“Pleased to meet a hero of the Soviet Union, Captain. The Order of Lenin, too. You must have been in the thick of it.”
“Pay no attention to these baubles, Lieutenant Boyle. The real heroes are at the front, not in comfortable London rooms.” Sidorov pointed to a pair of chairs facing the fireplace, where embers glowed, giving off a welcome heat. He shoveled more coal from a bucket, rubbing his hands together over the fire. He wore his clothes well, remembering to lift his trousers at the knees as he took his seat. Sandy-colored hair fell over his forehead, and he brushed it back in what seemed to be a habitual gesture.
“You speak English perfectly,” I said, glancing around the room. At the far end, a balding, stout middle-aged man sat at a desk, working on a pile of papers and files. A cigarette protruded from the corner of his mouth as he sucked in smoke and exhaled, not breaking stride with the paperwork he was shuffling through.
“Thank you. I was taught by a former Oxford professor who came to the Soviet Union to be part of the glorious international struggle. He imparted his accent as well as his intellect,” Sidorov said as he caught my look at the other man in the room. “Do not mind Sergei. We do not meet alone with westerners. Sergei was available, although he speaks English poorly. Still, it allows us to follow the rules laid down by our security people.”
“To protect you against provocateurs,” I said.
“I see you have been lectured by our reception committee. They are sometimes overenthusiastic, but these precautions are necessary, believe me. The revolution has enemies beyond the Nazis. Czarists and other emigre groups are based here in London, and none of them wish us well. But never mind about our security procedures. Tell me how I can help you.”
“General Eisenhower asked me to look into the death of Captain Egorov,” I said, avoiding the distinction between murder and assassination. “He’s also concerned about security, and wanted to be certain there was no further trouble.”
“You work for General Eisenhower?”
“Yes, I’m on his staff.”
“Please excuse me, Lieutenant Boyle, if I fail to be impressed by a mere lieutenant detailed to this investigation. It does not signal true concern on the part of our American Allies.” Sidorov smiled, almost apologetically. He looked half serious and half amused at the lines he had to speak. He wasn’t what I had expected. He was stern, but not harsh. He spoke the jargon of Communism naturally, but lightly, as if we were all in on the joke. It occurred to me that the Soviets picked their personnel for foreign posts very carefully, and that his casual veneer of nonchalance was well practiced. Possibly dangerous.
“I was a police detective before the war,” I said, “and General Eisenhower is my uncle, which should indicate his personal interest in this case. He wishes this to be handled discreetly.”
“All within the family,” Sidorov said slyly, with an exaggerated lift of the eyebrow. He offered me a cigarette, and I declined. He lit up a Woodbine, flashing a lighter that sparkled silver before it vanished into the folds of his jacket. “Very well. What have you discovered in your investigation?”
“That Gennady Egorov was forced to his knees in the ruins of a bombed-out building near Spitalfields Market in Shoreditch, not far from the Liverpool Street Tube Station. That he got a bullet in the back of the head. That he may have been selling information to a criminal named Archibald Chapman, about deliveries of food to your embassy.”
“Really? All that in two days? Remarkable, Lieutenant Boyle. Although the first two items you would learn within five minutes of being briefed at Scotland Yard. The third item, though, that is more impressive.” He drew on his Woodbine and exhaled a plume of blue smoke toward the ceiling.
“That’s not all.”
“What? Have you apprehended this criminal? Chapman?”
“No. But I now know that you must be aware of why Egorov was in Shoreditch, a fair distance from here, late at night. Either that, or you’re complicit in his assassination.” I saw Sergei lift his head from his paperwork. His English probably wasn’t all that bad. “And I know that you were expecting me.”
“Yes, yes. I knew I made a mistake when I said two days. Stupid of me, of course. And you assume since we do not meet westerners alone that either I knew Gennady had gone out by himself, or someone from the embassy was with him, possibly his killer.”
“So you’ve been spying on me?” I said, not wanting to skip over that part so lightly.
“Don’t be melodramatic, Lieutenant Boyle,” Sidorov said, flicking his cigarette into the fire. “We simply stay informed of the comings and goings of those we are involved with. It is common practice in London. Everyone spies on everyone else, and then we all smile and go to meetings together, dine and drink, toast to victory over the common foe, and then collect information on each other from our informants. Quite possibly the same informants. So, yes, I knew you had arrived and your assignment. It seemed obvious that your next step would be to come here.”
“All right. Tell me what Egorov was doing in Shoreditch.”
“I cannot, because I do not know. Even the most dedicated Soviet officer may succumb to desire, Lieutenant Boyle. Perhaps it was a woman?”
“I see you have women here,” I said.
“True, but often the forbidden is more tempting. Who knows?”
“Don’t you keep track of people going out as well as coming in?”
“Yes,” Sidorov said, nodding his head. “But sometimes there are circumstances… the gathering of information is a delicate matter…” He waved his hand in a dismissive fashion, as if he couldn’t think of the words but that any simpleton should be able to figure it out.
“You mean NKVD officers masquerading as Soviet Air Force officers can come and go as they please.”
“Yes, exactly,” Sidorov said, slapping his hand on the arm of his chair. “That is the gist of it.” He grinned like a schoolboy. “It makes solving a murder that much more difficult. Who watches the watchers, yes?”
“It’s been my experience that someone is always watching. They may not understand what they’ve seen, but sooner or later you can find someone who had their eyes wide open when everyone else was asleep.”
“That, Lieutenant Boyle, is a great truth. A sad one, perhaps, but very true. Everything is seen; there are no secrets.” We sat quietly and watched the glow of the coal fire for a minute. Sidorov spoke to Sergei in Russian, and Sergei made a phone call. Within a couple of minutes, a tray with hot tea was brought in. The tea was poured into glasses set in brass holders, and Sidorov added sugar to both before handing me mine.
“Tea, prepared the Russian way, not the English style,” he said.
“What’s the difference?” I said after a hot sip.
“Well, we don’t ruin it with milk. And we prepare the tea in a concentrated form first, then boiling water is added. It enhances the flavor.”
“It’s good,” I said. It was, but I wasn’t about to debate tea. “We threw English tea into the harbor, during our revolution.”
“In Boston, yes?”
“Yes. That’s my home. What about you?”
“Vyazma. It is west of Moscow. I have not been home for a long time.”
“Your family is there?”
“No, my wife and daughter live in Moscow. She works for the Propaganda Ministry. Vyazma is on the approach to Moscow. It was occupied by the Germans for two years. We retook it last March. Vyazma once had a population of over sixty thousand. We found exactly 617 alive.”
“I’m sorry.”
“As am I. It makes all this attention to the death of one man almost ludicrous, does it not?”
“Another great truth, Captain Sidorov. Even in the midst of war, murder is unacceptable.”
“Yes,” Sidorov said slowly, almost reluctant to grant the point. “Tell me, what did you find that links Gennady to this criminal-what did you call him-Chapman?”