‘As it were? Or actually?’
‘He was actually dangling from a rope. But I could not see the rope from my perspective. He hung there for a moment, and then he fell back down. I assume it was the fall that killed him.’
‘So whoever was holding him up let go of the rope?’
‘I suppose so.’
‘Do you think he let go by accident? Or was this a deliberate attempt to kill him?’
‘I couldn’t say, comrade. But he came down, and the rope came down with him.’
At this, Liski sat forward. ‘You saw this rope? You examined it?’
‘My primary concern,’ I said, ‘was attending to Mr Coyne, to see if he was hurt. But I suppose I did notice the rope, yes.’
‘Can you describe it?’
‘It was rope,’ I said. ‘It was a pale colour. It may, actually,’ I added, trying to pull the memory out of my brain, ‘have been a steel cable. It may have had a silver colour. Colour was hard to judge. It was warm and smooth to the touch.’
‘You touched it?’
‘Yes. It was warm and soft, but it didn’t feel like rope. Perhaps a synthetic cable? I’m surprised you’re so interested in the rope.’
‘No rope was found at the scene,’ he told me.
I thought about this. ‘You’re sure?’
‘Indeed. There’s no indication on the ankles of the deceased that he had been suspended from a rope in mid-air. No rope burn or marks on his legs. And no rope was found.’
‘I would assume, therefore,’ I said, ‘that the rope must have been retrieved.’
‘You said it fell down on top of Coyne?’
I thought about it. ‘I think it did,’ I said. ‘I’m not sure.’
‘Did you see somebody come out onto the street and retrieve the rope?’
‘No.’
‘Militia officers were at the scene very quickly. They found no rope.’
‘I can’t explain why you didn’t find the rope.’
Liski looked at me. ‘You checked Coyne’s body yourself?’
‘He was still alive,’ I said. ‘It was all so startling, so unexpected, that I half thought it was all an elaborate practical joke. He was still breathing, although I noticed very quickly that blood was seeping out from under his body.’
‘His neck was broken in the fall,’ said Liski. ‘He landed on his left arm. His wristwatch was metal, and it cut through the flesh into his ribs. But it was the breaking of his neck that killed him.’
‘I see.’
‘Did he say anything?’
‘He did. He—This is the strangest thing. He told me to respond.’
‘To respond? To respond to what?’
‘I didn’t know. I assumed, in the moment, that he wanted a response to the acrobatic display he’d just put on. Applause, for instance. He told me I’d better respond, or else.’
‘Or else what?’
‘Just or else.’
‘Was he,’ Liski asked, ‘speaking Russian, or was he speaking English?’
I cast my mind back, but on this subject it was a perfect blank. ‘I don’t remember. I’m sorry comrade, I honestly don’t. The two of us had been speaking Russian, and then switching to English, and back to Russian. His last words might have been either.’
‘Humph,’ said Liski, dropping his cigarette to the floor and toeing it dead.
‘It’s a strange thing,’ I said, ‘but I just can’t remember. I mean, I suppose, given the shock, that he’d be speaking English. Wouldn’t he? Wouldn’t the surprise and the shock jolt him into his mother tongue? But then again, he was very fluent in Russian. And we’d mostly been speaking Russian as we walked. Do you think it’s important?’
‘Is that all he said?’
I thought. ‘He said four,’ I added.
‘Four what?’
‘Just four.’
‘The number four?’
‘The number four.’
Liski stared unblinking at me. ‘Four o’clock?’
‘Maybe.’
‘Four roubles? Four assailants? Four what?’
‘Do you know what?’ I said, abruptly. ‘If he was speaking Russian then it would be four. If he was speaking English, however, it might be for. It could, in other words, have been a connective, as if he was going on to say something else, except that death intervened.’
‘In sum,’ said Liski, sitting back in his seat, ‘the victim’s last words were Respond — or else! For… and then he died.’
‘It does sound odd,’ I conceded.
‘Perhaps he was saying: Respond! Or else four… as it might be, Respond, or else four men will attack.’
‘Respond or else,’ I repeated hesitantly.
‘Respond — or else four space-aliens will visit you? Respond — or else four nations will be attacked with alien space-bombs?’
‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘I’m not sure.’
‘It would be helpful,’ said Liski, ‘if you could remember whether he was speaking Russian or English.’
‘It would.’
‘Come along,’ he said, turning off the cassette machine and getting to his feet. ‘Back to the cells with you. Enough for tonight. We’ll talk some more tomorrow. Maybe your memory will work better in daylight.’
‘I can’t imagine,’ I said, getting to my feet with a rickety series of popping noises in my joints, ‘that a lot of daylight penetrates down here.’
CHAPTER 9
I was taken back down to the same cell as before, but now it was no longer empty. Sitting on the bench, staring forlornly at the wall, was Ivan Saltykov, former nuclear physicist and now Muscovite taxi driver. ‘You!’ he called when I came in. ‘You’ve been arrested?’
‘Perhaps you think,’ I said, nodding at the Militia officer who was escorting me, ‘that I am here as a translator? To translate your gibberish into Russian?.’
‘No jokes! None of what you think are jokes! I’m not in the mood.’ Exactly on the word mood the cell door slammed heavily shut. ‘I am very unhappy,’ Saltykov said, in his peevish, old woman voice. ‘How could I be happy when I have been handled?’
‘Handled ?’
‘Touched,’ he said. ‘Touched! I explained to the arresting officers that I did not like to be touched by,’ he almost hissed the word, ‘men, and furthermore that such touching was unnecessary, since I was content to come along with them and be no trouble. But they handled me anyway.’
‘I can only commiserate,’ I said.
‘It is important to me to — now, now, please don’t interrogate me on the whys, Skvorecky…’
‘I wouldn’t dream of it,’ I said, puzzled.
‘It is important to me to lock, and unlock, and relock, and unlock and relock my car every time I leave it.’
I looked at him. ‘Really?’
‘I must lock it three times.’
‘What self-respecting taxi-driver could do more?’
‘I am under no obligation to explain myself to you,’ he said. ‘It is simply a matter of settling my mind. I lock, unlock, relock, unlock and relock my car and then I can walk away from it. My syndrome is such that…’
‘Ah yes’ I said. ‘Your syndrome.’
‘Anyhow. Anyway. I explained this to the arresting officers, but they would not permit it. Can you imagine such a thing? I could lock my car, they said, but any further nonsense, they said… can you imagine, they described it in those terms?… Any further nonsense they would confiscate the keys.’
‘Such language,’ I said, deadpan, ‘amounts almost to assault.’