The Beast in the Red Forest (6 page)

Before leaving NKVD headquarters, Kirov climbed up to the fourth floor, where he found Elizaveta, Sergeant Gatkina and Corporal Korolenko in the fire-bucket room, just sitting down to tea.

Sergeant Gatkina slapped her hand upon the empty crate beside her. ‘Perfect timing, Major,’

‘I have some good news,’ announced Kirov, as he took his place upon the rough wooden seat.

‘A promotion, I hope,’ said Gatkina. ‘It’s about time they made you a colonel.’

‘About time!’ echoed Corporal Korolenko.

Gatkina turned and stared at her. ‘Must you repeat everything I say?’

Korolenko did her best to look offended, turning up her nose and looking the other way, as if suddenly fascinated by the wall.

‘Well, no,’ began Kirov, ‘it’s not a promotion. Not that, exactly.’

‘Is it scandal?’ asked Corporal Korolenko, unable to sustain her indignation. ‘Because I love scandal.’

‘Then find yourself some general to seduce!’ grumbled Sergeant Gatkina.

‘I might,’ replied Korolenko, sipping at the scalding tea. ‘I just might.’

‘Spit it out, Major!’ commanded Gatkina, oblivious to their difference in rank.

‘It’s about Pekkala,’ explained Kirov.

At the mention of the Inspector, a tremor seemed to pass through the room.

‘What about him?’ asked Elizaveta.

‘I’ve been given new orders by Comrade Stalin. I’m no longer tied down here in Moscow. I am to search for the Inspector, no matter where it takes me. He told me to scour the earth if I had to! And that is exactly what I intend to do. New evidence has surfaced. I can’t talk about it. Not yet. But I can tell you that there’s a chance, a good chance, that Pekkala might still be alive.’

For a while, there was nothing but silence.

‘Tea break is over!’ announced Sergeant Gatkina. ‘Back to work, Korolenko.’

‘But I’ve just sat down!’ protested the corporal.

‘Then you can just stand up again!’

Muttering, Korolenko left the room, followed by Sergeant Gatkina, who rested her gnarled hand gently on Elizaveta’s shoulder. ‘Not you, dear,’ she said.

And then it was just Kirov and Elizaveta.

‘What did I say?’ asked Kirov. ‘Why did they leave like that?’

Elizaveta breathed in slowly. ‘Because they know I have been dreading the day that you would bring me news like this.’

‘News that Pekkala . . . ?’

‘Yes,’ she told him flatly.

‘But I thought you would be pleased!’

‘Did it never occur to you that I might wish he would never come back?’

‘Of course not!’ replied Kirov. ‘I don’t understand you, Elizaveta.’

‘Do you know that when Sergeant Gatkina heard you were working with Pekkala, she gave you six months to live?’

‘Why would she do that?’

‘Because of something everyone can see. Except you, apparently.’

‘And what would this be?’ he demanded.

‘Death travels with that man,’ she said. ‘He is drawn to it and it is drawn to him.’

‘And yet he has survived!’

‘But those around him have not. Don’t you see? He is like the lamb that leads other sheep to the slaughter.’

‘That’s ridiculous!’ laughed Kirov. ‘Listen to yourself.’

But Elizaveta was not smiling. ‘The first time I looked in Pekkala’s eyes, I knew exactly why the Tsar had chosen him.’

‘And why is that?’

‘Because of what he is.’

‘Because of
who
he is, you mean.’

‘No, that is not what I mean. If you go out there,’ Elizaveta aimed a finger through the wall, ‘in search of that man, I’m afraid you will never come back.’

‘Even if that were true, what choice do I  have? Stalin has given me orders!’

‘To look for him, yes, but how hard you look is up to you.’

A look of confused disappointment passed like a shadow across Kirov’s face. ‘Even if I had no orders, you know what I would do.’

She nodded. ‘And that is why I am afraid.’

With Elizaveta’s words still echoing in his head, Kirov returned to the office.

Immediately, he set to work. After clearing everything off his desk, he laid out a map of Ukraine. Kirov’s lips moved silently as he whispered the names of places he’d never heard of before. Bolshoi Dvor, Dubovaya, Mintsevo. The vastness of it overwhelmed him.

If Pekkala really is out there, thought Kirov, somewhere in that wilderness of unfamiliar names, then why did he come all this way to Moscow, only to vanish again without ever getting in touch?

Lost in his own mind, Kirov reached instinctively for his pipe and the dwindling supply of good tobacco which he kept in the drawer of his desk. The tobacco was stored in an old leather pouch, so old and frayed that blond crumbs sifted through its broken seams every time he picked it up. Remembering the new pouch given to him by Linsky, Kirov fished it out of his pocket. For a moment, he studied the leather, turning it over in his hand as if the wrinkles of its grain, which curved and wandered like the roads upon the map which lay beneath it, might offer him some clue as to its original owner. Finding nothing, he untied the cord which held the pouch together and turned it inside out, to make sure it was free of dust and grit before loading the pouch with tobacco.

That was when he noticed a small black symbol burned into the hide. It showed what looked like two commas, facing each other. Beneath the commas was a triangle, the tip of which nudged up between the brackets. Under the triangle were the numbers 243.

It was just a tanner’s mark, the likes of which he had seen branded on leather saddles when his parents had run a tavern in a village called Torjuk on the road between Moscow and Petrograd.

Travellers arrived at all times of day or night, and it had been Kirov’s duty to see to their horses, removing the saddles, brushing them down and feeding them before the travellers departed. Almost every saddle had some kind of stamp in the leather, and sometimes several, placed there not only by the craftsmen who had manufactured the saddle but also by their owners. It had always seemed to Kirov that there were as many different stamps as there were saddles which he lifted from the backs of tired horses.

There was only one person he knew of who might have any idea how to trace such a symbol – a cobbler named Podolski. After the disappointment of his meeting with Lazarev, Kirov held out little hope that this tiny symbol might bring him any closer to Pekkala. But he knew he had to try, if only for the sake of thoroughness. With a groan, he rose to his feet and made his way back downstairs.

This time, Kirov did not take the car, but walked instead, striding across the city with his particular loping gait, the heel irons of his boots sparking off the cobblestones.

Podolski ran a shoe-repair business in a side street across from Lubyanka Square. His proximity to NKVD headquarters, and the fact that he specialised in military boots, meant that the personnel of Internal Security comprised almost all of his customers.

Unlike Linsky’s front window, which at least contained the products of his trade, festooned though they were upon some of the ugliest mannequins Kirov had ever seen, Podolski’s window display had nothing to do with shoes. The dusty space was strewn with old books, hats and odd gloves which Podolski had picked up off the street. This collection of orphaned relics was presided over by an old Manx cat who never seemed to move from its fur-matted cushion.

Just before he stepped inside the shop, Kirov paused and looked around. Once again, he had the feeling that he was being watched. But the side street was empty, and so was Lubyanka Square. No faces loomed from the doorway of NKVD Headquarters, or from the shuttered windows up above. And yet he experienced the unmistakable sensation of a stare burning into him, like a pinpoint of sun concentrated through a magnifying glass. I really am losing my mind, he told himself. If Stalin knew what was going on in my head, he’d tear up my Special Operations pass and have me thrown out into the street. If I could just talk to someone about it, he thought, but the only one who’d understand is Pekkala. I can’t breathe a word of this to Elizaveta. She already thinks I’m mad for not giving up on this search. I love her, he thought. I just don’t know if I can trust her. Not with something like this. Can you love someone and still not trust them? he wondered. Or do only mad men think these thoughts?

Podolski’s shop smelled of polish, glue and leather. Rows of repaired boots, buffed to a mirror shine, stood on shelves awaiting their owners, while boots still in need of repair lay heaped upon the floor.

Podolski was a squat, broad-shouldered man, whose body looked as if it had been designed for lifting heavy objects. A pair of glasses hung on a greasy length of string around his tree-trunk neck. On his gnarled feet, he wore a pair of old sandals so thrashed by years of use and neglect that if a customer had brought them in, he would have refused to fix them.

‘I just fixed your boots!’ muttered Podolski, when he caught sight of Kirov. He sat on a block of wood which had been draped with a piece of old carpet, a hammer in one hand and an army boot grasped in the other. The boot was positioned upon a dingy iron frame which resembled the branches of a tree. The end of each branch had been formed into shapes like the bills of large ducks, each one corresponding to the size and type of shoe which Podolski was repairing. Clenched between Podolski’s teeth were half a dozen miniature wooden pegs, used for attaching a new leather sole. When he spoke, the pegs twitched in his lips as if they were the legs of some small creature trying to escape from his mouth.

‘I’m not here about my boots, Comrade Podolski,’ replied Kirov. ‘I’ve come because I need your help.’

Podolski paused, hammer raised. Then he turned his head to one side and spat out the pegs between his teeth. Lowering the hammer to his side, he allowed it to slip from his fingers. The heavy iron fell with a dull thump to the floor. ‘The last time someone asked me for my help, I ended up fighting at the front for two years. And that was in the last war! Don’t say you’re calling me up again!’

Ignoring Podolski’s outburst, Kirov handed him the piece of leather from the tobacco bag. ‘Do you recognise that symbol?’

Without taking his eyes from the blurred scar of the brand mark, Podolski slid his fingers down the string attached to his glasses and perched them on the end of his nose. ‘The numbers 243 are the date this leather was tanned. It means ‘the second work quarter of 1943’, so somewhere around June or July of this year. But the symbol,’ he clicked his tongue, ‘isn’t one I’ve ever seen before. There are thousands of those symbols and they all look more or less the same. Trying to isolate just one of them would be like carrying water with a sieve.’

‘That’s what I was afraid of.’ Already, Kirov regretted having left the comfort of his office.

‘You’d have to go through the whole book,’ said Podolski.

‘A book?’ asked Kirov. ‘There’s a book of these symbols?’

‘A big book, but it would take hours to go through.’

‘Where can I find it?’ Kirov snapped impatiently.

With a groan, Podolski rose to his feet and made his way over to the window of his shop. ‘I’ve got it here somewhere.’

‘Find it, Podolski! This could be very important.’

‘Patience, Major. Patience.’ He paused to scratch the ear of his cat. ‘You should be like my friend here. He’s never in a hurry.’

‘I don’t have time to be patient!’ replied Kirov.

Podolski lifted up a thick volume crammed with pulpy grey pages. ‘Then good luck to you, Major,’ he said as he tossed the book to Kirov, ‘because you’ll find thousands of those little brands in there.’

The volume thumped against Kirov’s chest, almost knocking the wind out of him.

‘It’s probably in there somewhere,’ continued Podolski, making his way back to the wooden block. Thoughtfully, he rearranged the piece of carpet before sitting down again. ‘Unless it’s not a Soviet brand, in which case, you are completely out of luck. Either way, I wouldn’t know. I’ve never even looked in it.’

Kirov looked around for a chair, but there wasn’t one, so he lowered himself down to the floor with his back against the wall and rested the book on his lap. He was just about to open it, when suddenly he paused. ‘Why do you even have this book, Podolski, if you’ve never looked in it?’

‘The government gave it to me. I told them I didn’t want it, but they said it was the law. I have to own a copy, and so does anyone else who works with leather in this country.’

‘But why?’

‘All the leather I use for mending shoes and belts and whatever else comes through that door has to come from a State-approved tannery. Each tannery has its own symbol. They stamp the outer edges usually. You find them in each corner, in the parts of the hide that aren’t of even thickness or have too many creases. They usually get thrown away as scrap or turned into laces or,’ he skimmed the tobacco bag across the floor to Kirov, ‘turned into trinkets like these. As long as one of those stamps is on the hide when I buy it, I have nothing to worry about. But if I get caught using leather which hasn’t been approved, whether it’s any good or not, then I’m in trouble. And given my clientele, Major, that’s a chance I’d rather not take.’

‘You mean you have to go through this whole book every time you buy a hide for fixing shoes?’

‘All my leather comes from two or three local tanneries. I know their symbols by heart. One thing I can tell you, Major, wherever this came from, it’s nowhere near Moscow.’

Kirov began leafing through the fragile pages.

Podolski went back to work, after carefully fitting a new set of wooden pegs between his teeth.

The tanneries were listed alphabetically, each one with a symbol marked beside it, and Podolski was right – there were thousands to sort through. After half an hour of staring at symbols, they all started to look the same. They seemed to jump across the flimsy paper as if the book held a nestful of insects. Kirov kept losing his focus, sliding away into daydreams, only to wake from them and realise that he had been turning pages without looking at them properly. He had to go back and look at them again.