The Twelfth Department

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

“Tell me, Korolev,” Dubinkin began, when they were standing on the institute’s steps once again, with only a haze of tobacco between them and the sun.

“Tell you what?”

“I’m curious, you see. I’ve been through your file and you must have seen more bodies than most—in the German War. Against the Whites. In Poland. I’m surprised how squeamish you are. Why is it, do you think? You must see plenty of them in this job as well.”

Korolev wasn’t sure whether he should be more concerned that Dubinkin had spotted his squeamishness or that there was a file with his name on it somewhere in the bowels of the Lubyanka. But then again, he’d known there must be. The lieutenant was looking at him the way a chess player might after an opponent had made a surprising move.

“I’m not sure…” Korolev began.

“Oh, don’t worry about the file. Everybody has a file on them,” the Chekist said. “Everybody who is worth having a file on, at least. Anyway, yours is nothing to worry about, believe me—exemplary, is how I’d describe it. You’ve never failed in your duty to the State and your abilities are valuable to us. An occasional weakness and the odd bad association aren’t so important in those circumstances—after all, no one’s perfect.”

“What do you mean by bad associations?” Korolev asked—not so much because he wanted to but because he had the impression that Dubinkin had used those words for a reason. And, sure enough, the Chekist had an answer for him.

“Your former wife might be such an association.”

“Zhenia?”

“Have you more than one?” Dubinkin asked, pretending to look shocked. Personally, Korolev thought it wasn’t a subject for humor.

“No, only Zhenia. Is she in trouble? With you people?”

Dubinkin pulled the cigarette he was smoking from its silver holder and dropped it to the ground. He considered Korolev for a moment, then shrugged.

“She might be. There’s a file on her certainly.”

“My son told me her apartment was searched.”

“So I believe.”

“I haven’t been able to get through to her on the phone. People have been hanging up when I call her building.”

The Chekist shrugged again.

“She hasn’t been arrested yet, not that I know of. But she’s being investigated—that does tend to make neighbors nervous.”

It occurred to Korolev that something about the conversation didn’t quite make sense.

“Why are you telling me this?”

The Chekist smiled and nodded to himself, as if pleased with the question.

“Let’s say that we feel you should know that we know—about your wife, that is.”

“But I know you know,” Korolev said, wondering whether he was being made fun of. “It’s you who are investigating her.”

“That’s where you’re wrong. A different part of State Security is investigating her. But we know they’re investigating her and that might be a good thing for you.”

“You might intervene?”

“Colonel Rodinov values you highly,” Dubinkin said—as if that were answer enough. Korolev realized how a mouse must feel when played with by a cat. Still, if he understood correctly what Dubinkin was saying about this different part of State Security, then there was something he should tell him.

“Well, if you know all that, Comrade—then you should know some people came to my home today and searched it.”

Dubinkin exhaled a narrow stream of smoke.

“What kind of people?”

“Careful people, your kind of people—everything was left almost exactly as it was, but I’m certain they were there. And there’s more, I was followed here. But that they didn’t bother to hide.”

“You see, this is why we want to be so open with you—so that you’re open with us. It would seem the Twelfth Department aren’t pleased the investigation has been taken from them. Just so you know, we’re pretty much certain they’re the ones who took the doorman, Priudski. At least, no one else seems to have. We’ve been through the records for all the Moscow prisons—nothing. It’s possible they’ve put him in under another name, so we’re checking further. But most likely they have him somewhere else altogether.”

Korolev sighed—he’d been temporarily assigned to the NKVD, without his having been given much choice in the matter, and now, as a result, he was being investigated by them.

“It feels like I’m a football being kicked around a field.”

“An excellent analogy,” Dubinkin agreed. “Except one side wants to puncture you while the other want to keep you in play and use you to score a goal. Which side do you hope wins?”

“Christ,” Korolev said.

“He’s not playing. He’s not even the referee—Ezhov is. It’s as well to be clear about things—if we aren’t successful in this investigation of ours, things will not go well. Not for you, not for Sergeant Slivka, and probably not for me either.”

Dubinkin didn’t seem too bothered by the prospect, inhaling a lungful of smoke with a contented expression.

“Chestnova should be ready by now. Shall we see?” he said eventually.

She was. They found the doctor hovering over Shtange’s pale corpse like a white-coated carrion bird. She looked up at them, nodded her greeting and without further ado began to describe the man’s condition. While she did so, Korolev made his own examination—shocked by the number of wounds. They covered his arm, chest, face, and shoulders. Deep incisions, a big knife by the look of it.

“There’s one particularly interesting thing about the wounds,” Chestnova said.

Korolev waited—he doubted she’d need any encouragement to tell them and, sure enough, she smiled, as if reading his thoughts.

“You see these ones…” She flicked a finger back and forth across the blue-lipped cuts that Korolev had been looking at.

“Stab wounds?” he asked.

“Oh yes, I’d say as much. And enough to do the job five times over. A big blade—eight, maybe ten inches. In places it went right through his body.”

“I can see that.”

“But what do you make of this?”

Chestnova pointed to a long thin cut a couple of centimeters in front of the dead man’s ear, precise and clean.

“A different weapon?” Korolev asked, comparing it to the other puncture marks.

“Yes, Korolev. And this weapon, I would almost stake my life on it, was a surgical scalpel. What’s more, in my opinion, this wound was made some time after Dr. Shtange was already dead.”