Филип Керр - Dead Meat

‘I prosecute most of the cases involving organised crime in this city,’ he told me. ‘So I guess we’ll be seeing a lot of each other. It’s a difficult business. And it’s not made any easier by the fact that my predecessor is now Petersburg’s number-one Mafioso lawyer.’

‘Luzhin? He used to work here?’

‘I see Grushko’s already told you about him,’ said Voznosensky. ‘Yes, Semyon Sergeyevich Luzhin was assistant state prosecutor in Leningrad for five years. Now he makes his old monthly salary in one hour. And he’s not the only one to have left this place to go and work for the other side.’ He shrugged and lit a pipe. ‘Everything comes down to money these days, doesn’t it?

‘Another thing: when you do make an arrest, what you’ll always find is that your Mafioso will claim that whatever it is he’s supposed to have done was a personal matter. He’ll deny membership of any gang. He’s killed another gangster? It was an argument they had about a girl, or an old gambling debt, or an insult received. A Mafia killing? No way. He’s never heard of the Russian Mafia: he thought that was something the Party invented to try and discredit capitalism and the free market.

‘But our biggest problem is still with the intimidation of witnesses.’

I nodded. ‘It’s the same in Moscow,’ I said. ‘We’ve been trying to set up a witness-protection programme, but of course there’s not enough money to make it work. And nothing’s going to improve until we’ve changed the way we try racketeering cases in the courts. We need a proper jury system, with jurors compensated for taking time off work. Nobody wants to serve on a jury and get paid nothing.’

‘Nobody does something for nothing these days.’

‘Unless you’re a policeman,’ I suggested provocatively.

‘Don’t you believe it,’ said Voznosensky. ‘There are plenty with their paws out for what’s available. It’s the Mafia’s biggest expense. That and weapons.’

‘What’s that? Mostly military stuff for hard currency?’

He nodded. ‘And it’s all top quality, too. There’s enough military hardware on the streets of this city to fight a war.’

Tell me, do you get much interference from the military prosecutor?’

‘More and more.’ He uttered a scornful sort of laugh. ‘Prosecution is the one area of military life that is actually expanding.’

He made tea and we talked some more: lawyer’s talk, about protocols, evidence, who the best judges were and the latest crime figures.

‘So, tell me about Grushko,’ I said after a while. ‘What kind of a man is he?’

‘Worked his way up through the ranks. The militia’s been his life. And never a breath of scandal. Grushko believes in what he’s doing. Things are black and white with him.’ Voznosensky shrugged and tapped his forehead. To that extent he’s like a typical Stalinist. You know — a bit rigid and inflexible sometimes.

‘Of course, politically, he couldn’t be more different. Stuck his neck out when it was still dangerous to do it, especially for a militiaman. It’s a story worth hearing. A couple of years ago, Grushko was selected as the Central Board of Leningrad’s delegate to the 22nd Party Congress. He announced his resignation from the Party while making a speech from the lectern. It caused quite a stink at the time, I can tell you. After that about half of the detectives and investigators in the Central Board left the Party, including General Kornilov. These days it’s split pretty evenly down the middle between those who support Yeltsin and those who support the old Party. That’s your Grushko.’

‘What about at home?’

‘He lives quite modestly really. He’s married, with a daughter who’s the apple of his eye. Any spare money he’s ever had he spent putting his daughter through med. school. She’s now a doctor at one of the big hospitals here in Peter.’

‘A sociable man, would you say? I only ask because I don’t want to be a nuisance to him if I can help it. But if he’s the affable type then it won’t matter.’

‘I wouldn’t call Grushko sociable, no. But he’s straight with you. He likes a drink and although I’ve seen him drink a lot I’ve never yet seen him drunk. Oh yes, and Pasternak: he loves Pasternak.’

At the Big House Grushko was not to be found. Nor were Nikolai and Sasha. In the office they shared with two other detectives I found a younger officer, working his way through Mikhail Milyukin’s Filofax, telephoning every name and number that was written there. Replacing the phone he stood up and introduced himself.

‘Lieutenant Andrei Petrov, sir,’ he said, shaking my hand. Better dressed than most of the men working for Grushko, Petrov was another of these blond-haired northern Russians. ‘And this—’ he nodded across the desk at a man who was playing idly with an automatic. The man stood up and extended me his hand — ‘this is Lieutenant Alek Svridigailov — one of your investigators.’

‘Pleased to meet you, Lieutenant.’

Svridigailov was smaller than Petrov and as wiry as a pipe-cleaner. He had the lugubrious face of an undernourished bloodhound.

‘Glock semi-automatic,’ he said, explaining the gun. ‘Made in Austria. Fires thirteen rounds of .45 ACP-calibre ammunition. Better than anything we’ve got. You see, there are only thirty-five parts. A real quality weapon. I’d love a gun like this. They took it off some Yakut hood. Can you believe that? You wouldn’t think one of those bastards would be intelligent enough to get himself a gun like this, would you?’

Andrei Petrov chuckled. ‘You know what they say about those Yakuts? The only reason they don’t eat cucumbers is because they can’t get their heads in the jars.’

Svridigailov looked at Andrei and then back at me, shaking his head as if to apologise for his colleague.

‘Grushko’s gone to the TV station,’ Andrei explained. ‘He’s recording Georgi Zverkov’s show. And as for Nikolai and Sasha—’ He frowned as he tried to remember where they had gone.

I sat down at Nikolai’s desk and glanced over what was on it.

‘Doesn’t he keep a diary?’ I asked. It occurred to me that I might make a note of some of Nikolai’s contacts.

Andrei nodded at the safe beside Nikolai’s desk.

‘I expect he’s got it locked up,’ he said.

‘I remember,’ said Svridigailov. ‘They went to the Pribaltskaya Hotel. To see some Georgians.’

Opened for the 1980 Olympic Games, the Pribaltskaya Hotel stands on the western edge of Vasilyevsky Island, looking out across the Bay of Finland. Triptych-shaped, with seventeen floors and 1,200 rooms, it is one of the biggest hotels in the city and although the citizens of St Petersburg were forbidden to use it, the hotel’s swimming pool, sauna, bowling alley, gymnasium and massage parlour — not to mention the five bars, the five restaurants and the fifteen coffee shops — made it very popular with some of the more nefarious elements of local society. The methods of the Mafia required strong arms to implement them and, like most racketeers, the Georgians liked to work out and use the weights at least once a day. From years of strict regime in the zone, many of them had physiques that would have been the envy of any Olympic athlete, and in their expensive designer track-suits and gold necklaces they would have been easily distinguished from any other people who dared to use the gym at the same time. The gang leader was a swarthy-faced tough called Dzhumber Gankrelidze and he and his lieutenant, Oocho, seemed to be wearing more gold than the rest of the gang put together. These two were among those exercising in the Pribaltskaya gym with a couple of heavies watching the door when Nikolai and Sasha presented their IDs.