He’s probably an accountant on his way to a nightshift job, thought Kirov and, as he watched the man make his way towards the train station‚ he felt a surge of pity for this lonely figure, his days inverted into darkness, and wondered what it must be like for the man’s wife, so rarely to see him in daylight.
Kirov realised that Bakhturin must have misled him, and probably on purpose, but just in case he followed the man across the street, with the intention of questioning him. Perhaps the address Bakhturin had written down was only partially incorrect, or maybe this man had seen Serge on his way to or from work. He removed the pass book from his upper left pocket, ready to present his credentials to the man.
As the man approached the entrance to a pedestrian tunnel which ran beneath the road and emerged beside a railway platform for all trains bound into the city, Kirov called out for him to stop.
The man whirled about. On glimpsing Kirov’s gymnastiorka tunic, knee-length boots and pistol belt, his eyes widened with fear.
Kirov had anticipated that the man might be surprised. It was long after dark and the street was otherwise empty, but Kirov assumed that as soon as the man caught sight of his uniform, he would realise it was official business.
‘It’s all right,’ Kirov assured him. ‘I just have a few questions.’
The man gave a plaintive, wordless cry and stumbled backwards against the concrete wall of the pedestrian tunnel. With fumbling hands, he removed a wallet from his coat and held it out to Kirov. ‘Take it,’ he whispered. ‘Just let me go.’
‘What? No!’ Kirov held open his pass book. ‘I am Major-’
‘Take it!’ the man shouted. The wallet quivered in his grip.
‘I don’t want your money. All I need from you. . ’
The man cried out again, dropped the wallet, and fled away down the tunnel.
Having decided against pursuing the terrified man, Kirov bent down and picked up the billfold. Then he crossed the road again and returned to the house where, he hoped, the wife had not yet gone back to bed so he could return what had been lost.
Kirov knocked on the door and, following regulations, took two steps back and undid the flap on the holster of his Tokarev. While he waited, he took a moment to glance down at his boots and nodded with satisfaction at the quality of their polish.
The door opened, spilling out the warm glow of an oil lamp on a table in the hall.
The woman stood before him. She was heavily made-up and the light of the oil lamp shone through her night dress, which Kirov now realised, was completely transparent. Beneath it, she was naked.
It took Kirov only a second to reassess everything he had thought over the past few minutes, including his sympathy for the overworked accountant.
‘Hello, Commissar,’ said the woman, in a voice which sent a shudder down his spine. ‘Would you like to come in?’
‘Yes,’ he replied curtly, and stepped into the hallway. Immediately, his lungs filled with a choking fog of cigarettes, perfume and nail varnish. The paint on the walls was a pinkish red, somewhere between the colours of new brick and salmon flesh. The old wooden floorboards had been stippled with stiletto heels. To his left was a room lined with a collection of tired-looking couches, on which sat women of a variety of ages and complexions, reading magazines or smoking. To his right, a staircase climbed up to the second floor. Kirov turned to the woman. ‘I am here for Serge Bakhturin,’ he said quietly, ‘That is the only reason I am here.’
Unlike the accountant, the woman neither fled nor panicked. Instead, she leaned towards him, resting her hand upon his shoulder and muttered in his ear. ‘Will it be possible to avoid causing a commotion?’
‘That depends,’ he replied in a whisper, ‘entirely on Comrade Bakhturin.’
She stood back and smiled, daring his eyes to stray from her face. ‘Top floor. The room at the end of the hall.’
‘Is there another exit from that room?’
‘Not without breaking your neck.’
‘Are the doors locked?’
‘Never.’
Before he headed up the stairs, Kirov handed over the accountant’s wallet. ‘One of your customers dropped this.’
‘It’s about time he left a tip,’ she remarked as she plucked it from his fingers.
As Kirov climbed the creaking steps, he removed the Tokarev from its holster. Quietly, he drew back the slide and chambered a round in the breech. He could feel his heartbeat pulsing in his neck. Kirov thought about Pekkala; how the man never seemed nervous at moments like this. Of all the skills he had learned from the Inspector, the suppression of fear was not one of them.
The hall on the top floor was poorly lit, with two sets of doors on either side. All of the doors were closed. The one at the end of the hall showed signs of having been kicked in at some point in the past, and the dent of a footprint in the wood hastily painted over.
Knowing that it would be impossible to get to the end of the hall without making a noise, Kirov decided instead to move quickly. He strode down to the door, turned the handle and pushed.
Inside, the room was lit by a single light bulb hanging from a dusty shade in the centre of the ceiling. An iron-framed bed filled most of the room and a small window looked out over the moonlit rooftops of nearby houses.
Standing between the bed and the window was Serge Bakhturin. Clutched against his chest he held a girl about sixteen years old, one arm across her stomach and the other one gripping her throat.
The girl wore a white night dress with lace around the collar and buttons halfway down the front, which were unfastened. Her eyes were filled with dread.
Kirov raised the Tokarev‚ but there was no clear shot with the girl standing between them.
‘I heard you coming,’ said Serge. ‘I remember your face from the trial. And I know why you’re here‚ Major Kirov.’
‘Let her go. Then we can talk.’ Behind him, Kirov heard doors opening and the sound of people running barefoot down the stairs.
Serge tightened his grip upon the woman’s throat.
She tried to swallow. Her face turned red. She kept her eyes fastened on the barrel of the gun.
Kirov knew he couldn’t put down Serge without hitting the girl as well.
The girl seemed to know it too. A look of profound resignation appeared on her face, as if a shadow had passed through her mind. He had seen this look once before, in the eyes of an old, lame horse his family had owned on the day his father took it out behind the barn and put it down. The animal had known what was about to happen. There was no doubt in Kirov’s mind about that. He had been a child when this took place, but the moment had remained brutally clear in his mind.
‘I’m not going to deny it,’ muttered Serge. ‘I’m the one who killed Pekkala.’
‘Pekkala is alive,’ replied Kirov, his voice barely above a whisper.
‘Liar!’ Serge howled. ‘I saw him go down. I’d have killed his friend, too, if that damned revolver hadn’t jammed.’
Now Kirov understood why only one of the rounds had been fired. ‘Who put you in contact with Gustav Engel?’ he asked.
‘Nobody!’ barked Serge. ‘But if I see him again, I’ll kill him too.’
‘It was your brother, wasn’t it? It was Viktor.’
‘You’ve got it all wrong, Commissar. I don’t need any help, least of all from him. He’s been propping me up since I was a kid, and until I ended up in prison‚ I never stopped to wonder if I might have been better off handling things on my own. And that’s exactly what I did this time. I took care of things by myself.’
‘Yes,’ said Kirov. ‘Yes, you did. Now you can let the lady go. I’m not going to tell you again.’
‘I’ll let her go. Just let me slip out this window. Nobody has to get hurt.’
‘There’s no way down from there.’