The Case of the General's Thumb (3 page)

“In the main, it's active property: banks, businesses, factories, hotels – at least one in Switzerland – all operationally financed originally, and thereafter generating income, even spawning independent operations. One per cent of that lot would put us in business.

“Still, enough for today. Chew it over. Relaxing's done with. You've work to do.”

“What?” Nik asked.

“Tell you later. That all?”

“How about a flat? And when my family joins me?”

“The flat will have to wait. Something decent's what you want, and your present funds don't run to it.”

“There'd be something affordable, you said!”

“To the Federal Bureau, yes, when funds materialize and we're up and running. Meanwhile, you've got this place free.”

“How about our container?”

“No sweat. That'll hole up in some customs warehouse, and
we'll pay storage. But put your feet up, have a think. I'm going for a stroll.”

The ensuing silence seemed cheerless, alarming. His future was veiled in obscurity.

The prospect of work held no terrors. Indeed, the degree of trust implicit in the Colonel's proposal was flattering and a plus. As also the Colonel's chancing to select him just when he was doing his damnedest to get out of Tadzhikistan. His one anxiety was the prospect of extended separation from Tanya and Volodya. He wondered how they were, how they were eating, what they were doing.

Lying back on the sofa, he closed his eyes. What better than to spend his coming fortieth birthday with Tanya and Volodya? He could fly to Saratov. It would be a month or so before he found a flat.

Viktor bumped into Dima Rakin unexpectedly, while taking a breath of fresh air.

“Out and about in working hours?” Dima challenged.

“Looking for you, as a matter of fact.”

“A likely tale.”

“No, seriously.”

“Let's go somewhere and sit down.”

The Grey Tom basement bar was empty, and Dima had to rap the counter with a coin before a girl appeared.

The marble table top was icy to the touch, and after the sun outside the bar seemed distinctly chilly.

“Tell me all,” said Dima.

“As I expect you know, I've got a murder case.”

“Your big chance. Well done!”

“Not so sure.”

Dima affected surprise.

“It feels like a setup. Petty crime's what I deal with. Not murdered Presidential Advisers!”

“Is that you speaking, or Ratko?”

“What's the difference?”

Dima pulled a pack of cigarettes from his shirt pocket and lit one.

“It was me suggested you,” he said quietly between puffs. “I'll explain, so far as I can, but it doesn't amount to much, if I'm honest.”

He crushed the partially smoked cigarette into the ashtray.

Viktor got himself another coffee, and for some minutes they sat in silence. Dima crushed out a second cigarette.

“I thought you'd be good at the incidental lines of inquiry.”

“Such as?”

“External pressure, involvements, anonymous tip-offs … the normal stuff. Nothing to worry about. Make a good job of it and you could find yourself in a nice warm office with a proper window … Read the file? Well, what are you waiting for? Get marching, singing as you go! Like in the army!”

“Can a good job be made of it?”

Dima grinned ruefully.

“Depends … But don't worry, you won't be out in the cold. Help and advice will be forthcoming. You'll see. And I'm there on the phone.”

He gave Viktor his card.

After the subterranean bar, the sunny side of the street was doubly pleasant.

Ratko greeted him with a knowing wink.

“Phone call from the Ministry. You're big time, it seems. I'll have to watch my step.”

“Balls! Big-time luck is what I need.”

“Anyway, you won't get brained by a brick – you've got wheels.
Or will have within the hour. A Mazda, one of ten, gift to the MVD from the Ukrainian Transport Bank! Democracy in action. Quite right, too. Better than two per general! What news from his nibs? Or were you just taking a breather?”

“What Dima said was – ”

“Don't want to know. You're the blue-eyed boy. I've got an officeful of cadets. Come and feast your eyes.”

The five skinny, lookalike young cadets in militia uniform were, like most of their generation, pale, pimply, wary.

“All keen to get cracking, eh?” demanded the Major.

The “
Yes, Major
!” was unenthusiastic and not in unison.

“Lieutenant Slutsky, here,” he continued, giving Viktor a grin, “will now address you and give you your case files. After which, all questions to me. Stupid questions will forfeit rations. OK?”

Exit Ratko, grinning.

“I'll fetch your files,” said Viktor before darting out after him.

“
Address them
? What about?”

“Got to be an address. It says so in regs. And it's not for an old cynic like me to witter on about honesty, probity, duty … Shoot 'em the odd slogan, bung 'em their case files, and pick an assistant. He can brew your coffee, fetch beer, but that's about the best you can expect.”

He spoke for three minutes – the limit of their attention span – and as he gave out files, noted down names: Polishchuk, Petrov, Plachinda, Kovinko, Zanozin.

“Any questions?”

“The waiting list for a flat, how to get on it?” one asked, clearly speaking for all.

“Question for the Major,” Viktor said calmly. “All been assigned offices?”

“One between the lot of us,” someone said.

“To your office then!”

He went over to the window. From first-floor level the city looked surprisingly green and peaceful. Kids playing, as if it were high summer.

“Picked your man?” Ratko asked from the door.

“Not yet. I haven't seen enough of them.”

“I've grabbed your spare desks … Post mortem findings due twenty minutes from now, so don't go sloping off.”

“Post mortem?”

“Even dead generals have to have one. And now, having warmed my office, do the same to your own.”

Returning to the file and photographs, Viktor read:

Bronitsky, Vadim Aleksandrovich, b. Kresty, Donyetsk Region, m., one son. Address: Kiev, Suvorov St, 26, Flat 133.

Surprisingly, there was no mention of service or place of employment, and while Viktor pondered the fact, gazing at sunlit foliage seen through cracked glass, the phone rang.

“Come.”

With Ratko was a man in civilian clothes. He handed Viktor keys and a plastic folder of vehicle documents, and advised taking it easily at first, as he'd find the Mazda livelier than the Zaporozhets.

“Nose back to grindstone then,” said Radko when the man had gone. “Show ourselves deserving of the high trust reposed in us.”

The day was drawing in. Viktor made tea, then tackled the postmortem report. Death from cardiac arrest ran the verdict. He shrugged. In which case Murder was out, and Malicious Hooliganism or Desecration of the Dead was in.

Odd, though, to get strung by the neck to a balloon when dead, and sent skywards.

The address and telephone number of the forensic laboratory were as legible as the pathologist's signature was not.

Now at 7.30 no-one would be there. Gathering everything into the file, he picked up the car keys.

“You've got remote locking,” volunteered the sergeant on guard approvingly, and taking the key from him, demonstrated what could be done.

Viktor drove slowly and cautiously, incurring derisive hoots from similarly fast and flashy cars.

He was half way over Southern Bridge, when a mobile phone warbled in the dashboard recess.

“Like it?” a man's voice inquired.

“Very much! But who's that?”

“Georgiy Georgievich. I'll be your sidekick – like in American cop films.”

“When?” asked Viktor, mystified.

“As of right now. You're no longer solo, so get used to it. It'll be easier that way, and safer. Happy?”

“Not entirely.”

“Make a note of my mobile number: 240-80-90. Having seen the postmortem report, shouldn't you have a word with the pathologist?”

“I'm going to.”

“Good man! Don't leave your mobile in the car!”

As he drew up outside their block, his spirits plunged. Once again he'd forgotten to collect their ration entitlement.

Having pocketed his phone and locked by remote control, he still checked all four doors and the boot, before looking round for any likely car thieves. But apart from lonely figures on the track between blocks and metro, there was no one about.

Ivan Lvovich returned later than expected, having met someone in a bar.

News of a bar in the vicinity prompted Nik to raise the question of money.

“Of course. I forgot.”

Reaching into an inner pocket, Ivan Lvovich produced an envelope.

“Something to be going on with, and why not adjourn to the bar.
Drinks on me. Just one thing, though, before we go. If you're not happy, Nik, about what I've said so far, you can back out, go to Saratov, live your own life, so long as you remain bound to secrecy.”

“I'm quite happy,” Nik responded, putting on his jacket.

Ivan Lvovich smiled.

“Come on, let's go.”

Ivan Lvovich ordered, and they sat out on the terrace overlooking the river. The air was fresh and invigorating. He would come back here on his own, Nik decided. It was a pleasant spot.

“To our joint success!” said Ivan Lvovich raising his squat tumbler of vodka.

Nik downed his in a gulp, before noticing that Ivan Lvovich had merely sipped his.

“I'll get you another.”

A young couple came and stood gazing down at the full moon reflected in the river.

“You must bring your wife here,” Ivan Lvovich was saying when his mobile rang.

“Fine,” he said, with the phone to his ear. “It's now 21.45 … Understood.”

Popping a slice of lemon into his mouth and his mobile into his pocket, he took another sip of vodka.

“Things are warming up,” he said wearily. “But no rush. We've half an hour before we go into town.”

“For what?” Nik asked, only to receive a disapproving look.

Taking another slice of lemon, Ivan Lvovich consulted his watch.

“Like films?” he asked, his friendly self again.

“Why?”

“You'll see.”

Shooting lights at amber, sometimes at red, the dark blue BMW sped through the deserted streets of Kiev to a backstreet in Podol.

Ordering his driver to wait, Ivan Lvovich hustled Nik along to where, around the corner, a minivan bearing the legend “Miller Ltd Suspended Ceilings” was parked. The driver opened the rear doors, and they climbed into something resembling a tiny television studio.

Ivan Lvovich passed Nik a collapsible stool.

“Sit and watch.”

One monitor showed a corridor with coat pegs and a mirror; another, a kitchen with a round table, an enormous refrigerator and refinements seen only in such few Western magazines as reached Dushanbe. A third showed a middle-aged man bound to a rocking chair. On the corridor monitor a door – probably the bathroom – opened and a man in jeans and a T-shirt came out carrying a shoulder bag, looked at himself in the mirror, smiled, and passing out of camera view, reappeared in the room with the rocking-chair. From his bag he took an audio cassette which he inserted in a radio cassette recorder.

Ivan Lvovich called for sound.

“Coming,” said the young man at the control-panel.

“Can you get it louder?”

Background hiss broken by rhythmical beats, then, from the prisoner, a feeble “That was nothing to do with me! Nothing! I've been framed!”

“Can happen to the best,” said the other man, squatting and taking from his bag an object dangling wires. These he connected to some other device, and after consulting his watch, placed both objects beneath the rocking-chair.

“Like it louder?”

The beat became deafening.

“What is it?” Nik asked.

“Human heart.”

The man was now in the kitchen, taking sausage from the fridge, after which he cut bread and made coffee.

The prisoner meanwhile was rocking to and fro in a vain effort to free himself.

“Don't we get any coffee?” asked Ivan Lvovich.

The young engineer produced a thermos. Ivan Lvovich poured, drank, then poured for Nik.

“Enjoying it?”

Bewildered, Nik shrugged.

“Take a good look at that chap. That's Sergey Vladimirovich Sakhno. Age thirty-three. Interesting type. Eventful life. Ex-sapper officer. Invalided out following death of his pregnant girlfriend. Psychologically dodgy. His prisoner had some involvement in the death of the girl. It's the unborn baby's heartbeat we're hearing, courtesy of ultrasound scan. In my day a lock of hair in an envelope was sufficient. The new technology caters for any madness. – But hang on!”

After a last look at the prisoner, Sakhno was on his way out, half-eaten sandwich abandoned on the table.

“Can't we go and defuse the damned thing?”

“No point.”

“
He'll be killed, for God's sake
!”

“Yes, because we're not supposed to be here. The people who have brought this about are watching from a similar vehicle on the other side of the block. This isn't our scene, and it's time to be going.”

At a gesture from him the monitors dimmed, and hiss and heartbeats gave way to an uneasy silence that was in contrast to Nik's inner turmoil.

“Did that have to happen?” he asked, as they sped back through the sleeping city.

“He was framed, like he said, but didn't actually kill the girl. He was due to die for other reasons. Sakhno's carried out the sentence. Why I said take a good look is because you're shortly to meet and become friends. To which end, tomorrow evening you make a promising start by saving his life.”