‘What happens to me now?’ Bakradze asked pathetically.
‘What are you going to do with him?’ asked Bogdanov who had come over with his entourage. ‘Clear off, boys,’ he said, dismissing them, and the three men waited while the bomzhi disappeared into the smoke.
‘I need to believe in your good behaviour,’ said Kirov.
‘Kill him,’ said Bogdanov. ‘Nothing personal,’ he explained to Bakradze. ‘Boss, we can’t afford to trust this guy.’
‘Have you told me everything?’ Kirov asked the lawyer.
‘Jesus Christ — I — please, Pyotr Andreevitch!’ Bakradze begged.
Don’t! Kirov thought. ‘I think we can trust you,’ he said consolingly.
‘You won’t regret it.’
‘We’re going to be friends?’ said Bogdanov. ‘Fair enough.’ He held out a hand to Bakradze, who took it gratefully. Bogdanov grasped him firmly and pulled him forwards onto his other hand. Bakradze gasped and fell back holding his hand to his chest. Blood leaked between his fingers.
‘We can’t carry on the way we used to,’ Bogdanov said as he returned with Kirov to the car. ‘My head’s on the block as well as yours. It makes a difference.’
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
They drove to Babushkino by country lanes past woods and collective farms and fields deep in snow, its crust speckled with star glitter. The land slept and the air shivered and cracked with cold, you could take it apart like shards of glass if you only tried. But you never did. The radio played a current affairs programme. A meeting with the West Europeans in London. Disarmament talks in Geneva. With one mighty bound the Great Gorbachev frees himself from the shackles of the past and leaps into a brave future of peace, prosperity and away with armaments. And for my next trick — Truth!
The village is silent, the houses closed in behind their delicately carved shutters. The wheels of the car snap like elastic bands across the compacted snow. The engine purrs warmly as they creep along the silent street, bringing presents, so don’t wake the children. In the lane beyond the village, where it forks and a branch goes off between the trees to Uncle Kolya’s dacha, they turn off the engine and sit with their thoughts.
‘What is it between you and the old man?’ Bogdanov said. He pushed the words out as though darkness and silence were objects. ‘When I called on you earlier you could have cut the atmosphere with a knife. Is he frightened? That doesn’t sound like Uncle Kolya. Or have you had some sort of argument?’
‘He shot my father,’ Kirov answered. He couldn’t hear his own voice or judge its tone or even guess what message he had tried to convey. Bogdanov received the remark with a grunt.
‘I’m sorry,’ he answered at last. His eyes remained focused forward, searching the road for ghosts. After a minute he added, ‘That’s the way those old characters used to carry on —’ meaning that we don’t do things like that any more and the death of Bakradze is altogether a different case, so forget about seeing the crowd of grinning tramps circled around the lawyer’s body and the old woman stealing the lawyer’s pants. ‘I don’t suppose it was personal.’
‘It wasn’t personal,’ Kirov agreed. ‘It doesn’t matter.’
They got out of the car and inspected the ground where a set of tyre tracks was visible. Kirov thought of the doctor who was pretty, with long pale wrists and a habit of stroking her face while she made diagnoses. She drove a Zhiguli with small tyres and a deep cut in one of the treads. The prints impressed in the snow were from a large saloon, a Volga perhaps. They went one way, up to the General’s dacha and didn’t return. The car was up there with its invisible freight of bogeymen.
‘Heltai,’ said Bogdanov, nudging the edges of the tracks with his toe. ‘Amateurs. No technique. Some trap!’ He turned round and started walking back to the car. Kirov delayed long enough to look up at the house and wonder if Heltai had come along in person to take up a conversation begun so long ago in an hotel in Riga.
‘Where do we go now?’ Bogdanov asked from behind the steering wheel. ‘I’d like to offer you a bed for the night, but, if Heltai isn’t watching my place, for sure Radek is.’
‘What about Tumanov?’
‘Forget him. First, his place is like a whorehouse: five in a bed and take your turn. Second, he’s started cleaning his teeth and smiling at Radek. Face it, boss: we’re on our own.’
‘Take me to Neville Lucas.’
‘Lucas? OK, sure, why not. You can always rely on a traitor when the going gets rough.’
‘So where have we got to?’ Bogdanov asked as they drove through the city’s emptying streets and Kirov stared half-dreaming into the shadows. ‘Bakradze and Antipov were working hand in glove with Viktor Gusev. OK, fine, that I understand: Viktor needed protection for his operation and MVD provided it. Am I right?’
Kirov nodded. He wanted to sleep. Open his mind and let the pieces ease into their slots.
‘OK. What next? Viktor is getting his supplies from Sergei, who isn’t called Sergei but something else. Sergei has a source in a factory in Tbilisi and it seems he’s calling the shots. This is all clear. And it’s clear that Sergei introduced Zagranichny into the operation and loves him and mothers him like his own child, making sure into the bargain that Viktor and his paid policemen do the same. But what Zagranichny actually does for Sergei is a mystery.’
‘A mystery,’ Kirov agreed.
Bogdanov paused. ‘Are you taking the piss?’
Kirov snapped out of his speculations. He opened his eyes and caught the old man’s withered glance and knew that Bogdanov understood well enough what there was to be understood and that this recitation was just for reassurance.
‘OK, OK,’ Bogdanov said. ‘Let’s forget about who exactly Zagranichny is. He’s special and Viktor knows that he’s special and that no one else is supposed to know about Zagranichny, which is why Viktor plays tricks with names. The point is that when his friends started to turn cool, Viktor tried to strengthen his position by getting compromising material on Zagranichny — the film and the tape — which he could use if Sergei or MVD put pressure on him. By the way, where is the tape?’
‘Antipov has it. He found it when his men raided Viktor’s place.’
‘I guess that’s right. Tough luck on Viktor. He didn’t realise that pressure wasn’t exactly what his friends had in mind. They wanted him dead as a sacrifice to KGB to take the heat out of the investigation into the Ring and because his hatred of Zagranichny had become a dangerous embarrassment to Sergei. This is wonderful,’ Bogdanov said unenthusiastically, ‘and so far I understand it.’
‘Good.’
‘Yes — good for me, I’m really smart, I should learn to read and get an education. If I’m so smart, why don’t I know why all the cash from this racket was being converted into diamonds? More to the point, if this whole business of selling antibiotics is being run out of Tbilisi and the Bulgarian thing was just a cover story, why are Heltai and his GRU death squad after your blood? What’s the death of Yuri Andropov got to do with anything? Or Academician Yakovlevitch’s murder? Where’s the connection?’
‘I don’t know,’ Kirov told him. Conspiracies are not meant to be understood — but that was something he couldn’t admit; the old man needed simple, violent certainties. To take Bogdanov’s mind off the mysteries he put a request to him. ‘I need help from your friend, the computer wizard.’