‘Did you know about this foreigner?’ Korolev said, looking up at Slivka.
‘A foreigner?’
‘Some Frenchman. He’s been fighting on our side in Spain, so he’s probably all right. But who knows? Foreigners are always trouble.’
‘Yes, they can be tricky. Those Ukrainians are the worst.’
Slivka’s teasing smile was a surprise. She must be a confident young woman if she felt comfortable making fun of a stranger twice her age with the rank to go with it, but Korolev didn’t mind. It was more pleasant to work in a comradely atmosphere.
‘We’re all Soviet citizens here, Slivka,’ he said, deciding the time had come to drop the ‘sergeant’. ‘Even you Ukrainians. It’s the rest I’ve my doubts about. They should leave all the foreigners to the diplomats if you ask me. If they have to be dealt with, it’s better done by professionals.’
Slivka smiled and took a look around her.
‘So this is where we’ll be working? Will we have to sleep here too, do you think? I wonder: will they give us a couple of mattresses? Maybe a handsome actor as well? Not for you, of course.’
Korolev laughed – Marchuk had probably offloaded her onto him, not quite sure what to do with a sparky young female detective, and Korolev couldn’t swear he wouldn’t have done the same in his shoes.
‘Slivka, I’m not sure I introduced myself properly before. My name is Korolev,’ he said and then, thinking there was no harm in being specific, ‘Alexei Dmitriyevich, Captain, Moscow Criminal Investigation Division. Petrovka Street.’
He stood up and extended his hand, which Slivka took with a surprisingly firm grip.
‘Don’t ask me why I’m running this case, Slivka, but I am, and I plan to catch whoever killed that poor girl, with your help.’
‘A sound plan.’
‘Good, so let’s get down to business.’
‘Agreed,’ Slivka said, ‘but before we start, can I ask a question?’
‘Of course.’
‘Don’t be offended, Comrade Captain, but is this a Moscow investigation, or an Odessa one?’
Korolev rubbed a hand up the back of his neck, feeling the bristly scrub of his short-cut hair.
‘It’s a good question – all I can say is that the responsibility for this investigation falls mainly on us, the two of us. We won’t be reporting to Colonel Marchuk, and we won’t be involving the procurator’s office. We’ll be reporting to Moscow, but we’ll have to make most of the decisions ourselves. I can’t tell you any more than that, except that if we mess this up it could go badly. So we’d better not mess it up.’
Slivka sucked in the last of the cigarette she was smoking, stubbing it out in the ashtray, shrugged as if the strange circumstances surrounding the investigation were but a minor concern to her, reached into her pockets, extracted another cigarette and lit it by scratching a match along the sole of her boot. She inhaled, cupping her hand round the cigarette the way soldiers and policemen, used to smoking in the open, often did.
‘Well, I thought something might be up, Comrade Captain, which is why I asked. I like to know what’s what. You can find yourself in trouble if you don’t know what’s what. And who’s who.’
She blew out a perfect smoke ring, then took two folded pieces of paper from her pocket and handed them to him.
‘One. A list of the cast and the crew, including all the production staff, catering etcetera, etcetera, and the staff of the College who aren’t away with the students, which isn’t many; and, two, a list of the people who have keys to the house. In other words, people who might have had access to the scene of the crime yesterday evening.’
Korolev looked through the longer list. Beside each name was a number from one to three. ‘And the numbers?’
‘I had Comrade Shymko rate each person by the amount of contact they had with Citizen Lenskaya. 1 is daily contact, a 2 means occasional and a 3 means little or none.’
‘Excellent. We’ll start with the people who had daily contact.’ He looked down the list – his optimism was misplaced. ‘Most of them, it would seem.’
‘Yes. More than we’d like, for sure. Thirty-four.’
Korolev sighed. He was beginning to feel the dead weight of exhaustion again, as if the last of his energy was being sucked into the floor through the soles of his feet. He rallied himself for one last push.
‘Well, the sooner we start – the sooner we finish.’
‘I agree. Can I suggest we use Shymko’s people to arrange the interviews; it will be less disruptive for them if they know what we’re up to.’
‘Good thinking,’ Korolev said. ‘Let’s try and keep them short – we’ll interview them again tomorrow likely as not, but our first objective is to identify potential motives and perpetrators, and anyone who could have been in the house at the time of death.’
‘And cherchez l’homme, right?’
‘Possibly,’ Korolev said, thinking that the most obvious lover to have been responsible for Lenskaya’s death was probably Ezhov and that wasn’t something he wanted to think about too much. ‘As it turns out, she may have been romantically inclined, if you take my meaning. Savchenko for one, or so it seems, and probably Comrade Belakovsky as well, although as Savchenko was filming down in the village and Belakovsky was in Moscow, that doesn’t take us too much further. Still, there may have been others – let’s find out who. It doesn’t feel like a crime of passion, though; whoever did this was careful and covered their tracks, or tried to at least. My suspicion is that it was premeditated. Also, whoever did it must have been quite strong. How much did Lenskaya weigh? Sixty kilos or so? It must have been difficult to lift her up to the bracket.’
‘Indeed,’ Slivka said, writing in her notebook.
‘We need to find out as much as we can about her background as well,’ he continued. ‘I have her Party record, but there’s a lot missing and not much about her private life. And nothing about her relationships with the people on the filmset. Here, you’d better read it.’
Slivka took the report and again there was that slight raising of the eyebrows.
‘Her Party record? It takes us a bit of time to get them even when they’re held in Odessa.’
‘Perhaps things are different in Moscow.’
‘I’ll go through it. Anything else I should have? Or know?’
Korolev decided to give her the report on the film and the other information Rodinov had provided. He handed her the envelope and Slivka took the documents out, looked through them and whistled.
‘Not to be discussed other than with me. And I mean with anyone. For both our sakes.’
Slivka nodded her agreement, slipping the papers back into the envelope.
‘I have Andreychuk waiting outside for you,’ she said when she’d finished.
‘Good, I’ll see him as soon as I’ve spoken to the forensics men. In the meantime – ’ Korolev tapped Slivka’s lists – ‘we need to whittle these down – opportunity, ability and motive. That’s what we’re looking for. Same as always.’
‘They filmed the crowd. Maybe we could identify some people from it – rule them out perhaps?’
Korolev considered her proposaclass="underline" the problem was he didn’t know any of the people on the film – not yet anyway – and neither would Slivka.
‘It’s a good suggestion – look into it. We’ll need help, though. I know the writer Babel from Moscow. He’s offered to assist – perhaps we should take him up on it.’
‘Babel?’ Slivka said. ‘I get to work with the author of Odessa Tales? My mother might even forgive me for joining the Militia. Tell me he can he type as well, and it will be like New Year.’
‘I suppose he can. He’s a writer after all – in fact, I’ve seen a typewriter in his study.’
‘Good, because I’m a detective, Captain, not a typist. Just so we’re clear about that. It’s a point I sometimes have to make.’