‘You were looking for me at the hostel,’ she stated.
‘Was I?’
‘Your colleagues. Other policemen.’
‘Probably,’ he agreed. ‘Why did you not get in touch with us?’
‘It was inevitable that you would find me here. I thought I would wait.’
‘You were frightened of seeing the police again?’
‘Are you really with the Public Prosecutor’s Office?’
‘I told you so. Why do you ask?’
‘I imagined someone — different.’
The old lady moved uncomfortably. Nadia Mazurova got up to attend her. She rearranged the old lady in a nest of cushions and shawls, turned on the television but reduced the volume, then went to the kitchen and came back with a bowl of milk and some bread. She dunked the bread in the milk, broke off pieces and fed them to the old woman. Watching her, Kirov detected affection in her actions, affection for the stranger she was ministering to. Her lightness of manner was returning. She wiped the babushka’s lips and glanced at Kirov. There was a challenge in her eyes.
‘You met Viktor Gusev at a party — isn’t that what you told me?’
She replaced the scrap of cotton she was using and wiped her fingers.
‘Yes — about three years ago.’
‘In Moscow?’
‘Yes.’
‘Whose party?’
‘Yelena Borisovna Akhmerova. You know her?’
‘The film star — yes, I know her. You were moving in elevated circles. The air hostess from Krasnoyarsk meets the famous film star. Strange — yes?’ Kirov disliked the teasing note in the last question, but at this stage was curious for any reaction he might draw from her.
‘It was the first time I had met her. I was taken to the party by an acquaintance, someone I had met on a plane. Yelena introduced me to Viktor, and from then on Viktor and I were…’ She searched for a word.
‘Friends?’
‘Yes — friends.’
‘Not lovers.’
Nadia gave the old lady a quick hug then announced that she would be having some tea, alone if necessary: would Kirov like some? He declined. She left him briefly and he lit a cigarette. From the window he could see across the open ground, the road, the wall, into a factory yard glossy with rain. Tumanov and the Sluzhba team were sitting in the rear car with the window rolled down.
‘How often did you stay with Viktor?’ he asked.
Her reply came from the kitchen. That fact itself gave it an oddly domestic note. You could imagine a husband and wife speaking, the way husbands and wives spoke.
‘Every month two or three nights, and perhaps a whole weekend once in a while, depending on my duty roster.’
‘He had other women?’
She had come back into the room.
‘No.’
‘He was celibate?’
She hesitated, then said indifferently, ‘Sometimes he used prostitutes.’
‘But he was not a highly sexed man — was he?’ Kirov said softly so as to arrest her attention by forcing her to listen. ‘Otherwise the tension of living with you would have been too much. He looked to you for — other satisfactions. What were they? What drew you together?’ He waited for her answer. Her composure appeared complete, but he was aware of a heightened quality in her scent, a small change in her body temperature volatilising the cheap perfume.
‘How do these questions help you in investigating Viktor’s business? That’s what interests you, isn’t it?’
He did not permit the deflection. ‘Weren’t you a part of Viktor’s business — part, at least, of his life? He took you to parties, restaurants, theatres, weekends at the dachas of his rich friends, perhaps even to their Black Sea villas. Those are the places where Viktor conducted his business. Now,’ Kirov insisted, ‘what drew you to him?’
‘We were poor,’ she answered after a moment of bitter consideration.
‘Poor — I take it we are talking about spiritual poverty?’ Kirov queried with an irony he found distasteful. ‘There was plenty of the other sort of wealth about.’
‘We were both poor. And we shared what we had. I possessed what Viktor could give me — and Viktor possessed me.’
‘Or didn’t possess you.’
‘Oh yes,’ she smiled wearily. ‘He possessed me. But as if I were the only one of my kind, far too precious or fragile for a poor boy like Viktor to break. You see, Viktor never really believed that he had me, never really believed that he had anything. That was why he was so greedy: because a poor boy should never have any of these good things and they could always go away.’ She hung for a second for some receptive sign in his eyes, then added, ‘Or so I surmised. Viktor could be mysterious. It was never possible to say that one knew him.’
Kirov changed the subject. He abandoned irony and insistence. ‘Did Viktor ever visit Bulgaria?’ He threw her some help: ‘You may as well tell me the truth. I can check.’
‘No — no, he didn’t.’
‘Or receive visitors from Bulgaria?’
‘No.’
‘Please — think about it.’
‘None that I can remember.’
‘He met a lot of people. You met a lot of people. Well?’
‘There were no Bulgarians. I should have known.’
She should have known, he agreed with her.
He threw away sympathy and tried another version of his character to see what she responded to. He questioned her drily about the details of Viktor’s business dealings, the people she met, the places she went to. He demanded details.
But with Viktor there were no details — or from another perspective there were so many details that no picture emerged, no particular detail signified. Nadia Mazurova did not say this but it was the message she conveyed. Viktor in his prime and splendour was a man without limits. His acquaintances bore witness to this in their very variety. Armenians, Azerbaijanis, Byelorussians, Bessarabians, Estonians, Georgians, Kalmuks, Khirghiz, Latvians, Lithuanians — you couldn’t believe how big the country was until you knew Viktor, until you sat with him in his large car, rarely the same one twice, outside the railway stations (Kievski, Byelorusski, Savelovski, Rizhski and all the others) waiting for the trains to come in; outside the airports (Sheremetyevo, Vnukovo, et cetera) waiting for the planes to arrive; sat with Viktor’s warm arm around you eating spicy titbits and washing them down with J & B Rare while the world arrived to pay court. Viktor entertained royally as befitted his status. Would you like to eat? Try the Aragvi for shashlyk, satsivi, suluguni and tabaka — the Ararat for solyanka, bozbash and chebureki. In turn and as the mood and your courtiers suggest, try the Baku, the Belgrade, the Berlin, the Bucharest — the names are enough to conjure with. That was Viktor.
He called this ‘influence’ and maintained that it was a treasure richer than gold; and it must be since it was bought with gold or the nearest thing — though it had to be said that the courtiers bore gifts to defray the charge. In this system of mutual tribute the exact balance of value was difficult to ascertain. One could be certain only that the contents of the visitors’ suitcases did not remain the same on the in-coming and return journeys and that on arrival and departure Viktor remained smiling and affable with such charm as had not before been seen in the world.