The Bloody Meadow

Chapter Sixteen

By the time they arrived at the Militia station, Slivka had already established that the Agricultural College’s truck was missing and, efficient girl that she was, she’d called Marchuk and been assured that roadblocks would be set up along likely escape routes and that all stations would be on the lookout for the fugitive. However, by now it was dark and it had to be expected that Andreychuk, with his head start and the cover of night, had a reasonable chance of making good his escape. Korolev listened to her report and then stood for a moment considering the problem that faced them. Sergeant Gradov stood in the corner, a sullen look on his face.

‘Well?’ Korolev said, turning towards him.

‘I went to the house to pick up Sharapov. I left the cell door locked and locked the door to the station as well. But when I came back the door was open and so was his cell and he’d gone.’

‘When did you last see him?’

‘About fifty minutes ago. I wasn’t gone for much more than a quarter of an hour. I called Sergeant Slivka up at the house immediately.’

‘Did anyone see him leave in the truck?’

‘I heard an engine starting at about six o’clock,’ Slivka said. ‘About forty minutes ago. The sergeant called me about ten minutes later. I remembered the noise of the truck, verified it was unaccounted for and immediately called Odessa. The roadblocks should be in place by now.’

‘Forty minutes. Slivka, what does that mean?’

Slivka considered the question.

‘If he had to make his way to the truck, that would have taken about fifteen minutes from here if he was moving quickly. It’s difficult.’

‘Are you sure of your timings, Sergeant Gradov?’

‘It could have been an hour.’

‘It could have been an hour,’ Korolev said, not bothering to hide his disdain, before turning back to Slivka. ‘Let’s presume it was him and he’s driving hell for leather. Ask Marchuk to act accordingly.’

He turned back to the sergeant while Slivka made a call.

‘So let me get this straight – you left a prisoner in the station without a guard, is that correct?’

The sergeant seemed to resent being asked such a question, and Korolev felt anger scour his stomach. It might well be the sergeant’s dereliction of duty had caused this mess, but he had a sneaking suspicion that a certain NKVD major named Mushkin would be delivering the blame to Korolev’s doorstep. If time wasn’t of the essence he’d take some pleasure in telling this idiot exactly what he thought of his negligence – the man had put not only Korolev at risk but all those whom Korolev held dear. He turned to Slivka, suddenly putting two and two together.

‘He’s from a village near Krasnogorka called Angelinivka, isn’t he?’ Korolev said, thinking aloud. ‘What’s more he went on a trip with Lenskaya in that direction last week, according to Shymko. The actor boy also overheard Andreychuk say he could get there without being detected. If it’s near Krasnogorka, it must be close to the border so my guess is, if he’s running, he’s running for Romania.’

‘I’ll call the border guard.’

Slivka picked up the phone once again, tapping the cradle for the operator. Korolev turned back to Gradov, his words quick and urgent.

‘What have you got to say for yourself?’

‘I’m sorry, Comrade Captain, I don’t know how he got out.’

‘Perhaps he was let out. Did that ever occur to you?’ Korolev felt a cold anger possessing him that wanted to wrap itself round the neck of this incompetent and squeeze the life out of him.

‘Tell me, who else has keys to the station?’

‘I do. No one else.’

‘You didn’t have the keys with you, did you?’ Korolev heard his voice rising in disbelief.

‘I leave them under a brick round the side when I’m out, in case one of the others comes back while I’m away.’

Korolev was struck dumb for a moment, turning to Slivka for confirmation that his ears hadn’t been deceiving him. Her grim look of contempt confirmed they hadn’t.

‘Show me this brick,’ Korolev said, his voice revealing some of his rage. ‘Slivka? If Firtov’s still up at the house taking people’s prints, get him to come down. Make sure no one touches anything in the meantime.’

Slivka nodded and Korolev turned to see the sergeant reaching for the door handle.

‘What did I just say?’ he barked.

‘About the fingerprinting?’

‘And what the hell are you doing now? Understand this, Sergeant, you do not touch one damned thing in this station until Firtov has been through this place and given it the all-clear. And even then you ask permission – do you hear me?’

The sergeant nodded, and Korolev pointed him back to the wall and picked up a cloth from the desk that looked relatively clean, relieved to hear that Slivka seemed to have got through to someone in the border guards.

‘It’s near Krasnogorka, Comrade,’ she said, ‘but you’d better make it a general alert. Now here’s his description. Ready?’

Korolev carefully opened the door, touching only the thin sides of the handle that would yield no fingerprints. Then he picked up a rock and placed it against the door to wedge it open so that no one else would contaminate the handle until Firtov and the Greek had done their work.

‘The brick?’ he said, looking around outside.

‘Here it is, Comrade Captain,’ the sergeant said, walking to the corner of the building and pointing down the narrow alley between it and the Party offices. A yellow clay brick lay on its side, illuminated by the light from the Militia station window. Korolev looked from the brick back to the road – anyone passing could have seen the sergeant hide the keys, but not even that would have been necessary, given it was his long-term habit to conceal them this way.

‘I doubt there’s a man, woman or child in this whole village doesn’t know you leave the keys there,’ he said. ‘Did you see anyone on your way up to the house?’

‘No one, Comrade Captain. All the village is at a meeting in the tractor barn. Those that aren’t are over with the film people.’

‘On the way back?’

‘I saw Comrade Lomatkin near the house, and Comrade Mushkina was out for a walk. I saw no one else.’

‘I see. And this brick – you left it flat, correct? And it’s now on its side?’

‘Yes, Comrade Captain.’

‘Right, Sergeant. You stand here beside this damned brick and this damned door and you protect them with your worthless life until the forensics men get here. And I mean with your life. No one is to touch anything except for Comrade Firtov. And if it rains you will cover the brick and the door handle with your body rather than let one drop of water fall on them.’

Which would be difficult, given they were some distance apart, but a point had to be made.

The worst thing was he now had to call Rodinov and inform him of this mess and it wasn’t a conversation he was looking forward to. Telling Slivka he needed to go to the investigation room, he got into the car, turned the key, and pounded the driving wheel with frustration when the starter motor wouldn’t turn. The sergeant looked over at him nervously and Korolev pointed at the bonnet.

‘Don’t just stand there, man – crank it.’

The sergeant was soon cranking the starting handle for all his worth and the engine growled into life. Perhaps wisely, Gradov retreated quickly from in front of the vehicle, and placed the starting handle on the back seat as if it were burning him. Korolev leant out of the window.

‘Who was he friendly with? In the village? Someone must have helped him.’

‘No one, really. He kept to himself up at the College. Maybe some of the people who worked up there knew him better.’

‘Find out who. And find out if anyone saw him leaving. I don’t need to tell you where you’re heading if we don’t track this man down, and fast.’

Korolev pushed the gearstick into place and, with the angry scream of an over-revved engine, the car bounded forwards.

Korolev felt utter fury, but he understood himself well enough to know that his anger came from fear and guilt as much as it did from exasperation. After all, if he was the man running this investigation then it was his responsibility to ensure it ran properly – he knew the likely consequences of failure, not only for himself but for others as well, and he should have taken appropriate precautions. He should have realized the village Militia station wasn’t secure – he’d interviewed Andreychuk there, after all, and seen how it was run. And it was no excuse to say he was tired. All right, the old man probably wasn’t involved in the murder itself, but he almost certainly had vital information – if nothing else, then about that trip to Krasnogorka. Damn it.

He pulled the car up outside the stable block where the investigation office was and caught a glimpse of his face in the mirror – he looked like a man about to kill someone. Or be killed, he thought to himself as he opened the car door.

The phone was ringing as he entered the investigation room and he wondered grimly if it might be Rodinov, already calling to blast him for his incompetence. But it wasn’t.

‘Comrade Korolev?’ The operator’s voice.

‘Yes, that’s me.’

‘I have a phone call for you. I’m putting him through now.’ There was a change in the crackling noise from the receiver.

‘Korolev,’ he said warily.

‘Good evening, Comrade Captain, it’s good to hear your voice.’ That deep actor’s intonation with its undercurrent of menace. Count Kolya. The Thief.

‘It’s good to hear yours as well, Citizen,’ Korolev said, wondering how the hell the gangster had managed to get hold of the telephone number.

‘All going well with your investigation?’ Kolya asked.

‘Not too bad, not too bad. Berry by berry, and the basket will be full.’

‘I hear one berry has rolled away.’ Kolya laughed and Korolev felt his hand tighten on the receiver. This was ridiculous. Kolya must have someone in the Militia headquarters feeding him information. Damn the man.

‘I think we know where it’s rolling to,’ Korolev said, trying to keep his voice matter-of-fact.

‘Good for you,’ the Thief said, with the implication that he couldn’t care less. ‘Anyway, you asked a question, about morphine. I looked into it. Go to your journalist, he might have an answer for you.’

Lomatkin? But he’d been in Moscow. How could he have been responsible? Korolev coughed, clearing a throat which felt a little constricted, like his brain.

‘He was some distance from here at the time in question,’ he managed to say. ‘Are you sure?’

‘I’m sure of nothing – all I know is the fellow has a past, and the past involves the substance in question.’

‘I see,’ Korolev said, wondering where it left him.

‘And another thing. The delivery I mentioned. They’ve found another way. It’s happening tomorrow night.’

The guns. The German guns.

‘Are you sure?’

‘Certain,’ Kolya said, his voice laconic.

‘Where?’

‘That we’ve yet to find out. But we will.’

‘You’ll let me know?’

‘It’s our business.’

‘Then why are you telling me?’

Kolya laughed again, a tinny sound on the crackling line.

‘It’s a good point – I’ll let you know when I know. But remember our conversation. There’s a way of handling this and it isn’t your way. Tell Slivka to call her mother.’

‘Her mother?’ Korolev was confused. Then it occurred to him that Slivka’s mother would be the channel through which Kolya would pass on news of the gun-running. He was about to confirm his understanding when Kolya hung up, and the line became a steady hum.

It was probably just as well, as through the window he could see Mushkin approaching across the courtyard, the heels of his brown leather boots battering the cobblestones into submission. The major looked in through the window at him as he approached and it wasn’t a look that promised a long life to its recipient.

‘A pretty mess you’ve made of this, Korolev,’ Mushkin said without further ado as he entered the room.

‘The escape of Citizen Andreychuk isn’t ideal, that much I’ll give you,’ Korolev said, after a pause. ‘But we weren’t holding him on suspicion of murder, you should know that. In fact I wasn’t holding him at all. It was up to you to decide what to do with him. Effectively, he was in your custody.’

‘My custody?’ Mushkin said, an amazed smile cracking his stony face. It wasn’t a pleasant smile – it was a smile children ran from screaming.

‘You as in the local Organs of State Security – I make no personal reference, Comrade Major, but I don’t see how a Moscow detective who arrived yesterday can be held responsible for the way things are done here. That responsibility must lie elsewhere. And particularly given that it took that Moscow detective less than twenty-four hours to uncover an Enemy of the State who’d gone unobserved by these same Organs for nearly ten years. It seems to me the least the local Organs could have done in the circumstances is ensure such a person’s secure captivity when he was, finally, uncovered. He worked with your mother didn’t he? You knew him as well, I believe.’

Korolev felt his toes curling in anticipation of a furious response. But this was, he was pretty sure, the way he had to play it and hope he could rely on Rodinov to back him up. Perhaps Mushkin had also thought through his personal associations with the escapee because he didn’t react with fury. Instead he contemplated Korolev at his leisure.

‘Interesting, Korolev. Very interesting. Unfortunately for you I’ve just spoken to Colonel Rodinov and he’s most upset at your failure to secure the prisoner – what do you make of that?’

Korolev shrugged his shoulders, hoping he appeared indifferent to the implicit threat. He suspected that Mushkin’s comment was a shot across the bows – a reminder that Korolev was a Militiaman, whereas Rodinov and Mushkin were brother Chekists. It didn’t change anything, once you thought about it. Whether Mushkin had spoken to Rodinov or not, Korolev’s fate had been in Rodinov’s hands since that young Chekist had knocked on the apartment door.

‘I’m just about to call Colonel Rodinov myself,’ Korolev said. ‘As you know, I have to report all matters concerning this investigation to him directly. Shall I let him know that you’re taking all steps to apprehend the criminal Andreychuk?’

Mushkin exhaled a thin wisp of smoke that curled up out of his mouth, along the side of his face and then seemed to get trapped for a moment underneath the brim of his cap. ‘Make sure you keep good notes, Korolev,’ he said. ‘When I take this matter over I don’t want to have to repeat every single interview.’

The Chekist tapped the drooping ash from his cigarette onto the floor and left the room, closing the door carefully behind him.

Korolev wished he’d slammed it; the carefulness was unsettling. He sighed, lit one of his own cigarettes and made the call to Moscow.

Colonel Rodinov listened with surprising patience to his account of the escape and then got straight to the point.

‘Mushkin thinks you’re an incompetent fool.’

The words were a little bald, but the colonel’s voice was neutral in tone.

‘He has shared with me his thoughts on my abilities, Comrade Colonel.’

‘But you’re satisfied that this man was not responsible for the murder?’

‘Comrade Colonel, I consider it unlikely that Andreychuk would have killed his own daughter without a good reason, and we’ve been unable to establish any such reason. There are also other elements of the crime that would appear to be beyond him.’

‘Such as?’ the colonel asked, and Korolev told him about the morphine, the cleaning up of forensic evidence and the fact that the caretaker was unlikely to have had the strength to lift the body on his own.

‘But he could have worked with someone else. The man was an enemy, hiding amongst us for many years while wearing the mask of a loyal Soviet citizen. He could have been waiting for an opportunity like this to attack. The girl’s murder is potentially embarrassing to higher levels of the Party, as you well know – particularly now that it turns out her father fought with Petlyura. To a rat like that the murder of his own daughter might well be justified if he believed it would damage the Revolution.’

‘Comrade Colonel, I don’t deny that he fought with Petlyura, and that he concealed his identity to avoid retribution, but my impression of him was of an old man who regretted his earlier mistakes. I accept I may be naive in these matters, but if he had been waiting all these years to sabotage the Revolution, why kill his own daughter, and then disguise it as a suicide? Why not, for example, kill Comrade Savchenko or Comrade Sorokina? Surely the death of such a famous film director or actress would damage the Revolution more.’

There was silence as Rodinov considered the point and Korolev waited. After some moments, the colonel sighed.

‘There might be a good reason, Korolev – the one which caused you to be sent down there in the first place.’ It was true, the girl’s connection with Ezhov could well be behind her murder, but he still had trouble seeing Andreychuk as the killer. And then, of course, there was Mushkina’s information about the typewriters, which placed Andreychuk at the film shoot while either the killer or the victim switched them. He explained this to Rodinov.

‘And there’s another lead I’m following up on, Comrade Colonel,’ Korolev continued, deciding it was time to fill the colonel in on the trip close to the border that Andreychuk and the dead girl had made. ‘It’s possible that they were visiting a church that might be used in the film. I’m waiting for confirmation.’

The colonel didn’t respond immediately, and all Korolev could hear from the receiver was the crackle of a bad line.

‘It may be nothing, of course,’ Korolev said, as much to hear the sound of his own voice as anything.

‘It might be something though, something serious.’ The colonel’s voice sounded as though some part of him was being squeezed uncomfortably. ‘What if he was a spy? There might be an entire conspiracy down there – don’t you read the newspapers, Korolev? The State is besieged on every side – Lenskaya may even have been involved in the damned thing. And where the hell would that leave us?’

The line wasn’t that good so it was difficult to say exactly, but the colonel sounded more than a little shaken. It seemed that Korolev wasn’t the only one coming to conclusions that he wasn’t entirely happy about.

‘There’s also the matter of the traitor Danyluk, Colonel, the Ukrainian who absconded from the delegation to America.’

‘Yes, I remember him.’

‘I’m only a Militia detective at the end of the day,’ Korolev said. ‘This may be beyond me.’

Korolev waited for the colonel’s next words with some trepidation. If he could walk away from the case he’d thank the Lord with all his heart because it would be as great a miracle as any written up in the Bible.

‘No.’ The colonel’s voice was thoughtful now. ‘You’re making progress there, whatever else. It’s not good to lose potential witnesses, but it seems to me that you can’t be held responsible for local Militia officers who aren’t under your direct command. I’ll call this fellow Marchuk in Odessa and make that clear to him, and Mushkin as well. If you can unmask this fellow in less than a day then they should be asking themselves one or two questions rather than trying to blame their failures on you.’

‘Thank you, Comrade Colonel.’ Korolev spoke with a heavy heart. He was stuck with it, then, although at least Mushkin was going to get it in the neck. That was something.

‘Find out what they were doing in Krasnogorka, Korolev. If Andreychuk did kill Lenskaya and you think he might have had help – find out who helped him. And if he didn’t kill her, find out who did.’

Korolev felt his hackles rise – what the hell did Rodinov think he was doing down here? Taking the waters? Sunbathing?

‘I’ll do my best, Comrade Colonel.’ He managed to keep his irritation hidden. ‘But may I ask one thing of you?’

‘What?’

‘In the course of my interview with the journalist Lomatkin he told me that he was also planning a visit to Krasnogorka – to view the Stalin Line for some article he’s writing. Perhaps your men in Moscow could make some enquiries? I’m confident he’s a loyal Party member and so on, but it’s an unusual coincidence.’

‘Lomatkin?’ The colonel’s voice sounded sceptical, but then perhaps he remembered Stalin’s directive to remain vigilant at all times, that even the unlikeliest citizen could turn out to be a traitor. ‘All right, we’ll look into Comrade Lomatkin. Anything else?’

‘Morphine. It’s not so easy to obtain, even in the hospitals sometimes. It may have come from Moscow, or it could have been obtained locally. If State Security can provide any information that connects it to a suspect, it would certainly help. Again, if your men are looking into Comrade Lomatkin, it might be something to bear in mind.’

‘I’ll ask.’

‘Thank you, Comrade Colonel.’

‘Korolev, keep me informed of any progress. And be vigilant for signs of counter-revolutionary activity. I don’t like the smell of this one bit.’

The colonel hung up and Korolev put his own receiver down.

‘Calm yourself,’ he muttered after a moment or two. ‘It’s a mess and you’re in the middle of it, but you need to get your head straight and think it through.’

He opened his notebook – a lot had happened in the last few hours, he needed to write it down and look for the way forward.

First things first. The colonel had ordered him to go to Krasnogorka to find out what the girl and Andreychuk had been up to. He’d go, sure enough, first thing in the morning, but he didn’t know the countryside round there. It would help if Shymko had a location for this church of his, so he made a note to himself to make sure Slivka checked with the production coordinator. Another thought occurred to him – it was a border area. Did that mean it had controlled access? Would they have had to pass through checkpoints that close to the border? There must be a record of their journey somewhere. Andreychuk had said something about having a pass, according to the boy, hadn’t he? If he had, it should give details of the limits of his authorization. Slivka would know who to ask, or Mushkin perhaps – as a last resort.

Then there was Andreychuk’s escape. Somebody had helped him. And if anyone would know who might go out on a limb like that for the fleet-footed caretaker, it would be Mushkina. Another conversation with the major’s mother should be a priority. The sergeant had seen her out and about around the time the cell had been emptied of its occupant, and she’d approached him only an hour or so before about getting Andreychuk out of prison, hadn’t she? It was a ridiculous thought, but what if she’d been the one who’d helped the caretaker out of his cell?