Филип Керр - Dead Meat

We came down the side of the Griboyedev Canal and stopped a short way from a small wooden suspension bridge that looked like something out of a model village. The cables by which its short span was anchored were held in the mouths of four cast-iron gryphons.

‘You stay in the car and answer the phone if it rings,’ Grushko told me. ‘And keep your head down.’

He reached inside his jacket and took out an enormous automatic. He let the gun somersault over his finger in the trigger-guard, thumbed back the catch and drew out the double magazine. Then he hammered it back up the handle with the heel of his hard hand, spun the gun back into his palm like a cowboy, and worked the slide.

‘Just in case we run out of small talk,’ he said, and slipped the gun back into his shoulder-holster. ‘I hate not having the last word.’

Collecting his cigarettes off the dashboard, he got out and walked across the road to the edge of the canal. When he reached the centre of the bridge I saw him light a cigarette and lean forwards on the railing. Anyone seeing him there, staring down into the murky green water, might have taken him for some love-sick student contemplating suicide. I didn’t doubt that the evening had already given him a lot to think about and that being sick of love probably came into it somewhere. I knew a fair bit about that myself.

The time appointed for Grushko’s meeting came and went and still Sultan did not appear. With a hunter’s patience Grushko hardly moved on the bridge and only the occasional flare of a match lighting another cigarette signalled his continuing vigilance. It was past one o’clock when the car telephone rang. As I answered it I could see that Grushko had heard it too. He straightened stiffly and then walked slowly back towards the car.

‘Sultan won’t be coming,’ said Nikolai.

‘What happened?’

‘He’s been shot. Get across to the Titan Cinema on Nevsky. I’ll see you both outside.’

When I relayed the message to Grushko he spat and took out his gun. For a brief second I thought that the death of his prime suspect was going to result in my own murder as well. However he merely removed the magazine and then worked the slide to eject the live round. He thumbed the bullet back into the magazine which he then replaced inside the grip. Grushko was quite fastidious where gun safety was concerned.

He drove us silently back up Griboyedev and on to Nevsky, slowing as we came across the Anichkov Bridge with its distinctive rearing bronze horses, and saw the blue flashing lights ahead of us. We pulled up and as we walked through the police line holding back the small crowd of onlookers which had gathered, I spotted Georgi Zverkov and a film crew. He shouted something after Grushko and was ignored.

Surrounding a red Zhiguli was a group of the Central Board’s scientific experts. Two of them were holding a tape-measure through the driver’s window and measuring the distance between two imaginary points: the gun which had been fired and the head it had been aimed at. This was Militia Section 59’s precinct and Lieutenant Khodyrev was on hand to provide a first report of what had happened.

‘Three shots in the face, point blank,’ she said, ‘fired from another stationary vehicle. We’ve got a witness who claims he saw the whole thing.’

She turned and pointed to a small boy who was standing nervously between two militiamen.

Grushko waited until the two officers were finished with their tape-measure and then ducked through the car’s open window. When he had seen all he wanted to see I took a look myself.

Sultan Khadziyev lay across the gearstick, his face hardly distinguishable from the blood-soaked passenger seat. The passenger door was open and one of the experts was carefully searching the floor and door upholstery for stray bullets.

I stood up, saw that Nikolai had arrived on the scene, and then looked around for Grushko. He was squatting down in front of the boy.

‘What’s your name, son?’ I heard him ask.

The boy looked across Grushko’s shoulder like a hungry dog. He was wearing a dirty denim jacket and a polo-neck sweater that was several sizes too big for him. He rubbed his short-cropped, almost bald head and then his dark-shadowed eyes. I guessed him no more than twelve years old. He smelled worse than a mangy dog.

‘Come on,’ said one of the militiamen gruffly. ‘You don’t want us to send you to an institution, do you?’

‘Hey, hey,’ said Grushko, ‘that’s my star-witness you’ve got there.’

Grushko took out his cigarettes and offered the boy one. He took it, dipped the end on Grushko’s gold lighter and puffed it expertly.

‘Rodya,’ he said finally. ‘Rodya Gutionov.’

‘Well, Rodya,’ said Grushko. ‘You’re a brave fellow. Most boys of your age would have run away when they saw what you saw.’

The boy shrugged modestly. ‘Me? I wasn’t scared,’ he bragged.

‘Of course you weren’t,’ said Grushko. ‘So, what did you see?’ He tucked the rest of his cigarettes into the pocket of the boy’s greasy jacket.

‘The man who got shot had just pulled up at the traffic lights,’ said Rodya, ‘when, a few seconds later, this other car pulls up alongside him. The passenger in the front seat leaned out with a chalk and waved it, like he was after a light. So the other man, the one who got shot, winds down his window and is handing over some matches when the other man — the one with the cigarette, grabs him by the arm and starts shooting.’ He shook his head excitedly and mimed the action of the gunman. ‘Bam-bam-bam — just like that. I never heard such a noise. Well, then they drove off, fast. The car went up Nevsky a bit, towards the Admiralty building and then did a U-turn, tyres squealing like it was something out of a movie.’

‘What kind of car was this, Rodya?’

‘Zhiguli. Beige colour. Local plate.’

‘And how many men were in it?’

‘Three. But I think the one in the back was a woman.’ He shook his head. ‘I couldn’t be sure, because the other car was in the way. And when they started shooting I was trying to keep my head down in the doorway there.’

He pointed at the cinema entrance. The film was some old historical epic of the early sixties starring Anthony Quinn. His was a face not unlike Grushko’s own.

‘You did the right thing,’ said Grushko. ‘Tell me, Rodya, where do you live?’

‘Block 1, 77 Pushkinskaya Street,’ replied the boy. ‘Flat 25.’

‘You’re out a bit late, aren’t you?’

The boy looked down at his filthy trainers. ‘My father’s on leave from the navy,’ he said. ‘When he’s on leave he likes to get drunk. And then he hits me. So I make myself scarce.’

Grushko nodded. It sounded plausible. Pushkinskaya Street was only a few blocks away. The drunken father was a common enough feature in a Russian home. With mine it had been my mother.

‘All right, Rodya, you can go. But be careful.’

The boy grinned and walked carefully away.

‘The lying little scrap,’ Grushko muttered. ‘Escaped from an institution more like, if that haircut is anything to go by.’

‘So why are you letting him go?’ I asked.

‘Because I’ve been in a few of these places and I wouldn’t keep an animal in them. You might better ask why he risked being sent back to an institution to speak to us.’ He chuckled as he answered his own question. ‘Bravado, I suppose. So he can brag to his mates about it, I wouldn’t wonder.’

Grushko turned and went round the far side of the car to inspect the contents of the dead man’s pockets that had been laid out on a plastic carrier bag. He picked up Sultan’s revolver.

‘Milyukin was shot with an automatic,’ he said, and flipped open the gun’s cartridge chamber to inspect the barrel. ‘Not that this would have shot anyone. It’s a replica.’