A Game of Soldiers. Stephen Miller

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      ‘Is he in?’ Ryzhkov pointed to the stairway that led to Zezulin’s sanctum. Izachik winced.

      ‘Yes, but, ah…sleeping, I think.’

      ‘Perhaps I could just…’ Ryzhkov sidled past the two men towards the narrow stairway to Zezulin’s garret-office. They both watched him go. At the top of the stairs he rapped against the door jamb. There was no reply. From inside he thought he could hear snoring. He eased the door open a crack and peered in. Zezulin was on the couch, a pillow flung over his face, mouth open, dead to the world; snoring like a man who was being choked to death.

      The room was an archive, the place documents went to die. Piled all across the carpet were mounds of files. Each might represent a terrorist cell, a conspiracy, or a suspected assassination attempt. Propped on the end of the couch was a painted gypsy guitar. When Zezulin got drunk, he forgot where he was, then he would sing. It was pathetic.

      Ryzhkov sighed and went back down the stairs. ‘Well, since you’re fully recovered and couldn’t stay away from us, you may as well surround yourself with the mountains of paperwork, eh?’ Hokhodiev reached out with a huge paw and guided him down the narrow corridor towards the rear of the building.

      At the back there was just enough space for one cubicle and a storeroom. The storeroom had been full since the days of Alexander II and the cubicle was Ryzhkov’s ‘office’. The room was less than ten feet square but it had a miniature desk, a cabinet for papers, a door for privacy, and – the real treasure – a single tall window that looked onto the courtyard. He stood there for a moment at the threshold and realized that he was actually glad to be facing another day in the tiny space. Inside it he could think, he could leave word that he was not to be disturbed, and, except for those occasions when Izachik thought it important, he wouldn’t be.

      ‘I’ll bring you tea, sir, or would that be too hot?’ Izachik cooed behind him.

      ‘No, they said it would help the healing to drink it, so…’

      ‘Excellent, sir.’ Izachik bowed. ‘You might be interested in the red folder, sir.’

      ‘The red folder?’

      ‘The one on the girl,’ Izachik said and left.

      When he turned back to his desk he saw that beneath the standard Okhrana files Izachik had brought in a red folder from the Military Hospital. When he untied the seal he discovered a 3rd Spasskaya District St Petersburg Police report and a two-page copy of a morgue report on the cause of death of the girl who had fallen out of the apartment on Peplovskaya Street. Lvova, Ekatarina.

      The police report told him nothing. The morgue report stated that Dr V. Bondarenko had examined the body. He had estimated the girl’s age as eleven or twelve. There was no address, names of relatives, or other details. The girl Lvova died from internal injuries due to falling from a thirdstorey window on the south side of a building at 34 Peplovskaya Street in the 3rd Spasskaya district. The time of death was approximately three forty-five in the morning of the eighteenth of June. Behind the cover sheet was a diagram on thick yellow paper with the girl’s name and file numbers. Across the stick figure Bondarenko had drawn slashes to indicate the fracture of the skull, the broken back…the blood. Nothing on the neck or throat.

      There was a column of boxes on one side of the paper that indicated whether the death was due to natural causes, foul play, contagion, or other. In ‘Other’ Bondarenko had scrawled an S.

       Suicide.

      He leafed through the rest of the papers that had accumulated on his desk, then piled the ones he didn’t need immediately on top of the cabinet by the window. He stood there for a moment watching the drivers hitch up a troika. The Okhrana had stables and garages all over the city. Somewhere in their collection could be found a sample of nearly every form of transportation. In their armoires Okhrana drivers had uniforms sufficient to impersonate cab drivers, tradesmen, or royal postillions. Their garages housed expensive lacquered motorcars side-by-side with undistinguished one-pony izvolchiks.

      For a moment longer he watched the swirl of men and animals crawling about below him in the courtyard, then he picked up his telephone and got Izachik to have a carriage brought around.

      ‘Yes, sir,’ Izachik said, sounding a little puzzled as Ryzhkov gave him the destination.

      ‘Just as soon as you can,’ Ryzhkov said, and hung up.

      

      Once again he found himself across the Neva, wandering through the maze of convalescent wards of the Military Hospital, this time heading downstairs to the morgue. Bondarenko was sitting at a desk in a corner of the room, filling in forms with a younger man, presumably his assistant. Ryzhkov took off his hat as he approached.

      ‘Doctor?’ Ryzhkov flashed his disc.

      ‘Yes, one moment, please…’ Bondarenko said, giving it a brief glance. An irritable man who obviously had little time for police officers, less for the political police.

      The room was cold, dark. Low ceilings with stone arches that supported the upper floors of the hospital. The pillars had been whitewashed. It reminded Ryzhkov of the way they had painted the palm trees he had seen in the south of France. Something to do with killing the insects. There were footsteps and he turned to see the assistant vanish through the double doors.

      ‘Inspector?’ Bondarenko stood, held out his hand and Ryzhkov shook it. ‘Have we met?’

      ‘Perhaps. I’ve been here on occasion.’ He didn’t elaborate.

      ‘Well, then…What do you need?’ Bondarenko said levelly; a tall man to whom a smile came rarely, a man who’d learned to wear a hard set to his chin. Flinty eyes behind the tiny gold-rimmed spectacles. Maybe he hated his life, too, Ryzhkov thought. Maybe he just wanted to get out of the chilly room. Bondarenko was wearing an acidburned white coat to protect his waistcoat, and on top of that a thick sweater embroidered with the crest of St Petersburg University. The sleeves were stained from chemicals.

      ‘I wanted to ask about this girl, Lvova.’ He passed Bondarenko the envelope.

      The doctor looked at it, sighed, gave the briefest shake of his head. ‘I don’t know what else we can do…’ He crossed the room to one of the heavy porcelain tables, reached up and flicked on a bright light, smoothed the pages out on the spotless white surface. ‘Ah, yes. Fall from a height, internal injuries, spinal injuries, fractured skull…’ Bondarenko shrugged, frowned.

      ‘And were there any cuts, or…?’

      ‘Cuts? You mean like a puncture from stabbing?’

      ‘I was thinking of glass.’

      Bondarenko looked at him for a second then back to the paper. ‘Hmm…’ he said and raised his eyebrows. ‘There’s nothing marked here, but that doesn’t mean anything in particular.’ He showed Ryzhkov the paper; there was an inked slash through the spine, another across the figure. Nothing on the arms.

      ‘Now…to be honest, Inspector, there may have been cuts, or other fractures that were not marked, but nothing unusual. We received the girl, they told us she was a prostitute who had thrown herself off a roof. Tragic perhaps, but it was obvious what had happened, so I…I didn’t test her stomach contents or anything dramatic. Besides, I thought we had taken care of all this.’ СКАЧАТЬ