He turned up the volume with his remote control as a route map of the Moscow metro appeared on the screen. Each station where an attack had occurred was on the purple line, except for the most recent. Each station where an attack had been was marked with a large red circle.
The face of Toomas Vana appeared on the screen. He looked vaguely familiar, a serious, middle-aged man in a suit, a business type, nothing out of the ordinary except that he was an important engineer working for the gas company.
The videotape of the subway platform returned to the screen as the newscaster prattled on about the police not issuing a statement and the public in panic.
A grizzled, nearly toothless man in a workman’s shirt and jacket, wearing a cap, looked to his left offscreen. A handheld microphone was under his chin.
“I’m afraid, yes. I admit it. This crazy person could be anyone. She could jump off a train I am going to get on and do what she did to him.”
He glanced over his shoulder at the sheet-covered body being looked at by a wild-haired man in an out-of-date police-department coat.
The frightened man had nothing to fear, the Yak thought. He does not fit the profile. The killer had better taste in men.
“They should have policemen all over every metro station,” the grizzled man sputtered, now warmed up, living his few minutes of minimal fame. “They should have soldiers. They should be searching women for knives.”
While that, the Yak knew, would not be possible given the volume and flow of traffic on the metro system, the man’s comments did give Yaklovev an idea. Perhaps the latest attack was not by the same woman, by the Phantom of the Underground. Perhaps this latest one was a copycat, and Toomas Vana was a particular target. Or perhaps she was simply a second madwoman taking advantage of a door that the Phantom had opened. Such things had happened before.
Rudolf Bortkovich, the Kursk schoolteacher, had confessed to forty-two murders of young men and women when he was caught, but he steadfastly denied four others that clearly fit his mode of operation. He was convicted of all the murders, but the police and the KGB had known that those four had been committed by a copycat. When Bortkovich was caught, the killings ended. His copycat had lost his cover and was now walking the streets.
The man leaning over the body, which was now only partly covered by the sheet, turned his head. Paulinin. Iosef and Elena were not in the picture, but the Yak knew they were nearby. Paulinin was a nearly private treasure but he could become an anvil if he talked to the media. The Yak was reasonably sure that would not be allowed to happen.
The next news item came on. A heavy snow was falling in Moscow. A weather map appeared. Igor Yaklovev pushed the red button on his remote and the image on the screen disappeared with a snap.
There would be reports on his desk in the morning on both the disappearance of Misha Lovski and the metro murders. He would have to wait for Porfiry Petrovich’s progress report. It might be days before it came. No matter. Igor Yaklovev was a very patient man.
He finished his brandy, carried his glass into the kitchen, washed, rinsed, and dried it, and placed it carefully back in the cabinet over the sink.
It was still relatively early. The Yak required and wanted no more than five or six hours of sleep. Sleep was a necessary inconvenience.
He moved to his bedroom, picked up a small pile of folders from his desk in the corner, and moved to his bed. He propped up the pillows, put on his reading glasses, placed the first file, which bore a large, red stamp of SECRET, on his lap and opened it to the cover page which read: Preliminary Psychiatric Evaluation of Senior Detective Inspector Emil Karpo.
Porfiry Petrovich sat next to his wife on the bed. Galina and the girls were asleep in the living room. When he left, he would move as quietly as his telltale leg would allow him and hope that he woke none of them.
The small television set was on, on the low dresser, but there was no sound. Sarah, had, since her illness, found it difficult to fall asleep. She often watched television quietly while her husband slept. Neither the light from the screen nor the sound kept him from falling into a deep sleep within a minute or two of his deciding that the day had ended.
Sarah wore the nightgown, the blue one, Porfiry Petrovich had bought her for her last birthday. Porfiry was fully dressed, leg attached, sitting on the end of the bed as they spoke.
“Your appointment is at two,” he said.
“I know,” Sarah answered, smiling at him. “I am feeling fine. Don’t feel guilty.”
While Sarah would never bar her husband from one of her medical appointments, she sometimes preferred that he not be there, particularly if she was not feeling well and thought that the news might not be good. She preferred to be the one telling him.
“I will call you from wherever we are,” he said. “You are sure you feel well?”
“Very well,” she said, touching his cheek with her warm palm.
He did not believe her but he smiled back and said, “Good.”
“Iosef and Elena will be here tomorrow night if they do not have to work,” Sarah said.
“I know.”
“And Galina and the girls are here.”
“I know.”
“Porfiry Petrovich, I will be fine.”
“I know,” he said, taking her hand and glancing at the metro map on the screen.
Something about it struck him. Sarah could feel the change in his hand. He did not get up to turn up the volume. The red circles on the screen fascinated him.
“What?” she asked.
“A minute,” he said, rising awkwardly and moving to the telephone, his eyes still on the television screen.
He dialed and waited. It rang nine times before he hung up. He tried another number. The answer came in three rings.
“Have I awakened you, Anna Timofeyeva?” he asked. “It is Rostnikov.”
“You have not awakened me,” his former boss in the procurator general’s office said. “I go to bed late. I get up late.”
“Is Elena home?” he asked.
“She just arrived. I will get her.”
“How are you feeling?” he asked.
“Considering that I have survived three heart attacks and have begun having long conversations with Bakunin, I am surprisingly well.”
Bakunin was Anna Timofeyevas cat.
“I will come to visit when I get back. I have an assignment.”
“That would be nice. How is Sarah?”
“She is right here. I will let you speak to her after I talk to Elena.”
There was a pause and Elena Timofeyeva’s voice came on. “Chief Inspector,” she said to the man who was scheduled to soon be her father-in-law. “You want a report on the metro attacks.”
“No,” he said. “Unless you have caught the woman.”
“No, but we think she is attacking men who remind her of her father. A little girl who witnessed tonight’s attack heard her address the man as ‘Father’ before she stabbed him. Paulinin is working on a report. It will be ready in the morning.”
“Do you know why she has moved to another line for her attacks?”
“No,” she said.
“I think I may know,” he said.
“Why?” asked Elena.
“She ran out of K’s on the purple line,” he said. “She has moved to another station beginning with the letter K on another line. It might be a good idea to concentrate on metro stations whose names begin with the letter K.”
“But why would she? …Yes, she is mad.”
“She has a reason, but you may well not find it till you find her.”
“I’ll call Iosef right away,” Elena said.
“Don’t hang up,” Rostnikov said. “Your aunt wants to talk to Sarah.”
Rostnikov handed the phone to his wife and pointed to his watch. It was time to go.
“Anna,” Sarah said, accepting her husband’s kiss.