William Ryan - The Twelfth Department

“So no one else knows about it?”

“I don’t think so. It’s not on the evidence list. And I won’t be putting it on it either.”

“Not in the report, not on the evidence list. Why?” Korolev asked, although he’d a hunch he knew the answer.

“If those Chekists took every piece of paper from the dead men’s apartments to look for something, I think this might have been what they were looking for.”

“You read it.”

“Enough of it to know I didn’t want to read anymore, or have it in my possession.”

Korolev sighed. “And the other person’s fingerprints? Shtange’s?”

Ushakov nodded. “All over it.”

Korolev pulled out the document and flicked through the pages that weren’t stuck together very quickly. The briefest of glances was enough to tell him it was Shtange’s report. And by the time he’d reached the end, he could see it was damning. A report that would have finished Azarov’s career for certain. As for anyone else’s—that would be something he’d see about later.

“So,” Ushakov said, scratching at his beard with his thumbnail. “What do we do with this?”

“You do nothing,” Korolev said, putting the report back into its envelope. “As far as you’re concerned this never existed.”

Ushakov managed a weak smile. “That’s what I hoped you’d say.”

“I’ve something to ask you in exchange though.”

“Ask.”

“I need a positive finding for those fingerprints. I suspect they’re there anyway.”

Ushakov paused for an instant, then nodded.

“And this gun certificate?” Korolev said, picking it up. “You might want to rewrite your report—this Derringer never existed as far as you’re concerned, and you certainly never made any connection between it and the bullet. For both our sakes. Things might change but, for the moment, the Shtange–Priudski story is the one that happened.”

Ushakov sighed and Korolev could have sworn he looked ten years older than when he’d first come into the room.

“I understand.”

It wasn’t just the heat that made Korolev sweat as he walked to the car—it was also the presence of the envelope hidden under his jacket. He hadn’t seen any of Zaitsev’s goons since Dubinkin’s encounter with Svalov in the park—but that didn’t mean they weren’t there. Yesterday they’d been open about following him, but today they might have decided to be invisible, and Korolev had tailed enough people to know if the job was done well he wouldn’t spot them until it was too late. With that in mind, the report felt like a ticking bomb; he needed to put it somewhere safe—fast.

It was only when he had the car moving that he allowed himself to take a quick look in the mirror. No one was visibly following him and the street seemed empty enough. He should have been reassured—but instead he felt as though an invisible band were tightening around his chest, making each breath a battle. He found himself moving his shoulders, trying to shake some of the tension from them, trying to breathe more slowly as he did so, remembering that Yuri’s life was at stake. It wasn’t often that anger calmed him, but today seemed to be the exception.

As he drove, he ran over the events of the previous week, trying to put everything in its right place and to make sense of it all. A pattern was forming, most certainly. Of course, a few pieces of the puzzle were still missing, but the shape of the thing was becoming clear. And when, or rather if, he came up with the full picture, his guess was he’d know which of the two colonels was most likely to provide him and Yuri with a way out of this mess.

He parked at the back of Shtange’s building. He hadn’t bothered to look at this man Bramson’s file earlier, but he needed to now. And he wanted to see if he could find a safe place to leave the report while he was at it.

“Comrade Captain,” Kuznetsky said, when he opened the door to Shtange’s apartment.

“Is Sergeant Slivka here?”

“She called in half an hour ago—she’s been at the tram depot talking to drivers. To see if anyone had come across that Priudski fellow.”

Korolev handed him the keys to the car. “Go and find her—I need to talk to her. Take the car. I parked it around the back.”

“At your command, Comrade Captain.” The Militiaman hesitated.

“Well?” A thought occurred to Korolev. “You can’t drive?”

“No, Comrade Captain, I can drive all right. I just thought you’d want to know, the doctor’s wife came with some French gentlemen—not long after you left. They took most of the doctor’s belongings away with them. Lieutenant Dubinkin said it was all right, but I thought I’d tell you anyway.”

“Everything?”

“There wasn’t much. His books were already gone, of course, but she took what was left—they’d a car. The Comrade Lieutenant said the books were currently under investigation by another department, but that he’d put in a request for her. She wasn’t happy about that, I can tell you. Also there was a coat of hers missing. She wasn’t happy about that either.”

“A coat?” Korolev said, curious. “Did she say what kind of coat?”

Kuznetsky took his notebook out of his pocket. “I made a note. A long black overcoat. French. Large padded shoulders. Four buttons. Why would they only pad the shoulders? You’d get no warmth from padded shoulders on their own.”

“Decadent capitalist fashion, Kuznetsky. Not something that should bother the likes of us. What was Comrade Dubinkin doing here? I thought he’d gone about some business for us.”

He was supposed to be at the Lubyanka, as it happened, searching out Priudski’s file.

“He came back about ten minutes after you left. He was looking through the files.”

Which he was entitled to do—but why? What had he been looking for?

“Thank you, Kuznetsky,” Korolev said, expecting him to leave, but the Militiaman showed no inclination to do so.

“Something else as well?”

“That thing you asked me to do, Comrade Captain.”

Korolev had almost forgotten that earlier he’d asked Kuznetsky to talk to the local telephone switchboard and the one for Leadership House.

“I remember—the telephone exchanges.”

“I’d a bit of trouble there, I have to tell you. So, in the end—well—I had to pretend to be someone I wasn’t.”

The Militiaman looked remorseful, guilty, and frightened all at the same time.

“Someone you shouldn’t have?”

“I don’t know what came over me, Comrade Captain.”

“You pretended to be me?”

“No, Comrade Captain. Worse still.”

Perhaps it was his nerves, but the logical answer left him trying to suppress appalled hilarity.

“Not Dubinkin?”

Kuznetsky nodded, his head dropping.

“Anyway, the thing is, Comrade Captain, both Dr. Shtange’s number and Professor Azarov’s are restricted—as in, not all operators are permitted to connect them and there’s a procedure when they do. If I hadn’t pretended to be the Comrade Lieutenant then how would I have found out what calls they’d made?”

“You could have asked him to make the call himself.”

This seemed to be something Kuznetsky hadn’t considered—he put a hand to his forehead as if he’d been struck. Korolev felt like shaking him—this was the last thing he wanted to deal with on this of all days.

“What do you think the Comrade Lieutenant would make of you pretending to be him?”

“I think he wouldn’t be happy,” Kuznetsky said, his face looking as if it had been whitewashed.

Korolev forced himself to relax. “I suspect you’re right. So we’d best forget about this little inquiry of yours then—people might misconstrue your intentions. Understood?”