The Red Coffin (21 page)

Finally, the door opened just enough to let the head of an elderly woman appear. She had a big, square face and a blunt nose. A heavy, acrid smell, like sweat or ammonia, wafted out of the building. ‘This is a government institute!’ she told them. ‘It is not open to the public.’

Kirov held out his NKVD pass book. ‘We are not the public.’

‘We are exempt from routine inspection,’ protested the woman.

‘This is not routine,’ said Pekkala.

The door opened a little further, but the woman still blocked the entrance. ‘What is this about?’ she asked.

‘We are investigating a murder,’ said Pekkala.

The colour ran out of her face, what little had been there to begin with. ‘Our cadavers are supplied to us by the Central Hospital! Every one of them is cleared before …’

‘Cadavers?’ interrupted Pekkala.

Kirov winced. ‘Is that what the smell is?’

‘We are looking for a man named Zalka,’ continued Pekkala.

‘Lev Zalka?’ Her voice rose as she spoke his name. ‘Well, why didn’t you say so?’

Finally, she allowed them to come in and they stepped into what had once been the main foyer of the bathhouse. Tiles covered the floors and huge pillars supported the roof. To Pekkala, it looked more like an ancient temple than a place where people went to swim.

‘I am Comrade Dr Dobriakova,’ said the woman, nodding at each man in turn. She wore a starched white jacket, like those worn by doctors in the state hospitals, and thick, flesh coloured tights which made her legs look like wet clay. She did not ask the men their names, but wasted no time ushering them down the long main corridor. In rooms leading off on either side, the two inspectors saw animals in cages – monkeys, cats and dogs. From those rooms came the odour they had smelled in the street – the sour reek of animals in captivity.

‘What happens to these animals?’ asked Kirov.

‘They are used for research,’ replied Dr Dobriakova, without turning around.

‘And afterwards?’ asked Pekkala.

‘There is no afterwards,’ replied the doctor.

As she spoke, Pekkala glimpsed the pale hands of a chimpanzee gripping the bars of its prison.

At the end of the corridor, they arrived at a door, painted cornflower blue, on which Pekkala could still read the word
‘Bath’, painted in yellow. Here, Dr Dobriakova turned and faced them. ‘It does not surprise me,’ she said in a low voice, ‘to learn that Comrade Zalka is involved in something illegal. I have always suspected him as a subversive. He is drunk most of the time.’ She breathed in, ready to say more, but paused when she saw the two men draw their guns. ‘Do you really think that’s necessary?’ she asked, staring at the weapons.

‘We hope not,’ replied Pekkala.

The woman cleared her throat. ‘You should prepare yourself for what you see in here,’ she said.

Before either of the men could ask why, Dr Dobriakova swung the door wide. ‘Come along!’ she ordered.

They entered a high-roofed chamber, in the centre of which was a swimming pool. Above it, supported by pillars like the ones they had seen when they first walked in, was a balcony that overlooked the pool. The warm, damp air smelled musty, like dead leaves in the autumn.

The water in the pool was almost black, not clear or glassy green, the way Pekkala had expected it to be. And in the middle of this pool was the head of a man, floating as if detached from its body.

The head spoke. ‘I was wondering when you would show up.’ Then he held up a bottle and, with the other hand, twisted out a cork. As he did so, the bottle’s paper label, bearing the bright orange triangle of the State Vodka Monopoly, came unstuck from the glass and slithered back into the pool. The man took a long drink and smacked his lips with satisfaction.

‘Disgraceful!’ hissed Dr Dobriakova. ‘It’s not even lunchtime and you are already halfway through a bottle!’

‘Leave me alone, you freak of nature,’ said the man.

‘You must be Professor Zalka,’ said Pekkala.

Zalka lifted the bottle in a toast. ‘And you must be the police.’

‘What are you doing in there?’ asked Kirov.

At that moment, the blue door opened and a woman in a white nurse’s uniform walked in. She stopped, surprised to see two strangers in the bathhouse.

‘These men are from the government,’ explained Dr Dobriakova. ‘They are investigating a murder, in which this imbecile,’ she jabbed a finger towards Zalka, ‘has been involved!’

‘We merely want to speak with Professor Zalka,’ said Kirov.

‘You don’t look as if you came to talk,’ replied Zalka, nodding at the guns.

Pekkala turned to Kirov. ‘I guess we can put these away.’

The two men holstered their weapons.

‘Your time is up, Lev,’ said the nurse.

‘And I was just getting comfortable,’ he grumbled, as he made his way towards the edge of the pool.

‘Why is that pool so dark?’ asked Kirov.

‘The water is maintained with the correct balance of tannins for the research subjects.’

Kirov blinked at her. ‘Subjects?’

Zalka had reached the edge of the pool, where the water was only knee deep. At first glance, his pale and naked body appeared to be covered with dozens of gaping wounds. From these wounds oozed thin trickles of blood. It took a moment for Pekkala to realise that these wounds were
actually leeches, which had attached to his body and hung in bloated tassels from his arms and legs. As he floated in the shallow water, Zalka began plucking the leeches from his skin and throwing them back into the centre of the pool. They landed with a splat and vanished into the murky liquid.

‘Careful!’ warned the nurse. ‘They are delicate creatures.’

‘You are a delicate creature,’ replied Zalka. ‘These,’ he snatched another leech from his chest and flung it into the pool, ‘are the inventions of the same twisted god that invented Dr Dobriakova.’

‘As I’ve told you many times already, Comrade Zalka,’ replied Dr Dobriakova, going red in the face, ‘leeches play a valuable role in medical science.’

‘So will you when they lay you out on an autopsy slab.’

‘I should dismiss you!’ shouted the doctor, rising up on the tips of her toes. Her voice echoed around the pillars. ‘And if I could find anyone else who would do this work, I certainly would!’

‘But you won’t dismiss me,’ smirked Zalka, ‘because you can’t find anyone else.’

Dr Dobriakova’s mouth was open, ready to carry on the fight, when Pekkala interrupted.

‘Professor Zalka,’ he said, ‘we have a serious matter to discuss with you.’

‘By all means,’ replied Zalka.

Pekkala turned to see the nurse holding out a tangle of metal hoops and leather straps, which he realised was a leg brace.

‘That’s yours?’ asked Kirov.

‘Unfortunately, yes,’ replied Zalka. ‘The only time I don’t think about it is when I’m floating in this pool.’

‘How long have you worn a brace?’ asked Pekkala.

‘Since July 10th, 1914,’ replied Zalka. ‘So long ago that I can’t even remember what it feels like to walk without it.’

Pekkala and Kirov looked at each other, realising that whoever they had chased through the forest on the day Nagorski died, it wasn’t Lev Zalka.

‘How do you remember the date so precisely?’ asked Pekkala.

‘Because the day I strapped on that contraption was exactly one month after a car lost control in the French Grand Prix, skidded off the track and right into the side of me.’

‘The 1914 Grand Prix,’ said Pekkala. ‘Nagorski won that race.’

‘Of course he did,’ replied Zalka. ‘I was his chief mechanic. I was standing at our pit stop when the car slammed into me.’

Now Pekkala remembered that Nagorski had mentioned the accident in which his chief mechanic had been badly hurt.

‘If you wouldn’t mind helping,’ said Zalka, his arms still raised towards them.

While Pekkala and Kirov supported him, the nurse handed Zalka a towel, which the crippled man wrapped around his waist. Then, with Zalka’s arms around their shoulders, they walked him to a chair. Once he was seated, the nurse gave him the brace, and he went through the process of strapping it to his left leg. Where the leather straps crossed over, the hair on Zalka’s leg had been worn away, leaving pale stripes in the
flesh. The muscles of his withered thigh and calf were barely half the size of those on his right leg.

Dobriakova stood back and watched, arms folded. Her face was set in a frown which seemed to be permanently carved into the corners of her mouth and eyes.

Where the leeches had been on Zalka’s arms and chest, his skin showed grape-sized bull’s-eye welts. In the centre of each one was a tiny red dot, where the leech had been attached. All over his body, like freckles, were the marks where other leeches had dug into his skin.

‘Are you ready for your meal now?’ asked the nurse.

Zalka looked up at her and smiled. ‘Marry me,’ he pleaded.

She gave him a swat on the head and went out through the blue doors.

‘Inspectors,’ said Dobriakova, scowling at Zalka, ‘I’ll leave you to question this criminal!’

When she had gone, Zalka sighed with relief. ‘Better you with your guns than that woman with her moods.’

‘Zalka,’ asked Kirov, his voice a mixture of awe and disgust, ‘how can you do this?’

‘Do what, Inspector?’ replied Zalka.

Kirov pointed at the dingy water. ‘There! That!’

‘Healthy leeches require a living host,’ explained Zalka, ‘although preferably one who’s not intoxicated. As I tend to be, these days.’

‘I’m not talking about them. I’m talking about you!’

‘I don’t have many options for employment, Inspector, but for one hour a day in the pool I make as much as I would in a nine-hour shift at a factory. That is, if I could get work at a factory. What I make here gives me enough time to carry on
with my own research, a line of work for which I am, at the moment, tragically undercompensated.’

‘Aren’t you worried about catching some kind of disease?’

‘Unlike humans,’ said Zalka, ‘leeches don’t carry disease.’ He reached around to the back of his head, where he discovered another leech buried in his hair. As he slid his thumbnail under the place where the leech had attached itself to his skin, the leech curled around his thumb. He held it up admiringly. ‘They are very deliberate creatures. They drink blood and they have sex. You have to admire their sense of purpose.’ Now his face became suddenly tense. ‘But you did not come to talk about leeches. You came to talk about Nagorski.’

‘That is correct,’ said Pekkala, ‘and until two minutes ago, you were our prime suspect for his murder.’

‘I heard about what happened. I’d be lying if I told you I was sad to hear he’s gone. After all, it’s because of Nagorski that I have to bleed for a living, instead of designing engines, which is what I should be doing. But I’m better off now. The way Nagorski treated me was worse than anything those leeches ever did.’

‘Why were you kicked off the Konstantin Project?’ asked Pekkala. ‘What happened between you and Nagorski?’

‘We used to be friends,’ he began. ‘In our days of racing cars, we were together all the time. But then I was injured, and the war came along. After the armistice, Nagorski tracked me down in Paris. He told me about his idea, which eventually became the Konstantin Project. He said he needed help designing the engine. For a long time, we were a team. Designing the V2 engine was the best work I’ve ever done.’

‘What went wrong?’

‘What went wrong,’ explained Zalka, ‘is that Nagorski’s facility had become like an island. There were bunk houses for us to sleep in, a mess hall, a machine shop so well equipped that there were tools in there which none of us could even identify. The idea was that we would be able to get on with the project undisturbed by government inspections, meddling bureaucrats or any of the daily concerns which might have eaten up our time. Nagorski dealt with the outside world, while we were left alone to work. What we didn’t realise was that out there in the world, Nagorski was taking credit not only for his work but for ours as well.

‘Was he always like that?’ asked Pekkala.

Zalka shook his head. ‘Nagorski was a good man before the Konstantin Project took over his life. He was generous. He loved his family. He didn’t wrap himself in secrets. But once the project had begun, he turned into something else. I barely recognised him any more, and neither did his wife and son.’

‘So what happened between you was an argument over the engine?’ Pekkala was trying to understand.

‘No,’ replied Zalka. ‘What happened was that Nagorski’s design virtually guaranteed that the tank crew would be burnt alive if any kind of fire broke out in the main compartment or the engine.’

‘I heard,’ said Pekkala.

‘I wanted to change that, even if it did weaken the hull by a small margin. But Nagorski would not even discuss it.’ In frustration, Zalka raised his hands and let them fall again. ‘How perfectly Russian – that the machine we build to
defend ourselves becomes as dangerous to us as it is for our enemies!’

‘Is this why Nagorski fired you from the project?’ asked Pekkala.

‘I wasn’t fired. I quit. And there were other reasons, too.’

‘Such as?’ asked Kirov.

‘I discovered that Nagorski was intending to steal the plans for the T-34 suspension system.’

‘Steal them?’

‘Yes,’ Zalka nodded. ‘From the Americans. The design for the suspension is known as a Christie Mechanism. The wheels are fitted on to trailing suspension arms with concentric double coil springs for the leading bogies …’

Pekkala held up his hand. ‘I will take your word for it, Professor Zalka.’

‘We had been working on a design of our own,’ continued Zalka, ‘but Nagorski’s meddling had put us so far behind schedule that we weren’t going to meet the deadline for going into production. Nagorski panicked. He decided we would go with the Christie Mechanism. He also decided we would say nothing about this to Stalin, figuring that by the time the design was approved, nobody would care, as long as it worked.’