‘Thank you, Comrade. We may have some more questions in due course. But you’ve been very helpful.’
She nodded, looking for a moment almost as tired as he felt, and rose to her feet. He walked with her to the door, and wasn’t surprised to feel his body resisting each step he tried to take forward. How long had he been without proper sleep? Too long – far too long.
As if on cue, Slivka appeared in the doorway as they approached and held it open for Sorokina with a respectful smile. The actress turned and gave Korolev a small wave, but didn’t say farewell. He nodded in return. Slivka watched the actress go and then smiled at him, fondly – the sort of look that a girl her age might reserve for a grandfather.
‘You look exhausted, Chief.’
‘I don’t just look it. Listen, roust out Andreychuk, will you? Sorokina says he and Lenskaya argued a couple of days ago.’ He consulted his notebook. ‘Apparently he warned her to go back to Moscow, that it would be dangerous for her if she stayed.’
‘I see.’
‘I’d like to know what he meant by it.’
‘Are you sure you’re happy for me to talk to him on my own?’
‘I’ve a feeling he’ll respond well to you.’ Korolev’s voice sounded slurred with tiredness even to him. He made one more effort. ‘Any news from the other interviews? Or the forensics man? Firtov, is it?’
‘A few things to follow up – Firtov thinks he has a partial fingerprint in the dining room. And Peskov called, the doctor. He asked if we wanted to attend the autopsy. What do you think? He’ll do it tonight, if you wanted to go in.’
‘I’ll be honest with you,’ Korolev said, thinking that his tiredness was making him more open than usual, and being too exhausted to care, ‘I don’t much like watching people poke about inside other people.’ Which didn’t sound like the words of a man prepared to his duty – he sighed, a long sigh. Children had been born and wrapped in a towel in less time than his sigh took. ‘How long would it take to drive there?’
She shrugged, ‘An hour, no more. If I’m driving that is.’
‘Look at me, Slivka, I can barely stand. Let’s tell him to go ahead – speed is important here – but we’ll visit him tomorrow morning for his conclusions. We can discuss the case on the way, and the uniforms can carry on with the initial interviews in our absence. Tell him we’ll be there at eight o’clock. An early start. Afterwards we can go and see Firtov, and find out if this fingerprint of his comes to anything.’
‘Perhaps I should stay here?’
‘No, if I’m assigned to another matter, you’ll still be involved in the case, so we should both go.’ He caught the beginning of a yawn and pushed a fist in front of his open mouth. ‘Are any of the uniforms from the village able to use a typewriter?’
‘No, but Comrade Shymko offered us one of his girls in the end. Larisa.’
‘I met her. Put the fear of God into her – I don’t want her blabbing if she’s typing up the interviews of people she knows.’
Slivka smirked.
‘All right, all right. I know God doesn’t exist.’ Another lie to be forgiven by that non-existent Lord. ‘Put the fear of a prison cell into her, how about that?’
‘With pleasure.’
‘Has anyone bothered to find us accommodation?’
‘They’ve found a bed for you in the house, but I’m not sure about me, at least so far. Still, if the worst comes to the worst, I’ll take the blanket from the car and sleep in the armchair here. I’ve slept in worse places.’
The thought of a bed produced a feeling of intense longing but, on the other hand, he didn’t like the idea of his having a bed while his subordinate made do with an armchair.
‘We’ll toss for it,’ Korolev said, feeling around in his pocket and producing a ten-kopek coin.
‘We won’t,’ Slivka said. ‘Your bed comes with a good-looking Frenchman in the bed beside it. The girls in the production office think he’s safer with you than with me. Or maybe they think you’re safer with him – who knows? He’s good-looking, that much is certainly true.’
‘You’ve met him? This Les Pins character.’
‘It has been a day of many meetings.’
‘What did you make of him?’
‘A handsome man. Missing part of his ear, though, a clean cut. A knife, I’d say. Or a bullet perhaps. A tough customer, gentle with it and speaks Russian like a grand prince. Anyway, it’s been decided. The Frenchman will be “enchanted” to have your company.’
Korolev accepted defeat.
‘Fair enough,’ he said. ‘And one last thing?’
‘Yes?’
‘See if you can get me some cigarettes?’
Chapter Nine
Before he called it a day, Korolev made one final effort and telephoned Yasimov in Moscow. Because of the late hour he called him at home, explaining the situation to him briefly – Yasimov was smart enough not to ask any questions once he heard where Korolev was calling from. Instead he spoke only to agree to Korolev’s requests, which were simple enough. Poke around at the orphanage and see what he could find out about the dead girl’s background, ask around at the Film Board and the State Film School about her and, finally, do a little bit of digging into Comrades Lomatkin, Savchenko and Belakovsky and any other lovers who came to light. Korolev knew Yasimov well enough to presume that if Ezhov’s name came up in the process, he’d forget he’d ever heard it, which was exactly what he wanted him to do. It was a weary Korolev who put down the telephone and made his way to the main house and the small room he’d been allocated to share with Les Pins.
He was unsurprised to discover that Slivka had been right about the Frenchman – he did indeed speak beautiful Russian, and with a precise yet flowing elegance that for a native would lead to a ten-year stretch in the gold mines of Kolyma, but for Les Pins resulted in a flock of adoring production girls. It was, Korolev thought, not for the first time that day, a very strange world.
Les Pins welcomed him and pronounced himself, as Slivka had also predicted, ‘enchanted’ at the prospect. Korolev decided ‘enchanted’ was not intended to be taken literally, but was just what French people felt obliged to say when they had foisted on them a large Muscovite policeman who looked as though he might snore like a hibernating bear. But then again, with words like that in your repertoire, it must be difficult not to walk on the sunny side of the street, and Les Pins seemed to be a determinedly ebullient character, a firm smile permanently fixed to his face, and a pleasant, melodious, laugh that hovered on a hair trigger, ready to tinkle out at the slightest excuse. It was only when Korolev shook hands with him that he felt the missing fingers. Something must have shown in his face because Les Pins looked down with a smile.
‘A German bayonet. Verdun. And you?’ Les Pins nodded to the sabre scar that ran down the side of Korolev’s jaw to his chin, so old now that he hardly noticed it any more.
‘A sabre. A Russian one.’ Korolev shrugged, thinking back to the Cossack, his horse rearing, leaning down to slash at him for a second time. At such moments a man’s life ends or continues. His had continued and the Cossack’s had ended. ‘But the Germans gave me a few scrapes too.’
Korolev couldn’t help but think of two old dogs meeting in the street, sniffing each other out. For all the Frenchman’s smiling suavity, those eyes had stared down the barrel of a gun more than once, and from either end, if he wasn’t mistaken.
‘So I hear poor Masha was murdered?’ The Frenchman turned away and began to undress. His shoulder was bandaged, Korolev noticed, and he moved stiffly, but he was still a relatively fit man. Korolev sat down on the spare bed and pulled off his boots, feeling the stretch in his back as he leant down and resisting the urge to topple forward and fall asleep right there on the floor, and damn the Frenchman.