‘The tragedy?’ Shymko echoed, and Korolev noticed that Larisa’s eyes had filled with tears.
‘The poor girl who killed herself.’
Larisa sobbed and ran from the room.
‘I apologize,’ Korolev said, surprised to discover an unlit cigarette had appeared in his mouth. One of these days he’d give up – aside from anything else he wouldn’t be able to afford it if he’d reached the stage where his hands were feeding the things into his mouth without conscious thought.
‘Excuse me,’ Shymko said as a telephone began to ring, but Korolev had spotted a black car approaching the house and, deciding it must be the Odessa contingent, made his own excuses and left. When the car stopped, however, it was Belakovsky who climbed out rather than Militiamen and his welcoming committee consisted only of a distraught typist.
‘Larisa, is it true?’
‘It’s true, Comrade Belakovsky, it’s true,’ Larisa wailed, and Korolev, following behind the girl, saw her bury herself in Belakovsky’s overcoat.
‘Hello again, Comrade Belakovsky,’ Korolev said and Belakovsky nodded a greeting, before turning his attention back to Larisa.
‘Mikhail told me. I didn’t believe him.’ Then he paused, looking back to Korolev, recognizing him yet again, with a look of surprise.
‘Comrade Korolev?’
‘Yes, a coincidence. I’m a friend of Babel’s. I’d no idea we were visiting the same place.’
‘You have to understand – a colleague has died unexpectedly. She was one in a thousand. A vital part of this production, of course, but more than that. Much more than that.’
Behind him stood a sorry-looking man whom Korolev deduced was Mikhail, the bearer of bad news. The other occupant of the car – Lomatkin, the journalist – was leaning against the car door for support, as pale as the dead girl’s ghost. It seemed as though Masha Lenskaya had made quite an impression during her short life.
‘Korolev,’ Belakovsky said, as though thinking aloud. ‘Didn’t you say you were a detective – from Petrovka Street?’
‘I didn’t. You did and I’m on holiday,’ Korolev replied, perhaps a little too quickly.
Belakovsky glanced at the house, and if it wasn’t to see where Mushkin was, Korolev would have been most surprised. The NKVD definitely had a thing or two to learn about secrecy, even if they were always asking it of other people.
‘On holiday?’ Belakovsky repeated slowly, probably remembering how that fellow Bagraev had been booted off the plane. ‘What a coincidence. And perhaps fortunate for us. What did you say your specialization was?’
‘Petrovka Street normally handles the more serious crimes. And I’m an experienced detective.’
‘I see – bank robbery, that sort of thing. Murder perhaps?’ The fellow was putting two and two together and making four, so Korolev nodded politely, and felt in his overcoat pocket for his cigarettes, pleased that at least this time it was a deliberate rather than instinctive action.
‘Yes, I’ve handled the odd murder or two,’ he said, lighting the cigarette off the one in his mouth.
Another black car hove into view as they stood there weighing each other up, and when it pulled to a halt disgorged a stocky Militia colonel, who looked at them anxiously. He was followed by a tough-looking young woman in a leather jacket and a bald man carrying a doctor’s case. No sooner had the first car been emptied of its occupants than another arrived and three uniforms under a sergeant’s command scrambled out. It was turning out to be quite a party, and right on cue the guest of honour arrived.
‘Did you hear, Comrade Mushkin?’ Belakovsky said. ‘Korolev here is a Militia detective from Petrovka Street, visiting Babel.’
‘Indeed,’ Mushkin said, with a sliver of a smile, and Korolev deduced that the Major wasn’t too burnt-out to appreciate the humour inherent in the play they were all acting out. But for whose benefit, God alone knew.
Chapter Five
Korolev had never been in an ice house before. Of course, he was aware that before the Revolution the rich had tried to preserve some of winter’s bite to relieve the summer’s swelter: he wasn’t uncultured after all and he took an interest in the wider world – as any Soviet citizen should. Indeed, in any other circumstances he would have found it interesting to stand in this small, brick-lined cave and to be lectured on its construction and significance. But this was not the time, in his opinion, or the place.
Shymko ran a hand along a line of bricks, his voice barely a whisper but clear in the silence of the artificial cave.
‘Two hundred peasants worked for an entire summer under the direction of an Englishman – shifting the earth to build the hill in which we stand. They say he laid each brick himself, the Englishman,’ Shymko said in his quiet voice. ‘Look how careful he was, Comrades.’
It was true, the brickwork was indeed a curious relic of that previous phase of society’s historical evolution, but the dead girl was the reason they were all here and Korolev found it difficult to look at anything other than her white face. They’d laid her out on a trestle table, her head supported on what looked like a sandbag, her skin stretched over the cheekbones where death had pulled it taut. She could have been sleeping, and her features wouldn’t have given the lie to it, were it not for the raw marks on her neck where the rope had caught her. As always in the presence of a corpse, he found himself struck by how fragile life was, and amazed that such an intangible thing as consciousness should cause such a change to the physical appearance of a person. The characteristics that had seemed to colour the girl’s photograph were now absent, as if paint had been rubbed from a picture to reveal the plain canvas underneath.
‘Captain Korolev?’ Mushkin said and Korolev found himself the centre of attention. Major Mushkin, Marchuk the Militia colonel, Peskov the bald Odessa pathologist, Shymko and the thin-lipped young woman in the leather jacket were all waiting for him to do or say something, and he wasn’t quite sure what.
‘I’ve seen him work before, Comrades. He spends a lot of time just looking, but the things he sees, the things he sees…’
And Babel, of course. How could he have forgotten Babel? How the hell had he managed to wangle his way in here anyway?
‘Seeing as we have a comrade from the famous Petrovka Street with us so fortuitously,’ Mushkin said, pronouncing the last word ironically, ‘perhaps he might look over the body? I’m sure Dr Peskov won’t mind. Dr Peskov, you don’t mind, do you?’
The bald pathologist shook his head so hard that his round spectacles nearly fell off.
‘I’m no pathologist, Major,’ Korolev began and wasn’t surprised to see a muscle in the major’s jaw clench with irritation, ‘although it’s true I’ve seen a few dead bodies. Maybe the Comrade Doctor should carry on with his preliminary examination as he would normally and I can observe over his shoulder. I’m sure his experience in this area is far greater than mine, but an extra pair of eyes is always useful.’
Peskov glanced at the colonel, who, in turn, looked towards Mushkin just as a nervous gundog might to his master. Eventually Mushkin nodded his agreement, but not before giving Korolev a long, thoughtful look which the detective was unsure how to interpret. The doctor stepped forward and stood at the end of the table, picking up the dead girl’s head in both his hands, leaning forward. His fingers felt underneath her neck as though searching for something. Korolev also approached the body and bent forward to look more closely.
‘No saliva,’ Korolev said quietly, for the doctor’s ears as opposed to anyone else’s.
‘No, but someone may have cleaned her up.’
‘What was that?’ Major Mushkin was interested despite himself.
‘Saliva, Major,’ Peskov said. ‘With self-asphyxiation, there is invariably a flow of saliva from the mouth, down the chin and straight onto the chest. If the body is hung after death, this doesn’t happen, the production of saliva being a living act.’