‘Shit! Why didn’t I think of that?’
‘It doesn’t matter,’ Kirov answered. With the death of his daughter it had ceased to matter to Ostrowsky too. Perhaps now he would buy a dacha, take a decent holiday; even buy his wife a fur coat in exchange for the daughter they had lost. It was equally possible that in a fit of maudlin drunkenness Ostrowsky would burn the money. If the jeweller had really given up hope, was there anything to offer in exchange for his knowledge? Was there any threat that wouldn’t be welcome to him as a chance to pay off his debt of guilt? Kirov felt that Ostrowsky was more problematic than Bogdanov suggested.
They waited. Not ten minutes but forty went by. Bogdanov had an old policeman’s mindless stamina and dozed out his boredom while Tumanov fidgeted impatiently. The beautiful woman in the sable coat came out of the Agat store, still handing out smiles like tips to anyone who noticed her. And Kirov did notice her, and wondered what Viktor Gusev would have given to possess her. A half of his kingdom. Fairy tale stuff. Ostrowsky emerged from the shop at five-thirty and headed in the direction of the Arbatskaya metro station.
‘What now?’ Bogdanov asked. ‘Where do you want him arrested? Say the word anywhere between here and his place. It makes no difference. He doesn’t stop or talk to anyone. He doesn’t have any rendezvous. There’s nothing to be gained by following him — am I right?’ he said to Tumanov. ‘So take your pick.’
‘I want to speak to him alone.’ Kirov had decided that the jeweller was too fragile for any other method. ‘It’s OK, I know what I’m doing. I’ll call you later.’
Ostrowsky was in no hurry. He walked unsteadily and paused regularly to look into shop windows. Once he stopped a passer-by and asked for a light and looked as if he wanted to engage the man in conversation but the stranger shook him off. Finally he reached the metro station where he put down his parcels and fumbled for the five copeck fare.
Arbatskaya links through to the Lenin Library station. Ostrowsky transferred and took the first train heading north-east on the line to Preobrazhensky Square. Kirov got into the same carriage and stood beside him in the press of passengers, in the silence of the crowd, which was broken only by the announcements of the stations. Ostrowsky stood in a nodding torpor. For the first time Kirov could see him clearly: mid-brown hair straggling from under his fur hat, lobeless ears that were red and veined with cold, drunken somnolent eyes. The other man turned his head and gazed vacantly along the carriage length. A small round nose and slack mouth, shaving nicks and a mole on the left cheekbone.
At Kirovskaya they transferred stations again and changed trains for the Kaluzhsko-Rizhskaya line. Ostrowsky began to show anxiety. He searched in his shopping bag and produced some powdered eggs then a parcel wrapped in paper. He unwrapped one end of the parcel under the curiosity of his fellow passengers and sighed as the head of a pike peeked out and looked at him with its dead glazed eyes. This appeared to satisfy him and he repacked the bag. He pulled himself together and stood more upright. Kirov watched and interpreted. Ostrowsky had checked his purchases in order to limit or avoid a quarrel with his wife. But the quarrel would not be about fish, or perhaps it would: the jeweller and his wife would argue about the pike and the powdered egg, and the subject of their daughter would be fought out in the bitter silences. The announcer meanwhile called Rizhskaya.
They left the train and emerged onto Prospekt Mira. Ostrowsky maintained his rigid attempt at sobriety, staring fixedly ahead and colliding with whoever got in his way. A militiaman scanned him idly but took no action. Close to Rizhskaya the rail lines heading north cluster, and somewhere in the angles Ostrowsky lived in one of the apartment houses in a dim and melancholy street, empty but for a man carefully removing the wiper-blades from his car before leaving it for the night, and a black Volga with a whip aerial and two occupants contriving to look suspicious. Kirov did not follow as Ostrowsky entered the nearest apartment house. Instead he approached the car and the two men inside, a driver and the heavy help — ‘A pair of stars from Sluzhba remedial class,’ according to Bogdanov, and all that he could get after Radek had cleared the place of talent for his larger, more colourful operations.
Kirov tapped the window of the vehicle on the driver’s side. It opened and a wrapped-up figure leered out.
‘Bugger off,’ the man said calmly. Kirov showed his badge and watched the driver freeze and stammer his apologies to the Comrade Colonel. Kirov told him abruptly to be quiet then asked what time Ostrowsky usually came out.
‘A few minutes either side of seven o’clock, comrade Colonel. There’s a bottle shop a couple of blocks away. He goes there. Then he gets pissed.’ He chanced a smile at his companion. Kirov knew its meaning.
‘Where’s your bottle?’ he demanded.
‘Bottle? I don’t know what you mean, comrade Colonel. It isn’t allowed. Not on duty.’
‘I’m not here to enforce the regulations, I just want the bottle. Hand it over.’
The passenger reached to the space by his feet and came up with a half-litre of Streletskaya. He leaned across the driver and handed it through the window.
‘I was taking it home for tonight,’ the driver said feebly.
‘Sure you were.’ Kirov slipped the bottle into his pocket.
He checked his watch. Six-thirty. He walked back to the metro station, found a call box and telephoned Bogdanov at home.
‘Any messages?’
Bogdanov said that Bakradze had sent round the MVD file on Nadia Mazurova. His story was that the Public Prosecutor’s Office hadn’t known about Gusev’s girlfriend until yesterday. On top of that there had been a backlog of enquiries on the MVD main computer; call Ogaryov Street yourself and they’d confirm it; the whole system down and everyone trying to remember what it was they used to do before the place was computerised and who the hell had the keys to the archive copies. It had taken all day to pull the girl’s record. ‘And only then because of my influence,’ said the lawyer smoothly. So far Antipov and his Anti-Corruption Squad first team hadn’t been able to interview her, but Bakradze was releasing the papers in the interest of friendly relations.
‘I’m going to marry that guy, he’s so considerate.’
‘Anything else?’ Kirov asked.
‘Yes,’ Bogdanov answered. ‘There’s a note on your desk. Grishin has agreed to the Bulgarian trip.’
Ostrowsky emerged from his apartment at seven-fifteen. He was wearing the same hat and coat as before, but this time his gait was steady and his face held a flushed determination. Kirov recognised the evidence of the quarrel with his wife and for a second he considered this wife who would be destroyed because he proposed to destroy her husband, but who in herself had been so insignificant in his calculations that nothing remained in his memory of her record and he could not bring to mind her name. He suppressed the thought of her and drove her into the shadows of moral blindness in the company of all the Laras and the other casualties of his life. Ostrowsky meanwhile walked vigorously down the street, intent on suppressing his wife by other means.
They walked, fifty metres between them, their footsteps breaking the rime as it formed on the frosting puddles, through the dull streets pale and patchily lit, past a dim bread shop, past carefully tended Zhigulis swathed in covers like babies. In the otherwise empty roadway an Army car cruised out of the darkness and the driver, freelancing as a taxi, offered Kirov a lift. When he refused, the driver took it for a negotiating ploy and offered a lower price. Kirov rejected it. Throughout the exchange his eyes were kept focused on Ostrowsky until the soldier, bored by bargaining, finally noticed and asked, ‘What’s this, then? Is he your boyfriend? Are you going to use my car or not?’