“Comrade Priudski?” Korolev said, approaching him.
“That’s me,” the doorkeeper said, extending his hand. Priudski’s teeth were yellow and uneven but he smiled with them anyway, a smile that seemed to come too easily to be genuine.
“You’re the detective, are you? Captain Korolev?”
“Yes.” Korolev shook the man’s hand-it felt like taking hold of a two-day-old fish. “And this is Sergeant Slivka. You were listening then?”
Priudski looked momentarily uncomfortable.
“Only in order to assist in any way I can, of course.”
“That’s kind of you,” Korolev replied, allowing a little menace to slip into his tone. “Everyone visiting the apartments this entrance serves has to pass by you, is that right?”
“Yes, each entrance serves a separate part of the building so we know our tenants well. They pass freely but if there are guests or deliveries we call up to the apartments. I keep a record of the comings and goings.”
“And today?”
“No deliveries or guests for the Azarovs.”
“We’ll need that record-and a list of all the residents in the building. I’ll want you to go through it with Sergeant Slivka here and tell me if and when you saw each one of the residents today.”
“I’d be happy to, Comrade Captain.”
“Well, what do you think about this killing? Any suspicions?”
“The professor works at the Azarov Institute on Yakimanka-it’s named for him. All I’ve ever heard is he was a good Party man-and a respected scientist. My guess is it was counterrevolutionary terrorists.”
“Counterrevolutionary terrorists?”
“Seeing as he was an important scientist.”
“Did you see anyone resembling a counterrevolutionary terrorist pass by your office today?”
Korolev was careful to ask the question completely straight. It wasn’t the kind of thing you could joke about, no matter how ridiculous it might seem.
“They’re sly dogs. They probably slipped in some other way.” Priudski’s gaze moved away from his as he spoke. A shifty character, it seemed to Korolev.
“Thank you, Comrade, we’ll consider all possibilities, of course. And if you can think which ‘other way’ they could have slipped in, let us know. What did the professor do at this institute of his that might have attracted such people?”
“Brains.”
“Brains?”
“Research into brains. Secret research, I believe.”
“Secret research?” Korolev wondered if this case could get any worse. “I see. Did you hear anything unusual today? It’s likely there was a gunshot.”
“If there was, like as not I wouldn’t have heard it, Comrade Captain. The work on the bridge starts first thing and continues till dark.”
Priudski indicated the new bridge being built farther along the embankment. And as he did so a pile-driver began to hammer once again. Bang, bang, bang. A gunshot would have as much chance of being heard as a whisper in a gale. All the same.
“Sergeant Slivka will take your statement-I want you to try and recall every single thing about this morning for her, no matter how insignificant. And every person you saw.” Korolev paused and looked up at the darkening sky.
“Belinsky, let the residents back in-there’s no point in them getting soaked. Which floor is Professor Azarov’s apartment on?”
“The fifth,” Priudski said.
Korolev nodded and turned back to the sergeant.
“Just ask them to stay away from the fifth floor, Belinsky. And get your men to take their names and ask what they saw, on the way in.”
The sergeant nodded.
“Comrade Priudski, can you take me to the professor’s apartment?”
The doorkeeper opened the door that led into the small entrance hall.
“We’ve a lift,” he said.
“I’ll take the stairs, thanks.” Korolev didn’t trust lifts-he didn’t like the idea of plummeting ten floors in a tin box without anything to grab hold of. Not at all. Priudski could keep his lift.
“It’s a long way up,” the doorman said, “it would be quicker.”
“I want to see the layout of the building before I see the apartment-you can’t see anything in a lift.” Korolev knew damned well it was a long way up-just as he knew it was a long way back down when some rusty cable went snap.
While they climbed the stairs, Korolev considered Priudski. If Korolev knew one thing about Moscow doormen, it was that they were acquisitive when it came to information. Most of them shared that information with anyone they thought might provide them with more of the same-nobody liked to gossip more than doormen. But it was also widely suspected that a smaller, but not insignificant, number shared their information with State Security-on an exclusive basis. In an apartment complex like this, full of bigwigs, and with the way this fellow was dressed and his whole demeanor-well, Korolev had little doubt he was one of that kind.
They’d reached the third landing now, two floors below the Azarovs’ apartment, and, as if to confirm Korolev’s suspicions about Priudski, one of the doors was sealed with string and red wax. Korolev walked over to it, peering closer to read the stamp that had been applied to the seal. “By Order of the Ministry of State Security.”
He sighed. Another arrest-the inhabitants carted away in a black van, no doubt, and the apartment closed up until the Chekists had finished searching it for evidence.
Korolev looked over to Priudski and the doorman looked away.
CHAPTER FIVE
“Found anything yet?” Korolev said, nodding to Ushakov’s colleague, Levschinsky. The forensics man was on one knee in the internal hallway, dusting the handle of the door to the apartment.
“No signed confession, if that’s what you mean. We haven’t been here long though.”
“Can I come in?”
“Just don’t touch anything.”
Korolev put his hands in his pockets to keep them out of temptation’s way. Many a mysterious fingerprint had turned out to belong to a Militiaman who’d wandered into a crime scene with his mind on other matters.
“We found the body though.” Levschinsky pointed over his shoulder to an open doorway.
“That’s something then.”
“All right, someone else found it.” Levschinsky looked up from the doorknob and smiled. “This doorknob is a waste of time, by the way. But we’re thorough, if nothing else.”
Korolev nodded his appreciation and decided to take a quick look around before he introduced himself to the corpse. The place was a palace by modern Moscow standards-a dining room, two bedrooms, a small kitchen-they even had their own private bathroom. Korolev stepped into the professor’s sitting room and could only imagine the satisfaction the dead man must have taken from the view-the Kremlin, the river and most of central Moscow was visible from the windows. You could leave aside Lenin Prizes, appointments to the Academy of Red Professors and any other accolade the State might throw in the direction of a deserving scientific fellow-this view and the size and number of the rooms told anyone who needed to know that Professor Azarov had been at the pinnacle of his profession. Korolev thought he was lucky having a room all to himself in Kitai Gorod-but this was something else again.
“Anything for me, old friend?” Korolev said, entering the study with reluctance. The truth was, having to deal with dead bodies was the thing he enjoyed least about the job. If murders could be committed without producing corpses then he’d be a happier detective.
The burly, silver-haired Ushakov looked up from his examination of the windowsill and nodded toward the corpse.
“A bullet to the back of the head-a big caliber, by the look of it. Possibly a nervous shooter.”
“Why do you say that?” Korolev said, forcing himself to step closer to the body. The dead man was slumped forward onto the papers that covered the desk, white hair spilling over his bent arms, his forehead pushed up against his right hand-the fingers of which still held a pen.