The Case of the General's Thumb (7 page)

Nik seemed suddenly to see it all. He was interpreter-factotum, Sakhno was hitman. They were an operational team. Their abstract objective having been set by Ivan Lvovich, they would now receive concrete instructions from Wozniak in Poznan.

Phoned from the station, Wozniak said he would pick them up. They were to wait by the taxi rank. They then sat sunning themselves for a good half hour before he turned up, in an ancient Mercedes, and whisked them off to a little café on the outskirts, where they were quickly served with beer and plates of salad. Stocky, moon-faced, he inquired politely about Kiev, and Sakhno spoke animatedly of new shops and restaurants while Nik kept prudently silent. A pork and cabbage dish came, and more beer.

“Going to give Polish vodka a try?” Wozniak asked Sakhno, who perked up visibly.

“And would you mind savouring it over there, while Nik and I talk business.”

“No problem,” said Sakhno getting to his feet, and moving to the corner table, to which Wozniak brought vodka and pickled cucumber from the bar.

“Stick these away till later,” Wozniak said returning to Nik and slipping him two blue passports.

“They're in the names of Niko Tsensky and Ivo Sakhnich, citizens of the new Yugoslavia, with visas for Germany. There's DM three thousand each in these envelopes. In an hour from now you take the electric train to Germany. Speak German?”

“I studied it.”

“In Berlin – the tickets are in the passports – you change for Koblenz. In Koblenz you stay at the Hotel Mauer. It's cheap, good and no distance from the station. There you sit back and wait to be contacted.”

“Who by?”

“Don't worry, he'll be one of us. And how are you getting on, you two?” he asked, inclining his head to where Sakhno sat staring at an empty glass.

Nik said nothing.

Wozniak smiled.

“Good luck, anyway! Though God knows what with. My part's played. We'd better be off.”

Wearily, reluctantly, Sakhno rose and joined them.

Viktor's plans for the funeral had come to nothing, and but for the discovery of Ivin's earlier stay in Kiev, the day would have been a complete loss. At least his direct or indirect involvement in Bronitsky's death now seemed as good as proved.

Viktor walked for an hour or so before returning to the Moskva, where he had left his car. He looked into the foyer. The receptionist was now a middle-aged brunette with hair lacquered into a balloon-like eminence.

“Where can I get a coffee?”

“The fourth-floor buffet, if it's good coffee you want.”

The coffee came with a tiny bar of chocolate. He ordered a second cup, and while waiting, moved to a window seat. There was the Coca-Cola balloon, and there, opposite the Central Post Office, the State Vehicle Inspection booth.

As he left, he glanced at the menu. Apart from sweets, beverages and drinks, one could have chops, chips, chicken and, to his amazement, red caviar pancakes!

Instead of going to his car, he made his way over to the little enclosure formed by red road barriers, and found that the balloon cable was attached to one of three large gas cylinders. There was no-one keeping an eye on them.

Carrying on down to the fountains, he crossed to the SVI booth on the other side of the square, to see how conspicuous the balloon was from there. It was, very. He'd done well, he decided. Now to Moscow, to tackle Ivin.

“Go for two days,” said Georgiy, when Viktor phoned him that evening.

“The tickets will reach you at District tomorrow morning. But if you sense Ivin is involved, arrange to meet again, and come straight back.”

While waiting for his tickets, Viktor sent for Zanozin, instructing him to check who, on the night of the 20th-21st, was on SVI duty, Independence Square, then interview him.

He then phoned Ratko and invited him to coffee.

“Very grand all of a sudden! Got sugar?”

“Yes, Major.”

“On my way.”

Viktor kicked his overnight bag under the table. He had yet to break it to Ratko that he was off to Moscow that evening.

Nik was surprised how much German he remembered. At Berlin Zoo he not only managed to inquire the time of the train to Koblenz, but understood the reply.

“Well?” asked Sakhno, standing with their cases.

“Platform 2, Track 3, in half an hour.”

A station cleaner in baggy overalls walked past pushing a little yellow cart. Like the man at the information desk, he was wearing a name tag.

Watching him, Nik had the curiously detached feeling of a diver lowered into a different world, amongst fish of a fabulous order. All too soon, in a month or so at best, those above would pull on his life line and haul him up. Meanwhile, anything could happen.

Sakhno grinned.

“Well done. Not your first foray into foreign parts, then?”

“No, I've been to Africa,” said Nik, returning to the surface. “We'd better get going.”

The train was spotlessly clean, the seats like sofas. At half-hourly intervals a trolley came round with tea, coffee and snacks.

“Though addicted to drink, I still have eyes to see,” Sakhno said, turning to Nik with a smile as the trolley passed. “You got two envelopes from your Polish pal as well as passports. Could they be envelopes of money, and one of them for me?”

“Yes, and you shall have it at Koblenz,” promised Nik, thinking uneasily what Sakhno would spend his Deutschmarks on.

In their room at the Hotel Mauer Sakhno tossed his case onto the bed better placed for the wall-mounted television, and headed for the shower.

Five minutes later he appeared, wet-haired, carrying two glasses.

“Wine or vodka?”

“Wine.”

“To our safe arrival,” he proposed. “Now where's my envelope?”

He counted the notes carefully.

“It'll do for a start. And more to come, no doubt.”

He knocked back a second glass, and got into his denim suit, slipping the envelope into a bulging breast pocket.

“You may as well leave your passports,” Nik suggested. “They won't get pinched.”

“Sod that! What's mine goes with me! – I'm going for a stroll. See if I can't find some sausage for supper. You do as you like.”

“Hang on, we're expecting a visit.”

“You are, not me. You're duty dog,” he quipped as he went out, banging the door behind him.

Exhausted and feeling a complete idiot, Nik finished his wine, lay down on Sakhno's bed, and watching some pop singer, fell asleep.

After a night disturbed first by Ukrainian then by Russian customs Viktor arrived in the sweltering heat of Moscow in a somewhat jaundiced state. He'd travelled in company with a businessman intent on proving, despite small response, that life was on the upgrade, who, after two bottles of beer, passed out as if they'd been vodka, and stayed out from Kaluga on, until roused by the raucous loudspeakers of Moscow.

Dressing, Viktor was horrified to see his automatic and holster all too obvious in the unzipped bag under the table. Customs had twice got him out of his berth to look under it, without noticing the unzipped bag.

He checked in at the Kiev Hotel, where four hundred thousand roubles per night for a single room made a big hole in the apparent
fortune of eight hundred thousand roubles received as travelling expenses. “Staying how long?”

“One night to begin with.”

“Extensions must be made before eleven the next day, otherwise it's vacate and settle.”

“Not settle in advance?”

She smiled.

“We have your passport. The militia registration fee of one hundred and twenty thousand is extra.”

Deciding to start with the lesser fry on the chance of getting a line on Ivin, he rang Bronitsky's two other colleagues, and receiving no reply from either, rang Ivin.

“Yes?” a pleasant female voice answered.

“Could I speak to Maksim Petrovich?”

“He's out at the moment. But leave your number and he'll call you back.”

“When do you expect him?”

“In about half an hour.”

“Might I come over and wait?”

“Know where to come?”

Before setting out he hid his automatic and holster at the bottom of his bag and shoved it under his bed.

In the thrill of the chase he forgot his bad night, but the Stalinesque blocks of Kutuzov Prospekt, arrayed like a scowling bevy of hefty colonels, provided a depressing setback. A reek of melting asphalt and vehicle exhaust contributed to the impression of entrapment, but as he searched for the right block, his confidence returned.

“Where are you off to?” demanded an elderly caretaker, ex-army, if the combat suit was anything to go by, seated behind a glass partition in the hall.

“Ivin, Flat 62. I'm expected.”

The caretaker indicated the lift.

It was clean, quiet and provided with a mirror.

One day there'd be a lift where he lived, though it would soon be squalid. This one had air freshening.

The faint sound resulting from pressing the bell suggested double doors of unusual solidity. He waited a minute, then rang again, and once more.

He returned to the hall intending to ask the caretaker if he'd seen Ivin, but the caretaker had gone, leaving his book open on the table.

He'd left his mobile in Kiev, not expecting it to work in Moscow, and it took some time to find a phone. When he did, it required tokens, and it took another fifteen minutes to find a newspaper kiosk that sold them.

“No one is available to take your call,” said an answering machine when at last he rang Ivin's number. “Leave your name and number, and we'll call you back.”

He rang the other two Kievites again, but still no answer.

Returning to the hotel, he rested until seven, then rang all three numbers, but to no avail.

At the buffet on the second floor he paid fifteen thousand roubles for a salami sandwich and salad.

Waking at around 3 a.m., he had another go at telephoning, but might just as well not have.

Next morning, he packed his bag, announced he was leaving and put down five hundred and twenty thousand roubles.

The receptionist consulted her register, then gave him his passport and four hundred thousand roubles' change.

“Your bill's been paid,” she said. “There's just the one hundred and twenty thousand registration fee.”

“How do you mean?”

“Paid. End of story.”

“Who by?”

“No idea. I've only just come on. You can pay again, if you like …”

A mistake. It must be. He didn't know anyone in Moscow. And yet someone must be the poorer for that amount.

Leaving his bag in a station locker, he bought another ten tokens and wandered the city telephoning until the last of them was swallowed by Ivin's answerphone.

At 20.00 he went back to the station, bought the Moscow papers, retrieved his bag, had a coffee, and made for his platform.

The blonde conductress finished wiping the boarding handrail before taking his ticket.

“Viktor Slutsky?” inquired a tall, fair-haired man pleasantly, looking into the compartment where Viktor was sitting next to a grimey window, too weary to change into his track suit.

“Yes?”

“Going already? And without getting your interview? Come, I've a car outside.”

“But this is the train my ticket's for.”

“Here's another for tomorrow. Single sleeper. Bring your bag. It's an hour's drive, then supper …”

The Volga was of a type he'd never seen, black, with darkened windows. Tall Fair Hair sat in front with the driver. He sat alone in the back.

When Nik woke at 10.00, the television was showing a film. There was no sign of Sakhno.

Feeling hungry, he went down to the hotel restaurant.

“The chef goes off at 10.00,” explained a smartly-dressed elderly man sitting alone over a mug of beer. “But I can heat you something in the microwave.”

The simplicity and the homely warmth of the place were disarming. He opted for Frankfurter and chips and a mug of beer, and had scarcely sat down at a table when the man brought his order, wished him guten Appetit, and went back to his own beer.

Nik found himself thinking of Tanya and Volodya, made unhappy by his telegram. Still, there was nothing he could do, and they would have to grin and bear it just as he had. As in the Soviet past, bright new futures were elusive. Which didn't mean that they wouldn't come, only that some cost was involved. And in these infant days of Slav capitalism, anything good – bright future included – was extremely pricey. Free, gratis and for nothing was a concept of the past.

At getting on for midnight and after another beer, Nik went to his room, looked out of the window, wondering, not for the first time though now somewhat more relaxedly, where the hell his companion had got to.

Viktor sat with Tall Fair Hair, Refat, as he now knew him, and Yura, their tubby driver, at a richly spread table on the summer veranda of a fine dacha.

“Wine or vodka?” Yura asked, assuming the role of cupbearer.

“Wine, please.”

“Juice for me,” Refat confirmed, adding, for Viktor's benefit, “I'm sorry to say.”

Yura served tomato salad, sausage and cured fillet of sturgeon.

“Dig in,” said Refat. “There's a hot course to follow. We can sup to the song of the nightingales, and at dawn's first rays, we can sleep.”

The mystery of the hotel bill now seemed solved, but it left Viktor the unhappy feeling of having been bought. And for what?

“Cheer up!” said Yura. “You could now be in your filthy carriage having a torch shone in your face and being asked for your passport. So let's drink! To friendship!”

Refat clinked his glass with the others.

“It was Ivin you came to talk to, wasn't it?” Refat asked suddenly.

“Yes.”

“Show him the photos, Yura.”