The second blanket held nothing. Neither did any of the other items on the bed. They revealed only that Gusev had shit himself in his distress, which explained the smell. The orderly waited for more instructions. The prisoner-patient stood dumbly, his pyjamas streaked with blood and ordure. Kirov moved to the right-hand side of the bed and regarded the blood-slimed porridge of bile and food that Gusev had ejected onto the floor in his initial agony. The prisoner looked down on it. ‘Oh, Christ,’ he said softly and for the first time attracted Kirov’s attention. He had the bitten lips and feral eyes that Kirov had seen before. He wore rimless spectacles that now hung loosely about his face as if his head too had shrunk in measure with his spirits. He glanced at Kirov and Kirov felt a sense of recognition. But it went and Kirov’s attention faded before the task in hand.
‘You can do this one,’ said the orderly. The prisoner shrugged.
‘Got a brush or a stick I can poke this lot with?’
‘Use your hands!’ Bogdanov snapped impatiently.
The man knelt in a posture of prayer and his fingers began to pick delicately in the mess of vomit.
Kirov interrogated the orderly but the man had nothing to say about Gusev, had hardly had time to recognise him before this business happened and he was rushed to the theatre.
‘Try harder,’ Bogdanov prompted him. ‘Didn’t anyone come to see Gusev? Ask to see him? Bring him anything?’ Kirov let his eyes drift again to the prisoner, seeing the stubble of the man’s scalp and the gritty lines of his neck. He was bare-footed and with his soles upturned the horny skin was visible. Kirov watched him neutrally, aware of his own indifference. Like inspecting a dog, he thought. A small collection of objects accumulated at the man’s side.
‘Bring me some cloth.’
The orderly appeared with a thin cotton towel. Kirov bent down and, using the towel, picked up the fragments of — what? They were slime-covered and looked like gravel.
‘Water.’
The orderly directed Kirov to a sluice room. Kirov kicked the mops and buckets aside, tied the ends of the towel to form an enclosed bundle and put it under a jet from the tap. He returned to the ward, told the orderly to lay out a clean sheet on the floor, and emptied the contents of the wet parcel onto the sheet. He stared at them. The other men stared with him but without knowledge saw nothing. The prisoner wiped his hands on his filthy pyjamas and as Kirov turned to search out Bogdanov he saw tears rising in the prisoner’s eyes.
‘What about me?’ said the prisoner. ‘Who gives a damn about me?’
Kirov returned to the sheet. Lying in the middle, in a patch of dampness, was a handful of diamonds.
CHAPTER THREE
The Malachite Cask jewellers store stands in Kalinin Prospekt next to the old church of St Simeon Stylites. This is the busier end of the street; opposite the jewellery store is a bar and a metro station, and next door is the city’s largest bookshop. The bookshop also sells stamps, and all day long outside the Malachite Cask book-buyers and stamp-collectors bump into the wives of Party officials buying jewellery.
Kirov knew Proskurov, the director. He had met him once at a party in the days of Lara and parties. Brezhnev’s daughter and one of her dubious boyfriends had turned up unannounced. Galina Brezhneva had a taste for diamonds and acquired them when she could, and this night she wore a necklace, an old Tsarist piece of spectacular beauty. Proskurov was in her entourage. He told everyone about the diamonds while his client smiled and nodded as if they had only just become real. The other guests talked about cars and the delights of their trips to the West.
Proskurov wore spectacles and had brown wavy hair and a schoolboy face. His nervous voice varied in pitch and it squeaked when he invited Kirov to his office and offered him a seat and refreshment. He expressed hope that this was a social call and nothing to do with his business, which was run in a perfectly upright manner though he couldn’t speak for every detail in the lives of his staff as he was sure Kirov — Pyotr Andreevitch — would understand.
Kirov took an envelope from his pocket and emptied its contents onto the other man’s desk. The stones glittered in the daylight. ‘What can you tell me about these?’ he asked.
The stones lay between them. Kirov hadn’t looked at them too closely before. They were beautiful and neutral and as mysterious as Viktor Gusev. Proskurov regarded them blankly, then with a sharp movement of one hand turned on a small ultraviolet lamp and focused it on the stones, which fluoresced. Proskurov switched the lamp off and sat back in his chair.
‘They’re the real thing,’ he said. ‘Diamonds.’
‘You weren’t sure?’
‘For a second.’ He watched Kirov closely. ‘Where did you get them from?’
‘I can’t say. I was hoping you would help me.’
‘Ah.’
For a moment there was silence, then the expression on Proskurov’s face changed from caution to curiosity. With the same sharp movements he divided the diamonds into two parts, then took a series of stones and weighed them individually on a small set of balances. Next he took an eye-glass, screwed it to his eye and examined the same stones.
‘Fine white — second pique — three carats. Commercial white — very small inclusion — five carats. Finest fine white — very small inclusion — two carats … I can’t imagine … you say you don’t know their origin?’
‘No.’
The jeweller put down his pen and replaced the stones. He was cautious again.
‘I can tell you they’re not from a single source, or, at all events, not from a single piece or set. The stones are individually quite excellent, but they don’t match. The differences of weight, colour and clarity — I can’t see how one would mount them together.’
‘And the rest?’ Kirov indicated the unexamined portion.
‘Rubbish. They have no relationship to the others. Cape and silver cape in colour; clarity is third pique, spotted or worse. Strictly for the masses.’ Proskurov scooped them up indifferently and put them back into the bag. He paused briefly to ask, ‘Could they be from a foreign source?’
‘Can’t you tell?’
The other man shook his head. ‘Not from the stones themselves. But, now that you’ve asked about them, these,’ he glanced in the direction of the bag containing the rejected stones, ‘make me curious. This is the sort of stuff that gets cut in India — pure junk for the Western market. In this country there’s no demand. We would apply them to industrial use.
Kirov had no answer to that suggestion. Viktor — Viktor — what were you doing? ‘I believe they came from this country,’ he said.
‘In that case,’ Proskurov said thoughtfully, ‘my guess is that they’re black-market stones. Not stolen, you understand: the variety doesn’t suggest that a burglar has taken them from a set. Smuggled production, perhaps. Straight out of the mines to an illegal cutting operation. It happens. And in that case I could see someone cutting the poorer stones. They could be given away as part of the larger deal. A commission, if you like, for the dealer.’
‘And what is the whole packet worth?’ Kirov asked.
Proskurov stared back long enough for the seconds to be counted. Kirov waited and then an ironic laugh escaped him which shook the other man out of his hesitation.
‘A hundred thousand American dollars,’ Proskurov said slowly.
He wasn’t sure whether Kirov was buying or selling.
When Kirov returned to the office there were two notes on his desk. The first was from Anya Dimitrievna, his sluggish but motherly secretary: Neville Lucas had telephoned; would Peter return his call? The second was a scrawl from Bogdanov on a torn paper bag. It said, ‘I’ve taken Tumanov and gone to G’s place. B and his boys may not have found everything. Latest news from the hospitaclass="underline" G on the critical list — may not make it.’