There were a lot of officers and detectives who became distressed, vomited even, when confronted with the victim of violent death. Dimitri Danilov never had been, apart from Larissa, whom he’d had to identify from her belongings and which hadn’t been an uninvolved professional duty.
A dead body mattered to him only for the clues it might scientifically provide to catch its killer. Beyond that it was a lifeless thing, of no interest or emotion. He felt absolutely none as he stood beside Pavin in the police mortuary, staring down at the naked gray flesh, following the pathologist through the external medical findings. The testes of both victims were ballooned from torture before they died. There were also whip marks across their backs and the round marks of cigarette burns on both faces, which no longer had eyes. There was severe restraint bruising to the ankles and wrists, which the pathologist guessed to have been caused by metal handcuffs, not softer rope, and the doctor also thought from the testicle damage that they had been tortured over a period of several hours—as much, even, as an entire day. The head shots had been what killed them, the teeth-shattering mouth wounds following, for symbolism. Medically Nikov had been suffering gonorrhea and Karpov ulcers, for which antacid medication was among the man’s effects.
Pavin had met Danilov in at the airport that morning and brought with him the recovered pocket contents of each victim, but they’d spent the journey to the mortuary discussing Gorki.
Pavin identified ownership by placing the appropriate plastic evidence sacks at the foot of each body on its adjacent gurney. As Danilov picked up the bag marked with Nikov’s name, his deputy said, “The other one’s more intriguing.”
Danilov said, “I want to keep my head in sequence. All I’ve heard about for the past three days is this man.”
Viktor Nikolaevich Nikov had come to Moscow to be murdered carrying $1,470 in American currency, a gold cigarette case containing ten now-soaked Marlboro cigarettes, and a gold Zippo lighter. The watch was gold, too, a Cartier, and the gold signet ring had an onyx setting. The only other jewelry was a gold, unengraved identity bracelet. There was a passport, showing two American visa entries and two driver’s licenses, one in his own name, the other in that of Eduard Babkendovich Kulik. They reminded Danilov that he’d forgotten the previous day to check for a vehicle or a garage that might have belonged to the man’s apartment. Carelessness was obviously contagious in Gorki.
Danilov said, “Like they always say, crime pays.”
“Until you get shot in the head and mouth,” said Pavin. “Now try the other one.”
Valeri Alexandrovich Karpov had been carrying $420, again in American currency. There was a gold, Swiss-made watch, which had stopped at 12:40, and a wedding ring. All the contents had been removed to dry from a new leather wallet. There were curling photographs of a blond woman, from the background standing on the bank of the river into which Karpov had been thrown untold years later, one of a much younger Karpov with the same woman, and two more of the man with smiling children, both girls. There was only one driver’s license. As Danilov put it aside for the next item Pavin, beside him, said, “And finally the interesting part.”
It was an official pass, on yellow cardboard kept dry by its laminated plastic case, and contained a photograph of the dead man, whose job description was given as stores supervisor. Reading the cover page imprint, Danilov said, “Do I need to ask what’s manufactured at Plant 43, Moscow provincial area?”
“Chemical as well as biological,” confirmed Pavin. “It’s some way out of Moscow, to the northwest. Actually on the Skhodaya River, in the Tushino region.”
“Which connects with the canal and the Khimkinskoy Reservoir,” recognized Danilov. “I wonder if anyone ever worries what would happen to Moscow if there were to be a leak, like there was at Chernobyl?”
“Of course they don’t,” said Pavin, responding seriously to Danilov’s cynicism. “Our appointment there is for three this afternoon.”
“Did you tell them why?”
“I didn’t need to. Did you see the television coverage of what happened in America?”
“Some. What did the factory say?”
“That we needed authority from the Ministry of Science as well as the Ministry of Defense. So I called Chelyag’s secretariat at the White House. We got permission an hour before you landed.”
“Thank you,” said Danilov. It hadn’t been a mistake at all to leave Pavin in Moscow.
“We’ve got time to check out Pereulok Samokatnaja,” Pavin pointed out.
“The wife been informed yet?”
“You told me to wait,” reminded Pavin.
Which might have been a mistake, thought Danilov—not putting any family there under protection at least. “I think we should.”
Karpov’s apartment block was comparatively new and therefore, by that definition, prematurely old and decaying. It had been one of the last developments under the Brezhnev diktat promising a home of their own for every Russian family. The limited success of the program had been secondary to the million-plus kickbacks Brezhnev and his immediate family received from prefabricated material suppliers, incompetent architects, and cowboy builders. Some of the average-size rooms were smaller than the alloted space, and chicken coops at the rear of each apartment allowed the occupants some self-sufficiency in meat and vegetables they’d never been able to buy because Brezhnev and his ministers had run the country’s food supply and distribution as a private enterprise, too.
Karpov’s apartment was a surprising exception when Naina Karpov admitted them. In the living room there was a matching suite of two chairs and a sofa and a glass-fronted cabinet displaying a set of matching goblets. As they passed the open-doored kitchen, Danilov had seen an impressively large refrigerator/freezer, and the television looked new and had a very good picture: It was a cartoon program for the girl of about ten who whined in protest at being told to turn it off and go and read in another room. It was only when Danilov turned to see the child open a linking door that he realized that it was not, in fact, one apartment but two, connected by what must have been a later, additional door.
“What’s happened?” she demanded at once as the door closed behind the girl.
“It’s serious,” said Danilov. Naina Karpov, the woman in the photographs the man had been carrying, was neatly dressed in uncreased skirt and sweater. She wore no makeup or jewelry, and she had about her an uncaring resignation that reminded him of Olga, which was scarcely fitting because if she had been made up and dressed differently Naina Karpov still might have been an attractive woman. The incongruous reflection reminded Danilov that he hadn’t bothered to call Olga from Gorki the previous night or telephoned today to tell her he was back. He didn’t imagine she’d be interested. There was still plenty of time.
“What?” said the woman.
“I’m afraid your husband has been killed,” said Pavin.
“He didn’t come home last night,” declared the wife, as if it was a contributory fact.
“It happened yesterday,” said Pavin.
“How?”
Pavin looked at Danilov, who nodded, watching the woman curiously. Pavin said, “He was shot. With another man.”
Naina Karpov nodded without any obvious emotion. “I told him.”
“Told him what!” demanded Danilov.
“That it had to be wrong, what he was doing.”
Danilov suppressed the sigh. “What, exactly,
was
he doing?
“Selling stuff from the factory,” she declared bluntly.
“What sort of stuff?” coaxed the more patient Pavin.
She frowned. “Metal, of course. That was his job, ordering a lot of the metal they use there: making sure there was always a supply. Keeping a proper account of it. Which made it easy. He ordered more than they needed and sold the surplus. Said it was easy. That he’d never be caught.” She made a vague gesture around the connected apartments. “That’s how …”
“Who’d he sell metal to?” queried Danilov.
She shrugged. “I don’t know. He said other factories who didn’t have their supplies organized like he did. And garages. Places like that who always needed metal.”
“He told you all about it then?” said Pavin.
The shrug came again. “Not really. Not like I’m telling you. It just came out, in bits and pieces.”
“So he’s been doing it for a long time?”
“I suppose so.”
“How long would you say?”
“Two or three years.”
“Which?”
“Three, I suppose.”
“And you warned him to stop?”
“I told him I was frightened.”
“Why—and of what—were you frightened?”
“I didn’t like the friends he was making.”
“So you met them?” seized Danilov.
“No. That was the problem. I never met any of them. He said it was business—
his
business—but there wasn’t any socializing. He said the men he dealt with only liked dealing with other men.”
“You weren’t surprised when he didn’t come home last night?” challenged Danilov.
“He said he might be late.”
“Late?” qualified Pavin. “Not that he wouldn’t be coming home at all?”
“No.”
Danilov said, “Were there many nights he didn’t come home at all, Mrs. Karpov?”
The woman didn’t answer for several moments. “A few times.”
“Once or twice a week?”
“About that.”
Danilov said, “You’re sure you never met any of Valeri’s friends?”
“I asked, in the beginning. Wondered why we didn’t go out together. That’s when he told me it was business, but I didn’t believe him. Not that it was entirely business.”
Despite the denial, Danilov took the Gorki police file picture of Nikov from his briefcase and offered it to her. “Do you know this man?”
She dutifully studied it. “No.”
“Did he ever speak about any of his friends by name?”
“No, never.”
“Does the name Viktor Nikolaevich Nikov mean anything to you?”
“No, nothing at all.”
“Did he ever talk about Gorki?”
“No.”
“Go there?”
“Never, as far as I know.”
Pavin looked to Danilov for guidance. Danilov said, “Is there a desk anywhere where Valeri kept his papers? Bills, official letters, things like that?”
“A box in the bedroom.” Without being asked she led the way into a room off the entry hall of the apartment that they were in. Again the suite matched and there was a fitted, silklike cover over the bed. The box was at the bottom of the closet. When she opened the closet Danilov saw there were three good-quality suits—one with the familiar sheen—with a separate pair of shoes neatly arranged beneath each. The box wasn’t locked. There was the couple’s marriage certificate and birth certificates of both girls and some photographs. The leases for the two apartments were pinned together, and at the very bottom there were photographs of an elderly couple—the man in uniform—and old, tattered food allowance books.
The woman said, “They’re Valeri’s parents. His father fought in the Patriotic War. He said he kept the ration books as a reminder: that he’d never let himself be as poor as they were.”
“There’s no bank statements?” said Pavin.
“Who trusts banks in this country!” she said almost indignantly. “Valeri certainly didn’t.”
“Or letters?”
She shrugged. “Who’s there to write to us? Both our parents are dead. Valeri always dealt personally, face to face, with anything official. There’s no point in writing.”
“Have you got a car?” asked Pavin.
“Foreign. An Audi. He was very proud of it.”
“They’re not easy to get in Moscow. And they’re expensive,” said Danilov.
“Valeri said they were easy to get when you had friends like he did. I told you, he sold metal to garages.”
“Did he drive it last night?”
She shook her head. “He didn’t like using it at night. Leaving it. Too easy to get it stripped.” She pointed toward the dressing table. “There are the keys.”
Danilov led the way back into the main room. As they reached it, Naina Karpov blurted suddenly, “Was it a fight over a woman?”
“No,” said Danilov. “It was a gang murder. Mafia.”
For the first time she reacted, eyes widening. “Mafia! How could it be mafia?”
“That’s what we’re trying to find out,” said Pavin. “And we’re going to have to ask you formally to identify the body. Not today. Possibly tomorrow or the day after.” It would take at least until then for the postmortem to be completed.
“All right,” the woman agreed, retreating into resignation again. Then she said, “I know there was a woman. That there had to be. But”—she looked around the room—“I don’t have anywhere else. Any
one
else. And now I don’t have him, do I?”