‘Yes?’
‘It represents the way things are going. We must liaise with and support the other agencies in maintaining the law — unless, of course, we have evidence to prove that those agencies are corrupt. In the past we were inclined to be — arrogant? Though I’m sure we meant well. It represents a change of style. Radek seems to understand it. Radek,’ he mused, ‘who would have thought it? And you?’
‘I’ve tried to co-operate.’
‘Yes, yes, I suppose so. I had thought,’ Grishin said abstractedly, ‘that your background and training would have fitted you for the times. And instead — instead I get a feeling that you are holding back as if you have no faith in what is happening. Radek on the other hand … Radek will go far. Shall we go for a walk?’
They put on their topcoats. Grishin loaned Kirov a pair of boots and disappeared into the other room to inform his wife. Kirov waited on the doorstep, watching a car disappear in the direction of Zhukovka. Grishin emerged, unsteady on his feet, held Kirov’s arm, and together they took a path into the silence of the woods.
They walked a while. Grishin stooped occasionally to pluck a mushroom from the bole of a tree or among the fallen pine needles. He threw the odd stone at the treetops as part of his perpetual feud against the crows, and the disturbed birds rattled and flapped out of sight among the branches.
‘Viktor Gusev is dead,’ Kirov began. ‘He died of contaminated antibiotics — his own.’
‘Ironic,’ Grishin replied. He proposed that they take a seat on a tree stump in one of the clearings.
‘The antibiotics were produced by a factory in Bulgaria.’
‘Really?’
‘The factory was the subject of an investigation in 1984. It was run by GRU as a Director’s Case and the data-logging procedures were violated in order to suppress any main-file record.’ Kirov waited but Grishin’s expression revealed nothing. He picked up a stick and stirred the leaf litter. ‘You knew about the investigation?’
‘Stories.’
‘What stories?’
‘Andropov died in 1984. He was too young to die, people were curious. Work it out for yourself.’ Grishin picked up a milk-cap that was buried among the leaves; he spun the grub-wormed fungus in his fingers and discarded it.
‘Are you implying that Andropov was murdered?’
‘I’m not implying anything. There would have been an investigation however it was that Andropov died. I’m simply trying to tell you the way that some people thought. That can be as important as the truth. It was no secret that Chernenko was opposed to Andropov. So, when he came into the succession, he ordered an investigation into Andropov’s death since he didn’t want anyone blaming him for the convenient event — in particular, given that Andropov had been head of KGB, he didn’t want to give KGB an excuse for a witch-hunt. Do you understand? It didn’t matter whether Andropov had been murdered, but everyone had to act as if he had been.’
Kirov halted.
‘Rodion Mikhailovitch, I need to visit Bulgaria. Everything suggests that the antibiotics have their source there.’
‘Make a formal request.’
‘I can’t do that. I don’t want to notify the local referentura.’
‘Why not?’ Grishin glanced from the damp mulch at his feet to Kirov, and Kirov had again the sense that he was being asked to read Grishin’s intentions. The moment passed, Grishin stood up and started brushing the dirt from his pants. ‘Let’s go back,’ he suggested. He made no further reference to Kirov’s request and Kirov could only guess that he had understood its significance. GRU had run an investigation in Bulgaria for a period of four months; and during the whole of that time KGB’s local referentura had not picked up the activity and notified Moscow. On any view that was curious.
They walked a while longer by a foresters’ path. Grishin was intimately familiar with the wood and they took a different route for their return. In the clearings snow was falling, lazy snow that would not last. The General remained in his strange mood; even his grunts and sighs as he manoeuvred by the ruts and fallen branches were like snippets of code. Kirov was left to speculate on the reason for Grishin’s invitation. To talk about my father — Yuri Andropov — the Great Jewish Antibiotics Ring? It occurred to him that in some way he was considered dangerous by Grishin, but any attempt to explore that idea made no sense.
‘Why Jewish?’ he asked to break the oppression of silence. Grishin stopped abruptly and gave him a fleeting look of cold suspicion. Then he was smiling again.
‘It’s just a name.’
‘I didn’t invent it. You gave it to me.’
Grishin acknowledged the fact with a nod.
‘The case has a history,’ Kirov suggested. ‘Something before my involvement.’
‘A history. It has nothing to do with the present.’
‘Tell me.’
They exchanged cigarettes. Grishin removed his cap and beat the snow off it. He took Kirov’s arm and moved him to the shelter of the trees. He found a place to perch himself heavily on a log, and invited Kirov to take a seat next to him. For a moment he sat in cautious silence and Kirov felt the other’s small, intense eyes picking at him like fingers. Then Grishin began.
‘Have you heard of Academician I.A. Yakovlevitch?’
Kirov had: Yakovlevitch was a defector — no, not a defector: a refusenik Jew. He had been a surgeon or some such thing.
Grishin drew on his cigarette and cast his eyes loosely about the trees. ‘It comes back to foreign policy,’ he said. ‘Jews in the Soviet Union — they don’t fit. I don’t know whether it’s a matter of racism or something else; but they don’t fit. That’s just a fact.’
Kirov nodded. Grishin took this for agreement and he went on. ‘The Israelis want them out of here, the Americans want them out of here, and, God knows, we’d be glad to see the backs of them. But’ — he paused — ‘there’s the matter of our own pride and prestige — and what would we do with all the others, the non-Jews, who want to leave? The whole business is a nuisance, a distraction.’
‘I can see that.
‘Can you?’ Grishin’s thoughtfulness still seemed misplaced. Kirov still had the feeling that he was missing some clue to the other man’s mixed approach of affection and caution, and wondered what had changed. Grishin continued his explanation. ‘Andropov decided to make a gesture — not to release any Jews, you understand. He decided to pillory a few in order to make the others shut up. The idea was to arrest one or two, bring them to trial in a glare of publicity, and frighten the rest.’
‘And Yakovlevitch was picked for this?’
‘Yes. He was to be the lead conspirator in the plot. He was ideal — the plot was ideal. Yakovlevitch could be made to fit into a popular scenario: the anti-corruption drive, the antibiotics shortage, the Jewish problem. Yakovlevitch was a Jew and a doctor. Tie him and a few associates to the illegal trade in antibiotics and there you had a dramatic solution to everything! The Great Jewish Antibiotics Ring!’
‘But it didn’t happen,’ Kirov pointed out.
‘No, it didn’t happen.’
‘Why not?’
‘Oh, there were changes.’
‘Such as?’
‘Andropov died, and Chernenko wasn’t interested in picking up an old KGB plot; you could never tell where it had been — or, more to the point, where it was intended to go. Chernenko ordered the investigation closed and kicked Yakovlevitch out of the country. Only the name survived.’