The visitor from Moscow was in the next room. In the evenings, Karimov could hear the old man singing Italian arias in his unbearable, squeaky voice, the device at his throat. It made his stomach churn. In times when any quarrel could be settled with a bullet, Pipe always had the last word. People said he didn't trust his dangerous rivals to a hired killer but took up arms himself. He had become sentimental in his old age, however, and allowed his enemies to live a life worse than death. In the past he had been a man of few words whereas these days he loved to chat, aware that people trembled at the sound of his voice and longed to plug the hole in his throat.
Pipe kept to the shadows, hiding behind placemen he moved around like chequers on a board. But Karimov dreamed of being rid of the foster father who tailed him so relentlessly, popping up behind him like a jack-in-the-box so that Karimov felt as though Pipe was living his life, biting out pieces as if it were an apple and making him voice other people's words and play someone else's role. Once, Karimov even made up his mind to try and kill Pipe but when the car blew up, the old man was lingering outside a wine shop, perusing the dusty bottles. Pipe realized straightway where the fuse led but rather than wrapping it round the traitor's throat, he sent Karimov to the North and made him manager of the factory.
«You'll like it there,» the old man squeaked, jabbing at a remote corner of the map. «It's said to be very pretty. The harsh climate is character-building.»
«Then I'd be better off further south,» Karimov quipped.
«One year is like two in the Arctic Circle. It's instead of the military service you didn't do. It'll make a man of you!» he said, patting Karimov on the head and sadly taking note of the traces of grey already showing among the dark curls.
There was a noise in the corridor and unfamiliar voices. Karimov heard his bodyguard engaged in a protracted argument with somebody and then there was a loud, insistent knock at the door. Two lanky young men in uniform came in, automatically wiping their feet at the door.
One went unceremoniously around the room, opening cupboards, turning out the drawers and looking through paperwork left on the bed while the second muttered some phrases he'd learnt by heart that Karimov simply couldn't apply to himself.
«Witness saw you shoot someone.»
Karimov shuddered and swallowed.
«Shoot someone?»
«That's right. We've got a dozen witnesses. And several killings where you're the main suspect. Get your stuff together. We're going to the station.»
Karimov leapt away when they tried to handcuff him.
«Are you mad?» he yelled, raising a hand at the officer.
The officer quailed and clipped the cuffs to his belt. He gestured towards the door, asking Karimov to accompany them to the car.
«What am I being accused of? Murder?» Karimov asked as they went downstairs.
«Murders,» the cop said, correcting him.
Grey smoke from the factory chimney mingled with the clouds and trailed across the sky in a dark band like a smear from a dirty rag. Out on the balcony, the visitor from Moscow watched the policemen escort Karimov to the car. There were crowds of onlookers and local reporters drawn like bees to honey. Cameras clicked and Karimov hid his face behind his hand. He was pushed into the car and before climbing into the back seat he turned to look at Pipe but he had already disappeared into his room where he would pack his suitcase.
Karimov felt abandoned as he had on the children's home steps that night when he was gathered up by the stranger who adopted him.
Karimov was put in a dark, damp cell with a chipped bench and a rusty sink. Initially, the prison warders brought him hot meals and the morning papers. The television in the corner was on all the time and the bedding smelt of scented soap. Karimov cursed Pipe and calculated how much his release would cost. The old man never lost and this time too he had outplayed him.
Pacing the cell, Karimov had an attack of claustrophobia that brought him out in a cold sweat. A lump rose in his throat, preventing him breathing, and he was about to shout for help. At that very moment the lock rattled and a policeman strode into the cell, presenting a document which charged Karimov with three counts of murder.
«I won't even have the trousers I stand up in,» said Karimov, screwing up his face with a laugh. He was convinced he would be blackmailed so that he repaid Pipe for the factory a hundred-fold.
«We'll give you prison trousers,» said the policeman, holding his gaze. «An honest confession…» he said, mumbling the well-rehearsed phrases and holding out a sheet of paper.
«You've got to be joking,» said Karimov, shaking his head, when he heard he was being charged with Coffin's murder. «Everyone saw Savely Savage kill him!»
«The witnesses are saying they were threatened, forced to malign Savage on pain of death.»
«Malign him?!»
«Despite their false testimonies,» said the officer, stressing the word «false», «no-one really believed that a decent citizen just brought down a gangster like a moose in a hunt. Even less that he'd started picking everyone off one by one like the hero in some stupid film.»
Karimov wiped his forehead, struggling to get his act together.
«So, I'm the one who killed Coffin?»
«Is that a confession?»
«I'm asking you.»
The officer didn't answer and just held out the sheet of paper.
«And Trebenko? That was me? And Antonov? And whoever used a gun to shoot me, was that me as well?»
The policeman put the paper and a pen on the bed and left without a backward glance.
«So why did I kill them all?» yelled Karimov, hurling himself at the closing door. «What for?»
When he was little, his foster father used to threaten him when he was naughty: «I'll put you in the children's home.» Or he would hide behind a tree and watch the little boy running around the courtyard wailing and rubbing away the tears with his dirty little fists. Then he would emerge, holding out his arms, and Karimov would cling to him, choking with mortification. Even now, he expected the bolt to be drawn back and the door opened and Pipe to come in laughing and holding out his arms.
But he didn't come.
Lapin looked at Savage's photo and tried on Savage's life like a jacket, imagining being married to Mrs Savage and the father of Savage's daughter. Warming to the part, he imagined coming home in the evening amid the throng of factory workers, buying a loaf of bread at the stall and munching it on the way, then passing the veranda of the Three Lemons and seeing Coffin, snoozing at the table, surrounded by bored bodyguards. He imagined talking to Coffin, gesticulating in front of the dumbfounded clientele who regarded him as a madman. The bouncers take him by the belt and see him out. He sits on the dusty kerb, rubbing his temples. He pictured the gangster offering him the gun and himself taking it in trembling hands sweating with terror, training it on Coffin and pressing the trigger.
As he got to know Savage better, he had discovered that they were very much alike. Savage had always been superfluous and alone wherever he went and Lapin had always been alone and superfluous wherever he went. He allowed loneliness to get under the blankets at night and in the mornings he spent so long looking at his reflection that he no longer knew who he was seeing in the mirror. Running a finger over the crumpled photo, he could sense Savage circling the town, afraid to return but not knowing where to run.
One evening, the prosecutor put his head round Lapin's door. The building was empty and quiet and when the prosecutor passed Lapin's office he could hear him leafing through the weighty pages of the Savely Savage case, muttering to himself.