Punishment of a Hunter E-Book

Yulia Yakovleva

• Herausgeber: Pushkin Vertigo
• Kategorie: Krimi
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2021

Beschreibung

THE FIRST IN A THRILLING NEW SERIES OF HISTORICAL MYSTERIES SET IN STALINIST RUSSIA, PERFECT FOR FANS OF BORIS AKUNIN A SUNDAY TIMES CRIME CLUB PICK OF THE WEEK A masterclass in historical crime fiction' Chris Lloyd, author of The Unwanted Dead 'Yulia Yakovleva's thrilling debut was a bestseller in her native Russia. It's not difficult to see why' The Times, Best New Crime Fiction MURDER 1930s Leningrad. Stalin is tightening his grip on the Soviet Union, and a mood of fear cloaks the city. Detective Vasily Zaitsev is tasked with investigating a series of bizarre and seemingly motiveless homicides. MAYHEM As the curious deaths continue, precious Old Master paintings start to disappear from the Hermitage collection. Could the crimes be connected? MISTRUST When Zaitsev sets about his investigations, he meets with obstruction at every turn. Soon even he comes under suspicion from the Soviet secret police. The resolute detective must battle an increasingly dangerous political situation in his dogged quest to find the murderer―and stay alive.

Leseprobe

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Contents

Title Page Chapter 1Chapter 2Chapter 3Chapter 4Chapter 5Chapter 6Chapter 7Chapter 8Chapter 9Chapter 10Chapter 11Chapter 12Chapter 13Chapter 14Chapter 15Chapter 16Chapter 17 Available and Coming Soon from Pushkin VertigoCopyright

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Chapter 1

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9

I

Zaitsev glanced back at the top of the report. Again that feeling that his eyeballs were being rubbed with sandpaper. His gaze ran back down the page, but again he took nothing in.

Victim: Faina Borisovna Baranova, thirty-four, no party affiliation. Bookkeeper at an industrial co-operative. Unmarried.

Hmm, that’s a shame, thought Zaitsev. The spouse is usually the first on the list.

So—no suspects. Nothing to go on. Not even the hint of a lead.

Zaitsev switched on the green-shaded desk lamp. Not that it made any difference. A soft blue sky peered in at the window. The usual deception of Leningrad’s white nights. Without even pretending to get dark, the June evening had long since closed the shop doors and swept the traffic off the roads. The city’s residents had their thick curtains drawn tight, as they tried to make room for some troubled sleep amid the ceaseless expanse of light that day and night had been for the past month. The somnolent streets were as bright as day.

Zaitsev laid out the photographs under the lamp.

Faina Baranova was killed in her room. In the black-and-white photographs, the pinkish wallpaper became a light grey. The murdered woman was slumped in an armchair by the window. The heavy curtains were pushed to the side. He could see the Public Library through the window.

Zaitsev turned the sheet of paper over and checked the address: 25th October Prospekt. On the corner of Nevsky and Sadovaya, then.10

Again the letters jumbled into meaningless symbols. Zaitsev suppressed a yawn. He could barely hear himself think: there was too much noise coming in, interference. The Leningrad Criminal Investigation Department was bustling on all floors with the usual nocturnal activity. Someone was being led away; someone was being interrogated. From one direction there were sobs, from another furious swearing. And in all the corridors and offices, yellow light bulbs glowed needlessly. The air reeked of tobacco smoke.

So, Faina—Faina Baranova. Zaitsev picked up the photo again. He forced his mind to visualize the black-and-white image in colour, to recall what he had seen earlier that evening. His mind’s eye turned the edges of the picture into a door frame—the doorway through which Zaitsev had first glimpsed this woman. Or rather, her corpse.

“So, Vasya, do we force it open?” Agent Martynov had asked him as they arrived at the victim’s door that evening. He pushed his cap back from his forehead to wipe off the sweat. His eyes were red, with bags underneath. Martynov had been up all night on a stake-out in one of the large tenement blocks on Ligovsky Prospekt. Then he’d had to do the write-up. He hadn’t managed to get home before a new day started and now the squad had been summoned to 25th October Prospekt.

“Wait a little longer, and you shall have a rest,” sang Demov in a strained falsetto, as he dragged along the case containing their crime-scene-investigation kit. In his other hand he clutched a folded camera tripod.

“Sod off, Demov,” snarled Martynov. He blinked; the air was thick with steam from about a dozen different dinners being cooked at once. You could barely walk down the narrow, shared corridor for junk left there by the residents who couldn’t fit it in their rooms. This had once been a spacious, 11bourgeois apartment. Now there was a family squeezed into each room. A typical Leningrad communal flat. The corridor was suddenly crowded with personnel arriving on the scene. The neighbours’ doors opened as they gingerly peeked out. Zaitsev felt someone brush against his back. He turned around to see a little woodland gnome of a man.

“Is there a problem, comrade?” Zaitsev snapped.

“Comrades, there’s nothing to see,” Demov told the neighbours who were emerging into the corridor, including those who had initially planned to sit tight until the police came and knocked at their doors. Curiosity had got the better of them.

Zaitsev examined the flimsy lock. The two witnesses loitered behind him: the janitor for the block and the house manager.

“She hasn’t opened her door since yesterday,” mumbled the woodland gnome. He was the one who had called the police. Their colleague Samoilov emerged from the steam emanating from the communal kitchen.

“I called the co-operative. Baranova didn’t show up at work.”

Zaitsev nodded. Martynov leant against the wall and paused with his eyes closed. I should have sent him home, thought Zaitsev. He had barely got a word of sense out of Martynov today.

“Might she have gone somewhere?” suggested Agent Serafimov, standing behind him. Zaitsev turned around. His colleague had a rosy blush and golden curls, like an angel from a pre-revolutionary Easter card. And the surname to match.

“Get away!” spluttered a peasant in a traditional smock, a tolstovka. “Don’t you think we’d know if she had?”

“She reports to you, does she?” Zaitsev looked him in the eye briefly.12

“Oof, look at him gawping like that,” muttered an old woman. Zaitsev pretended not to have heard.

“What would she need to report to us for?” said the man in the long tolstovka, offended. “As if we neighbours can’t see with our own eyes. We’re all on good terms here, I’ll thank you very much. This lot’ll tell you so. Our relations towards Faina Borisovna are of the most respectful kind, notwithstanding her being of Jewish origin and all. She’s an earnest woman, neat and tidy.”

“A dog! Ooh, a dog!” Along the corridor, there was a rustle of whispers and gasps as the police dog slipped through the crowd of onlooking neighbours. This large German shepherd with a black patch on its back was a descendant of the legendary Ace of Clubs, a star player in the Leningrad CID around a decade ago. It had inherited the same ancestral name.

The handler quietly gave the dog a command.

Ace froze for a second—as though the scent had become a sound and demanded absolute silence—then started scraping its claws against the door.

“Open it up, Martynov,” commanded Zaitsev.

The handler took the dog by the collar as Martynov inserted a short crowbar between the door and the frame and pressed. At first the crowbar slipped, tearing off a strip of veneer from the door. Martynov seemed to wake up with a jolt and gave Zaitsev a sheepish glance. This time, he put the crowbar into position more carefully.

The door to Faina Baranova’s room welcomed them with a crunch as it burst open. Behind them was a muddle of excited voices.

“Neighbours, please back off!” barked Zaitsev. “Witnesses, is this Citizen Baranova?”

“It is,” confirmed the janitor, diligently stretching his neck to peer over Zaitsev’s shoulder.13

“Thank you, comrade. Citizens, nothing to goggle at here!” Zaitsev boomed at the neighbours in the corridor as he stepped over the threshold into the room. “Everyone will be interviewed in turn.”

“Stand back, comrades.” Serafimov firmly manoeuvred the curious neighbours back into the gloomy corridor.

“Off you go, Serafimov. You start working through the neighbours,” Zaitsev whispered to him. Serafimov nodded and left the room, closing the door behind him.

Zaitsev focused on Faina Baranova as though she and he were alone in the room. Before Demov started sprinkling his black powder everywhere in search of fingerprints, and before Martynov started yanking open drawers and banging cupboard doors, Zaitsev wanted to take in the entire scene with one glance. The first impression counts for a lot.

The room was cluttered but large, with two tall windows.

Faina Baranova was sitting in an armchair by the window. One arm lay on the armrest. The other lay draped across her stomach. In her right hand was a white rose. In her left, a feather duster. The kind used more by cleaners than by housewives.

“A black rose is a symbol of grief,” Martynov observed. But the rose Baranova was holding was white. Still, Martynov had a point: the woman had an aura of disquiet and drama. Behind her, the silk curtains formed a scarlet backdrop. Against the deep red, her velvet dress seemed even blacker and the white rose even more dazzling. There was something almost theatrical about the contrast of scarlet, black and white, a contrast that was softened by the iridescence of the silk, the softness of the velvet and the tenderness of the petals.

Baranova’s posture was so natural that at first Zaitsev could almost believe she was alive. The corpse’s eyes were open.14

“Looks like heart trouble,” said Demov with a nod. He was the oldest in the squad. “One minute you’re fine, the next you’re a goner.”

“Demov, don’t assume everyone’s past it just because you are. She’s not that old.”

Demov shrugged his bony shoulders. “OK, she’s not exactly a pensioner, but she’s not particularly young either. It’s a plausible hypothesis.”

“Call for the transport, Martynov.”

Martynov went into the corridor to ring for someone to fetch the body.

Zaitsev noticed a thin, scarlet line on the dead woman’s neck. “Hmm. Bit early to think about calling it a day, then.”

With one finger he pulled back her white collar to show Demov: a neat red line ran across the neck, like a cut.

“Her husband’s doing—as clear as day,” said Samoilov, without a moment’s reflection.

“Hmm. Could be a man or a woman—either would be strong enough,” suggested Demov, as he set up the tripod. “Even a teenager or an old man—we can’t rule anyone out. But most likely a husband or cohabitant, according to the stats. Statistics are a force to be reckoned with.” He paused to look Zaitsev in the eye. “Vasya, it’s time you told the boss I can’t keep on lugging all this heavy equipment around. I have to think of my health. It’s time we had a photographer in the squad.”

Demov nagged his boss constantly about the need for a dedicated photographer, and it was true: they didn’t have enough personnel. But while he was the oldest in the squad, Demov wasn’t as frail as he made out. He still had plenty of strength left in him. When Zaitsev had joined the squad, Demov had introduced himself as “Demov—old man, hypochondriac, misanthrope”. But when he shook Zaitsev’s hand, he gave it such a squeeze his fingers crunched.15

Demov held up the camera flash.

“Samoilov, have a look for a string or wire or something, will you?” said Zaitsev. And seeing that Martynov was back, he glanced quickly at his wristwatch with its scratched face and began to dictate: “Body discovered at 6.48…”

Samoilov banged about, rifling through the drawers of the dresser and the dressing table, flinging open the wardrobe doors.

“Cause of death: asphyxiation,” Zaitsev dictated mechanically.

The flash went off, instantly filling the room with light.

They didn’t find any string.

Not exactly old… but not particularly young either, thought Zaitsev, as he sat in his office that night, poring over the case. Faina Borisovna Baranova was thirty-four years old. There was also a small photograph of her. Very stiff, lips pressed tightly shut—a typical ID-card pose. She lived alone. A female cousin in Kiev; the neighbours didn’t know of any other relatives. Those neighbours again!

Zaitsev held the photo at arm’s reach, as if trying to see Faina Baranova with his own eyes, rather than the neighbours’.

Perhaps Demov was right: Faina Baranova did look older than her years. If not old, then at least marked by pain. Her face was puffy and she had dark bags under her eyes. Mind you, who looked healthy these days? Everyone was malnourished, overworked. Everyone’s day was a constant cycle of work, queues, domestic chores and getting up at the crack of dawn to squeeze on the tram to work again. “And yet she looked after her eyebrows,” Zaitsev muttered to himself.

And the feather duster. The kind cleaners used. At home, most people used a plain old rag.

Zaitsev went to the door and shouted into the corridor, “Serafimov, come here a minute!” Zaitsev listened out. He 16could hear him coming. He went back to contemplating the photographs.

Serafimov appeared in the doorway.

“Ah, Serafimov. Find out if Baranova had a cleaner, will you? Seems unlikely… A cleaner who also happens to be an informant?”

“The neighbours have confirmed that nothing’s been stolen.”

“They know everything about each other in that flat,” grumbled Zaitsev. “We’ll also need to find out if they’re really as chummy as they make out.”

Serafimov didn’t answer.

Zaitsev pressed his fingers against his closed eyelids: the yellow light from the electric lamp bore into his temples. A red rose is a symbol of love, he thought. When he opened his eyes again, a sheet of paper lay neatly on top of the file on his desk. Serafimov lurked at his side. At the top of the sheet was written in perfect handwriting: “notice of resignation”.

“OK, Serafimov, that’s all for today,” said Zaitsev, not looking at it. He got up from his chair. “I’ll have the rest of the statements by tomorrow. For now let’s call it a day.” The chair grunted as he stood up. “I’m dead beat. Can’t think straight today.”

“This is my resignation.”

“What?” Zaitsev strained his eyes to read. “…made voluntarily”. He looked back at Serafimov. “Is this a joke?”

Serafimov certainly had something angelic about his appearance, like his namesake, the biblical seraphim. It was easy to be taken in by his blue eyes and soft rosy cheeks. Serafimov had been transferred to the squad about five years ago, when there were still shots being fired in the dark streets of Leningrad, and the city was swarming with gangsters. He was straight in at the deep end, spending whole nights waiting in ambush or running through a hail of bullets.17

Zaitsev read the statement, then dropped the sheet onto the table.

“Serafimov, you’re exhausted. It happens. But there’s no need to do anything reckless. Here, take it. Off you go and sleep it off. I haven’t seen this.”

But Serafimov grabbed his sleeve. “I’m serious, Vasya.”

Zaitsev wasn’t yet thirty, like most in the Criminal Investigation Department. But they worked on more cases in a year or two than most teams were faced with in ten years. Zaitsev was none other than Detective Vasily Zaitsev. Comrade Zaitsev. Known only to his close colleagues in Squad 2 as Vasya.

“Serafimov, we don’t have enough men. Martynov is going from all-nighters straight on to call-outs, Demov is taking photos instead of interviewing neighbours, and you—you want to quit?”

Zaitsev was surprised by the look on Serafimov’s face.

“I’m serious,” he repeated softly.

Zaitsev looked at him. Hmm, so it seemed.

“OK, sit down.” Zaitsev closed the office door, slicing off the tentacle of tobacco smoke which was swirling in from the corridor.

Serafimov sat down on the sofa, sinking into the velour cushions. Zaitsev sat on the windowsill. The window was wide open. On the tidal river below, there was a quiet, steady splash of waves against the granite parapet. The River Fontanka gave off wafts of both fresh and rotten smells at the same time.

“Vasya, don’t waste your time. I’ve already decided,” said Serafimov. His voice was melancholy. The pistol on his hip showed through his skinny jacket. On Serafimov, with his curls, his blue eyes and his rosy cheeks, the weapon looked like a toy.

“You’ve decided. OK, you’ve decided. I won’t argue with you, you’re a big boy. I’m just curious. What are you going 18to do? Tram driver? Clerk? What is it? Your girl’s had second thoughts? Wants to marry an accountant? Less of the night shifts and the criminal underground?”

Serafimov stood up. He walked over to the window. He gestured with his eyes to the closed door. Zaitsev slid off the windowsill and closed the window.

“What do you think? It’s hardly my choice. They’ll purge me if I don’t go first,” Serafimov explained quietly.

“Ha!” Zaitsev was surprised. “Purge you? And what dirt has the commission got on you, eh? That you were wounded on duty? That you risked your own life carrying your comrade Govorushkin to safety after he was shot by bandits? That you barely sleep at night? Everyone knows your biography, Serafimov. Men like you are worth their weight in gold here in CID.”

“It’s fine for you to talk!” exclaimed Serafimov.

“What about me? How am I different?”

“It’s all straightforward where you’re concerned.”

“And what isn’t straightforward about you?”

They were interrupted by the phone. Zaitsev picked up the receiver and held his hand up to Serafimov, as if to say, “Wait a second.”

“Zaitsev speaking. Yes, I’m writing it down. Uh-huh. OK, thanks.”

Irritated, Serafimov stared out of the window.

Zaitsev hung up. He was animated.

“Interesting! Baranova’s neighbour called—from the flat. She’s remembered something. Says she wants to talk tomorrow.”

He checked the file. “Olga Zabotkina. Hmm, a music teacher. Good. Smart old biddies are better at keeping an eye on the neighbours and their admirers than people realize.”

But Serafimov didn’t share his enthusiasm. “What isn’t straightforward?” he repeated sarcastically. “Well, I suppose it is—especially my background.”19

“What’s he on about?” muttered Zaitsev, having apparently already forgotten what they were talking about. His thoughts were now completely taken up by Olga Zabotkina.

He knocked a handful of photos against the table, straightening up the pile. He placed them in the folder and tied it up.

“My father was a priest, Vasya.”

“Serafimov, you didn’t hide your background from the authorities. You declared it openly on the form,” continued Zaitsev as he put the folder away in the safe, “when you applied to join the police. The only people who should be afraid are those with something to hide.”

“That was then! It didn’t matter back then. Now it does. The purges are real, Vasya. They’re going to send me packing. You get blacklisted, you get a wolf ticket on your passport. Then there won’t be any jobs on the trams. They send you away, Vasya—beyond the 101-kilometre boundary. For being an anti-Soviet element. Categorized as hostile to the Soviet social order. Whereas if I leave now of my own accord, there won’t be any questions. I might be able to set myself up as a shop assistant, or a mechanic.”

Serafimov was afraid that his eyes would well up. The injustice of it hurt.

Zaitsev still looked straight ahead with his cheerful, cold eyes. Only now they were more cold than cheerful.

“Don’t take it personally, Serafimov.”

The tears did well up. Serafimov turned away.

“It is personal, Vasya,” he forced out. “Why should my dad have anything to do with it?”

“What are you—a baby?” Zaitsev snapped. “Let the real troublemakers get hot and bothered, not you. You know what?” he added, changing his tone. “The only category you come under is police officer, and the most Soviet kind at that. End of story.”20

Zaitsev saw that what he’d said hadn’t made any impact.

“Listen, Serafimov. I’ve had an idea. There’s no point trying to convince our comrades in the commission. They don’t understand how much we need you. And there won’t be time to explain.”

Serafimov looked at him with hope.

Zaitsev once again pressed his fingers to his eyes. This time the pain behind his eyes didn’t go away.

“Look. Here’s an order. I’m sending you on a posting, Comrade Serafimov.” Zaitsev paused a moment to think. “For a skills exchange with your comrades in the provinces. Is your mission clear?”

A rosy colour gradually returned to Serafimov’s cheeks.

“Yes, I think so.”

“And when you get back, no one will be any the wiser. Whoever they end up purging—good luck to them. But it’ll all have blown over by the time you’re back. Is that clear, Comrade Serafimov?”

“It is. But where to?”

“Where what?”

“Where am I being sent to?”

Zaitsev thought about it. “Kiev? Magical city—so I hear.”

Serafimov nodded. “Kiev would work.”

The Remington crunched as Zaitsev fed a sheet of paper in. He began to pelt the keys with one finger, the letters clinking as they jumped about. His message to their Kiev comrades was a brief one, it seemed. Zaitsev turned the wheel, pulled out the sheet and scrawled a loopy signature at the bottom.

“Tomorrow go and collect your ration cards for the trip and they’ll issue you with the tickets. So this purge—when’s the meeting?…”

Zaitsev turned over the page of the diary on his desk.21

“OK, it’s at eleven. So, come in tomorrow at eight sharp to get ready. Then off you go.”

“Tomorrow morning?…”

“And I’ll go to the meeting instead of you. If they want to purge someone, let them pick me. My background’s about as prole as you get. They won’t find anything on me—nothing but my trousers.”

Serafimov opened his mouth, but before he could say “Thank you”, Zaitsev frowned at him.

“Girls say thank you—when you give them flowers,” said Zaitsev.

Serafimov stopped, unsure what to say.

“I’ll gladly go and sit in this meeting instead of you. Give my legs a rest. OK, go. And sleep!”

II

Zaitsev was somewhat surprised to see metal trolleys being wheeled in from the morgue. A gurgling dissonance echoed off the high ceilings and the painted walls, hung with portraits of party leaders. This was the purge itself, Zaitsev realized. The members of the commission were sitting at a table at the front. Zaitsev spotted some comrades from other police squads. He couldn’t help noticing his boss Kopteltsev, head of CID, among the corpses. His eyes scanned the room for his team. He saw Samoilov, and Martynov, and old Demov, and even the dog handler—what was his name again? And Serafimov.

“Why didn’t you leave?” he asked.

Neither Samoilov, nor Martynov, nor Serafimov seemed surprised by the metal trolleys or the unbearable, dazzlingly bright ceiling lamp that shone its ghastly light straight in your eyes. Nothing ever surprised Demov. Zaitsev suddenly threw off his jacket and slipped off his braces. He realized in 22horror that he was getting undressed, and quickly. With monstrous, incomprehensible speed and ease. His satin boxers had already dropped to the floor. He stepped out of them, shook them off his foot. And woke up.

The room was chilly in the morning half-light.

“Damn it, I’ve only slept an hour or two,” Zaitsev estimated. How annoying. A metallic glint caught his eye as it glimmered on a huge, delicate spider’s web on the ceiling. Quietly, gently, it started to descend towards him. Zaitsev knew then, even before they touched him, that the gossamer threads weren’t delicate and sticky, but razor sharp and taut.

At this point he woke up completely, his heart thumping and his pillow crumpled in his hands.

The sun shone low through the window. That must have been the garish lamp in his dream. Light poured onto the white ceiling and the stucco plasterwork, showing up the dust that filled the nooks and crannies: eternal shadows lending a touch of character to the vestiges of former luxury. There was no other luxury in Zaitsev’s room.

Zaitsev reached for the crushed cigarette packet on the stool. He tried to pull one out, tapped the box and gave it a blow. He eventually got one out and put it in his mouth. He took it out again right away. He gave up yesterday, he remembered. It always used to be so easy to get up in the summer. Zaitsev threw back the sheet.

Outside, the sparrows screeched. The summery Leningrad morning had already revved up its motor and was rumbling through the streets, chattering with a cacophony of voices. The black hands of the alarm clock stood like an upside-down letter v, or that obsolete letter izhitsa. A radio prattled away in the corridor.

Zaitsev pulled out a drawer. He got dressed. As he did so, he nudged the pack of cigarettes under the chest of drawers. 23A shame to throw it away completely, but out of sight, out of mind. He pulled out another drawer. Pasha had tidily left his change in a meticulous metal pyramid on top of the unspent ration cards. Yesterday’s purchases were in brown paper bags. They rustled as he checked the contents: tea, coffee, sugar. Wrapped in an off-white linen napkin was a loaf of black bread.

At the helm of the sprawling communal apartment, and the front entrance, the entire courtyard and arched passageway through to the second courtyard, indeed the entire house—which legend has it was home before the Revolution to the famous mezzo-soprano Anastasia Vyaltseva, and which now housed ordinary workers—at the helm of the entire building was, of course, Aunt Pasha. Or, to some, Pashka. A large, middle-aged woman, with a large metal badge on her apron, Pasha was to be found on summer and autumn mornings wielding her prickly broom in the courtyard, and on winter and spring mornings sprinkling sand and scraping the snow with her shovel. In her spare time, when not serving the state, Pasha sat at her sewing machine, her stout foot pressing rhythmically on the square cast-iron pedal inscribed with the name “Singer”.

And it was she, dear Pasha, who managed Zaitsev’s lean bachelor household.

The criminal investigator was so busy with his work that he didn’t have time to manage even his very meagre domestic affairs. Zaitsev left Pasha in charge of his money and ration cards and she left his groceries for him in the top drawer. The second drawer housed all of Zaitsev’s summer clothes and the bottom one was for his winter clothes. For convenience, he had given Pasha a key to his room. Zaitsev had nothing to steal except a cast-iron kettlebell in one corner and a worn-out armchair in the other. The wiry horsehair was escaping from the fabric. The people in their house lived poor, meagre lives. 24But even they were unlikely to be tempted by the kettlebell or the armchair.

For Zaitsev it was all perfectly sufficient.

Zaitsev made himself coffee in the shared kitchen, with its ten Primus stoves and ten tables of all different shapes and sizes. He cut a rough slice of bread and sprinkled it with sugar.

“So, Comrade Zaitsev, still not found yourself a wife? I never see you eat a proper meal,” tutted his neighbour Katya as she plonked her frying pan on the stove and tossed in a lump of butter. She wore a chiffon headscarf over her curlers. Katya didn’t like to be “untidy” in front of her neighbours: she was an intelligent lady, an accountant at the Krupskaya factory.

“Good morning, Katerina Yegorovna.”

The eggs hissed in the butter. Waiting for them in their room were Katya’s husband and their daughter, a student. The daughter planned to get as far away as possible from her roots and become quite the aristocrat: a dental technician.

“And what do girls need from a husband? Someone with nothing wrong with him, arms and legs in the right place. Accommodation, a salary, you’ve even got an officer card—what more can you ask?!”

“Have a nice day, Katerina Yegorovna.”

This was their regular morning ritual, where each had their allotted role. Katya played hers with indifference—her daughter was already spoken for.

Looking at Katya, Zaitsev was particularly perplexed: how did these people find themselves a spouse? Who would look at a hulking body like hers and see the girl of his dreams? And yet, supposedly her husband had actually chosen her, this Katerina Egorovna. It just didn’t make sense, he mused, munching on his bread. People decide to get married. They sign the register. They fill their rooms with Primuses and mattresses, then cots and washtubs. They build their little nests 25together. To Zaitsev, this aspect of ordinary human life seemed unfathomable. And all the rituals that went with it. Asking a girl to dance. And then the indispensable draping your jacket over her shoulders, with the endless River Neva as a backdrop. Not to mention the poems, the flowers… Zaitsev shuddered. He brushed the crumbs from his front and downed the rest of his coffee in one gulp.

“What, Comrade Zaitsev? Has the tea gone cold?” His neighbour Palych had just come into the kitchen. “I just had some. Nothing but grass in there. I had a look—all kinds of filth mixed up in there. No more than twenty pro cent actual tea.”

Palych said “pro cent”. It seemed to make no difference to him if anyone was actually listening. Sometimes it seemed like residents of the apartment purposely steered him towards the kitchen, when they could no longer take any more of his incessant chatter.

“Pure burdock, that is, it’s not tea.”

“I’m having coffee,” Zaitsev answered.

In a world where Faina Baranova was murdered—where such a calm, unnecessary and savage murder was possible—there was no space for bouquets of flowers or asking girls to dance. The brain simply didn’t have the capacity to process it all. This strange case of Faina Baranova now occupied Zaitsev’s mind to the exclusion of all else.

The neighbours were already swarming in the corridor, queuing for the bathroom laden with towels and soap. As he walked out onto the embankment of the River Moika, Zaitsev slammed the door behind him. Pasha had already swept outside: the ground was still marked by the circular tracks of her stiff broom. It was a long time since there had been any kind of lawn in front of the house.

Spotting the tram turning on St Isaac’s Square, Zaitsev sped up, jumped on as it passed and clung on, standing on 26the footboard. The tram led him through this beautiful city where for the most part people lived a poor, dreary, unkempt life. Squabbling in their communal kitchens, struggling amid the chaos and stench of life to rest from the tedium and exhaustion of work, with hours on end idled away queuing for horrible foodstuffs grandly described as “nutrition products”, painfully squirrelling away enough for a pair of shoes or a suit for special occasions, paying off government loans from their meagre salaries, struggling to stay awake through endless party meetings. But you wouldn’t know all that from the Leningrad morning with the sun sparkling on the spires and in the windows.

Even at this early hour when all the shops were still closed, the longest queue was a rabble winding its way along the street towards the vodka store. A meandering line of indistinct, crumpled faces that made Zaitsev think of the old euphemism “the green serpent”. When he got to 25th October Prospekt, he jumped down from the tram.

III

The copper nameplate for “F. Baranova” had not yet been unscrewed from the front door. Pinned up next to it was a handwritten note saying “Two short rings”. The door was dotted with signs giving the names of all the tenants and instructions on how to summon them specifically. Every sign in its own way expressed the character of its owner. Together they made for a motley sight.

The name “Zabotkina” was inscribed with oil paint on a rectangular piece of plywood. Zaitsev pressed the bell as instructed: two long and one short. And then he thought of joking with the music teacher. Why this little ditty and not a more complex composition?27

Zabotkina came to the door.

“Comrade, are you from the police?” she asked reverently, timidly.

And Zaitsev decided against his joke.

In shape, Zabotkina resembled a large, pale, unripe pear. Her slightly dishevelled hair was tied back in a bun. Round glasses like fish eyes. Zaitsev noted a vague resemblance to Lenin’s wife, Nadezhda Krupskaya.

“Zaitsev, investigator.”

“Come in, comrade.” Zabotkina’s voice turned out to be as quiet and pallid as her appearance suggested.

As soon as he stepped into the flat he could tell which was Zabotkina’s room from the faltering tones of Für Elise. Zabotkina let Zaitsev into the dark corridor, where Elise stumbled along, dragging her feet. And in a mysterious whisper, Zabotkina added, “I knew right away that it was you.”

The string with the brown seal was still stretched across the door to Baranova’s room from the previous day. Zaitsev turned away.

Most of Zabotkina’s room was filled by the piano. An instrument of torture. Its current victim looked to be about ten years old. The girl had her fingers outstretched on the keyboard. A huge bow was fixed to her cropped hair, though it was unclear what physical force held it in place.

“Valya, elbows down,” her teacher commanded with a fearful glance at Zaitsev. He gestured as though to say, “Not at all, don’t worry.”

Zaitsev looked around for somewhere to sit. Zabotkina quickly pulled an oblong cushion away from the couch to make space. Zaitsev sat down and realized it wasn’t a couch but a chest covered with a rug. Another rug was nailed to the wall above.

The girl played a wrong note, shook her head, again picked up the slippery, looping melody. From the dripping sound of 28the notes, Zaitsev could almost imagine it was a rainy autumn evening outside, not a summer morning. His temples filled with heaviness. Keeping her voice low, the teacher gave her student some corrections.

Finally, her victim noisily scraped back the chair and began to gather up her music in a red folder embossed with a golden treble clef.

“Right, now I can speak,” said Zabotkina in that pallid, expressionless voice, once her pupil had gone. She sat on a swivel chair with her back to the piano, her large white hands folded on her lap.

Zaitsev imagined her palms to be cold and moist. Like squashing some kind of slimy sea creature.

“The neighbours don’t complain about the music?” he asked with a smile.

“No. We’re all on good terms in this apartment,” said Zabotkina, peering through her round glasses.

A much-repeated phrase, mused Zaitsev.

“She’s a funny one, that Valya. And among your students, do you have more boys or more girls?” he asked, just to make conversation.

Zabotkina looked at him in astonishment. “I’ll have to check my notes,” she answered seriously. She jumped up.

“Oh no, it doesn’t matter. I was just curious.”

He smiled again. The teacher didn’t answer his smile. Her face showed something akin to panic.

“You called and said you had remembered something important,” Zaitsev reminded her softly.

Her face immediately came to life. She seemed to light up, to glow with purpose and direction.

“Yes. Or rather, no, I didn’t remember it. I knew it from the very beginning. It was just the way the question was worded.”

“And what was the question?”29

“Your colleague asked if anything was missing. The one with the red eyes.”

Martynov. I shouldn’t have made him come with us on the call-out, Zaitsev thought.

“And was there?”

“No,” Zabotkina replied quickly. “I don’t think so. Not as far as I know.”

“Are you familiar with the contents of Baranova’s room?”

“Yes, I think so. Faina is a kind lady. She was. She liked having me over to tea in her room. Or just to sit and talk. Over some needlework.”

“She enjoyed needlework?”

“Me more than her. Perhaps not a lot. But now and then. For relaxation.” The music teacher looked frightened again. As if she had found herself back in the middle of a swamp.

“And what was it about the way the question was worded?” Zaitsev asked, carefully guiding her back to solid ground.

“There wasn’t anything missing. Something had appeared!” A little colour even came to her cheeks.

“What do you mean?”

“Faina was a very calm, ordinary person,” she began, seemingly out of the blue.

Zaitsev let her talk.

“The curtain. It wasn’t there before. And the dress. Faina didn’t have a dress like that. And the feather duster!”

“Could she have bought them?” suggested Zaitsev. “And you hadn’t seen them?”

“No!” she almost shouted. “Sorry, no. She would never have bought such things! Faina wasn’t one for anything flashy.”

“Might she have been given them as a present? People aren’t always familiar with others’ tastes when they give presents. Might her colleagues have given them to her, for example? Does that seem likely?”30

Zabotkina boldly looked into his eyes and stated almost defiantly, “She would never have even brought them into her home.”

“I see,” Zaitsev readily agreed. It’s fully possible that she’s right, he thought. But then this is complete madness.

Suddenly Zabotkina perked up again. “Do you know what, you should ask Uncle Grisha.”

“And who’s that?”

“Our neighbour, Grigory Mikhailovich Okunev. A very good person.”

Oh yes, everyone’s on good terms in this apartment, Zaitsev remembered.

“He helps all the neighbours!” insisted Zabotkina as though she had heard him.

Zaitsev was already taking a particular dislike to this unusually friendly apartment.

“He would have had to help Faina hang the curtain.”

“What, she wouldn’t do it herself?” asked Zaitsev in mock surprise, playing along with her.

“What do you think?! If she even stood on a stool, she’d be dizzy! I’m not exaggerating. And look how tall our windows are! You can’t clean the windows standing on a stool, you need to get a stepladder down from the attic. And certainly to reach the cornice!”

“Thank you for that observation. I’ll clearly need to visit again to speak with your Grigory Mikhailovich when he comes back from work.”

“Oh no, he’s a pensioner!” Zabotkina was delighted to explain. “People bring all kinds of things round for him to fix. He can turn his hand to anything. Come on, I’ll introduce you now.” Zabotkina jumped up with a surprising lack of effort. “Come on! Only do speak up. He’s rather hard of hearing.”

He certainly won’t mind her music, then, thought Zaitsev. That must be why they get on so well.31

Okunev lived at the very end of the corridor. His was a narrow room with one window. It had been cut off from another, much larger room: the ceiling rose was divided by the neighbouring wall. Okunev’s room seemed even smaller because of all the ironmongery lying around. Zaitsev didn’t even spot the man straight away. When he did, he recognized the same little woodland gnome he had seen yesterday.

“Uh?” asked Okunev, looking attentively not at Zaitsev’s eyes, but at his lips.

That’s right, he’s hard of hearing, Zaitsev remembered. He wasn’t deliberately getting in the way yesterday, he just hadn’t heard anything to be scared off by.

Both of them shouting, he and Zabotkina managed to establish from the old man that no, he hadn’t hung any curtains, but he had soldered a Primus. Yes, he had definitely done that. And he had fitted a new handle on the iron. But a curtain? No, he hadn’t hung up any curtains.

“And what kind of curtains did Faina Baranova have?” Zaitsev asked. “Before, I mean.”

“Plush,” Zabotkina answered.

“Brown,” said Okunev.

“Yes, brown,” agreed Zabotkina.

And then Okunev confirmed. “Yes, plush.”

“I see,” Zaitsev concluded.

Although he didn’t. He was still none the wiser.

IV

Zaitsev only had time for a quick check of the inventory in the Baranova file before he had to dash to his purge meeting. There were no brown curtains mentioned among the things in her room. Neither plush nor brown.

So where were they? Had they been taken away by whoever 32hung the scarlet curtains? Was it the same person who killed Baranova?

Zaitsev left the inventory and the photographs on the table and, hastily pulling on his jacket, rushed off to his purge review. He wasn’t worried about it. He had no reason to be. Throughout Leningrad, throughout the country, the Soviet government was screening its citizens, purging the ranks. Everyone had to answer to the collective, to everyone else, and especially to the GPU review committees. Who are you? What did you do before the Revolution? Who are your parents? What did they before the Revolution? Were they for or against the Soviet system? Did you own property? Weren’t you bourgeois? Aristocracy? What if your relatives had fought against the Soviet regime? There was no room for black sheep in the new Soviet society.

But Zaitsev wasn’t afraid for his job. He whistled as he ran up the stairs.

The table in the assembly hall was covered with a red tablecloth. As Zaitsev sat waiting, he idly examined the threadbare patches. The tablecloth was made from an old curtain, probably from a theatre, but it was meant to represent something revolutionary. The militant atmosphere didn’t quite come across, though. The long table, draped with this cloth that reached the floor, instead resembled a coffin.

The members of the commission were recruited by virtue of their class: in other words, they were ordinary Leningrad down-and-outs. They had poor nutrition and an even worse quality of life, which you could tell from their unkempt look and the greyish-green tinge to their complexion. In the meagre light of the electric bulb hanging from the ceiling—who knows why it was even on in the middle of the day—the commissioners at their coffin–table almost had the air of a gathering of vampires. If it weren’t for the fact that all six looked scared.33

Zaitsev even felt sorry for them.

Poor Soviet lackeys—they were appointed to purge the police ranks of undesirables, but that responsibility didn’t make them any less afraid themselves. At the end of the table sat some rank or other from the GPU, or OGPU as the state political directorate was now known, the department that had established the new category of crimes—crimes against Soviet ideology. The GPU officer’s shaved scalp glistened. His nose almost rested on his mouth. A blue-topped cap lay on the table in front of him, its scarlet star facing the hall, watching the audience like the all-seeing eye of Gogol’s demonic Viy.

Zaitsev’s chair was set forward, in front of the table. Everyone in the building had been made to come along to the review meeting. From investigators to the typing pool. The telephone monitors were the only ones left in peace. Someone had to answer the calls.

A combination of perfume and curiosity wafted from the girls. Everyone else was quietly simmering. There was work waiting to be done. The big city didn’t slam on the brakes for such an occasion. It lived a life of its own. People didn’t stop thieving, robbing, abandoning babies (if not at the Obvodny Canal, then at the front door), running off with public money, knocking down pedestrians, damaging public property, getting drunk, stabbing and bottling, beating women or jumping off bridges. Neither did they lay off the homicide.

While they had to sit here for the purge, there was evidence to gather, witnesses to question, reports to write, crime scenes to photograph, prints to take. Everyone was eager to get away.

“Make a start, comrades!” ordered the GPU officer.

Look at the epaulettes on him, Zaitsev thought. His collar tabs suggested he wasn’t some junior ranker.

Zaitsev’s face was expressionless.34

One of the commissioners gingerly reached out for the carafe of water, slowly poured some into a cloudy glass and took a sip, peering over the glass at each in turn, bewildered.

The pause dragged on.

“You’re in charge,” the GPU man urged on the commissioners. “Go ahead and ask.”

One of the men at the table began to cough and clear his throat. Everyone looked at him, willing him on. But he didn’t make another sound. He pulled out a used handkerchief and wiped his mouth. Then he went back to staring at the large, wilting ficus that had been brought for the occasion from the accounting department and installed at the end of the table.

The ficus itself looked up at the dusty, smoky window that hadn’t had a wash in a while.

Our northern summer is a caricature of a southern winter, thought Zaitsev. The ficus must think it’s an outrage.

Zaitsev tried to shift slightly, but the chair under him howled and creaked, resulting in an even deeper silence.

“And you, Zaitsev, stand up. Get up! Show some respect for the procedure.”

The man with the collar tabs and the blue cap gestured with his fat, white hand, as if to say, “Up you get.” Zaitsev’s chair gave a parting cry. Zaitsev got up in relief, shaking off the stabbing pins and needles.

From here he could see pretty much everyone in the hall. The irritation on people’s faces was gradually replaced by a sleepy stupor. These meetings usually dragged on forever, like the Leningrad rain.

“Comrade, state your name!” someone finally hissed behind him.

Zaitsev turned around.

“Speak into the hall,” came a sly, haughty voice from behind the ficus. The GPU man was used to those undergoing a purge 35review being flustered—fidgeting, sweating and stammering. He took a dislike to this fellow, his back straight, with eyes bright as a Yakut dog. He stared straight ahead, eyes wide open, as if to say, “I’ve nothing to hide, what you see is what you get.” And yet instinctively, the GPU man seemed to sense that before him was someone who had plunged the depths, who had swum the dark waters like a fish.

I’ll beat that arrogance out of you, he told himself.

“Zaitsev, Vasily.”

“Louder,” demanded the gepeushnik, the GPU officer. He began to get impatient with the cowardly commissioners, the lackeys. “I’m not shy to say my name out loud before the people: Sharov, Nikolai Davydovich,” he demonstrated.

“Right. Zaitsev! Vasily!” His baritone roar echoed from the ceiling.

“That’s better, Citizen Zaitsev.”

They had made a start now. The purging committee visibly perked up.

“Date of birth.”

Zaitsev answered.

“Speak up,” Comrade Sharov demanded again. He had given up waiting for his deputies in the commission. Yet again, he had to take matters into his own hands.

“Comrades,” Zaitsev roared, “is there anyone who can’t hear me? I can come and repeat it in their ear.”

There was nothing particularly funny about his remark, but the hall broke out into smiles and muffled laughter. Zaitsev could see why they would laugh. How many years they had spent together on stake-outs, confronting armed bandits, burying their comrades who had fallen in action. They weren’t the kind to surrender their colleagues. To anybody. And the GPU maggot knew that. Zaitsev couldn’t stand all these proceedings, this whole pretence. They heard your case and 36decided your fate: you were either clean enough to stay or you got the boot. The whole charade was just a waste of time.

The faces before him were all young. No one was over thirty.

But they weren’t laughing at a joke. They were baring their teeth to the unwelcome visitor. And he got the message.

“You, Zaitsev, you’ll answer properly. Or you’ll be working as a circus clown down on the Fontanka, not in the Soviet police.”

“And what was the question?”

By this point, the audience were following the duel with interest and a touch of schadenfreude. Sharov rummaged through some papers and pulled out a piece of paper.

Zaitsev recognized it as the form he had filled in at some point, rounded off with his bold signature.

“And why is Comrade Serafimov not here?”

“He’s on a work trip.”

“He wasn’t yesterday, but today he is? Is that what you’re saying?” pestered GPU agent Sharov.

Is he really called Sharov? Zaitsev wondered. It sounded more like a party alias.

“It happens in our line of work,” Zaitsev uttered clearly.

Now you needed to retell everything from your statement in your own words: that was how the purge review worked. It was no surprise his colleagues were sitting there stewing—as if they cared about Zaitsev’s biography.

“Origin.”

“Proletarian,” Zaitsev answered clearly.

“Father.”

“Father: unknown. Mother: laundress. Zaitseva, Anna. I can tell you about my mother.”

“Unknown, you say?” Sharov’s shaved head glistened as he buried his face in the folder.37

Perhaps time for some new glasses, Zaitsev thought spitefully. And then he noticed that the folder he had taken the sheet of paper from wasn’t the yellow card one with Zaitsev’s personal file, but a good-quality leather one. Such good quality was something Zaitsev didn’t like the look of.

“And here we have some other data,” Comrade Sharov began enticingly. “An unambiguous entry in the parish registry. Anna Zaitseva was married to Danilov, Pyotr Sergeevich, merchant. St Petersburg, 1908.”

Zaitsev didn’t flinch. Not a flicker.

“My dad had his way with my mum and scarpered. In all honesty, that’s how I came about. I’m sorry, but whoever my dad was, it’s shrouded in mystery.”

“And yet here it says: Anna Zaitseva…”

“With all due respect, Anna Zaitsevas are as common as muck in Leningrad. What are you hinting at?”

Sharov gave the perfect impression of a distressed sigh. But his voice conveyed nothing: it was metallic, didactic.

Zaitsev remembered the spider’s web from his dream that morning. Then out of nowhere he thought of a childhood rhyme: Fou, fou, fum—nightmare be gone!

“I’m not hinting at anything, Comrade Zaitsev. I’m saying it as it is, plain and direct. You misled the Soviet police and the Soviet people.”

The end of his sentence was drowned out by a loud shriek of laughter. Everyone turned towards the window. The guffaw had come from a rotund, middle-aged woman sitting on the windowsill, her stout booted legs poking out from under her skirt.

“Oh, I can’t,” she squealed.

Zaitsev hoped his face didn’t give anything away.

“You, citizen… Citizen!…” The gepeushnik began to fuss. “Is she an employee? If you’re an employee then behave like one, or you leave the room this instant!”38

He’d have as much success trying to budge a rhino.

Pasha knew how to handle men. The drunkards of Fonarny Lane knew to fear her wrath. She wiped her red face with the hem of her cardigan.

“I’m a witness, actually. What of it? Well, I knew your Nyourka.”

“She’s not mine. You’re referring to the aforementioned Citizen Anna Zaitseva? You knew her?”

He had come out in a rash of raspberry red. His short neck quickly filled with blood.

A short, sharp blow is usually enough, mused Zaitsev. That should finish him off.

“Answer properly, citizen! We’re not at the market. State your name and vocation.”

The GPU man hovered his cartridge pen over his sheet of paper, poised to make notes.

“Yes, yes, I’ve nothing to hide. Praskovya Lukina’s my name. Vocation: janitor.”

Comrade Sharov didn’t manage to get a word in before she was off again.

“So you see, this Miss Nyourka Zaitseva. Forgive me, comrade policeman. You’re a Soviet man, p’raps you won’t catch my drift. How it was in the old times, you know… You don’t rake it in working at the laundry, do you? Well, suffice to say, goodness only knows who the father is. That Nyourka were a lively lass, that she were.”

Sharov was distracted for a moment from the fact that Pasha ought not to have been in the room.

“Zaitseva was engaged in prostitution?” he asked, hopefully.

“Oh no”—Pasha waved her rough red claw of a hand. “What, are you deaf? A laundry lass, she were, like I said. Washed and scrubbed. Your linen and your smalls, whatever 39came. That’s how she earned her living. No, no, the lads were for the soul. She had a weakness for the lads, let’s say, God rest her soul.”

Sharov hurled his cartridge pen onto the table, spattering ink. A few drops landed on the blue top of his cap. This sent him into even more of a rage.

“Enough!” he yelped.

What’s it to be? thought Zaitsev. Stroke? Heart attack?

“Citizen… You, citizen… You’ll express yourself in a civilized fashion here!”

The audience was already chuckling openly. The fear had even lifted from the commission—on their faces appeared the first blush of a smutty, knowing smile.

“Civilized? Well, well, what’s that now?” asked Pasha at full volume. A new explosion of laughter.

Zaitsev stared at Pasha. She didn’t even look his way.

“Stop fooling around this instant!” spluttered Sharov, the gepeushnik.

“I’ll say it civilized like,” she mumbled in a more submissive tone, throwing a quick glance at Zaitsev. “Forgive me, comrade policeman.”

She inhaled deeply, taking air into her expansive chest; at the fullest point, a button burst open. Savouring her words, she continued. “How to describe Nyourka Zaitseva? Well, she was a…”

The familiar, terse profanity clicked deliciously in the air. The entire room collapsed into laughter. Comrade Sharov burst out of his chair, nearly knocking over the flimsy ficus. Someone from the commission grabbed the bell on the table and began to shake it furiously, calling for order. Its ringing also sounded like a shriek of laughter.

“Stop it!” the GPU man yelled in vain. “Leave the room this instant!”40

Samoilov made his way through the aisle like Moses across the Red Sea when it parted in the storm. His full body was constrained by his jacket, otherwise he might have spread even more about the middle. Unexpectedly, given his build, Samoilov was as agile as a cat. His short sideburns accentuated the feline look.

“I’m warning you: you’re next on my list!” choked Sharov.

Looking around at the raging sea, Samoilov went one better than Moses. He put two fingers in his mouth and let off a loud whistle that cut through the air like a whip. The sea subsided. Everyone fell silent.

Samoilov didn’t even glance at the commission.

“All right, Zaitsev. Enough sitting around. Squad 2’s about to leave. Mokhovaya Street. A body.”

Zaitsev lingered for a moment. He spotted Kopteltsev and asked him with a glance. Kopteltsev merely nodded.

“Off you go,” he ordered drily.

The chairs shuffled. Zaitsev jumped from the rostrum. Everyone broke into motion, not just Squad 2. With visible relief, everyone was glad to hurry back to their interrupted affairs.

“We have more important things to attend to here!” boomed the gepeushnik, Sharov, leaning towards the audience.

Samoilov once again looked at the CID chief, Kopteltsev. But he had suddenly found something much more interesting under his fingernails.

“What do you mean, comrade?” Samoilov was indignant. “A Soviet citizen has been found dead. What’s more important than that?”

“This is Comrade Sharov, Nikolai Davydovich”—Zaitsev quickly filled Samoilov in.

Kopteltsev said nothing. His little cherry eyes didn’t even blink. But Zaitsev knew: it wouldn’t be long until they knew everything there was to know about this Agent Sharov.41

“For interrupting the implementation of the task—” Sharov launched into a running start.

But Samoilov was already racing ahead. “What do you mean, interrupting? When we have a common task? Protecting the peace and the labour of Soviet citizens. A task assigned to us by the state,” he enunciated loudly, his palm helping to separate one word from the next. An echo bounced off the empty walls. “A Soviet citizen is dead. And the perpetrator must be found and punished according to Soviet law.”

Sharov too turned to Kopteltsev for support—but he too couldn’t catch his eye. Kopteltsev merely raised his chubby palm, as if silently saying, “OK, enough.”

Interesting, thought Zaitsev, observing their little pantomime.

Kopteltsev’s wordless gesture, or perhaps the word “Soviet”, silenced the gepeushnik like a stake putting paid to a vampire. Samoilov added insult to injury with a final glare. Only then did he turn his back on Sharov. The GPU agent was now left sitting alone at an empty table. He stood up with a jolt, pulling the tablecloth with him. His cap dropped to the floor, rolled away, further than he could reach, and flopped there like a pancake. Nobody rushed to pick it up.

“This is not the last you’ll hear from me, I assure you of that,” Sharov creaked, struggling to free his legs from the long tablecloth.

V

The police bus was already rumbling and shaking. With his short, stubby legs, Samoilov ran across the cobbled street and pulled himself up on board. He swore when he almost stepped on the tail of the dog stretched out on the floor. Ace of Clubs nuzzled his face against his handler’s lap.42

Samoilov flopped down next to Demov.