Might indeed.
Suicide, then. Serov rubbed his chin. There was the smell of cigarette smoke in the room now, the scrape of matches as the sergeant and the radio operator lit acrid Russian tobacco. Serov wrinkled his nose fastidiously. Watched the curtains opposite, then looked at his watch. Three-ten in the morning. Rodin hadn't been gagged — no bruising must appear around his mouth.
'Why, why, why?' came repeatedly from the transceiver, not 'who? who are you, what do you want?'
Serov could not resist saying, 'You know why.'
'Who?' Rodin blurted. Someone laughed once more — yes, Grigori, whose stereotyping even included the slightly manic giggle; it was surprising how often members of his special teams fulfilled their cinematic stereotypes. Then: 'Serov? Is that you, Serov? For Christ's sake, where are you? What do you want, man?' It was both question and bribe.
'Yes — I'm across the street, Rodin. Where your friend Priabin had his men installed.' The sergeant cut off a guffaw of laughter in the shadows behind him. 'You remember your friend Priabin? What you spoke about together?'
'You've been watching me?' Rodin's voice was terrified, certain of its future.
'Everyone's been watching you, dear boy.'
'For God's sake! I told him nothing!' Rodin bellowed; but the small noise from the transceiver was contained, even swallowed, by room. 'My father — he can't want you to do this, he can't—'
'He doesn't even know.'
'Then you can't do it!' Hysterical relief, the voice at the point of breaking. 'You need his order—'
'Security is my concern.'
'I told him nothing!'
I don't believe you.' Serov stared at his gloved hands, flexing the fingers, spreading them in front of him. He smoothed the gloves as he had seen the general do only hours earlier, on the steps of the officers' mess. Businesslike, fastidious rather than sinister.
'I told him nothing!'
'Now you're protecting him, too,' Serov observed calmly. 'Security is my responsibility. It's security I'm interested in here. I'm ensuring things remain — secure.' He listened for a moment to Rodin's ragged breathing, then he said: 'Very well — do it.' And above Rodin's scream of protest and terror, he added loudly: 'Make it suicide. Suicide!'
He stared at the curtains. A delicate blow to the head or neck, or a gripped nerve to render Rodin unconscious, silence the noise he was making.
'Don't bruise him,' he snapped, as if he could see the struggle taking place on the bed rather than simply overhearing it.
A narrow tube down the throat, and whiskey or cognac — the choice was unimportant — and then the Valium or whatever tranquilizer or sleeping pill the doctor discovered in Rodin's bathroom cabinet or bedroom drawer. No overdose of heroin or cocaine, but a signposted suicide; sleeping pills washed down with drink. The boy would be unable to avoid swallowing the mixture. The tube would leave nothing but a little rawness at the back of his throat, unlikely to interest the coroner. Murder would not be a possibility.
The initial spluttering, the exerted breathing of the team, the murmured instructions, went on for some time, but slowly, inevitably subsided. There was a cadence about it, a diminuendo, which Serov quite liked; and a decency in the violence taking place offstage, as it were — behind closed curtains. Something domestic and suburban and inescapably ordinary. So fitting. So belying. Rodin's father would believe in the suicide, and if he wondered why, then-'
Serov turned abruptly from the window. The room could be redressed with KGB surveillance paraphernalia, easily. Now he had given himself the option of incriminating Priabin, should it prove necessary. Over the transceiver he could hear calm breathing noises, movement, whispers, routines; as if they were arranging the body for viewing — which, in a sense, they were. Yes, it might be best to implicate Priabin, arrest him — tonight? Certainly today. He postponed decision. If he didn't use the suicide to involve Priabin, then it would simply bring the pain of guilt to the general. And that was satisfactory, too.
He turned to the window, briefly. Still curtained. They'd draw them back before they left, switching off the room lights. Someone would see the body from this block of flats when daylight came. Yes, all very satisfactory, neat.
'All done here, sir,' the transceiver said over his heart.
'Very well. Stage-dressing completed?'
'Almost.'
'Hurry it along — but miss nothing. Well dofie. Out.' He turned to the sergeant and the radio operator, who came swiftly to attention; impressed, perhaps even abashed, by what had occurred across the street. 'Very well. Put me in touch with headquarters — Captain Perchik.'
'Sir.' Call sign, fine-tuning; then he heard Perchik's voice. He took the proffered microphone, snapped down its Transmit button, and said: 'Give me a full report, Perchik. Quickly. One of your one-minute digests I enjoy so much for their brevity.'
'A good night, sir?' Perchik asked, his voice responding to the eager lightness of that of his superior; a momentary camaraderie. Perchik knew what he had been doing.
'A good night. Now hurry. I want this Kedrov. What have you got as the chef's recommendation on the menu?'
'Chef's recommendation, sir — stay away from the social contacts, the sexual contacts are a bit off tonight, we haven't any of the close-friend hiding places — it's off…' Serov smiled, even chuckled. Perchik was clever as a cat at obsequiousness. 'But the chef does recommend recent pastimes and hobbies as something you should try.'
'And?'
'Going through the man's whole behavior pattern, his every move, for the last month, we've come up with a bicycle repair shop — really black-market — in Tyuratam, but Kedrov isn't there, and the KGB hauled in the owner of the shop two days ago.'
'So he's offered no leads or they'd have Kedrov by now. What else?' There was a clipped, military manner about Serov now, something lighter and less intent than the observer of Rodin's murder. This efficient portrait was another part he enjoyed playing.
'Bird-watching — the feathered kind, sir,' Perchik added without creating any sense of wasting time. 'Out in the salt marshes. Where we go duck shooting, in season.'
'I know, Perchik. Disgusting sport, if you can call it that. Bird-etching, mm? He's applied for permits from the KGB? Or from us?'
'KGB handle that sort of minor stuff, sir.'
'Many times?'
'We've counted almost a dozen, sir. Those marshes are full of rotting hulks, old hides, hunting cabins, you name it.'
'That will do for a start. Priority air search of the area of the marshes.' He looked at his watch, holding up his wrist so that the dial caught the light of the street lamp. Three twenty-five. 'Order that at once. It's a long shot, but he must be somewhere — why not there? He must know the area. Get it done, Perchik.'
'Sir.'
'Out.'
Serov dropped the microphone into the Sergeant's waiting hand and walked to the window. The curtains had been drawn back once more, but the room was in darkness. Light crept in from the street like an orange fog. It touched Rodin's stretched-out legs, his disordered robe. One arm hung over the side of the bed — yes, he could make that out with the glasses; the other lay folded on his chest. A sweet, dreamless sleep, a nice touch of fiction. Sooner or later, someone would wonder why the boy didn't move. He'd be found eventually; maybe even his father might call.
A pleasant anticipation…
'Outside, sir,' the transceiver announced.
'Good,' he said at once. 'I'll join you.'
