Child 44 (31 page)

Leo stared at Nesterov’s lopsided house. Nesterov replied:

—Tyapkin killed himself because he was guilty.

—As soon as we started arresting those men he knew we’d question those children, he knew we’d track him down.

—He had the surgical skill necessary to cut out a child’s stomach. He gave a false testimony to you regarding the girl’s murder to confuse us. He was devious, cunning.

—He told me the truth. That little girl’s stomach was cut out. Her mouth was stuffed with bark just as the boy’s stomach was cut out and his mouth was stuffed with bark. She had string tied around her ankle and so did the boy. They were killed by the same man. And it wasn’t Dr Tyapkin and it wasn’t that teenager Varlam Babinich.

—Go home.

—There was a body in Moscow. A young boy, called Arkady, not even five years old. I didn’t see his body but I was told that he was found naked, his stomach cut open, his mouth stuffed with dirt. I suspect his mouth was stuffed with bark.

—Suddenly there’s a murdered child in Moscow? That’s very convenient, Leo. I don’t believe it.

—I didn’t believe it either. I had the grieving family in front of me, telling me their son had been murdered, and I didn’t believe it. I told them it wasn’t true. How many other incidents have been covered up? We have no way of knowing, no way of finding out. Our system is perfectly arranged to allow this man to kill as many times as he likes. And he’s going to kill again and again, and we’re going to keep arresting the wrong people, innocent people, people we don’t like, or people we don’t approve of, and he’s going to kill again and again.

Nesterov didn’t trust this man. He’d never trusted him and he certainly wasn’t going to be drawn into making criticisms about the State. He turned his back on Leo, reaching for the front door.

Leo grabbed him by the shoulder, turning him so they were face to face again. The intention had been to make another point, to drive home his argument with reasoning and logic but instead, stumped for words, Leo punched him. It was a good punch, solid. Nesterov’s head cracked to the side. He remained in that position, head to one side. Then, slowly, he turned to face his junior officer. Leo tried to keep his voice steady.

—We’ve solved nothing.

Nesterov’s punch lifted Leo off his feet. He landed on the ground, on his back. It didn’t hurt, not yet. Nesterov stared down at him, touching his own jaw.

—Go home.

Leo got to his feet.

—We’ve solved nothing.

He threw a punch. Nesterov blocked, throwing one back. Leo ducked. He was a good fighter: trained, skilled. But Nesterov was larger and quick despite his size. Punched in the stomach, Leo doubled up. Nesterov brought a second blow down across the exposed side of his face, dropping him to his knees and splitting open the skin on his cheek. With his vision blurred Leo toppled forward, falling. He rolled onto his back, gasping. Nesterov stood over him.

—Go home.

In reply Leo kicked him squarely in the groin. He scuttled back, hunched over. Leo staggered to his feet.

—We’ve solved—

Before he could finish Nesterov ran forward, crashing into Leo, knocking him to the ground, landing on top of him. He punched him in the stomach, the face, the stomach, the face. Leo lay there, taking blow after blow, unable to get free. Nesterov’s knuckles were bloody. Catching his breath, he stopped. Leo wasn’t moving. His eyes were closed–a pool of blood collecting in his right eye, fed by a cut to his brow. Nesterov got to his feet, shaking his head at the sight. He moved towards the front door, wiping the blood on his trousers. As he reached for the handle he heard a sound behind him.

Wincing in pain, Leo pulled himself up. Unsteady on his feet, he raised his hands, as though ready to fight. He rocked from side to side, as if standing on a boat out at sea. He had only a vague idea where Nesterov was. His voice was a whisper.

—We’ve…solved…nothing.

Nesterov watched as Leo swayed. He walked towards him, fists clenched, ready to knock him down. Leo swung a hopeless, pitiful punch–Nesterov sidestepped and caught Leo under the arm just as his legs gave way.

Leo sat at the kitchen table. Inessa had warmed some water on the fire. She poured it into a bowl. Nesterov dropped a cloth in the water and Leo was left to clean his face. His lip had been split. His eyebrow was bleeding. The pain in his stomach had subsided. Pressing a finger over his chest and ribs, nothing felt broken. His right eye was swollen. He couldn’t open it. None the less, it was a relatively cheap price for getting Nesterov’s attention. Leo wondered if his case would sound any more convincing inside than outside and if Nesterov could be so dismissive in front of his wife, with their children sleeping in the room next door.

—How many children do you have?

Inessa replied:

—We have two boys.

—Do they walk through the woods on their way to school?

—They used to walk that way.

—Not any more?

—We make them walk through the town. It takes longer and they complain. I have to walk with them to make sure they don’t slip into the forest. On the way back there’s nothing we can do but trust them. We’re both at work.

—Will they be walking through the forests tomorrow? Now the killer has been caught?

Nesterov stood up, pouring tea and putting a glass down in front of Leo.

—Would you like something stronger?

—If you have it.

Nesterov took out a half-empty bottle of vodka, pouring three glasses, one for himself, one for his wife and one for Leo.

The alcohol stung the gash on the inside of Leo’s mouth. Perhaps that would do it good. Nesterov sat down, refilling Leo’s glass.

—Why are you in Voualsk?

Leo dropped the bloody cloth into the bowl of water, rinsing it and placing it against his eye.

—I’m here to investigate the murder of these children.

—That’s a lie.

Leo had to win this man’s trust. Without his help, there was nothing else he could do.

—You’re right. But there was a murder in Moscow. I wasn’t ordered to investigate it. I was ordered to sweep the matter aside. I did my duty in that respect. Where I failed was in refusing to denounce my wife as a spy. I was considered compromised. As a punishment I was sent here.

—So you really are a disgraced officer?

—Yes.

—Then why are you doing this?

—Because three children have been murdered.

—You don’t believe Varlam killed Larisa because you’re sure that Larisa wasn’t this killer’s first victim. Am I right?

—Larisa wasn’t the first victim. She couldn’t have been. He’d done it before. There’s a chance the boy in Moscow wasn’t the first victim either.

—Larisa is the first murdered child we’ve had in this town. That’s the truth, I swear it.

—The killer doesn’t live in Voualsk. The murders were by the train station. He travels.

—He travels? He murders children? What kind of man is this?

—I don’t know. But there’s a woman in Moscow who’s seen him. She saw him with the victim. An eyewitness can describe this man to us. But we need the murder records from every major town from Sverdlovsk to Leningrad.

—There are no centralized records.

—That’s why you have to visit each town and collect their case files one by one. You’re going to have to persuade them and if they refuse, you’re going to have to talk to the people living there. Find out from them.

The idea was outlandish. Nesterov should’ve laughed. He should’ve arrested Leo. Instead, he asked:

—Why would I do that for you?

—Not for me. You’ve seen what he does to these children. Do it for the people we live with. Our neighbours, the people we sit next to on the train, do it for the children we don’t know and will never meet. I don’t have the authority to request those files. I don’t know anyone in the militia. You do: you know these men–they trust you. You can get those files. You’ll be looking for incidents of murdered children: the cases can be solved or unsolved. There’ll be a pattern: their mouths stuffed with bark and their stomachs missing. Their bodies will probably have been found in public spaces: the woods, or rivers, maybe near train stations. They’ll have string tied around their ankles.

—What if I find nothing?

—If there are three, which I’ve stumbled across by chance, there will be more.

—I’d be taking a great risk.

—Yes, you would. And you’d have to lie. You couldn’t tell anyone the real reason. You couldn’t tell any of your officers. You can trust no one. And in return for your bravery, your family might end up in the Gulag. And you might end up dead. That is my offer.

Leo stretched out his hand across the table.

—Will you help me?

Nesterov moved to the window, standing beside his wife. She didn’t look at him, swirling the vodka at the bottom of her glass. Would he risk his family, his home, everything he’d worked for?

—No.

2 April

Petya was awake before dawn. Sitting on the cold stone steps of their farmhouse, he waited impatiently for sunrise so that he might ask his parents’ permission to walk into town. After months of saving he had enough to buy another stamp which would bring him to the last page of his album. On his fifth birthday he’d been given his first set of stamps by his father. He hadn’t asked for them but he’d taken to the hobby, cautiously at first and then more and more doggedly until it had become an obsession. Over the past two years he’d collected stamps from other families working on the
kolkhoz
–Collective Farm 12, the farm his parents had been assigned. He’d even struck up casual acquaintances in Gukovo, the nearest town, in the hope of obtaining their stamps. As his collection had grown he’d bought a cheap paper album in which he stuck the stamps, gluing them in neat rows. He kept this album inside a wooden box which his father had built for him with the express purpose of protecting it from mishap. Such a box had been necessary since Petya had been unable to sleep at night, constantly checking that water wasn’t leaking in through the roof or that rats hadn’t eaten the precious pages. And of all the stamps he’d collected he loved the first four that his father had given him the most.

Every now and then his parents gave him the occasional
kopek
–not a spare
kopek
, since he was old enough to realize there was no money to spare. In exchange he always made sure he did a little extra work around the farm. It took so long to save up that months went by and all he could do was contemplate which stamps to buy next. Last night he’d been given another
kopek
, the timing of which his mother had considered unwise, not because she was opposed to him buying stamps, but because she knew it meant that there was no chance he’d sleep that night. She’d been right.

As the sun began to rise Petya hurried inside. His mother insisted that he eat a bowl of oatmeal before going anywhere. He ate it as fast as he could, ignoring her concerns that he’d get a stomach ache. Finished, he ran out of the house, reaching the track that snaked through the fields on its way towards town. He slowed to a brisk pace. The shops wouldn’t be open yet. He might as well enjoy the anticipation.

In Gukovo the kiosk which sold stamps and newspapers was still closed. Petya didn’t have a watch. He didn’t know when it would open exactly but he didn’t mind waiting. It was exciting being in town knowing that he had enough money for a new stamp and he wandered the streets without any particular destination. He stopped by the
elektrichka
station, knowing that there was a clock inside. The time was seven fifty. A train was due to leave and he decided to watch it, walking onto the platform and sitting down. He’d travelled on the
elektrichka
before. It was a slow train which stopped at every destination on the way to the city of Rostov. Though he’d only ever been as far as Rostov with his parents, he and some of his school friends occasionally boarded the train for no reason other than they knew they could do so for free. Tickets were rarely checked.

He was almost ready to return to the kiosk and buy his stamp when a man sat down beside him. The man was smartly dressed and had a black case, which he put on the ground between his legs as though he was afraid someone might run off with it. Petya looked up at his face. He had thick square glasses, neat black hair. He was wearing a suit. Petya couldn’t tell how old the man was. He wasn’t properly old, with grey hair. But then again he wasn’t properly young either. He seemed unaware of Petya’s presence. Petya was about to stand and leave when, quite suddenly, the man turned and smiled.

—Where are you travelling to today?

—I’m not going anywhere, sir. Not on a train, I mean. I’m just sitting here.

Petya had been taught to be polite and respectful towards elders.

—It’s an odd place to be sitting for no reason.

—I’m waiting to buy some stamps but the kiosk isn’t open yet. Although it might be open now, I should go and check.

Upon hearing this, the man turned his whole body towards Petya.

—You collect stamps?

—Yes, sir.

—I used to be a stamp collector when I was your age.

Petya sat back, relaxing–he didn’t know anyone else who collected stamps.

—Did you collect new stamps or used stamps? I collect both.

—All of mine were new. I bought them from a kiosk. Just like you.

—I wish all mine were new. But they’re mostly used. I cut them off old envelopes.

Petya reached into his pocket, pulling out his handful of copper
kopeks
and showing them to the man.