The Bloody Meadow

Chapter Nine

Before he called it a day, Korolev made one final effort and telephoned Yasimov in Moscow. Because of the late hour he called him at home, explaining the situation to him briefly – Yasimov was smart enough not to ask any questions once he heard where Korolev was calling from. Instead he spoke only to agree to Korolev’s requests, which were simple enough. Poke around at the orphanage and see what he could find out about the dead girl’s background, ask around at the Film Board and the State Film School about her and, finally, do a little bit of digging into Comrades Lomatkin, Savchenko and Belakovsky and any other lovers who came to light. Korolev knew Yasimov well enough to presume that if Ezhov’s name came up in the process, he’d forget he’d ever heard it, which was exactly what he wanted him to do. It was a weary Korolev who put down the telephone and made his way to the main house and the small room he’d been allocated to share with Les Pins.

He was unsurprised to discover that Slivka had been right about the Frenchman – he did indeed speak beautiful Russian, and with a precise yet flowing elegance that for a native would lead to a ten-year stretch in the gold mines of Kolyma, but for Les Pins resulted in a flock of adoring production girls. It was, Korolev thought, not for the first time that day, a very strange world.

Les Pins welcomed him and pronounced himself, as Slivka had also predicted, ‘enchanted’ at the prospect. Korolev decided ‘enchanted’ was not intended to be taken literally, but was just what French people felt obliged to say when they had foisted on them a large Muscovite policeman who looked as though he might snore like a hibernating bear. But then again, with words like that in your repertoire, it must be difficult not to walk on the sunny side of the street, and Les Pins seemed to be a determinedly ebullient character, a firm smile permanently fixed to his face, and a pleasant, melodious, laugh that hovered on a hair trigger, ready to tinkle out at the slightest excuse. It was only when Korolev shook hands with him that he felt the missing fingers. Something must have shown in his face because Les Pins looked down with a smile.

‘A German bayonet. Verdun. And you?’ Les Pins nodded to the sabre scar that ran down the side of Korolev’s jaw to his chin, so old now that he hardly noticed it any more.

‘A sabre. A Russian one.’ Korolev shrugged, thinking back to the Cossack, his horse rearing, leaning down to slash at him for a second time. At such moments a man’s life ends or continues. His had continued and the Cossack’s had ended. ‘But the Germans gave me a few scrapes too.’

Korolev couldn’t help but think of two old dogs meeting in the street, sniffing each other out. For all the Frenchman’s smiling suavity, those eyes had stared down the barrel of a gun more than once, and from either end, if he wasn’t mistaken.

‘So I hear poor Masha was murdered?’ The Frenchman turned away and began to undress. His shoulder was bandaged, Korolev noticed, and he moved stiffly, but he was still a relatively fit man. Korolev sat down on the spare bed and pulled off his boots, feeling the stretch in his back as he leant down and resisting the urge to topple forward and fall asleep right there on the floor, and damn the Frenchman.

‘Who said that?’ Korolev asked, trying to keep his tone offhand.

‘Oh please, Captain Korolev, it really isn’t my business – but it’s your arrival that tells me it wasn’t suicide, not somebody’s tittle-tattle. I’m curious, though – who do you think killed her?’

Korolev took his time before answering, constructing his response carefully. It was sensible to be careful with foreigners.

‘I don’t know how it works in France, Comrade,’ he said eventually, ‘but here in the Soviet Union the Militia don’t discuss such things with citizens, even welcome and honoured visitors like you.’ Korolev reached into a pocket of his coat for his last cigarette and then wondered whether it would offend the Frenchman’s sensibilities if he lit up in the man’s bedroom.

‘Do you mind?’ he began and showed a corner of the packet of Belomorkanals.

‘Not at all, I’ll join you,’ Les Pins said, producing a blue packet. ‘So it wasn’t murder, then?’

Korolev raised an eyebrow.

‘Oh really,’ the Frenchman said, striking a match, ‘you’re impossible.’

Although strangely, the way the Frenchman said it, it sounded like a compliment.

They focused their attention on the cigarettes for a while, smoke shrouding them, stirred occasionally by an exhalation.

‘So you knew her a little bit,’ Korolev asked, having considered whether asking him the question was a good idea and then finding himself unable to resist. Well, it wasn’t really questioning as such, was it? It was more of a conversation. Yes, that sounded about right. Rodinov would understand.

‘A little bit.’ The Frenchman put his finger and thumb about an inch apart. ‘You mustn’t misunderstand me, I’m sympathetic. You know how it is – death isn’t unusual in my line of work. I can see you think I’m heartless, but it’s not that at all, believe me. My heart is full of tragedies. This is just one more. But I keep smiling, what else is there to do? Tears don’t stop bullets – well, not that I’ve ever seen. Bullets stop bullets and sometimes words.’

Korolev remembered that the fellow was some sort of a journalist. A war reporter, Rodinov had said. The Frenchman flicked ash onto a plate that he’d placed beside the bed for the purpose and for a moment looked almost embarrassed.

‘At least I hope my words help – help people to understand that we need to struggle for a new kind of world, a world where war is no longer necessary. You would think we’d have learnt from the last one, but it seems we learnt nothing.’

Korolev nodded his agreement.

‘Was Comrade Lenskaya upset in recent days?’ he asked, after a decent interval. ‘Is there anything at all that you remember – anything that could be useful?’

Les Pins contemplated the tip of his cigarette, then shook his head.

‘I don’t think so. She was always in her office, typing away. Masha spoke good French, which was pleasant. But I don’t remember anything unusual – nothing at all. You should ask her admirers, you know. Babel, Savchenko, that angry man who is around sometimes. In the leather jacket.’

‘Mushkin?’

‘Yes, he seemed very interested in her. But perhaps it was just professional, because of what he does.’

‘I don’t know what you mean.’

‘As well for you if you don’t, I’d imagine. He has the mark of a serious man. Although I don’t believe you for a moment, mon Capitaine .’ The journalist stubbed out the last of his cigarette. ‘One of us needs our beauty sleep, and it’s probably you, Comrade Korolev. I hope you don’t snore.’

When Korolev awoke, however, just as the first suggestion of dawn was beginning to lighten the edge of the curtain, it was Les Pins who was snoring and Korolev who felt a certain satisfaction as a result. It didn’t even matter so much that Les Pins’ snores were like the purring of a well-contented cat and, really, almost pleasant to listen to. It didn’t matter at all. For a moment, Korolev felt he had the better of the foreigner and, if that wasn’t a reason to feel a modicum of pleasure, then he didn’t know what was.

After a moment savouring his small victory, Korolev rolled himself out of bed as quietly as he was able and stood up. He could probably have done with more sleep, but it was already six and he was due to meet Slivka in half an hour; and before then he wanted to have a little time to tell himself how to handle the investigation before everyone else started telling him instead. It was, in short, an opportunity to take a hold of the day ahead before it ran away with him.

At least some of the parameters were now a little clearer, he decided, making his way to a bathroom along the corridor. He had Colonel Rodinov’s authority to proceed as he saw fit, so a little arm-twisting could be done if needed, provided he exercised the inevitable discretion. That at least gave him something to work with – if he had to walk round all these actors and Party bigwigs on tiptoes he knew he’d get nowhere.

After a quick wash with his towel, he began to shave at a porcelain sink that looked big enough to be seaworthy. The water was freezing, so cold he could barely work up a lather, but Korolev had shaved in freezing water before and didn’t mind too much. He just took it slowly.

He wasn’t happy about the situation with Mushkin, if the truth were told – it was as if he’d offended the Chekist in some way. He couldn’t put a finger on what he might have done to provoke the man, but perhaps it wasn’t something he was responsible for as such. After all, it must be difficult for Mushkin to have someone thrust down his neck by Moscow, and a Militiaman at that. And he doubted Colonel Rodinov had made any effort to sweeten the bitter pill. All the same, you’d have expected the Ukrainian to click his heels and get on with the job, a cheerful smile on his face and a Party song on his lips – not that Korolev could imagine Mushkin singing anything with much joy now he thought about it. In fact, the bitter anger the major radiated reminded Korolev of being in a trench with an unexploded shell, and that, as he remembered all too well, was not a pleasant way to spend your time. If this was the Chekist when he was supposed to be relaxing on leave from his duties, Korolev could only imagine what the man was like when he was pursuing enemies of the State.

Korolev rinsed his face – at least he now had some idea as to how to move the investigation forward. If the Odessa forensics team came up with something pointing to the killer’s identity, then all well and good, but it seemed more probable that this was going be a question of gathering information from interviews, analysing it and then exploring the lines of enquiry it suggested. It would be time-consuming, and there would likely be pressure from Moscow, but he had an able assistant in Slivka and with a bit of luck the interviews would continue to throw up revelations like those offered by Sorokina.

His ablutions finished, Korolev examined himself in the mirror, taking his time about it, thinking that there was more grey than there’d been the last time he’d looked. And perhaps more skin showing through the short hair as well. He liked to think he’d few illusions about what he saw: an average man; not ugly, not good-looking; no genius, but no idiot either. But his eyes seemed to want to evade his gaze, and he wondered about that. He hoped he was an honest man, when the circumstances allowed it, but they didn’t always in these times of change. He wondered what the Frenchman made of him. Would he see choices made where all Korolev saw was fate? If Korolev lived in the West, maybe he wouldn’t have to shut his eyes sometimes not to see, or put his hands over his ears so as not to hear. But then again, wherever you were in the world, he suspected, you’d find your hands were a little dirty at the end of the day’s work. Saints lived only in books so far as he knew, and Korolev lived in the real world, where the road ahead, if there was one, was likely as not pot-holed and spattered with excrement. But you still had to walk it and if he’d learnt one thing in the last twenty years, it was to carry on putting one foot in front of the other, and to keep his head down. Which direction he walked in was for the bosses to decide – his duty was just to do as he was told, and to trust that the Party would bring them to a brighter future.

Of course, the Frenchman was a writer, and he knew what writers were like. At least, Babel, to be fair to him, didn’t judge men for what they sometimes had to do. Others of his profession, however, liked to see to the bottom of a man’s soul, to judge you as only God should judge, and then to sit in their comfortable studies, with a fine cigarette from an elegant blue packet clenched between their teeth, and clatter out their findings on shiny typewriters, each letter hitting the blank page like a nail in a coffin. Oh, he knew what they were like, those writers. They should look at themselves sometimes and maybe they’d see they were no better than anyone else. And if Korolev had done bad things, it was because he’d had to. The Frenchman would do well to remember that when he looked at Alexei Dmitriyevich Korolev.

Korolev felt an acid rage coursing through his veins – his hands were trembling again, even as he tried to hold them still. Was it the anger, or was it his nerves again, he wondered.

It wasn’t just him in the firing line, that was the problem. He knew how things worked these days – if he were to be arrested, it would mean Valentina Nikolaevna would almost certainly also end up in the Zone, then Yasimov, whom he’d worked alongside for so long, and probably Zhenia, even though they hadn’t been married for two years now. And what would it mean for young Natasha, if her mother was shipped off to the Zone? Or Yuri for that matter, his own flesh and blood, if Zhenia got ten years? An orphanage, if they were lucky, otherwise the streets. And they probably wouldn’t be as lucky as the dead girl – they’d always be children of Enemies of the People and that would bring difficulties that might never be surmounted.

And so he had to remain vigilant, and that meant living on the edge of a blade, and knowing it, and trusting in the good Lord to preserve him and his. Of course, people might tell him the Lord was a superstitious fiction of his imagination, unsuited to the scientific and logical reality of Soviet Power. Well, he’d bet his good boots that half of those same people were praying just as hard as he was to be guided through this valley of shadows. In fact he was sure of it. They might talk like Bolsheviks, but in their hearts Russians would always be Believers. It was just the way they were.

He splashed his face with water cold enough to stop him thinking of anything very much for a moment or two and reminded himself that solving the case was what mattered now and everything else was a distraction.

Five minutes later he was dressed and standing in the dining room where the girl had been found. He considered the height again. Could someone have lifted her on their own if they’d used a table to stand on? Peskov would weigh the girl as part of his autopsy – that might tell them something.

And what about the murder weapon? Some sort of cord, Peskov had said. If the doctor could extract some more evidence from the corpse, that might give him something to follow up. He reached his hand up towards the cast-iron bracket. He’d have to get it measured properly.

‘How did the killer do it, do you think?’

The voice came from behind him. He turned to find Slivka, legs apart, standing square, her leather jacket open at the neck. An unlit papirosa hung from the corner of her mouth and she was raising her hands to light it, again cupping them round the cigarette to shield it from a wind that wasn’t there.

‘Got one of those for me?’

‘I forgot. Compliments of Comrade Shymko.’ She pulled an unopened packet of Our Brand from her pocket and handed it to him.

‘Bless the man,’ Korolev said, opening the packet. He looked back up at the bracket, thinking about her question. ‘The table perhaps. Did Andreychuk tell you anything interesting last night?’

‘Nothing. Denied the conversation had ever taken place.’

‘And?’

‘He’s cooling his heels at the Militia station.’

‘Good. Let’s have another go at him when we get back. Whoever cleaned the place after the crime did a thorough job. They must know something about police investigations – and I’m not sure Andreychuk fits the bill.’

‘I can’t decide whether it was planned or not,’ Slivka said. ‘Do you know what I mean? Whether whoever did it decided to cover it up before or after the killing. Either way he didn’t make too many mistakes. He was calm enough to clean her office of prints, and in here as well. And if you hadn’t been sent down here, I doubt a pathologist would have looked too carefully – if one would have even looked at her at all.’

There was an implicit question lurking in her words that Korolev decided to ignore.

‘You’re presuming it’s a man,’ he said after a moment.

‘A strong woman – to have got her up there.’

‘True,’ he said, turning away. ‘Come on, let’s get to Odessa and see what the sawbones has discovered for us.’