The Case of the General's Thumb (10 page)

A junior lieutenant, who looked too intelligent to be a soldier, led him to a vast tape library.

“What's it you're after?”

“SVI for the night of the 20th-21st.”

He brought a large reel, put it on the console, searched, found the place, and passed the headphones to Viktor.

The recording was chiefly of background hiss interrupted every now and then by a message.

Twelve! Blue Mercedes, jumped lights, heading your way! Get him!

Two! Time check please.

0030 hours. Spoken to Stepan?

Yep. Friday we go fishing.

General alert! Red Samara, Registration: KIA 89-71, stolen Pushkin Street.

Then, after a long interval:

Seven! Proceed at once to 11!

Received and understood.

Viktor listened intently.

Three! Red Samara just gone through – could be the one.

Sod it then!

A long silence, broken by:

Seven! Attendance no longer required. Return to post
.

Viktor got the lieutenant to make him a copy.

Nik went down for a frankfurter and a mug of beer. When he returned, Sakhno was lying on his bed staring at the ceiling, and the air was heavy with a familiar smell that he couldn't immediately place.

“Like some sausage?”

Eyes wide with amazement, Sakhno tried to turn his head, but was not able to, and suddenly it all came back – cannabis, that was what the room reeked of, like a Tadzhik bazaar! And Sakhno was the worse
affected for having taken it on top of wine. Nik opened the window wide. It was damp and chilly, but no longer raining.

Drugs, drink – God, what a combination! What the hell had Ivan Lvovich been thinking of? Tablets against his perhaps becoming a menace were beginning to make sense.

In need of a drink, Nik went down for another beer.

Next morning, there was a knock on the door, and a thin, hawk-nosed, middle-aged man looked in. He wore his sandy hair parted in the middle, and the jacket of his grey, much-laundered, vaguely rustic suit was in the nature of a tunic. Seeing Sakhno asleep, he suggested that they went down for a coffee.

“I'm Heinz,” he said. “A name seen on tins. Wilhelm Heinz.”

His Russian was faultless. He'd arrived from Kazakhstan some ten years back with his Russian wife, who, having learnt German, left him for a local pharmacist. A human story, briefly told, inspiring trust and sympathy.

Joining a dozen or so others at breakfast, they sat at a window table with a view of rain.

“No objection, I take it, to my eating for your friend,” Heinz smiled. “I imagine you've settled in.”

“I think so.”

“And your friend?”

“No problem.”

Heinz made himself a ham sandwich, and stirred sugar into his coffee.

“Tomorrow you move on. Which means a collecting in of passports – your friend's Yugoslav and Ukrainian, and your own?”

“I've got mine here,” Nik patted the bulging breast pocket of his denim jacket.

“So nip up and get his.”

Abandoning his coffee, Nik went and shook Sakhno awake, only to be gestured to a jacket yielding no more than a Ukrainian foreign travel passport and a small packet of cannabis.

“Your Yugoslav passport, where's that?”

Sakhno opened one eye.

“Lost it.”

“Where?”

“Deaf-and-dumb place.”

“Mislaid while drunk, more like,” was Heinz' comment. “Does he drink a lot?”

“A fair bit.”

“Well, let him.”

Breakfast finished, he handed Nik two new green German passports.

“These make you ethnic Kazakhstan Germans, like me,” he said with a laugh. “And here,” passing him a card, “is your new address, paid up two months in advance.”

“Only Sakhno speaks no German.”

“Like many ethnic Kazakhstan Germans. Which is why Germans and Turks don't like them.”

“Why the Turks?”

“The Turks work hard, learn German, but don't get passports so easily. So, congratulations on becoming German.”

Taking his empty plate, he helped himself to more ham and sausage, cheese and rolls, evidently enjoying his meal on the house.

“Anything from Ivan Lvovich?” Nik asked

“Don't know him,” said Heinz, clearly surprised. “My instructions were to give you the passports, and that's what I've done, and needn't have, now the Soviet Union's a thing of the past.”

“So passports, and that's it.”

“Passports and a flat.”

“And then?”

“No idea. Wait and see.”

Returning to their room, Nik examined the new passports in the names of Niklas Zenn and Theo Sachsen.

The latter being still asleep and snoring, Nik let him lie.

It was 10.30, so if they were leaving today, he must settle the bill before eleven.

Shutting the door quietly behind him, he made for the stairs.

Told of the tape, Georgiy said he must hear it, and Viktor was to hold everything until he had, making a copy on Ratko's twin-deck recorder – to be delivered by Zanozin, as later directed.

At 2.00, when the copy was ready, Victor confirmed as much to his invisible Chief.

“Tell Zanozin to be at the Lenin monument, Bessarabian Market, at 3.00,” he responded. “Someone will inquire the way to Repin Street and the Russian Museum, and he's to accompany that someone up the avenue to Repin Street, handing over the tape as they go.”

A someone who might well be Georgiy!

Allowing Zanozin a five-minute start, he jumped into his Mazda, and ten minutes later, was walking towards the Bessarabian Market, having left his car outside Cinema House.

And there, at 2.55, was Zanozin standing at the monument, gazing this way and that, like an indifferent spy or a restless lover.

Darting into the underpass, Viktor surfaced at the bread shop midway between the Lenin monument and Repin Street, and stationed himself just inside.

Ten minutes later, he saw Zanozin heading up the avenue in company with a close-cropped, auburn-haired young lady, half a head shorter than he, in sun glasses and blue dress. Zanozin passed her the tape, which she slipped into her bag, then returned wearing the foolish grin of the smitten male.

Viktor's mobile rang.

“So we're at Cinema House.”

“No, just passing.”

“Hopefully in the course of duty. Call you in an hour.”

Georgiy's tone, when he rang, was congratulatory.

“Good stuff! Which we must squeeze dry. See if your SVI sergeant recognises the voice. And that red Samara might well be connected with the folk we're after. Theft of a vehicle in the furtherance of crime smacks of tradition, but you never know.”

Voronko, Zanozin reported, was due on duty in an hour and a half's time, at 1800 hours. Viktor set him to find out what had become of the red Samara stolen on the night of the 20th-21st, placed four chairs side by side under the window, and lay across them. This was how he had snatched sleep in the army, but now he wanted to stare at the ceiling and think, and the hard chairs were good for his back.

Shortly before 6.00 Viktor set off for Independence Square, taking the cassette and a portable tape recorder borrowed from a colleague.

“Still on about that night?” Voronko asked wearily. “Like I said, I got called out, then played cards.”

“Yes,” Viktor reassured him, “and now we've got supporting evidence.”

They went into the booth, where it was quieter, and Viktor played the tape.

“That's Stepan!” Voronko said cheerfully.

“Stepan who?”

“Grishchenko, Senior Lieutenant … Like I said.”

“What you said was that you didn't remember.”

Voronko shrugged.

Asked about the red Samara, he found his memory equally deficient. With sometimes a dozen vehicle thefts a night, you couldn't remember them all.

Viktor got him to radio control for Grishchenko's whereabouts.

“Off duty till tomorrow night,” said Tinny Voice.
Returning to District, Viktor told Zanozin to get Grishchenko's address.

“That car,” said Zanozin. “I forgot to tell you.”

“Well?”

“Found at 0800 hours on the 21st in Bastion Street, outside the block with the gas explosion.”

Bastion Street again! In some amazing way, Refat in distant Moscow saw more than he did on the spot!

“Want the gen on this Grishchenko?” Zanozin asked.

“Yes, and quick about it.”

Viktor sat back, his mood a strange mixture of weariness and triumph, then his mobile rang. It was Georgiy.

“Well?”

“It's Senior Lieutenant Grishchenko on the tape. I should be seeing him in an hour or so.”

“Good lad. How about the car?”

“It looks as if it was ‘stolen in furtherance'. It was found next morning in Bastion Street outside – ” He stopped, remembering that he'd so far not mentioned the supposed gas explosion and its victim.

“Outside where in Bastion Street?”

“A flat that blew up killing the owner. Shortly after Bronitsky died.”

“Tell me more.”

“Gas explosion is the official version, but an explosive device is the more likely explanation. The victim was a colonel at Border Troops HQ.”

“When did you find all this out?” Georgiy asked, clearly surprised.

“Only just now.”

“In the course of that duty stroll near Cinema House?”

“Yes,” said Viktor, not expecting to be believed.

“Well, good for you!” was the unexpected response. “Quite a linkage of events. And the address?”

Viktor gave it.

“So things are moving and again in the Pechersk direction,” said Georgiy, with a note of satisfaction. “Ring you later.”

Pocketing his mobile, Viktor felt only fatigue. Any sense of triumph was gone. Georgiy was no fool. He'd be beginning to have doubts. But things were moving and gaining momentum. It was time he investigated the late colonel's friends and colleagues, as he'd been told not to in the case of the late general. Still, a colonel was different from a general.

A knock. It was Zanozin.

“Grishchenko lives in Podol. I've rung, he's not there, and his wife doesn't know when to expect him.”

“Right,” said Viktor. “At 8.00 tomorrow, phone round, run him to earth, and we'll get questioning.”

The one-room flat, found for them in Euskirchen, was, though not spacious, comfortable, the L-shape affording scope for a degree of privacy.

“Could be partitioned into three,” said Sakhno, “but why no curtains?”

Nik shrugged.

The five-hour car journey from Koblenz, with the engine baulking at every steep climb and many departures from the route drawn for Nik by the hotel manager, had left them exhausted.

“I,” said Sakhno, “am bloody hungry and there's damn all in the fridge.”

“What did you expect? Wine? Hors d'oeuvre?”

“Hors d'oeuvre, yes. Wine we could have bought. Any Deutschmarks left?”

A telephone rang.

Looking, Nik found the instrument on the floor.

“Settled?” asked a voice.

“Just arrived.”

“Take it easy. Job tomorrow. Ring you at 8.00.”

“What – ” Nik began, but the caller rang off.

“Someone for us?”

“Work starts tomorrow.”

Opening the window, Sakhno rolled a joint from his supply of cannabis, and lit up.

Nik took himself off for a breath of air. It was raining lightly. Coming to a general store, he bought sausage, bread and milk for their supper.

Setting off for work, leaving wife and daughter still asleep, Viktor lighted on the bag he had taken to Moscow, and thinking of the curious weapon it contained, tossed it out of harm's way with the case of unwanted wedding presents atop the corridor cupboard.

He drove slowly, past fellow block-dwellers heading for the metro. Braking sharply before the main road, he sensed a shifting in the boot, but knowing it to be empty and swerving clear of a plank with projecting nails on the road, he drove on. When he again braked sharply, this time at Southern Bridge, the impression was stronger of something having shifted. Maybe the spare wheel had come adrift, and once clear of the bridge and roundabout, he decided to check. Opening the boot, he froze with horror. Doubled-up in it was the corpse of a man in canvas overalls. No shoes. Brown socks.

Banging the boot shut, he switched on his warning lights and tried to think.

An ancient Mercedes drew up alongside, and a bald head appeared.

“Can give you a tow,” it offered. “Twenty dollars. Got a rope.”

“Thank you, no.”

“I've got a corpse in my boot,” he informed Georgiy.

“Well, there's a nice good morning! Since when?”

“Some time in the night. Cropped hair, canvas overalls. Military-looking. No shoes.”

“Splendid!”

“What's splendid about it?”

“Shows you're getting warm. Now's the time to be careful.”

“What do I do with the body?”

“Let me think.”

“And cart him round Kiev while you do?”

“Not for long. He'll still be fresh. Behave as normal. I'll ring you.”

Viktor parked and went up to his office.

An hour later, though it seemed an age, Zanozin came and reported.

Grishchenko was not at his home address, having, as likely as not, spent the night at his dacha. Should he ask his wife for the address and go out there?

Viktor agreed, but then, realizing that if Georgiy rang, he mustn't involve Zanozin in disposing of the body, thought better of it.

“We'll wait till he's back, but keep phoning. Anyway, tonight he's on duty.”

Two hours later Georgiy rang.

“Not, I trust, distracting you from work. So what you do is, take the Zhitomir road, and at the Korchaginets bus stop – the twenty-two-kilometre post, roughly – it's sharp right onto a dirt track skirting forest. You'll see patches of oil, then a house. The garage will be unlocked. Dump him in there.”