Dead Meat

That's not so hard to believe,' I said. I didn't know that my wife was screwing my daughter's music teacher. She'd been screwing him for two years and I hadn't a clue. And me an investigator. You'd think I might have noticed something, wouldn't you? But no. Not a bit of it. Bad enough to lose my wife. But it looked as if I'm not very good at my job, either. I mean, I ought to have been suspicious.'

So how did you find out?'

My daughter's piano-playing,' I said. After two years of music lessons, you'd expect anyone to improve a little. But my daughter seemed to be playing as badly as when she started. Then I found out that she was having only one lesson a month and not the two I was paying for. The other lesson was for my wife. Imagine that. Paying someone to screw your wife.' I allowed myself a smile. I was past being upset about it.

Grushko smiled back uncertainly.

Myself,' he said, I have absolutely no ear for music. But I can still recognise a false note when I hear one. And I tell you, there's something about that woman.'

I recalled the picture on the pinboard, the large, almost flawless breasts, the curving belly and the squirrel's tail of hair.

There certainly is.'

5

My own office was located in a building that adjoined the back of the Big House. To go from one to the other required that you walk along the street. Nothing to it in summer I thought, but I didn't imagine that it would be much fun in the middle of winter. The entrance was on Kalayeva Street, where Grushko had parked his car. Kalayeva was one of those women who had helped to assassinate Tsar Alexander II in 1881. The Soviets called Kalayeva a heroine. These days we would have called her a terrorist.

Grushko led the way through an anonymous-looking door that gave on to a small seating area where, under the bored eye of a young militiaman, witnesses in a whole variety of cases waited to be examined on their statements by investigators. We showed our passes, easily recognisable in their cheap red plastic folders and went upstairs. The walls of the stairwell were being painted.

Why does it always have to be green?' Grushko complained loudly. Every public building I go in these days someone's painting it that awful bird-shit green. Why couldn't we have something else, like red for instance?'

The painter took the cigarette out of her mouth slowly. Like most Russian workers she didn't look as if she ever did anything quickly.

Red's finished,' she said. Green is all there is.'

Grushko grunted and walked on.

If you've got a problem with that,' she yelled after him, then take it up with my supervisor. But don't complain to me. I just work here.'

The curtains were drawn in the small shabby office that was to be mine, although they did little to hinder the passage of the sharp northern light. I took a look out of the window and decided to leave them the way they were. Weeks later I heard someone ascribe the drawn curtains to my sensitive eyes a not unreasonable hypothesis since I already wore tinted glasses but really it was only because I preferred not to have to stare out of a window that hadn't been cleaned in ten years.

Mikoyan's the chief of the State Investigating Agency in Peter,' Grushko explained. Only he won't be here to welcome you.' His short snout wrinkled with disapproval. Right now he's in Moscow, explaining his part in last summer's coup. I could be wrong, but I don't think he'll be back. So until a new chief is appointed you should report straight to Kornilov. But if you need anything ' he looked around the office and shrugged apart from anything that costs money that is, then just pick up the phone and speak to me.' He waved his hand at the battery of telephones that sat on my desk like the keys of a typewriter.

Which one?'

He picked up one of two enormous black Bakelites. Internal,' he said. Six lines apiece.' He dropped the ancient telephone back on to its bunk-sized cradle and selected one of the more modern phones. The ones that look like toys are your outside lines.' Grushko glanced at his watch.

Come to my office just before four,' he said. I'm seeing Kornilov then. I'll introduce you.' He walked to the door. One more thing. The canteen here is disgusting. If you must eat, bring something. That is, always supposing you can find something. By the way, where are you staying?'

With my brother-in-law Porfiry. Or rather, my ex-brother-in-law. I'd better give him a ring and let him know I've arrived.'

Well, there's always a sofa at my place if he's forgotten about you.'

Thanks,' I said, but Porfiry's not the kind to extend an invitation lightly. Especially since he's charging me fifty roubles a week.'

The sentimental sort, eh?

That's right.

All happy families are the same,' he chuckled on his way out of the door.

When Grushko had gone I called Porfiry at his office and told him I was in St Petersburg.

Whereabouts?' he asked.

At the Big House. On Liteiny Prospekt.'

Jesus,' he laughed, what did you do? Want me to pick you up on my way home tonight?'

That'd be nice, except that I'm not sure what time I'll be through here.

Got you working on a case already, have they?'

Two, as a matter of fact. I might even be late.'

Don't worry. It's not like Katerina's cooking anything special.' He chuckled. Same as any other night, really. Have you got the address?'

Yes. I picked it out of the Good Hotel Guide.'

You and the rats, I guess. See you tonight.'

I sat down at my desk and lit a cigarette. It's surprising the amount of nourishment you can find in a cigarette these days. This one filled me up nicely. Then I went through my drawers checking that I had a good supply of the protocols that constitute an important part of the investigator's job: search protocols, identity protocols, arrest protocols, interrogation protocols, confiscation protocols and advocate protocols. There was an ample supply of all relevant paperwork as well as a few little luxury items like desk-fluff, a broken rubber band, a plastic clothes-peg, an empty box of matches, a handful of paper-clips and a solitary diarrhoea tablet.

After eating the diarrhoea tablet, which tasted better than I had expected, I set about preparing my chessboard' a large sheet of paper squared off into sections that was supposed to help me keep track of progress in the many cases I would be investigating. In the first square of the first column I wrote Chazov: firebomb' and then underneath this Milyukin &c Ordzhonikidze: Murders'. After that, I called the State Prosecutor's Office to introduce myself and made an appointment there for nine o'clock the following morning.

By now I was ready for a drink of something and a brief search of the filing-cabinet turned up a heating element and an earthenware jug. I had brought my own tin of coffee. I went to the lavatory to get some water and found it as unpleasant a place as I could have expected, being several millimetres deep in water and urine. I filled the jug from the one dripping tap and walked gingerly back to my office, leaving a trail of wet footprints behind me.

While the water for my coffee boiled I set about clearing my walls of newspaper cuttings and pin-ups. With more than a little self-consciousness I removed the large portrait of Lenin that hung behind my chair and placed it behind my filing-cabinet. The Party might have been outlawed but there were still plenty of people who looked on Vladimir Ilyich as a national hero. At the same time as I was busy doing all of this, I learned something of the previous occupant of my office. He had left the Central Board to join the State Prosecutor's Office, a not uncommon career path. The photograph of the underground artist Kirill Miller pointed to a man with a sense of humour at least, while a communication from something called the Gulliver Club seemed to indicate someone who was very tall. But I still wondered how he could have afforded 80 roubles for the empty packet of German chocolate biscuits I found in the wastepaper bin. A present from some foreigner, perhaps. I took out my notebook and made a note of that.