equipment and people gathered around a group of white-bloused peasants brandishing scythes and forks. One of the men who was standing near a camera mounted on the back of a truck beckoned to the boy.
‘I’m sorry, Comrade Captain. I think they want me.’
He held up his hand in farewell, but the boy was already five metres away. Korolev followed at a slower pace, spying Babel sitting on a box, his hands hanging loose over his knees and his bald patch reflecting the camera lights’ glare. He was listening to a man whom Korolev recognized from the papers as Savchenko, a soft peaked cap worn backwards over his unruly hair.
‘Here he is, fresh from detection no doubt,’ Babel said, raising a hand in greeting.
Savchenko got to his feet, brushing his trousers and looking accusingly at the drum he’d been sitting on before turning to Korolev with an appraising glance.
‘Greetings Comrade Korolev. Babel and I have just been discussing your investigation. Give me two minutes so I can wrap up this scene and I’ll be with you.’
‘Willingly, Comrade Savchenko.’
The film director squeezed Korolev’s hand, patted his shoulder and then walked towards the camera and a waiting Shymko. The production coordinator offered him a board with a page clipped to it which the director took absent-mindedly, his attention focused on the huddle of peasants.
‘So Andreychuk’s in the slammer?’ Babel said, pointing Korolev to the vacated drum.
‘Not for the killing. It’s Mushkin’s affair now, what to do with the fellow. My responsibility doesn’t extend that far.’
‘You’ve ruled him out?’
‘Not exactly,’ Korolev began, quickly filling Babel in on the developments, but leaving out the conversation he’d had with Kolya. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust his friend, but information like that could be a death sentence.
‘Krasnogorka?’ Babel asked when he’d finished.
‘Yes, I don’t know the place. It’s on the Romanian border, I believe.’
‘I know it. A border town, as you say. It had a reputation for smuggling a few years back – I don’t know if it’s still the case.’
‘The Stalin Line’s there now. Not much smuggling where there are machine guns and artillery.’
‘Don’t be so sure; even Red Army men have eyes that can turn the other way.’
‘Perhaps. I’d like to know what the two of them were up to there, certainly. What do you think about the morphine?’
‘I don’t think you need to worry too much about the way it was done – everybody knows it will knock you out if you take enough of it. It could have been put in her food, she might have drunk it or she might have taken it thinking it was something else. The question is how it was got hold of. It doesn’t seem like something you would just come across, not out here. And the other question is who’d have had access to it. An addict perhaps?’
‘We’re looking into it. And you – any luck with the filming from that night?’
‘I don’t think it’s going to help you much, brother. There isn’t a familiar face there, apart from Andreychuk’s. The crew were all behind the camera, and only one or two of the cast are in the shots we’ve looked at so far. I’ve left one of Shymko’s girls going through it. Don’t worry,’ he said, anticipating Korolev’s objection, ‘I’ll check through it myself as well, but it’s the note-taking slows you down. And I asked her to find someone from the village who might know the extras – I don’t know many of them myself.’
Korolev shrugged; perhaps it had been too much to hope for that the film would show up anything useful.
‘Attention, everyone,’ Shymko’s voice boomed loudly. The production coordinator was holding a megaphone in his hand and standing on top of a stepladder. Korolev stood to watch.
‘Crowd to your places. Everyone ready?’
Savchenko was helped onto the back of the truck, where he fixed an eye to a small silver box on a tripod that Korolev presumed was a camera. After a long pause, he stood up and looked to the crowd, raising his arms. The crowd responded by shaking scythes, pitchforks and axes in a warlike manner. Then Savchenko, while still gesticulating, made an angry face, all the while not uttering a sound, and the crowd obliged him again. Satisfied, Savchenko turned to the camera operator and the rest of the crew.
‘Motor,’ Savchenko called out and Shymko repeated the word into his megaphone.
‘Start,’ Savchenko said and as Shymko’s megaphone echoed the instruction, a young lad snapped a clapperboard shut in front of the camera and the crowd began to advance, indignant and hostile. Then from the side young Pavel appeared, and began to dance, lifting his knees, waving his elbows and prodding at the path in front of the advancing peasants with outstretched toes. The crowd, apparently as bewildered as Korolev, came to a halt. One began to point at the boy and laugh, and suddenly the whole crowd had to lean against each other to avoid collapsing into a helpless heap. And still Pavel danced. Even Korolev couldn’t help but smile.
‘And stop,’ Savchenko said.
‘That’s it,’ announced Shymko and the crowd’s laughter died instantly, and Pavel went from a high kick to a slouching walk that took him back towards the camera. Savchenko pointed out Korolev to the production coordinator and raised the thumb and fingers of his left hand.
‘A short break now, don’t go far,’ Shymko announced, and the extras began rolling cigarettes and bending their heads in conversation.
‘And they pay you for writing this?’ Korolev said.
‘Not enough,’ said Babel, putting his hands in his pockets.
‘Korolev, thank you for your patience. Babel here has been telling me all about you and, given you probably know all about me as well, I take it there’s no need for cumbersome introductions. Let’s take a walk over this way, where we can talk properly.’ The director led him away from the film crew, and for a moment Korolev thought Babel was going to try and join them, but the writer caught his warning glance and stayed where he was.
‘So, let’s get straight to the point, Comrade Korolev. I knew Maria Lenskaya well. I’m sure you know that by now. She was my lover, or I was hers – I can’t remember which way round it was. Anyway, I’m sure someone amongst that crowd of gossips has told you by now.’ The director pointed a thumb back towards the cast and crew.
‘Yes, I’ve been informed, but I’m also aware that you were filming throughout the crucial period, and every one of them is a witness to that as well.’
‘They have their uses, I suppose.’
‘So do you have any idea who could have killed her?’
‘I don’t. And that concerns me because the likelihood is that it was one of us.’ Although the director didn’t seem so much concerned by the thought as intrigued.
‘I have to ask about your relationship with her, of course.’
‘Certainly. It ended some time ago, although when she came to America with Belakovsky I’ll admit there was a little flirtation. Nothing serious, but it was so nice to hear beautiful Russian spoken by a beautiful woman. I couldn’t resist her.’
‘Did you meet a man called Danyluk at that time?’
‘The defector? Yes, I met him once or twice. He was in the technological group, not the creative part of the delegation.’
‘Did Lenskaya have much to do with him?’
‘Nothing, as far as I’m aware. He was an insignificant man. I suspect his defection was opportunistic. But I only met him a couple of times, as I said.’
‘I hope you don’t mind me saying this, Comrade Savchenko, but you don’t seem overly saddened by her death.’
Savchenko, rather than being offended, as Korolev had half expected, considered the suggestion seriously for a moment.
‘Don’t be misled, Captain, I’m deeply upset,’ he said. ‘I valued Masha highly, as a worker and colleague, and as a person. It’s the way my mind works, though, to look at such a sadness and speculate around it. A story like this is fascinating for me. I look at it from every angle, consider it, remember it. This is work for me, just as much as if I were digging a ditch. But more importantly, this film has to be finished – why do you think Belakovsky is down from Moscow? To apply pressure, that’s why. I have a responsibility to the people who are working with me on this
