The Twelfth Department

CHAPTER SIX

Korolev and Slivka stood on the landing one flight up from the dead man’s apartment, looking out the open window down onto the street far below, watching the traffic pass over the soon-to-be-destroyed Bolshoi Kamenny Bridge and sucking the smoke out of a pair of Belomorkanals. Korolev could see lightning flicker over the northern suburbs and the shadow of rain underneath the low clouds as they approached. He hoped Yuri wouldn’t be caught outside when the bad weather came.

“What we need is a motive, Slivka,” he said, flicking the papirosa tube out the window and resisting the temptation to light up another. “If we can find one, then like as not we’ll find a murderer attached to it. But the only thing we’ve got to go on so far is that the sealed apartment on the third floor might have been the victim’s doing. It seems he liked to tell tales.”

“I see.” Slivka didn’t seem keen on it as a motive-but, then again, nor was he.

“I know. We’ll have to look into it all the same-I’ll ask Popov for the best way to go about it. What did this doctor say about Comrade Madame Azarova?”

“He said she should be awake soon. We can speak to her about half an hour after that, he thinks.”

“Good, we talk to her as soon as we can. What else?”

Slivka looked down at her notebook.

“The doorman has gone through the list of residents-who was here this morning and what their movements were. Belinsky’s men are going door to door through this part of the building-so we’ll soon add detail to that. No one we’ve questioned so far has heard or seen anything directly related to the murder, but we have two people who say they saw the professor leaving the building early in the morning, which confirms what the maid told you. We’ve also got a list of people who were visiting the building-Belinsky’s men are working their way through them. And they’re also trying to make contact with residents who left for work earlier in the day, in case they might have seen anything.”

Korolev considered this, and found that somehow another Belomorkanal had ended up in his mouth. He lit it.

“Talk to the widow when she surfaces-I’m going to take the car and drive to this institute of his and find out what he was up to there this morning and why it might have upset him. Oh, and I got one more thing out of Matkina-she could smell gunpowder when she went into the study. That-and all the coffee he drank after nine-thirty-suggests he wasn’t shot long before she found the body. Something to bear in mind.”

He turned to lead the way down the staircase and found Priudski, the doorman, standing on the landing below-his ears no doubt having been tuned in to their conversation like a radio receiver.

“Comrade,” Korolev said dryly. Priudski returned the greeting without the slightest trace of embarrassment. Well, Korolev thought, the fellow’s probably just doing his job-the same as he was. Not that this made him any happier.

* * *

Inside the Azarovs’ apartment the forensics men were standing back, watching the burly figure of Zinaida Chestnova carefully lift the dead man’s head in her small plump hands. Gouts of semi-coagulated blood were providing some resistance and her assistant was holding down the paperwork on which the head had rested while Chestnova moved it from side to side. She was careful, almost gentle, but Korolev knew she’d be less gentle when the autopsy proper began. She was looking for hypostasis on the dead man’s face, unless Korolev was mistaken-one of the indicators that might tell her when he’d died.

“Let me guess, Korolev,” Chestnova said, without looking up. “You want me to tell you to the minute, as usual.”

Despite the fug of cigarette smoke, he could smell the corpse’s sweet stench now. The summer heat was having its effect.

“I wouldn’t be so unreasonable. We’ve some ideas, but if you tell us something different then we’ll have to think again.”

“I see,” Chestnova said, pressing a thumb to the dead man’s eye. The elasticity would give her another clue as to the time of death.

“No more than two or three hours ago, I’d say. I doubt his body temperature will indicate much different. It wasn’t yesterday, that’s for sure. Does that tally with your ideas?”

“It does.”

Korolev looked down at the body and had the sense that everything around him was receding, leaving just him-and the corpse.

“Chief?”

Korolev started, aware that he had somehow become the center of attention. He sighed. That was the thing about death-it had a way of slipping into your thoughts and taking them over, leaving you forgetting where you were.

“Yes, Slivka, yes. I hear you.” Korolev rubbed the palm of his hand across his jaw once or twice, savoring the bristly scrape. He had to focus on the job in hand.

He turned to regard Chestnova.

“Zinaida Petrovna, we can see the bullet hole in the back of his head, and we can draw our own conclusions. The question is, is there anything else you’d like to bring to our attention?”

“No. The bullet killed him, if that’s what you’re asking. I doubt the autopsy will tell us otherwise.”

“Nothing that might indicate a struggle of any kind? Or resistance?”

“Not that I can see,” Chestnova said, placing the head gently back on the desk. “I studied under him at university. An ambitious man-not pleasant about it, either. Have you any idea who killed him?”

“None,” Korolev said. “So he wasn’t well-liked?”

“Not at all,” Chestnova said. “Not by his colleagues and certainly not by the students. Feared, perhaps.”

“Feared? Well that’s useful to know.”

Korolev examined the dead man’s face. It was difficult to deduce a corpse’s personality just from looking at it. Death rubbed away much of a person’s character-and left only a misleading impression at best. But Chestnova was someone whose opinion he could attach some weight to. If she said Azarov wasn’t a pleasant man, then he believed it. Especially since his maid had given a hint or two along the same lines.

“Well, he must have trusted whoever shot him,” Korolev said. “Why else would a man sit at his desk calmly while his killer stood behind him?”

“Just because he wasn’t afraid of the killer, doesn’t mean he didn’t know they despised him,” Slivka said, with a shrug of her shoulders.

“Perhaps. Ushakov, I’d like to have a look at what he was working on at the time of the murder. Can you clean the blood off these?”

Korolev pointed to the blood-caked papers.

“We’ll do our best-I’ll let you know how we get on. In the meantime, I’ve extracted your bullet from the desk.” He held up a small brown paper bag. “It looks like a.45 caliber-big, in other words. It must have been fired from close range but it barely made a dent, really-for its size.”

There was something in Ushakov’s tone that suggested he had some thoughts on this.

“Go on.”

“It’s just a hunch, but I’m thinking a very small pistol. One of those waistcoat weapons, you know the kind. We’ve asked the local Militia station to pull all the firearms certificates for the building. The bullet’s a bit battered but we should have enough to match it to a weapon. If we locate the weapon, that is.”

Korolev glanced toward Slivka.

“We’ll go through the place atom by atom.”

“Well, I’d better go and meet the late professor’s colleagues.”

Korolev said his farewells. On his way out, he wasn’t surprised to find Priudski the doorman still loitering on the landing, barely visible in the gloomy light.

“Comrade Priudski?” Korolev asked.

“Yes?”

“I need to call Petrovka. Can I use your phone?”

“Of course, Comrade Korolev. Of course.”

Priudski led him down the staircase and, when they reached the bottom, ushered Korolev into his small office. The doorman picked up the receiver, tapping three times for the operator.

“I need to call Moscow CID,” Priudski said. “Petrovka.”

“Thank you,” Korolev said, taking the receiver from the smaller man and holding the door open for him.

The doorman left the room with an expression that reminded Korolev of a scolded schoolboy-but if Korolev was going to make a report to Popov on a case like this, he’d rather it wasn’t overheard by a fellow like Priudski.