‘I don’t know. I don’t think so.’ The bird dropped suddenly from the sky, falling onto some small rodent struggling through the snow, making its clinical kill. Kirov admired the simplicity
Bogdanov was saying, ‘What is “I don’t think so” supposed to mean? If Heltai’s interest is in suppressing the Andropov story so as not to frighten the children, then we go along with him. We put an end to the Great Jewish Antibiotics Ring.’
Kirov turned and examined the other man slowly then proposed they return inside. He added in answer to the question, ‘I don’t think it’s that easy. I think that the Ring has changed: it’s become something else and I don’t know what.’ He smiled and gave Bogdanov an encouraging pat on the back as they went through the door, meaning that everything was going to be all right. Watching the bird he had experienced something of its clarity. In these days of convalescence his exhausted mind had had a vision of the underlying pattern of events. He knew he could take apart the fabric of the Great Jewish Antibiotics Ring. He would go back to basics: the circumstances of Viktor Gusev’s death. He would talk to Bakradze.
THE GORBACHEV VERSION
Only people who like people should join the police.
CHAPTER TWENTY
They returned to Moscow. Kirov travelled on new papers with the general passengers, his identity masked by the stubble of a moustache. Bogdanov made his own journey public; he called the Centre from Cherepovets and asked for a car to meet him off the train. Kirov spotted Tumanov in his leather jacket waiting at the barrier. Bogdanov hailed him, made a fuss long enough to attract attention, and then left with his deputy. Two men broke out of the crowd in the hall and followed them.
Kirov waited on the platform for the next arrival and walked out in the new influx of passengers. He took a regular taxi across town to the Paveletski station, bought a ticket there for a local destination and, just before the departure time, quit the line and picked up a lift in a Zhiguli that was operating as a fly-cab. He had the cab drop him on Volgogradski Prospekt. There he took the metro back through the centre to Pushkinskaya and collected another fly-cab outside the Izvestia complex. The driver took him all the way to Babushkino.
Kirov halted the taxi short of the dacha and paid off the driver. Since the last time he had been there the snow had come to stay. It was compacted in the lane; it creaked underfoot as he walked towards the house, carrying the small case with which Bogdanov had provided him. It carried tracks. In the ordinary way Uncle Kolya had few visitors. Tatiana Yurievna went up and down a couple of times a day between the village and the dacha. Dainty even in her felt boots, she left only small footprints. From one week to another no car would call on Uncle Kolya except the doctor in her blue Zhiguli. But now there were tyre marks from a large saloon and two sets of men’s prints.
The trail left by Tatiana Yurievna as she went up and down to the village was sharp and crisp. It crossed the marks left by the car and its occupants. Fine snow had drifted across the tyre tracks though today there was no wind. Yesterday? The day before? Kirov stirred the footprints with his toe and took the path up to the cottage.
Smoke was issuing from the stove pipe. The window to Uncle Kolya’s bedroom was shuttered. Kirov gave the door a light tap and heard the footfall of the housekeeper as she moved her bulk on her impossibly small feet. The door opened and Tatiana Yurievna stood in the space.
Kirov put a finger to his lips, took her by the arm and led her towards the woodshed. She offered no resistance. She was amused and offended at the same time: giggly and nervous. ‘Pyotr Andreevitch! What are you doing? Let go! Don’t be silly!’ He tipped the door open and gently pushed her inside into the darkness and the smell of shavings and cut logs. She was still squeaking.
‘You’ve had visitors,’ he said.
‘The doctor.’
‘Not the doctor. Two men — one short, one tall. They were here yesterday.’
‘Oh, them! They were nobody, a couple of people with papers for Nikolai Konstantinovitch to sign.’
‘Did you know them? Have they been here before?’
‘No.’
‘Were you expecting them?’
‘Not particularly. They phoned yesterday morning.’
‘Listen carefully—’ Kirov began; then, seeing the tension, he framed his question affectionately, as if asking after grandchildren, ‘When they were inside the house, was there any time that either of them was left alone?’
‘No.’
‘Think about it.’
‘No — really — I’m certain. They weren’t in the house above five minutes. I took them straight in to see your uncle Kolya; he signed the papers and they left right away.’
‘Good, good.’ Kirov blessed her with a hug and a flirtatious kiss on the cheek. She put her head on his shoulder and called him her good boy. He nodded and, speaking into her hair which lay against his lips, said lightly, ‘And did they ask questions, these two men, questions?’
‘Not to me.’
‘To Uncle Kolya?’
‘Sign here — that was all. They didn’t even tell the poor man what he was signing, and Nikolai Konstantinovitch wasn’t interested. I asked them. “Papers, grandmother,” they said. That was all. Cheeky devils.’
She pulled away to look at him and frowned at his thin smile. ‘Don’t worry,’ he told her. He put his arm around her waist as he opened the door of the shed and let in the daylight. ‘I may be staying two or three days. Can you make up a bed for me? And laundry — my clothes are dirty.’
‘Oh, Pyotr Andreevitch!’ she laughed; then with surprise said, ‘You’ve grown a moustache!’
‘Do you like it?’
‘Well … you’re grown up, and if you think it suits you then it suits you. But why do you want to stay here?’
‘Uncle Kolya isn’t well. I worry.’
Tatiana Yurievna eyed him suspiciously, but didn’t voice her disbelief. Years of living with the General had taught her that some things were best not enquired into. After a flicker of hesitation she was asking questions about the amount of washing needed and how did he expect her to feed him when he turned up without notice? They were back at the cottage. Kirov asked her to wait outside and be quiet. He opened the door and went inside.
The room displayed Tatiana Yurievna’s sense of order, everything clean, folded, put away. Her interrupted needlework lay on the table. Kirov moved silently, running fingers along the underside of surfaces, checking the light fittings, entering the small kitchen, the bathroom and the housekeeper’s tiny bedroom. From the invalid’s room a voice said, ‘Old Woman! Who’s that with you?’
Kirov tapped the door and answered, ‘It’s me, Nikolai Konstantinovitch.’
‘Why so secretive?’ The General was sitting in semidarkness on an old chair. He was wrapped in rugs. Age and greyness hung on his face like rugs. By his chair the small table was stacked with medications.
‘I’m being careful,’ Kirov answered.
The old man took the statement at face value. His eyes clouded and his lips sucked at the thought.
‘You’ve had visitors,’ Kirov suggested.
‘Something to do with my pension,’ the General answered shortly, and, before the younger man could ask, elaborated: ‘Papers to sign.’
‘Tatiana Yurievna wasn’t sure.’
‘The Old Woman is a moron,’ was the curt response. ‘I wasn’t going to sign something without knowing what it was. It might have been a confession, eh?’ Uncle Kolya smiled briefly; a precise smile you could lift and put in your pocket. ‘So, these days you need to be careful, huh? That doesn’t sound good.’ The sight of the other man hesitating at the doorway made him cross. ‘Come on in. Take a seat and let me see you. You’ve grown a moustache. Don’t like it. Makes you look like Him-you-know-who.’ The recollection dislodged a thought. ‘Careful, you say? I used to be careful, and so was your father. Much good it did him.’