William Ryan: The Twelfth Department

Korolev placed the receiver back in its cradle, raised his eyes to the ceiling and considered asking it, or the Lord that resided some way above it, why he hadn’t cut his visit shorter. That was the thing about places of work—if you spent too long hanging about them there was always the chance someone would ask you to do something. His sigh drew Slivka’s attention. Even his old friend Yasimov looked up from the report he was working on.

“The boss wants us,” Korolev said in answer to Slivka’s quizzical look. He attempted a smile—a poor attempt, he didn’t doubt. “Something’s come up. Something urgent, it seems.”

His mood wasn’t improved by Slivka’s evident sympathy—or Yasimov’s, for that matter. The worst thing was it had been his own fault—he’d spent too long introducing Yuri and Natasha to his colleagues, taking them around the small internal museum, telling them about famous cases that Moscow CID had solved. He’d even shown them the cells and one of the interrogation rooms. By the time he’d sent them off to Hermitage Park with Shura, the best part of an hour had passed. Too long for papers that had only needed a signature.

He reached into the bottom drawer of his desk and retrieved the Walther he’d just placed there, pulling the leather strap of the holster over his shoulder and fitting the gun snugly under his armpit. He patted the gun for luck and prayed it wasn’t a murder Popov wanted to talk about. If it was, that would be the week gone. He’d be lucky if he saw Yuri at all. Still, there wasn’t any use complaining about such things. And with a bit of luck, Popov just wanted to ask them about the Gray Fox business. With a lot of luck.

“Mitya?” Korolev asked Yasimov, standing, “Can you spare five minutes to go up to the park and tell the little ones the good news?” He handed him a five-rouble note. “Give this to Shura in case she needs it and tell her I’ll call her when I know what’s what. And kiss Yuri for me.”

“Of course, brother. Consider him kissed.”

“Thank you.”

Korolev’s face must have still been showing his disappointment when, two minutes later, he and Slivka entered Popov’s office, because the first inspector looked at him kindly as he waved them toward the empty chairs in front of his desk.

“Sit down, sit down—it mightn’t be as bad as all that.”

“At your orders, Comrade First Inspector,” Korolev said. The seat he chose gave out a creak that was close enough to an animal’s squeal of pain to leave a moment’s awkward silence behind it.

“Well,” Popov said and reached for his pipe, filling it with tobacco as he considered his detectives. He took his time and Korolev and Slivka, used to Popov’s ways, waited patiently. They knew he liked to think things through before he opened his mouth, and then he liked to think them through once again. And he never much liked talking unless his pipe was lit. Sure enough, once the tobacco was glowing orange and Popov’s head was surrounded with an aromatic cloud of smoke, the first inspector tapped the notepad in front of him.

“There’s a man sitting in his apartment over in Bersenevka with a bullet in his head. It seems he didn’t put it there himself.”

“I see,” Korolev said, concerned. Bersenevka was just across the river from the Kremlin and Popov hadn’t said the body was in a kommunalka : the shared housing that most citizens had to put up with. No, he’d said “his apartment,” and anyone who lived in that part of Moscow and had their own apartment was fortunate indeed. Fortunate and important.

“You know the place—that new building across the river from the Kremlin. What’s it called again?”

“You mean Leadership House,” Korolev said, fearing it could be no other. He caught Slivka looking across at him. She was fresh from the wilds of the Ukraine—well, Odessa—and new to Moscow, so Slivka probably hadn’t heard of the building before—but she was a smart girl and, to judge from her expression, was putting two and two together. She was right—Leadership House, as its name and location implied, was home to generals, important officials, senior Party members, directors of vital State concerns and the like—in short, the type of people who needed to be inside the Kremlin five minutes after the phone rang.

“You do know the place,” Popov said, having the good grace to appear a little guilty. “Good, that makes things easier.” The first inspector considered his pipe for a moment or two. “Needless to say, it’s not somewhere I can send just any detective. It has to be someone who has experience in such…”

Popov hesitated, as if considering how best to acknowledge the fact that Korolev had found himself handling more than one investigation involving senior Party members, foreign spies, State Security, and the like—investigations that had damned nearly left Moscow CID with one less detective on its books.

“Well, I suppose whoever I send has to be able to deal with delicate matters. As the saying goes, Alexei Dmitriyevich—no good deed goes unpunished. You’ve done some good deeds in the past and here’s your punishment—the chance to do another good deed.”

Popov’s use of Korolev’s patronymic was strange—things were usually more informal between them. But perhaps Slivka’s presence accounted for it—and not some other, more worrying, reason.

“I’m always ready to do my duty,” Korolev said—there wasn’t much point in saying anything else. “What do we know about the dead man?”

“He was called Azarov. A medical man—a professor, I believe. I don’t know much more but I’ll see if I can get his Party file, information as to where he works and so on for you. Anyway, his maid found him half an hour ago and the sergeant at the local Militia station knew enough to call us in straightaway. Given where it is, there isn’t a moment to lose—Morozov has a car waiting for you in the courtyard.”

Slivka’s frown deepened another millimeter or two.

“Comrades, I won’t pull the wool over your eyes on this,” Popov continued. “It won’t be too long before important neighbors with nervous wives start calling me asking why we haven’t arrested the murderer. In fact, the building management have already been on the phone, very keen to do anything they can to ensure the matter is resolved ‘as soon as possible.’ And maybe it won’t just be them who’ll want this tidied up quickly. There are other people who won’t like blood being spilled that close to the Kremlin.”

“Of course,” Korolev said, thinking that the “other people” would be his old friends in State Security. You could throw a stone from the roof of Leadership House and land it in the Kremlin’s gardens. More or less. Of course they’d take an interest in a killing that close to where Stalin laid his head.

“Forensics?” Korolev asked, doing his best to ignore the dread swilling round his innards. He wouldn’t be going to the zoo with Yuri tomorrow—that much seemed certain.

“Ushakov and Levschinsky. They might even be there already,” Popov said, sucking on his pipe. “And Dr. Chestnova will look at the body for you.”

Popov’s thin smile revealed a certain satisfaction that he’d preempted Korolev’s next request.

“Well then,” Korolev said, rising. Slivka did the same and Popov nodded his approval.

“With luck, it will be easy enough,” Popov said, nodding in the vague direction of Bersenevka. “Maybe the wife did it. Or the maid. The sergeant is called Belinsky—he’ll give you all necessary assistance. If you need anything—call me.”

Slivka drove down Neglinaya Street until it ended opposite the Metropol Hotel, where she turned right. In Teatralnaya Square, the white facade of the Bolshoi was vivid against the purple sky. The weather had turned humid that morning and now dark clouds were rolling across the city from the west. They looked heavy with rain and, unless he was mistaken, they’d be dropping it on Moscow in the not-too-distant future.