‘If he was holding the barrel under his chin,’ asked Richard knowing that he could not be the first to raise the point, ‘then how had he pulled the trigger? An AK is a long gun. It’d be a hard trick …’
‘With his toe,’ she answered simply, sadly. ‘Simian Artillery. Apes with guns. He had this trick onstage. His trademark. He used to play the guitar with his toes. Like a gorilla would. Pulling the trigger must have been a breeze.’
‘I see, said Richard. ‘But even so, there seems to have been a lot of damage. Brains on the ceiling, you said …’
‘Yeah. Tile. The whole place was white tile. And the blood was really bright red. Like jam. Raspberry varenye. And borscht. The ceiling tiles were all over the floor, too, mixed in with bits of his skull. You couldn’t tell what you were walking on but it all went crunch. I took one look, one step, sat down and started throwing up. I was still there when they broke the door down and came through, though they said that Fydor had pulled himself together by that time and he was holding me. And that was apt, as it turned out. I went with Fydor after that — for a while at least, till he got tired of me and turned me over to the others. The federal prosecutor later told me I was lucky Fydor did that: held me back — I hadn’t damaged the crime scene. Killing yourself is still a crime in Russia, though people find new ways to do it every day.’
Richard opened his mouth again. Shut it.
But she had heard it all, and knew the answers to the questions before they were even asked. ‘It was really lucky that the Petrovka is a loft hotel — he’d have killed anyone upstairs if there had been a room above. Then it would have been murder too, I guess. But he just fucked up the roof instead. Boris set the selector to automatic before he pulled the trigger with his toe. I don’t know how long he held it down for, but the bullets came out at six hundred rounds a minute, went four hundred metres or so straight up. Through his brain. Through his skull. Through the tiles. Through the roof. At seven hundred metres per second. Poor Boris. You don’t get any deader than that.’
They parted at the door into the orphanage’s accommodation wing. ‘You going to be OK?’ asked Richard, consumed with guilt. ‘It could be a long night.’
‘Yeah. They all are, Richard. I’ll get through it one way or another. I always do. And — don’t worry, it’s not the start of a slippery slope — I’ve the rest of my father’s bottle of Stoli to fall back on if the going gets too tough.’
Richard walked slowly down to the Zubrs as the howling of the tent lines faded and the hissing of the black river gathered, going over what she had told him in his mind, trying to work out why on earth there hadn’t been more of an investigation. Working it through and through.
Until the penny dropped.
Akunin
Anastasia’s father was nowhere to be found. Mako was helping Ivan organize the move of more Russians from one hovercraft to the other, but Richard found Ivan without too much trouble in the bustle. Ivan saw the danger of a waterborne missile attack against a couple of beached Zubrs packed with men and so he handed over to a lieutenant and joined Richard. But as they walked back across the compound, Richard was still fixated on everything he had learned about Boris Chirkoff’s death. So he had no hesitation in asking, ‘What do you know about the death of Boris Chirkoff?’
‘Who?’ asked Ivan innocently enough. Boris whatshisname echoed in Richard’s memory. That was what Ivan had called the unfortunate victim when talking to Max: Boris whatshisname.
‘Anastasia’s Boris,’ he answered.
‘It was suicide.’ Ivan’s tone was dismissive. ‘Epic and noteworthy, fair enough. Big enough to hit the headlines, even in Moscow. I mean, an AK under the chin. Brains all over the ceiling … That’s all I remember. Killed himself.’
‘You don’t really believe that, though, do you?’ probed Richard, going for confrontation. ‘You think Max had him killed — God knows he had reason enough, according to his own ideals and with his son dead and daughter seduced. Someone may have made it look like suicide, or enough like suicide to satisfy a perfunctory investigation. But there were too many little details wrong for that to ring true. You know that. You’ve always known that.’
Ivan stopped, turned and looked down at Richard. His gaze was level and calculating. The black water chuckled against the slope of the shore. The wind moaned distantly in the tent ropes. ‘Who says so?’ he asked.
‘I do,’ answered Richard. ‘Offhand I’d say it went something like this. A section of the crowd at that last concert in Red Square had been bribed to barrack the performance and throw bottles, though apparently Fydor Novotkin’s playing gave them a good excuse. Fydor was the lead guitarist. There’s more about Fydor later. Simian Artillery were booed offstage. Their reputation was ruined. Then someone put several cases of Russian Standard up in their suite. That’s, what, two hundred roubles a bottle? So right there, someone invested seven and a half thousand roubles in getting the band and their hangers-on drunk. And someone slipped Fydor a really sizeable baggie of good-grade cocaine which he duly passed on to the already miserable Boris Chirkoff. Street value? No idea. But again, not cheap. And the free drink and drugs just laid them all out. Money well spent. But my point is — it cost a lot of money. They were put to sleep on purpose. Price no object.
‘Next, Anastasia said they never locked the door to their suite so it would have been easy for someone to sneak in. The band and their girls would never have noticed. But the door was locked when the hotel staff arrived after Boris’s death. I’d guess whoever killed Boris did that. To give himself a little breathing space. One way or another.’
‘One way or another?’ queried Ivan. They were passing the orphanage accommodation buildings now. Ivan glanced at the lit windows and Richard wondered whether he had found out which one belonged to Anastasia’s bedroom.
Richard lowered his voice, but his tone remained urgent, his words clear. ‘Either someone crept in and did it, then locked up on the way out. Or someone who was already there did it and locked it from the inside to give himself a little more breathing space before anyone else arrived.’
‘Someone who was already there?’ Richard had Ivan’s attention back now. The Russian’s voice also dropped secretively. But his tone carried his words over the moaning ropes and the restlessness of the sleepy men. ‘Like who?’
‘As the police say — look for motive, opportunity and benefit. Max had motive and he benefited by way of revenge. He had no direct opportunity but he almost certainly hired someone who had.’
‘As the police say … Like they do in books, TV and films you mean …’ Ivan’s tone carried a sneer now. ‘Christ, it’s like talking to Boris Akunin!’
‘Who?’ Richard was genuinely lost for a moment, and not only by the abrupt change in Ivan’s tone.
‘He writes detective novels. Historical ones. On old, dead subjects.’ There was a definite edge to Ivan’s voice. Hostility. But it wasn’t an outright threat. Yet.
‘And apart from Max,’ persisted Richard, raising his voice again as they neared the tents — the flapping sides and doors adding to the general restlessness, ‘the other man who fits the bill of course is Fydor. Fydor Novotkin, the AKman. What was his motive? He had at least three — all well known. Boris nearly killed him during a game of Russian roulette. He wanted revenge. He wanted to lead the band. He wanted Anastasia. He wanted all three really badly. And to top it off, he probably got a good deal of money from Max into the bargain.