“When they told you about her for the first time, did they tell you she was away a lot?” Charlie was aware of the other man relaxing further. So what had made him tense?
“She had an important job, they said.”
“Doing what?” demanded Lestov.
“They never told me.”
“You don’t have any photographs of your mother in any sort of uniform?” Belous was lying, Charlie knew. To have told her bereaved son what his mother had done would have been the first thing proud grandparents would have done.
“No.”
“What about your father? Any photographs of him in his army uniform?”
Belous hesitated. “It looked like a uniform in the pictures in Tsarskoe Selo. I’m not sure.”
He was, Charlie decided. “Weren’t you ever told what army group or unit he was in?”
Belous shrugged. “He was killed at a battlefront. He must have been a soldier, mustn’t he?”
No, thought Charlie, who from his previous days’ study and the emerging attitude of Fyodor Belous believed he had a good idea of the wartime employment of both the man’s parents. The outside bits of the jigsaw were beginning to fit, but the center of the picture remained blank. He was curious if Miriam and Lestov thought the same. “You were seventeen when your grandparents died, within a month of each other?” said Charlie, picking up on what had been established in Lestov’s earlier questioning.
“Yes,” said the man.
“And you lived all that time in an apartment at Ulitza Kirova?”
“Yes.”
“They’re impressive apartments. Big,” said Charlie, who’d specifically gone there on his way to the ministry. “Your grandfather must have been an influential man: a Party worker like yourself, perhaps?”
Belous stared back warily, unspeaking for several moments. “It was allocated to my mother as a reward for what she did in Leningrad. They were allowed to keep it, after she died and was honored. Why is this important?”
“We’re trying to discover how and why your mother was murdered,” reminded Charlie. “Everything’s important. Tell us about things you remember in the apartment. Were there pictures, prints, on the walls. Ornaments around the place?”
“I don’t understand that question!” protested the man.
“Your mother worked in the palace of Catherine the Great: enjoyed things of rare beauty,” said Charlie, whose reading had extended to studying the illustrated masterpiece catalogue. “I would have expected her to try to decorate such a special apartment with things of special beauty.”
“You are suggesting my mother stole things!”
“Not at all,” lied Charlie. “Anything from the Catherine Palace would have been too well known, too well documented, for anyone to have kept them in Russia. Your mother would not have beenhonored as she was if there had been the slightest doubt about her honesty.”
Belous regarded him doubtfully. “There were some pictures, I suppose. A few ornaments. Nothing I remember particularly.”
Back to the selective memory, Charlie recognized. “Do you still have any of them?”
“No,” said the man, too quickly.
“They were sold?” demanded Charlie, directly.
“I don’t know.”
“If they weren’t sold, you’d still have them, wouldn’t you?”
“I don’t remember. They just weren’t there, after my grandfather died.”
“Not even the medal, about which they were particularly proud?”
“No.”
Charlie leaned forward, picking up the citation, caught by a sudden thought, hoping but not expecting to find what he did. “Your mother got to Moscow with everything she saved from the palace in late 1941?”
“Yes,” said the son, swallowing.
“And was made a hero of the Soviet Union for doing it.”
“That’s what the citation says.”
“No, it doesn’t,” corrected Charlie. “It’s for ‘Special Services to the Soviet Union.’ And is dated December 1944. That would have been almost four years after she saved what she did from the palace, wouldn’t it?”
“If those are the dates,” conceded the man. “Things take a long time to get done in a bureaucracy. Particularly in wartime.”
There would have been treasures, Charlie knew. Maybe from the Catherine Palace or from what-and where- Raisa did for the remainder of the war, after 1941: maybe even small works of other people’s and other countries’ art. How much and how many would have been hoarded by Raisa Belous and gradually disposed of by this man over the years, for a few rubles-kopeks, maybe? Even a prized medal, which Charlie now doubted she’d gotten for what she’d done at Leningrad but for a far greater contribution afterward.
Belous was looking fixedly at him, apprehensively. The man hadn’t gone to an English-language newspaper to honor his mother.He would have demanded to be paid. Probably had been. And by some of the foreign correspondents he’d spoken to, as well. There wasn’t anything to be gained, challenging the man. Charlie recognized he’d gotten all he wanted. It had, in fact, been a far more productive afternoon than he’d expected. He hoped Lestov had, as well. It was as much for the Russian’s benefit-and ultimately Natalia’s — as it was for him. His curiosity about Miriam could wait. Charlie said, “Thank you. It’s been very helpful.”
Belous blinked, surprised. “You think you can find who killed my mother from what I’ve told you?”
Belous would have been prompted by the
“What was she doing at Yakutsk, with the officers?”
“That’s one of the things we don’t yet know,” said Charlie. But I’m getting closer by the day, he thought.
Natalia was for once already at Lesnaya when Charlie got home. Sasha was bathed and settled in bed and his Islay and glass were set out in readiness.
Natalia said, “We’ve got Gulag 98. As well as a lot of other obvious possibilities.”
Charlie sipped his whiskey, knowing she hadn’t finished, enjoying her excitement.
“Guess who was sent there, as well as the fifteen Germans?” she demanded.
“Who?” asked Charlie, dutifully.
“Larisa Yaklovich Krotkov. Who was on the curators’ staff at Tsarskoe Selo. The complete staff list still exists. I ran a comparison with the names at Gulag 98. And there she was!”
Charlie stopped drinking. “What was she jailed for?”
“Assisting the enemy.”
“Any details?” Coincidence, or another piece of the jigsaw?
“Not so far.”
“We can use it,” insisted Charlie.
“How?”
“You’ve sent the Gulag 98 file on to Travin?”
She nodded. “In this afternoon’s consignment. But how can Lestovbe shown to discover it when he’s not examining the camp material?”
Until this moment it had been a problem Charlie hadn’t known how to overcome, but now he did. “Did Lestov pick up on the interview with Fyodor Belous?”
“You made it clear enough. He’s having Belous’s place raided tonight, to see if there’s anything the man hasn’t already sold. And Raisa was Trophy Brigade. So was her husband, from the very beginning.”
“One thing at a time,” said Charlie. “Have Lestov do what you’ve already done, run a check on all the curator staff at Tsarskoe Selo, which he could logically do after today’s interview. It’ll throw up Larisa Krotkov’s imprisonment. And where she served it.”
“Yes,” agreed Natalia, distantly. “That’ll do it, won’t it?”
“It’s them or you,” urged Charlie, knowing her difficulty. “Them or us.”
