The Holy Thief (5 page)

“Tickets,” she said. “For the dance. In three days’ time.” One of the young men looked up at him without any interest.

“Can you tell me exactly what time you found her, Comrade?”

“Nine o’clock. I open the building every morning. I’m on the organizing committee. Lydia Kovalevskaya. Anything I can do to assist you—of course. Lieutenant Semionov said you’d have some questions. The door was open when I arrived—it had been forced—and then I found her. The blood was everywhere. Does it stain marble, blood? Will we be able to clean away the marks?” Kovalevskaya rubbed at the table with the palm of her hand. The two young men exchanged a smile.

“Are you all right, Comrade?” Korolev asked, wondering should he take her somewhere quieter. She thought about the question for a moment and then nodded.

“Yes, I think so. I’m sorry; I know I shouldn’t be upset—that I should be stronger. But what was done to her—it was horrible.”

“Your reaction is quite normal, Comrade.”

“Thank you, but your questions. Please ask me your questions.” She managed a tight smile as Korolev caught one of the young men raising an eyebrow to the other. Young scamps—hard as only the young could be.

“There was meant to be a dance that evening. It was canceled. Why was that?”

“An electricity problem, Comrade. Our connection to the grid was damaged. It was a temporary problem. They fixed it in time for the dance, but we’d already canceled.”

“Damaged? How?”

“Nothing suspicious. A workman cut through a cable on the construction site next door.”

Korolev considered her response and decided to have Semionov look into it.

“The thing is,” he said, “I’m wondering how the killer picked this place. He may just have been lucky, walked past, saw the dance was canceled from the posters and taken the opportunity that this provided. But even that would have had an element of uncertainty to it, do you see? Unless he knew something about the place, yes? The question is: how did he know he would be undisturbed? We think he came in about midnight. Is the church always shut then?”

“We prefer not to use the word
church.
It is a Komsomol recreational and political agitation center. We have concluded that former church is acceptable, however.”

Korolev felt his hand clenching in his pocket. He knew she was correct in strictly political terms, but still. Sometimes you couldn’t help but feel angry at the way some people spoke.

“Answer my question, please. The lectures can wait for a Party meeting.” She looked at him in shock. He realized he’d allowed some of his anger to show and then thought it wouldn’t do any harm. She needed strong direction, otherwise he wouldn’t get a damned thing out of her. He tapped the table to get her attention.

“I’m investigating a murder, Comrade. I don’t care how you refer to this building, it’s just a crime scene to me—understand?”

“There is no need for uncultured aggressiveness, Captain. The dance was in support of the Comrades in Spain. When there isn’t a dance or a special event, the club shuts at eight.” She spoke as if speaking to a child, and any warm feelings he had for her disappeared. The two young men had stopped working. He turned his head toward them and one didn’t even bother to hide his smirk.

“You. Name, patronymic, surname,” Korolev barked.

“Grichkin. Alexei Vladimirovich.”

“And you?”

“Nikolai Alexandrovich Zoshchenko.”

“Well, Grichkin, and you, Zoshchenko—I want a list of every member of this cell, and everyone who has attended a meeting or event in this
former
church, for the last six months.”

“But—” Zoshchenko began, his eyes looking at the other two in panic.

“But what? I don’t want to hear how difficult it will be, I want the damned list. And there will be no more public use of this church until I get it, and it’s been checked, and I’m happy that it’s accurate. And if it’s incorrect in any way, I’ll find a nice spot in the Butyrka prison for you two to spend a little time together. Six hours. That’s what you have. Work on it together. And you can forget those blasted tickets until it’s done.”

“I must protest,” the girl looked like she was about to begin a long-winded analysis of the murder’s insignificance against the global scale of the Revolution when his hand slammed onto the table, causing the ledger to lift up into the air.

“Let me remind you, Comrade Kovalevskaya, that the Militia is part of State Security and that this crime was against a Soviet citizen in a Komsomol building. A crime against Soviet law takes priority here. And I’d be thinking very carefully about not cooperating fully, given the fact you and your Comrades here can’t even secure a damned social club at a time when the entire Revolution is under threat.”

After which things went a little more briskly. When he’d finished, he left three pale-faced Komsomols no doubt wondering which of the others to denounce first to save their hides. Not that he would be following it up—it was clear they knew nothing. About anything, probably.

Inside the sacristy Gueginov was unpacking camera equipment from the two cases he’d brought with him. Looking at him, Korolev had to accept that Semionov had a point. The man didn’t look well suited to his job. Aside from the stutter, which worsened in the presence of strangers, there was also the spasm that juddered through his whole body every minute or so—more often when he was nervous. It was strange then that he seemed relatively relaxed as he prepared to photograph the butchered woman, timing his movements to avoid the involuntary twitching.

“Scuh-scaring the yuh-young fuh-folk were you?”

“You heard me? Well, sometimes you have to shout to be heard.”

“Tru-true. Vuh-very true. Suh-so, ha-have you any ideas who did this yet?” Gueginov asked as he lined up a picture.

“Not yet. And those youngsters weren’t much help. Perhaps the autopsy will tell us something. Can you take a picture of the clothes?”

“Of cuh-course, Comrade. I’m limited to ten photographs however, unless I have the general’s express approval. The film’s imported, you see.”

This came as no surprise to Korolev, especially if it came from abroad. What little foreign currency the State had was needed to achieve the aims of the latest Five Year Plan.

“How many have you taken so far?” Korolev asked, wondering if ten would be enough.

“Fuh-four. A cluh-close-up of the face. Three location shots of the body from he-here, here and here.” The photographer pointed to where he’d stood to take the photographs. “Now, I’ll do the clothes, the body parts—anything else you’d like? I normally save a fuh-few for the autopsy.”

Korolev looked carefully at the body and then around the room.

“I’d like the footprints,” he said, looking at the bloody floor. “Damn it. Listen, take all ten in here. I’ll get the general to authorize the autopsy pictures.”

“Okuh-kay. On your head be it.” Gueginov said as he moved the arc light. He nodded at the ear, eye and tongue as he turned to Korolev.

“A savage. But it’s strange, you know. The way the b-body is positioned. As though it might mean something, all the efuh-fort he went to. Look.”

The camera’s flash sent black shadows flying across the ceiling. Korolev looked down at the body and saw it was laid out as though crucified. He wrote a quick observation in his notebook. It might mean something, or it could just be a coincidence. It would probably turn out to be a madman, but the electrical burns made him wonder.

After Gueginov had finished in the sacristy, the body was carefully lifted, wrapped in a canvas body bag, and then put on a stretcher. Dr. Zinaida Petrovna Chestnova from the Medical Institute arrived in time to supervise the operation. She was nearly as broad as Larinin, but today her jolly round face looked unusually haggard. As the body was prepared for removal, she began decanting the severed body parts into a series of glass jars she had brought with her, labeling them as she went.

“I’m sorry to be late, Comrade. We’ve taken on some new responsibilities. I’ve been working all night, I’m afraid.”

Korolev knew better than to ask what new work a forensic pathology department might be given that would involve such long hours. The dead were normally a patient clientele.

“Not to worry; we only finished the pictures a moment before you arrived. So, what do you think of this? Your first impression?”

The doctor turned to look at him and her eyes seemed drained of color. The last time he’d seen her she’d been lively, despite being up to her elbows in a decapitation. Now she seemed ten years older and bone tired with it.

“Nothing surprises me these days,” she said, looking at the blood on the floor. “She didn’t die quickly, I can tell you that much. With the cold weather, it will be difficult to establish exactly when, but I suspect early this morning. Come to the Institute and we’ll examine her immediately. I’ll be able to tell you more then.”

“But you haven’t slept,” Korolev said, looking at the gray pallor of her skin.

“I mightn’t have slept tomorrow either, Comrade. Let’s seize the moment.”

She smiled and they followed the body out to the waiting ambulance, the stretcher swaying stiffly to the rhythm of the attendants’ walk. The same unkempt street children watched as the stretcher was loaded. One of the young vagabonds, a bony-faced redhead dressed in a padded jacket two sizes too big for him, ducked under the Militia rope and ran to the ambulance with his hand outstretched. Korolev reached out his hand and caught a lump of hair and the child came to a squealing halt. He’d meant to catch the jacket, but hair would do, he supposed, even if Dr. Chestnova was looking at him in horror. He dropped his hand to the nape of the boy’s neck and leaned down to him.

“Well, what are you up to?” Korolev asked. The eyes which looked back at him were totally fearless.

“Just wanted to see what she looked like, the lady. They said she was beautiful, like an angel.”

Korolev reached his hand back to cuff the youngster, but caught Chestnova’s glance from the corner of his eye and made do with a none-too-gentle push in the direction of his two friends, who watched with interest but not much emotion. Tough little lads, he thought to himself. So many parents shipped off to the Zone nowadays; there were kids like these on every corner. If they didn’t get rounded up and taken to an orphanage, he wouldn’t bet money on them seeing it through the winter. Not that the orphanages were much better, he thought, and found himself rummaging in his pocket for a few kopeks.

“Here, get yourself some cabbage soup, you rascals.”

The money was taken without thanks, but the redhead gave him an appraising look that made Korolev wonder what other men gave them money and why. He felt ashamed. What was he? Ten years old, perhaps? The same age as his own son, Yuri, yet his eyes were as knowing as someone ten times older.

CHAPTER FOUR

Once the ambulance started to move, Korolev and the photographer found themselves sitting on a bench across from the canvas-swaddled body as the wheels bumped along the cobbled stones of Razin Street. The ambulance had little or no suspension and the two of them were thrown around and against each other as it clattered round corners and rumbled over pot-holes. In the front, Chestnova shouted at the driver to avoid collisions and to pass slow-moving carts. Gueginov, on the other hand, spent most of the journey trying to make himself a cigarette and, what with his spasms and the roller-coaster ride, it was with a great deal of satisfaction that he put the finished product between his lips and lit it. Then he frowned and nodded toward the corpse.

“I huh-hope you ca-catch the fellow. It’s unpleasant, ha-having to phuh-photograph suh-such a thing.” He extended the cigarette in the direction of the corpse. “Before the Ruh-revolution, I took portraits of the living. Fuh-families, children, that kih-kind of thing. Suh-since the Revolution, I only photograph the duh-dead.”

It was difficult to make out the spirit in which the remark was made, as Gueginov’s normally quiet voice was competing with the engine and Chestnova, and Korolev looked at him to see if he was making a terrible and dangerous joke. Oblivious to Korolev’s scrutiny, Gueginov took another drag from his cigarette.

“The cuh-capitalists were a sight to see back then, you know,” he continued. “One of their women’s druh-dresses could feed a family for a year. Muh-maybe two. It was exploitation. I uh-uh-understand that, of course. It was bluh-blood beauty. Now, things are better. Fuh-fairer. I don’t miss those days. And whuh-what I do now is of benefit to suh-society.”

Korolev wondered what the dead woman would make of such a statement.

“Huh-here,” Gueginov said, reaching into his pocket to produce a stainless-steel hip flask, “ha-have a drink. My next-door neighbor works for a di-distillery. It’s the real stuff. I did him a phuh-photograph of his wife. It made a nice chuh-change. I’d have done it for fuh-free, if the truth be tuh-told, but he guh-gave me a couple of bottles and I duh-didn’t refuse.”

Korolev took the flask and the vodka warmed its way down his throat. The dead woman’s hand slipped from the canvas bag with the movement of the truck and brushed against his leg. He reached down to move it and was surprised by the softness of the ice-cold skin.

When they arrived at the Institute, Korolev stepped down from the back of the ambulance with foreboding. Some of his dislike for autopsies came from the sheer brutality of the procedure. He couldn’t help feeling victims of violence should be left in peace after what they’d been through, but instead they were chopped at, sliced, skinned and sampled. It was worse than butchering in some ways. The dead person, once entitled to all the respect properly due a Soviet citizen, was reduced to nothing more than a piece of meat for doctors and policemen to poke at. Surely the world owed them something more after what had befallen them? And then, of course, there was the fact that even after fourteen years in the Militia and seven years of war he still had to struggle to control his stomach.

With a dry mouth, he mounted the worn steps of the Institute and was struck, not for the first time, by the melancholy atmosphere of the place. Before the Revolution it had been a nobleman’s mansion, a building built for pleasure. The ceilings still retained frescoes of naked cherubim perched on tufts of cloud, eating grapes and laughing across a cerulean sky, in stark contrast to the whitewash and plain floorboards beneath them. He wondered why they hadn’t been painted over—perhaps there were no ladders available that day. At least they cheered the building up a little; otherwise it seemed reduced to despair by the use it was being put to. The feeling was at its most intense in the pathology department. The glossy white walls, the harsh glare of the electric lighting, the polished concrete floors—they all combined to distort sound, space and even time in some strange way. Whenever he entered the place he had the urge to sit down, cradle the impossible weight of his head in his hands and savor the stink of dead dreams and ruined hopes that permeated the place. He stumbled, nausea rising in him, and looked around for a chair, but the doctor marched on regardless, sweeping him along in her wake, down the corridor and into the main morgue, two walls of which were made up of steel squares, behind each of which lay cold corpses on smooth-running shelves. Formaldehyde, disinfectant and the sweet scent of dead flesh filled Korolev’s nostrils. Somewhere a tap dripped.

“They’re two to a shelf in there,” Chestnova said, pointing to the steel boxes, “We’ve even got them piled up in Autopsy Room One.”

She pointed through a glass window. A two-high line of corpses lay on the floor, each wrapped in a sheet with a number tied to a bloodless toe. Chests of ice had been laid around them like waiting coffins.

“Too many bodies, not enough pathologists, and now we don’t even have enough autopsy rooms. Citizens should travel to another city if they feel they have to kill themselves. The problem isn’t so bad in Leningrad, you know. Maybe the Party could organize special tours there.”

She sighed and entered the second, smaller, autopsy room, leaning against the polished steel table and closing her eyes. Korolev wanted to do the same, but he reminded himself that if he leaned against anything in this place he’d lose consciousness in moments. Even standing, he felt sleep licking his neck and his eyelids drooping down. He clenched his hand into a fist and punched back at the wall behind him, hoping the pain would wake him up. The punch sounded like a pistol shot against the steel. Chestnova’s eyes flew open and she looked at him in terror. She was still looking at him uncertainly when the attendants arrived with the stretcher that carried the dead body.

Korolev spoke to cover his embarrassment.

“I’d no idea there were so many of them—the suicides. Perhaps it’s the coming of the winter. Is that what brings it on?”

“It could be anything with these people,” Chestnova said, color returning to her cheeks. “All I know is it’s un-Soviet to take your own life at a time of national threat. If you’re unhappy, you should find solace in useful work. These people,” Chestnova said, waving her hand toward the mortuary and the other autopsy room, “were selfish. Individualists. They all put themselves before the State.”

“That’s right, Comrade Doctor,” one of the attendants said, as they removed the body from the blankets and laid it out. “They make work for us when they should be helping. And most of them Party members, what’s more—they should be ashamed.”

The attendants barely looked at the corpse as they worked, but their movements were efficient and quick. The girl was still caked with blood and excrement, but they showed no squeamishness.

“Shall I ask Comrade Esimov to assist, Doctor?” the second attendant asked.

“No, let him sleep. The captain here can take the notes. Is that all right, Comrade?”

“Of course,” Korolev said, thinking that at least he’d be able to read them for a change.

“Let’s begin. Preliminary examination of unidentified female homicide victim commencing at three forty-five p.m., second of November, nineteen thirty-six. Am I going too fast?”

Korolev shook his head and the doctor began to clean the woman’s body with a small hose, gently removing the thicker patches of dried body fluids with a brush. She called out details of the surface injuries to him as she uncovered them and then, when the body was clean, she stood back and reached for a large surgeon’s knife. She smiled apologetically to the two men before making a deep and precise Y cut in the chest. Then, with practiced efficiency, she peeled back the skin to reveal the girl’s ribcage and internal organs. Korolev met the photographer’s eyes for a moment before they both glanced away—it just wasn’t right for a person to look like something you’d see on a meat-shop slab, ribs sticking out of their bruised white skin.

As always, the autopsy was slow going; the doctor, despite her tiredness, was thorough. After half an hour, Gueginov, who’d been taking pictures when instructed, suggested they take a break and a nip of vodka to fortify themselves for the rest of the examination.

“Have we guh-glasses?” he said, putting his flask down beside the girl’s head.

“Sample jars. They’ll do well enough,” Chestnova said, “There are some in the drawer.” She pointed with her elbow as she scrubbed at her hands in the sink.

“Huh-here we go,” Gueginov said, splitting the remaining contents of his flask equally between the glass containers. Chestnova dried herself with the towel that hung beside the sink and then turned, stopping for a moment to look down at the girl. Korolev was surprised to see her eyes were filled with tears.

“The poor girl,” Chestnova said. “A virgin, maybe twenty. No more than twenty-two. She saved herself, I suppose, and then this. Poor little one.” Her voice broke, and she looked up at them with a weak smile. “Excuse me, Comrades, I haven’t slept for too long. I’m ashamed of myself.”

Gueginov reached out an arm and put it round her shoulder. The large woman leaned against her frail protector for a moment. Then she straightened herself and wiped the eyes that avoided theirs. She held her glass up to the corpse.

“I hope you were happy, for a moment or two at least, Citizeness. In your life. I hope so.”

The others raised their glasses in turn and then drank the vodka in a single gulp. Gueginov’s eyes seemed moist as well and Korolev felt the sapping atmosphere of the mortuary dragging at him once more. He dug his nails into the palm of his hand.

“So how long did she suffer for, do you think?” he asked, his desperation to get back to the business at hand making his voice unnaturally loud. Chestnova and Gueginov looked up in surprise.

“Well,” Chestnova said, considering the question, “I can’t tell for sure—but the mutilation probably took place after death, just because of the relative lack of blood. As for the electrical burns, my guess would be they happened before death—he used a thin, lengthy object. Like a torturer might have used a red-hot poker in the past. She was restrained with rope and gagged—see the bruising and tearing round the mouth and the marks on her wrists and ankles? I’d say she struggled a great deal. And I think it was done by one man. Probably right-handed. See these bruises here?”

Korolev nodded and looked at the purple-gray marks on the girl’s otherwise alabaster arm. The doctor explained how the bruises showed indications of being made by a right hand and that they probably indicated the hand the killer showed a preference for.

“And the mutilation? Do you have an idea why he cut her up?”

“No—I’m afraid not. That is something you’ll have to ask the killer when you find him.”

Korolev nodded, more in hope than conviction, and turned to Gueginov.

“Boris Ivanovich?” he said, looking at the girl’s head in profile, “if we took a picture from here, the damage isn’t so visible. Maybe we can find out who she was, if we can get it circulated.”

Gueginov nodded and positioned his lamp in preparation. Outside in the mortuary a door banged and then the younger of the attendants came in without knocking.

“Captain Korolev? General Popov wants to speak to you. There’s a phone in the director’s office. Follow me, please.”

Popov’s call turned out to be nothing much, just a request for any new information, but the air in the director’s office was fresh and a chill breeze from an open window rustled across the piles of papers on the desk, each weighed down with a pebble. The director, a middle-aged man with a wide, intelligent face, stood with his back to the window and his arms crossed, looking on as Korolev finished his report. He smiled when Korolev hung up the phone and offered him a cigarette. Korolev accepted it and then cupped a hand around the director’s lighter. He inhaled the rough smoke deep into his lungs—anything to suppress the lingering smell of death. He felt the nicotine worming its way out to his extremities, and the sudden weakness it brought reminded him that he hadn’t eaten since breakfast. He took a moment to savor the sensation and then nodded his thanks to the director, who waved it away. It was only when he was back at the examination room that Korolev realized they hadn’t exchanged a single word.

In his absence, Gueginov had applied make-up to cover as much as possible of the damage to the girl’s face. It was a trick Korolev had seen him perform before. The first time he’d been surprised at the garish colors, but as the photographs were taken with black and white film the end effect was lifelike. Chestnova was assisting him by positioning the head, using a towel to hold it in place. The head seemed loose in her hands and wouldn’t stay still. Gueginov and Chestnova looked up at him with welcoming smiles and Korolev detected the sharp smell of alcohol. Gueginov pointed at a beaker full of clear liquid.

“Duh-doctor Che-Chestnova fuh-found us some muh-medical spirits, Comrade. It’s the buh-business. That’s yours.”

“It’s best with jam. A little bit of jam in the spirit and it tastes very good. But we have no jam today, I’m afraid.” Dr. Chestnova seemed markedly more cheerful than before. “See? We have made her beautiful.”