The Bloody Meadow

Chapter Twelve

Korolev followed Kolya for a few paces, then stood watching his retreating figure, pushed his hat back, rubbed the scar on his cheek, and tried to make sense of it all. Had Kolya really suggested that Lenskaya had been a spy? And who the hell were these Ukrainian counter-revolutionaries? Not for the first time since the Chekist’s knock on the door did he wish he was back in Moscow investigating a nice straightforward homicide. A crime, a motive and a killer – now that’s what a murder should be. Spies and gun-smuggling and faked suicides and angry NKVD men and damned aeroplanes and what sounded like a full-scale gang war, albeit quietly done, well, he’d happily leave all of that to some other detective. Or the angry NKVD men – even better.

He looked at his watch and saw that, on top of everything else, it was a good forty minutes since he’d left Slivka. And what was it that Kolya had said about Slivka being of good stock? What the hell had he meant by that? Korolev glanced up at the steps – there were a lot of them, but they’d be quicker than the funicular. He sighed and started up them two at a time, his mind racing.

The first thing he did was remind himself that, short of a miraculous intervention, there was no obvious way out. He looked up at the sky half-hopefully, but there was no sign of a saint coming to sweep him away in a fiery chariot, more was the pity. Anyway, these people were traitors, so it was his duty to track them down and that was that.

It would be dangerous, that much was certain, and the danger wasn’t only from the counter-revolutionaries. If the People’s Commissar of State Security, the man supposed to be defending the State from such things, had been having an affair with someone who was slipping secrets to the enemy, then the investigation was a time bomb waiting to blow up in Korolev’s face. Particularly if she’d been borrowing the secrets from the said People’s Commissar. Duty or not, it would be wise to follow Kolya’s advice and keep quiet, for the moment anyway. He took a deep breath as he reached yet another platform – he was already struggling and he wasn’t even a quarter of the way up the damned stairs. Anyway, Korolev reasoned to himself as he began to climb again, what had he got to tell? A second-hand story from a Thief who’d never repeat it, even if Korolev managed to produce him for questioning. Which was unlikely. He was practically doing his duty by keeping his mouth shut.

Halfway now, and his legs burnt with effort. There were hills in Moscow, it was true. The Sparrow Hills, or the Lenin Hills as they were known now, were definitely hills by any standards, but that didn’t mean he went running up them every day. He’d become unfit – too much sitting in cars and at his desk. When he got back to Moscow, he’d get back into training. If he got back to Moscow, of course. He sighed. To look at the investigation from another point of view, though – why had he been sent down in the first place? Rodinov must think something was up, clearly, but wasn’t quite sure what it was. After all, if they knew about Lenskaya and wanted to cover it up, it would have been better to have had the local uniforms declare it a suicide and leave it at that. Korolev wasn’t the greatest detective in the world, but it hadn’t taken too long to work out he was dealing with a murder. Maybe they really did want to find out the truth about the girl’s death.

There were still two more flights of steps to go and he wasn’t entirely sure he’d make it. Despite his exhaustion, however, it seemed clear to him that he must investigate the case to the best of his ability, and as if he’d never had a conversation with Kolya. He’d put the evidence together, sift it, weigh it and come to conclusions, same as he always did. And if something came up that backed Kolya’s story or the Thief contacted him again – well, he’d cross that bridge when he came to it. He reached the top, his lungs raw, his heart thudding in his ears and his legs screaming their surrender. To recover some sort of dignity he turned and looked down at the harbour. A breakwater curved around the bay towards a white and red lighthouse. It was a busy scene, with small boats cutting in and out between the larger vessels, with bustle on the portside and trucks coming and going, but the sea itself was calm and the sun was beginning to break through the cloud once again. And somewhere down there, in one of those ships perhaps, there might well be a stash of German weaponry. Damn it, he was in trouble this time.

The Bebel Street Militia station was a substantial building, four storeys high and a good fifty metres wide. It wasn’t a new construction, looking as if it had been built at the end of the previous century, but its forensic department seemed well equipped, with a filing cabinet that contained the fingerprint cards of all the known criminals in the area, photographic equipment, microscopes, plaster casts of shoeprints and tyre-tracks, weighing scales, a small library of reference manuals and an assortment of odds and ends that Firtov had picked up along the way in the hope or expectation that they might come in useful in due course. Firtov gave Korolev and Slivka a guided tour before they got down to business.

‘It wasn’t an easy crime scene,’ the tall forensics man said. ‘As I told you, it’s more than likely that someone cleaned the place pretty carefully. We did find a few human hairs, but from their colour it seems likely that they belong to the girl, and even if they don’t – who’s to say how they got there? Not exactly a bloody fingerprint on an axe handle, if you know what I mean. Anyway, the Greek is looking into it.’

He nodded over to Papadopoulos, who was sitting bent over a microscope.

‘From what we know so far, it seems nearly everyone had good reason to be in Lenskaya’s office or the dining room at some stage or another,’ Korolev said.

‘Yes,’ Firtov replied, ‘I thought as much.’ His moustache hung heavy over his mouth so it seemed as if his voice came from behind whiskery curtains. His eyebrows were nearly as thick, but his gaze was sharp and Korolev was confident the fellow knew what he was up to. ‘I’ll tell you one thing, though,’ Firtov continued, ‘I’ve been working in Odessa since ’twenty-one, and the only people who clean up this well after themselves are of the professional ilk. As in they have tattoos or they have identity cards.’

‘Professional?’

‘If it isn’t a Militiaman or someone from one of the other Organs, and I’m presuming it isn’t, then I’d say it’s a Thief. And an experienced one at that.’

Korolev put his hands in the pockets of his overcoat and sighed. It could also be a well-trained foreign agent, of course.

‘Still, we might have had a bit of luck in the dining room,’ Firtov said, holding up a photograph. ‘Seeing as it’s a public area we weren’t too hopeful – but still, the Greek found a half-print on the bracket. Just enough to be sure that it isn’t Andreychuk’s or Shymko’s – we took their prints last night, seeing as they were the ones that cut her down. Nor does the print match the girl’s. So whoever it does belong to should be worth having a conversation with at least.’

Korolev leant in closer. There wasn’t much of it – maybe the top third of a digit, but more than that it was difficult to say.

‘Anything you can tell from it at the moment?’ he asked, squinting at the image once again.

‘Not really – my educated guess would be it’s a male finger. From its position on the bracket, it might be from a left hand. We’re going back out today to fingerprint all the potential owners. I can’t guarantee we’ll definitely be able to match it, but we should be able to narrow things down for you.’

‘Excellent – anything else?’

‘Perhaps if we’d got to the scene while the body was still in place…’

Korolev nodded his understanding.

‘Did you look in her bedroom?’

‘Yes, and we found quite a few prints there, but seeing as there were three other girls sharing it, I don’t think they’ll be much use.’

‘Did Slivka tell you about the stomach contents? How she was drugged?’

‘Yes, we had a think about that, didn’t we, Greek?’

Papadopoulos looked over and nodded.

‘There was no sign that she was an addict, was there? So Nadezhda Andreyevna said.’ Firtov looked towards Slivka. ‘Maybe whoever gave it to her might be, though – we’ll keep an eye out when we’re taking the prints.’

Korolev thanked the two forensics men and then followed Slivka from the room.

‘Papadopoulos,’ Korolev said, as they walked out through the arch that led to the street. ‘A Greek name, I believe.’

‘Plenty of Greeks here in Odessa,’ Slivka replied. ‘Turks and Armenians, Arabs, Kurds, Poles. Even a few French and Italians from the old days. But the Greek is famous.’

Korolev opened the car door and looked over at her. ‘Why?’

‘The Greek can’t speak. He can understand you, he can read and write, but he’s never spoken a word.’

The drive back to the Orlov House passed quickly, and they didn’t talk much. Korolev suspected that Slivka, like himself, was going over the little they knew and trying to make sense of it. As they turned off to enter the Agricultural College’s grounds, Korolev found himself asking one of the questions that had been nagging at him.

‘Count Kolya? How does he know you?’

‘Kolya,’ she repeated, smiling wryly as she brought the car to a halt at the side of the driveway. ‘We’re related, that’s all.’

‘Related? You’re related to Kolya the Thief?’ He’d guessed their paths had crossed professionally at some stage, but to be blood relatives?

‘No family is without an ugly member, as the saying goes. Although as far as my people are concerned, I’m the wallflower. That’s the way things go sometimes.’

‘So that’s why your mother doesn’t approve of the Militia?’

‘Not exactly – things aren’t always straightforward in a place like Odessa. One hand often washes the other. We share a set of grandparents, but my father was a Party member from before the Revolution, and my mother as well. In the Civil War, and before it, they and my mother’s family were often on the same side. My father died in ’twenty-one and since then things are different, as you know. But I know my duty, you don’t need to worry about that.’

‘I’m not worried.’

He considered her – young, intelligent and brave as well, he was sure. On top of which, Kolya had as good as told him she was to be trusted, which he was surprised to discover meant something to him.

‘I saw Mishka outside the university,’ Slivka said after a pause.

Korolev nodded.

‘Well, I’ve asked the question before, Chief, and I don’t think you gave me a straight answer.’

‘Stop beating about the bush, Slivka. Let’s get to the nut of the matter.’

‘Well, what’s a Moscow detective doing out here in the middle of the steppe? A detective who happens to know Kolya the Thief, so an unusual detective, I’d say – but good at his job, I’ve observed. Colonel Marchuk warned me to be careful – that the case smelt and that having Mushkin involved made it smell even worse. He told me to keep an eye on you as well, but it seems to me we’ll be better off if we’re open with each other.’

Korolev put his hand in his pocket, found his packet of cigarettes and handed one to Slivka.

‘I can’t tell you everything, Slivka, but I’ll tell you what Kolya told me. And why I don’t think we can do anything about it, except keep the information at the back of our minds.’

And so Korolev told her what Kolya had told him. He even went so far as to tell her who had sent him.

‘Spit on it,’ she said eventually. ‘My mother was right all along. Who’d have thought it?’

‘Between the hammer and the anvil, that’s where we are, Sergeant Slivka.’

‘Well, I chose to join the Militia and if you’re afraid of bears, you shouldn’t go picking berries, now should you?’

He gave her a long look. Eventually he nodded his agreement.

‘Well, Slivka, we can only do our duty. Come on, let’s see how the uniforms got on this morning.’ And Slivka put the car into gear and drove the last hundred or so metres to the stable block beside the Orlov House, that remnant of a bygone age with its view over a frozen lake and its ghosts – old and more recent.

There was the promising clatter of a typewriter being put through its paces as they entered the investigation room. Larisa, Shymko’s young typist who’d been so upset the day before, was typing up a storm. Seeing them, she stopped, rose from her chair and gave them a nervous nod.

‘I’ve been typing, Comrades,’ she said. ‘And I haven’t told anyone anything. Even if some of them have asked.’

‘Good work. Speech is silver, silence is golden. How are things progressing?’

‘Well, I think. Your men bring me their notes and I type them up. Here you are.’ She handed him an impressively thick wedge of paper.

‘You’ve been busy,’ Korolev said.

‘Since first thing this morning. But if it helps you with the.. .’ She paused, probably not wanting to describe Lenskaya’s death too specifically, before continuing ‘… with Citizen Lenskaya, then I’m happy. Comrade Shymko left this for you.’

It was a list of key-holders to the Orlov House. Seven of them. Major Mushkin’s mother, Shymko, Andreychuk, the dead girl and three names he didn’t recognize.

‘Slivka? I want one of us to have spoken to all of these people by this evening. Meanwhile I’m going to have a chat with our caretaker friend at the station. Have a look through the notes and see if anything comes up. Work out who we still have to talk to and let’s discuss it. Call me down in the village.’

He held out his hand and Slivka handed him the car keys.

The Militia station was a two-storeyed brick building of relatively recent construction, although it looked the worse for the hard winter. He knew the style of place. Upstairs there’d be accommodation for the Militiamen who manned it and downstairs desks and a holding cell for prisoners.

Gradov, the surly sergeant from the night before, nodded to him when he entered. ‘He’s in the cell. Been praying half the night. That girl from Odessa told us we weren’t to touch him until you’d spoken to him, but I’ll tell you the damned cultist needs a lesson taught, and I’m the man to teach it.’

Korolev looked at Gradov coldly, and after a moment the sergeant looked away.

‘When you’ve finished, obviously,’ Gradov said, ‘unless you want us to give him a going over before you start.’

‘That won’t be necessary,’ Korolev replied, thinking a fellow like this could make the local people’s life a misery if he put his mind to it. But it wasn’t his place to tell the other Militiamen how to do their job, so instead he asked for a chair to be taken into the small room where the caretaker was being kept and, when the sergeant had obliged, asked to be left alone with the prisoner.

Andreychuk looked older than when Korolev had spoken to him the previous night, and a little smaller as well, sitting on the wooden bench with his head bowed. Korolev had visited worse cells in the course of his duties, and at least someone had given the caretaker a dirty blanket which he’d wrapped around his shoulders, but it was chilly enough. Outside in the main room, where the uniforms sat, there was a large tile-faced stove. In this room, however, there was only a much smaller version for which there seemed to be no fuel. The temperature wasn’t far off what it was outside, and Andreychuk’s face was drawn and pinched with cold.

‘Can you get us some heat in here? This place is freezing,’ Korolev called through the door, and then leant against the wall looking down at Andreychuk until the sergeant arrived. The caretaker didn’t meet Korolev’s gaze, which gave Korolev a chance to consider how to approach the task at hand. He’d been tired when he’d questioned him the night before, but today he’d do a better job.

‘So, Andreychuk,’ Korolev said, when the sergeant had left and an orange flame flickered in the grate. Andreychuk didn’t look up, but kept his eyes fixed on the floor.

‘You weren’t honest with me yesterday – were you, Citizen?’

‘I was, Comrade Captain.’

‘Were you? You didn’t tell me Lenskaya was sleeping with just about every man on the filmset. You must have known, but you chose not to tell me. Why was that?’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ Andreychuk answered, his voice barely audible.

‘Come on, Andreychuk, she was a friendly girl. Why didn’t you tell me?’

Andreychuk’s expression wasn’t angry, more confused. He shook his head in disagreement.

‘She wasn’t like that. She was a good worker, a Party member. She didn’t behave that way.’

‘Was that why you argued? Near the village? Comrade Sorokina saw you. She heard you warn Lenskaya to – ’ Korolev paused to take his notebook from his overcoat pocket and open it to the correct page – ‘let me see… ah yes. “Go back to Moscow, you don’t belong here.” The “you” being Comrade Lenskaya. And then you said: “It’s dangerous here for you. Get away before it’s too late.” Do you remember now?’

Korolev sat down on the chair the sergeant had brought in for him and leant forward until his head was on the same level as the caretaker’s, only a few inches away. Andreychuk tried to back away, but there wasn’t anywhere to go except through the wall. Korolev was so close he could see the tiny red veins in the whites of the man’s eyes.

‘I don’t need more than that, you know,’ Korolev said, almost whispering. ‘I could call up the procurator’s office right now, and he’d be happy to go to court with that. Let’s see – you were the last person to see her alive, you were the one to find her, and we have you threatening her shortly before her death. I don’t doubt that we’ll find out the rope came from somewhere in the College buildings, a place that maybe only you had access to. Do you see how it looks?’

‘I didn’t kill her. And I wasn’t threatening her, I was warning her.’

‘Warning her, you say? Warning her of what? That you were going to kill her? That sounds like a threat to me.’ The old man flinched at that and Korolev felt a momentary guilt which he immediately put aside. If the caretaker had been involved in killing the girl, then the questioning was justified. And if not, well, then he had to understand the situation he was in and that his only hope was to be completely honest.

Andreychuk was shaking his head now, and his eyes were wet with tears. Korolev had to admit he didn’t look much like a killer.

‘You say you liked her?’

‘Nothing wrong with liking her, was there?’

‘Were you jealous of her admirers?’ Korolev asked, keeping his voice dispassionate.

‘Jealous? I’m fifty-eight, I won’t last many more winters.’

‘Why not? You’re still a vigorous man – there’s still powder in your keg, as the saying goes.’

Andreychuk’s mouth dropped open, an expression of horror on his face.

‘You can’t believe that. Surely not?’ he said.

‘Why were you warning her, Citizen? And who were you warning her about? If you didn’t kill her, why are you protecting her murderer? Tell me the truth, Citizen. If you’ve done wrong the punishment will be fair, and if you’ve done nothing you’ll walk free.’

‘I doubt that,’ Andreychuk said. ‘I’ve seen what you people do. That’s what I warned her about.’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘I know what you’re like, Comrade Captain – how you oppress the ordinary people. How you trap them and how you deal with them when you have them in your grasp. I knew if she stayed here it would go badly for her, as it’s gone badly for me. She was my daughter. There, now you know. I buried her mother not four years past and I didn’t want to bury my only daughter as well. But she wouldn’t be warned. And now it’s come to this.’