Fall of a Cosmonaut

a metal sphere circling in silence,” said Rostnikov, looking at the body and then at the sky as they walked away from the scene. “It must be difficult to remind oneself that one is not dreaming, floating, awake but asleep.”

“‘A giant will come in the darkness under a cloud,’” said Iosef as they reached the street and stamped their feet to remove some of the mud.

“Lermontov?” asked Rostnikov, looking back at the scene of death behind them and at the gawking, silent little crowd.

Iosef nodded. “More or less.”

“Go on,” said Rostnikov.

“‘You will know him and the sword he carries,’” Iosef continued. “‘Your doom has come. You beg and weep. He laughs. And then he will stop laughing and will be a sight of horror, a sight as black as his cloak and eyes.’ Shall I go on?”

“No,” said Porfiry Petrovich. “That is enough.”

“The curse of having been in the theater,” said Iosef. “One thinks of lines, passages, monologues, the poetry of Lermontov usually distorted by one’s needs and memory. Lermontov was only twenty-seven when he died in a duel. Did you know that?”

“Yes,” said Rostnikov.

“According to the papers in his wallet, Vladimir Kinotskin was twenty-seven when he died today,” said Iosef.

“Perhaps he was making a pilgrimage.”

“Perhaps,” said Rostnikov, glancing over his shoulder at the crowd behind them.

A man in the crowd, one of several carrying umbrellas, watched not the dead man and those now moving the corpse into a black plastic bag but the two detectives who talked on the street. The man was lean, well dressed, and looked foreign, perhaps English or Dutch. His eyes were quite blue. That morning he had nicked himself shaving. His hand went up to the healing wound, and as the detectives walked away, the man with the umbrella moved through the small crowd to follow them at a very safe and professional distance.

Karpo had been unable to find Rostnikov, who was, at the moment he called, out watching Paulinin examining the body of the dead cosmonaut. And so Emil Karpo took it upon himself to make the decision. Not only did he take the shoes of all those who had signed in to work when Sergei Bolskanov had, but those of all the people in the building. Everyone in the building except the police were walking around in stockinged feet.

“Dignity is lost but comfort may offer compensation,” said Karpo.

Zelach nodded and blinked. He had not only rounded up all the shoes, which were contained in three cardboard boxes at the front door of the center, but he had obtained the addresses of everyone and, starting with the sign-ins, was about to go to each house and collect every pair of shoes he could find.

“Emil Karpo,” he said, standing in the doorway, looking down at the boxes, “what if the murderer has thrown the shoes away?”

“Unlikely but possible. It makes no difference.”

“It will take days,” said Zelach.

“I have ordered a car and driver with the approval of Director Yaklovev, to whom I have just spoken. The driver will help you. If you move quickly you can get to all thirty-seven locations before six.”

“They will have to go home barefoot in any case,” said Zelach.

“I will send an officer out to buy thirty-seven pairs of very cheap sandals,” said Karpo. “Now, I think you should begin your collection.”

Zelach adjusted his glasses. They had begun to hurt just behind the right ear but he was afraid to fool with the thin wire. There was no chance now that he would get to the lunch on his desk in the damp brown bag.

When Zelach had left, Karpo motioned to one of the two uniformed men. “No one comes in. No one goes out.”

The officer, who was twenty-three, very large and undertrained, knew the Vampire by reputation. He said nothing as he stood before the door. Even if Putin himself or the mayor of Moscow would appear, the officer, whose name was Dimitri, would not let him pass. He had no intention of using the Kalishnikov rifle in his hands on anyone of real importance and he was confident that he could handle most who tried to pass him, but he decided instantly that faced with the possibility of failure he would either have to shoot himself or the person who was giving him trouble. He could not imagine telling Inspector Karpo that he had failed.

Nadia Spectorski caught up with Karpo in the hall. She was clearly excited, breathing quickly.

“Where is the other officer?”

“Akardy Zelach?”

“Yes, I must speak to him,” she said.

“Whatever you might wish to tell him, you can tell me. I am the senior officer.”

“This is not about Sergei’s murder,” she said. “It is far more important.”

“More important?” asked Karpo, wondering if the barefoot woman before him had gone mad.

“Follow me,” she said. “Come.”

He followed her as she hurried down the corridor to her small office. The offices had windows. None of the rooms upstairs had windows, though there were windows at the ends of the corridor. The view from this window was of a small concrete square with bolted-down wooden fences facing each other.

She went behind her desk, where Karpo saw six decks of cards, a pad of paper with many notes, and a small electronic instrument.

“You remember when I said that the other officer had no guesses that were correct? And I said that was very odd?”

“Yes,” said Karpo.

“Do you have an open mind?” she said, looking up.

“Yes.”

“Good. I was wrong about your friend.”

“Colleague.”

“Colleague then, fellow officer, what does it matter? He guessed forty-eight out of fifty-two cards correctly when I looked at each card, but all forty-eight were exactly two cards after the card I looked at. He had no connections when I did not look at the cards.”

“You said …”

“Yes, yes, yes, but I remembered the farmer in England,” she said.

Karpo refused to be confused, and he refused to sit. He was not here to talk about cards. He was here to find a murderer.

“A farmer in England. Koestler wrote of him in his book The Roots of Coincidence. The farmer appeared to guess none of the cards, but a researcher went back and checked the deck. He was curious. The farmer had guessed not the card the researcher was looking at but two cards later. No, he had not guessed. The farmer knew. Do you know what that means? We are not even dealing with telepathy here. We are dealing with … I’m not sure. He must come back for more tests.”

Karpo’s expression, as always, remained the same. “If he so chooses,” he said.

“He will choose,” she said. “He will be afraid. He will talk to his mother and she’ll tell him to cooperate.”

“What do you know of Akardy Zelach’s mother?”

Nadia looked up.

“I’ve seen her in her room,” she said. “I know what she believes. Remember, I’m a subject here too. Is your mind still open to what you do not understand?”

Karpo did not answer for a long time, and the excitement in Nadia faded at the sight of the ghostly figure looking down at her, deep in thought.

“You claim you can see Akardy’s mother. You claimed you saw Mathilde Verson. Did you see the murder of Sergei Bolskanov?”

Nadia met his eyes and started to say no, but she could not. Instead she shook her head.

“Would you like something to eat or drink?” he said. “I can accompany you someplace nearby where we can talk, outside these walls.”

“I have no shoes,” she said. “And I want to work on this data, this amazing data which …”