Sam Eastland - The Beast in the Red Forest

Pekkala crouched over Yakushkin’s body, which lay rigor-mortised like a statue tumbled from its pedestal. The commander lay on his right side, his right arm tucked under him and his left stretched out in front of him, as if reaching towards the gun he had been carrying. The point-blank shot which killed him had done so much damage that if it were not for the insignia on his uniform, he might have been unrecognisable.

‘That appears to be the general’s gun.’ Kirov pointed at the Tokarev lying on the floor. ‘He must have drawn his weapon, but by then it was too late to use it.’

‘Possibly.’ Pekkala lapsed into silence as he stared at the corpse of the woman.

‘Why “possibly”?’ asked Kirov. ‘You think he might have wounded the assassin?’

Pekkala nodded towards the dead woman. ‘Look at the placement of the shots.’

‘One to the head and one to the chest.’

‘Which tells you what, Kirov?’

‘That the woman wasn’t killed by the first bullet that struck her.’

‘Not killed, perhaps,’ agreed Pekkala, ‘but mortally wounded for certain.’

‘I don’t see what you’re getting at, Inspector.’

‘The first bullet struck her dead centre in the chest, as if she was a target at a shooting range. After sustaining that injury, she had, at best, a few minutes left to live. Nothing could have saved her. The assassin would have realised that.’

‘And you’re wondering why he bothered to administer a coup de grace when he knew she would be dead before he even reached the street?’

Just then, Pekkala spotted something. He bent down over the shellac of congealed blood which had seeped out around the corpses.

Kirov clenched his teeth as he watched Pekkala’s fingers reach into the gore.

When Pekkala straightened up, he held in his hand three empty pistol cartridges.

‘Are they the same kind we found in the bunker?’ asked Kirov.

Pekkala examined them closely. ‘Two of them show signs of having been reloaded,’ he replied, ‘but the third one does not.’

Kirov picked up the commander’s gun and removed the magazine. ‘There is one bullet missing from the magazine. The rest are standard ammunition.’

‘Which means that the assassin fired twice,’ Pekkala pointed at the two bodies, ‘and that Yakushkin’s final act was to murder the woman with whom he was just sitting down to dinner.’

‘Why would he fire at her and not at the man who was trying to kill him?’ Kirov wondered aloud. ‘Could she have been the murderer’s accomplice?’

‘The general must have thought so,’ said Pekkala, ‘but what I don’t understand is why the gunman would take the time to finish her off when every second spent at the crime scene increased his chances of being caught as he tried to escape?’

‘He must have chosen not to let her suffer any longer than was absolutely necessary.’

‘Because she was a woman?’ suggested Pekkala.

‘That can’t be it,’ replied Kirov. ‘He didn’t hesitate when he killed those two secretaries in the bunker.’

Pekkala waved his hand over the bodies. ‘Then something else happened here. Whatever the answer, it points towards a weakness in his character.’

‘If you call compassion a weakness.’

‘In his line of work,’ replied Pekkala, ‘that’s exactly what it is.’

Just then, they heard a sound, a scuffling which seemed to be coming from inside a chest of drawers set against the wall.

Both men lunged for their weapons. In an instant, Pekkala’s Webley and Kirov’s Tokarev were aimed at the bulky wooden structure.

Without a word, Kirov stepped over to the chest of drawers. He knelt down, knees cracking, and set his ear against the side panel. For a moment, he remained there, motionless and listening.

Then both men heard a strange and high-pitched sound, like that of a trapped bird, coming from the same location.

Caught off guard by the noise, Kirov tipped backwards, landing heavily upon the floor. He scrambled backwards, then jumped once again to his feet. ‘What was that?’ he whispered to Pekkala.

‘I think it was the sound of someone crying,’ replied Pekkala. Stepping over to the chest of drawers, he gently tapped the barrel of the Webley against the wood. ‘Come out,’ he said gently. ‘No one is here to hurt you.’

‘I can’t,’ replied a voice, so faint that they could barely make it out.

‘Why not?’ asked Pekkala.

‘You have to move the chest,’ replied the voice.

‘It’s a child!’ gasped Kirov. Setting his weight against the chest of drawers, he moved the structure aside, revealing a hole in the wall behind. It had been crudely excavated, the sides hacked from the plaster. The stumps of wooden laths protruded like the ends of broken ribs. The hole itself was narrow, far too small for anyone to stand inside and too short to lie down in. Curled in a foetal position, with her knees drawn up to her chin, was a young girl, no more than ten years old. She wore a tattered blue coat and worn-out shoes, fastened by a strap with flower-shaped buckles, which must once have been saved only for special occasions.

Immediately, Pekkala put away his gun and knelt down beside the hole. ‘What is your name?’ he asked gently.

‘Shura.’

‘It’s safe to come out now, Shura.’ He beckoned to her with his blood-stained fingers.

The girl stared at him, her eyes reddened from hours of weeping.

‘What happened?’ she asked. ‘Why was there shooting? Why is the table tipped over? Who is that lying on the floor? Is that the general?’

‘We are trying to answer those questions,’ Pekkala shifted his stance to block the girl’s view of the carnage, while Kirov removed his tunic and laid it over the dead woman’s face. Then he gathered up the once-cheerful white and yellow table cloth and heaped it on the shattered ruination of the general’s skull. Pekkala kept talking to the girl. ‘And I think you might be able to help us, but first tell me, Shura, who put you in this place?’

‘My mother.’

‘And your mother’s name is Antonina?’

‘Yes,’ she told them. ‘When the general comes to visit, my mother takes me to my grandmother’s house. But if there isn’t time, she makes me hide in here.’

‘Why? Did she think that the general would hurt you?’

‘No, that’s not it,’ she replied. ‘She said that if the general knew about me, he might not come at all. She didn’t want him to know that she had a child. He brought food with him, you see. My mother always saved some for me. But then, last night, someone came up the stairs.’

‘How many of them were there?’

‘Only one.’

Pekkala narrowed his eyes. ‘Are you certain, Shura? Only one?’

‘I heard his footsteps. If there were more, I would have heard them, too. I thought it was the general’s helper, Molodin. He knows I live here, but he promised not to tell. Sometimes he would come by with gifts for me.’

‘How do you know it wasn’t him?’ said Pekkala.

‘I heard a voice and I knew it wasn’t Molodin. And I heard my mother’s voice, too. But softly. I couldn’t tell what they were saying. After that, the gun went off again.’

Pekkala nodded, trying to conceal his emotions. Just then, he noticed the blood on his fingers, tucked his hand behind him and wiped it on the back of his coat.

‘Are you hurt?’ asked the girl.

‘No,’ replied Pekkala. ‘I’m fine, Shura. Won’t you come out now? It’s safe. No one is going to hurt you.’

The girl crawled out of the space and Pekkala swept her up in his arms.

‘Is that my mother lying there?’ From the flat tone of her voice, it was clear that she already knew. In the hours she’d spent huddled in the blindness of that hiding place, the girl had pieced together images from what she’d only heard.