Dead Meat

Tanya's eyes drifted towards the doorway and the sound of her father speaking on the telephone.

I don't know that that's a very good idea,' she said. Besides, what could we feed them? A kilo of meat costs a week's pay.'

I have a box of English soaps,' said Lena. I could trade that.'

Oh, Mum, you can't trade that. Not your English soaps.'

Well, they're much too good ever to use.'

When Grushko came back he was putting on his jacket.

I'm afraid I have to go out,' he said quietly.

What's up?' I asked.

Sultan Khadziyev just called Nikolai at the Big House,' he explained. Apparently he wants to talk. A chance to clear his name. He reckons he can prove that he had nothing to do with Milyukin's death.'

I got up from the table.

No need for you to leave,' he said.

I glanced at Lena and her daughter and smiled.

I'm sure you've both got a lot to discuss,' I said and quickly put on my own jacket. Thank you for a lovely dinner.'

Grushko grunted indifferently but I had the feeling that he welcomed the company.

So where are we going?' I asked him as we went down in the lift.

He wants to meet in the open,' said Grushko, looking at his watch. I'm to be on Bank Bridge across the Griboyedev Canal in twenty minutes.'

Can you trust him?'

We've got nothing to lose. And since there wasn't time to trace the call I really don't see any alternative.'

So you're just going to stand there and wait for him to turn up?'

Maybe I should surround the area with militiamen and risk scaring him off: is that what you're suggesting?'

You could wear a wire.'

Grushko chuckled. You've been watching too many movies, my friend,' he said. We've got one set of walkie-talkies for the whole department and they only work in open areas. Made in the USSR, just like this lousy lift.' He thumped the side of the urinous cabin impatiently.

About a month ago, we were going to pick this guy up in the Kutznechny Market. We had the place surrounded but the building was interfering with the walkie-talkies. So I had to get a man to keep running round the building to keep everyone informed of what was happening. How's that for a modern police force?'

Couldn't the KGB.'

We can just about twist their arms to install a few bugs for us. Like that Georgian funeral wake. But a wire, no. Not that that bug was worth the trouble. Most of the Georgians were too drunk for us to make out what they were saying.'

The lift arrived on the ground floor with a lurch and we walked unsteadily outside into the late evening sunshine. These white nights took a bit of getting used to. As we drove south and then west along Nevsky, we saw so few people on the streets that one might almost have thought that there had been some terrible, Chernobyl-style nuclear accident.

You know, I never mind being called out late at this time of year,' said Grushko. It gives me a chance really to see the city. This place must have been something before the revolution. It's nights like these when you might almost imagine that the whole thing was just a bad dream, you know? That it never happened.'

Passing Moscow Station we saw a group of ragged children collected in front of the station's great arched doorways. The clock on top of the short square tower said eleven-thirty.

It's a bit late for kids to be out,' I observed. Some of them don't look more than ten years old.'

Runaways,' said Grushko. City's full of them. They prefer to move around at night, like rats, when there's less chance of being picked up by the children's militia.'

We came down the side of the Griboyedev Canal and stopped a short way from a small wooden suspension bridge that looked like something out of a model village. The cables by which its short span was anchored were held in the mouths of four cast-iron gryphons.

You stay in the car and answer the phone if it rings,' Grushko told me. And keep your head down.'

He reached inside his jacket and took out an enormous automatic. He let the gun somersault over his finger in the trigger-guard, thumbed back the catch and drew out the double magazine. Then he hammered it back up the handle with the heel of his hard hand, spun the gun back into his palm like a cowboy, and worked the slide.

Just in case we run out of small talk,' he said, and slipped the gun back into his shoulder-holster. I hate not having the last word.'

Collecting his cigarettes off the dashboard, he got out and walked across the road to the edge of the canal. When he reached the centre of the bridge I saw him light a cigarette and lean forwards on the railing. Anyone seeing him there, staring down into the murky green water, might have taken him for some love-sick student contemplating suicide. I didn't doubt that the evening had already given him a lot to think about and that being sick of love probably came into it somewhere. I knew a fair bit about that myself.

The time appointed for Grushko's meeting came and went and still Sultan did not appear. With a hunter's patience Grushko hardly moved on the bridge and only the occasional flare of a match lighting another cigarette signalled his continuing vigilance. It was past one o'clock when the car telephone rang. As I answered it I could see that Grushko had heard it too. He straightened stiffly and then walked slowly back towards the car.

Sultan won't be coming,' said Nikolai.

What happened?'

He's been shot. Get across to the Titan Cinema on Nevsky. I'll see you both outside.'

When I relayed the message to Grushko he spat and took out his gun. For a brief second I thought that the death of his prime suspect was going to result in my own murder as well. However he merely removed the magazine and then worked the slide to eject the live round. He thumbed the bullet back into the magazine which he then replaced inside the grip. Grushko was quite fastidious where gun safety was concerned.

He drove us silently back up Griboyedev and on to Nevsky, slowing as we came across the Anichkov Bridge with its distinctive rearing bronze horses, and saw the blue flashing lights ahead of us. We pulled up and as we walked through the police line holding back the small crowd of onlookers which had gathered, I spotted Georgi Zverkov and a film crew. He shouted something after Grushko and was ignored.

Surrounding a red Zhiguli was a group of the Central Board's scientific experts. Two of them were holding a tape-measure through the driver's window and measuring the distance between two imaginary points: the gun which had been fired and the head it had been aimed at. This was Militia Section 59's precinct and Lieutenant Khodyrev was on hand to provide a first report of what had happened.

Three shots in the face, point blank,' she said, fired from another stationary vehicle. We've got a witness who claims he saw the whole thing.'

She turned and pointed to a small boy who was standing nervously between two militiamen.

Grushko waited until the two officers were finished with their tape-measure and then ducked through the car's open window. When he had seen all he wanted to see I took a look myself.

Sultan Khadziyev lay across the gearstick, his face hardly distinguishable from the blood-soaked passenger seat. The passenger door was open and one of the experts was carefully searching the floor and door upholstery for stray bullets.

I stood up, saw that Nikolai had arrived on the scene, and then looked around for Grushko. He was squatting down in front of the boy.

What's your name, son?' I heard him ask.

The boy looked across Grushko's shoulder like a hungry dog. He was wearing a dirty denim jacket and a polo-neck sweater that was several sizes too big for him. He rubbed his short-cropped, almost bald head and then his dark-shadowed eyes. I guessed him no more than twelve years old. He smelled worse than a mangy dog.

Come on,' said one of the militiamen gruffly. You don't want us to send you to an institution, do you?'