‘Did you see the girl?’ he asked. ‘Did she have anything new to say?’
‘Gusev was never in Bulgaria. He had no Bulgarian friends.’
‘Uh huh? And how was he getting his supplies from Bulgaria?’
‘She doesn’t know.’
‘The hell she doesn’t!’
Kirov tasted his beet. It was warm and flat.
‘Antipov and his men visited the hostel where she lives.’
Bogdanov let his eyebrows flicker. ‘He hasn’t mentioned it. In fact he hasn’t mentioned the girl at all; you’d think he’d never heard of her existence. Now why is that? What does he think she knows?’ He looked down onto the track. ‘I had a tip on that one, the horse in the white socks. A winner? No? By the way, the result of the check on Georgi Gvishiani is in. Moscow say that he’s a crook, into some racket involving furniture and consumer goods. Tbilisi say that he’s a son of the soil, a great Communist, as honest as the day is long.’ He glanced at Kirov. ‘The guess about Radek was a good one. Twelve months ago his team took a look into Gvishiani’s business.’
‘What did they find?’
‘Nothing. The investigation was dropped. Shortage of resources — Radek wanted every man he could get in order to break the Kiev meat ring. Meat shortages have a higher profile than stolen furniture, so the business of Gvishiani could wait. And why not? I could find you a dozen Georgi Gvishianis, the whole country is rotten with them. Catch one and another one springs up. Even Lemonade Joe Gorbachev can’t put a stop to them.’
Kirov nodded without replying. Gvishiani wasn’t important, just a stray thought wandering across a confused landscape of facts: Viktor Gusev, the contaminated drugs that killed him, the unexplained cache of diamonds, the woman. Why hadn’t he pressed Nadia Mazurova harder? Why hold back?
Bogdanov meanwhile was asking more questions about Gvishiani: did Kirov want more information on the Georgian; did he want some Sluzhba talent to follow Gvishiani about — ‘a couple of guys who can read and write’. More to the point: what did Georgi Gvishiani have to do with anything?
‘Nothing — just a thought. Forget about him.’
‘Uh huh.’ Bogdanov had turned and was leaning with his back to the window, watching a bunch of hook-nosed Armenians surrounded by paper parcels representing souvenirs of Moscow and drinking their winnings. He made a comment about the number of niggers you see around town these days and, casually turning round, asked, ‘Have you ever bumped up against a Director’s Case?’
Kirov unwound from his thoughts. He glanced at the other man who was burying his head in a beer as though the question had never been asked. ‘Twice — perhaps three times. Is that what you’ve found?’
‘I don’t know what I’ve found,’ Bogdanov answered bluntly. ‘I hoped you might know.’
Kirov knew about Director’s Cases, or all that could be known. Some subjects were too sensitive to be handled anywhere but at the top. If an investigation threw up a reference to a Director’s Case, it stopped there. Perhaps someone continued with it, perhaps not, you never discovered.
‘What have you got?’ Bogdanov told him.
‘I ran a search against the Bulgarian outfit, the drug manufacturers. It drew nothing apart from gossip and dirty stories — the usual stuff.’
‘And?’
Bogdanov eased up. ‘Another beer? Do you know Krapotkin — Sergei Pavlovitch? He’s a systems man, he wrote some of the data collection programmes.’
‘Go on.’
‘Well, he taught me a trick. I’ve used it a couple of times, there’s nothing fancy to it; sometimes it works and sometimes not. Have you ever handled a case when you suddenly find yourself stepping on somebody else’s toes? You arrest a guy and it turns out he’s someone’s informer; you run a surveillance operation and you find that the place is already wired but no one told you. It’s all a matter of paperwork, the files aren’t up to date, or the data isn’t logged or cross-referenced.’
‘It happens.’
‘Yeah.’ Bogdanov found amusement in some recollection. ‘I’ll get the beers,’ he said. He shuffled off to the bar and pushed the Armenians aside. He returned with the drinks and continued. ‘Where was I? Falling over people? Sure! That was Krapotkin’s problem. It happens all the time. The systems, he says, are there but people don’t use them — Krapotkin gets religious about this because he designs the systems. In fact, he says, the only part which is guaranteed to work is the finance bit, which is because nobody can spend money without accounting for it. And this part of the system works every which way as an audit check. That is Krapotkin’s point.
‘Let’s say you have a subject which you think should be on file, but isn’t. Provided it’s a key word logged on the finance data base, if you punch it in, the computer will spill out all the costs and charges logged against it and give you the case number. What does it matter if you aren’t interested in the accounts? Now that you have the case number you can call up the main file. It’s a useful cross-check. A gimmick.’
‘You used it this time?’
‘I was curious. I tried to find Bulpharma on the main files and drew nothing but rubbish. So I decided to see if anyone had been spending money in that direction. They had.’
‘How much?’
‘Three-quarters of a million roubles.’
There was a hush in the restaurant. By the bar two of the Armenians were shoving each other. The crowd was silent and tense in expectation of a fight.
‘Let’s talk about this outside.’ Kirov dumped his beer untouched and collected his hat. ‘You had enough of racing?’
‘I only ever lose.’
They left the stadium in a drift of early leavers and walked in the direction of Begovaya metro station, ignoring the touts and the currency changers who mistook Kirov for a Westerner. Bogdanov maintained a morose silence until they were clear, then began again.
‘The stuff I uncovered had a finance code against it. I asked Krapotkin about it. “It’s on open budget,” he says, and I ask, What’s “open budget”? “Open budget”, so Krapotkin tells it, means that the expenditure is recorded, but there is no sum set against it for control purposes. Three-quarters of a million roubles spent on Bulpharma? “Peanuts!” says Krapotkin. “Make it a million — ten million! There’s no limit on what can be spent!” ’ Bogdanov halted. ‘What I didn’t need Krapotkin to tell me is that the only time the sky’s the limit is on a Director’s Case.’
‘I’ll talk to Grishin.’
‘When?’
‘Tomorrow.’
‘It’s a weekend.’
‘He’s invited me to his dacha.’
‘I don’t think it’ll help.’
‘Why not?’
They stopped again to let the crowd pass. Bogdanov moved to the shelter of a wall and lit a cigarette, spitting loose strands of tobacco onto the pavement. He watched the people and the bright autumn sky and chewed over the end of his cigarette.
‘It wasn’t one of ours. It was a GRU operation — I know: what the hell were military intelligence doing investigating a pharmaceutical plant in Bulgaria? But that’s the way it was — Krapotkin is certain — all the costs were charged to the Aquarium. And it gets worse. I’ve come across Director’s Cases before — ours, theirs, it makes no difference. You can’t get anything out of them, but they carry a main-file record so that new data can be logged into them. This one doesn’t.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Positive. According to the main file it doesn’t exist. You take my point? GRU had a team in Bulgaria for four months and spent three-quarters of a million roubles — and apart from a few entries on the accounts, the whole operation doesn’t exist. Boss, I’m starting to get had feelings.’