The Twelfth Department

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

Korolev put the report back into its envelope and then dropped it into the waiting cavity and replaced the bottom drawer. He had a good idea what might have been said during one of those phone calls Kuznetsky had found out about.

He stood and walked to the window, looking down on the children playing in the small park, before changing his focus to see the grim, merciless anger that showed in his reflection. He reached into his pocket for cigarettes and lit one up, thinking it all through, and when he’d finished he stubbed the butt out on the glass before opening the window and flicking it out. It was uncultured, the act of a hooligan. But then he’d just read what cultured men had got up to in the name of science. Maybe being uncultured wasn’t such a bad thing, if you knew what was right and what was wrong. It might be “bourgeois morality” to a wretch like the professor, but in Korolev’s opinion knowing the difference between right and wrong was what separated humans from wolves.

The stack of files was still on the table and Korolev walked over to it, going through them until he found the Bramson file. He picked it up and stopped when he saw the other name on the file. Goldstein. Varvara Goldstein. Bramson’s wife. She’d been arrested on 1 March 1936-three days after a husband whose surname she hadn’t taken. And the couple had a son named after the acronym for the Komsomol International Movement: Kim. Age at the time of the arrest of both his parents-eleven. Korolev swallowed dryly. The same Kim Goldstein who was now on the run from the Vitsin Street Orphanage turned out to be the son of the former occupants of Azarov’s apartment. People who owed their arrests to the professor. Korolev felt the band around his chest tighten another notch or two and reached for another cigarette. If he came through this alive he’d give the damned things up, he swore it-but for the moment, he needed all the help he could get.

Korolev reached for the telephone, tapping for the operator. When she came on the line he asked to be put through to the director of the Vitsin Street Orphanage.

“Comrade Spinsky? Korolev here, from Petrovka. I came to see you last night.”

“I remember.” The tinny voice sounded wary.

“It’s about those two boys-the ones that went missing on Wednesday night. I wanted to know where they might have been earlier in the week.”

“Earlier in the week?”

“Monday and Tuesday in particular.”

“Goldstein and Petrov? They’d have been here on the Monday-it was Tuesday morning that we bussed the boys out to Peredelkino.”

“What are the chances one or both of them could have slipped away at some stage?”

“From the orphanage? We keep a close eye on them, but it’s not a prison,” Spinsky said, and there was no mistaking the director’s concern now.

“So they could have? Do children often leave the Vitsin grounds on their own?”

“Very rarely. Only the older children, even then. As for Goldstein and Petrov-it’s not impossible. Unlikely, but not impossible. You’d have to ask Comrade Tambova or one of the others, to be certain.”

“Tambova? Little Barrel?”

“That’s what the children call her, yes.” The director sounded as though he didn’t approve of such familiarity, either from Korolev or the boys.

“Can I speak to her?”

There was a pause.

“She’s out.”

“Doesn’t she live at the orphanage?”

“She has time off the same as any other citizen. Today is her day off. I’ve no idea where she might be.”

“I want to talk to her.”

“I’ll tell her you called.”

To Korolev’s ears, the director sounded rattled. Korolev wondered if someone might have come to visit him after he’d left the night before. Cartainly Zaitsev would have wanted to know what they’d been talking about, wouldn’t he?

“Last night you mentioned a facility out near Lefortovo where the children who were chosen by Professor Azarov were taken-have you remembered where that facility might be?”

There was a lengthy pause. “I’ve no idea. As I told you yesterday-the institute takes over responsibility for the children once they are transferred.”

“Yes, so you said. So you said. And you’ve heard nothing from either Goldstein or Petrov since last night?” Korolev asked.

“Not a thing. We’ll give them a few more days and then we presume they’ve gone back on the streets. It’s not unusual, Comrade Captain. Not unusual at all.”

Korolev smiled grimly. Someone had got to Spinsky, he was sure of it. The man was doing a good impression of being offhand, but Korolev could almost smell his fear down the telephone line.

“One last question, Comrade Director-I can tell you’re busy. You remember that there were three other children who came in with Goldstein and Petrov back in January. One of them died and the other two were transferred to Professor Azarov’s care. Can you give me the names of the two boys who were transferred?”

“I’m not sure,” Spinsky began.

“Let me remind you who I’m working for on this investigation.”

“One moment,” the director said after a pause, and Korolev heard footsteps and then a drawer squealing open.

“I have them,” the director said. “Vitaly Petrov and Mikhail Kudrin.”

“Petrov? The runner’s brother?”

“Yes, Aleksandr Petrov’s younger brother.”

“Thank you.”

The director seemed to be about to ask a question but Korolev hung up. He finished his cigarette-wondering about Vitaly Petrov and Mikhail Kudrin. And where they might be.