iron railing. The handle was a split piece of white birch, into which the railing had been inserted and string wrapped tightly around the wood to hold it in place. The tight coils of string were coated with a lacquer of dried blood. “This was made by a prisoner,” said Pekkala.
“It was lying right next to the body,” explained Klenovkin. “There’s no doubt this was the murder weapon.”
Pekkala said nothing, but he knew that the weapon which had killed Ryabov was no prison-made contraption. One glance at the blade told him that.
Prison knives were fashioned to be small, so that they could be easily concealed. He had seen lethal weapons constructed from pieces of tin can no larger than a thumbnail and fitted into the handle of a toothbrush. The weapon Klenovkin claimed he had found beside the body was a type used for stabbing, not cutting.
The blade which had cleaved apart Ryabov’s throat was wide and sharp enough to sever the jugular with one stroke. This was evident in the clean edge of the wound, showing that the killer had not required multiple strokes of the blade to accomplish his task.
“It proves the Comitati were involved,” continued Klenovkin.
“And how have you reached that conclusion?”
Only now did Klenovkin remove a hand from its fur-lined cocoon. One finger uncurled towards the dead man. “The Comitati did this, because no one else would have dared to lay a hand on Ryabov.”
“But why do you think they were the ones who murdered him?”
“I have considered this, Inspector, and there is only one possible answer. I first assumed that he was trying to secure the release of his men along with himself. What else is there to bargain for? But the more I thought about it, the clearer it became. Ryabov had no intention of escaping with the others. The only freedom Ryabov desired was for himself. He had finally seen the Comitati for what they really are-a clan of painted madmen clinging to a prophecy which becomes more and more improbable with every passing year. Ryabov had at last reached the correct conclusion-that unless he did something to help himself, he would die here in the camp.”
“Why do you think he would come to you now, after all these years of silence?”
“I believe their tight-knit group had been whittled away until those few who remained had finally begun to crack. Ryabov was prepared to abandon their old loyalties. The others were not. If you want to find the man who killed Ryabov, you need look no further than the men he used to call his comrades.”
After closing up the freezer, the two men walked out of the kitchen.
Under the glare of the camp’s perimeter lights, sheets of newly formed ice glistened in the compound yard. Beyond the tall stockade fence, the sawtooth line of pine trees stood out against the velvet blue night sky.
“If he was so desperate to escape,” asked Pekkala, “then why did he not simply attempt to leave on his own? He had learned to survive here in the camp. He could have found a way out and then, surely, he could have endured conditions in the forest long enough to make it across the border into China, which is less than a hundred kilometers from here.”
“The answer to that, Inspector, is the same as why you never escaped, in spite of the fact that you lived beyond the gates of this camp, with no guards to oversee your every move. Even if Ryabov could have made it through the forest on his own, he would never have gotten past the Ostyaks.”
“Do you mean to say they are still out there?” Pekkala asked Klenovkin. “I thought you would have driven them away by now.”
“On the contrary,” remarked the commandant. “They are more powerful than ever.”
Beyond the gates of Borodok lay the country of the Ostyaks, a nomadic Asiatic tribe whose territory extended for hundreds of kilometers around the camp.
At the time of the foundation of Borodok and its sister camp, Mamlin-3, on the other side of the Valley of Krasnagolyana, an uneasy truce had been established between these nomads and the Gulag authorities. The valley would belong to the Gulags and the taiga-that maze of rivers, forests, and tundra which made up so much of Siberia-would remain off limits. The camp’s perimeter fence had been built as much to keep the Ostyaks out as to keep the prisoners in.
The Ostyaks butchered any convict found upon the taiga. The corpse was then delivered to the camp. Pekkala had heard rumors of bodies returned only after their palms and cheeks had been cut away and eaten.
So violent were these Ostyaks in tracking down those who sought to trespass on their land, and so difficult was the terrain, that, during Pekkala’s years as a convict, not a single successful escape had ever been recorded.
On their visits to Borodok, the Ostyaks traded with the guards, exchanging the pelts of ermine, mink, and arctic fox for tobacco. As a result, some men wore greatcoats lined with furs more precious than anything which ever trimmed the robes of kings and queens.
Occasionally, in winter, a time when his work as a tree-marker would bring him to the outer fringes of the valley, Pekkala had seen the Ostyaks slaloming between the trees on sleds whose iron runners hissed like snakes across the snow. Other times, they seemed to be invisible, and all he heard was the clicking hooves of the lightning-antlered caribou which hauled their sleds and the sinister metallic chant of harness bells.
Up close, Pekkala had only once ever seen them.
Halfway through his first year as a tree-marker, two men appeared one day outside his cabin. They were on their way to Borodok with a sled carrying some men who had escaped from the camp. Whether the Ostyaks had killed them or simply found their frozen bodies out on the taiga, Pekkala could not tell. The rigid, naked corpses lay heaped upon the sled, seeming to claw the air like men snatched from their lives in the midst of grand mal seizures.
At first Pekkala thought these Ostyaks meant to add him to their pile of dead, but all they did was stare at him in silence. Then they turned abruptly and continued their journey.
They never came near him again.
“Those heathens are more useful to me than any of the guards in this camp,” continued Klenovkin. “Over the years, there have been many escape attempts from Borodok, but no one has ever gotten past the Ostyaks, for one very simple reason: I pay them. In bread. In salt. In bullets. I reward them well for every corpse they bring me.”
“But couldn’t Ryabov have bribed them?”
Klenovkin laughed. “With what? The Ostyaks may be savages, but they are also crafty businessmen. They deliberately miscount those bodies they bring me, hoping I am too genteel to stand out in the cold and count the dead. Then, when I catch them in their deception, they grin like imbeciles, throw up their hands, and act like schoolchildren. They have no respect for Soviet authority. As far as the Ostyaks are concerned, the only difference between me and the frozen bodies they bring in is that I have something to trade and those dead men did not. Otherwise, they would never set foot in the Valley of Krasnagolyana, because they say those woods are haunted.”
“By what?”
Klenovkin smiled. “By you, Inspector! Back in the days when you lived out in the forest, they came to believe that you were some kind of monster. And who can blame them? What was it the loggers used to call you-the man with bloody hands? After Stalin recalled you to Moscow, I had a hard time convincing the Ostyaks that you had actually gone. They still believe your spirit haunts this valley. I told you, Inspector, they are a primitive and vicious people.”
“They are just trying to make sense of the things we have brought to their world,” said Pekkala, “and when I see men with their throats cut like the one lying in front of me, I have trouble making sense of it myself.”
“But you will make sense of it,” Klenovkin replied. “That’s why Stalin gave you the job.”
“I may not be able to complete this task alone,” said Pekkala. “I will need to keep in touch with my colleague in Moscow.”
“Of course. That has all been arranged. I have placed you in a job which will allow us to meet on a regular basis without arousing the suspicion of the inmates.”
“What job is that?”
“You will be working in the kitchen. From now on, you will bring me my breakfast each morning. At that time we can discuss any developments in your investigation.”
“I am to be your servant?”
“Try to set aside your dignity, Pekkala-at least if you want to stay alive. And remember to keep your mouth
