impression that he was in charge. In some situations the image of command might be valuable. In this case, without a word, Elena and Sasha knew that Elena should lead the way.
The woman did not take off her coat.
“You wouldn’t be talking to me and I wouldn’t be here if I were an individual case,” Magda Stern said. “We’re talking about a man who has attacked other women.”
“Yes,” said Elena. She could now see that heavy makeup covered most of the bruises on the woman’s face, and the tinted glasses probably covered more. Only a red bump on her forehead refused to be hidden. “You’ve been seen by a doctor?”
“Do you have the report on my attack?” she replied.
“Not yet,” said Sasha.
“It indicates my injuries, but it does not contain the essential information,” Magda Stern said, sitting with her back straight, her long legs planted firmly on the floor.
“Essential information?” asked Elena.
“My injuries,” the woman said, “are accurately documented in the report. Concussion, bruises, one rib cracked. It is tightly taped. I have been feeling a mild to intense dizziness since the attack and will see a physician in whom I have some trust later today.”
Sasha was amazed, but he hid his amazement. The woman looked fine except for the bruise.
“I do not intend to give my attacker, should he see me, the satisfaction of knowing the extent of my injuries. I do not intend to have any of my coworkers find out what happened. Both of these considerations, however, I will forgo if it helps to catch the
She had used the English word. The Russian language has a wide variety of insults, many of them quite colorful, but the recent style was to pick up insults from the French and Americans. It suggested that the person being insulted did not deserve the Russian language.
“You withheld essential information in your report to the police last night?” said Elena.
“Yes,” Magda answered, her voice even.
“Why?” asked Elena.
“Because the person who attacked me was a policeman,” she said. “And I did not trust the two uniformed men who questioned me at the hospital emergency room. Neither was the one who attacked me, but the report might be seen by him, and the danger to me would be very great.”
“But you’ll tell us?” asked Elena.
“Someone must be told and you are not part of the regular National Police or the district police. I am well aware of the reputation and success of your office. Your director, Colonel Snitkonoy …”
“He’s a general now,” said Sasha. “And he is in charge of security at the Hermitage in Saint Petersburg.”
Elena gave Sasha a look of gentle reproof. Had he not been so weary, he would never have said what he had, but it was too late, and perhaps it would give the newswoman some confidence in their openness.
“And who has replaced him?” Magda asked.
“You’ll have to call the office directly for that information,” said Elena.
Magda nodded.
Sasha wanted to hurry the woman. He was tired. He was on the verge of his old irritability. He knew his usual charm would be of no use on Magda Stern.
“The man who attacked you was a police officer?” asked Elena to return to the subject.
“I recognized the uniform, the shoes,” Magda Stern said. “And once, as he hit me, I rolled into the doorway onto a small bank of snow and got a glance at his face. I’m confident he was unaware that I saw him. I think if he knew, he would have killed me. I covered up as best I could and refused to be intimidated. He tried to rape me but I tightened up. You understand?”
Elena nodded. She understood.
“He grew angry and hit me some more, but he never fully penetrated,” Magda said. “He was frightened away by a car coming down the street. I kept my face down, but I turned just enough to see him get into a police car and drive away.”
Elena and Sasha looked at each other.
“Anything else?”
“He dropped his condom. I pointed it out to the police when they came. I called from my apartment. A car came quickly and took me to the hospital.”
“You can describe your attacker?” asked Elena.
“I can describe him. I would definitely recognize him.”
The next step was clear. There was no need for the two detectives to even discuss it. They would bring their information to Rostnikov and ask him to arrange a gathering of every uniformed officer in the Trotsky Station district, which covered the area where Magda lived. If that failed to yield the attacker, they would go through every one of the more than one hundred districts and every officer assigned to Petrovka itself.
They explained their plan to Magda Stern, who immediately agreed. She asked only that the two officers be efficient and take as little of her time as possible. However, whatever time it took, she would devote to catching the man who had attacked her.
They would also try to convince Ludmilla Henshakayova, the old woman who had fought off the would-be rapist almost a decade ago. There was a chance that if Magda identified him, the old woman might confirm the identification, even though it had been many years since the night she had seen him.
The call came within half an hour not from Rostnikov but from Director Yakovlev. Rostnikov had suggested that it come from the highest authority. As little as Yakovlev liked doing things that might someday have political repercussions, he agreed with Rostnikov and made the call to District 37, Trotsky Station.
Lieutenant Valentin Spaskov, with whom Elena and Sasha had met the day before, took the call from Director Yakovlev and assured him he would see to it that all uniformed officers under his command would be present at noon. He would pass this on to Major Lenonov, his immediate superior and the head of the district station. Off-duty officers would be called in.
Igor Yakovlev thanked the lieutenant and hung up.
The director of the Office of Special Investigation had not told Spaskov the reason for the gathering, but there was only one conclusion Spaskov could draw. The woman he had attacked the night before had seen him and was willing to identify him. Lieutenant Valentin Spaskov was determined that such an identification would not be made. He would set up the meeting, but he would not be present, nor would the major. Valentin, second in command of the station, a twenty-year veteran, would be occupied at the Ministry of the Interior. He and the major were certainly above suspicion.
When he hung up the phone, Spaskov ordered his hands not to shake, ordered his brow and the pits of his arms not to sweat. They refused to obey, so he sat in his small office waiting for the tremor to stop as he thought.
He could be identified. It was possible the two young inspectors could even find sufficient evidence, by going back through the files, that someone had altered the information on each attack and that the alteration had begun at Trotsky Station. He had been careful, but he and the major, along with the three officers who did most of the paperwork, would be the most likely suspects.
Valentin knew that if he escaped identification this time he should stop the attacks. Eventually he would make another mistake. He would have to stop. He thought of his wife and of his daughter, and he told himself again that he had to stop.
But a wordless voice that communicated to him with only impulses and vague feelings told Valentin that he could not stop, that if they did not catch him this time he would wait a week, possibly a month, and then the compulsion would once again be too great. It would swell within him, driving him half mad, though only his victims would know that. He would have to attack again and again. The only difference was that now he knew that he would have to kill any future victims, and he would have to find and kill the woman he had attacked the night before so that she could not identify him.
Getting her identity from the two inspectors, Tkach and Timofeyeva, would not be difficult, and finding her would not be difficult. There would be no point in trying to make it look like an accident. It would come too close after her visit to the police with the information that she could identify him.
