“No more are needed,” said the caller.
“That is for me to determine. It was for me to determine before you disposed of, what’s his name?”
“Lebedev.”
“Lebedev. The policeman from Moscow? Is he competent?”
“Yes.”
“Meaning he could cause a great deal of damage.”
“Yes.”
“But if he were killed, they would send another.”
“But not one so competent, probably.”
“Keep me informed, and I may revise my order.”
“To. .?”
“Refrain from killing. This has become very messy. I don’t like things messy.”
The caller knew that in his younger days, when Gerald St. James was a Bulgarian street robber, killing had been very messy.
“If it is necessary, it will not be messy.”
“Good.”
St. James hung up. Let the caller worry about it. The entire operation was not going smoothly. The murders at Devochka were drawing too much police attention. The termination of the Botswanan connection in Moscow had run into problems. The recovery of the transported diamonds in Kiev was at best incomplete.
St. James was alone in the house in Kensington-Highgate. His very English wife was visiting friends for the weekend. One of those friends was Vikki Thorpe. Vikki’s husband was Sir Charles Thorpe, former head of the British consulate in northern Russia, the area which included all of Siberia.
Gerald St. James would get up in the morning, drive himself to pick up his wife, and conveniently run into Sir Charles. Gerald had a proposal he wished to make, a very subtle proposal which he hoped the sometimes-obtuse member of the House of Lords was capable of understanding.
Weak links, weak links, weak links. Balta was an expert in finding weak links, be they in the personalities of those he stalked or worked with or those at the base of their necks that invited the blade.
Balta didn’t enjoy killing. It was simply something he did well. Other people’s dying was his living. The question now, as he lay naked in bed after a hot shower, was: who was the weak link, and who might he have to kill.
Oxana would give everything up with the threat of a sharp razor stroke across her cheek. He would not even have to kill her, though if he went that way he might as well.
The policeman on the park bench, the one she was working with and certainly sleeping with, was a good choice. He was probably a pragmatist who would give up the diamonds in the hope of living another day, going on to something else or going after Balta. Balta would have to find out, meet with the policeman, probe his weakness.
It would all be decided in the morning.
He checked his watch. It was time. He had to make his call. He was sure that his cell phone was fully charged.
As he placed his call, Balta moved before the full-length mirror behind the hotel room door. It amused him to wonder what St. James would think if he knew Balta was admiring his naked body in the mirror while he talked to him on the phone.
“Yes,” St. James said after the second ring.
“I’m in Kiev. I have not found the diamonds yet. Tomorrow perhaps. I do have the money.”
“Where are you?”
“Premier Palace Hotel.”
“Keep me informed.”
Balta went back to the bed. He had peeled back the blanket and laid on the sheets still damp from the touch of his body after the shower. He would give the money to St. James, but he would report that he had been unable to find the diamonds though he had tortured and killed both the policeman and the model. He had every intention of getting the diamonds. He had no intention of giving them to “Sir” Gerald St. James. Balta would take them to Paris, where the buyer was waiting. And with his wealth, he would go to the United States, where opportunities suitable for his talents awaited him.
Chapter Ten
“January 7,1951, 11:52 p.m. Report by Serge Vortz, Soviet Party Commissar, Devochka Mine.”
Fyodor Rostnikov, glasses well down his nose, read from the thin black plastic-covered document.
He looked up at Porfiry Petrovich, who nodded at him across the desk, urging him to continue to read the report.
They were sitting in the same small meeting room where the Moscow detectives had sat the day before with the elected board of the town and mine. With the murder of Anatoliy Lebedev, the board was now reduced to four.
In front of Karpo who, as always, sat erect, dressed in black, ignoring the beam of sunlight that streaked past his face, was a mug of hot water. Before Fyodor and Porfiry Petrovich were mugs of strong black tea. All the mugs were white with pictures of a young Linda Ronstadt smiling up at them.
Emil Karpo had spent two futile nights in the cafeteria drinking tea, watching and listening to the few people who approached him. Though everyone acted suspiciously, none was clearly guilty of two murders.
“I was in the shaft,” Fedya continued reading.
Shift Leader and Mine Safety Director Ivan Memendov was ahead of me in Tunnel Number Three, investigating a shifting of rock reported by Mining Crew Four.
Porfiry Petrovich, sharpened pencil in hand and pad of paper before him, wondered how he was going to finish the drawing upon which he was working. The drawing was of the room in which they were sitting. Karpo and Fyodor were rapidly scratched faceless images but seated upon the table a creature of no clear species crouched, ready to leap out of the drawing. Porfiry Petrovich was intrigued.
“After precisely seven minutes of waiting. .”
Fyodor looked up over his glasses at the two detectives. It was highly unlikely that Commissar Vortz would know the precise time of waiting, which suggested to the three men that the commissar was covering his ass. If he were, it was unwise to report what happened next.
I heard singing coming from Tunnel Number Three. The voice sounded like that of a young child, a girl. Then I heard a scream, not that of a child. I was about to enter the tunnel. .
Another incredulous look from Fyodor. Karpo showed nothing. Porfiry Petrovich was busy with his drawing. Fyodor went on:
. . however I did not have the opportunity. I heard something rushing toward me from the tunnel. I assumed it was Ivan Memendov who may have been injured. I saw a light coming toward me and then saw a figure emerge, the figure of a completely naked girl of no more than ten. She was carrying an old kerosene lantern, the kind no longer used. I saw her clearly coming at me, and then she ran toward the mine entrance. She was too fast for me to catch. I have been suffering from a debilitating, recurrent injury received in the defense of Leningrad, for which I was decorated.
Using my flashlight I went quickly into the tunnel and discovered the body of Shift Leader and Mine Safety Director Ivan Memendov. Later examination by Devochka Physician Oleg Dubinin revealed that he had been stabbed at least eight times.
“It is signed,” said Fyodor. “Commissar Vortz was reassigned to a Gulag under suspicion that he had killed the Mine Safety Director over an old feud about the provision of fuel and then made up the ridiculous story about the ghost girl because he knew the lore about such sightings.”
“And there are three more reports about seeing this ghost girl,” said Karpo.
“Yes,” said Fyodor, “a total of six from 1963 till yesterday.”
Porfiry Petrovich had finished his drawing. He held it out to look at without trying to understand what he was seeing.
“May I see the report?” he asked.
It could have been given as an order, but it was delivered as a polite request, which Fyodor honored.
Porfiry Petrovich took the report, opened it, and saw that it had been written on a typewriter whose ink roll had been reused almost once too often. In addition, the carriage had slipped and the upper third of each letter was in a red almost as faint as the black below it. He took a sip of his tea and asked, “Do you note something very strange about this report?”