‘I’ll be ready in a minute.’
‘Sorry, Petya, I can’t wait.’ Radek took a last drink from the bottle of vodka and reached into his pocket for something else. His fingers fumbled and Kirov recognised the other man was drunk. Radek had found what he was looking for, but before showing it said, ‘You do understand that this has nothing to do with Lara, don’t you?’
‘If you say so.’
‘I don’t think that sexual jealousy should come into business, do you?’
‘Whatever you like.’
Radek held out a clear plastic envelope close enough for Kirov to see.
Inside was Scherbatsky’s Chinese watch.
‘It has your fingerprints on it. We also have photographs of you coming out of Scherbatsky’s place in Kavrov on two occasions. Scherbatsky was under arrest for corruption and you had no official business with him. You take my point? There are people who could make a case out of that.’
‘Then make one.’
‘You wouldn’t like it.’
‘It gets worse?’
‘Maybe,’ Radek answered thoughtfully. He replaced the envelope carefully inside his pocket. Then, with a sudden show of passion — because they were friends — he said, ‘But it doesn’t have to. I don’t want your skin, Petya! Just your loyalty when I’m Chief. Loyalty — it’s not a lot to ask, is it?’ He stood for a moment looking supplicant and doubtful, then turned and pushed away into the trees. Kirov heard the hush of his skis fading into the distance and was left alone in the clearing.
He made his way back towards the ski-centre, navigating by the unfamiliar paths. There was a crowd by the hire point and a commotion; an ambulance was parked in full view and next to it a black police Volga; and standing by the car, part-masked by the young skiers, two detectives in black overcoats and trilbies standing up to their ankles in snow. They were taking down names and addresses. No one knew why, but the rumour was that the body of a skier had been discovered in the woods.
Uncle Bog was waiting outside his apartment, hanging around the shadows and cracking his knuckles. He cornered Kirov before he could reach the door and said urgently, ‘What the hell’s going on?’
‘Tell me.’
‘Tell me? Grishin didn’t show today! He’s sick — yesterday he’s well, but today he’s sick!’
‘People get sick.’
‘Balls! Sick people don’t have their telephones cut and a car full of goons sitting outside their apartments. I know because I got worried and went there.’
‘Why? What worried you?’
‘Don’t play games with me, boss!’ Bogdanov said impatiently. ‘When Grishin didn’t show, the Hollywood Stars came swaggering round the place saying Grishin was finished; he was sick; he was going to retire. And Radek would be running the place. Bakradze called, asking for you. “Are the changes going to affect your involvement in the antibiotics business? Isn’t it time that the whole subject was left to MVD and the Public Prosecutor?” Then some guy from the Aquarium phoned: “Will Colonel Kirov call Colonel Heltai?” No subject mentioned but I can guess. When I left, Radek’s boys had taken off to the club and were planning on moving to the Zhiguli to get pissed with the secretaries.’ He added reproachfully, ‘And where were you? With Radek! What did he want?’
‘Loyalty.’
‘Jesus,’ Bogdanov said softly. ‘Now there’s a commodity in short supply. He should have talked to Viktor Gusev. Maybe Viktor would have sold him some.’
The call came while Kirov was asleep. It broke into his dreams.
‘Heltai — this is Ferenc Heltai.’
Kirov had not heard that voice in years, yet it was the same; and with the passage of those years he could still hear its boyish quality, its strange clarity. He must have mumbled his way into an acknowledgement since the caller continued: ‘Since I saw you the other day, I’ve been searching my memory. I was sure that it wasn’t the first time. Your face rang a bell; I was certain…. Did you…?’ Heltai gave a laugh, the way Kirov had heard it; the laughter of a man who comes from the sea bearing his mysterious cake.
‘Aren’t you related to General Nikolai Konstantinovitch Prylubin?’ Heltai asked.
‘A family friend.’
‘Ah — that was it.’ The problem was solved. Kirov guessed that Heltai had been searching for and failed to establish any blood connection. Heltai said, ‘I met the General once, many years ago — when I was younger and more inexperienced.’ Another tinkle of laughter. ‘It was in Riga. We were both on holiday. The General had a boy with him. Was that you?’
‘Yes.’
‘Really? Small world. But I’m glad. It makes us almost friends — yes?’
‘It was a long time ago. I’m surprised you remember.’
‘Oh, I remember a great deal. I learned a lot from the General. He was a very clever man. And you appear to have learned too — how to be a policeman.’
‘I try.’
‘And also the value of friends? Being a policeman is a lonely business and we need our friends. But I’m digressing — though not too much: the past helps to keep the present in focus, don’t you think? Co-operation — my colleagues suggested to you that there might be a basis for co-operation, provided that we each stick to our respective problems and inform each other; and in particular that we don’t trespass on the other’s areas of activity.’
‘I remember.’
‘But have you learned? For example, I believe you have been looking for a man named Orlov, a pharmacist who used to work at the special clinic at Kuntsevo. Who told me? Not you, Pyotr Andreevitch — not you.’
‘He’s involved in your business, this Orlov?’
‘He’s not involved in yours — of that I can assure you.’
‘That doesn’t answer my question.’
‘Let’s say he was involved in a matter of interest to me. It has nothing to do with the antibiotics black market.’
‘A matter of poison?’ Kirov suggested. He wanted to disturb the other man’s placidity, which kept him as unreal as the dreams from which the telephone call had snatched him.
‘Stay away from Orlov!’ Heltai responded with a chilling calm.
He sounded altogether real.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Minsk has fallen.
The train travelled northwards during the night, repeating Radek — Radek — Radek as it rattled over the points. The passengers dozed or chatted or snacked from the paper sacks they had brought with them. Radek — Radek — Radek.
Kirov travelled inconspicuously with the ordinary passengers. One of them was an ornithologist interested in the capercaillie breeding programme; another was an expert on forest management. Two guards in the frontier service were returning from furlough. They drank heavily and tried to interest their companions in a pea and thimble trick, taking ten roubles from the ornithologist, who became angry and silent until they offered him a drink and returned half his losses because they said they liked the look of his face. The rolling stock was dark green. The night was dark green as the train passed through swathes of forest. Radek — Radek — Radek.
Minsk has fallen. So said Uncle Kolya, explaining to him about his father. Kirov stared through the carriage window into the night which threw back the reflection of Uncle Kolya, in appearance like the ornithologist as the latter mumbled in his sleep. As he was sitting there, Kirov told himself, so his father had sat in the main room of their apartment in Bryanska Street, and outside the windows Minsk had fallen. The child was confined to the bedroom and fretted over his toys. His mother supplied his father with tea and vodka and fed him his meals, which now had the chance quality of deprivation. Between times she wandered about the apartment and sometimes stared at her fur coat, which would shortly adorn the back of a colonel’s wife in Berlin. Against her will the Germans would arrive and the apartment would refurnish itself in the poverty of war and become a different place altogether. His father sat and decided who he was to become.