The Bloody Meadow (2 page)

‘Wake up, Citizen.’

The young fellow reeked of alcohol and hadn’t shaved for a day or two and, when he turned in his sleep, Korolev couldn’t help but notice the dark spatters on the sleeping man’s
filthy clothing and the black crust of dried blood on his wrist as he lifted a hand to his face. Korolev shook him again and Shishkin’s eyes were suddenly wide open – as if he’d
been disturbed from a bad dream.

‘Shishkin, Ivan Nikolayevich Shishkin – that’s you, am I right?’

Shishkin managed to focus and then nodded slowly, even though he seemed unsure of the answer.

‘I’m Korolev, Captain Korolev of the Moscow Criminal Investigation Division. From Petrovka Street.’

He could hear his words being relayed back through the building. They’d know Petrovka Street – it was famous in its own way. A Soviet Scotland Yard, or so it was said.

‘What do you want?’ Shishkin said, his voice still slurred from drink.

‘Where were you last night, Citizen?’

Something stirred in the young man’s eyes, not quite recollection but certainly unease.

‘Here. I was here.’

‘What’s this on your hand, Citizen? Is it blood?’

‘I don’t know. I had some drink. What of it? Maybe I got into a fight.’

‘Were you at your brother’s? Is that where you were drinking? At Tolya’s?’

‘No, I was here.’ But Shishkin wasn’t even convincing himself.

‘His neighbour saw you go inside at eight o’clock. Then later on he heard you and your brother argue. And then a commotion. And then silence. That was you, wasn’t
it?’

Shishkin didn’t argue. His eyes were focused on the night before, trying to remember, not wanting to.

‘He’s dead, Citizen,’ Korolev said, and Shishkin’s face drained of colour. Perhaps he remembered something – perhaps in his mind’s eye he could see his
brother’s face just before he’d hit him for the first time.

‘That blood on your hand – where did it come from?’ Korolev asked again.

‘Blood?’ Shishkin said. ‘What blood?’

Korolev waited till the boy looked down at the dried blood that ringed his wrist and stained his jacket. Waited till he saw Shiskin swallow hard at the sight of it.

‘How did you get back here? Did you walk?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘So you were there?’

‘No,’ Shishkin said, his eyes sliding away from Korolev’s.

‘You’ll have to come with us, Citizen. You have some questions to answer.’

‘It’s all a lie. The neighbour is lying. I was here. The neighbour killed him, like as not. He wanted his room – it was a good room. To kill a man for a room – the Devil
himself wouldn’t do such a thing.’

Korolev turned – he saw shock in the nearer faces.

‘Can anyone confirm that this man was here last night between eight and eleven? Anyone?’

Korolev looked around and thought there was just a chance this might turn out all right. A small chance.

‘Why would I kill my own brother?’ Shishkin asked into the silence. ‘You know what these fellows are like, brothers – they’ll make up any lie against you.
Don’t let me pay for another man’s crime.’

The workers stayed silent, considering the point, and Korolev could feel the matter going against him.

‘There are fingerprints on the hammer, Citizen. If they aren’t yours, you’ll be safe enough. You have my word on it.’

An older man, with bright blue eyes in a florid, bearded face, made his way through the crowd, followed by a woman. The woman had an oval face, skin roughened from years in the fields and
straight grey hair pulled back under a white handkerchief. These would be the leaders of the hostel.

‘Vanya, swear to us you’d nothing to do with this,’ the woman said, her voice almost as deep as a man’s. A pleasant voice, but firm as a rock.

‘Nothing, I promise you. I was here. No one remembers because I was asleep.’

‘Why aren’t you surprised, Citizen? Your brother is murdered and all you do is deny you killed him. And why no grief for your brother?’ Korolev’s words hung heavy in the
air, and he could see out of the corner of his eye men nodding at the point. It was important he only looked at Shishkin – though he wasn’t sure why. Perhaps because his cold gaze was
having some effect on the young man.

‘You’re twisting things – that’s what you devils do. He was my own brother, I could never hurt him.’

‘What about the blood, Citizen?’ Korolev pressed, asking the questions he knew his audience wanted answered.

‘What blood? A fight, that’s all. This is what you do to men. Wake them up and tell them things. Confuse them. He’s alive is all I know.’

‘He’s dead,’ Korolev said flatly. ‘He was hit with a hammer. Three times. The first blow shattered his left cheekbone.’

Korolev placed his thumb on Shishkin’s face where the hammer had struck.

‘The next glanced off his right cheek and broke his collarbone.’

Again Korolev mimicked the blow, this time hitting the boy a light blow on the shoulder. Then he placed his middle finger on top of the boy’s head.

‘The last, the order may be wrong, it doesn’t matter, but this blow hit him here, punched a five-centimetre-wide hole and split his skull from back to front. I was with the doctor
when he examined him. Your brother’s dead all right.’

Shishkin flinched each time Korolev touched him and his voice wasn’t much more than a whisper when he answered.

‘I didn’t do anything to Tolya. I swear to you, I loved him.’

‘Perhaps you were angry with him?’

‘This is all lies – I haven’t seen him for weeks. He’s still alive, I know he is.’

The bearded man glanced up at Korolev. ‘Tolya’s dead, then?’

‘Dead as a man with a hammer through his skull.’

‘It could have been any hooligan from the street. There’s no reason it should have been our Vanya.’

‘Except he was seen entering Tolya’s room shortly before he died and seen leaving it soon afterwards. If it’s some other fellow’s fingerprints on the hammer, then we need
to do some thinking. But at the moment it looks like your Vanya here is our man. I have to take him with me.’

A reaction moved through the crowd as he said this – a squaring of shoulders, a step forward, a scowl – at least some of them would like to stop him taking Shishkin anywhere. He
looked at the elders for an answer, wondering what was going through their minds. They’d carved out a little bit of independence for themselves in this hovel of a hostel, it was true, but
even they must know that they’d have to give him up sooner or later.

‘I give you my word: if the fingerprints don’t match then he’ll be coming back. But this is murder, Comrades. He has to come with me.’

The bearded man shook his head slowly. ‘I can’t believe Vanya would do something like this.’

The bible reader with the hooked nose stepped forward. He spoke quietly, but it was clear he had some authority in the hostel and the bearded elder looked relieved by his interruption.

‘Vanya, tell us what you remember from last night, and where you were.’

‘I was here, all night.’

‘You weren’t, Vanya. You didn’t come home until after the third shift. Did you visit Tolya?’

The youth’s face seemed to crumple in on itself.

‘Yes, I was there,’ the boy sobbed.

‘And you drank.’

‘I did, the Lord forgive me, I did. But I don’t remember what happened. I couldn’t have killed him, I couldn’t have.’

Shishkin’s hands rubbed at his face, making it difficult to hear what he was saying, but Korolev had heard enough. He put his hand on Shishkin’s shoulder and spoke softly.

‘Stand up now, Shishkin. Walk with us to the car.’

Shishkin did as he was told and Korolev, his hand moving to the man’s elbow, guided him. One or two of the workers looked as though they wanted to prevent them leaving but the bible reader
shook his head, and they backed away.

Outside the cold was like a slap in the face and it seemed to unnerve Shishkin, who turned as if to make his way back in, but the bible reader took his other arm and walked with them. Men and
women spilt out of the hostel behind them and followed in silence, ignoring the drifting snowflakes. The only sounds were the wail of a far-off factory whistle and the crunch of feet as they made
their way towards the waiting car. Shishkin’s head was bowed and Korolev could feel the sobs that spasmed through him.

‘What will happen to me, holy father?’ he whispered to the bible reader, who looked at Korolev for his reaction. Korolev was careful to give none.

‘Put yourself into the hands of the Lord, Vanya. Pray to him and the Virgin and the saints. Pray for forgiveness and I will pray for you as well. We all will.’ His voice was very
quiet, and Korolev hoped the uniforms couldn’t hear.

When they reached the car, the uniforms put Shishkin onto the back seat and sat on either side of him – the boy looked small between them. Korolev turned to the priest, maintaining a
neutral expression.

‘Thank you, Comrade. Your assistance was most useful. We’ll commend your actions to the director.’

The bible reader took Korolev’s offered hand, perhaps wondering how Korolev could do that if he didn’t have his name. But Korolev didn’t want to know the priest’s name
– he just wanted to go home and put this day behind him.

MAYBE THE pot-holes the car had bounced over on the way had shaken the youngster’s brain awake, but by the time they brought Shishkin back to Petrovka Street, his memory
had returned to him. He’d cursed himself, sobbed, banged his head with his hands, and Korolev had taken the confession that tumbled out of the boy, stopping him every now and then to clarify
a point. It was a depressing tale and when it was finished the boy rubbed at his blood-crusted sleeves and asked himself the question Korolev wanted to put to him: ‘Why?’ And the answer
eluded them both. Yes, he’d wanted a job at the rubber factory, but not enough to kill his own brother. But he remembered killing him all right, and so Korolev wrote it all down and then
handed the confession to him to sign. And Shishkin signed it – tears blurring the ink. Korolev patted the youth’s shoulder and then had the uniforms take him down to the cells.

It hadn’t been a difficult case, but Korolev felt satisfaction that they’d resolved it so quickly as he began to put the file in order for the procurator’s office. But the
sense of pleasure at a job well done disappeared when the page he was holding started to rustle loudly. He quickly placed it on the surface of his desk, holding it flat and pushing down, staring at
his whitening knuckles, knowing that this was the only way he could stop his hands shaking. It was just that everything was on top of him all of a sudden, he reassured himself, that was all. It had
been a long winter, and the Lord knew even the bravest got low during the winter months. And when had he last breathed easily? He remembered a time long before, a summer’s day, lying beside a
river, his arm around Zhenia, and Yuri sleeping beside them in the shade of the tree. When had that been? The divorce had come through more than two years ago, and they hadn’t been happy like
that for a good time before it. And his son had been small, very small, and his hair still baby soft. Three years ago, maybe?

‘Damn,’ he breathed, realizing it had been five years at least, and Yasimov looked up in surprise from the report he was writing. Korolev made himself smile, feeling it stretch his
mouth taut. Yasimov returned it, giving him a small nod of appreciation.

‘For a moment there, Lyoshka, I was wondering how they’d break the news to the family. You handled it well.’ Yasimov stretched back, releasing a contented sigh. ‘I tell
you what, though – a scrape that close makes the air smell sweet.’

‘Yes,’ Korolev agreed, thinking that the air would smell even sweeter if he could get a good night’s sleep. It had got to the stage recently when he’d wondered whether
there was any point in taking off his clothes at night, so little time did he spend in his bed. But tonight he’d get eight hours, do some washing, eat some hot food.

‘To kill your own brother,’ Yasimov said, shaking his head.

‘Alcohol has no family,’ Korolev replied, reaching for another file he was working on.

‘Still, nothing is all bad, you know,’ Yasimov said, looking as though he was contemplating stopping off somewhere on the way home.

‘I can’t disagree with that,’ Korolev said. ‘The world wasn’t made in black and white.’

Not at all, he thought to himself; it was mainly grey, the grey of twilight, the grey of the night’s beginning.

§

Korolev’s nerves had settled by the time he walked down the wide steps of 38 Petrovka Street and began to make his way home through the still-busy streets of Moscow. He
took the longer way, heading towards the Kremlin and through Red Square, passing the recently installed red star that topped the Spassky Tower and glowed like a bright beacon of hope against the
black sky above it. It reassured him for a moment, and he felt a surge of pride that he was fortunate enough to be a Soviet citizen, living in the capital of a country that was leading the world by
example. But then he remembered the fear throughout the city, particularly amongst Party members. The works meetings in Petrovka Street were no longer the calm affairs of six months before, but
instead had become steadily more and more hysterical. Activists denounced each other for lack of vigilance, for concealing class origins, for having been former Mensheviks or, even worse,
supporters of the exiled Trotsky. And every now and then one of his colleagues would disappear.

Korolev kept his head low, sat at the back and was grateful that he’d never joined the Party. But even non-Party members weren’t safe – the State expected complete loyalty from
all of its citizens and, while he’d fought with the Red Army during the Civil War and had supported the Revolution for twenty years now, Korolev still had allegiances to individuals and
beliefs that would put him at risk if they ever came to light.

As it had turned out, however, that icon business he’d been involved with the previous year, the most blatant example of his divided allegiances, had ended up working in his favour in
unexpected ways. The matter remained top secret, which was probably just as well from Korolev’s point of view, but the injuries he’d suffered in the course of the investigation pointed
to it having been a dangerous matter, on top of which Korolev now wore on his chest a mysterious Order of the Red Star that he was forbidden to discuss. According to Yasimov, most people thought
he’d uncovered a counter-revolutionary plot and had personally assisted the NKVD, or the Chekists as they were commonly known after an older acronym, in the violent suppression of the
conspiracy. It was almost true, after a fashion, but no one in Petrovka Street except for his boss knew the real story, and even Popov didn’t know all of it.