City of Shadows (20 page)

“Them Russians,” Willi said admiringly. “How’d they learn good Ger
man so quick?”

“And he says Yusupov was at a party at the Green Hat on Saturday night.”

“How does he know?”

“He was there. The vodka was free. Prince Nick was there, too. Who, according to Chodsko,
did
leave at one point—just after he’d had a row with a girl. And that girl very much answers the description of Fräulein Tchichagova.”

“Lovely,” Willi said.

“He kill her?
He kill Natalya?”

“Somebody did. They don’t know who. Sit down, lovie.”

But Anna was rushing around the flat, almost skipping in her panic, trying to push a cupboard against the door to the stairs, failing, and in
stead grabbing a chair and inserting its back under the handle. She turned on Esther. “I do not stay here tonight. You tell Nick get me somewhere safe.”

“I have.”

“And dog.”

“Yes. I promise, I
promise.
”

There was no time to dwell on why it was Natalya who’d been killed. He hadn’t tortured her to get Anna’s address as he had Olga—hadn’t needed to; he’d known it, had waited outside it. Well, she could puzzle out the impenetrable once Anna was safe.

The girl’s fear was horrible; the conviction that she’d be next drained the blood from the area around her mouth, leaving it so white as to be clownish.

Esther made her sit down. “You’ve got to tell me who he is. Now you’ve
got
to tell me.”

“Cheka, it was Cheka.”

Shit.

She phoned Nick. “Where the hell are you? Why aren’t you here?”

“I’m seeing to it, I’m seeing to it. I’ll be there in a minute. Listen, Es

ther. When did it happen?” “Saturday night, I suppose. I don’t know, I don’t
know.
” “But
after
the scene she made in the Hat?” “For God’s sake,
of course.
How could she make it if she were dead?” She heard an exhalation of breath down the wire. “I completely got

alibis for every minute from ten-thirty. Big names. Thank you, God.”

There was something refreshingly stabilizing about his self-absorption; curiously, she felt better for it. “You’re a rock of undepend
ability, Nick,” she said. “Just get around here. And bring a dog.”

11

The front door
to 29 Bismarck Allee was opened to Schmidt and Willi by a lady who impressed them both by her marked re
semblance to General Ludendorff. Despite the cold of the hall they stepped into, she was fanning herself.

“Is it true? About Fräulein Tchichagova?” she demanded.

“It seems so, madam.”

“Foreign women. I’d never have taken foreign women in, but with times so hard...I should have known it would bring bad luck.”

Schmidt went upstairs. It hadn’t exactly been good luck for Fräulein Tchichagova either.

Solomonova had gained poise now and invited them into the apartment like guests. She lit the stove immediately and mo
tioned them to chairs near it. A small plate of cubed bread with a dish of salt, the traditional Russian offering to a visitor, was placed on a side table for them; so were two glasses of tea. The bread was stale, the tea leaves so few that they barely colored the water, but obviously hospitality must be extended to all callers, even the police.

Her skinny frame was padded out with sweaters, the top one being a man’s that hung down to her hips over a thick, embroidered felt skirt, its sleeves impeding her hands. Bouncy fairish hair was tied back with string. On her feet were overlarge, very worn fur boots. As she moved about, the dim light caught first one side of her face and then the other, like an old movie flickering back and forth between two different people.

Willi, Schmidt noticed, thanked her politely for each attention.

A typical nineteenth-century Berlin
Zimmer,
this, very like his own, the long, corridor-like salon running to the back of the house where a single window gave onto a courtyard, other rooms leading off it at right angles. At this end he and Willi occupied two easy chairs opposite a sofa. At the other end, to catch the light from the window, were an up
right chair and a cheap desk with a telephone, a typewriter, and a Dic
taphone.

As an abode of kept women, it was disappointing; close up, apart from the secretarial equipment, the contents showed disguised penury. Whiter patches on the whitewashed walls indicated that paintings had gone to the pawnbroker’s. Bookshelves had swelled the fire, as had his own; books were in neat piles on the floor.

In fact, Willi’s apartment was only a little smaller than this one, and the reason he and his family couldn’t park their butts, his inspector al
ways thought, was that they couldn’t find the chairs. A nice and loving woman, Frau Ritte, but one with an un-German belief in clutter.

When they were settled, Solomonova sat on the sofa opposite them, back straight, hands in her lap. Willi got out his notebook, Schmidt opened his mouth, but it was Solomonova who took over, like an army officer presenting a report.

“There was a man watching this house on Saturday night,” she said. “I didn’t see him, but Anna did. Natalya saw him also. A big man, she said, though she gave no other description. Anna was frightened when she glimpsed him standing in the doorway across the road. I rang the police, but they were busy, they didn’t come.”

Esther didn’t want to go into the matter of Olga’s murder—that would be another thing for tomorrow—but, presumably, they would have been told about her call to the police, so she had to mention it.

Damn,
damn,
they hadn’t. She saw Schmidt exchange an interrogative glance with his sergeant and the sergeant give a slight shake of his head.

Schmidt said, “Had either of them seen this man before?”

“Natalya hadn’t. Anna is always frightened of strangers. She had a mental breakdown sometime ago. She’s very frail.”

She’s hiding something, Schmidt thought.

The books piled by the wall indicated that someone in the apartment read several languages. He spied two ragged copies of
War and Peace,
one in Russian, one in German.
Das Kapital, Lettres de Mon Moulin,
a
History of England
by somebody-or-other, lots of Shakespeare in Ger
man and English, and the same edition of Virgil’s
Eclogues
and
Georgics
that he kept by his bed.

Don’t get charmed, he told himself, she’s in this up to her neck. She’s lying to you, Schmidt. Then he thought, Not actual lies, more
suppres
sio veri
than
suggestio falsi.

“Let’s start from the beginning, shall we?” he said. “Which is: Why did Potrovskov set the three of you up in this flat?”

She replied to every question lucidly, very kaiser’s-missus, but she was just answering, not proffering information.

The prince, apparently, had rescued a fellow Russian he’d been told about, from an asylum where she did not belong.

“Very philanthropic of him,” Schmidt said. “And Fräulein Tchichagova?”

Natalya had been brought in as a companion to Fräulein Anderson. Another act of philanthropy by Prince Nick, apparently. No, the other two girls in the flat had not been working. Natalya was between ap
pointments as an exotic dancer, and Anna was still too frail to have a job. The only person employed in the household was Solomonova. “I work from here,” she said.

“Doing what?”

“Secretarial stuff—translating, mainly. The prince has a lot of inter
national dealings.”

I bet he has, Schmidt thought. “Do you entertain men here?”

“No.” She treated it like all the other questions: no indignation, no protestation.

Willi made a note on his pad: check with the landlady.

“Tell me what happened on Saturday, Fräulein.”

She went through the events of Saturday. “. . . and then Natalya and I went to the Green Hat to collect our wages—”

“Where Natalya quarreled with Prince Nick,” Schmidt said.

That surprised her; she lifted her head to stare at him.

“I have my sources,” he said. “What was it about?”

“She was upset. Prince Nikolai was closing down the Purple Parrot. She wanted another job, which he couldn’t give her.”

“So there was a quarrel.”

“Yes. She ran away. The prince and I went looking for her. We didn’t find her. Prince Nikolai went back to his party. I came home to wait for her.”

They went into timing—when Potrovskov had returned to the party, when Natalya had returned to 29c, when she’d gone out again
.. . .

Prince Nick was qualifying nicely as the killer. He’d quarreled with the victim a few hours before she disappeared, he was a nasty piece of work. The fact that Chodsko had him back at the party well before Na
talya had made her brief return to Bismarck Allee and that, again ac
cording to Chodsko, the bastard hadn’t left it for the rest of the night, Schmidt was discounting. Who knew at parties? People came and went. ...Anyway, they only had Solomonova’s word for it that Natalya
did
return to 29c after the quarrel.

“Did Fräulein Tchichagova receive a letter on Saturday?”

“No. She never received letters.”

He fished out his tin of Manoli and took his time lighting up. “I have reason to think that Fräulein Tchichagova got a letter on Satur
day.”

“No,” she said. Then certainty left her. “Wait, yes, perhaps she did. When she came back that night, she was in the hall. ...I looked over the banister....She put a piece of paper in her pocket. A letter . . . Frau Schinkel complained about it being delivered so late
.. . .
” She was shaken now. “Oh, God, was it on her? Has it something to do ...?”

“Check the time, Sergeant.”

Willi closed his notebook and went downstairs to Frau Schinkel.

At his going, the atmosphere changed.

“If you think it’s Nick, you’re wrong,” she said, leaning forward. “I must make you believe it wasn’t him. He’s all sorts, but—and this is true—he wouldn’t murder Natalya. Why would he send a letter? Can I see it?”

“Do you know Prince Felix Yusupov?”
She shrugged, puzzled. “Every Russian knows of Yusupov.”
“Did Natalya know him?”
“No.” There was almost a smile. “She didn’t move in his circles.”
“Why aren’t you telling me everything?”
“I’m telling you what I can.”
They were using shortcuts; it was like the resumption of a long and

intimate acquaintance. Solomonova, surprised, drew back. Schmidt

thought, Fuck it. He said, “I’ll see Fräulein Anderson now, if you please.” “She’s very frail. You can’t depend on what she says,” Esther told

him. She prayed: Please, Anna, don’t play the grand duchess, not today. Schmidt was waiting. She got up. “I’ll go and fetch her.” Thank you, but he didn’t want Fräulein Anderson prepared. The

note to Natalya had said something similar:
“No prompters.”
He fol
lowed her down the room.

A scuffle from behind the door as Solomonova tapped on it sug
gested that Fräulein Anderson had been listening at her side of the key
hole. He doubted if she’d been able to hear much; it was a long room and a small keyhole. Solomonova said, “Anna, the police want to talk to you.”

A voice said, “I do not see them. I am ill. Send them away.”
“You must, Anna. Unlock the door.”
“No.”
Schmidt said tonelessly, “Unlock the door, Fräulein.”
The key turned. Putting out a hand to stop Solomonova from going in,

he said, “While I’m questioning her, I want you to make a statement to

my colleague when he comes back. Times, dates, biographical details.” “She is frail,” Solomonova said again. “I’ll leave the door open.” The room was almost dark, its only light concentrated around a trip

tych with a single candle illuminating its autumnal reds and golds.

Stumbling over obstructions, Schmidt went to the window and pulled back the curtains, an action that revealed the untidiest room he’d ever seen. In contrast to the rest of the apartment, which was scrubbed and polished, this was heaped with discarded clothing, newspapers and mag
azines, dirty coffee cups and plates, hairbrushes, cosmetics, stuffed dolls, wadded-up bits of paper, books and photographs—all suggesting a sub
stratum awaiting archaeological exploration. Frau Ritte’s rooms were nothing compared to this. At least hers were clean; this smelled frowsty. He’d seen more ordered places after a burglary.

In the middle of it, perched on a crumpled bed clutching a teddy-bear pajama case, was—as Solomonova had promised—a frail young woman. Height five foot three or four, slim, blue eyes. About the same age as the other women, early twenties. But whereas Solomonova was grown up, Anderson displayed the vulnerability of a baby chimpanzee taken from its mother and seemed smaller. Big eyes, violet smudges, stared at him with an agonized hostility.