Филип Керр - Dead Meat

It had not always been that way. It had been Grushko who first asked Zverkov to film at the scene of a crime in the hope of soliciting information from the public. He had hardly realised that this would be the basis on which Zverkov would create a whole style of television journalism. Most commonly this involved getting as close to the perpetrators and their victims as quickly as possible. Nothing was hidden from the lens of Zverkov’s outside-broadcast team, with Zverkov’s microphone there to record the sound of their complaints, their confessions, their cries of pain and, quite often, their last breaths as well. Realism, they called it. Pornography, some said. Either way Grushko cared even less for Zverkov’s work than he did for his manners.

‘We’ll show some clips of Milyukin’s documentaries,’ he explained smoothly. ‘And then I’ll ask you to say something about the circumstances of his death, appeal for information. Do you know the kind of thing I mean?’

‘I should do,’ said Grushko. He was starting to have a bad feeling about this interview. ‘It was me who got you started doing this kind of thing.’

Zverkov nodded sullenly. A few minutes later Grushko took his place on the set next to Zverkov and watched the short videotape which had been made about Milyukin: there were shots of him interviewing black-marketeers, prostitutes and the generally disaffected; shots of the Chernobyl nuclear-reactor accident; shots of Milyukin walking through a hospital ward containing firemen with fatal radiation burns with tears streaming down his face; shots of Milyukin speaking to citizens queuing for meat outside a state meat market; and, lastly, Milyukin speaking directly to the camera in the assembly hall at the Smolny Building where the victory of the socialist Revolution was announced on the night of 25–26 October 1917.

In life Mikhail Milyukin had been a small, intense-looking man with curly black hair, a rodent-like face and, it seemed to Grushko, a rather purplish, boozer’s nose. To look at, a quite unprepossessing sort of character, as might have worked pushing paper around some forgotten government department. But it was for his dry humour and his consistent honesty, not his appearance, that he had been much beloved. As Grushko watched the tape, Milyukin’s usual candour was tinged with such obvious pessimism that he was almost inclined to consider the possibility that Milyukin had known he was about to be killed.

‘The urgent need for foreign capital seems obvious,’ said Milyukin, ‘but what is there that’s actually worth investing in? Our factories are hopelessly antiquated. The rudiments of political stability are missing. Individually we lack something as ordinary as a work ethic: everyone knows the saying “They pretend to pay us, and we pretend to work.” But even the most basic human instinct of all — the profit motive — seems to be missing from all but a small and not always law-abiding section of society. After seventy years of this—’ here Milyukin waved his hand at the enormous portrait of Lenin that dominated the empty assembly hall — ‘many people are coming to realise that the task of redeveloping Russia may not just be difficult. It might actually be impossible.’

The film sequence concluded with the black Volga in the forest and several of the gory close-ups of the two dead bodies that were the hallmark of Zverkov’s veracious style.

Grushko’s interrogator fixed a sober look to his designer-stubbled face and looked away from the monitor to the camera.

‘The murder of Mikhail Mikhailovich Milyukin is being investigated by Colonel Yevgeni Grushko of the Criminal Services Department of the Central Board of Internal Affairs.’ Zverkov turned to face Grushko.

‘The other man found dead with Mikhail Milyukin, Vaja Ordzhonikidze: he was a Georgian Mafioso, wasn’t he?’

‘That’s correct,’ said Grushko, shifting uncomfortably in his swivel chair.

‘And I believe it has been suggested that the two men were shot because Ordzhonikidze was giving information to Mikhail?’

‘Well, that’s one possibility,’ Grushko allowed, ‘but it’s still too early to treat it as anything more than that. Obviously we would like anyone who saw or had contact with either of these two men recently to come forward as quickly as possible. For that matter we would like to speak to anyone who might be able to shed some light on the nature of the connection between them.’

Zverkov nodded. His expensive leather jacket creaked as he glanced down at the notes on his lap.

‘I’m sure people will do everything they can to help bring these murderers to justice,’ he said quietly.

‘But now let me ask you this.’ His tone became harder, more aggressive even. ‘What are St Petersburg’s militia doing to help the people? When are you going to put a stop to the Mafia in this city?’

Despite his intuitive feeling about appearing on Zverkov’s show, this was more than Grushko had bargained for. But he did his best to field the question.

‘If we are going to defeat the Mafia, it will have to be a joint effort,’ he said coolly. ‘The Russian people and the militia acting together. We can only secure convictions of Mafia figures if people are prepared to come forward and give evidence to—’

‘What, are you saying that the militia can’t do the job?’ Zverkov smiled contemptuously.

‘No, that’s not what I’m saying at all.’

‘But isn’t it a fact that people within your own department believe that the Mafia is now so strong that any attempts to combat it are doomed to fail?’

‘It’s true,’ admitted Grushko, ‘there are such people. But I’m not one of them. No, I feel more optimistic about the—’

‘Well, we’ll all sleep more safely in our beds tonight knowing that you feel more optimistic, Colonel Grushko. But what’s that optimism based on? Georgian brandy?’

‘Now wait a minute—’ growled the detective.

‘No, you wait a minute.’ Zverkov was almost shouting now. ‘You cops can’t even stop the Mafia from stealing free food from the EEC.’

‘The particular crime I think you’re referring to was committed in Kiev,’ said Grushko. ‘I don’t see that you can hold this city’s militia responsible for solving that. You want to find out what happens to the food aid that arrives in St Petersburg from the West, then I suggest you ask the city councillors. And you—’ Grushko reached forward to feel the leather of Zverkov’s leather jacket — ‘I’m sure we’d all like to be able to afford a nice leather jacket like this. How much was it? Fifteen? Twenty thousand roubles? That’s two or three years’ salary to one of my men. And you’ve got the nerve to lecture me about—’

‘That’s not the point—’

‘It is exactly the point,’ said Grushko, his face growing redder by the second. ‘It’s exactly the point. If you and others like you weren’t so hell-bent on getting your hands on Western clothes and goods, the Mafia wouldn’t stand a chance. You can’t condemn the militia for fighting a losing battle with the Mafia when you yourself shop with these criminals.’

‘So you admit you’re losing the battle?’

‘I admit nothing of the sort.’

The argument continued in this vein for several more minutes until, unable to tolerate Zverkov’s insults any longer, Grushko snatched the microphone from his tie and walked off the set and out of the television studios.

Later on, when Grushko watched the broadcast at home with his wife and mother-in-law, his anger quickly gave way to depression as he considered what General Kornilov would make of his performance.

‘Well,’ he sighed, ‘I walked straight into that one, didn’t I?’

Grushko’s wife Lena was more inclined to look on the bright side of things.