Murder on the Trans-Siberian Express ir-14 Read online

  When he got home and saw what he had taken, he considered selling them to his neighbor Tatoloy, who had a stall near Pushkin Square. But he had played one of the CDs, something by a group called Deep. The song, booming, beating, had moved through him like a jolt of straight caffeine. “The end is now,” a raspy voice had croaked, and Zelach was fascinated.

  Even his mother had listened, though she had told him to keep the volume low. She did not like the music but she saw what it did to her son. She sensed him vibrating with emotions he certainly did not understand. She did not discourage him.

  None of this Zelach could explain to Karpo.

  “I stole them,” Zelach said simply.

  Karpo nodded and moved toward the nearest metro station. Zelach knew they were going to search for someone named Boris 666 at Politik. He Walked next to the Vampire quietly, trying not to think of the naked girl, saying to himself “Nine Millimeter,” trying to hear her voice as she had said it, trying not to see her smile.

  Chapter Two

  "The subway attacks,” said the Yak, opening the top file in front of him.

  It was his first statement of the meeting, the first thing he had said since the detectives had filed into his office and taken their usual seats at the rectangular wooden conference table. Rostnikov, sitting across from Igor Yaklovev, did not look up from the open notebook in front of him. Pencil in hand, moving on the page, he nodded in acceptance. The reason the subway attacks had been moved to the top of the agenda was the fact that the latest victim was an army colonel who had died on a busy train platform the night before.

  The newspapers carried photographs of the dead man on the platform, wearing a black suit and tie. Television commentators spoke hurriedly while the screen showed photographs of the dead man in full uniform with a chest full of medals and a solemn look on his face befitting a veteran of both the Afghan and Chechin wars.

  The clock on the wall, round, with a dark wooden frame, ticked softly.

  The office was large, larger than Yaklovev would have wanted, but he had inherited it. To have asked for a smaller one would have been seen as a calculated move to appear humble. The Yak was not humble but he was cautious. He had changed little in the office when he moved in. The large desk with the Gray Wolfhound’s high-backed chair behind it stood behind the conference table. Where a painting of Lenin had once hung over the high-backed chair there now hung a full-color photograph of the gate to the Kremlin. A large window, now behind the Yak’s back as he sat, faced into the same courtyard Rostnikov could see from his own small office. The day was sunny. The parted curtains let in the light.

  The Yak was alone on his side of the table. Across from him sat Rostnikov, flanked by Sasha Tkach, Elena Timofeyeva, and Iosef Rostnikov. At the end of the table, seated alone, pad open in front of him, a pile of files neatly stacked, sat Pankov, the diminutive assistant to the director. Pankov was a thin, nervous perspirer who, like the office, had been inherited by the Yak. Pankov’s mission in life was to survive. He survived by pleasing the director, whoever the director might be. His fear was that he would displease the director. Nothing, not even a kind word from the Yak, which had not come in the two years Yaklovev had been the director, could give Pankov real pleasure. The little man lived simply and gratefully to continue to exist, eat an occasional sweet, avoid being scolded, and visit the zoo to calm himself in the presence of animals in cages even smaller than his office.

  Rostnikov had already given his report explaining the absence of Karpo and Zelach. Since the director had given the order to find the missing musician, he asked no question about the absence of the two detectives.

  Rostnikov knew why the task of finding a missing semipopular singer was of any importance. The young man’s father was one of the most important men in all of Russia.

  “Elena Timofeyeva,” Rostnikov said without looking up.

  Elena had her notes before her. These meetings were the low point of her day. She did not like the Yak. She was not alone in this, but she liked even less the sense of constant scrutiny, a scrutiny she was sure was far greater than that which the Yak gave the others.

  True, the one least trusted by the Yak was Iosef, who clearly disapproved of the director’s hidden agendas, which often served his own needs rather than Iosef’s sense of justice. Elena was sure that, had it not been for Porfiry Petrovich, Iosef would have been transferred to another criminal-investigation division long ago.

  It did not help that Elena and Iosef were now, more or less, officially engaged. The shadow of distrust had now extended to her.

  Elena had no illusions about herself. She was thirty-four, slightly plump like the other women in her family, and reasonably pretty. She kept her straight, dark-blond hair cut short and wore sensible dresses. She had been advised in this by her Aunt Anna, who had once been a senior procurator of Moscow and Rostnikov’s superior. After a third heart attack, Anna Timofeyeva had been forced to retire. Elena owed her career to her aunt and she heeded her advice on most matters, including proper dress. Elena had a small wardrobe of dark, sensible dresses with long sleeves. She always wore some small piece of modest jewelry-a pin, a simple bracelet, occasionally an understated band of silver around her neck.

  “Four attacks in three weeks,” she said, passing a small stack of papers around the table. “The stations, as you can see, are all on the Tagansko-Krasnopresnenskaya line. She jumps around, doesn’t select them in their order on the line. First, the Kuznetsky Most station. Then the Kuzminki, and then to the Krasnopresnenskaya station, and then back to Kuzminki.”

  The men looked down at the neatly printed computer-generated report before them.

  “The first attack, on a Monday, was followed by another eight days later and another two days after that. Then the most recent was three days later. They occur at all hours of the day, a few more late at night but some in the morning, afternoon, or evening. And she jumps about, up and down the line. There are officers in civilian clothing working in shifts at all nineteen stations on the line.”

  “Forty-five officers drawn from the uniformed traffic division,” said the Yak, with a small intake of air to show that he had no great faith in such a grab bag of new young police officers and tired veterans with no zeal for this or any other task that might offer the possibility of personal danger. “And what do we offer traffic division in exchange for their help?”

  “I told Mihalovich that we would issue an official letter of thanks for his cooperation, personally citing his contribution, should we make an arrest.”

  “You mean I will write such a letter,” the Yak said.

  “It would be of little consequence if it did not carry your signature,” said Rostnikov.

  Normally, Rostnikov would have consulted with the director before making such a decision, but the Yak had been missing for four days, unreachable, on a secret visit to Tbilisi. He had given Rostnikov the authority to make necessary decisions. The purpose of the Yaks visit to Tbilisi, which existed in another country, Georgia, was not revealed to Rostnikov and probably never would be.

  Rostnikov had chosen not to speculate on the reason for his superior’s mission. Indeed, he knew the destination only because he had been leaving the director’s office when Pankov was in the process of arranging for the Yak’s flight.

  “Progress,” said Yaklovev, sitting upright.

  He bore a distinct resemblance, at least in his own mind and in his slight distortion of the image in his mirror, to Lenin. It was a resemblance he had cultivated before the fall of the Soviet Union. But the Yak had seen the signs, the attempts to overthrow Gorbachev, the increasing boldness of the drunken lout Yeltsin, the street gatherings and newspaper articles. Before the fall, Yaklovev had shaved, removed the painting of Lenin from his KGB office wall, and passed on information about the personal corruption of several high-ranking Communist apparatchiks to a journalist who was certain to be important in the new Russia.

  “We have, as you see on the third page before you,
a drawing of the woman. She has made little effort to hide.”

  “It could be anyone,” the Yak said.

  The drawing before him was of a wide-eyed female between thirty and fifty, with a thin face, large mouth, and dark straight hair.

  “We do not actually know what color her hair is or if it is straight or curly,” Elena said, speaking with a confidence she did not feel. “Her head is always covered by a hat, babushka, scarf. She is of medium height.”

  “Illuminating,” the Yak said, with only the slightest touch of sarcasm.

  Elena glanced at Iosef, who gave her an almost imperceptible nod of encouragement. Yaklovev continued to look directly at Elena but was well aware of the exchange.

  “The knife has been described as a common wooden-handled kitchen knife,” she said. “Very sharp. Each attack is sudden, a lunge, strokes to the face, neck, and stomach, no more than five. Then she runs, always up the stairs or escalator, to the street.”

  “And all the victims are men,” said the Yak.

  “That is correct. All between the ages of forty-five and sixty.”

  “Two are dead,” said the Yak.

  “Two are dead,” Elena confirmed.

  “What links them together besides the woman?”

  “Their general age,” said Elena. “Nothing else. One was a liquor inspector. Another a retired postal worker. The others, a suspected drug dealer, a furniture-factory foreman, a bank teller, and the army colonel who was on leave.”

  “On leave,” Rostnikov said softly.

  “Yes,” said Elena.

  “You find that significant?” the Yak asked.

  “In the newspapers, the dead colonel is wearing a suit and not a uniform. What were these men wearing?” asked Rostnikov, continuing to make notes or drawings.

  “I …” Elena began.

  “Suits,” said Iosef. “I believe they were all wearing dark suits.”

  “Check,” said Rostnikov. “Be sure.”

  “Anything else on this?” the Yak asked.

  “Paulinin has the body,” said Elena. “He told us to come to him for a report at eleven.”

  That was two hours away.

  “Report directly to me,” the Yak said. “Chief Inspector Rostnikov will be on special assignment for a number of days.”

  The Yak watched Rostnikov for a reaction to this announcement. He got none other than a nod from his chief inspector, who looked up without raising his head.

  Porfiry Petrovich had much on his mind. Among his thoughts were Nina’s and Laura’s mother and his wife Sarah’s headaches, which they had been assured were a natural and probably lifelong effect of successful removal of a small tumor from her brain three years ago.

  On a more immediate level, he was engaged in self-analysis. He had automatically drawn a man’s suit jacket with a white dove peeking out of one pocket and a gray-white crow out of the other. Above the suit jacket were two wide eyes, one of which was closed. A knowing wink? An irritating eyelash? And behind all of that was the sun, with weak little lines of radiation bursting from it and a large dark cloud partially covering it. Rostnikov was a fair but not exceptional craftsman with pencil. His notebooks were filled with drawings and words. He never planned what would appear. He let something deep within him guide his hand. He was always most in contact with his muse when “he was at the regular morning meeting.

  He wrote the word bahlotah, “swamp,” under the jacket and the word “sun” over it. Whatever it might mean, Rostnikov felt the mélange was complete. He looked up.

  “The search for the musician,” the Yak said, wondering what Rostnikov was drawing or writing in that notebook. His curiosity had twice sent the frightened Pankov on missions into Rostnikov’s office when the chief inspector was out on a case or home at night. Pankov had retrieved the notebook and brought it to the Yak.

  The contents of the book were a puzzle to the director, who had concluded that Rostnikovs imagination might well be the key to his success as an investigator. But the answer was not to be found in the notebook. The book contained not careful notes taken at the morning meetings, or even fragments involving ongoing investigations. There were pictures and words of varying sizes, words that made little sense to the Yak.

  “Karpo and Zelach are in search,” said Rostnikov.

  “There is some urgency,” said the Yak.

  Rostnikov nodded knowingly and felt a sudden urge to underline the words he had written. He did not resist.

  Word that the son of Nikoli Lovski was missing would eventually begin to leak out. It would swell from minor rumor to major story within days if he were not found. The Office of Special Investigation had been given the case because all other divisions were well aware that any investigative body that took it on and failed to find the young man might well take a serious bite from their behind.

  The reasons were many. Misha Lovski, the Naked Cossack, was a rising folk hero to the skinheads of the city. The Naked Cossack’s blaring, angry music spewed hatred toward foreigners, Jews, the police, bankers, rappers, and the government. Lately, he had included a wide variety of Mafia organizations in his attacks. At the same time, the lyrics praised the tattooed independence and defiance of the law by Mafias consisting of former convicts.

  The hate-spewing Naked Cossack had many enemies, but he had one thing that others who were exhorting hate and violence did not have, Misha Lovski had a father who owned five television stations, a newspaper, a construction company with major contracts with the city of Moscow and its mayor, and import deals for high-tech equipment from Japan, China, France, the United States, Sweden, and England.

  The world was not aware that the Naked Cossack was the son of a wealthy man, a Jew. Misha had certainly hidden his heritage, but perhaps someone had discovered his secret, his wealthy Jewish father, perhaps one of those to whom he had sung of hate and Russian purity. Perhaps many things.

  “There has been no more telephone contact with Misha Lovski?” asked the Yak.

  “Other than the one phone call, none,” Rostnikov said.

  “So,” said the Yak, looking at each person at the table. “We have made little progress on all fronts.”

  “Except the extortions,” Rostnikov said.

  “The extortions, yes,” the Yak confirmed, as if it were a matter of little consequence. “Well?”

  “Sasha,” Rostnikov said.

  Sasha Tkach, who until two years ago had still appeared boyish enough to pass as a university student, had changed greatly in appearance and attitude. He was lean and good-looking, with a lock of hair that fell boyishly in front of his eyes and had to be frequently brushed away. For some reason, this lock of hair attracted women of all ages. Sasha had proved frequently that he had great difficulty resisting the more serious advances.

  His failure of mind and body had cost him his wife, Maya, and their two children. Well, there had been more to her resolute move to her brother in Kiev. Sasha had grown increasingly depressed and moody, had spoken little and touched Maya even less.

  On this day, however, Sasha had the mote of hope. Maya had agreed to return with the children, but only for two weeks, a test. It was agreed that she would leave with the children after those two weeks. She had round-trip tickets from Kiev. If the test went well, she would return to Moscow, perhaps on a more permanent basis.

  Such travel was beyond Sasha’s means, which meant that he had to accept money from his mother. Lydia Tkach loved her son. Lydia Tkach was a not-inconsiderable contributor to his depressive state.

  Having invested wisely in several very small businesses both before and after the fall of the Soviet Union, the former government employee and widow of a KGB major had grown more than just financially comfortable. Lydia was definitely well off and willing to help others. She had employed Galina, the grandmother of the two girls who lived with the Rostnikovs, in her bakery. She had supplemented her son’s income. She brought food to the table, gifts for the children and her son and daughter-in-law. But there
was a price to pay.

  Lydia Tkach had strong opinions, which she voiced frequently and loudly, a result of the fact that she was nearly deaf and refused to wear a hearing aid. One of her strong opinions was that her only child should not be a policeman, and to this end she frequently petitioned Porfiry Petrovich.

  Though his independence was under unrelenting attack by his mother, Sasha clung with determination to his identity as a police investigator. Without it, he felt, he had nothing. He was without skills other than fluency in French and a fair knowledge of computers. Maya had far more potential than he did. She worked for a Japanese import company and had risen quickly. The company had accepted her move to Kiev and given her an even more important office position there. In fact, the company had been very willing to cooperate with her decision to move.

  In retaliation for Sasha’s indiscretions, Maya had engaged in a brief affair with one of the Japanese vice-presidents of the company. The man was gentle, kind, and married.

  “The report before you shows that two uniformed officers and a lieutenant in the plunder-investigation unit have been identified as the extortionists,” Sasha said. “We have recorded statements from eight businessmen from whom they have been taking money. One of the two officers has confessed in the hope of receiving leniency, which I suggested she might receive.”

  “I will talk to the procurator’s office,” the Yak said, making a note. “The name of the cooperating officer?”

  “Ludmilla Vianovna,” said Sasha. “I was fortunate enough to gain her confidence.”

  The Yak did not pursue the means by which Sasha had gained the female officer’s confidence. He looked at his watch and declared, “Anything else?”

  No one spoke. The goal of all around the table was escape from the room at the earliest possible moment.

  “The meeting is ended. Porfiry Petrovich, please remain.”

  Sasha, Iosef, and Elena stood and headed for the door. Pankov remained in his seat, resisting the urge to wipe his moist brow.