing its closure, and four more by the body. Accustomed to unexpected and violent death, they were uninterested in the mechanics of its cause: two were smoking cardboard-tubed Prima cigarettes and the other two huddled close together, stamping their feet against the cold, breath puffing whitely from them as if they were smoking, too.

The captain, one of the two who was not smoking, saw Bogaty’s approach and broke away from the group to meet him.

‘Thought you should see this from the beginning, Comrade investigator,’ he said.

The man’s name was Aliev, Bogaty remembered: a good policeman but nervous of responsibility and so inclined to summon superior officers when something appeared difficult. Bogaty said: ‘If it’s important, I’m glad you did.’

‘It’s important,’ insisted Aliev.

Bogaty moved past him, towards Vasili Malik’s body. Arc lamps flooded everything in harsh white light and Bogaty saw from the chalked outline how the man had lain when he had been found: the body was shifted on its side now for some pathological probe. There had been a lot of bleeding. Bogaty said: ‘What’s it look like?’

‘Struck from behind,’ recounted Aliev. He gestured to a bloodstain that Bogaty had missed. ‘Thrown against the wall, hard, then fell where the outline is…’ As the man spoke the pathologist returned the body to its original position and Aliev said: ‘It was the tyre marks… see?’

‘Yes,’ said Bogaty, ‘I see.’ Aliev had been right: it was important. Not that he would have been irritated if it hadn’t been: given the opportunity to work meant he did not have to go home to Lydia and a diatribe of complaints about the conditions of the apartment and what she could afford or not afford upon an MVD investigator’s salary and when was he going to be promoted to a senior investigator of the homicide division to get the salary increase they need just to exist, let alone live. Without the summons here he would have been drinking in some cafe and lied about a fictitious assignment when he got home.

‘It could have been a panicked reverse to get away, of course,’ suggested Aliev, guarding himself against a mistaken summons.

‘Why reverse?’ said Bogaty. He was a fat but tidy man who cared about his appearance. He’d been oversized since he was a child and long ago abandoned diets: Lydia complained about what he spent on clothes, as well. Once the complaint had been about how heavy he was when they made love. They didn’t any more, which was a small relief.

‘That’s what I thought,’ said Aliev, relieved.

‘Who was he?’ said Bogaty.

‘Important: the reason for calling you,’ said Aliev, offering the investigator the identification documents which had been taken from Malik’s body.

‘Shit!’ said Bogaty. He supposed the KGB caused him more annoyance than Lydia did, if that were possible. There were frequent occasions when investigations in which he had been involved overlapped on to what they regarded their territory – which was everything – and Bogaty resented their arrogance and despised their supposed ability as competent investigators. He said: ‘Have you told them?’

‘I waited until you arrived,’ dodged Aliev.

‘Witnesses?’

‘None.’

‘Who found the body?’

‘A motorist.’

‘What’s he say?’

‘He turned off Oktyabrya and his lights picked up someone lying on the pavement. He was going to drive by, thinking it was a drunk, but then he saw blood. So he stopped.’

‘And?’

‘He halted with his lights on the body, checked that the man was dead and called emergency.’

‘Where is he now?’

Aliev jerked his head in the direction of one of the obstructing trucks. ‘Making a fuller statement.’

‘Could he have done it?’

‘No,’ said Aliev positively. ‘He’s not showing the sort of panic there would be, if he’d done it. His car is not marked…’ The man nodded towards the tyre tracks. ‘… And his tyres are different from those.’

Bogaty sighed, slump shouldered, and said: ‘I suppose it’s time we alerted Dzerzhinsky Square: saw how the big boys operate.’

As Aliev moved away, the pathologist straightened from the body, nodding to Bogaty. ‘Crushed,’ the man announced unnecessarily. ‘Dead almost at once. Back was broken, too. Looks like the poor sod had already suffered enough as it was, before this.’

‘Couldn’t have felt much, then?’ said Bogaty.

‘He felt a lot,’ insisted the pathologist.

The doctor’s departure signalled the end of the technical examination. The photographer started packing up his equipment and the forensic expert tidied small, see-through envelopes into a special wide-bodied briefcase.

‘Anything?’ Bogaty asked the man.

‘Glass fragments,’ reported the forensic examiner. ‘Some paint, too…’ He gestured towards the bloodstained wall. ‘I think the car scraped it.’

‘What about those tyre marks?’ asked Bogaty.

‘Definitely a reverse,’ judged the man. ‘Bloodstained from the initial impact, which registered when it came back.’

‘Could the car had been jammed against the wall so that the driver needed to reverse?’

‘Possibly,’ said the man. ‘But if it had jammed I would have expected more evidence of damage… more glass, more paint. Maybe some broken-off metal.’

‘But there was some damage to the vehicle?’

‘Certainly a broken light and a scraped wing.’

With Bogaty’s arrival, the uniformed men had stubbed out their cigarettes. To one Bogaty said: ‘Get the trucks moved to let the mortuary ambulance in.’

He stood directly at Malik’s feet, plump chin against plump chest, staring down, moving his head left to right and right to left, tracing the passage of the hit and run vehicle. Not simply hit and run, he decided. Hit and hit again. Then run. The bloodied outline and tread of the tyres were very obvious in one direction, but there were no brake marks from what must have been the approach. Rigor mortis was already stiffening the body: the man’s arm was thrown out, hand extended in a pointing gesture, and the lips were strained back from the teeth in a seized grimace of agony. Poor bugger, Bogaty thought: like the pathologist said, he’d been through enough already. Bogaty wondered how he’d suffered the earlier, appalling injury.

What would the KGB response be? Not his concern; he guessed there was very little that would be his concern. Still, excuse enough to avoid the nightly tirade from Lydia. Bogaty, who knew himself to be a very positive policeman, recognized that in his private life he was contrastingly ineffectual. One day, he reflected, he would divorce her. One day. Recalling the name of the corpse before him, Bogaty wondered if Vasili Dmitrevich Malik had been married. It would be the KGB’s job to advise any widow. He would have liked to have known what the man’s position had been in the Committee of State Security. Something further not to be his concern. He supposed most investigators would be grateful for such an apparently difficult case shortly to be taken from their hands, but Bogaty wasn’t. He enjoyed detective work, discovering what people did not want to be discovered, and would have liked to find out why a crippled giant of a KGB man had been intentionally run over and killed. Maybe not so difficult to discover: Bogaty’s guess was someone with a grievance. And there were certainly enough people in the Soviet Union with grievances against the KGB: the majority of the population, he guessed.

Bogaty looked sideways, conscious of someone approaching and expecting to see Aliev but instead recognized the uniform of a KGB colonel. Instinctively he straightened and at once, irritated at the gesture of respect, relaxed again. In self introduction, he said: ‘Investigator Bogaty. MVD homicide.’

The man nodded without bothering to reply, gazing down at the body.

‘And you?’ pressed Bogaty.

The colonel turned and for a moment Bogaty imagined the man was not going to identify himself. Then he said: ‘Panchenko. Security. KGB First Chief Directorate.’

‘He must have been important for a colonel to be involved?’

‘It is none of your business,’ rejected Panchenko curtly.

Supercilious shit, thought Bogaty: they were all the same. He said: ‘He was deliberately run down. You can see where the car reversed over him.’ He saw the uniformed man shiver from the cold: the feeling had practically gone from Bogaty’s own hands and feet.

Panchenko said: ‘It will be a KGB investigation.’

‘I anticipated it would be.’

‘What examination has there been?’

‘Pathological, forensic and photographic,’ listed Bogaty.

‘It’s all to be handed over.’

Why was politeness always so difficult for KGB personnel? Bogaty said: ‘It will be.’

‘Immediately.’

‘When it’s available,’ qualified Bogaty. It was hardly independence but it was something, at least.

‘And all your notes.’

‘I haven’t made any,’ said Bogaty.

‘Anything your officers might have.’

‘The motorist who found the body is being interviewed.’

‘I definitely want that.’

‘That’s all there is.’

‘Sure?’

‘Of course I’m sure!’ Bogaty wasn’t impressed or frightened, even if the man were a KGB colonel.

‘I want everything.’

‘You already said that.’

‘Just so you understand.’

‘He was killed,’ insisted Bogaty.

‘It is no longer your investigation.’

‘You said that, too.’

There was the sound of engines from the end of the street and the blocking vehicle moved to admit an ambulance. Panchenko said to the attendants approaching with their wheeled stretcher: ‘To the First Chief Directorate mortuary, not the civilian militia.’

The rigor-hardened body was easy for the men to manoeuvre on to the stretcher: briefly, for no more than a second, the one rigidly outstretched arm pointed directly at Panchenko, who looked abruptly away, back to Bogaty.

‘Don’t forget the official reports,’ he said.

‘Is it likely I would?’

‘What was your name again?’

To show he was not intimidated, Bogaty spelled it out instead of saying it.

‘I’ll remember it,’ bullied Panchenko.

It wasn’t difficult to imagine why people wanted to run KGB officers down. Trying to end the encounter on his terms and not be dismissed by the man, Bogaty said: ‘If I were you I’d start checking garages before whoever did it has a chance to get his car repaired,’ but it didn’t work because Panchenko had already turned away and was walking back to the entrance to the street, without any farewell. Bugger the man, thought Bogaty: he wouldn’t get the expert reports until he asked for them. And asked for them politely. Still too early to go home to Lydia. Just one drink, in the cafe on Sverdlova. Maybe two.

As always Kazin insisted on caution on unsecured telephones so when Panchenko called the man said, simply: ‘Safe?’

‘I did what you ordered,’ replied the security chief, which was not the arranged reply. But it was necessary for the tape recorder Panchenko had attached to his receiver.

Yuri approached the apartment on the opposite side of 53rd Street so that he could establish from her lighted window directly above the Soviet apartment whether Caroline were home, which she was. He closed the outside door loudly and ascended the stairs slowly, but there was no shout from above. He slammed his apartment door loudly, too, and then stood in the middle of the room feeling stupid, which he decided was appropriate because stupidly was how he was behaving. Positively childlike and juvenile, he told himself. He strained to hear her moving about, but couldn’t. He started towards the uncertain television to watch it with the volume high, but halted determinedly. Time to stop being stupid. He’d come to see her and the way to see her was to call, not stumble about like some immature seventeen-year-old with wet dreams and a romantic crush. He didn’t need to look up the number because he’d checked it before he left the United Nations building.

‘Where have you been!’ she demanded, at once.

‘The job took longer than I expected,’ said Yuri. The excitement in her voice sounded genuine.

‘Are you coming to me or am I coming to you?’

So the button-down man wasn’t with her. Yuri said: ‘Why don’t I come up?’ There might be some indication of his being there.

‘Hurry! I’ve missed you.’

She appeared to have done. She was waiting by the open door when he climbed to the next storey and when he got to her she reached out, pulling him to her, holding her face up to be kissed. When they parted she refused to let him go, clutching his hand and leading him back into the apartment, pushing him into a chair and then settling at his feet.

‘It’s good to see you again,’ he said sincerely.

‘No call!’ she complained. ‘Not even a postcard!’

‘I’m sorry,’ he said. He wasn’t handling it as he intended.

‘I said I missed you. What about you?’

‘How are walking plants?’ he avoided.

‘Still walking,’ she said. ‘And who gives a fuck?’

Yuri looked around the apartment for some sign of occupation apart from Caroline’s but could not see any. It did not mean she had not slept with the man. Yuri said: ‘So what’s new?’

‘I had a visit,’ she announced.

‘A visit?’

‘My brother, from California. I hoped you’d be back in time to meet him.’ She swivelled, taking a small photograph frame from a ledge, and offered it to him.

Yuri stared down at the picture of the man he’d watched escort Caroline from the advertising agency. The inscription said: ‘To Carro, from Peter’.

Looking up at him, Caroline said: ‘What are you grinning at?’

‘Nothing,’ said Yuri, returning the photograph. ‘I didn’t know that I was.’

‘I told him I’d met you.’

‘Told him what?’ The question only just stopped being abrupt.

‘That I had a new guy who was a journalist. He asked what the magazines were but I couldn’t remember.’

Dangerous, thought Yuri. Like coming here at all. So why had he, without a proper, professional, KGB-approved reason? He said: ‘What does Peter do?’

‘Cameraman at Universal Studios.’

‘Does he visit often?’ queried Yuri cautiously.

‘Once or twice a year.’

Hardly likely to be a problem, Yuri decided. No more than the problems he was creating for himself, anyway.

He said: ‘I still haven’t got anything in. Do you want to go out to eat?’

‘No,’ she said positively.

‘What then?’

‘You really want to know?’

‘I really want to know.’

‘I want to go to bed and eat you.’

Which she did. Fleetingly Yuri wondered if he would have the difficulty with Caroline that had embarrassed him with Inya, but he didn’t. The first time was hurried in their eagerness for each other, like before, but the next time it was slower and better and she screamed out when she came, driving her nails into his back, scratching him. Afterwards they lay quietly, locked together and unspeaking, her head against his chest.

It was Caroline who spoke first. She said: ‘You sure you’re not married?’

‘I told you I wasn’t.’

‘I know what you told me.’

‘So what sort of question is it?’

‘The sort of question that a girl asks a guy when she wants to be sure.’

Unseen above her, Yuri swallowed. He said: ‘No, I’m not married. And I’m sure about it.’

‘Good.’

‘Why good?’

‘Just good.’

‘Isn’t this conversation getting a little heavy?’ he said.

Instead of replying, she said: ‘How long are you back this time?’

‘It’s not definite,’ said Yuri, avoiding again. He was glad her posturing with the cocaine appeared to be over.

‘I want it to be a long time.’

Yuri thought he heard a telephone ringing in the apartment below but decided he had to be mistaken. He said: ‘Maybe it will be.’

‘Stay with me tonight? Sleep I mean.’

‘If you’d like me to.’

‘I’d like you to.’

They made love once more, before they slept, and during the night Caroline awakened him and they made love again. He said: ‘You’re going to exhaust me,’ and she said: That’s what I’m trying to do, tire you out so you won’t have the energy to go with any other girls.’

Yuri had the account already prepared when he entered the United Nations the following day, the explanation that he’d gone to check the apartment and encountered a neighbour again, smiling expectantly when Granov hurried towards him, serious-faced.

‘Where the hell have you been!’ demanded the rezident before Yuri could speak. ‘We’ve tried everywhere to find you!’

‘What is it?’ said Yuri.

‘Your father’s dead,’ said Granov.

Panchenko stared at the scraped and dented wing of the car and the gaping emptiness, where the light had been, remembering Malik’s stumbling, last-minute attempt at avoidance and how he’d had to twist the wheel to hit the man and by so doing made it impossible to avoid the glancing collision with the wall. Nothing more than a minor problem, he decided: now that he had taken the investigation away from the civilian militia there was no danger of any damaging inquiry. Still essential that he take precautions. Repairs through the Directorate motor pool were logged and he had to avoid official records. So it had to be a back-street, no-questions-asked garage: from those same KGB records he wanted to avoid, Panchenko knew the name of every one. But first the car had to be cleaned: there was a surprising amount of blood.