ordered to liquidate the inmate population, leaving behind no sympathetic recruits for the Nazi invaders. With the buildings being strafed by Stukas and panzers within shelling distance, they’d faced the logistical conundrum of eliminating twenty cells crowded with hundreds of political criminals in a matter of minutes. They didn’t have time for bullets or nooses. It had been his idea to use grenades, two dropped into each cell. He’d walked to the end of the corridor, pulled back the small steel grate, and tossed them in- clink, clink -the sound of the grenade casing on a concrete floor. He’d slammed the grate shut so that they couldn’t be tossed out, running back down the corridor to get away from the blast, imagining the men fumbling for the grenades, their filthy fingers slipping, trying to throw them out of the small barred window.
Suren placed his hands tight over his ears as if this could stop the memory. But the noise continued, louder and louder, grenades on the concrete floor, cell after cell.
Clink Clink Clink Clink
He cried out:
– Stop!
Removing his hands from his ears, he realized someone was knocking on the door.
13 MARCH
The victim’s throat had been savaged by a series of deep, ragged cuts. There were no injuries above or below what remained of the man’s neck, giving the contradictory impression of frenzy and control. Considering the ferocity of the attack, only a small amount of blood had spread right and left from the incisions, pooling into the shape of fledgling angel wings. The killer appeared to have knocked the victim to the floor, pinned him down, continuing to slash, long after Suren Moskvin-aged fifty-five and the manager of a small academic printing press-had died.
His body had been found early this morning when his sons, Vsevolod and Akvsenti, had entered the premises, concerned that their father hadn’t come home. Distraught, they’d contacted the militia, who’d found a ransacked office: drawers pulled out of the desk, papers on the floor, filing cabinets forced open. They’d concluded that it was a bungled robbery. Not until late in the afternoon, some seven hours after the initial discovery, had the militia finally contacted the homicide department headed by former MGB agent Leo Stepanovich Demidov.
Leo was accustomed to such delays. He’d created the homicide department three years ago using the leverage he’d gained from solving the murders of over forty-four children. Since its conception the department’s relationship with the regular militia was fraught. Cooperation was erratic. The very existence of his department was considered by many militia and KGB officers to imply an unacceptable degree of criticism of both their work and the State. In truth, they were correct. Leo’s motive in forming the department was a reaction against his work as an agent. He’d arrested many civilians during his previous career, arrests he’d made based upon nothing more than typed lists of names passed down from his superiors. In contrast, the homicide department pursued an evidential truth, not a politicized one. Leo’s duty was to present the facts of each case to his superiors. What they did with that truth was up to them. Leo’s private hope was that one day he’d balance his arrest ledger, the guilty outweighing the innocent. Even at a conservative estimate, he had a long way to go.
The freedoms granted to the homicide department resulted in their work being subject to the highest level of secrecy. They reported directly to senior figures in the Ministry of Interior, operating as a covert subsection of the Main Office for Criminal Investigations. The population at large still needed to believe in the evolution of society. Falling crime rates were a tenet of that belief. Contradictory facts were filtered from the national consciousness. No citizen could contact the homicide department because no citizen knew it existed. For this reason Leo couldn’t broadcast requests for information or ask witnesses to come forward since such actions would be tantamount to propagandizing the existence of crime. The freedom that he’d been granted was of a very particular kind, and Leo, who’d done everything in his power to put his former career in the secret police behind him, now found himself running a very different kind of secret police force.
Uneasy with the first-glance explanation behind Moskvin’s death, Leo studied the crime scene, his eyes fastening on the chair. Positioned, unremarkably, in front of the desk, the seat was at a slight angle. He walked up to it, crouching down, running his finger over a thin fracture line on one of the wooden legs. Tentatively testing his weight, pushing down on the back, the leg immediately gave way. The chair was broken. If anyone had sat on it, it would have collapsed. Yet it was positioned at the desk as though it were suitable for use.
Returning his attention to the body, he took hold of the victim’s hands. There were no cuts, no scratches-no sign that this man had defended himself. Kneeling, Leo moved close to the victim’s neck. There was hardly any skin left except on the back, the area touching the floor, protected from repeated slashes. Leo took out a knife, prising it under the victim’s neck and lifting the blade up, exposing a small stretch of skin that hadn’t been destroyed. It was bruised. Lowering the flap of skin, retracting the knife, he was about to stand up when he caught sight of a pocket on the dead man’s suit. He reached in, taking out a slim book-Lenin’s The State and Revolution. Even before opening the book, he could see that there was something unusual with the binding: a page had been glued in. Turning to the page in question, he saw a photo of a disheveled man. Though Leo had no idea who the man was, he recognized the type of photograph-the stark white background, the suspect’s disoriented expression. It was an arrest photo.
Puzzled by this elaborate anomaly, Leo stood up. Timur Nesterov entered the room, glancing at the book:
– Something important?
– I’m not sure.
Timur was Leo’s closest colleague and friend. The friendship they’d developed was of an understated kind. They didn’t drink together, banter, or talk very much except about work-a partnership typified by long silences. To cynics there was reason to suppose resentment in their relationship. Almost ten years younger, Leo was now Timur’s superior, despite the fact that he’d previously been his subordinate, always formally addressing him as General Nesterov. Objectively Leo had benefited more from their joint success. People had insinuated that he was a profiteer, individualistic and career-minded. But Timur showed no jealousy. The issue of rank was incidental. He was proud of his job. His family was provided for. In moving to Moscow he’d finally, after languishing on waiting lists, been appointed a modern apartment with running hot water and a twenty-four-hour electricity supply. No matter how their relationship might outwardly seem, they trusted each other with their lives.
Timur gestured toward the main factory floor where the towering Linotype machines stood, giant mechanical insects:
– The sons have arrived.
– Bring them in.
– With their father’s body in the room?
– Yes.
The sons had been allowed to leave, sent home by the militia before Leo could question them. He would apologize that they had to see their father’s body again but he had no intention of trusting secondhand information passed to him by the militia.
Summoned, Vsevolod and Akvsenti-both in their early twentiesappeared at the door, side by side. Leo introduced himself:
– I’m Officer Leo Demidov. I understand this must be difficult.
Neither of them looked at their father’s body, keeping their eyes on Leo. The older son, Vsevolod, spoke:
– We answered the militia’s questions.
– My questions won’t take long. Is this room as you found it this morning?
– Yes, it’s the same.
Vsevolod was doing all the talking. Akvsenti remained silent, his eyes occasionally flicking up. Leo continued:
– Was this chair at the table? It might have been knocked over, in the struggle perhaps?
– The struggle?
– Between your father and the killer?
There was silence. Leo continued:
