The Bloody Meadow (16 page)

‘Why don’t we take a little trip? I think the train is working now,’ Kolya said and then, seeing Korolev’s bemusement, ‘I don’t trust walls much these days
– people like to put microphones in them and, next thing you know, you’re up to your neck in men in uniforms trying to feel the thickness of your collar. No offence, Korolev.’

‘What’s an honest criminal to do?’ Korolev said.

As they entered the carriage, they were greeted by the hum of machinery and a small jerk as the train began to move down towards the port at a pace so slow it would have shamed a snail.

‘You’re right, it’s a dilemma. Perhaps I should take a job in a factory, give up my evil ways. Join the Party and live like an honest Bolshevik.’ There was an emphasis on
the word ‘honest’ that indicated all too clearly just how honest Kolya thought ‘honest’ Party members were.

‘At least then you’d be contributing something to the welfare of the People.’

‘The People’s welfare, Korolev? You think your precious Bolsheviks care about the People’s welfare? They don’t – they only care about surviving. And they’d
stab their own mother if they thought it would help them survive a little longer. The Lord knows how many people died round these parts for a quota that could never be filled, and all because some
fat Party bureaucrat living off canteen food knew he’d be the next one buried if it wasn’t.’

Kolya’s tone was more weary than angry and Korolev wasn’t sure how to respond to words that from anyone else would be considered suicidal. He looked out of the window at the port
below and decided a change of subject would be best.

‘Isn’t this a little dramatic? You and me in a tourist train? Just so we can have a quiet chat.’

‘We’re players in a dangerous game, Korolev. It’s best to be careful.’

‘I’m only here on holiday.’

Kolya gave a brief bark of laughter and for a moment he seemed genuinely amused.

‘A holiday? That’s good. I’m here on holiday as well, of course. On the express instructions of the People’s Commissar of State Security. How about you?’

Korolev felt fresh air on his tongue as his mouth dropped open in amazement. Kolya waved the detective’s surprise away, like a lazy man swatting a fly.

‘A little joke – it’s just I have men who tell me things, same as you people.’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ Korolev said, wondering how the hell Kolya had sources that high in the NKVD.

‘Of course you don’t,’ Kolya said. ‘That woman – what was her name? Yes, Lenskaya – she committed suicide. Or maybe not? Come on, Korolev, it’s time for
us to have a talk.’

‘The last time we talked, Kolya, you and that little fiend back there talked me right into a cell in the Lubianka.’

Kolya’s face hardened. ‘I’d no choice, Korolev – there was something important at stake and not much time for discussion. I was pleased it worked out all right for you,
believe me.’

Korolev rubbed at the scar on his scalp that had been left by one of Kolya’s men when they’d knocked him cold. It was true, there had been something important at stake, and if Kolya
hadn’t left him on the floor of the cultist’s kitchen for State Security to find, well, strange as it seemed in retrospect, things might well have ended up a lot worse.

‘I’m not looking for an apology, Kolya. Tell me what you have to tell me, and then we’ll see.’

Kolya nodded, then turned to face the sea and gestured down at the port buildings below and the harbour full of ships – everything from square-rigged three-masters to rusting oil tankers,
from battleships to fishing boats.

‘My mother’s people are from this town, Korolev. They’re of the Jewish variety. Nothing wrong with that, in my opinion. The best Jews are straight talkers, good to do business
with, handy to have around when things get rough and don’t squeal to the likes of you when things go wrong. And the worst are no worse than the worst of ours. They came here when the city was
founded – they could work at what they wanted, do business as they would and they prospered. Do you know why Odessa is important?’

‘Fill me in.’

‘Look at the sea – no ice. Oh, it’s not warm, but this is a port that never freezes over and it’s open every day of the year that isn’t blowing a hurricane. Goods
from all over the world come in, and where there’s business like that there’s business for a man like me.’

Korolev was surprised. He knew Kolya ruled Moscow, at least within the world of the Thieves, but not that his reach stretched as far as Odessa. Perhaps his surprise showed, because Kolya nodded
in acknowledgement.

‘It’s business. Because of my mother’s people, I have connections here and responsibilities. The Party may not approve of speculation, but certain people in Moscow want certain
products and someone has to supply them. And certain other people in Moscow also want to send certain things abroad, but you know all about that. These products travel through Odessa often as not
– things are more flexible here than where we come from and it helps that there’s no winter interruption.’

Korolev could imagine what these products were – narcotics, foreign currency, valuables of one sort or another, in short, anything that turned a profit. A thought occurred to him.

‘Morphine?’

‘As you would expect,’ Kolya said, scanning Korolev’s face for a clue as to the significance of the quesion – a clue which Korolev did his best not to give. After a
moment the Thief shrugged. ‘Listen, Korolev, I do business with people who bring things in from abroad. From Istanbul, Genoa, Marseilles, Alexandria. Even further away. If someone wanted an
elephant and had a thick enough stack of roubles, I could probably get it for them. And if that someone wanted to send the elephant back when he was done with it, I could speed it on its
way.’

Korolev believed him, despite himself.

‘And the border guards, they have nothing to say about this?’

‘Everyone has to eat,’ the Thief replied in a flat tone. ‘But there are things we don’t get involved with, not unless we want to have Chekists and Militia swarming all
over us like flies round a honey pot, and we don’t. And a shipment of German guns will bring those kind swarming soon enough, you can be sure of it.’

Korolev’s attention was entirely focused now, and Stalin himself could have been looking in on them from the steps and he wouldn’t have noticed.

‘German guns? The Germans asked you to bring in guns?’

‘Nobody asked me, but that’s not the point. The men who did the asking asked people who are under my roof, for family and business reasons, and so when they decided to apply some
pressure, it became something I had to deal with. As for who’s behind it? I’d be guessing at the answer, and so would you, but I wouldn’t be surprised if we’d both be right
if it turned out he’d got a toothbrush moustache, a schoolboy’s parting in his hair and a way with crowds.’

‘I don’t believe it,’ Korolev said, believing it.

‘Believe what you want but these are tough men, and well organized, and they thought they could get what they wanted by force. But they must never have heard of the ways of Moldovanka is
all I can say. Someone got kidnapped, then someone got killed, then another person got killed and I wouldn’t take bets someone else again won’t get killed soon enough.’

‘I’ve heard nothing of this.’

‘It’s in no one’s interest for this to come to the attention of the Organs of State Security. I’m telling you because I think you may be of use to us, and we may be of
use to you.’

‘I’m listening.’

‘Well, when some of this was going on, a man told a story. Why he decided to tell the story, you don’t want to know.’ Kolya’s face was grim, and Korolev deduced from it
that the storyteller hadn’t spoken voluntarily. ‘But it was a good story, about how someone, a girl – now a dead girl – was bringing information down to Odessa from the
capital of this Soviet land of ours, and how that information was as good as gold to whoever was providing these Prussian pea-shooters. In fact that information was paying for these German
armaments more or less.’

Korolev felt his stomach turn. If Lenskaya had been shipping information down to Odessa, he’d a suspicion he knew where it might have come from. And if it did come from Ezhov – and
if Ezhov didn’t know – well, then Korolev didn’t want to be the one to tell him.

‘I see from your face you’re working it out. I always said you were smart enough.’

‘The devil,’ Korolev said quietly.

‘But who knows how this thing worked? Because something went wrong with the arrangement, and while our little songbird didn’t know the reason why, he was given the job of rubbing out
the girl – except it was him who got rubbed out first. By us, as it happens. That didn’t change things for the girl, of course, but you know that already. And then you showed up, hot
from Moscow, in an aeroplane no less.’

Korolev tried to make sense of it all – did that mean the girl was part of this bunch of Ukrainian terrorists or not? Had she been killed because she was a traitor or because she
wasn’t? And what, if any of this, could he tell Rodinov? Kolya’s bright eyes watched him as if following his every thought.

‘The way I see it, Korolev, both of us have an interest in finding out who’s behind this little caper and putting a stop to them.’

‘I do, but you?’

‘I have a reputation, Korolev, and you don’t think I’d just stand back and let these people damage it, now do you? Why else do you think I’m down here with my best men?
It’s too cold for the swimming.’

‘But why do you need me? It sounds like you’re doing all right, so far.’ It wasn’t that Korolev was objecting but he knew it was against the Thieves’ code to talk
to the Militia.

‘We’ve hit them as hard as they’ve hit us, true, but we know these people are bringing in these guns some other way, and once that happens things won’t be so easy. Much
less easy if these fools are successful. This is a weed needs pulling up by the root and it seems to me that if we work together we’ve more chance of doing the job properly, once and for
all.’

‘Give me names and every one of them will be in a Chekist cell by lunchtime.’

Kolya shook his head.

‘Think about it, Korolev. If the information was coming from where you and I might dare to think it might have been coming from, or even if it looks like it was coming from that person
– well, who would be the ones who’d end up in the cells? Think about it very carefully.’

They were almost at the bottom, and the port was now no longer visible past the city’s train station, from which large numbers of people were emerging. The funicular juddered to a halt at
its small lower platform, where a crowd was waiting to board.

‘The morphine, Kolya,’ Korolev said, before he’d even thought about it. ‘The girl was drugged.’

Kolya looked at him sharply, then nodded. ‘I’ll look into it. Listen, Korolev, be careful – for some reason beyond fathoming our fates seem tied together on this. Your
partner’s from good stock and she’ll watch your back well enough. And whatever’s going on – the dead girl is the key. I’ll be in touch.’

And, with that, he was gone, stepping forward into a group of red-faced sailors, jolly with alcohol, and walking quickly off.

KOROLEV followed Kolya for a few paces, then stood watching his retreating figure, pushed his hat back, rubbed the scar on his cheek, and tried to make sense of it all. Had
Kolya really suggested that Lenskaya had been a spy? And who the hell were these Ukrainian counter-revolutionaries? Not for the first time since the Chekist’s knock on the door did he wish he
was back in Moscow investigating a nice straightforward homicide. A crime, a motive and a killer – now that’s what a murder should be. Spies and gun-smuggling and faked suicides and
angry NKVD men and damned aeroplanes and what sounded like a full-scale gang war, albeit quietly done, well, he’d happily leave all of that to some other detective. Or the angry NKVD men
– even better.

He looked at his watch and saw that, on top of everything else, it was a good forty minutes since he’d left Slivka. And what was it that Kolya had said about Slivka being of good stock?
What the hell had he meant by that? Korolev glanced up at the steps – there were a lot of them, but they’d be quicker than the funicular. He sighed and started up them two at a time,
his mind racing.

The first thing he did was remind himself that, short of a miraculous intervention, there was no obvious way out. He looked up at the sky half-hopefully, but there was no sign of a saint coming
to sweep him away in a fiery chariot, more was the pity. Anyway, these people were traitors, so it was his duty to track them down and that was that.

It would be dangerous, that much was certain, and the danger wasn’t only from the counter-revolutionaries. If the People’s Commissar of State Security, the man supposed to be
defending the State from such things, had been having an affair with someone who was slipping secrets to the enemy, then the investigation was a time bomb waiting to blow up in Korolev’s
face. Particularly if she’d been borrowing the secrets from the said People’s Commissar. Duty or not, it would be wise to follow Kolya’s advice and keep quiet, for the moment
anyway. He took a deep breath as he reached yet another platform – he was already struggling and he wasn’t even a quarter of the way up the damned stairs. Anyway, Korolev reasoned to
himself as he began to climb again, what had he got to tell? A second-hand story from a Thief who’d never repeat it, even if Korolev managed to produce him for questioning. Which was
unlikely. He was practically doing his duty by keeping his mouth shut.

Halfway now, and his legs burnt with effort. There were hills in Moscow, it was true. The Sparrow Hills, or the Lenin Hills as they were known now, were definitely hills by any standards, but
that didn’t mean he went running up them every day. He’d become unfit – too much sitting in cars and at his desk. When he got back to Moscow, he’d get back into training. If
he got back to Moscow, of course. He sighed. To look at the investigation from another point of view, though – why had he been sent down in the first place? Rodinov must think something was
up, clearly, but wasn’t quite sure what it was. After all, if they knew about Lenskaya and wanted to cover it up, it would have been better to have had the local uniforms declare it a suicide
and leave it at that. Korolev wasn’t the greatest detective in the world, but it hadn’t taken too long to work out he was dealing with a murder. Maybe they really did want to find out
the truth about the girl’s death.