Vodka (20 page)

Irk wondered how much Denisov was speaking from personal experience.

“You want to see what real violence is, German?” Denisov continued. “Have you ever got a good kicking from the police? They’re scientists at it, my friend,
they’re
artists.
They know where to hit you, and they don’t leave traces. They’ll take your arms and legs and swing you high up in the air before dropping you on the floor, flat on your ass, again and again and again. You know what happens after that? The next day, you’ll be spitting blood. Two days after
that
, your kidneys will pack up and you’ll die. Still want to try and prove that you’re not a camel?”

German’s eyes seemed to fill half his face. Irk couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen someone look so scared.

“Denis Denisovich,” Irk said, “can I have a word? Outside?”

In the corridor—he thought briefly of his cigarette break while Sidorouk chopped up Vladimir Kullam inside the autopsy room—Irk said, “It’s not him, I’m certain of it. And any beating we give him is nothing compared to what they’d do to him in jail, you know that.”

“Yes, but
he
doesn’t know that. He’s going to spill the beans any moment, Juku. Get in there and take his confession. That’s an order. If you won’t, I’ll find someone who will. Don’t play the hero; there’s no room for Sakharovs here,
comrade.
”

“I hate being called ‘comrade.’”

“I know.”

Three springs ago, Irk had been a link in the million-strong human chain that had stretched all the way through the Baltics, from Tallinn to Vilnius via Riga. Irk had fought against the Soviet Union while it was still there. Denisov was fighting for it now that it was gone.

“We can’t keep German inside for a crime he didn’t commit,” Irk said.

“Why ever not?”

It was a genuine question, Irk realized with surprise. Whyever not indeed? Stalin had killed millions for crimes they hadn’t committed.

Saturday, January 11, 1992

T
hey had put German in a cell overnight and left him there; no food, no water, no company. When Irk returned at dawn, German was sitting up on the flat bench that doubled as a bed. His eyes were dull with fatigue and his hands shaking with apprehension. Self-loathing grabbed at Irk; he knew that German wouldn’t have slept much, if at all.

“I’ve bad news for you, German. If you don’t confess, Denis Denisovich wants to charge Alla as an accomplice to murder. He’s within his rights to do so. Neither you nor your wife notified the police that Vladimir was missing.”

When a man was falling, crumbling, collapsing, it didn’t matter how hard the final kick was, but how carefully it was placed. What was left of German’s resistance flew from him like a startled pigeon. “Where do you want me to start?” he asked.

A confession is the only evidence that counts in Russia; it’s the end to which every Russian policeman works. This suits investigators, as it’s not unknown for
those who bring cases that end in acquittals to lose their jobs.

Confession is seen as the cry of the guilty soul, overwhelmed by the urge to unburden itself. Many Russians believe that a defendant who doesn’t confess cannot be punished. Why else did Stalin insist that the victims of his purges must undergo show trials, where they acknowledged conspiracies that never existed? If an admission contradicts the facts, then the facts are wrong; if the facts are wrong, they should be changed.

Irk felt contaminated, polluted. German’s confession was signed and sealed; he’d agreed enthusiastically with everything Irk had reminded him that he’d done and, as the hours had rolled on and he’d gradually become more confident, he’d even started to add some embellishments of his own.

“Excellent,” said Denisov. “The case is orderly again. Disorderliness makes me feel ill.”

The only ailments Denisov was in danger of suffering, thought Irk, were a brown nose and a numb ass. “Disorderly,” the all-purpose Soviet negative, was Denisov’s favorite word. A driving violation was disorderly, a factory failing to meet its quotas was disorderly, prostitutes were disorderly, a dead child plucked from filthy waters was disorderly. Denisov hated disorder. Even his name, Denis Denisovich Denisov, made no concessions to disarray.

“A first-class display of law enforcement,” said Sabirzhan. “We at the Lubyanka could have done it no better, and that’s the highest praise. I thank you both as sincerely as I know how. Lev will be very pleased when I tell him.” He gestured at Denisov’s phone. “May I?”

Irk felt a childish pang of resentment: Sabirzhan hadn’t asked before using
his
phone.

As far as Lev was concerned, Saturday was just another business day, so he didn’t find it unusual or rude that Gusman Kabish, director of the Kazan distillery in the city of that name, should be calling him. Not rude, that was, until he heard what Kabish had to say.

“I’m afraid we’re canceling our agreement with you, effective immediately. We’re getting our water from Baikal instead.”

Red October and Kazan had for three years enjoyed a mutually beneficial deal. The quality of top-line vodkas was dependent, among other things, on the wheat and water used in their manufacture. Wheat in Tatarstan, the semiautonomous republic five hundred miles east of Moscow of which Kazan was the capital, was the best and most cost effective in all Russia. Kabish had more than he could use, so he sent the surplus to Red October. In return, Lev sent Kabish water from the reservoirs Red October maintained up near the Mytishchi springs; the water here was soft and free from calcium, which was perfect for vodka. This was the way all industry had worked in the Soviet Union. Central planning’s inefficiency meant that every factory suffered shortages, and the easiest way around this was not to fight the planners but to find another factory, which had what you needed. You would then pay, barter or trade with them in secret.

In business terms at least, Kabish’s decision made no sense. Baikal was much farther from Kazan than Moscow was, and the water there wasn’t as good as that from Mytishchi.

Look below the surface, Lev told himself. In Russia, that’s where the truth is to be found.

Tatarstan is nominally Muslim, as is Chechnya. Though the two republics are thousands of miles apart, Chechens and Tatars see themselves as brothers, united by the prejudice of the Russian infidel. It was an open secret that the Chechen Mafia was expanding into Kazan.

“Karkadann’s got to you, hasn’t he?” Lev said, and slammed the receiver down without waiting for an answer. The phone rang again instantly; Lev snatched the receiver back from the cradle and yelled into it. “Yes?”

“It’s Tengiz. I’m down at Petrovka, and I’m very pleased to tell you that German Kullam has just confessed to Vova’s murder.”

Lev’s size and fury seemed to fill Denisov’s office.

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing? That confession’s a load of shit, and you know it. I will
not
have one of my employees fitted up because you lot are too bone idle or chickenshit scared to look for the real culprit. You release German right now and put his file in the incinerator.”

“German confessed of his own free will,” Sabirzhan said, “and—”

“Don’t give me that shit, Tengiz. And please, don’t insult my intelligence. What
are you
doing down here in the first place, when you know who the real culprits are? Are you afraid of the Chechens? If you are, just say so, and I’ll get a real man to do the job.”

“I’m not afraid of anyone. I came here to—”

“Then stop bullying someone like German, who
can’t answer back.” Lev turned to Irk. “When we spoke on the phone a couple of days ago, Investigator, we talked like adults, didn’t we? You seemed a decent enough man, and I’m not usually wrong about people—you can’t afford to be, not in my line of work. Perhaps you’ve been forced into this against your will…”

“I must take my share of the blame,” said Denisov. Irk started; he’d never known Denisov to admit to any share of any fault,
ever.
“I suspected that German was innocent—he simply didn’t seem the type, and when you’ve been a copper for as long as I have, you get a sense of these things—but Juku had no doubt, and I let his zeal persuade me. I should have trusted my instincts.”

There was not a trace in Denisov’s face to suggest that he was being anything other than deadly serious. Irk actually felt his jaw drop open. Even Stalin might have blanched at such a blatant rewriting of history. Might have.

“Me too,” said Sabirzhan. “As you know, Lev, I tried to persuade the investigator to drop the case, on the grounds that it was not his jurisdiction. But he wouldn’t listen.”

Irk looked at Denisov and Sabirzhan, and neither man flinched. Go on, their stares seemed to say, go on, we
dare
you to tell Lev what really happened. And of course Irk wouldn’t tell, because it would be his word against theirs, one of them his superior and the other Lev’s deputy. Why on earth would Lev believe him?

“You all know the system,” Lev said. “Either you do as I ask, or I’ll take the matter higher, and you know how
high I can go. I’m sure you don’t want to cave in, Denis Denisovich, but it’s that or a transfer to Zigansk. I’m sure you’ll make the right choice.”

German Kullam was released from custody half an hour later.

Sunday, January 12, 1992

T
he school Vladimir Kullam had attended was on the same site as an orphanage. Red October ran the school and the 21st Century Association the orphanage, though in practice both institutions reported to Lev himself. Raisa Rustanova hadn’t been seen at the orphanage for four days. It was lunchtime when her body was pulled from the Moscow River at more or less the same spot where Vladimir Kullam had been found.

The skin on Raisa’s corpse was swollen and wrinkled, especially on the palms. Irk was put in mind of a washerwoman, and perhaps in time this little girl would have grown up to be exactly that, a plump
babushka
with grandchildren darting between her knees. Instead, she was lying naked and dead on the bank of the Moscow, a few hundred yards upstream of the giant al fresco swimming pool that was open year round and where in winter countless heads bobbed like white balls above a cloud of mist. Irk thought of the lido as a giant baptismal
font to wash away Moscow’s sins. At one time it had been the biggest pool in the world; he felt it was no longer large enough to cleanse the city’s evil.

Sidorouk was wearing a pink-and-yellow bandanna. All he needed was a large gold hoop in his ear, Irk thought, and he could have passed for a pirate. “How’s life?” Irk asked.

“How’s death, more like. I prefer it when they bring in gangsters. There’s nothing on children that’s worth stealing.”

“The cops would have beaten you to it anyway. They smear vodka on corpses’ gums to loosen gold teeth, did you know that?”

“Know it? I
pioneered
it. And you? How’s life with you?”

“Nothing new. Tell me what you’ve found, Syoma.”

“Same as before. Minimum twelve hours in the water, can’t tell a maximum—but that’s your responsibility anyway, you find out when she was last seen alive.” German Kullam could have killed her before Irk had taken him into custody, Irk thought wildly. If that’s how the evidence fell, he didn’t relish telling Lev. “But look—” Sidorouk led Irk over to the examination table and turned Raisa’s head so that the right side of her neck was more visible. Even through crumpled and distended skin, Irk could clearly see what Sidorouk was indicating—a long knife slash.

“That’s what killed her?”

“Almost certainly. It’s the only injury that could have been fatal, and she didn’t drown.”

“So he cut her throat and then dumped her in the river?”

“In essence, yes. But it’s not as simple as that.”

“Why not?”

“Look at the cut. It’s long, but precise. It slices through the jugular but doesn’t sever the trachea. If you’re going to cut someone’s throat to kill them, the simplest way is to pull their head back and carve all the way across—take out their windpipe, stop them breathing. That’s not what happened here. Even after her neck was cut, Raisa could still breathe, at least for a while. She died of blood loss.”