Lene Kaaberbol - Death of a Nightingale

“Kravchenko.”

“Yes. Him. He got the journalist eliminated because he wrote critically about the administration’s abuse of freedom of speech and civil rights, wasn’t that the way it was?”

“More or less. Four officers from the SBU were sentenced for the murder, and the investigation of who gave the order stopped with the death of Kravchenko. He was found with two bullet holes in the head a few hours before he was to due to be interrogated by the public prosecutor, and Oleksandr Turchinov, Savchuk’s boss in the SBU, closed the case with a declaration that Kravchenko had committed suicide.”

“Very convenient.”

“Yes. Of course, it is theoretically possible the first wound wasn’t fatal and the suicide candidate was very determined, but …”

“It’s pretty rare for people to shoot themselves in the head twice,” said Torben dryly.

“Precisely. I’m not saying that Pavel Doroshenko is another Gongadze; I don’t have any proof of that. But what if … what if he was killed by someone in the system either because they were hired to do so or because they were protecting one of their own? Then you can’t really find fault with Natasha’s decision to leave the country in a hurry.”

“And where in this speculative scenario do you place Colonel Savchuk and his brother the politician?”

“Half brother. I don’t know. I have no idea whether Savchuk is a hero or a villain in this.” Among Doroshenko’s articles there had been nothing about Nikolaij Filipenko, his half brother or their mother. Nothing that tied Savchuk to the case. “It’s hard to get a sense of the relationship between the two brothers. There’s such a great distance between them age-wise and … historically. Savchuk was born in the postwar years with a supposedly ‘unknown’ father, an army brat who himself made a career of the military. From what little I’ve been able to dig up on him, it seems he was with the Russians in nineteen seventy-nine when they moved into Afghanistan. Later he joined the KGB and just continued on to the SBU after the Independence. A bit of a Cold War dinosaur, it looks like, but there are a surprising number of those in that part of the world, and a wise man doesn’t turn his back on them. Filipenko, on the other hand, was born in nineteen seventy-two. A completely different life—glasnost, perestrojka, independence. And it looks like a completely different personal life as well—the mother had at that point married a man who was somewhat younger than her, an engineer who later became a diplomat under Gorbachev. There are a number of foreign postings, two years of boarding school in England, engineering studies because he apparently wanted to follow in his father’s footsteps, then soccer hero status, which he begins to turn into a political career in the late nineties. Apparently Filipenko is a humane, well-intentioned, decent man who wishes to get to the bottom of corruption in his country. What Savchuk is … That’s more of an open question. And until now there was no other connection to Pavel Doroshenko than his energetic efforts to get the widow extradited to Ukraine.”

“What does your friend Babko say?”

“He doesn’t know either. He has given me a lot of material that I am trying to understand. Among other things I have a sense there is a pattern to the articles Doroshenko published, but I can’t quite make the pieces fit together. I would like to speak with Babko again. But first I want to solve the problem I have sitting in my kitchen.”

A pause. He could hear the refrigerator door open and the sound of something being poured into a glass. Tomato juice, if he knew Torben. Once in a while the juice was accompanied by Tabasco, ice and vodka, but not now, not when there was work to be done.

“Are you really convinced that the girl is in danger, and it’s not just her mother who has tried to get hold of her?” his boss asked.

“If that was your daughter, would you have used gas? A grown man almost died from it. Would you risk it with your daughter—when that daughter suffers from severe asthma attacks?”

There was a swallowing sound as Torben took a sip of his juice. “No,” he said. “I wouldn’t. I would go as far as to say that it certainly doesn’t sound like the mother has had complete control over the person or persons responsible for the attack.”

“Then you agree that the girl is in danger.”

A sigh. “Yes. That would follow. But listen. You know exactly how Heide and her people will react if we just waltz in there and take things over.”

Søren was well aware of the tensions between the PET and the other divisions of the police. It was not the PET’s primary job to make sure that those who committed criminal acts were taken to court and sentenced, and there were times when a prosecution would directly interfere with the security concerns of the PET. Once, in 1988, that schism had even cost the life of a young policeman, and the wounds still ached.

He could understand Heide’s resistance and her fear that the PET’s involvement might make it more difficult to construct a case.

“I’ll call Heide,” said Torben. “But only to make your collaboration easier. You’re going to have to work it out between you. We have to make her feel safe. Make her understand that we want to help, not obstruct.”

“And can personal protection of Katerina Doroshenko be a part of that help?”

“What level were you thinking of?”

“First, that the girl doesn’t have to go back to the Coal-House Camp or any other place where she is easy to find.”

“Okay. I think I can sell that—on the condition that they have access to both Borg and the girl when they are needed for questioning. But are you imagining an actual safe house?”

“If that’s possible. Wouldn’t that also make Heide feel safer, knowing Natasha Doroshenko would have a very hard time getting hold of the girl? She’s unlikely to try to leave the country as long as the girl is here.”

Torben snorted. “I can try. Okay. You stay where you are for the time being. I’ll call when I have something for you. And keep a close eye on that paranoid nurse of yours, okay? We don’t want her to give us the slip.”

THE PARANOID NURSEsat at the little table in the kitchen with her head against the wall. Her eyes were closed, and Søren guessed she was close to nodding off if she wasn’t asleep already, despite the hardness of the chair. She was still wearing her coat, and a little pool of water was spreading around her boots as the snow stuck in the treads melted.

The girl, on the other hand, was wide awake. She didn’t look at him directly, but there was a guarded glitter from behind her lowered eyelashes.

He squatted down in front of her. “Are you hungry?” he asked her in Russian.

He saw Nina jolt and open her eyes. The child just shook her head. “Sleepy?”

A single nod.

“Proshoo,” she whispered then. “De tut tualet?”

“It’s right out here in the hall,” he said, still in Russian. “Do you want me to show you?”

She got up, still holding the backpack tightly. He didn’t try to get her to put it down. Nina sat completely still and observed them with a carefully neutral expression. She didn’t interfere with his attempts to make contact.

He showed the slight girl to the bathroom and turned on the light for her. Built-in halogen spots threw shiny reflections back from shiny black granite tiles and lacquered white cabinets. There were no calming bath toys and happy frogs on the shower curtain or anything else that might make a child feel at home, but at least it had just been cleaned, so hopefully it smelled more of Vim than of urine.

“Thank you,” Rina said politely. She was clearly waiting for him to leave.