William Ryan - The Twelfth Department

Korolev found himself frowning—was this really yet more secret business, or just a guilty man trying to evade a reasonable question?

“We need to talk to him first thing.”

“Yes, because I had Belinsky ask quietly whether anyone in Leadership House might have any suspicions of their own about Weiss and the widow Azarova. Anyway, the Azarovs’ maid let slip that Azarova and Weiss were very good friends—that he would often come round during the day.”

“Interesting. Does Weiss have a maid?” If anyone knew anything about what went on in an apartment it was the maid—and perhaps the building’s doorman. But without the missing Priudski, the maid would have to do.

“He has a maid. And a wife as well,” Slivka added.

“We’re going to have a busy day tomorrow,” Korolev said, and found himself praying fervently that this might, after all, turn out to be something as simple as a romantic entanglement that had turned murderous. Although where Shtange came into it, he wasn’t quite sure.

“And you, Chief? What did you come up with?”

Korolev sighed and told her how the institute effectively no longer existed and about his conversation with Shtange’s widow, who might even now be packing her bags for France.

“It makes me wonder,” Korolev said, “between you and me, whether this report Shtange was writing mightn’t be behind at least some of this. As soon as Shtange is killed, within a couple of hours, it seems, the institute’s shut down and most of its paperwork and staff put beyond the reach of any immediate investigation. Not only that, every scrap of paperwork here and in Azarov’s office is also removed.”

“I should have said, it’s the same at the university. Both Shtange and Azarov’s offices completely stripped. Of everything written, anyway.”

Korolev felt his suspicion hardening.

“I’m wondering if all of this activity is intended to make sure that report never sees the light of day. I wonder what it says.”

“You really want to know?” Slivka asked, her expression doubtful—and it occurred to him that she was right. Who in their right mind would want to see a report whose very existence might have led to a man’s death? And if it had led to his death, then the likely killer was something to do with the NKVD. Anyone in their right mind would run away from that kind of association. But then again.

“Look, if Shtange was killed for that report, or because of what he might have said about the institute—” Korolev didn’t feel he had to mention that if this was the case the perpetrators would most probably have been from the Twelfth Department—“then wouldn’t the killing have been more … professional? Do you see what I mean? A well-placed bullet would have been enough, just as it was for Azarov. All that stabbing and blood seems a bit amateurish to me. There’s too much emotion as well. Chestnova said he was still being stabbed when he was down on the ground, clearly dead. And then there was another wound, made with a different knife—a scalpel probably—on his cheek. Made when he was already dead.”

He traced the line of the cut on his own face.

“A signature, perhaps? A message?”

“To who? Us? He was a surgeon—something to do with that?” Korolev considered what this might mean and was reminded of someone. And the reminder set his tired mind into motion once again.

“I didn’t tell you this before but I had a strange encounter on Tuesday morning—at the zoo.” Korolev was almost thinking aloud. “With your esteemed uncle.”

Korolev did not esteem Count Kolya, although he occasionally found himself respecting the man in a strange sort of way, and even half a year on from the discovery, it still made him shake his head in amazement that Slivka should turn out to be the niece of none other than the Chief Authority of the Moscow Thieves.

“That’s strange. I thought I caught a glimpse of a familiar face today as well. He’d a cap pulled low over his face but I’m sure it was little Mishka. I think he might have been keeping an eye on me. Or on this building anyway.”

Korolev was reminded that he’d yet to take off his own cap and so removed it. The gesture wasn’t out of deference to Slivka’s presence—he didn’t really consider her to be female when they were working—but because he wanted to give his head a vigorous scratch in the hope that it might activate a few brain cells.

“I want to talk to him—Kolya that is. Can you get in touch with him?”

“I might be able to, I’ll try anyway.”

“Tell them it’s urgent—however you go about it. The thing is,” Korolev mused, rubbing away at his bristly top-covering, “Kolya said that he’d some things to tell me about the institute and what went on there, and that it had something to do with the Azarov case. And this was on Tuesday morning— before Shtange was murdered. I said he should go and bother someone else with his story because—well—because back then we were trying to get away from this case as fast as we could. But the reason I’m reminded of Kolya is because of the scalpel wound. Isn’t it the sort of thing a Thief would do? He told me men had died there and, now I’ve seen the cell blocks, I don’t doubt he was telling the truth. What if Thieves were held there? And if Thieves were operated on at the institute in the name of research then I think that scalpel wound is exactly the sort of thing a Thief would do. A message to show why the man was killed. And, there’s something else, I think there were other patients there as well…”

And then Korolev told her about the smaller beds—the ones that could only have been big enough for a child. And he knew things were bad when a detective like Slivka had to sit down and hold her head in her hands so that he couldn’t see her face.

“And the strangest thing of all, Slivka,” Korolev said, putting coincidences together and finding they fitted a little too well for his liking. “When Yuri and I ran into those orphans out at Peredelkino, young Kim Goldstein had a scar not too dissimilar to the one someone put on Shtange’s cheek for him. Now what do you make of that?”

When Slivka left for the night, Korolev called Rodinov to give him the daily report he’d requested and, to his surprise, he was put straight through. Korolev told the colonel of each twist and turn the day had brought and, because it was Rodinov he was speaking to, he didn’t leave too many of them out. It turned out the men looking for Yuri were most certainly not Rodinov’s.

When he’d finished, there was silence on the other end of the line. It carried on for so long that Korolev began to wonder if he’d been cut off. “Comrade Colonel?”

“I’m thinking, Korolev. Just thinking.”

There was another long pause but this time Korolev allowed it to run its natural course.

“This investigation is becoming complicated,” Rodinov said, just as Korolev had resigned himself to waiting on the line for all eternity. “Well, it’s more than just an investigation now—it would be better described as a chess game. You are obviously one of the pieces and it seems the other side has decided you are worth attacking—indirectly, so far. But you should know things may get more difficult for you.”

“More difficult than my son being missing and the Twelfth Department’s men looking for him?”

“You’re still at liberty, Korolev, and as far as we’re aware, so is your ex-wife. And your son, for that matter. And we don’t know for certain these men were from the Twelfth Department. Although I’d be surprised if they weren’t.”

Korolev held the phone tight in his grip—there were many things he wanted to say, and not one of them he could.