Филип Керр - Dead Meat

‘I’d like to speak to this Captain Stavrogin,’ Grushko said thoughtfully.

‘I’m afraid you can’t, sir,’ she said. ‘He died of lung cancer, a couple of weeks ago. That’s why I’ve been transferred. All I know is that when he told Mr Milyukin the decision, the captain advised him to hire a private bodyguard.’

‘And did he? Hire a private bodyguard?’

Khodyrev pursed her voluptuous lips. ‘It doesn’t look like it, sir,’ she said.

Grushko nodded curtly and then rang the sonorous doorbell.

Nina Milyukin looked less than pleased to see us.

‘I’m sorry to bother you again,’ said Grushko. ‘Just a few more questions. It won’t take long.’

‘You’d better come in,’ she said and stood aside.

We advanced into the hall and then waited politely while she bolted the door behind us.

‘Would you like some tea?’ she said and led the way into the communal kitchen.

I was disappointed by this invitation. I had been hoping to get a chance to step inside that wardrobe-study again and get another look at the photograph of her that was on Mikhail Milyukin’s pinboard.

The kitchen was the standard arrangement. Two fridges, two cookers, two sinks and, hanging on the wall, two bathtubs.

Suspended from the ceiling was a large wooden clothesrack on which the day’s wash was drying as well as it was able in that damp old flat. A large and battered brass samovar stood on a well-scrubbed wooden table and in the corner of the room lay an equally large, equally decrepit-looking black cat. Nina Milyukin found some glasses, drew off some tea and handed it round.

‘I’m afraid there’s no sugar, and no milk,’ she said.

We all shook our heads dismissively.

‘A couple of days before he died,’ Grushko began, ‘Mikhail Mikhailovich reported a break-in.’

Nina Milyukin’s head sat back on her shoulders.

‘A break-in?’ She smiled. ‘There’s been no break-in here. Surely you’ve seen our front door?’

Lieutenant Khodyrev shook her head. ‘According to the report, Mr Milyukin believed that they gained entry using keys that he had lost.’

‘Yes, he did lose his keys,’ she said thoughtfully.

‘Apparently his Golden Calf Literary Award and fifty roubles in cash were taken,’ said Khodyrev.

‘It’s the first I’ve heard of it. But now you come to mention it, I had wondered about the Golden Calf. I haven’t seen it in a while. Even so, I can’t imagine why anyone would have wanted it. After all, it’s not real gold.’ She smiled sadly. ‘If it were we would have sold it.’

‘Well, whoever took it obviously thought it was real,’ said Grushko. ‘Have you noticed anything else that’s missing?’

She sipped her tea and shook her head silently.

‘Perhaps some papers? Tapes?’

‘How could I? You took most of Mikhail’s things away with you the other day.’

‘Yes, I did,’ said Grushko. ‘Well, how about before that?’

‘No.’

‘This is good tea,’ said Grushko.

I heard myself grunt in agreement.

‘I was speaking to Yuri Petrakov at St Petersburg Television, the other day.’

‘Yes, I saw the programme. Zverkov gave you a rough time, didn’t he?’

Nina was smiling. I almost thought that she might have enjoyed that: Grushko being cross-examined.

‘Zverkov’s a bully,’ she added. ‘Mikhail never liked him. He said that underneath the pretence of being pro-reform he was really a wicked man. But you only have to look at his work. The man’s a complete opportunist. He doesn’t care about people at all. They’re just stories to him. All Zverkov cares about is Zverkov.’

‘What did he think of Mikhail?’

‘There was no love lost there,’ she said. ‘A couple of years ago there was an evening organised by the Leningrad branch of the Soviet Cultural Fund, to mark the fiftieth birthday of the writer Josef Brodsky. It was held in the Public Library on Ostrovskovo Square. After it was over the two of them bumped into each other and exchanged a few insults. Zverkov had said something disparaging about Yeltsin. That he was a drunkard or some such nonsense. Mikhail called Zverkov a Fascist. There was a scuffle and Mikhail got his eye blacked.

‘About six months after that there was a three-day conference at the Academy of Sciences.’ She snorted with laughter. ‘“Man in the World of Dialogue”, or some such nonsense. And they had another argument. I think it was about Lithuanian independence. Or was it Latvian independence? I don’t remember.’ She shrugged. ‘Either way, who cares?

‘Anyway, no one was really hit, but Mikhail kicked Zverkov’s car and damaged it. Since then, nothing. They never spoke. But after the August coup was over Mikhail kept agitating for Zverkov’s programme to be taken off the air. He said Zverkov had been sponsored by the KGB. The only reason Mikhail accepted a job offer from national television was because he knew they were also considering Zverkov for the same spot.’

Grushko said nothing for a moment but I could tell what he was thinking: did Zverkov have sufficient reason to have wanted Milyukin dead?

‘I find it extraordinary that he said nothing about all this.’

‘What do you expect of a man like that? He’s a hypocrite,’ said Nina.

‘Yuri Petrakov said that Mikhail had discovered that your phone was being bugged by the KGB.’ Nina shrugged. ‘Did you know about it?’

‘Yes.’

‘Mr Petrakov also said that Mikhail believed that he might have been the target of an anti-Semitic faction within the Department.’

‘You’d better ask them about that, hadn’t you?’

Grushko sighed. ‘Mrs Milyukin, I’m just trying to find out what your husband believed.’

‘He believed in all sorts of things, Colonel. Really, you’ve no idea. In some ways he was a rather credulous sort of person to have become a journalist. I suppose he wanted things to be true so that he could write about them. Faith-healing for instance. Did you know he believed in that?’ She lit a cigarette, and shook her head impatiently. ‘Look, what does it matter what he believed in now? He’s dead. Why can’t you just leave him alone?’

‘Surely what matters most,’ argued Grushko, ‘is that the people responsible for his murder are caught and punished.’

Nina sighed theatrically and stared out of the filthy window. When she said ‘Why can’t you just leave him alone?’ I assumed she meant ‘Why can’t you leave me alone?’ But Grushko was not to be put off.

‘Did he ever talk about hiring himself a bodyguard?’

‘A bodyguard?’ Nina smiled. ‘Look around you, Colonel. We’re not wealthy people. We couldn’t even afford a washing-machine, let alone a bodyguard. This was Mikhail Milyukin, not Mikhail Gorbachev.’

Grushko finished his tea and placed the glass on the table. By now the cat had stirred from its corner. It arched its black back, tiptoed forward and then curled its tail around Nikolai’s trouser leg.

‘No you don’t, Bulgakov,’ said Nina, and shooed the animal into the corridor. She probably wished she could have been rid of the militia as easily. I smiled to myself. It was just what you would have expected a writer to have called his cat.

‘Your husband had asked the local militia for protection, you know,’ Grushko persisted.

‘Then I hardly see why he would have needed to hire a bodyguard,’ retorted Nina.

‘The militia turned him down.’

Nina gave Grushko a look of dim disapproval and then turned away.

‘Well, I don’t suppose it even occurred to him to offer them money. Mikhail could be quite naive.’

‘It wasn’t a question of money,’ said Lieutenant Khodyrev.

‘No? What was it a question of?’