They did not return.
Shortly after seventeen hundred, a neighbour in the apartment beneath the Mamantovs' reported hearing prolonged, hysterical screams. The porter had been summoned, the apartment - with difficulty - opened and Madame Mamantov had been discovered alone, in her undergarments, locked inside a cupboard, through the door of which she had nevertheless managed to kick a hole using her bare feet. She had been taken to the Diplomatic Policlinic in a state of extreme distress. Both her ankles were broken.
'This must be an emergency escape plan,' said Suvorin, as they reached his office. 'He's clearly had this up his sleeve for quite a while, even down to establishing a routine for his wife. The question is: what's the emergency?'
He pressed the light switch. Neon panels stuttered into life. The leadership's side of the building had the view of the lake and the trees while Suvorin's office looked north, towards the Moscow ring road and the squat and crowded tower blocks of a housing estate. Suvorin threw himself into his chair, grabbed his tobacco pouch and swung his feet up on to the window sill. He saw Netto, reflected, coming in
and closing the door. Arsenyev had given him a blasting, which wasn't really fair. If anyone was to blame, it was Suvorin, for sending Bunin after Kelso.
'How many men do we have at Mamantov's apartment right now?'
'Two, major.'
'Split them. One to the Policlinic to keep an eye on the wife, one to stay in place. Bunin's to stick with Kelso. What's his hotel?'
'The Ukraina.'
'Right. If he's heading south down the Garden Ring he's probably on his way back. Call Gromov at the Sixteenth and tell him we want a full communications intercept on Kelso. He'll tell you he hasn't the resources. Refer him to Arsenyev. Have the authorisation papers on my desk within fifteen minutes.
'Yes, major.'
'Leave the Tenth to me.
'The Tenth, major?' The Tenth was the archives branch.
According to the colonel, there should be a file on this Stalin notebook.' Legend of the Lubyanka, indeed! 'I'll need to dream up some excuse to see it. Check on this place in Vspolnyi Street: what is it exactly? God, we need more men!'
Suvorin banged his desk in frustration. 'Where's Kolosov?'
'He left for Switzerland yesterday.'
'Anybody else around? Barsukov?'
'Barsukov's in Ivanovo with his Germans.'
Suvorin groaned. This operation was running on paraffin and thin air, that was the trouble with it. It didn't have a name, a budget. Technically, it wasn't even legal.
Netto was writing rapidly. 'What do you want to do with Kelso?'
'Just continue to keep an eye on him.'
'Not pick him up?'
'For what exactly? And where do we take him? We have no cells. We have no legal basis to make arrests. How long's Mamantov been loose?'
'Three hours, major. I'm sorry, I -' Netto looked close to tears.
'Forget it, Vissi. It's not your fault.' He smiled at the young man's reflection. 'Mamantov was pulling stunts like that while we were in the womb. We'll find him,' he added, with a confidence he did not feel, 'sooner or later. Now off you go. I've got to call my wife.'
After Netto had gone, Suvorin removed the photograph of Kelso from its folder and pinned it to the noticeboard beside his desk. Here he was, with so much else to do, on issues which really mattered - economic intelligence, biotechnology, fibre optics - reduced to worrying about whether and why Vladimir Mamantov was after Stalin's notebook. It was absurd. It was worse than absurd. It was shaming. What kind of a country was this? Slowly, he tamped the tobacco in his pipe and lit it. And then he stood there for a full minute, his hands clasped behind his back, his pipe between his teeth, regarding the historian with an expression of pure loathing.
ELIJKEKELSO LAY on his back, on his bed, in his room on the twenty-third floor of the Ukraina Hotel, smoking a cigarette and staring at the ceiling, the fingers of his left hand curled around the comforting and familiar shape of a quarter-bottle of Scotch.
He hadn't bothered to take off his coat, nor had he turned on the bedside lamp. Not that he needed to. The brilliant white floodlights that lit the Stalinist-Gothic skyscraper shone into his room and provided a feverish illumination. Through the closed window he could hear the sound of the early evening traffic on the wet road far below. A melancholy hour this, he always thought, for a stranger in a foreign city - nightfall, the brittle lights, the temperature dropping, the office workers hurrying home, the businessmen trying to look cheerful in the hotel bars.
He took another swig of Scotch, then reached over for the ashtray and balanced it on his chest, tapping the end of his cigarette into it. The bowl hadn't been cleaned properly. Still stuck to its dusty bottom, like a small green egg, nested a gobbet of Papu Rapava's phlegm.
It had taken Kelso only a few minutes - the length of one short visit to the Ukraina's business centre and the time it took to flick through an old Moscow telephone directory -to establish that the house on Vspolnyi Street had indeed once been an Mrican embassy. It was listed under the Republic of Tunisia.
And it had taken him only slightly longer to extract the rest of the information he needed - sitting on the edge of his hard and narrow bed, talking earnestly on the telephone to the press attache at the new Tunisian Embassy, pretending an intense interest in the booming Moscow property market and the precise design of the Tunisian flag.
According to the press attache, the Tunisians had been offered the mansion on Vspolnyi Street by the Soviet government in 1956, on a short-term lease, renewable every seven years. In January, the ambassador had been notified that the lease would not be extended when it came up for renegotiation, and in August they had moved out. And in truth, sir, they had not been too sorry to go, no indeed, not after that unfortunate business in 1993 when workmen had dug up twelve human skeletons, victims of the Stalinist repression, buried beneath the pavement outside. No explanation for the eviction had been offered, but, as everyone knew, great swathes of state property were now being privatised in central Moscow and sold on to foreign investors; fortunes were being made.
And the flag? The flag of the Tunisian Republic, honourable sir, was a red crescent and a red star in a white orb, all on a red ground.
there was a red sickle moon and a single red star...
The blue shaving of cigarette smoke curled and broke against the dusty plaster.
Oh, he thought, how prettily it all hung together -Rapava's story and Yepishev's story and the convenient emptiness of the Beria mansion and the freshly turned earth and the bar named 'Robotnik'.
He finished the Scotch and stubbed out his cigarette and lay there for a while, turning the book of matches over and over, anti-clockwise in his fingers.
STILL unsure of what he should do, Kelso went down to the front desk and changed the last of his travellers' cheques into roubles. He would need to have cash, whatever happened. He would need ready money. His credit card was not entirely reliable these days - witness that unfortunate incident at the hotel shop, when he had tried to use it to buy his Scotch.
He thought he saw someone he recognised - from the symposiums presumably - and he raised his hand but they had already turned away.
On the counter of the reception was a sign - Any guest requiring to make an international telephone call must please to leave a cash deposit - and seeing it gave him a second stab of homesickness. So much happening, nobody to tell. On impulse he handed over $50 and made his way back through the crowded lobby towards the elevators.