The Twelfth Department

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

Ten minutes later, Korolev was standing outside Dr. Weiss’s apartment, three dusty apple cores in his pocket, and more than a few questions and scenarios buzzing around his head.

He was about to knock for a second time, when the door was opened by a middle-aged woman in an apron, a mop in her hand and a bucket of soapy water beside her bare feet—her hair covered with a white cotton headscarf.

She seemed surprised to see him at first, then suspicious. Her eyes examined him from head to toe as she rolled something around in her mouth that might have been a ball of spit.

“I’m Korolev, from Moscow CID.”

The woman appeared to reconsider discharging whatever was in her mouth onto the ground in front of him—instead turning to shout back into the apartment.

“Mikhail Nikolayevich, there’s another Ment at the door. What do you want me to do with him?”

She turned back to Korolev, making a small upward gesture with the mop that seemed to indicate she might have a suggestion of her own.

“Let the Comrade Militiaman in, Tasha. For the sake of kindness, let him in.”

The sound of approaching footsteps brought a tall, well-proportioned man to the door. He pushed a pair of reading glasses back onto his graying hair to examine Korolev more closely, squinting as he did so.

“I was expecting your colleague, Sergeant Slivka.”

“I’m Korolev. I’d like a few moments of your time, Dr. Weiss—if you don’t mind.”

“She mentioned you. Of course, come through to the sitting room.”

Weiss wasn’t exactly good-looking—it appeared his nose had been punched flat once or twice—but he had the sort of benevolent confidence that Korolev suspected women found attractive. And if the clear blue eyes that were calmly appraising him were anything to go by, the fellow was clever too.

“I’ll be mopping down the staircase then, Mikhail Nikolayevich,” Tasha growled. “You shout if you need me. I’ll be listening, don’t you worry about that.”

She placed a hand on Korolev’s arm to move him sideways, revealing a surprising strength, before picking up her bucket. She gave him a threatening look as she passed.

Korolev caught Weiss’s small smile.

“Tasha’s been with me a long time,” the doctor said, waving him along the short corridor. “She can be a little—well—abrupt, but she’s a loyal soul. A glass of tea? Or something else?”

Weiss picked up a toy airplane from an armchair and invited Korolev to sit down. Timinov was right, it was a big place.

“How many children do you have, Dr. Weiss?”

Weiss looked down at the plane he was holding, smiled, and placed it on a small table beside him.

“Ah—yes, the toy. Three—all boys. Eight, eleven, and fourteen. They’ve gone to the park with my wife. I thought it would be better if we spoke without interruption. You know how boys can be—especially when it comes to matters such as this.”

Yes, Korolev thought, thinking that he also knew how wives could be when an affair came to light during an investigation—not very happy, nine times out of ten.

“I know you spoke to Sergeant Slivka yesterday,” Korolev began, opening his notebook.

“I presumed you’d want to talk to me again, but may I ask what happened to you?”

Korolev looked down at his clothes. His trousers and shirt suggested he’d been—well—nearly killed in a lift shaft. On top of which, his face—well—the bruising probably didn’t look any better than it had the day before.

“It goes with the job, I’m afraid.”

“I never knew it was such tough work.”

Korolev remembered the whirr of the cable as the lift came up toward him.

“Sometimes we find ourselves in unfortunate situations, but perhaps this week has been—exceptional.”

Korolev could feel the hair on the back of his neck quivering at the memory of the lift shaft. Anyway, enough of the pleasantries.

“I have to ask about Professor Azarov’s wife. About your relationship with her.”

“You’re very direct,” Weiss said.

“I don’t have time to be otherwise.”

“No, I’m sure you don’t.” Weiss rested his hands on his knees and nodded, perhaps to himself. “I suspect some kind soul has told you that I’m having an affair with Irina Azarova? Is that the case?”

Korolev nodded.

“Then let me try and be just as direct in turn, Comrade Captain. The rumor’s true. Unless I’m wrong, your next question will be where I was on the morning of the murder.”

“If you ever want to change professions,” Korolev said dryly, “you can always try mine.”

Weiss smiled and pointed to a sheet of paper that was lying on a low table beside Korolev’s chair.

“That tells you where I was and who I was with. When you read it, you’ll understand why I couldn’t be more frank with Sergeant Slivka.”

The letter was brief and to the point and, curiously, addressed to Captain A. D. Korolev, 38 Petrovka Street. When he’d finished it, Korolev decided he’d have been happier if it had been addressed to someone else. He found himself trying to swallow on a dry mouth and, as a result, making a strange sound not dissimilar to the beginnings of a death rattle.

“You were in a meeting with the General Secretary? Himself?”

Four people had attended the meeting. Two of them were from the Ministry of Health—a man and a woman he’d never heard of. Dr. Weiss had been the third, and the fourth was a man he knew all too well, seeing as he was the General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.

“Comrade Stalin values my advice from time to time,” Weiss explained.

Honestly, Korolev thought to himself, he should move to a different city—some place where people couldn’t possibly have meetings with people like Stalin or be connected with State Security or have mysterious benefactors who could land them apartments as big as a metro station. Omsk, perhaps.

“The meeting was from ten until twelve,” Weiss continued. “Before that I was, as the letter says, waiting. I was waiting from eight o’clock that morning. So I couldn’t possibly have had anything to do with the professor’s murder.”

As Dr. Weiss was pleased to point out, by the time he’d returned from advising the General Secretary on the need for a new children’s hospital in Moscow, Belinsky’s Militiamen had been on the scene, trying to calm a distraught Irina Azarova. He’d stepped in to assist—as any good physician would.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t be more frank yesterday. But it’s best to be careful with such a personage.”

“Of course,” Korolev said, wondering where he went with an interview that seemed to have ended before it had begun.

“You wanted to ask me about my relationship with Irina?”

Korolev felt his cheeks redden from a mixture of embarrassment and irritation. This Weiss fellow was making fun of him now.

“Yes.”

“We’ve known each other for a long time—since we were children. Her mother and mine grew up beside each other on Bolshaya Sadovaya Street, so they were very old friends as well. The family came to live with us during the German War while her father was at the front. I’ve always been very fond of her—and so has my wife. She knows about Irina, incidentally. That’s not the reason why she isn’t here, in case you’re wondering. I told her when it started.”

Korolev felt disbelief manifesting itself on his face.

“We have that kind of marriage, Korolev,” Weiss said, picking up the toy airplane once again and turning it over in his hand absentmindedly.

“It’s unusual, that kind of marriage.”

“You think so? All we are is honest with each other.”

“Your lover wasn’t quite so honest when I asked her about her relationship with her husband.”

“But you see, even when we were lovers—and no, we no longer are—I had the sensation she never fully admitted to herself what we were doing. It was a strange feeling—as if the Irina who I spent time with was a completely separate person. It was as if she had a public persona and then a private one—the one I saw when we were together. Although perhaps that isn’t so unusual these days. I can tell you that, on many levels, Irina was always loyal to Azarov—to a fault, in my opinion. I know she didn’t approve of certain of his actions—but she believed in him. And when, in recent months, she began to uncover some unpleasant truths about her husband, I think that, rather than blaming him, she blamed herself. Her grief isn’t feigned, that much I can tell you. She loved him deeply. Much more than he deserved, in my opinion.”

“And you as well?”

“Perhaps—these things happen. Love never follows a predictable path. The heart isn’t an organ that has the capacity for logic.” Weiss smiled, and Korolev could have sworn it was with satisfaction at his own nicely turned phrase.

“What was your personal opinion of the professor, if you don’t mind?” Korolev asked.

“I thought he was a bully and a braggart.” Weiss’s eyes were less kindly than they had been. Much less kindly.

“His area isn’t something I have great expertise in, but colleagues who know better than me had reservations. Serious reservations, which they were careful to keep to themselves—because he had considerable support in certain circles.”

“So I hear,” Korolev said, wondering if “certain circles” was a euphemism for State Security that he hadn’t heard before.

“Azarov used that support to his advantage, of course. People say that Irina was as bad as he was—that husband and wife were the same Satan—but it wasn’t like that. She was a loyal, dedicated follower. She followed Azarov the same way she follows the Party. She didn’t question, she obeyed. Even when she had to hold her nose.”

Korolev found the comparison of Azarov to the Party worrying, particularly as he now knew that the walls of the building were riddled with secret tunnels in which listening devices lurked as well as, possibly, diminutive killers. But Weiss was oblivious to his reaction, moving on to tell Korolev how Azarov had denounced him—and how, with the way things were these days, he’d thought things would go badly. And they probably would have, if Shtange hadn’t intervened.

Korolev was surprised.

“If you don’t mind my saying, Comrade Weiss. I’d have thought you’d have been secure against such criticism—being an adviser to—well—to him.” Korolev nodded in the general direction of the Kremlin.

Weiss smiled but it wasn’t a smile with much joy in it.

“I work with senior people, but that can be a problem in itself these days. Such people might think that my being denounced reflects on them—support is therefore the last thing I could expect. No, the fact is I was out on a limb and Shtange’s intervention was remarkably brave. Believe me, Korolev, it may not be like this within the Militia—but elsewhere people are like starving wolves—always searching for the weakest to hunt, always trying to show they aren’t the weakest. I sometimes wonder where it will end, or even if it can end. It has taken on a momentum of its own.”

“Did you know Shtange well?” Korolev asked, finding himself casting a nervous glance at the ventilation grilles.

“Beforehand?” Weiss seemed to consider his answer for a moment or two. “No, I barely knew him. I’d met him at faculty meetings, knew of him professionally, of course, but not much socially. Of course, he was a person of some importance among the students. Even before he came to Moscow, he was known to them through his work with the university flying club in Leningrad—he organized joint exercises, not just in flying but other activities as well. He was much respected and admired for it. He never usually intervened in Works Meetings; he’d only recently joined us, after all, so when he did so on my behalf, I think everyone took note—and the students were inclined to support him. And perhaps most of the Party activists knew what Azarov was up to by then. Not all of them are blind to that sort of thing.”

Weiss smiled at Korolev’s reaction—but it was unusual to hear someone even implicitly criticize Party activists these days. A fellow could be excused a raised eyebrow.

“Do you know why Azarov denounced you?”

“I suspect he must have heard the same story you did—about Irina. I can’t think of any other reason. Shtange told me afterward that our affair was often hinted at in the medical faculty—I think it was one of the reasons he decided to intervene. I can only imagine how the rumor started—people draw conclusions from the smallest things. So someone drew a conclusion and then someone, maybe even that same someone, must have told Azarov. Shtange saw the Works Meeting being used to settle a personal score and said as much. The fact that he didn’t like Azarov one little bit probably influenced him as well.”

“Did he dislike him enough to kill him?” Korolev asked.

“No, absolutely not. Shtange was less than impressed with him and his institute but he’d never have killed the man.”

“He told you that? About the institute?”

“He knew I had advisory responsibilities at the Ministry of Health, particularly in relation to Moscow. He’d reservations about the way the institute approached its research and the plausibility of some of its aims. He wondered whether action shouldn’t be taken.” Weiss spoke carefully, as if weighing each word. And given his surprising openness up until this point, Korolev wondered why the doctor had suddenly had a change of heart.

“Did he give details?”

“Yes, but—well—it was State Security business. I knew nothing could be done, except at the highest level.” He pointed a finger at the ceiling, and Korolev wasn’t sure whether he was referring to God, Stalin, the devices in the ventilation system—or perhaps just the person who lived upstairs. It was that kind of building.

They sat there for a moment, looking at each other. Both of them, Korolev suspected, uncomfortable with the direction the conversation had taken. Korolev prayed it wasn’t being listened to.

Weiss sighed. “Look, Korolev, the fact is there are too many scientists taking short cuts these days. It’s one of the problems with Five Year Plans—science doesn’t develop according to a strict schedule or a set objective. It meanders along, finds its own path. It helps if you think you know where you’re going, but sometimes it’s what you see on the way that turns out to be the key that unlocks the door to an important discovery. And what you thought you were looking for turns out to be irrelevant, as often as not. Science is full of happy accidents. As for what was being researched at the institute—if what I’ve heard is true, I doubt it’s possible, or desirable.”

“I’d treat any information you gave me with complete discretion,” Korolev said, more in hope than expectation.

Weiss gave a short laugh—not one of amusement.

“Discretion? For all my talk, I know the limits of discretion these days, particularly when matters such as this are concerned. Still, I’d like to help.”

Weiss seemed to consider how this might be done, and Korolev had to restrain himself from pressing him.

“The thing is,” Weiss said eventually, “you never know these days whether certain information is dangerous to disclose, or whether it’s perfectly safe to do so. I’m not just talking about myself, of course, but my family. And others as well. Then there’s the institute itself. Vasin, a fellow who worked in the office next to mine at the university until a few months back, also worked at Azarov’s institute. But then you see he was arrested, and I didn’t ask why; no one does these days. Shtange worked there and he’s dead. Azarov himself is dead. So all that doesn’t reassure me. And who is to say that any information I have, or any suggestion I’ve heard, is true. Even if it were, the Party takes a wider view of these things than I can—rightly so. May I consider this for a little while, discuss it with someone I trust, and—how can I put it—review what I may or may not know, and the information I may or may not have? I want to be cooperative. I feel it’s my duty to be cooperative, but I can’t rush into this. I have responsibilities to others—you know the way things are.”

He picked up the toy plane again and Korolev knew what he meant by “responsibilities.” If Korolev was in his shoes he’d have the same misgivings about passing on sensitive information concerning the institute. But Korolev had his own responsibilities. He might not be able to force Weiss, but he could at least remind him of his obligation to the dead man.

“I’d be grateful if you could have your discussions as soon as possible,” he said. “Dr. Shtange helped you out of a tight spot. I think you should remember that.”