The Russian Interpreter

24

Kurumalinskaya Street turned out to be familiar. It was one of the narrow, busy thoroughfares Manning had walked along with Katerina, talking of God and love. Number 93 was a seedy tenement block lined on the street side with small, flyblown shops. The entrance gateway lay between a sign saying FO TWE R REPAI S and a grocery. The window of the grocery was boarded up, and on the boards someone had whitewashed: ‘Overfulfill the plan for the distributive sector!’ The letters had dribbled down to the pavement and had the appearance of being on stalks, as if they were an organic product of dereliction, a sort of complex urban cow-parsley growing out of the grey pavement.

‘I still don’t see what we’re going to do,’ said Manning, as they gazed at the outside.

‘We’re going to take advantage of Konstantin’s mistake,’ said Proctor-Gould. His weariness had vanished. He seemed excited.

‘What mistake?’

‘He shouldn’t have given us his address, Paul.’

‘Why not? He had to, if you were ever going to take up his offer.’

‘He should have rung later.’

‘What’s the difference?’

They walked through the archway into the courtyard. It was full of noise and movement. Small children ran about without apparent direction, shouting. An old woman walked painfully from one doorway to another with a bucket of water. A man with a shaven head wearing striped pyjamas came out of a door, walked slowly into the middle of the yard, stopped, yawned, scratched each armpit in turn, and then walked slowly back again.

‘The difference,’ said Proctor-Gould, as they cast about for the right staircase, ‘is that we’re going to get all the books back. For nothing.’

‘But how can we? Konstantin isn’t at home now.’

‘Exactly, Paul.’

‘You’re not thinking of breaking in, Gordon?’

‘We’ll see.’

‘But the books aren’t there. Konstantin sold them.’

‘I don’t think he did, Paul. I don’t think he can have done. Look, he was already back in the restaurant waiting for Raya to bring the second case when we arrived, and he’d had time to drink at least three cups of coffee. In fact he must have been expecting Raya about three-quarters of an hour earlier – at the time she would have arrived if I hadn’t stopped her. In other words, the only time he had to dispose of the first case was about as long as it would take Raya to get to the hotel and return with the second one. How long would that be? Well, it depends whether she went by bus or took a taxi. Either way it can’t have been much more than half an hour. Now I don’t believe that within half an hour he can have got the case open, examined the books, and found a buyer for them.’

‘You think he just took the case home and dumped it?’

‘Wouldn’t you, if you’d been in his position?’

‘I suppose so.’

A small boy crashed into Manning’s legs, looked up at the two abstracted faces above him, and ran away shouting.

‘But, Gordon,’ said Manning, ‘why did Konstantin say he’d sold the books if he hadn’t?’

‘I don’t know. Perhaps as an excuse for raising the price by claiming that he had to cover the fence’s margin as well.’

‘But that’s not the line he took at all. He said that he couldn’t get all the books back at any price. And then he said that he could get any one of them back for nothing.’

Proctor-Gould stopped and gazed at the ground, pulling his ear. Some of the children stood round in a semi-circle, watching them, and an old woman sitting on a doorstep shouted something that Manning couldn’t catch.

‘Well, I don’t know,’ said Proctor-Gould finally. ‘It was some piece of sales talk. The details aren’t important. All I’m interested in is getting the books back. Come on.’

Manning followed Proctor-Gould dubiously up a staircase in the corner of the yard. The walls of the staircase were pitted all over, as if they had been subjected to rifle fire, worn down to such a variety of levels of paint and plaster and brick that the mottling seemed almost uniform and intentional. On each dark landing there were four front doors, all of them the colour of Konstantin’s tie – neutral with age and dirt – except at the edges and around the locks, where use had exposed the wood itself.

The front door of number 67 was exactly like the rest, identified only by a rusted and empty bell-push on the lintel, with a piece of card stuffed behind the flange bearing the name ‘Churavayev’ in a ballpoint scribble.

Proctor-Gould rapped on the door with his knuckles.

‘Gordon, what am I going to say …?’ began Manning.

‘Sh!’

They listened. There was no sound from the other side of the door. Proctor-Gould knocked again. Then he kicked, making the heavy door reverberate in its frame. At this the next door but one opened a crack, revealing an inch of pyjama and a sleepy eye.

‘They’re not in,’ said the man, apparently trying not to wake himself up any further by the effort of opening or closing his mouth. ‘So shove off.’

‘Thanks,’ said Manning, as the door shut again. He passed the message on to Proctor-Gould. Proctor-Gould leaned his weight against the door of 67 and pushed.

‘Don’t be a fool,’ said Manning.

Proctor-Gould went on pushing, grunting a little, scarcely breathing, until his face was visibly dark even in the darkness of the landing.

‘For Christ’s sake, Gordon,’ said Manning, looking round to see if anyone could see them.

Proctor-Gould stopped pushing and got his breath back. Then he stepped back to the other side of the landing, bunched his right shoulder up, and charged at the door, changing his mind at the last moment and waltzing round so that he stopped himself awkwardly against the door with the flat of his hands and his forehead.

‘I think perhaps not,’ he said, rubbing his head. He took his key-ring out of his pocket and tried all the possible-looking keys on it.

‘Gordon, it’s not worth risking it just for the sake of a few books.’

Proctor-Gould put the keys away and took out a tiny pearl-handled penknife, with which he began to prod about in the keyhole. Then, abruptly, he straightened up.

‘Did you say the man said they, plural, were out?’ he asked.

‘I think that’s what he said.’

Proctor-Gould began to peer closely at the lintel, running his hands over the pock-marked wood. Then he gazed about the landing walls.

‘Now what are you up to?’ asked Manning, becoming more indulgent now that it was clear nothing embarrassing was going to occur after all.

‘If there’s more than one person living here they may have left a communal key hidden outside somewhere.’

He got down on his hands and knees and crawled about the filthy landing, testing the skirting-board and the risers of the stairs. Manning began to laugh.

‘I must say, Gordon,’ he said, ‘this display of determination is a new side to your character.’

Proctor-Gould put his face nearer and nearer to the floor, until at last he was squinting along it, with his cheek resting on it.

‘If anyone comes by,’ said Manning, ‘I’ll tell them you’re a Moslem. Your face will certainly be dusky enough.’

Proctor-Gould was quite still.

‘I can see it,’ he said. ‘It’s under the door.’

He crawled across to the door, and ran his hand along the floor in front of it.

‘On a thread,’ he added, finding it, and pulling it until the key slid out. He stood up, and without even stopping to brush the dust off his face and knees, unlocked the door and walked inside.

Manning stayed where he was.

‘Come on,’ said Proctor-Gould. ‘Don’t let’s stand here with the door open.’

‘I don’t want to have anything to do with this …’ began Manning, but he stopped. Someone was coming out of an apartment on the floor above. They both listened. There was the sound of a front door shutting, and of a key being turned in a lock. Then the noise of footsteps descending the stairs. One, two, three … in another six or seven steps the man would reach the semi-landing, turn, and look down on them as they stood, half in and half out of the apartment. Manning stepped inside and shut the door. At once Proctor-Gould locked it behind them.

‘Now,’ he said, ‘the sooner we find the books the sooner we can go.’