Elena shrugged and said, “Aunt Anna seems to find your mother amusing and distracting if a bit too loud. Your mother is no fool. She is, however, protectively conditioned to act like one. Eventually the act, if played long enough, becomes reality.”
Sasha threw his hair back from his forehead and looked at his partner, who turned her clear, round face to his, prepared for attack.
“You’re right,” he said.
“She’s not allowed in the door without her hearing aid,” said Elena, “but I don’t think it works properly, or she just has too many years of shouting to overcome her hearing loss.”
“Going home to my mother can be depressing,” he said, “but she is good with the children. She worries about me. She talks with affection about your aunt.”
“But not about me,” said Elena.
“She finds you cold and distant,” he said, now closing his eyes.
“Perhaps, but I do not want to cultivate too close a relationship to your mother,” said Elena as the door to Room 2 opened.
Three uniformed policemen wearing helmets and carrying Kalishnikov automatic rifles stepped out. They were all young. They wore their supposedly bulletproof jackets outside their uniforms. The jackets were of no use against weapons such as the ones they were carrying, and criminals increasingly had weapons far more powerful than those of the police. The jackets were slightly cumbersome, but they were required. The three men, all in their twenties, moved quickly down the hall past the two seated detectives.
A man appeared in the doorway, at least six feet tall, medium build, with thinning dark hair and a mustache, which was common in many officers. At first they grew them thinking it would make them look older. Later some kept them simply because they had grown accustomed to them. It looked good on this man in blue slacks, a blue shirt, and a leather jacket, unzipped.
“Spaskov,” he said, introducing himself as the two detectives rose.
Elena and Sasha introduced themselves and showed their cards. Spaskov stepped back so they could enter his office. It was surprisingly large and surprisingly empty-a desk, a chair behind it, four wooden chairs in front of it, nothing on the walls, and a file cabinet in one corner across from the desk on which there sat two wire boxes, both neatly piled with reports. One small, framed photograph and one file were on the desk in front of the chair. There were no windows.
“Would either of you like tea or coffee?” Spaskov said.
“Coffee,” said Sasha gratefully.
“Nothing,” said Elena.
Spaskov left the office and the two detectives sat in silence till he returned moments later with two white mugs. He handed one to Sasha, who thanked him and immediately took a drink. It was awful-murky, and stale-but it was coffee.
“Frankonovich says you have some information on the rapes,” Spaskov said, sitting not behind his desk but at one of the wooden chairs before it. Elena and Sasha pulled up their chairs to face him.
“Most of the attacks came in this district,” said Elena.
Spaskov nodded emphatically.
“Brutal,” he said. “What he has done … When I was promoted, Major Lenonov assigned me the case. I interviewed the victims, at least the ones who came forward or were hospitalized and reported by the hospital. Some of them were badly injured, permanently injured. No description. The man is strong, as the report shows. He is probably medium height. There seems to have been no pattern other than the attacks occur at night on women who are alone. Young, old, some girls. I will get you a copy of our file on the case.”
Spaskov drank some of the hot coffee from his mug.
“The Office of Special Investigation has been assigned the case,” said Tkach. “We have a new lead.”
Spaskov was placing his mug on his desk when Sasha spoke. He paused and turned with interest.
“New lead?”
“Witness,” said Elena.
Spaskov sat back to listen.
“An old woman was robbed almost ten years ago,” said Sasha. “She wasn’t raped but she thinks the man was trying to rape her. He hit her on the head from behind, but she fought back, fought him off, got a look at his face. The attack bore striking resemblances to the reported rapes that began four years later.”
Spaskov looked incredulous.
“I know,” said Sasha, warming his hands on the mug. “The woman is old. The cases may not be related. By now her recollection of the man may be a blur, a confusion. She might identify a perfectly innocent man.”
“She claims she has seen the man since,” said Elena. “She seems certain.”
“Where?” asked Spaskov.
“In a police car,” said Sasha.
“She says the man who attacked her was a police officer?” said Spaskov.
“Yes,” said Elena. “She says she saw him in a police car two or three times about three years ago, all around Kievskaya railway station.”
Spaskov nodded, finished his coffee, and put the cup down on his battle-scarred desk.
“Does she have a time of day? How good is the identification? I’ve been in this district almost twenty years. I know every patrol car officer.”
“She says it was during the day each time, between three and five,” said Elena. “The policeman was dark, wore a cap, had brown eyes and a small white scar on his face.”
Spaskov was momentarily lost in thought.
“A number of officers have scars on their faces,” he said. “I’ll go check immediately, but I think your witness is probably wrong.”
Spaskov left again, taking his and Sasha’s mugs. He didn’t offer more coffee, but what Sasha had taken in was probably enough to tide him over, especially if he could convince Elena to give him three or four of the aspirin she carried in her bag.
Spaskov came back. In his hands was a file, which he handed to Sasha, and a notebook.
“Assignment reports are bulky,” he said, sitting. “I copied some of the schedules that might fit. You can look through the whole thing downstairs if you like. If the woman did see her assailant and he was a police officer, there were two regular afternoon patrols in that area, same officers for at least five years. Two of the officers were army veterans, joined the force after your witness was attacked. One of the officers on patrol at that time is dead, died in a car accident while off duty a little over a year ago. He can’t have committed the recent rapes, obviously. And the last unlikely suspect is retired now. No scar. He works as a guard at an electronics storage warehouse. I know him well, name is Peotor Grinsk. I can’t believe he could be your man, but here is a file photograph of him, which I would like returned.”
Spaskov handed the photograph to Elena. Sasha leaned over to look. The man in the small photograph had nearly blond hair and no scar.
“Peotor is short, stocky, and, as the data in his file shows, he has blue eyes. He is married, married young, has a granddaughter now. But you are welcome to him as a suspect. Now I must go. The men who passed you in the hall are on the way to the home of a known drug dealer. I should be there, though it will be of little use. We have one hundred ten officers in this district and more than seventy thousand citizens, about a quarter of whom seem to be involved in criminal activity of some kind.”
Sasha and Elena knew what he meant. The drug dealer would have retained one of the new specialists who might be a lawyer. The specialist would know whom to bribe and who had secrets they would not want revealed. The specialist would have information on members of the police and courts. The drug dealer would probably have connections with a mafia. He would be back in business within a week and spend no more than a night or two in the station’s lockup. Sasha and Elena both knew about lockups in Moscow. It would not be a pleasant night or two for the drug dealer, even if he found some guards he could bribe.
“If you need anything more, let me know. I want to catch this rapist. I have a wife and a young daughter. I want him. I want him alone in an interrogation room. But between us, Peotor is not your man, and your witness sounds far from reliable.”