Kolya laughed again, a tinny sound on the crackling line.
‘It’s a good point – I’ll let you know when I know. But remember our conversation. There’s a way of handling this and it isn’t your way. Tell Slivka to call her mother.’
‘Her mother?’ Korolev was confused. Then it occurred to him that Slivka’s mother would be the channel through which Kolya would pass on news of the gun-running. He was about to confirm his understanding when Kolya hung up, and the line became a steady hum.
It was probably just as well, as through the window he could see Mushkin approaching across the courtyard, the heels of his brown leather boots battering the cobblestones into submission. The major looked in through the window at him as he approached and it wasn’t a look that promised a long life to its recipient.
‘A pretty mess you’ve made of this, Korolev,’ Mushkin said without further ado as he entered the room.
‘The escape of Citizen Andreychuk isn’t ideal, that much I’ll give you,’ Korolev said, after a pause. ‘But we weren’t holding him on suspicion of murder, you should know that. In fact I wasn’t holding him at all. It was up to you to decide what to do with him. Effectively, he was in your custody.’
‘My custody?’ Mushkin said, an amazed smile cracking his stony face. It wasn’t a pleasant smile – it was a smile children ran from screaming.
‘You as in the local Organs of State Security – I make no personal reference, Comrade Major, but I don’t see how a Moscow detective who arrived yesterday can be held responsible for the way things are done here. That responsibility must lie elsewhere. And particularly given that it took that Moscow detective less than twenty-four hours to uncover an Enemy of the State who’d gone unobserved by these same Organs for nearly ten years. It seems to me the least the local Organs could have done in the circumstances is ensure such a person’s secure captivity when he was, finally, uncovered. He worked with your mother didn’t he? You knew him as well, I believe.’
Korolev felt his toes curling in anticipation of a furious response. But this was, he was pretty sure, the way he had to play it and hope he could rely on Rodinov to back him up. Perhaps Mushkin had also thought through his personal associations with the escapee because he didn’t react with fury. Instead he contemplated Korolev at his leisure.
‘Interesting, Korolev. Very interesting. Unfortunately for you I’ve just spoken to Colonel Rodinov and he’s most upset at your failure to secure the prisoner – what do you make of that?’
Korolev shrugged his shoulders, hoping he appeared indifferent to the implicit threat. He suspected that Mushkin’s comment was a shot across the bows – a reminder that Korolev was a Militiaman, whereas Rodinov and Mushkin were brother Chekists. It didn’t change anything, once you thought about it. Whether Mushkin had spoken to Rodinov or not, Korolev’s fate had been in Rodinov’s hands since that young Chekist had knocked on the apartment door.
‘I’m just about to call Colonel Rodinov myself,’ Korolev said. ‘As you know, I have to report all matters concerning this investigation to him directly. Shall I let him know that you’re taking all steps to apprehend the criminal Andreychuk?’
Mushkin exhaled a thin wisp of smoke that curled up out of his mouth, along the side of his face and then seemed to get trapped for a moment underneath the brim of his cap. ‘Make sure you keep good notes, Korolev,’ he said. ‘When I take this matter over I don’t want to have to repeat every single interview.’
The Chekist tapped the drooping ash from his cigarette onto the floor and left the room, closing the door carefully behind him.
Korolev wished he’d slammed it; the carefulness was unsettling. He sighed, lit one of his own cigarettes and made the call to Moscow.
Colonel Rodinov listened with surprising patience to his account of the escape and then got straight to the point.
‘Mushkin thinks you’re an incompetent fool.’
The words were a little bald, but the colonel’s voice was neutral in tone.
‘He has shared with me his thoughts on my abilities, Comrade Colonel.’
‘But you’re satisfied that this man was not responsible for the murder?’
‘Comrade Colonel, I consider it unlikely that Andreychuk would have killed his own daughter without a good reason, and we’ve been unable to establish any such reason. There are also other elements of the crime that would appear to be beyond him.’
‘Such as?’ the colonel asked, and Korolev told him about the morphine, the cleaning up of forensic evidence and the fact that the caretaker was unlikely to have had the strength to lift the body on his own.
‘But he could have worked with someone else. The man was an enemy, hiding amongst us for many years while wearing the mask of a loyal Soviet citizen. He could have been waiting for an opportunity like this to attack. The girl’s murder is potentially embarrassing to higher levels of the Party, as you well know – particularly now that it turns out her father fought with Petlyura. To a rat like that the murder of his own daughter might well be justified if he believed it would damage the Revolution.’
‘Comrade Colonel, I don’t deny that he fought with Petlyura, and that he concealed his identity to avoid retribution, but my impression of him was of an old man who regretted his earlier mistakes. I accept I may be naive in these matters, but if he had been waiting all these years to sabotage the Revolution, why kill his own daughter, and then disguise it as a suicide? Why not, for example, kill Comrade Savchenko or Comrade Sorokina? Surely the death of such a famous film director or actress would damage the Revolution more.’
There was silence as Rodinov considered the point and Korolev waited. After some moments, the colonel sighed.
‘There might be a good reason, Korolev – the one which caused you to be sent down there in the first place.’ It was true, the girl’s connection with Ezhov could well be behind her murder, but he still had trouble seeing Andreychuk as the killer. And then, of course, there was Mushkina’s information about the typewriters, which placed Andreychuk at the film shoot while either the killer or the victim switched them. He explained this to Rodinov.
‘And there’s another lead I’m following up on, Comrade Colonel,’ Korolev continued, deciding it was time to fill the colonel in on the trip close to the border that Andreychuk and the dead girl had made. ‘It’s possible that they were visiting a church that might be used in the film. I’m waiting for confirmation.’
The colonel didn’t respond immediately, and all Korolev could hear from the receiver was the crackle of a bad line.
‘It may be nothing, of course,’ Korolev said, as much to hear the sound of his own voice as anything.
‘It might be something though, something serious.’ The colonel’s voice sounded as though some part of him was being squeezed uncomfortably. ‘What if he was a spy? There might be an entire conspiracy down there – don’t you read the newspapers, Korolev? The State is besieged on every side – Lenskaya may even have been involved in the damned thing. And where the hell would that leave us?’
The line wasn’t that good so it was difficult to say exactly, but the colonel sounded more than a little shaken. It seemed that Korolev wasn’t the only one coming to conclusions that he wasn’t entirely happy about.
‘There’s also the matter of the traitor Danyluk, Colonel, the Ukrainian who absconded from the delegation to America.’
‘Yes, I remember him.’
‘I’m only a Militia detective at the end of the day,’ Korolev said. ‘This may be beyond me.’
Korolev waited for the colonel’s next words with some trepidation. If he could walk away from the case he’d thank the Lord with all his heart because it would be as great a miracle as any written up in the Bible.
‘No.’ The colonel’s voice was thoughtful now. ‘You’re making progress there, whatever else. It’s not good to lose potential witnesses, but it seems to me that you can’t be held responsible for local Militia officers who aren’t under your direct command. I’ll call this fellow Marchuk in Odessa and make that clear to him, and Mushkin as well. If you can unmask this fellow in less than a day then they should be asking themselves one or two questions rather than trying to blame their failures on you.’
‘Thank you, Comrade Colonel.’ Korolev spoke with a heavy heart. He was stuck with it, then, although at least Mushkin was going to get it in the neck. That was something.
‘Find out what they were doing in Krasnogorka, Korolev. If Andreychuk did kill Lenskaya and you think he might have had help – find out who helped him. And if he didn’t kill her, find out who did.’
Korolev felt his hackles rise – what the hell did Rodinov think he was doing down here? Taking the waters?
