‘They need a new carpet, and the colour TV’s on the blink. The wife was planning to trade some English soaps in order to get hold of a piece of beef. If there’s any extra money around it isn’t coming from Grushko. The daughter’s a doctor. She’s seeing a yuppie who makes plenty of money on the local exchange. Could be he’s some kind of a crook, but you can hardly hold that against Grushko. Besides, he hates the boy’s guts.’

  ‘What about the others?’

  ‘Like I say, they seem clean enough.’

  ‘Well, “seem” isn’t “is”. After all, we all thought Batsunov was on the side of the angels, didn’t we? And look what happened to him. So just keep at it for a while longer, will you? I know it’s a lousy job but it has to be done. Well, I don’t have to tell you that. You’ve done this sort of thing before. If they’re straight then they’ve got nothing to worry about. Besides, it’s not like you’re not trying to catch them out; you’re just trying to prove that they’re on the level, right?’

  I nodded gloomily.

  ‘Right.’

  Emerging from the Big House I walked south down Petrovka and into the large square that was the downhill end of the shopping street of Kuznetsky Most, which still retained a faded echo of its grander, pre-Revolutionary days. To the left of the Bolshoy Theatre was a modern glass building called TSUM, the Central Universal Store, and it was there that I found a hard-currency music shop that sold Andrei’s Michael Jackson tape. It was depressing to see just how many shops now had signs in their windows declaring themselves ‘Hard Currency Only’. It would soon be impossible to buy anything with the rouble.

  I went down into the underground passageway that led to the Metro. It was full of beggars: gypsy women with children, an old woman who was busking with an accordion to pay for an operation, a teenage war-veteran both of whose legs had been blown off just above the knee, and yet more drunks. There were people selling pornographic newspapers, and others offering to trade whatever small surplus they had: a bottle of vodka, a packet of American cigarettes, a pair of boots, chocolate, a set of bed-sheets.

  I bought a couple of tokens and boarded a northbound Metro. Even the price of a token had quadrupled in price.

  My apartment was just off Mira Prospekt, in Duboyava Roshcha. From the bedroom window you could just see the soaring obelisk that marked the Memorial Museum of Cosmonautics, a pompous and wholly unrealistic celebration of Soviet scientific and technological achievement. I rode the lift up to the sixth floor and knocked at the front door. When after a minute or two there was no reply, I found my keys and let myself in. I was surprised to see there was nobody at home, although it was not quite nine o’clock. I was not sorry that my wife and her lover were out of the apartment. But I almost missed seeing my daughter. Then I found a note that explained that they had gone away for a few days to our dacha in the country. I had been planning to go there myself on my journey back to St Petersburg to pick up a few of my books. But now I was more inclined to give the place a wide berth. Still, I wasn’t about to let my wife acquire the dacha as well as our apartment, and I told myself that she would have to ask permission to use it in future. My father had built that dacha and I intended to keep it.

  I put the piece of cheese I had bought for her in the fridge and helped myself to some breakfast. There was some chocolate so I took that too. Then, having found my head gasket waiting for me on the dining table, I put on my overalls, collected my tools and went down to the locked compound where I had left my car. It wasn’t a complicated job and I had it fixed within a couple of hours. By eleven I had washed and was on the road.

  I’ll admit it was not a very professional thing that I did. Especially for an investigator. Detectives have more leeway in these matters. For example, a detective is allowed to have an informer, but an investigator is not. But when you’ve sent several hours on the M10 from Moscow —a journey of over 500 kilometres —you’re not always thinking straight. That’s half of my excuse anyway. The other half? I expect I was feeling sorry for myself.

  So there I was, coming along Nevsky at just around three o’clock that same afternoon when I saw her.

  Nina Milyukin was standing at a tram stop in front of the House of Books, reputedly the largest bookshop in the city. In pre-Revolutionary days the building had belonged to the Singer Sewing-Machine Company, but it might just as well have belonged to them still for all the books they sold in there now. The line for the tram was enormous and I didn’t think she would be getting on one for a while. She looked as sad as ever, her arms folded in front of her in that way women have when they’re waiting for something that isn’t going to arrive. But she was just as beautiful as I remembered. She was wearing a light black and white print dress with a wide lacy collar and in her hand was an empty shopping bag.

  I pulled up next to the line, leaned across the passenger seat and wound down the car window.

  ‘Nina Romanovna,’ I called to her.

  At first she did not recognise me, but then slowly she came forward.

  ‘Can I offer you a lift somewhere?’

  She seemed inclined to refuse, but straightening up she took another look at the number of people who were waiting for a tram. The day was a hot one and even the shortest tram journey was likely to prove uncomfortable. For a moment the car window framed the swell of her belly against the thin material of her dress, and I thought of that photograph on Mikhail Milyukin’s pinboard. Not much of a sex life when you think about it, but at the time it seemed better than nothing.

  ‘I don’t think I’ll be going your way,’ she said leaning in the car window again. ‘I’m going to the television centre to pick up some of my husband’s things.’

  ‘Then hop in.’

  ‘Well, if you’re sure it’s no trouble.’

  ‘It’s no trouble,’ I said, although it was considerably out of my way, ‘no trouble at all.’

  When she got in I pulled out into a space in the traffic and headed west.

  ‘You’ll have to direct me when we get across the Neva,’ I told her. ‘I’m still not all that familiar with the streets here.’

  She smiled politely and nodded.

  ‘Is this your car?’ she asked after a moment or two.

  ‘Yes. I’ve just driven it up from Moscow.’

  ‘It’s nice.’

  ‘It belonged to my father,’ I explained. ‘When it goes, it goes very well, but the spares are a problem. And the tyres are very worn. I wouldn’t like to drive it in winter.’

  ‘I’d say that’s when you need a car most.’

  ‘My wife used to think the same.’

  ‘And now she agrees with you?’ She sounded surprised.

  ‘Now it really doesn’t matter what she thinks. She’s living with my daughter’s music teacher. Or rather, he’s living with her.’

  Nina laughed, the first time that I had ever heard her amused by something.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, stifling it with the back of her hand. ‘It’s not funny.’

  ‘There’s a funny side to it. She’s only interested in his money.’

  ‘Now you really are joking,’ she said. ‘Teachers don’t make money.’

  ‘Music teachers do,’ I insisted. ‘Especially when they’ve studied at a top piano school. Around 25,000 roubles a month, some of them. Anyway, my wife thinks he’s one of those.’

  ‘And he isn’t?’

  ‘No.’

  She laughed. ‘Twenty-five thousand,’ she said. ‘That’s more than a surgeon.’

  ‘It’s more than a government minister. What you have to bear in mind is that most families will make any amount of sacrifices for their children. Especially when it comes to music. Especially when the teacher tells the parents that their child is gifted.’

  ‘And your daughter? Is she gifted?’

  I laughed. ‘My daughter is as tone deaf as her mother. He just told us she was gifted in order to justify the tuition fees. You can’t say he’s not trying hard to make as much as the best of them.’

  We went past the Hermitage and across the Palace Bridge on to the eastern point of Vasilyostrovsky Island, with the two red Rostral columns to our right, before crossing the river once more. In front of the walls of the Peter and Paul Fortress some of the city’s more zealous sun-worshippers were trying to catch the afternoon rays. They stood flat against the grey granite, as if held there by gravitational force, their bodies almost colourless from many months of wearing winter clothing.

  ‘You’re not at all like that other policeman,’ she said. ‘Colonel Grushko. He’s made of stone, that one.’

  ‘Grushko’s all right,’ I told her. ‘But he takes this investigation very seriously.’

  ‘I don’t think he likes me very much.’

  ‘That’s nonsense. Why on earth should he dislike you?’

  She shrugged and was apparently unwilling to offer a reason.

  ‘Grushko gets impatient,’ I added. ‘He wants to know everything right away. He can’t seem to understand that you might need a little more time before you can talk about Mikhail Mikhailovich. But he means well. I’m sure of it.’

  ‘It won’t bring Mikhail back,’ she said, the sadness returning to her face. ‘So what good is it if he does mean well?’ She sighed and looked out of the window. ‘Even if you do catch the men who killed him, it won’t make any difference. “I think I can summon up words, as pristine as those in your song, but if I don’t, I won’t give a damn, I don’t care if I’m wrong.” ’

  Nina glanced over at me, her face reddening a little with embarrassment.

  ‘You’re going to think me such a fraud, quoting poetry at you like this,’ she said, smiling gently. ‘I’m always doing it. I did it with your Colonel Grushko when he told me… I don’t think he cared very much for it. Still, I was quite surprised at him knowing Pasternak like that.’

  ‘Grushko’s not the only cop who can quote poetry,’ I said.

  ‘Yes, but with him it’s done with a reason. I’m only guessing, mind, but he strikes me as the kind of person who would read a poem in order to learn something —something that might help him to understand a man’s soul for example —and not for its own sake. In other words he does it like a policeman —to gain an insight into a man’s soul.’

  ‘I think you’re being a bit unfair,’ I said. ‘You make Grushko sound rather terrifying.’

  ‘Oh, but he is,’ she insisted. ‘He terrifies me, anyway. He’s like one of those people who used to work for the NKVD. Ruthless, single-minded and utterly dedicated to what they do. No room for shades of meaning. Just black and white. Right and wrong.’

  ‘You couldn’t be more wrong,’ I said. ‘He’s a democrat. He was one of the first men in the Central Board to come out against the Party.’

  ‘You don’t understand,’ she said. ‘I wasn’t speaking politically. I was talking about the Man. And I don’t know that being one of the first men in your department to come out against the Party counts for very much anyway. Except to say that he must be more dangerous than I thought.’

  I shook my head and smiled. ‘I’m not sure I understand that either,’ I said.

  ‘Never mind,’ she said and smiled back.

  By the time we reached the TV station I realised that I simply had to see her again.

  ‘Look,’ I said, remembering the Michael Jackson tape I had brought for Andrei. ‘I have a friend who’s offered me two tickets for the Kirov. I was wondering —?’

  ‘I don’t think I’d be very good company,’ she said, getting out of the car. ‘Besides, I’m not sure your Colonel Grushko would approve.’

  ‘I can’t imagine why he would object.’

  ‘No, perhaps not. Even so, there are some things which he might find it hard to understand.’

  She closed the door and leaned in through the window.

  ‘You’re very kind,’ she said. ‘Please don’t think me proud or ungrateful. I’m just not ready yet.’

  ‘Of course. I understand. It was stupid of me.’

  ‘Look, when you know all there is to know about what happened, when all this is over, if you still want to ask me, then give me a ring.’

  ‘All right.’

  ‘Promise?’

  ‘Yes.’

  But things didn’t work out that way. Nothing ever works out as it should. Not these days. Not in the New Commonwealth of Independent States.

  Grushko was in a sombre mood when I saw him again. He had spent the morning attending the execution of Gerassim ‘the Butcher’, a notorious Mafioso who had killed four members of a rival gang with a meat cleaver and then fed their dismembered limbs to his pet dogs. It’s always a problem, feeding pets in Russia.

  All the same it is not very often that a murderer actually faces a firing squad. There are perhaps no more than fifteen to twenty executions a year and a death sentence is frequently commuted to fifteen years’ ‘strict regime’. Only the most bestial murderers, such as serial killers and child murderers, are shot. But the courts have a special abhorrence of cases that have some anthropophagous aspect, such as the Black Sea Widow case or the infamous Chakatilo who liked to eat his victims’ genitals. Perhaps this had something to do with the fact that real meat is such a valuable commodity. Or maybe it is because people want to forget that cannibalism had actually taken place during the famines that Stalin had inflicted on the Ukraine during the 1930s. Whatever the reason, feeding a man to your dogs is considered almost as terrible as eating him yourself, and Gerassim had found himself subject to the full force of the law.

  Grushko nodded grimly as he recalled the circumstances of the man’s execution. I knew that he approved of the death sentence and although it was not the first time he had been obliged to attend an execution it was clear that he had been deeply affected by his morning’s experience. But I had no doubt that it would not have altered his opinion about capital punishment.

  ‘He died like a man,’ Grushko said with some admiration. With a careless shrug he added: ‘I had to have a word with him first, mind you: to tell him to hold his head up. But he died OK. You know what he said when they tied him to the post? He said, “You can’t shoot us all.” ’ He uttered a short laugh. ‘How about that, eh? “You can’t shoot us all.” ’

  ‘Supposing we did,’ I said. ‘You and I would be out of a job.’

  Grushko shrugged. ‘Might be worth it at that.’

  There was something in the way he said this that made me think he might almost be serious, and I was reminded of what Nina Milyukin had said about him: that he was the kind of man for whom there was only right and wrong and nothing in between.

  I told him that I had seen her, although I said nothing about my having invited her to the ballet. I hoped he might say something to confound the opinion she held of him but instead he just shook his head, as if somehow he remained disappointed in her.

  ‘She thinks you don’t much like her,’ I said.

  He raised his eyebrows with surprise.

  ‘Do you think it’s that obvious?’

  I shrugged. ‘Is it true?’

  ‘As a matter of fact, I don’t like her at all,’ he said flatly.

  ‘Why on earth not?’

  ‘I have my reasons.’

  He regarded my obvious exasperation closely and seemed somehow to guess at what I had left unsaid. His eyes narrowed.

  ‘Let me give you some advice, my friend,’ he said darkly. ‘If you are thinking of seeing —that woman —’

  He paused as if it had occurred to him that he might have overstepped the mark.

  ‘Not that I could stop you, mind. She’s a good-looking woman and what you do is your own affair. But you and I, we ought to be friends as well as colleagues. And as someone who wishes to be your friend I should tell you that you would be best advised to leave Nina Milyukin alone.’

  ‘Is she under any kind of suspicion?’

  ‘No. She’s done nothing illegal.’

  Then what?‘

  ‘I’m afraid I can’t tell you. There’s a matter of some confidentiality here. A matter that I have to speak to her about. It would be unfair if I were to discuss it with you first. But trust me when I ask you to keep away from her.’

  For a moment he held my perplexed stare.

  ‘It was just a thought,’ I said. ‘Something that came into my mind. You’re right. I do find her attractive.’ I nodded with slow acquiescence and then shrugged. ‘All right. I’ll leave her alone. On one condition.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘That you’ll explain when you think you’re able.’

  ‘Very well,’ said Grushko. ‘When this case is closed, perhaps. Ask me then.’

  ‘You know, it’s funny,’ I remarked, ‘but that’s exactly what she said.’

  For a little while after this I sat in my office and tried to guess what Grushko had been alluding to. But before I had time to think of anything we had a call from the governor of Kresti Prison, to say that Pyotr Mogilnikov had changed his mind. It seemed that he now wished to cooperate with our investigation after all.

  19

  Remand Centre Iz 45/1 at Kresti, also known as ‘Crosses’, was just across the Neva from the Big House and a stone’s throw from the famous Aurora cruiser, which fired the shot that signalled the storming of the Winter Palace in 1917. It was the loudest shot in history.

  Built in the time of Catherine the Great, Crosses takes its name from the red-brick Byzantine cross that adorns the front of the panopticon shape. Once it had been a model of Russian penology, holding up to 800 inmates. Two hundred years after Catherine, Crosses holds 7,000 men and is an example of everything that is verminous and dehumanising about the Russian prison system.

  We collected our visiting numbers at the main door and then, escorted by a prison wardress of Olympic shot-putting proportions, we made our way, one at a time, through the arrangement of locked doors and turnstiles until we reached the interview-room. Beside this was a concrete isolation cell that was the size and proportions of a safe in a large bank. The wardress selected a key from the bunch on her enormous leather belt, opened the isolation cell’s massive steel door and barked an order at the man who was seated inside.

 

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