It was the voice of a person who had a gun pointed at a fellow’s back and a bullet ready to plant a hole the size of a baby’s fist between his shoulder blades if he should so much as shiver. But Korolev started to turn anyway. After all, he recognized the voice well enough.
‘That’s enough, Korolev. Put your gun and the torch on the table beside you.’
‘As you wish,’ Korolev said, placing Sharapov’s Nagant down as instructed and noting without surprise that Blumkin had recovered his pistol and was pointing it straight at his throat.
‘Damienko, pick up that gun and take the torch.’
‘What’s going on, Comrade Mushkina?’ the tall man asked.
‘Trouble is what’s going on, Damienko. And your only way out of it is to do as I say.’
Mushkina’s voice had enough iron in it to armour a tank and the stranger did as he was told, checking the magazine of Sharapov’s Nagant and making sure there was a bullet in the firing chamber. Whoever he was, he’d handled a gun before. Korolev was conscious of the weight of the Walther in his pocket, but with three guns now trained on him it seemed to him the best place for his hands was pointing upwards, which was where he put them.
‘What happened to Les Pins?’
‘We found him searching for certain information. A guest who overstayed his welcome – in more ways than one – and a loose end that needed tying up.’
Korolev sighed: it didn’t take much detective work to realize he was another loose end that needed tying up – permanently. Still, he had a gun in his pocket and Slivka was out there somewhere. The game wasn’t over yet – not for as long as he was allowed to keep playing it, anyway.
‘So it was you, all along, Comrade Mushkina. Pulling the strings, finding enemies and counter-revolutionaries and bringing them together. Killing anyone who stood in your way.’
‘Finding them, Korolev?’ she repeated bitterly. ‘That wasn’t hard – there isn’t a man, woman or child in this part of the world doesn’t know that the Revolution has failed them. I don’t have to search for people who are against the Revolution – around here everyone is against the Revolution. Ask people in the village about hunger and they’ll tell you stories that will turn your blood to ice. They were left with nothing for a long winter – but I know where it all went. Do you know where, Korolev? Abroad. To the Capitalist countries. To the imperialists and bankers. To prop up fascists and oppressors while our own people starved. And there’s nothing that wasn’t eaten here at that time. Leather, grass, the bark of trees and worse, much worse than that. This is what the Revolution gave these people – the same people it was meant to be freeing from tyranny and want. Let me tell you, Korolev, the tsars were better to the people round here than Stalin, and that’s the truth of it.’
Korolev turned to look at the elderly woman. The light from the torch held on him by Damienko showed the silver in her hair, the dark hollows of her eyes and cheeks. There was no doubting her sincerity.
‘I don’t involve myself in political matters, I’m a detective.’
‘You were sent by the Lubianka, Korolev. You’re no ordinary detective.’
‘I was sent here, as you say, by the Lubianka – but I’m no Chekist. And, believe me, if I had my way I’d be in my bed in Moscow right now rather than having guns pointed at me. But you know who the murdered girl was connected to, and it was my misfortune to come to his attention on another case. Political matters aren’t for the likes of me, Comrade, but I go where I’m sent. That’s what an ordinary detective has to do – his duty.’
‘Ordinary, you say? Do you know how much trouble you’ve caused us?’
‘My job is to investigate crimes, Comrade. I don’t apologize if I make it inconvenient for the criminals.’
As soon as he’d said it, Korolev regretted the comment. It wasn’t the time to be pointing a finger at people who were pointing guns at him.
‘We’re no criminals, Korolev,’ Mushkina eventually said, her voice seeming a little quieter than before. ‘The criminals are Stalin and the Party, who’ve murdered the People. I know the truth.’
Korolev wanted a cigarette and he wanted to see his son Yuri one more time. To ruffle his fingers through the boy’s soft hair and hear him laugh. It looked as if the odds on seeing Yuri were long, but he might have a chance with a cigarette.
‘Mind if I smoke? I’ve some in my pocket. I even have a few spare.’ Well, why not offer them round? The likelihood was he wouldn’t be finishing them himself.
‘I have some questions that need answering,’ Mushkina said by way of agreement.
‘I’ve a few of my own,’ Korolev responded, his fingers reaching slowly for the breast pocket of his overcoat. ‘But I’ll answer yours better if I have some smoke in my lungs.’
‘Slowly, then.’
When he struck the match, the spark’s light briefly showed the faces of his captors: Blumkin looked determined, Damienko as if he wanted very much to be somewhere else and Mushkina could just as easily have been discussing the weather as aiming a loaded gun at a Militiaman’s head. The Frenchman, on the other hand, looked as dead as ever.
Korolev’s cigarette tip glowed orange as he blew out the match.
‘How did you find out about the guns?’ Mushkina asked, her voice gentle.
‘A fellow I know told me about them. It seems you tried to force the wrong people to shift them for you.’
‘Not my work. Some men must always take the hardest way. I choose the way that gets me to the destination safely. I knew it was an error to cross the Odessa Thieves.’
‘You know what happened, then?’
‘In the catacombs? Yes. Some of our people escaped.’
‘Not for long. When I left Odessa the place was crawling with Militia and Chekists. A mouse in a bread-bin had better have his papers in order tonight.’
‘Not so many that I couldn’t make my way out, Korolev – age and standing in the Party count for something, even these days. Tell me, how did you find out about Les Pins and Gradov? We know you were looking for them. Blumkin here was ordered to hold them on sight.’
‘Gradov? Well, it was his habit of losing guns that turn up in dead men’s hands, and given Andreychuk had escaped on his watch – well, even I began to wonder whether he might be worth talking to. As for Les Pins, we found his fingerprint on the bracket the girl was hung from. And Sharapov spotted the morphine tablets he used to drug her in his bedroom.’
‘The girl was another mistake. She could have been dealt with a different way.’
‘I wanted to ask you why she was killed. You must have known she was Ezhov’s lover – everyone else did. Surely killing her could only cause you trouble.’
‘I knew it, but this fool didn’t. And didn’t bother asking either.’ She flicked the barrel of her gun in the dead Frenchman’s direction. Korolev didn’t need to see her face to be certain it reflected the contempt in her voice. ‘And then it turned out she was Andreychuk’s daughter. If I could have talked to her, I would have reminded her that our exposure was her own death sentence, but he was an adventurer, an amateur. How he pulled the wool over the eyes of the Comrades in Spain, I’ve no idea.’
‘Who was he?’
‘A Russian mother, a French father, a German spy. He was with the French in Odessa when they intervened in ’nineteen, and stayed on as an observer with the Whites. When he became involved with the Germans I don’t know, but fascists have their own loyalties. To him, we were a means to an end. To us, he was a source of guns, so much the same. We gave him something he wanted and he gave us what we wanted. But then he decided he should be the one making the decisions, and some of our people agreed with him. And I was overruled.’
‘And they paid the price?’
‘They listened to him when he said they could force the Thieves to ship in the guns. And look where that got them.’
‘Why did he kill the girl?’
‘She found out what she was bringing in from Moscow.’
‘And what? Threatened to reveal everything to the authorities?’