Rostnikov was sitting on the chair in his room. He had pulled the chair to the window and was looking out at the square, looking, more specifically, at the window of the People's Hall of Justice and Solidarity.
The day had been busy. He had gone back to Galich's house and had been readily admitted and allowed to lift weights in the small room off to the side. Galich gave Rostnikov permission to alter the weights on the bars and then excused himself and returned to the large room where Rostnikov had talked to him early that morning. Galich had, he said, a small, ancient vase that required his attention.
Rostnikov was impressed and pleased by the weights. He worked for nearly forty minutes, humming occasionally, concentrating on the weights, trying to think of nothing but the resisting iron. There had been one interruption: Famfanoff who, red-faced and obviously having had a drink or two, came puffing into the small room, his uniform coming loose in spite of a clear attempt to pull himself together.
Famfanoff apologized for not being up early, offered his services again, asked for an assignment, a task.
When Rostnikov had completed the curls he was doing, he put the weight down, took a deep breath and gave the policeman an assignment, a confidential assignment which Famfanoff gratefully accepted with the promise that he would tell no one. Hope of a transfer was evident in Famfanoff's open red face. He left looking like a man with a secret.
When Rostnikov had finished his lifting, he dried himself with the towel he had brought and sat waiting to cool down before moving quietly to the main room where, at the rear, Dimitri Galich sat at his large, crowded table.
'Finished?' Galich asked.
'Yes, thank you.'
'Come back tomorrow if you like,' said Galich looking up at Rostnikov from the unimposing vase in his hands.
'I will. Could I, perhaps, invite you to join me for dinner tonight?' asked Rostnikov.
'You needn't repay me,' Galich said.
'I'd feel better,' said Rostnikov. 'And we can talk about things other than murder. History, perhaps, Moscow or lifting.'
'Not much to say about lifting,' said Galich, 'and much to say about history. I lift, read, walk, talk to convince myself that I am not as obsessed a creature as I know myself to be. I sometimes fear that I'll become one of those madmen who spend all their time examining some small part of the universe and block out all the rest. It turns into a kind of meditation. You know what I mean?'
'Yes,' said Rostnikov. 'I believe so. Dinner?'
'I would be happy to, but I would prefer your coming here,' said Galich. 'I'm less than comfortable in social situations since I came here a few years ago. I know you are with two others. I've seen them both and would prefer your company alone. I hope I am not offending you.'
'Not at all,' said Rostnikov.
'Eight o'clock?'
'Eight o'clock,' agreed Rostnikov. 'Oh, by the way, General Krasnikov showed me the meteorite you had given him.'
Galich put down the vase and folded his hands in front of him.
'The meteorite,' he said softly. 'Yes. An interesting specimen, but it pre-dates human history. It is human history in which I am interested. If you like, I can give you a similar meteorite. I have plenty. A memento of your visit to our community.'
'I would like that,' Rostnikov said. 'I'll pick it up this evening after dinner.'
'I look forward to it,' said Galich, hands still folded.
Rostnikov returned to the house on the square, took a cold shower since there was no other kind to take, changed clothes and made himself two sandwiches of hard cheese and coarse black bread he found in the kitchen. When Karpo knocked at the door of his room an hour later and handed Rostnikov his report, the inspector was about to begin his second sandwich. He glanced at the neatly printed, many-paged report and nodded. Then his gaze returned to the window. Rostnikov knew that Karpo had made a copy for his own files, his private files.
'Emil,' he said. 'I would like you to take the reports on the case that I brought with me from Moscow. Get the local report from Famfanoff. Take them and your report from this morning along with the notes you will find on my bed later when I go out for dinner. See if you can find any discrepancies.'
'Discrepancies?'
'Items, pieces of information which do not coincide, perhaps something, something small that is in one report and not in the others,' Rostnikov explained.
'Yes, Inspector. You should know,' Karpo said as he watched Rostnikov looking out the window, 'that someone has entered my room and read my notes. Whoever did it was quite experienced. They were placed back almost but not quite lined up with the pattern on my bed quilt.'
'The same is true of my reports, Emil,' Rostnikov said, taking a bite of his sandwich. 'Someone entered my room and read them.'
'Sokolov?' asked Karpo.
'I don't think so,' said Rostnikov without looking up. 'But it may have been.'
Karpo left, closing the door behind him.
About two hours later, Sokolov knocked at the door to the Inspector's room. Rostnikov told him to come in and Sokolov entered finding Rostnikov on his chair by the window looking out.
'May I now read your reports, Comrade Rostnikov?' Sokolov asked coolly.
Rostnikov grunted and pointed at the bed without looking away from the window.
Sokolov picked up the reports and looked at them.
'These reports are by Inspector Karpo,' Sokolov said. 'What about your reports?'
'Later,' Rostnikov said. 'I'm busy now.'
'Busy?' said Sokolov, deciding that Rostnikov was making his job very easy. His investigation was sloppy, self-indulgent, meandering. He didn't do his paperwork and instead of pulling together information he sat, apparently for hours, looking out the window at nothing. Perhaps Rostnikov was simply going mad. It was possible, but it was more likely that he was simply lazy.
'I took the liberty of interviewing Samsonov, Galich and a few others,' Sokolov said. 'If you would like to go over notes with me…'
'Tomorrow,' said Rostnikov softly, not looking back.
'Well, we can discuss the investigation at dinner,' Sokolov tried.
'I'm having dinner with Galich,' Rostnikov said.
'I see,' said Sokolov, holding in his anger. He had done this kind of thing before and knew that if he were patient he would eventually be sitting across the table from this man, driving him into defensive corners, tearing into his actions, his loyalties, his very thoughts. Sokolov thought about this moment, picked up Karpo's report and slowly left the room.
Rostnikov sat for four more hours. He had, with the exception of the time he took to walk around the room to keep his leg from going rigid and the hour he took to read Karpo's reports before Sokolov came to his room, been at the window for almost six hours. He had been rewarded twice by the sight of the old janitor in the People's Hall, Sergei Mirasnikov, who came to the window and looked directly up at Rostnikov. The sight of the inspector looking down at him had each time sent the old man staggering back into the Hall. When he worked up enough courage to move carefully to the window again and under cover of the curtain to look up, Mirasnikov was struck with terror. The inspector from Moscow was still there, still looking down. He would be there all the time. Mirasnikov shuddered and vowed not to look any more, not to imagine that man staring down at him, waiting, watching.
Sergei Mirasnikov decided that he needed something a bit strong to drink.
When Sasha Tkach returned to Petrovka after accompanying his wife and daughter home, there was a neatly typed message on his desk held down by the small rock he kept there for just such a purpose. The message instructed him to report immediately to the office of the Gray Wolfhound on the seventh floor.
Sasha was in no mood to report. He had barely brought himself under control after his attack on the youthful muggers. He remembered much of what happened rather vaguely.
He remembered Maya and the baby crying and Maya telling him to stop hitting the mugger who jabbered at him in some strange language. He remembered the little ice cream vendor, Boris, behind him telling someone,
