Child 44 (23 page)

Raisa was downstairs sitting at a table. She’d been waiting for him all night. She knew, just as Vasili had predicted, that Leo now regretted his decision not to denounce her. The price was too high. But what was she supposed to do? Pretend that he’d risked everything for a perfect love? It wasn’t something she could just conjure on demand. Even if she’d wanted to pretend she didn’t know how: she didn’t know what to say, what motions to go through. She could’ve been easier on him. In truth, some part of her must have relished his demotion. Not out of spite or vindictiveness but because she wanted him to know:

This is how I feel every day.

Powerless, scared–she’d wanted him to feel it too. She’d wanted him to understand, to experience it for himself.

Exhausted, her eyes heavy with sleep, she looked up as Leo entered the restaurant. She stood, approaching her husband, noticing his bloodshot eyes. She’d never seen him cry before. He turned away and poured himself a drink from the nearest bottle. She put a hand on his shoulder. It happened in a fraction of second: Leo spun around, grabbing her by the neck and squeezing.

—You did this.

Her veins constricted, her face flushed red–she couldn’t breathe, she was choking. Leo lifted her up: she was on the tips of her toes. Her hands fumbled at his grip. But he wouldn’t let go and she couldn’t break his hold.

She reached towards a tabletop, her fingers straining for a glass, her eyesight blurring. She managed to touch a glass, tipping it over. It fell within reach: she grabbed it, swinging and smashing it against the side of Leo’s face. The glass cracked in her hand, cutting her palms. As if a spell had been broken he released her. She fell back, coughing, holding her neck. They stared at each other, strangers, as though their entire history had been washed away in that fraction of a second. A shard of glass was embedded in Leo’s cheek. He touched it and pulled the splinter out, surveying it in the palm of his hand. Without turning her back, she edged to the stairs, hurrying up, leaving him.

Instead of following his wife, Leo downed the drink he’d already poured and then poured another and then another and by the time he heard Nesterov’s car outside he’d finished most of the bottle. Unsteady on his feet, unwashed and unshaven, drunk, brutish and senselessly violent–it had taken him less than a day to sink to the level expected of the militia.

During their car journey, Nesterov didn’t mention the gash down Leo’s face. He spoke in short bursts about the town. Leo wasn’t listening, barely conscious of his surroundings, preoccupied with the question of what he’d just done. Had he tried to strangle his wife or was that some trick of his sleep-deprived brain? He touched the cut on his cheek, saw blood on his fingertip–it was true, he’d done it and he’d been capable of more. Another couple of seconds, a slight tightening of his grip, and she would’ve died. His provocation was that he’d given up everything–his parents, his career–all on a false pretext, the promise of a family, the notion that there was some tie between them. She’d tricked him, fixed the odds, skewering his decision. Only once she was safe and his parents were suffering did she admit the pregnancy was a lie. Then she went further, openly describing how she’d held him in contempt. She’d manipulated his sentimentality and then spat in his face. In exchange for his sacrifice, in exchange for overlooking incriminating evidence of her guilt, he’d gotten nothing.

But Leo didn’t believe it for a second. The time of self-justification had ended. What he had done was unforgivable. And she was right to hold him in contempt. How many brothers and sisters, mothers and fathers had he arrested? How different was he from the man he considered his moral opposite, Vasili Nikitin? Was the difference merely that Vasili was senselessly cruel while he’d been idealistically cruel? One was an empty, indifferent cruelty while the other was a principled, pretentious cruelty which thought of itself as reasonable and necessary. But in real terms, in destructive terms, there was little to separate the two men. Had Leo lacked the imagination to realize what he was involved in? Or was it worse than that–had he chosen not to imagine it? He’d shut down those thoughts, brushed them aside.

Out of the rubble of his moral certainties one fact remained. He’d laid down his life for Raisa only to try and kill her. That was insanity. At this rate he’d have nothing, not even the woman he’d married. He wanted to say, the woman he loved. Did he love her? He’d married her, wasn’t that the same? No, not really–he’d married her because she was beautiful, intelligent and he was proud to have her by his side, proud to make her his. It was another step towards the perfect Soviet life–work, family and children. In many ways she was a cipher, a cog in the wheels of his ambitions, the necessary domestic background to his successful career, his status as a Model Citizen. Was Vasili right when he’d said she could be substituted for another? On the train he’d asked her to declare her love for him, to soothe him, to reward him with a romantic fantasy in which he was the hero. It was pathetic. Leo let out an audible sigh, rubbing his forehead. He was being outplayed–and that’s exactly what this was to Vasili, a game, with the playing chips being denominations of misery. Instead of Vasili striking his wife, hurting her, Leo had done it for him, acting out every part of his plan.

They’d arrived. The car had stopped. Nesterov was already out of the car and waiting for him. With no idea how long he’d been sitting there, Leo opened the car door, stepping out and following his superior officer into the militia headquarters to begin his first morning at work. Introduced to staff, shaking hands, nodding, agreeing but unable to take anything in; names, details–they washed over him–and it wasn’t until he was alone in the locker room with a uniform hanging before him that he began to refocus on the present. He took off his shoes, slowly peeling back the socks from his bloody toes and running his feet under cold water, watching as the water turned red. Since he had no new socks and couldn’t bring himself to ask for a new pair, he was forced to put the old socks back on, wincing in pain as he slid the material over his raw blisters. He stripped, leaving his civilian clothing in a heap at the bottom of a locker and buttoning up his new uniform, coarse trousers with red piping and a heavy military jacket. He looked at himself in the mirror. There were black marks under his eyes, a weeping cut down his left cheek. He glanced at the insignia on his jacket. He was an
uchastkovyy
, he was nothing.

The walls of Nesterov’s office were decorated with framed certificates. Reading them, Leo discovered that his boss had won amateur wrestling competitions and rifle-shooting tournaments, and had received commendations as Officer of the Month on numerous occasions both here and at his former place of residence, Rostov. It was an ostentatious display, understandable considering that his position was held in such low esteem.

Nesterov studied his new recruit, unable to work him out. Why was this man, a former high-ranking
MGB
officer with a decorated war record, in such a bedraggled state–his fingernails filthy, his face bleeding, his hair unwashed, stinking of alcohol and apparently indifferent to his demotion? Perhaps he was exactly as he’d been described: grossly incompetent and unworthy of responsibility. His appearance certainly fitted the bill. But Nesterov wasn’t convinced: maybe this dishevelled appearance was a trick. He’d been uneasy from the moment he’d heard about the transfer. This man had the potential to do untold damage to him and his men. One damning report, that was all it would take. Nesterov had decided the best course of action would be to observe this man, test him and keep him close. Leo would eventually reveal his hand.

Nesterov presented Leo with a file. Leo stared at it for a moment, trying to work out what was expected of him. Why was he being given this? Whatever it was, he didn’t care. He sighed, forcing himself to study the file. Inside there were black-and-white photographs of a young girl. She was lying on her back, surrounded by black snow. Black snow…black because it was soaked in blood. It seemed as though the girl was screaming. On closer inspection there was something inside her mouth. Nesterov explained:

—Her mouth was stuffed with soil. So she couldn’t scream for help.

Leo’s fingers tightened on the photo, all his thoughts about Raisa, his parents, about himself–evaporated as his eyes focused on this girl’s mouth. It was wide open, stuffed with dirt. He glanced at the next photo. The girl was naked: her skin, where it was undamaged, was as white as the snow. Her midriff had been savaged, torn open. He flicked to the next photo and the next and the next, not seeing a girl but instead Fyodor’s little boy, a boy who hadn’t been stripped naked, or had his stomach cut open, a boy whose mouth hadn’t been stuffed with dirt–a boy who hadn’t been murdered. Leo put the photos down on the table. He said nothing, staring at the certificates hanging on the wall.

Same Day

The two incidents had nothing to do with each other, the death of Fyodor’s young boy and the murder of this young girl–it was impossible. They’d taken place hundreds of kilometres apart. This was a vicious irony, nothing more. But Leo had been wrong to dismiss Fyodor’s allegations. Here was a child murdered as Fyodor had described. Such a thing was possible. There was now no way of knowing what had really happened to Fyodor’s son, Arkady, because Leo had never bothered to examine the boy’s body for himself. Perhaps that death had been an accident. Or perhaps the matter had been hushed up. If the latter was true then Leo had been instrumental in orchestrating a cover-up. He’d done so unquestioningly–ridiculing, bullying and finally threatening a grieving family.

General Nesterov was frank about the details of this murder, calling it by no other name–
murder
–and giving no indication of wanting to portray it as anything other than a brutal and horrific crime. His frankness worried Leo. How could he be so cool? The yearly statistics for his department were supposed to conform to predetermined patterns: decreasing crime rates, increasing social harmony. Although the town had undergone a vast increase in population, an influx of eighty thousand uprooted workers, crime should have declined since the theory dictated that there was more work, more fairness, less exploitation.

The victim’s name was Larisa Petrova; she’d been found four days ago, in the forest, not far from the train station. The details regarding the discovery of the body were vague and when Leo had pressed the issue Nesterov had seemed eager to brush the point aside. All Leo could gather was that the body had been discovered by a couple who’d drunk too much and had retreated into the forest to fornicate. They’d stumbled across the little girl, who’d been lying in the snow for several months, her body perfectly preserved in the freezing cold. She was a schoolchild, fourteen years old. The militia knew her. She had a reputation for having a disorderly sex life not just with boys of her own age but with older men; she could be bought for a litre bottle of vodka. Larisa had argued with her mother on the day she went missing. Larisa’s absence had been dismissed; she’d threatened to run away and it seemed she’d followed through on her word. No one had looked for her. According to Nesterov her parents were respected members of the community. Her father was an accountant at the assembly plant. They were ashamed of their daughter and wanted nothing to do with the investigation, which was to be kept secret; not covered up, but not publicized either. The parents agreed not to have a funeral for their child and were prepared to pretend that she was merely missing. There was no need for the community at large to know. Only a handful of people outside the militia were aware of the murder. Those people, including the couple who’d found the body, had been made clear of the consequences of talking. The matter would be concluded swiftly because they already had a man in custody.

Leo was aware that the militia could only investigate after a criminal case had been opened and that a criminal case was only opened if it was certain it would be concluded successfully. Failure to convict a suspect was unacceptable and the consequences severe. Bringing a case to court was supposed to mean one thing: that the suspect was guilty. If a case was difficult, complex, ambiguous, it simply wouldn’t be opened. For Nesterov and his subordinates to be this calm could only mean that they were convinced they had their man. Their job was done. The brainwork of investigations, the presentation of evidence, interrogations and ultimately the prosecution itself were the duties of the State’s investigative team, the procurator’s office and their team of
sledovatyel
, lawyers. Leo wasn’t being asked to assist: he was being given a tour, expected to marvel at their efficiency.

The cell was small with none of the ingenious modifications typical of those in the Lubyanka. There were concrete walls, a concrete floor. The suspect was seated, his hands cuffed behind his back. He was young, perhaps no more than sixteen or seventeen, with an adult’s muscular frame but a child’s face. His eyes seemed to roam with no particular sense of purpose. He didn’t seem afraid. He was calm although not in an intelligent way and showed no signs of physical abuse. Of course there were ways of inflicting injuries so the marks didn’t show but Leo’s gut reaction was that the boy hadn’t been harmed. Nesterov pointed at the suspect.

—This is Varlam Babinich.

At the sound of his name, the young man stared at Nesterov as a dog might stare at its owner. Nesterov continued:

—We found him in possession of a lock of Larisa’s hair. He has a history of stalking Larisa–lingering outside her house, propositioning her in the street. Larisa’s mother remembers seeing him on numerous occasions. She remembers her daughter complaining about him. He used to try and touch her hair.

Nesterov turned to the suspect, speaking slowly.

—Varlam, tell us what happened, tell us how you had a lock of her hair in your possession.

—I cut her. It was my fault.

—Tell this officer why you killed her.