to move down towards the port at a pace so slow it would have shamed a snail.
‘You’re right, it’s a dilemma. Perhaps I should take a job in a factory, give up my evil ways. Join the Party and live like an honest Bolshevik.’ There was an emphasis on the word ‘honest’ that indicated all too clearly just how honest Kolya thought ‘honest’ Party members were.
‘At least then you’d be contributing something to the welfare of the People.’
‘The People’s welfare, Korolev? You think your precious Bolsheviks care about the People’s welfare? They don’t – they only care about surviving. And they’d stab their own mother if they thought it would help them survive a little longer. The Lord knows how many people died round these parts for a quota that could never be filled, and all because some fat Party bureaucrat living off canteen food knew he’d be the next one buried if it wasn’t.’
Kolya’s tone was more weary than angry and Korolev wasn’t sure how to respond to words that from anyone else would be considered suicidal. He looked out of the window at the port below and decided a change of subject would be best.
‘Isn’t this a little dramatic? You and me in a tourist train? Just so we can have a quiet chat.’
‘We’re players in a dangerous game, Korolev. It’s best to be careful.’
‘I’m only here on holiday.’
Kolya gave a brief bark of laughter and for a moment he seemed genuinely amused.
‘A holiday? That’s good. I’m here on holiday as well, of course. On the express instructions of the People’s Commissar of State Security. How about you?’
Korolev felt fresh air on his tongue as his mouth dropped open in amazement. Kolya waved the detective’s surprise away, like a lazy man swatting a fly.
‘A little joke – it’s just I have men who tell me things, same as you people.’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ Korolev said, wondering how the hell Kolya had sources that high in the NKVD.
‘Of course you don’t,’ Kolya said. ‘That woman – what was her name? Yes, Lenskaya – she committed suicide. Or maybe not? Come on, Korolev, it’s time for us to have a talk.’
‘The last time we talked, Kolya, you and that little fiend back there talked me right into a cell in the Lubianka.’
Kolya’s face hardened. ‘I’d no choice, Korolev – there was something important at stake and not much time for discussion. I was pleased it worked out all right for you, believe me.’
Korolev rubbed at the scar on his scalp that had been left by one of Kolya’s men when they’d knocked him cold. It was true, there had been something important at stake, and if Kolya hadn’t left him on the floor of the cultist’s kitchen for State Security to find, well, strange as it seemed in retrospect, things might well have ended up a lot worse.
‘I’m not looking for an apology, Kolya. Tell me what you have to tell me, and then we’ll see.’
Kolya nodded, then turned to face the sea and gestured down at the port buildings below and the harbour full of ships – everything from square-rigged three-masters to rusting oil tankers, from battleships to fishing boats.
‘My mother’s people are from this town, Korolev. They’re of the Jewish variety. Nothing wrong with that, in my opinion. The best Jews are straight talkers, good to do business with, handy to have around when things get rough and don’t squeal to the likes of you when things go wrong. And the worst are no worse than the worst of ours. They came here when the city was founded – they could work at what they wanted, do business as they would and they prospered. Do you know why Odessa is important?’
‘Fill me in.’
‘Look at the sea – no ice. Oh, it’s not warm, but this is a port that never freezes over and it’s open every day of the year that isn’t blowing a hurricane. Goods from all over the world come in, and where there’s business like that there’s business for a man like me.’
Korolev was surprised. He knew Kolya ruled Moscow, at least within the world of the Thieves, but not that his reach stretched as far as Odessa. Perhaps his surprise showed, because Kolya nodded in acknowledgement.
‘It’s business. Because of my mother’s people, I have connections here and responsibilities. The Party may not approve of speculation, but certain people in Moscow want certain products and someone has to supply them. And certain other people in Moscow also want to send certain things abroad, but you know all about that. These products travel through Odessa often as not – things are more flexible here than where we come from and it helps that there’s no winter interruption.’
Korolev could imagine what these products were – narcotics, foreign currency, valuables of one sort or another, in short, anything that turned a profit. A thought occurred to him.
‘Morphine?’
‘As you would expect,’ Kolya said, scanning Korolev’s face for a clue as to the significance of the quesion – a clue which Korolev did his best not to give. After a moment the Thief shrugged. ‘Listen, Korolev, I do business with people who bring things in from abroad. From Istanbul, Genoa, Marseilles, Alexandria. Even further away. If someone wanted an elephant and had a thick enough stack of roubles, I could probably get it for them. And if that someone wanted to send the elephant back when he was done with it, I could speed it on its way.’
Korolev believed him, despite himself.
‘And the border guards, they have nothing to say about this?’
‘Everyone has to eat,’ the Thief replied in a flat tone. ‘But there are things we don’t get involved with, not unless we want to have Chekists and Militia swarming all over us like flies round a honey pot, and we don’t. And a shipment of German guns will bring those kind swarming soon enough, you can be sure of it.’
Korolev’s attention was entirely focused now, and Stalin himself could have been looking in on them from the steps and he wouldn’t have noticed.
‘German guns? The Germans asked you to bring in guns?’
‘Nobody asked me, but that’s not the point. The men who did the asking asked people who are under my roof, for family and business reasons, and so when they decided to apply some pressure, it became something I had to deal with. As for who’s behind it? I’d be guessing at the answer, and so would you, but I wouldn’t be surprised if we’d both be right if it turned out he’d got a toothbrush moustache, a schoolboy’s parting in his hair and a way with crowds.’
‘I don’t believe it,’ Korolev said, believing it.
‘Believe what you want but these are tough men, and well organized, and they thought they could get what they wanted by force. But they must never have heard of the ways of Moldovanka is all I can say. Someone got kidnapped, then someone got killed, then another person got killed and I wouldn’t take bets someone else again won’t get killed soon enough.’
‘I’ve heard nothing of this.’
‘It’s in no one’s interest for this to come to the attention of the Organs of State Security. I’m telling you because I think you may be of use to us, and we may be of use to you.’
‘I’m listening.’
‘Well, when some of this was going on, a man told a story. Why he decided to tell the story, you don’t want to know.’ Kolya’s face was grim, and Korolev deduced from it that the storyteller hadn’t spoken voluntarily. ‘But it was a good story, about how someone, a girl – now a dead girl – was bringing information down to Odessa from the capital of this Soviet land of ours, and how that information was as good as gold to whoever was providing these Prussian pea-shooters. In fact that information was paying for these German armaments more or less.’
Korolev felt his stomach turn. If Lenskaya had been shipping information down to Odessa, he’d a suspicion he knew where it might have come from. And if it did come from Ezhov – and if Ezhov didn’t know – well, then Korolev didn’t want to be the one to tell him.
‘I see from your face you’re working it out. I always said you were smart enough.’
‘The devil,’ Korolev said quietly.
‘But who knows how this thing worked? Because something went wrong with the arrangement, and while our little songbird didn’t know the reason why, he was given the job of rubbing out the girl – except it was him who got rubbed out first. By us, as it happens. That didn’t change things for the girl, of course, but you know that already. And then you showed up, hot from Moscow, in an aeroplane no less.’
Korolev tried to make sense of it all – did that mean the girl was part of this bunch of Ukrainian terrorists or not? Had she been killed because she was a traitor or because she wasn’t? And what, if any of this, could he tell Rodinov? Kolya’s bright eyes watched him as if following his every thought.
