‘Coffee?’ Kirov poured the coffee. Bogdanov stared sourly at the cassette player.
‘Do we have to have Mozart at breakfast?’
Kirov turned the music off. Mozart was his addiction. He wondered sometimes when music would lose its charms like all addictions. Bogdanov was a fan of horse-racing and football.
‘Why do you want me along? Why don’t we leave this one to the Fraud Squad and wait for the report?’ Kirov offered a chair. Bogdanov’s natural intrusiveness frayed him.
‘Bad night?’
‘I couldn’t sleep.’ He accepted a cigarette, and without looking for sympathy added, ‘My uncle Kolya is sick.’
‘General Prylubin? I thought he was dead a long time ago. I’m sorry.’ Having disposed of that subject Bogdanov wiped his lips and nudged his spectacles back into the groove worn into his nose. The spectacles were an old pair with wire frames mended with tape and gave him the air of a seedy bookkeeper. He reverted to the other topic: ‘Trust your uncle Bog. Something odd is going on.’
They drove in Bogdanov’s car. During the night it had snowed. An early fall and not the real thing. At this time of year the snow came and went and taxed the nerves. The true onset of winter was always a release.
‘Gusev?’ Kirov prodded mechanically while his attention strayed to the window and the view of snow in grey lumps or melting from the roofs along Kalinin Prospekt and running into the gutters. Empty streets except for a few dull trucks, the militia prowl cars and the early buses. The Okytabr Cinema advertised a new film, Iron Harvest, and a gang of women was being organised outside the Arbat restaurant ready for snow-clearing.
‘Gusev,’ Bogdanov intoned monotonously between efforts of concentration on the road. ‘Viktor Maximovitch. An official with the city water authority or a right ponce, depending on which way you want to look at it. He has one of those do-nothing jobs, pushes paper and gets his subordinates to do all the real work. Probably trades on the side: cement, pipes, construction equipment — he must get a lot of opportunity in that line. Still, you can’t chase them all, am I right? But antibiotics? Bakradze says yes, I say maybe — and you?’
‘I don’t know. How did Bakradze get onto him?’
‘He doesn’t say. Officially we don’t even know that he is onto Gusev. That’s the point!’ He glanced at Kirov.
‘You feeling OK? Have you read the reports, the ones from Antipov and all the girls in Sadovo-Sukharevskaya Street?’
Kirov tried to cast his mind back to the reports he had received from the MVD Anti-Corruption Squad. Bogdanov anticipated him. ‘Any mention of Gusev?’
‘No.’
‘No! See? For months this investigation has been chasing its tail, catching nobody but a few crooked pharmacists selling off stock and some wide boys with brains enough only to trade in the street. Now suddenly we have Viktor Gusev the Antibiotics King — that’s Bakradze’s story according to my man at Pushkin Street. He says that Gusev is going to take the fall — that Gusev is the mastermind behind the Great Jewish Antibiotics Ring.’
‘Perhaps he is.’ Kirov stared wearily at the snow vanishing as it hit the waters of the river. Why did I dream of my father? It’s not important: I must dream of something.
‘Then why don’t we hear about him? Why aren’t we invited to the party?’
They parked on the Frunze Embankment. The street leading from it was being roped off by a gang of druzhnikki; some of the early cars were slowing for a look, but the special constables, self-important in their red armbands, waved the traffic on. ‘See what I mean?’ said Bogdanov, jabbing a thumb in the direction of the druzhnikki as they slopped through the melting snow. ‘Look at them. Civilians! I bet Bakradze has got everybody here except the Red Army choir. This is a Hollywood production.’
The special constables allowed the two men through the barrier. There were vehicles in the street, half a dozen militia cars, a truck with a canvas roof, which had brought the druzhnikki and the stuff for the barrier, and Bakradze’s modest Zhiguli looking bright and cared for. A Black Raven was parked against one of the buildings to carry away the accused; the engine was running and the driver was strolling round it kicking the tyres.
‘Who is the photographer?’
A figure stood across the street; Kirov examined him — a kid, not police, not KGB.
‘I’ll ask him.’ Bogdanov trudged in the stranger’s direction, his tall spindly frame hunched forward. Kirov waited and occupied himself in detached study of the police cars as they stood, beautiful in the moist dawn light and the snow. Bogdanov dragged his way back with the stranger in tow. The younger man was flashing a red Komsomolskaya Pravda press-card. Bogdanov had a hand on his shoulder and said gloomily, ‘Aleksandr Mikhailovitch — Pyotr Andreevitch, and vice versa. OK, Sasha, just repeat the story. Get this, boss, you’ll love it. I love it. This is America we’re living in.’ The photographer looked sheepish. Encumbered by camera straps and the rest of his gear he struggled to put away his press-card.
‘Well?’
‘I’m here to photograph the arrest.’
‘Photograph — publicity — get it?’ said Bogdanov. ‘Go on, kid, tell him.’
‘There’s always a first time, isn’t there?’ Aleksandr Mikhailovitch said uncertainly.
In his tiredness Kirov was impatient with such innocence. He asked, ‘When did you get the request? There was a request, wasn’t there?’
‘Yesterday.’
‘Yesterday?’
‘Maybe five o’clock.’
‘When we were still in the office,’ Bogdanov commented pointedly. ‘My phone was working, was your phone working, boss?’
‘Who called you?’
‘The Public Prosecutor’s Office.’
‘Investigator Bakradze?’
‘I think that was the name.’
‘Personally?’
‘Yes — well, not me personally but my chief.’
‘Of course. But it was Bakradze on the phone?’
‘Yes — I mean I think so — that’s what I was told.’
By now Bogdanov was looking away in annoyance. He had never got wholly out of the habit of breaking heads, a relic from his police past. He acted sometimes as if he thought words were a barrier between himself and the truth. Ignoring the photographer he asked, ‘Does any of this make sense to you, boss? He tells the press but doesn’t bother to inform us.’
One problem at a time. Kirov was distracted by curiosity why Aleksandr Mikhailovitch’s editor had sent a youngster. So that he could put the incident down to misunderstanding and inexperience if questions were raised later? He glanced at Bogdanov for his thoughts but the latter, bored with frustration, was scraping the snow from his rubber overshoes, the ends of his trousers tucked into the tops of his ragged socks against mud spatters.
Kirov shared a relaxed smile with the photographer like a cigarette. He pulled out a pack and offered one. Bogdanov supplied a match. Aleksandr Mikhailovitch was appreciative and opened up in return.
‘It’s the new style, isn’t it?’
‘Is it?’ Kirov said sympathetically.
‘Drag corruption out into the open air after all these years. Show these crooks to the people for the scum they are.’
‘Yes, of course,’ Kirov agreed, which appeared to encourage the other man to more of the same eager moralising until Bogdanov stopped him tetchily with, ‘Christ, we’ve got ourselves a Communist!’ and slapped the photographer on the back. ‘OK, Sasha, pop along now and take your snaps.’ To Kirov he said, ‘What do you think now? Glad you came? Is this a circus or is this a circus?’