‘You insensitive bastard!’ exploded the young woman in a new extreme of fury which still did not touch her beauty.
Chislenko stepped back and said to the medics. ‘For God’s sake, get that lump out of there!’
Once they had dragged her into the corridor, the medics started ministering to the recumbent woman and the firemen started examining the lift. The younger woman looked as if she was ready for another explosion, but Chislenko had had enough.
‘Papers,’ he said, snapping his fingers.
She glowered at him, but said nothing as she opened her bag. The ritual of examining identity papers has assumed an almost sacramental status in Moscow and employees of the state know better than to risk any official blasphemy.
‘You are Natasha Lovchev?’
‘Yes.’
‘Employed in the Organization of Machinery Supply, Maintenance, and Service?’
‘Yes.’
‘As a secretary/typist in the Engineering Resources Division?’
‘As personal assistant to the Deputy Chief Costings Officer,’ she retorted indignantly.
Chislenko was amused but didn’t show it.
‘It says secretary/typist here,’ he said.
‘Yes, I know. It was a recent promotion and I haven’t had my papers changed yet.’
Chislenko allowed himself to look dubious and the girl continued, ‘I have an office of my own; at least, I only share it with one other assistant. It’s on the eighth floor. I was showing it to my mother here before we went to lunch.’
‘Ah. This lady is your mother,’ said Chislenko, looking down at the fat woman who now opened her eyes and looked around in bewilderment.
‘Yes. She’s here in Moscow visiting me. Please, Comrade Inspector, may I now take her home? You can see she is not well. All this has been far too much for her.’
These were the first truly unaggressive words she had addressed to Chislenko and he was touched by her filial concern, and also by her big brown eyes which were as lovely in appeal as they were in anger. But there was still work to be done.
‘All what has been too much for her?’ he inquired. ‘Perhaps you could give me your version of what happened here, Miss Lovchev.’
‘You want to hear it again?’
Chislenko’s heart stuttered.
‘Again?’
‘Yes. I heard Josif here tell you all about it just now.’
She gestured at the liftman, who nodded at the mention of his name and said, ‘There you are, boss,’ defiantly.
‘You mean you confirm what this … fellow has just told me? About a passenger being pushed into the lift and going through the floor?’
‘Yes, of course I do. I don’t pretend to understand it, but that’s what happened,’ she retorted, defiant in her turn.
‘Then please tell me this, Comrade Personal Assistant to the Deputy Chief Costings Officer,’ said Chislenko sarcastically. ‘Where is this man? There’s no one down the lift-shaft because we’ve looked there. So where is he? Come to that, where’s the man who pushed him? And didn’t you say there was another man in the lift, Muntjan?’
The liftman nodded.
‘Did you see him too, Miss Lovchev?’
‘Of course I did,’ snapped the girl.
‘Then where is he, too?’ demanded Chislenko. ‘Tell me that, if you can!’
He paused to enjoy his rhetorical triumph, but it was spoilt almost instantly by Muntjan who said, ‘He’s there, boss. That’s him,’ and pointed over Chislenko’s shoulder.
The Inspector turned. Three men had appeared at the head of the stairway next to the lift-shaft. Two of them were uniformed policemen flanking the third, a man of middle age, bespectacled, carrying a briefcase and slightly out of breath after his ascent.
‘Yes, that’s him,’ said Natasha. ‘Now can I get my mother out of here?’
She knelt beside the fat woman, angrily waving the medics aside. The newly arrived trio came to a halt. Chislenko had a sense of things slipping out of control. There were far too many spectators for a start. Doors which had been opened just a crack were now wide ajar as those behind them grew more confident. He had no doubt the stairs were jammed with inquisitive auditors from other floors. He really ought to clear everyone away and start from scratch, in an empty room, seeing individual witnesses one at a time. But in some odd illogical way he felt this would make him lose face in the eyes of the young woman.
‘Report,’ he barked at the policemen.
‘We caught this one trying to escape out of the back of the building, sir,’ replied one of the officers.
‘Rubbish,’ said their prisoner calmly.
‘Speak when you’re spoken to!’ snarled the policeman.
‘Certainly. You’ve just spoken to me, haven’t you? I said, rubbish. Far from trying to escape, I merely walked at a normal pace out of a normal exit from this building. And far from being caught, I stopped the moment you addressed me and returned here at your request without demur.’
‘Identification,’ rapped Chislenko.
The man produced a set of papers which identified him as Alexei Rudakov, a mechanical engineer currently working at a high level in the planning department of the new Dnieper dam project. Also he was a Party member. Chislenko’s eyes drifted from the papers to Rudakov’s person, to the good cloth of his well-cut suit, to the soft leather of his shoes.
‘Thank you, Comrade,’ he said courteously, returning the papers. ‘Would you mind answering a few questions?’
‘If I must,’ sighed the man.
‘First of all, can you confirm that you were travelling in this lift when the … er … incident occurred.’
‘I can,’ said Rudakov.
‘I see,’ said Chislenko. ‘Now I find that very curious, Comrade.’
‘It was curious,’ said the man.
‘No. I mean I find it curious that a man of your standing, a Party member too, should have left the scene of an … er … incident so rapidly when you must have known it was your duty to stay.’
‘I heard the operator here ringing the emergency services,’ offered the engineer in what was clearly only a token excuse.
‘Nevertheless.’
Rudakov sighed again.
‘I’m sorry. Yes, of course, you’re quite right. I should have stayed. But for what, Comrade Inspector? You put your finger on it just now. I am a man of standing and reputation, both in my profession and in the Party too. That’s just what I was thinking of when I left. Let me explain. In my job, I deal with facts and figures, with exact calculation, with solid materials. The Party too, as you well know, is based upon figures and facts, on historic inevitability and economic practicality.’
He paused to permit Chislenko and most of the others present to nod their grave agreement. The kneeling girl, however, permitted her filial feelings to overcome her patriotism to the point of rolling her lovely eyes to the ceiling in exasperation at all this male verbiage, and one of the firemen, who had finished their examination of the lift and lit cigarettes, broke wind gently.
Chislenko suspected this was an offence, but he already felt ridiculous enough without pursuing a charge of ‘farting against the State’.
‘So, Comrade Inspector,’