deal with that eventuality when it comes to pass. And order Gradov to report here directly – he seems a careless sort of a fellow with regard to poor Andreychuk, doesn’t he? Leaving his key for him to escape and losing his gun for him to shoot himself with.’
‘I’ll see to it, Chief.’
‘And call your mother, Slivka.’
She nodded her agreement, giving Firtov a put-upon shrug of her shoulders. The forensics man turned towards Korolev with a look of puzzled respect.
‘You’ve tamed that one,’ he said as the door slammed shut behind Slivka. ‘If anyone had asked her to call her mother a week ago, they’d have been walking bow-legged till September.’
‘I believe in encouraging youngsters to have respect for their elders.’ Korolev spoke with a grave expression. ‘You’ll call me if you come up with anything else?’
‘Count on it,’ the cavalryman said.
Korolev turned to leave, but then he stopped, hearing the chink of the bullet in his pocket. He pulled out the glass container and showed it to Firtov.
‘I almost forgot,’ he said. ‘It’s the slug that made the hole in Andreychuk’s head. The doctor pulled it out of the dead man’s arm.’
Firtov took the jar from Korolev, examined it for a moment, his face impassive, then placed it on his desk. The dented bullet seemed to have a dark presence, despite the glare of the electric light. He pulled across a set of weighing scales and decanted the bullet into one of the brass baskets, before adding and subtracting various tiny weights.
‘Not from a Nagant. Most likely a nine-millimetre. We’ll have a look at it, anyway, me and the Greek, and see what we make of it under a microscope.’
‘I’d be grateful. Tell Slivka I’ve gone down to check in on our journalist friend – maybe a little time in a cold cell has warmed up his memory.’
Chapter Twenty-One
Lomatkin was sitting in his shirtsleeves, beltless and bootless, his open collar revealing the top of a grey vest. Korolev felt a pang of sympathy for the bewildered-looking man – after all, he himself had sat in a not dissimilar cell not too many months past, an experience he wouldn’t wish to have again.
Korolev sat down, and they looked at each other for a long moment, hands tucked into their armpits, each a mirror image of the other.
‘This isn’t so bad, is it?’ Korolev said, glancing around him. ‘A cell to yourself? Clean, more or less, and a bench to sleep on? You’re lucky if you ask me. You should see the cage I’ve just passed. Some real types in there I can tell you – they’d have fun with a cultured man like you.’
‘I saw the cage,’ Lomatkin said, his voice measured. ‘Is that how it works? If I don’t tell you whatever it is you want to hear you put me in there with them?’
‘No,’ Korolev said, pretending to consider it. ‘I always think information gained in such a way is unreliable.’
‘You’re a paragon of virtue,’ the journalist replied.
Korolev laughed and took a packet of cigarettes from his pocket.
‘These all right for you? They didn’t have a wide selection at the kiosk. Mind you, they could have had old boots and I’d have bought them. I’d smoked my last one after Andreychuk’s autopsy and this case needs tobacco. As well as a few answers from you, of course.’
Lomatkin took one, running its length underneath his nose as though it were the finest cigar. Korolev offered him the packet again.
‘Take a few, for later.’
‘Later?’ Lomatkin asked.
‘Well,’ Korolev said, shrugging his shoulders, ‘you must see how things stand. You won’t be buying cigarettes for yourself for a while.’
‘I’d nothing to do with Andreychuk’s escape, or his death. I’ve told you that already. I shouldn’t be here. Now or later.’
‘The evidence doesn’t back you up, Citizen, and that’s the truth of it. In fact the evidence points to you having let the fellow loose and then conspiring with a person or persons to plant a bullet in his skull. But let’s leave that aside for the moment. Let’s talk about something else. Let’s talk about crimes against the State. Let’s talk about espionage.’
Now Lomatkin’s eyes were like a pair of car headlights – as if someone had seized him by the nether parts and treated them unkindly. Korolev forced himself to be patient, allow the fellow to sweat. He deliberately settled back onto his chair, moving from side to side to extract every possible fraction of comfort from its hard frame, uncrossed his arms and slipped his hands into the pockets of his overcoat.
‘Yes,’ he continued, when he’d finished. ‘I know all about it. Forget Andreychuk is my advice, you have bigger problems. What’s the local equivalent of the Butyrka in these parts? I hope the cells are as nice as this.’
‘You know…’ Lomatkin began eventually, before his voice tailed off. Maintaining an impassive expression, Korolev considered what he knew and what he was guessing. Putting facts together and producing possibilities from them was what being a detective was all about, of course, but in this case he didn’t have many facts to back his supposition up – all he had was Kolya’s suggestion that Lenskaya had been bringing valuable secret information to the Ukraine that was being traded for guns. The girl had been killed, so it seemed likely to Korolev that she’d been killed because of her espionage activities, although he wasn’t certain of that by any means. But if her death had been to do with spying, it seemed probable she’d died because she’d been a threat to the traitors in some way. And Lomatkin’s relationship with her, his arrival the day after her death, his assistance in Andreychuk’s escape, his visit to Krasnogorka – whether or not with the intention of escaping across the border – all pointed to him being involved. And, with him being a defence journalist for Izvestia, why shouldn’t he be the source of this mysterious secret information? The Germans wouldn’t hand out guns for statistics about road-building in Kazakhstan – no, they’d want military information, and Lomatkin could have been the man to provide it.
‘I don’t know everything,’ Korolev continued, ‘but I know enough. It occurs to me that you could avoid the worst of what’s in store for you if you’re frank with me – the guns are what I’m after at this stage. If you help me prevent them falling into the traitors’ hands, then I’ll help you, you’ve my word on it. You made a mistake, your record will stand you in good stead if you’re open and straightforward with me. And if you aren’t – well – there are others who will ask the same questions in a different way.’
‘Guns, Korolev? Guns? I don’t understand a word of what you’re saying. And I don’t know what this espionage talk is about either.’
Imagine if they’d managed to find the dead girl’s diary that Yasimov had mentioned, Korolev thought to himself. Imagine if it had made life easy for them by explaining exactly what was going on here. The journalist had certainly reacted to the suggestion of espionage – he was sure of that. But the mention of guns seemed to have given the fellow confidence again. Perhaps he didn’t know about the guns.
Korolev decided to take a risk.
‘We found her diary, Lomatkin.’
‘Her diary?’
‘Her diary. You knew she kept one, surely? So we know she was bringing information down from Moscow – and your role in it. What you might not know is that your information was being passed on for guns, German guns. That’s what she was killed for. We know about your role. It’s the others we’re after now. Tell me everything, Lomatkin, and you might get out of this in one piece. Did they have something on you? Was it the drugs, or something else?’
Korolev hoped his face didn’t betray his own fear. If he’d got this wrong, if Lomatkin turned out to have nothing to do with anything, then Korolev had revealed Kolya’s information and the journalist might blather about it to Mushkin or someone similar and Korolev was pretty confident that the Chekists would be interviewing this fellow sooner or later. Korolev scanned Lomatkin’s face for reassurance, a small sign of guilt, but it was as if the