The Final Fabergé (34 page)

“Stay in the car and smoke your bloody cigarettes,” Oxby said. “I'll handle this myself.”

There would be an officer on the force who could speak English. Follow the money and you'll find someone who speaks the language, Oxby reasoned. He was right. Within five minutes he was sitting with the precinct deputy commandant, an ice-cold Coca-Cola in his hand.

Bureaucracy changes slowly, and in Russia, progress is perceptible only to those with keen eyesight and immense patience. In Petersburg there was a police office, or precinct station, in each district. The precinct police were called the militia. But there was another police authority
known as the procurator. Also uniformed, the procurators traced their origins to Peter the Great and were responsible for investigating major crimes, leaving all else to the militia.

“You are from Scotland Yard?” the commandant said respectfully. “I have read much about your system. Very good, you think?”

“Very good, indeed,” Oxby replied, restraining the urge to unburden his complaints to a fellow policeman. He would gladly discuss the Yard, but would resist any invitation to reveal the true purpose of his inquiry into the death of Leonid Baletsky. The commandant, Oxby observed, was named Yuri Safarov. His name appeared on a bronze plaque on the door, and on official-looking business cards stacked on his desk.

There was a considerable amount of dark stained wood in Safarov's office. The room had a high ceiling and thick casement windows, and a worn parquet floor. The furniture bore the scars and cigarette burns of hard use. The chief was well worn, too. He was fifty, wore glasses, had unruly gray hair, and wore a white shirt that was not very white and in its third day without a wash.

“This Leonid Baletsky,” Safarov began, “fell from his balcony and there was no way to say it was an accident or if he committed suicide. Or that he had been pushed. We conclude he did not fall by accident or from the Green Serpent that causes old people to kill themselves.”

Green Serpent, Yakov had explained, was the euphemism for vodka. If not suicide or accident, Baletsky had been murdered. Oxby asked the commandant if he thought that was so.

“We believe he was pushed off his balcony, but have not the proof. So strange about this one,” Safarov went on and held up his left hand and wiggled the little finger. “This was missing when the body was examined. Perhaps that hand had scraped against the side of the building or he fell onto that hand when he hit the stones. We searched for the finger and could not find it.” He shook his head. “Nothing.”

Oxby thought about the missing finger, that it was a queer notion. “Is there a superstition about such a thing?” he asked.

“Not one that I know about,” the commandant answered.

“Did he have a family?”

“A son.” Safarov leafed through some papers. “No wife. The son claimed the body at the morgue.”

“I would like to talk to his son. Do you have his telephone number?”

“Explain, please, why you are searching into this death, and wish to see Baletsky's son. Is it official business?”

Oxby smiled. It was the broad, warm kind of grin that could melt the most obstinate levels of officialese. “I recently became acquainted with Leonid, and had looked forward to seeing more of him. Mutual friends, common interests . . . that sort of thing. And so, I should like to pass on my condolences to the son.”

Safarov listened, his face expressionless. He pondered Oxby's question, then nodded. “I will give you that information.”

Oxby then asked a series of questions that would come naturally in the investigation of a suspected murder, though couching each question in the character of his recent friendship with the deceased. What was the condition of Baletsky's apartment? Describe the balcony from which he fell or was pushed. Was an autopsy performed? Were there witnesses? What time did it happen? On and on. The commandant enjoyed the skill Oxby displayed, confessing on several occasions that his own people had failed to develop certain facts. Oxby recorded the answers in his always available notebook. When he completed the interview he handed Safarov his card, insisting that he contact Oxby on any future visit to London.

“I will show you how we chase our criminals,” Oxby said, and held out his hand. “Then I promise to take you to one of our very best pubs.”

There were uncertain consequences connected to chasing over the big city to find Viktor Lysenko's apartment. But that was precisely what Oxby planned for the remainder of the afternoon. Poolya claimed they weren't being followed, an opinion, not necessarily a fact. And Oxby knew it. There remained dangerous possibilities and questions that required answers: Who hired Viktor to kill Vasily? Did he live alone? With another professional? Did he have another life with job and family?

If Oxby could get into his apartment, he might find the answers. Answers that might lead to the Fabergé egg.

The possibilities were endless, and became somewhat more problematic when they stopped in front of 9 Kubansky Street. It was the first address of the five Oxby had purchased. It was a bakery shop.

They had no luck at the second, third, and fourth addresses. Oxby was ready to declare that Viktor Lysenko had been a phantom. Hired killers he had known were that way.

The fifth address was near St. Petersburg University on Vasilievsky
Island, the largest of all the city's islands. The apartment buildings were attached to each other in a long row, and every one showed scars from the heavy German artillery shelling during the long siege in World War II. Every third building had been destroyed and rebuilt to its original specifications. There were two apartments on each floor, and according to Oxby's list, Viktor Lysenko's apartment,
kvartyra 2,
was on the second floor. Poolya leaned on the button. They heard a bell ring and reacted to the simultaneous loud report from a truck's backfire. Poolya pressed again. Oxby glanced at his watch. It was 7:30 and fatigue was setting in. Oxby pressed the button, waited half a minute, then sought help from the occupants in the other apartment on the floor. No sound came when the button was pushed, so they rapped repeatedly on the heavy wooden door. Still, no response.

“Enough for today,” Oxby said, and preceded Poolya out to the street and the car. The bodyguard examined his strips of tape while Oxby leaned against a tree and gazed up to the windows where, according to the list of two dollar names he was holding, a man named Viktor Lysenko was supposed to live.

Staring down at Oxby from behind heavy, crocheted curtains was a young woman dressed in black pants and sweater. Her blond hair was combed severely back and tied with a black ribbon. She was tall and slim. She wore no makeup. Galina Lysenko had stood at the window waiting quietly and patiently for the doorbell to stop ringing. Her lovely features were marred by a dampness and slight puffiness around her eyes. A telephone was pressed to her ear.

“Describe him,” Galina said.

“I've never seen him,” Trivimi said. “I've been told he's average height, light brown hair, mid-forties. I can't give you more.”

“I know it's Oxby,” Galina said. “He was at the door. Ringing and ringing. What is he looking for?”

“Information,” Trivimi said.

“Has Oleg learned how Viktor was killed?”

“We've heard nothing.”

“It doesn't matter,” Galina said too softly for the Estonian to hear. “I know who killed Viktor.”

“I can't hear you.”

They're getting into the car.”

The Peugeöt pulled away from the curb.

“They're leaving,” Galina said.

T
he sky had cleared and at 9:30 in the evening it was brighter than it had been all during the wet, gray day. Occasional bursts of fireworks punctuated the evening air, early signals that the summer solstice and the official onset of the White Nights was six days off. The pyrotechnics were probably the work of early celebrants, themselves ignited by too much high-voltage vodka. After their meal, Yakov's kitchen once more assumed its role as an incident room.

“You've been quiet,” Yakov said “I'm beginning to understand your moods. You haven't told me the news about Baletsky.”

“Bad news I'm afraid. We found the apartment all right, but not Leonid. He's dead. Murdered, the police are saying.”

Yakov stared blankly for a moment. “Now three are dead.”

“Not a pleasant number. Of course one is too many.”

“What happened?” Yakov asked.

Oxby related his conversation with the precinct chief. “There was no suggestion of a robbery. They believe he was pushed off his balcony. He could have jumped, but there wasn't a note and his son told the police he doesn't think his father would commit suicide.” Oxby turned toward Yakov. “Sons and fathers try desperately not to think ill of each other. But, whatever caused it, a drop from the fifth floor onto concrete is a bloody long, hard fall.”

“You talked to the son?”

“No, but I plan to. I've got his phone number, compliments of the police. In spite of negative reports to the contrary, I find your police very cooperative.”

“To you they might be. You are like a brother.”

Following his visit to the Naval Records Office, Yakov had continued to translate Vasily's diary and the letters he had received from Sasha Akimov.

“Once I put the diaries under a magnifying glass I could see more
clearly how Vasily formed his letters. Then I was able to understand his handwriting and could transcribe nearly everything he wrote. Fortunately, Sasha Akimov wrote very neatly. He was my age, and we learned our penmanship at the same time. It makes a difference when you are writing in Cyrillic.”

“Start with Vasily. Based on his diary and notes, do you have the impression he was rational or did he ramble on without making much sense?”

“I thought his insights were very rational, not at all what I expected after so long a time away from home and the last years in that dreary asylum. Though toward the end, he seemed to lose interest and would go on without much purpose. When I pieced together the dates, it was obvious that many pages and perhaps entire tablets were missing. He listed several names, ones he was convinced were stealing from him. Some years ago he was writing a diary, adding a little every day. But in the recent years, there was nothing to write about. So he added an occasional note and inserted a date only now and then.”

“Were you struck by anything unusual?”

“Yes, very much.”

“What was that?”

“Let me say that the earliest date I could find was ten years ago, and that appeared about a quarter of the way into the diaries that we found. I imagine the stolen notebooks he refers to cover the years before that time. He wrote on many occasions about a military trial in which he was involved, and how he had never been allowed to prove his innocence.”

“Convicted criminals go to their grave protesting their innocence,” Oxby said. “They all do it, and sometimes they're right. If he claimed he was innocent, he must have had a good idea who was guilty. Did he say?”

“Not directly.” Yakov referred to his copy of the translation. “He was obsessed by the fact he could not get the court to grant his appeal for a new trial. He repeated this same thought several times. And always pointing a finger. Here is a typical entry. It's not dated, but he says it is Sunday: ‘They deny my appeal again. They are cowards. Stupid asssucking bastards. Sasha tells me in his letters that Deryabin gains power with the committee. He says I must continue to write. But letters are a waste. I should kill Deryabin.' ”

“Steady, mate!” Oxby said anxiously. “Show me where he wrote that. And your translation.”

“It's here, at the top of a page ten.” He passed over the pages to Oxby.

Oxby read it and the pages before and after. He looked intently at Yakov. “Think hard. Have we heard the name Deryabin?”

Yakov pondered. “No, this is the first time.”

“Does Vasily refer to Deryabin again?”

“Yes, quite a few times.”

“How many? Ten? Fifteen?”

“No, no. I think four or five.”

“That's enough. His nemesis was Deryabin. I bloody well would like to read what he wrote in all those missing pages.”

“I am not a psychologist,” Yakov said, “but I can see a great amount of anger and guilt in Karsalov. It is most clear in his recent notes, as if he were aware that he would die soon and wanted to absolve himself by writing about his shortcomings and his failures. I saw this in the strange way he wrote, as if his cramped little words would disguise his confessions. In other places he seemed pleased to get these troubling thoughts off his chest. He says very clearly that he deeply regretted the way he had treated his wife and son.”