The Twelfth Department (32 page)

Ushakov picked up one of the apples by its stem.

“I can’t even tell you what size it was for certain, Korolev. Maybe if I knew exactly where it was found and could recreate the environment over a long enough period and had a sufficient number of different-sized apple cores, each eaten in exactly the same way, then I could tell. Maybe. If not, at least I’d have eaten a lot of apples.”

Korolev took the core from Ushakov and returned it to the bag, sighing. Then he tossed it into the nearby bin.

“I’m sorry, Korolev.”

“I thought it was a long shot.”

Ushakov pulled a glass box down from a shelf.

“I have something else however. Levschinsky spent a happy couple of hours putting this little work of art together for you.”

“What the hell is it?” Korolev asked, playing along—he had a good idea what it was.

“Your Dr. Shtange’s floor. This is the carpet, these the floor boards.” He indicated the layers of fabric and wood. “The blood goes through the gap between the boards, of course. Then there’s a layer of dust and rubble. Then the plaster ceiling. We cut that from the flat below so it’s probably accurate enough. Strangely the neighbor was quite keen to get rid of that part of his ceiling, and the building management committee was happy enough to arrange its replacement.”

The layers were balanced on a wooden frame that matched the distances between them. Much of the construction was caked with a dark-red, almost black crust.

“It’s not something he can be too precise on, but he reckons a minimum thirty minutes for the blood to go through. If anything, the summer heat would have made it take longer.”

Korolev leaned down to look more closely and, as he did so, caught a whiff of the caked blood that made him think better of the idea.

“That reduces the timings for us, thank you,” he managed to say, his stomach rolling as he straightened. Ushakov glanced up at him.

“Yes, it’s beginning to get a bit pungent, isn’t it?”

“A little.”

“Pig’s blood. Well, it’s going into the incinerator in about five minutes’ time, unless you want me to keep it.”

Korolev shook his head.

Ushakov smiled and returned the glass box to the shelf, then opened a small wooden box with brass corner fittings—inside was a rack of sample slides.

“As it happens, we came across something else interesting about the blood—not the stuff on the carpet, but where the murderer cleaned themselves—in the sink in the kitchen. We took some samples and not all the blood there was Shtange’s. Not, at least, unless he was a miracle of modern medicine and possessed two different blood groups.”

Korolev looked at the slide Ushakov was holding toward him. “I’ll take your word for it,” he said. “Tricky things, knives, particularly when you’re stabbing someone and there’s blood all over the handle. Easy to lose your grip and cut yourself.”

“Indeed. Find me the knife, of course…”

“And you could tell me more?”

“Yes, and if you have a suspect—I might be able to tell you something more again.”

Ushakov’s demeanor had been becoming increasingly serious as the conversation had progressed, and now it was close to funereal. He opened a drawer in his desk to remove from it a thick brown envelope. He put it on the tabletop and tapped it, as though considering something.

“You said you thought Dr. Shtange may have had something to do with the professor’s murder?”

“It seems that way.”

“But you’re not sure?”

“There are some inconsistencies.” Korolev chose his words carefully. “But it seems the story isn’t impossible. The doorman, Priudski, let Shtange into the apartment, it seems.”

“That’s interesting—because we’ve got one of Priudski’s fingerprints in Azarov’s study. On the door handle.”

Korolev shook his head sadly. “There’s an explanation, I’m afraid—he was in the apartment when the Militia arrived. The maid called him up.”

“We didn’t think to check if Priudski had been in Shtange’s apartment, of course.”

“Why would you?”

Ushakov tapped the envelope once again and Korolev wondered what the hell was in it.

“I can tell you half of Moscow had trundled in and out of that place by the time we got there. I’m presuming the blood in the sink belongs to the murderer, but who knows what our colleagues got up to in there over two whole days.”

“Nothing untoward, I’m sure,” Korolev said when the momentary pause lengthened.

“Of course not,” Ushakov said quickly.

“And the maid mentioned the blood in the sink,” Korolev said. “I’m sure it’s as you say.”

Ushakov finally picked up the envelope again, and sighed.

“Well, we had better luck with the crime scene in Professor Azarov’s study anyway. We picked up prints for the maid, the wife, the professor, and this Priudski fellow. And one other person’s.”

“Go on,” Korolev said, taking the envelope that was now offered to him and looking inside. There was a blood-browned document—about fifty pages thick, he guessed.

“I’ve written everything up for you, Korolev—but I’ve left this bit out. It’s the document the professor was reading at the time he was shot.”

“I remember it now,” Korolev said. “I’d forgotten we had it. I think I’d presumed our colleagues would have taken it.”

“I suspect it was an oversight on their part. And you’re not the only one who forgot about it. I’d put it in a box in our freezer—blood doesn’t do well in this kind of heat, as you know. I only came across it this morning.”

“So no one else knows about it?”

“I don’t think so. It’s not on the evidence list. And I won’t be putting it on it either.”

“Not in the report, not on the evidence list. Why?” Korolev asked, although he’d a hunch he knew the answer.

“If those Chekists took every piece of paper from the dead men’s apartments to look for something, I think this might have been what they were looking for.”

“You read it.”

“Enough of it to know I didn’t want to read anymore, or have it in my possession.”

Korolev sighed. “And the other person’s fingerprints? Shtange’s?”

Ushakov nodded. “All over it.”

Korolev pulled out the document and flicked through the pages that weren’t stuck together very quickly. The briefest of glances was enough to tell him it was Shtange’s report. And by the time he’d reached the end, he could see it was damning. A report that would have finished Azarov’s career for certain. As for anyone else’s—that would be something he’d see about later.

“So,” Ushakov said, scratching at his beard with his thumbnail. “What do we do with this?”

“You do nothing,” Korolev said, putting the report back into its envelope. “As far as you’re concerned this never existed.”

Ushakov managed a weak smile. “That’s what I hoped you’d say.”

“I’ve something to ask you in exchange though.”

“Ask.”

“I need a positive finding for those fingerprints. I suspect they’re there anyway.”

Ushakov paused for an instant, then nodded.

“And this gun certificate?” Korolev said, picking it up. “You might want to rewrite your report—this Derringer never existed as far as you’re concerned, and you certainly never made any connection between it and the bullet. For both our sakes. Things might change but, for the moment, the Shtange–Priudski story is the one that happened.”

Ushakov sighed and Korolev could have sworn he looked ten years older than when he’d first come into the room.

“I understand.”

CHAPTER FORTY

It wasn’t just the heat that made Korolev sweat as he walked to the car—it was also the presence of the envelope hidden under his jacket. He hadn’t seen any of Zaitsev’s goons since Dubinkin’s encounter with Svalov in the park—but that didn’t mean they weren’t there. Yesterday they’d been open about following him, but today they might have decided to be invisible, and Korolev had tailed enough people to know if the job was done well he wouldn’t spot them until it was too late. With that in mind, the report felt like a ticking bomb; he needed to put it somewhere safe—fast.

It was only when he had the car moving that he allowed himself to take a quick look in the mirror. No one was visibly following him and the street seemed empty enough. He should have been reassured—but instead he felt as though an invisible band were tightening around his chest, making each breath a battle. He found himself moving his shoulders, trying to shake some of the tension from them, trying to breathe more slowly as he did so, remembering that Yuri’s life was at stake. It wasn’t often that anger calmed him, but today seemed to be the exception.

As he drove, he ran over the events of the previous week, trying to put everything in its right place and to make sense of it all. A pattern was forming, most certainly. Of course, a few pieces of the puzzle were still missing, but the shape of the thing was becoming clear. And when, or rather if, he came up with the full picture, his guess was he’d know which of the two colonels was most likely to provide him and Yuri with a way out of this mess.

*   *   *

He parked at the back of Shtange’s building. He hadn’t bothered to look at this man Bramson’s file earlier, but he needed to now. And he wanted to see if he could find a safe place to leave the report while he was at it.

“Comrade Captain,” Kuznetsky said, when he opened the door to Shtange’s apartment.

“Is Sergeant Slivka here?”

“She called in half an hour ago—she’s been at the tram depot talking to drivers. To see if anyone had come across that Priudski fellow.”

Korolev handed him the keys to the car. “Go and find her—I need to talk to her. Take the car. I parked it around the back.”

“At your command, Comrade Captain.” The Militiaman hesitated.

“Well?” A thought occurred to Korolev. “You can’t drive?”

“No, Comrade Captain, I can drive all right. I just thought you’d want to know, the doctor’s wife came with some French gentlemen—not long after you left. They took most of the doctor’s belongings away with them. Lieutenant Dubinkin said it was all right, but I thought I’d tell you anyway.”

“Everything?”

“There wasn’t much. His books were already gone, of course, but she took what was left—they’d a car. The Comrade Lieutenant said the books were currently under investigation by another department, but that he’d put in a request for her. She wasn’t happy about that, I can tell you. Also there was a coat of hers missing. She wasn’t happy about that either.”

“A coat?” Korolev said, curious. “Did she say what kind of coat?”

Kuznetsky took his notebook out of his pocket. “I made a note. A long black overcoat. French. Large padded shoulders. Four buttons. Why would they only pad the shoulders? You’d get no warmth from padded shoulders on their own.”

“Decadent capitalist fashion, Kuznetsky. Not something that should bother the likes of us. What was Comrade Dubinkin doing here? I thought he’d gone about some business for us.”

He was supposed to be at the Lubyanka, as it happened, searching out Priudski’s file.

“He came back about ten minutes after you left. He was looking through the files.”

Which he was entitled to do—but why? What had he been looking for?

“Thank you, Kuznetsky,” Korolev said, expecting him to leave, but the Militiaman showed no inclination to do so.

“Something else as well?”

“That thing you asked me to do, Comrade Captain.”

Korolev had almost forgotten that earlier he’d asked Kuznetsky to talk to the local telephone switchboard and the one for Leadership House.

“I remember—the telephone exchanges.”

“I’d a bit of trouble there, I have to tell you. So, in the end—well—I had to pretend to be someone I wasn’t.”

The Militiaman looked remorseful, guilty, and frightened all at the same time.

“Someone you shouldn’t have?”

“I don’t know what came over me, Comrade Captain.”

“You pretended to be me?”

“No, Comrade Captain. Worse still.”

Perhaps it was his nerves, but the logical answer left him trying to suppress appalled hilarity.

“Not Dubinkin?”

Kuznetsky nodded, his head dropping.

“Anyway, the thing is, Comrade Captain, both Dr. Shtange’s number and Professor Azarov’s are restricted—as in, not all operators are permitted to connect them and there’s a procedure when they do. If I hadn’t pretended to be the Comrade Lieutenant then how would I have found out what calls they’d made?”

“You could have asked him to make the call himself.”

This seemed to be something Kuznetsky hadn’t considered—he put a hand to his forehead as if he’d been struck. Korolev felt like shaking him—this was the last thing he wanted to deal with on this of all days.

“What do you think the Comrade Lieutenant would make of you pretending to be him?”

“I think he wouldn’t be happy,” Kuznetsky said, his face looking as if it had been whitewashed.

Korolev forced himself to relax. “I suspect you’re right. So we’d best forget about this little inquiry of yours then—people might misconstrue your intentions. Understood?”

“Yes, Comrade Captain.”

“But Kuznetsky, before we forget completely, who did they call?”

Kuznetsky swallowed and his eyes managed to focus on Korolev. He took his notebook from his pocket.

“Professor Azarov made two calls on the morning of his death. The first to a Colonel Zaitsev at the Lubyanka just after nine o’clock and a second to the Bersenevka Militia Station at 11:05.”

The second phone call would have been Galina Matkina calling to report the professor’s murder. As for the first, Korolev opened his mouth to say something and then thought better of it. There were times when it was best to think carefully before you said or did anything and this was one of them.

“Also, someone telephoned Dr. Shtange from the Azarov apartment on Tuesday morning—at eight o’clock.”

Korolev decided not to say anything about this piece of information either. Colonel Zaitsev and his men were still investigating the Azarov murder at that stage, but they’d left the apartment by then, hadn’t they? Or had they?

“What about Priudski’s phone?”

“Four outgoing calls to the same number at a quarter past eleven, a quarter past twelve, at twenty to two and at three-thirty. Also a call to Petrovka at half past one.”