'Who? Say it again.'
'Zubarev.'
'What was that? Zubarev?'
'Yes.' He nodded and went on nodding like one of those dolls with a weight in its head. 'Yes.'
Some more light came and this time it got very bright and the concrete columns stood out, row after row of them as the car came down the ramp and turned and parked with its nose against the wall, the light spreading and dimming and then going out. I put one arm round Ignatov's throat and left it there while we waited. He got the message this time and didn't try to do anything about it. A flashlight beam came on at the far end of the garage and I watched it bobbing towards the iron staircase in the corner, but it was promised, one of them was saying, it was promised, very cut up because her boss had said they could have two tickets for the circus if they reached their work goal for the month and he'd broken his promise and now they'd have to spend the evening playing dominoes with the Borisenkos next door, a bloody shame but at least they'd shown me the public telephone in the corner of the staircase, I hadn't seen it before.
'Give me your wallet,' I told Ignatov, and he reached inside his coat and I watched his hand when it came out. 'Hold this torch.' Normal papers plus Party membership card, plus identification as an official driver to the Politburo and a special traffic pass into the Kremlin and 'certain designated areas in the City of Moscow' as specified in the 1979 Amendment to the Control of Vehicular Movement. Nothing else in the way of privilege documents but that one would probably rate a salute from a militia man, yes.
No little book with names in, no sign of any Zubarev.
'We're going to make a phone call,' I told him. It was like trying to move a bear: he didn't know which way to walk. He wasn't used to this sort of thing, but that wasn't my fault, he shouldn't have blasted me off the street like that. 'We're going to call Zubarev,' I said.
Didn't know his number.
'Oh yes you do,' I told him, and whipped a very light reverse sword-hand against the larynx. 'Tell him you're coming to see him, and if he objects, tell him it's very urgent. Insist on it. Do you understand?'
He stood trying to get his breath and I had to wait for a minute because I wanted him to sound reasonably normal on the phone. I only had one kopeck on me, with a lot of bigger change. 'Have you got a kopeck?' I asked him.
He found one, moving slowly, and I watched his hand again when it came out. 'He only lets me go there,' he said with a slight wheeze, 'at prearranged times.'
'We're going to prearrange it.' I put two kopecks into the slot. 'Ignatov, you gave me a lot of trouble. I don't mind what I have to do to you. Remember the wheelchair.' I gave him the phone.
In the close bright light of the torch I watched his face, and his eyes. He was staring at the printed board behind the telephone as if he were reading its instructions, but he wasn't. He was staring at the possibility of saying something to Zubarev that would warn him, and at the possibility of hurling himself at me and throttling me before I could do anything about it. This was natural enough but I waited for him to turn his head and look at my eyes, and in my eyes I let him see without any shadow of doubt that I was the angel of death. He looked away and dialled the number, which I noted and committed to memory.
He asked for a woman first and I reacted and moved my hand in a threat and he whispered that Zubarev never came to the telephone himself.
'Misha,' he said with slow care, watching me, 'this is Pyotr. I am coming to see him. Tell him that.'
I heard her voice: young, strong, husky, positive. She would tell him, she was saying. Was he coming right away?
'Yes. I am coming now.' I prodded him and he said: 'Tell him it is very urgent, Misha. Tell him I must come.'
There was nothing wrong? she wanted to know.
In the light of the torch his flat featureless face struggled with the question, and he managed to get a note of reassurance into his voice. 'There is nothing wrong, no. But I must come.'
She said she would tell him. Neither of them had mentioned his name. He looked at me and I nodded and he hooked the receiver back. Light swept suddenly across the columns and I turned my back to the entrance as a car came down the ramp and swung at right angles and stopped. I moved Ignatov away from the staircase and talked to him as we walked across to his car, passing a half-seen man and saying good evening to him. When he'd started up the iron staircase I told Ignatov to get into his car on the passenger's side and then I took his scarf and tied his wrists to his ankles and shut the door on him and went round to the driver's side. He hadn't seen me tagging him from the Kremlin and he didn't know the number of the Pobeda but he'd see it if we used my car instead of his, and once he'd seen the number plate he could blast me off the street again the minute he got to a telephone.
He sat awkwardly beside me with his knees drawn up to his chin, his squat body swaying as I turned the car through the columns and pulled up near the entrance and reached across him and opened his door for a moment. 'Ignatov,' I told him, 'if you try to attract attention in the street by shouting out or falling against the steering wheel you might alert a militia man or a police patrol. If you did that, I'd have to leave you behind, and I'd do that by opening your door like this and giving you a push.' I used a fair amount of force so that he rocked half off his seat, then I grabbed him and pulled him back and he sat with his breath hissing out. 'You'd hit your head on the road because you wouldn't be able to save yourself, you understand?'
'Yes. Yes, I understand.'
'What are the names of your children?'
'Yuri, Irina and Tania.' His head swung to look at me because the question had surprised him.
'You want to see them again,' I said and pulled his door shut and drove up the ramp into the street. 'You must take care of yourself.'
'Yes,' he said, and I heard emotion in his voice, 'I understand.'
I turned into the street without slowing down too much and he rolled against the door with a thump and rolled back: I wanted him to know how extraordinarily helpless the human body can be without the use of hands or feet.
The evening rush hour was nearly over and the first set of lights was green. 'He's at the Pavilion,' I said to Ignatov, 'is that right?'
'Yes.'
I drove north-west along Soldatskaja ulica, feeling the onset of depression. Of all the questions in my head I thought I had the answer to one, and I didn't like it. Ignatov was a professional driver and would have been trained to watch his mirror when he was at the wheel of those big black shiny Zils because the members of the elite Politburo must not be followed about. But he hadn't discovered my tag on the way from Spassky Gate this evening: he had seen the Pobeda several times but hadn't realized it was following him specifically. Certainly I'd taken pains to do the job efficiently, but then I'd taken similar pains two days ago, and he'd known I was there behind him, and there on purpose. It had been daylight then, and this evening it had been dark; but this city was bright by night and visibility was good. So there was an additional factor involved, which had led him to discover the first tag and not the second.
I thought I knew what it was. I had probably known for a long time, right at the back of the mind where we put things we don't want to look at. But it would have to be brought into the light, and looked at; and that was going to be painful. I would almost rather be going to Lubyanka again, in good heart and filled with the fierce animal instinct to fight and survive, than to this place filled with depression and unable to do anything about it. Depression is unreachable, the slow death of the spirit.
'What's your wife's name?' I asked Ignatov. The lights changed to red at an intersection and I put out a hand as he swayed forward again: I'd had to do it several times to stop him hitting his face on the windscreen.