City of Ghosts Ben Creed (13 ebook reader .txt) 📖

comrade. Which basically means I’m a dead man walking. They’ll come for me soon.’

The major’s voice rose in pitch and he almost sang out the words.

‘He was fucking her.’

A torturer’s smile spread across his flat-nosed face.

‘Have you worked that out yet, gundog? Your beautiful Sofia – Vronsky was fucking her.’

‘Yes, I . . .’

‘Oh, but not just him. Beria, too. Me and Sarkisov picked her up for them in the Packard one summer, after the war. Sarkisov keeps a list of all the names – a little leverage in case he ever falls out of favour. She had come to Moscow to meet Vronsky, a story he had spun about needing a singer. Usually they loved the random nature of the hunt – they used to snigger when they pointed, out of the car windows, like mischievous gods hurling down thunderbolts. But not her. She was on purpose. Vronsky had been in touch, told us where to collect her – from the station. Vronsky . . . well, I’d never seen him so exultant. He was really salivating at the prospect of him and Beria fucking the little slut’s brains out.’

Nikitin’s head jerked backwards at a preposterous angle.

Blood splattered from his bottom lip. He had not expected Rossel’s blow but did not fall to the floor. The major was a streetfighter and, drunk or not, he swung back, his left fist catching Rossel on the temple. Rossel shuffled, then dropped into a crouch and hit Nikitin fast, two sharp jabs, one with the left fist, the other with the right. The blue-hat crashed downward onto the faded parquet and almost immediately tried to push himself upward. Rossel was too quick for him. He flung himself on top of Nikitin and took only a moment, using his knees – one across each of the major’s shoulders – to pin the man down. Rossel’s shattered hands clamped down on his torturer’s windpipe. His eyes were flickering with a feral rage and he began to squeeze. Nikitin tried to use his own feet to push back, rocking his body back and forth, so he might loosen his attacker’s grip. But it was hopeless.

‘They’re coming for you now,’ the MGB officer gasped. ‘Sarkisov is coming. I’m only an hour ahead of him. I’m here to help you . . .’

Rossel’s fingers loosened.

‘And why would you do that?’

‘In my pocket, there’s a picture of her in my left trouser pocket.’

Rossel’s grip began to tighten again.

‘Of Sofia?’ he shouted.

Nikitin had to spit out the words.

‘Of Svetlana. My darling little girl. Sweet, good-hearted Sveta. Last night, I found out those bastards had been fucking her, too.’

40

As they drove across Kamennoostrovsky Bridge, flakes of snow drifted out of a late-morning sky that was as grey as tarnished pewter. Rossel sat behind the wheel of Nikitin’s ZIS. The major, sitting in the passenger seat, was nursing a cut lip and a bruised temple. He had sobered up.

‘So, we are agreed?’ said Rossel.

Nikitin nodded. ‘The Party elite are already gathering at their dachas south of Lake Ladoga ahead of the festivities. Malenkov, Molotov, Beria, Khrushchev – all of them. I take the list of musicians and the jeweller’s ledgers to Malenkov. You go to Vronsky’s island. You’re still determined to go alone?’

Rossel nodded.

‘If I try and formally arrest Vronsky – go with Lipukhin, or involve militia headquarters – he, or his mother, will just talk their way out of it. Use their contacts in the Party to escape the law. Point the finger back at Eliasberg. Then destroy any evidence. I can only get real justice if I go on my own.’

‘And what will that look like?’ said Nikitin with a wry smile.

Rossel shrugged.

‘He murdered Felix. He murdered Sofia. Tortured them. I want to kill him. But the policeman in me won’t let that happen. So, I’m going to need the maestro to give me a written confession.’

The car picked up speed.

‘And you? Why take the risk?’ said Rossel.

Nikitin grinned.

‘Beria doesn’t like loose ends. Now I’m dismissed, it’s simply a matter of time before he comes for me. This way there’s a slim chance I can save myself and pay him back for my daughter.’

The major tapped his breast pocket.

‘Otherwise, I’d be far too smart to take evidence against the second most powerful man in the Soviet Union and deliver it into the hands of his greatest political enemy, Malenkov.’

Rossel stared at the road in front of him. Once they got to Vronsky’s island, Nikitin would head southwards to Shlisselburg, to where Malenkov’s dacha overlooked Ladoga’s southern shore as he and his rivals waited for the call to Leningrad for the Party Congress and the days of celebrations to mark the anniversary of the Road of Life.

He gestured to the black and white photograph, lit by the thin morning light, that Nikitin had fixed to the car’s dashboard with a piece of tape.

‘She has the air of an innocent, your Svetlana. Sofia had that, too.’

Nikitin stared down at the portrait of his daughter. The pretty nineteen-year-old was wearing a simple spotted pinafore and clutched a small bunch of poppies to her breast. A frozen gargoyle’s smile was fixed to her face. As if she had been snapped by a Medusa.

‘She was that . . . before . . .’

‘I’m sorry.’

They rumbled on. That morning’s newspapers had promised a new wave of cold weather – minus twenty-five, at least.

‘How did you find out about the girls?’

‘Like I said, Sarkisov is disgusted. He keeps a list of their conquests. They love lists in the MGB. The whole country is run on lists. But Beria doesn’t know.’

‘Why should he care?’ asked Rossel, steering around some metal fencing that protected an open manhole. ‘Beria can do what he likes.’

‘Not entirely,’ scoffed Nikitin. ‘You think people like Malenkov, Molotov, MGB generals, army generals, admirals, party bosses with family and friends in the camps, you think they aren’t out to get him? One little vice, sure – but add that to something he said twenty years ago,