Филип Керр - Dead Meat

Petrakov lit a cigarette and nodded attentively.

‘I’ve already telephoned Mikhail Mikhailovich’s editors at Krokodil and Ogonyok in Moscow. But since I was coming here anyway I thought I’d speak to you in person, Mr Petrakov. Did you know him very well?’

‘Yes, I did. He was one of our finest journalists, and I don’t just mean here on Petersburg TV. He was one of the country’s finest journalists. The Golden Calf Literary Award, the Ilf and Petrov Prize for Satirical Journalism, Journalist of the Year two years running... There has never been anyone quite like Mikhail. Not in Russia, anyway. It was no surprise to me to learn that he had been lured away by national television.’

‘He was leaving the station?’

‘Yes. He told me himself exactly a week before he was murdered. Well, of course he was only ever a freelance. As you know he had other commitments besides us. But they wanted him and were prepared to pay handsomely to get him. More than we could afford, anyway. We are not as well off as they are, colonel. In fact we’re losing money. Our major source of funds remains the state budget. I dare say we’ll end up as part of the great Russian broadcasting company. They already own a fifth of our equipment and technology.’ He shook his head. ‘But here, you don’t want to hear about our problems, do you?’

‘Was there any resentment at Mikhail leaving?’

‘Some. But not from anyone who knew him. Mikhail wasn’t a wealthy man at all. Some people imagined that because he was famous he was rich. It simply wasn’t true. Mikhail wasn’t very good with money. He was never paid well for what he did. So I didn’t blame him at all for wanting to leave. And of course he wasn’t the first person to be enticed away. Bella Kurkova went last year. I don’t suppose they’ll waste any time in looking for someone to replace him.’

‘Do you know what they wanted him to do?’

‘The same thing as for us: make five or six documentaries a year.’ He shrugged. ‘To tell the truth, as he saw it. I guess that’s why he was killed. I’m not sure they would really have known how to handle a man like Mikhail. There was never much editorial control from me. Mikhail liked to do his own thing, and sometimes that meant upsetting people.’

‘Yes,’ said Grushko. ‘I’ve already seen a sample of the kind of fan mail he received. Was the day he told you he was leaving the last time you spoke to him?’

‘I think it was, yes. Under the terms of our original agreement he had one film left to do for us and so we also talked over an idea he had for another film about hard-currency prostitutes.’

The phone rang. Petrakov stubbed out his cigarette and answered the call. Then he replaced the receiver without speaking.

‘That was Zverkov. You’re to go down to make-up in ten minutes. I’ll show you the way when it’s time.’

‘This film about hard-currency prostitutes,’ said Grushko. ‘Did he mention a Mafia connection? The Georgians?’

‘If he did I doubt it would have registered,’ said Petrakov, lighting another cigarette. ‘Mikhail got to be a bit of a bore about the Mafia sometimes. Well, to be quite frank with you, he was obsessed with it. He saw the Mafia everywhere, in everything.’

Grushko was half inclined to say that he agreed with that assessment. Instead he reminded Petrakov that the Mafia had threatened Milyukin’s life on a number of occasions.

‘I’m afraid that’s just an occupational hazard for any journalist, Colonel,’ shrugged Petrakov. ‘Especially in Russia. About the only thing that isn’t rationed these days is stupidity.’

‘Would you have known if he was ever scared by one threat in particular?’

‘No. And I think he took them all quite seriously. At least to the extent of taking taxis instead of public transport.’ Petrakov laughed. ‘Always allowing for the vagaries of Petersburg taxi-drivers. That’s why he never had any money.’

He frowned as his lips tugged at his cigarette. ‘But you know, now I come to think of it, I do remember him being quite agitated by something. I don’t know that you would call it a threat exactly...’

‘Oh? What was that?’

‘He found out that his phone was being bugged.’

‘Bugged? By who?’

‘The KGB, Colonel. Or the Russian Security Service, or whatever it is that the Department is calling itself these days. Who else?’ He grinned at Grushko as if he didn’t quite believe that the detective could not have known about it.

‘You look surprised,’ he said. ‘I would have thought...’

Grushko shook his head irritably. He hated it when people assumed that the Central Board was still party to the Department’s dirty tricks.

‘How did he know he was being bugged?’

‘Well, I think he was able to guess. I mean, they’re hardly very subtle about it. Clicks on the line and all that kind of thing.’

‘But why?’

The Department is reformed only of its Communists, not its anti-Semites. There are factions in the KGB who would like to see every Jew in Russia on a plane to Israel.’

‘And that’s why Mikhail Mikhailovich thought that they were operating a surveillance?’

‘Yes.’

‘I didn’t even know that he was Jewish.’

‘Oh, Milyukin wasn’t his real name. His real name was Berdichevksi. When he came to live in Leningrad, in 1979, he changed it to avoid discrimination. It was hard for a Jew to write anything then. The Russian press — especially the Russian Literary Gazette — is still quite anti-Semitic. Even now, more than ten years later. They’re even saying that Lenin was a Jew. Or don’t you notice these things?’

‘I notice them.’

‘And?’

Grushko shrugged. ‘This is Russia. This is the home of conspiracy theories.’

He didn’t much like being pressed for his opinion. He felt he knew what was right and what was wrong but that it was a matter between himself and his own conscience. He concealed his irritated frown with a strong-tasting puff on the last millimetre of his cigarette.

‘How well do you know Mrs Milyukin?’ he asked.

‘Hardly at all. Why?’

‘Oh, I was just wondering why she didn’t think to tell me any of this herself.’ He shook his head. The last puff had been stronger than he had expected. ‘It’s sad, really. When I read his letters last night I thought I’d encountered just about every possible shade of hatred for the man. And now I find one, in my own backyard, that I didn’t even know about: the Department.’

Petrakov raised his toothbrush-shaped eyebrows.

‘Yes, well, while you’re busy compiling a grudge list against Mikhail, don’t forget the army. His early stand against the war in Afghanistan won him a lot of enemies. A lot of friends too, it’s fair to say. But nobody ever hunts you down just to shake you by the hand and clap you on the back. Not in Russia.’

He glanced at his watch and stood up. ‘We’d better go,’ he said.

Grushko followed Petrakov out of the door.

When the make-up people had done their best to soften Grushko’s fist of a face, he waited in the hospitality suite until Zverkov came to talk to him.

He was a handsome man in an unshaven, macho sort of way and, wearing a smart leather jacket and a pair of jeans, he looked like nothing so much as one of the ‘businessmen’ who might have been found over at Deviatkino Market. But worse than this Zverkov was also arrogant in the way that only so-called ‘creative people’ can be. If he had been Nijinsky he could not have thought more of himself. He did not offer to shake Grushko’s hand and the studio’s hospitality only ran as far as a glass of tea. Zverkov was of the opinion that the militia needed his programme more than he needed the militia.