“Maybe the killers drugged her before taking her to the church. Where’s the old lady in relation to where the car was parked? That’s what we have to check. We’ll have to go round to all of these witnesses again. Draw it out on a map.”

Korolev pushed the pile of interviews to the back of his desk. “Well, a few things to follow up, at least. I’ll ask Staff Colonel Gregorin if he can help us with the Emka, but a registration number is what we really need.”

“What about identifying the dead Thief?”

“Larinin’s looking through the mugshots and files, but if you could look through them as well, that would help. We’ll see if we can get a picture to show around the stations. He’s been through the Zone so there should be something.”

“Of course, Alexei Dmitriyevich. And thank you. I won’t let you down.”

“I know. Get on home now, I’ll write up this report and we’ll talk tomorrow.”

Semionov didn’t need to be told twice and with a quick farewell was on his way. Korolev looked at the younger man’s empty seat, put his concerns about the lad behind him and started to write down the latest developments. It didn’t take long: after all there were only so many of the day’s revelations that he could put in writing. The rest would have to be communicated verbally.

He’d just finished and was checking over it for spelling mistakes when he heard a gunshot, muffled, but sounding as though it came from inside the building. He stood, slipped the Walther from his shoulder holster, pushed a round into the chamber, flicked the safety catch back and opened the door very slowly. Across the hall he could see the occupants of 2C and 2D also maneuvering out into the corridor, guns first. He held his automatic up toward the ceiling and whispered across to Paunichev from 2C.

“Hey, Semyon. What the hell was that?”

Paunichev kept his eyes on the corridor he was slowly moving down and whispered back, “We’ll find out soon enough.”

Then a loud voice came from the stairwell up ahead. “It’s all right, boys. Just an accident.”

Korolev recognized General Popov’s voice and slid his safety catch back on, the click it made echoed by several others along the corridor. Korolev stood upright and walked toward the stairwell, which was ringed on every floor by curious faces, some in uniforms and some not. The general looked down from the third-floor landing.

“Andropov had an accident, nothing to worry about. An ambulance is on its way.” His face looked pale in the electric light. “Go on, back to work or off to a bar. If you all stand on the staircase at once, it might give way.”

There was a low rumble of laughter and the Militiamen started to disperse. Korolev took the opportunity to pick up the report he’d written and take it down to typing. Anna Solayevna was leaning out of the hatch to the typing harem, her face white in the shadows.

“What happened?” she asked in a whisper. “I heard a shot.”

“It was nothing. An accident I think.”

But neither of them believed it.

Korolev returned to his office and read through the interview notes once more, in case they’d missed anything, until the clock reminded him that it was nearly seven and time to go home. He collected his coat and hat and stopped at the canteen on the first floor for his weekly food parcel, which he slipped under his arm, where it was joined by the freshly typed daily report, handed to him by a proud Anna Solayevna as he passed the typing pool. She must have typed like a demon to have it ready in time, he thought to himself as he thanked her.

The temperature outside was so cold it hurt his eyes. He was turning up the collar of his coat when he saw the general standing beside an ambulance, watching a stretcher being loaded. A blanket covered the body but Korolev presumed it was Andropov-a fatal accident then. He walked over, murmuring a prayer for the dead man and removing his hat as he did so. Other people leaving the building had stopped, and five or six of them came closer to form a clump of dark solemnity on the wide steps that graced the front of the building. They waited until the ambulance pulled away. No one said a word-there was nothing to be said. Perhaps it really had been an accident, but now it had become yet another hole in the chronology to be carefully avoided. Korolev replaced his hat and walked away, not looking at the others. As far as he’d known, Andropov, a colonel, had been a happily married man with two children and a good apartment. A lucky man. Something had happened to change that, he supposed.

He watched the ambulance turn a corner, then walked out of the gates to join the dark crowds of silent pedestrians walking into the Moscow night.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Gregorin’s Emka was waiting for him when he reached Bolshoi Nikolo-Vorobinsky and, as he approached, the door opened and Gregorin stepped out. He leaned back into the car and spoke a few words to the driver, a large black shape behind the steering wheel. Gregorin looked at his watch and smiled.

“A few minutes late. Busy day?”

There was something in his cheerful demeanor that infuriated Korolev. The feeling was so intense that he could feel it twisting his face into a snarl. He tried to suppress it but Gregorin was already giving him a quizzical look.

“Is there something wrong, Comrade?”

“Nothing. I watched an ambulance take away a colleague’s body not thirty minutes ago. Perhaps it’s that.”

“I’m sorry to hear it. What happened to him?”

“An accident, they say.”

“I see. There are a lot of accidents these days. Your friend Chestnova is kept busy.”

“Yes, it seems so.”

Gregorin shrugged his shoulders. Korolev knew what he was thinking-this was just the way things were these days.

“Have you brought today’s report?” the colonel asked.

“Yes,” Korolev said, patting the front of his jacket with his free hand.

Inside the car, Korolev placed his food parcel at his feet. Gregorin switched on a small roof light, gesturing toward the driver as he began to read.

“This is Volodya, my driver. We can talk in front of him.”

Volodya turned his head toward Korolev. Everything about the face seemed to bulge, except for the eyes that peered out at him through pillbox slits. A massive hairy hand gave Korolev an incongruous thumbs up. Korolev nodded back, aware of the smell of sausage wafting up from the parcel on the floor. Krakow sausage. Korolev hoped this wouldn’t take too long.

“Interesting, the tattoos. You’ll have a full autopsy report tomorrow?”

“Yes, and hopefully an identification as well. There’s bound to be a file on him-probably has a filing cabinet to himself if the tattoos are anything to go by.”

“And the car?”

“If it’s an Emka-well, they’re not easy to get access to.”

“No,” Gregorin said, with a smug smile.

“We’ll do our best, Comrade Colonel, but it might be that the NKVD would have more success tracking it down.”

“We’ll certainly be looking into it,” Gregorin said, turning the last page and then switching off the light.

“What about the American?”

“It was an off-the-record conversation, for what that’s worth.”

“Don’t worry, Schwartz is useful to us. We leave the Americans well alone, particularly those who are, as I said, useful to us.”

There was something contemplative in the way he said the word “useful,” which made Korolev wonder if Schwartz did more for State Security than just buy a few icons from time to time. He hesitated, pretending to himself for a fleeting moment that he had a choice, and then repeated to Gregorin everything that Schwartz had told him. Maybe Korolev would have withheld something if he’d had an American passport and a return ticket to New York in his pocket. But he didn’t and so discretion was a luxury he couldn’t afford.