And then the dreadful thought occurred that perhaps worse people than Kozlov could be listening. What more likely than that Serebrianikov would have arranged for all those involved in the Gorodok Building affair to be bugged?
It was at that point that he arrested Natasha.
White-faced – with anger, he guessed, rather than fear – she let herself be thrust into the passenger seat of the little official car he was using. Normally ‘pool’ cars were as hard to come by as Western jeans, but in the last few days he’d found one permanently set aside for him, proof again of the strength of the Serebrianikov connection.
After he had been driving a few minutes Natasha burst out, ‘Where are you taking me, Inspector? This isn’t the way to Petrovka?’
‘No, it’s not. But we’ll get there, never you fear,’ said Chislenko grimly. ‘I just want a quiet word with you first. I’m going to give you some advice and I think you’d be wise to take it.’
‘What do you mean?’ she said, looking at him with contempt. ‘You scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours, is that it?’
‘What do you mean?’ he demanded in his turn, growing angry.
‘I’ve seen the way you look at me, Comrade Inspector,’ she retorted. ‘But I warn you, I’m not one of your little shop-girls to be frightened out of her pants by an MVD bully!’
The suggestion horrified Chislenko. Was this really how his admiration of Natasha’s lively spirit and gentle beauty had come across – as unbridled lust?
Holding back his anger with difficulty, he said, ‘Listen, Natasha, for your mother’s sake if not for your own. This business at the Gorodok Building, it’s not wise to talk about it. It’s certainly been very unwise of your mother to go spreading tales of ghosts and ghouls all over Moscow, and it would be even unwiser for her to fill the Yaroslavl district with them too.’
‘Unwise for her to tell what she saw?’ said Natasha indignantly. ‘How can that be? And I saw it too, don’t forget!’
‘I’d try not to be so sure of that,’ said Chislenko.
‘What are you trying to tell me, Inspector?’ demanded the girl. ‘And why do I have to be driven all over Moscow to be told it?’
She still thinks I’m going to park the car somewhere quiet and invite her to take her skirt off, thought Chislenko.
He swung the wheel over and accelerated out of the suburbs back towards the centre of town.
‘It would be wise to admit the possibility of error, Comrade Personal Assistant to the Deputy Costings Officer,’ he said coldly. ‘It would be wise for your mother to do the same.’
‘Wise? Give me one good reason?’
He slowed down to negotiate the turn from Kirov Street into Dzerzhinsky Square.
‘There’s your best reason,’ he said harshly, nodding towards the pavement alongside which loomed a massive, ugly building. In many ways this was the most famous edifice in the city, out-rivalling even St Basil’s. Yet it appeared on no postcards, was described in no guide books.
This was the Lubyanka, headquarters of the KGB.
They drove on in silence.
After a while the girl said in a blank, emotionless voice, ‘What now, Comrade Inspector?’
Chislenko said, ‘I take you to Petrovka.’
‘So I am under arrest?’
‘I said so in your apartment, Comrade, and I’m not sure who may have been listening there. So I take you to Petrovka. I ask you some questions. The four most important ones will be: One, who was closest to the lift door when the lift stopped on the seventh floor? Two, what were you doing at that moment? Three, are you quite sure the man waiting for the lift did not merely change his mind and walk away? Four, who was it that made all the fuss and insisted on calling the emergency services?
‘Your answers will be: One, Josif Muntjan. Two, I was engaged in close conversation with my mother. Three, it’s possible as my mother and I didn’t take much notice till the liftman started yelling. Four, Josif Muntjan.
‘Do you follow me, Comrade?’
‘Yes, Comrade Inspector,’ she said meekly.
‘Good. Then I will make out a report saying that the Comrade Personal Assistant after some initial misunderstanding was perfectly cooperative and I have every confidence she and her mother will behave as good citizens should. You meanwhile will make your way home and take your mother for a walk and persuade her to hold her tongue when she gets back to her village.’
‘Don’t I get a lift home?’ she said with a flash of her old spirit.
Chislenko smiled.
‘That would be out of character for the MVD,’ he said. ‘There might be others beside yourself looking for an ulterior motive.’
She flushed beautifully.
‘I’m sorry I said that,’ she said. ‘It was a stupid thing to suggest.’
He glanced at her and said drily, ‘No, it wasn’t,’ and she flushed again as they turned into the official car park at Petrovka.
That evening Chislenko visited Alexei Rudakov in his room at the Minsk Hotel on Gorky Street.
‘You again,’ said the engineer ungraciously. ‘I was hoping for an early night. I leave first thing in the morning.’
‘I know. That’s why I’ve called now,’ said Chislenko. ‘I won’t keep you long. I wouldn’t be troubling you at all except that Comrade Secretary Serebrianikov of the Committee on Internal Morale and Propaganda has taken a personal interest in the case.’
He paused. Rudakov’s eyebrows rose as he registered this information. Chislenko returned his gaze blankly.
He said, ‘So if you could just confirm the following points. You were standing behind the liftman, Josif Muntjan, when the lift stopped on the seventh floor?’
‘Yes.’
‘Next to the two Lovchev women who were engaged in lively conversation?’
‘That’s right.’
‘So their conversation would probably have distracted your attention just as Muntjan’s body must have blocked your view?’
A slight smile touched Rudakov’s lips.
‘Quite right, Inspector,’ he said.
Chislenko phrased his next question carefully, ‘If the man waiting to enter the lift had stepped forward, then changed his mind and retreated, stumbling slightly, and if then Josif Muntjan had started shouting that there was an emergency, you would have accepted his assessment, would you not?’
Again the smile.
‘As an expert in my field, I’ve always learned to accept the estimates of other experts, however menial,’ the engineer replied.
‘You mean, yes?’
‘I mean, if that had been the case, yes.’
‘And is it possible, in your judgment, Comrade, that that might have been the case?’
This was the key question.
‘Of course one could say that anything is possible …’
‘So this too is possible?’ interrupted Chislenko.
‘Yes …’
‘Good,’ said Chislenko. ‘That’s all, Comrade. If you would just sign this sheet, here. I think you’ll find it’s an accurate digest of our conversation.’
Rudakov