made good sense to Chislenko. The best way to deal with this absurd business was to ignore it. He only hoped his superiors would agree, and he gave them their cue by writing a final dismissive report, this time risking a conclusion couched in the kind of quasi-psychological jargon Natasha had mockingly used.
Then he crossed his fingers, and waited, and even said a little prayer.
The authorities were right to ban religion.
The following day he was summoned to Procurator Kozlov’s office.
3
Of all the deputy procurators working in the Procurator General’s office, Kozlov was the one most feared. Unambiguously ambitious, he took lack of progress in any case under his charge as an act of personal sabotage by the Inspector involved, and his own advancement was littered with the wrecks of others’ careers. His legal career had begun in the attorney’s department of the Red Army, and on formal official occasions Kozlov always wore the uniform of colonel to which his military service entitled him.
He was wearing the uniform today. It was not a good sign.
So preoccupied was Chislenko by this sartorial ill-omen that at first he did not notice the other person in the room. It was only when he came to attention and focused his eyes over the seated Procurator’s head that he took in the unexpected presence. Standing by the window looking down into Petrovka Street was an old gentleman (the term rose unbidden into Chislenko’s mind), with a crown of snow white hair, a goatee beard of the same hue, cheeks of fresh rose, eyes of bright blue, and an expression of almost saintly benevolence.
Procurator Kozlov did not look benevolent.
‘Inspector Chislenko,’ he rasped. ‘This business of the Gorodok Building. These are your final reports?’
He stabbed at the file on his desk.
‘Yes, sir,’ said Chislenko.
‘And you recommend that no further inquiry is needed?’
‘I can see no line of further inquiry that might be useful,’ said Chislenko carefully.
The Procurator sneered.
‘No line which might be fruitful if pursued in the indolent, incompetent and altogether deplorable manner in which you’ve managed this business so far, you mean!’
The unexpected violence of the attack provoked Chislenko to the indiscretion of a protest.
‘Sir!’ he cried. ‘I resent your implications …’
‘You resent!’ bellowed Kozlov, his smart uniform stretching to the utmost tolerance of its stitching.
‘Comrades,’ said the old man gently.
The speed with which the Procurator deflated made Chislenko look at the old gentleman with new eyes. Wasn’t there something familiar about those features?
‘Let us not be unfair to the Inspector,’ he continued with a friendly smile. ‘He has done almost as much as could be expected, and his desire to let this matter die quietly is altogether laudable. However …’
He paused, came to the desk, picked up the file and sifted apparently aimlessly through its sheets.
‘Do you know who I am, Inspector?’ he said finally.
Desperately Chislenko searched his memory while the old man smiled at him. Honesty at last seemed the best policy.
‘My apologies, Comrade,’ he said. ‘There is something familiar about you but I cannot quite find the name to go with it.’
To his surprise the old man looked pleased.
‘Good, good,’ he said, beaming. ‘In my work, as in yours, not to be known is the best reputation a man can look for. I am Y.S.J. Serebrianikov.’
It was with difficulty that Chislenko concealed the shocked dismay of recognition. Of course! This was the legendary Yuri the Survivor, that shadowy figure who had started his career under Beria and survived his passing and that of Semichastny, Shelepin, and Andropov, in the process making that most dangerous of transitions from being a man who knows too much to live to being a man who knows too much to destroy. Now nearly eighty, he was officially designated Secretary to the Committee on Internal Morale and Propaganda, which sounded harmless enough, but this was not a harmless man. Either through flattery or blackmail, he always picked his protectors well and for many years now he had been under the ægis of the powerful Minister of Internal Affairs, Boris Bunin, which explained his presence but not his purpose in the MVD Headquarters. Bunin at 65 was young enough to have very large ambitions. Serebrianikov with his vast store of knowledge and his still strong KGB connections must have been, and might be again, a tremendous help to him.
Chislenko bowed in his direction.
‘It is an honour and privilege to meet you, Comrade Secretary,’ he intoned.
‘Thank you, Comrade Inspector,’ replied the old man. ‘Now in the matter of this trivial and absurd incident at the Gorodok Building, you are perhaps wondering what my interest is? Let me tell you. I am old now, and should (you are perhaps thinking) be spending my time in my dacha at Odessa, watching the seagulls. But some old horses miss their harness, as perhaps one day you will find, and the Praesidium – in their kindness and to satisfy an old man’s whim – permit me to preserve the illusion at least of still serving the State.’
This was dreadful, thought Chislenko. No man could be so humourously self-deprecating except from a base of absolute power.
‘What I do is sometimes watch and sometimes listen and sometimes read, but mainly just sniff the air to test the mood of the people. Internal morale is the fancy name they give it. I watch for straws in the wind, silly rumours, atavistic superstitions, anything which may if unchecked develop into a let or hindrance to the smooth and inevitable progress of the State.’
‘But surely this silly business at the Gorodok Building could hardly do that!’ burst out Chislenko, winning an angry glare from the Procurator, but an approving smile from Serebrianikov.
‘Possibly not, in certain circumstances,’ he said. ‘Had, for instance, the initial response not been so attention-drawing. I do not hold you altogether responsible for the other services, but is it not true that your policemen surrounded the building and arrested everyone trying to leave?’
To explain that this had not been his idea at all was pointless; only results counted in socialist police work.
Instead Chislenko countered boldly, ‘Had we not done that, Comrade Secretary, we should not have apprehended the witness, Rudakov.’
‘True,’ said the old man. ‘But with hindsight, Comrade Inspector, do you not think it might have been better if you hadn’t caught Comrade Rudakov?’
This precise echo of his own feelings was perhaps the most frightening thing Chislenko had heard so far.
‘At least the Comrade Engineer appears a man of discretion,’ continued Serebrianikov. ‘Unlike Muntjan who is a drunken babbler, and the woman, Lovchev, who is a garrulous hysteric. Yet there might have been means
