There are No Ghosts in the Soviet Union Read online

  ‘Unwise for her to tell what she saw?’ said Natasha indignantly. ‘How can that be? And I saw it too, don’t forget!’

  ‘I’d try not to be so sure of that,’ said Chislenko.

  ‘What are you trying to tell me, Inspector?’ demanded the girl. ‘And why do I have to be driven all over Moscow to be told it?’

  She still thinks I’m going to park the car somewhere quiet and invite her to take her skirt off, thought Chislenko.

  He swung the wheel over and accelerated out of the suburbs back towards the centre of town.

  ‘It would be wise to admit the possibility of error, Comrade Personal Assistant to the Deputy Costings Officer,’ he said coldly. ‘It would be wise for your mother to do the same.’

  ‘Wise? Give me one good reason?’

  He slowed down to negotiate the turn from Kirov Street into Dzerzhinsky Square.

  ‘There’s your best reason,’ he said harshly, nodding towards the pavement alongside which loomed a massive, ugly building. In many ways this was the most famous edifice in the city, out-rivalling even St Basil’s. Yet it appeared on no postcards, was described in no guide books.

  This was the Lubyanka, headquarters of the KGB.

  They drove on in silence.

  After a while the girl said in a blank, emotionless voice, ‘What now, Comrade Inspector?’

  Chislenko said, ‘I take you to Petrovka.’

  ‘So I am under arrest?’

  ‘I said so in your apartment, Comrade, and I’m not sure who may have been listening there. So I take you to Petrovka. I ask you some questions. The four most important ones will be: One, who was closest to the lift door when the lift stopped on the seventh floor? Two, what were you doing at that moment? Three, are you quite sure the man waiting for the lift did not merely change his mind and walk away? Four, who was it that made all the fuss and insisted on calling the emergency services?

  ‘Your answers will be: One, Josif Muntjan. Two, I was engaged in close conversation with my mother. Three, it’s possible as my mother and I didn’t take much notice till the liftman started yelling. Four, Josif Muntjan.

  ‘Do you follow me, Comrade?’

  ‘Yes, Comrade Inspector,’ she said meekly.

  ‘Good. Then I will make out a report saying that the Comrade Personal Assistant after some initial misunderstanding was perfectly cooperative and I have every confidence she and her mother will behave as good citizens should. You meanwhile will make your way home and take your mother for a walk and persuade her to hold her tongue when she gets back to her village.’

  ‘Don’t I get a lift home?’ she said with a flash of her old spirit.

  Chislenko smiled.

  ‘That would be out of character for the MVD,’ he said. ‘There might be others beside yourself looking for an ulterior motive.’

  She flushed beautifully.

  ‘I’m sorry I said that,’ she said. ‘It was a stupid thing to suggest.’

  He glanced at her and said drily, ‘No, it wasn’t,’ and she flushed again as they turned into the official car park at Petrovka.

  That evening Chislenko visited Alexei Rudakov in his room at the Minsk Hotel on Gorky Street.

  ‘You again,’ said the engineer ungraciously. ‘I was hoping for an early night. I leave first thing in the morning.’

  ‘I know. That’s why I’ve called now,’ said Chislenko. ‘I won’t keep you long. I wouldn’t be troubling you at all except that Comrade Secretary Serebrianikov of the Committee on Internal Morale and Propaganda has taken a personal interest in the case.’

  He paused. Rudakov’s eyebrows rose as he registered this information. Chislenko returned his gaze blankly.

  He said, ‘So if you could just confirm the following points. You were standing behind the liftman, Josif Muntjan, when the lift stopped on the seventh floor?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Next to the two Lovchev women who were engaged in lively conversation?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘So their conversation would probably have distracted your attention just as Muntjan’s body must have blocked your view?’

  A slight smile touched Rudakov’s lips.

  ‘Quite right, Inspector,’ he said.

  Chislenko phrased his next question carefully, ‘If the man waiting to enter the lift had stepped forward, then changed his mind and retreated, stumbling slightly, and if then Josif Muntjan had started shouting that there was an emergency, you would have accepted his assessment, would you not?’

  Again the smile.

  ‘As an expert in my field, I’ve always learned to accept the estimates of other experts, however menial,’ the engineer replied.

  ‘You mean, yes?’

  ‘I mean, if that had been the case, yes.’

  ‘And is it possible, in your judgment, Comrade, that that might have been the case?’

  This was the key question.

  ‘Of course one could say that anything is possible …’

  ‘So this too is possible?’ interrupted Chislenko.

  ‘Yes …’

  ‘Good,’ said Chislenko. ‘That’s all, Comrade. If you would just sign this sheet, here. I think you’ll find it’s an accurate digest of our conversation.’

  Rudakov hesitated. Chislenko admired the hesitation but was glad when it developed no further.

  With an almost defiant flourish, the man signed.

  ‘Thank you, Comrade,’ said Chislenko, putting the paper into the copious file on the affair he was lugging round with him in his battered briefcase.

  ‘Official business over?’ said Rudakov. ‘Would you like a drink before you go, Inspector?’

  ‘That would be kind,’ said Chislenko.

  The engineer poured two glasses of excellent vodka.

  ‘Here’s to a successful conclusion to your inquiries, Inspector,’ he said.

  ‘I’ll drink to that,’ said Chislenko.

  ‘So Comrade Serebrianikov is interested in this business,’ Rudakov went on. ‘A fine man.’

  ‘Yes. You know the Comrade Secretary, do you?’

  ‘Oh, not personally,’ said Rudakov. ‘I don’t move in such exalted circles. But naturally I know of his high reputation. It’s men like him that have made the State the magnificent, just and efficient machine we enjoy today.’

  Chislenko smiled to himself. Rudakov had clearly decided not to take any risks. Being haughty with a mere copper was one thing, but now there was a hint of a KGB connection, the man was underlining his credentials.

  ‘And what is Comrade Serebrianikov’s assessment of the affair, may I ask?’

  Chislenko looked at him quizzically across his glass.

  ‘Comrade Serebrianikov does not believe there are any ghosts in the Soviet Union,’ he murmured.

  ‘No, of course not,’ replied Rudakov, a trifle uneasily. Then, recovering, he added, ‘It must have been an odd case for you to work on, Inspector.’

  ‘Pretty routine, Comrade,’ said Chislenko.

  ‘Ghost-hunting is routine?’

  ‘I thought we’d agreed there are no ghosts,’ said Chislenko menacingly. He was rather enjoying this.

  ‘Yes, of course, I didn’t mean …’

  Chislenko tired of the game quickly and said, ‘But it was routine. Even if there had been the possibility of a ghost, which there couldn’t be, of course, there’d have had to be someone whose ghost it might have been, which there wasn’t. I checked back all the way to nineteen forty-nine. That’s where the routine comes in, Comrade. We even check out the impossible.’

  ‘Why 1949?’ said Rudakov.

  ‘That’s when the Gorodok Building was completed,’ said Chislenko, putting down his glass.

  ‘Really? I’d have said … but no, it hardly matters. Another drink before you go?’

  ‘No, thanks,’ said Chislenko, recognizing the tone of dismissal. But he also recognized the tone of something unsaid and his natural curiosity made him add, ‘What doesn’t matter, Comr
ade.’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘You seemed surprised at something about the date. Nineteen forty-nine is what the records say.’

  ‘And no doubt they’re right. The building itself certainly belongs to that post-war period, but it just occurred to me now, while you were speaking, that … well, I dabbled in many branches of mechanical engineering before I got on to power stations. I was involved in various kinds of building projects, domestic and commercial, and I’d have said that the lift in the Gorodok Building predated nineteen forty-nine by quite a bit. German manufacture too, at a guess, though I’d need to see the actual machinery to be certain of that.’

  ‘You’re sure of this, Comrade?’ said Chislenko.

  Rudakov laughed and said mockingly, ‘In this affair it seems I must wait for you to tell me what I’m sure of, Inspector. So, no, I’m not sure of anything except that I must get on with packing. Good night to you.’

  ‘Good night, Comrade,’ said Chislenko.

  Slowly he made his way back to the high-ceilinged room in the old apartment house which was his home. Here he had another glass of vodka, much cheaper but also much larger. It would have been nice to slip into bed with nothing more troublesome than a few erotic fantasies about Natasha filling his mind. But to a good policeman, there are imperatives stronger even than sex. Unsatisfied lust can be dealt with either by a warm hand or a cold shower, but unsatisfied curiosity is not so simple to remove.

  In addition, if it turned out he’d missed something, however unimportant, it could mean a black mark against his name.

  It was a long time before he got to sleep.

  5

  When the gay little records clerk arrived at the Public Works building the following morning, he was alarmed to see a figure lurking in the side entrance he used. He was not at once reassured when he recognized the waiting man as Inspector Chislenko.

  ‘The Gorodok records,’ snapped the weary-looking Inspector. ‘Hurry.’

  Delighted that it was his files not his friends that interested the Inspector, Karamzin scurried to obey.

  The records were as meticulous as one would have expected in a project supervised by a man who had since risen to the imposing heights of public responsibility that Mikhail Osjanin now occupied. Everything was listed and costed, down to the last pane of glass and concrete block. The lifts in the building had been manufactured and supplied in 1948 by Machine Plant No. 242 situated in Serpukhov, sixty miles south of the capital.

  So much for Comrade Engineer Rudakov! thought Chislenko with some relief as he noted the details. Even experts could be wrong.

  Now all that remained for this particular expert to do was close the trap on poor old Muntjan. Not that such a job required much expertise, only authority and the will. Chislenko found he had little stomach for the job and the only sop to his conscience was that if he didn’t do it, someone else with far less concern for the liftman’s well-being would. At least he, Chislenko, could do his best to see that the case against Muntjan was couched in terms of alcoholic delusion rather than political subversion. Surely even Serebrianikov would agree that it was absurd to present a broken-down old man like Josif as an agent in the employ of the West?

  When Chislenko arrived at the Gorodok Building, he discovered that Muntjan was making his task easy. The liftman had taken a few days’ sick leave immediately after the incident, only returning the previous day. There was still a significant boycott of the south lift by many workers, but those who were using it soon had cause for a different complaint, namely that Muntjan refused to let the lift stop on the seventh floor.

  Finally the staff supervisor was informed. He had given Muntjan a public dressing-down and ordered him to answer every summons to every floor.

  Josif obeyed. But so nervously debilitating did he find the experience of stopping at the seventh floor that he needed to fortify himself from his hip-flask every time it happened. By the end of the day, the supervisor was once more called to deal with the situation.

  ‘I sent him off straightaway, no messing,’ said the man sternly.

  ‘You mean, you sacked him?’ said Chislenko.

  ‘Well, not exactly sacked,’ said the supervisor, his sternness dissolving slightly. ‘To tell the truth, Inspector, I’m a bit sorry for the old fellow. He’s getting on and this business has been a real shake-up for him.’

  The supervisor’s attitude puzzled Chislenko a little. He didn’t look like a naturally kind man, and the Inspector now recalled being surprised by his compassionate attitude to Josif at their first encounter. He felt he might have missed something and there was enough residual irritation from the business of the dating of the lift to make him react strongly.

  ‘Listen,’ he growled, putting on his KGB expression. ‘Isn’t it time you told me the truth? It’ll sound a lot better in my report if it comes straight from you. So give!’

  The supervisor glowered at him angrily for a moment, then suddenly he seemed to exhale all his resentment in a long, deep sigh.

  ‘It’s my wife,’ he said.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Muntjan’s her uncle, well, sort of half-uncle, really. But she’s got an overdeveloped sense of family responsibility. I tell her I’ve got my responsibilities too. I told her when I got Josif the job that if he didn’t do it properly, he was out. I meant it, believe me, Inspector.’

  ‘And what did your wife say to that?’

  ‘She said she understood. I was quite right. I had my job to think of. Only …’

  ‘Only?’

  ‘She said if Uncle Josif got the sack, he’d never find another job, and he’d not be able to afford to keep his room, so he’d have to come and live with us.’

  That must have sounded like the ultimate threat! thought Chislenko. He looked with pity at the unhappy supervisor. The man had more cause for worry than he knew. He’d just offered himself as another sacrificial victim to Serebrianikov. The only difficulty in presenting Muntjan as an advanced alcoholic in the grip of the DTs had been in explaining how he kept his job. Now all was clear. The poor bastard was in the trap beyond all hope of escape.

  But why should he be feeling this degree of sympathy? Chislenko asked himself. The case he was building up against Muntjan was surely not only the best, but also the only possible explanation of the incident! Natasha was mistaken; her mother was mistaken; Rudakov was mistaken. They must all have been mistaken, mustn’t they?

  Of course they were, he told himself angrily. He was absolutely certain of it. All that remained now was to go and arrest Muntjan.

  He said to the supervisor, ‘I’d like to examine the south lift. Can you arrange for it to be stopped and put out of use for half an hour?’

  ‘Yes, of course, Comrade Inspector. But couldn’t you examine it just by riding in it?’

  ‘I want to look in the shaft, and at the winding machinery too,’ said Chislenko.

  The supervisor clearly thought he was mad but was wise enough to hold his peace. Chislenko too began to think he was mad as he got covered with dust in the shaft and stained with oil in the machine cabin. What he was looking for, he admitted to himself in that tiny chamber of his mind he reserved for his most lunatic admissions, was some mark of manufacture, preferably one which would indicate that the lift had been produced in Machine Plant No. 242 in Serpukhov in the year 1948.

  For a long time he found nothing. After a while this began to worry him. There were places where perhaps a name or a number might have been expected to be stamped, but when the dust and oil were rubbed away, only a smooth surface appeared; but something about the smoothness was not quite right. Was it his imagination or had something been filed out of existence here? He could not tell. He must be mad, playing about up here when he should be arresting poor Muntjan, the drunken bum who’d started all this brouhaha!

  Then he found it, screwed with Germanic thoroughness to the underside of the brake-lock housing, a small plate packed so tight with a cement-like mix of dust and oil that he had
to chip at it with his pocket knife before the letters slowly emerged.

  Elsheimer GmbH Chemnitz, and a reference code, FST 1639–2.

  Carefully he copied them down in his notebook before triumphantly emerging from the machine cabin at the top of the shaft. The supervisor looked at him in horror.

  ‘Would the Comrade Inspector care to wash his hands?’ he asked carefully.

  Chislenko examined his hands. If the rest of him was as filthy as they were, then it was a hot bath and a dry-cleaner’s he really needed.

  ‘Thank you,’ he said.

  The supervisor started the lift once more and they descended towards his quarters in the basement. On the way down, the lift stopped at the seventh floor and Chislenko felt a dryness in his mouth as the door opened. But his apprehension turned to surprise when he saw it was Natasha standing there.

  ‘Good lord,’ she said. ‘What on earth have you been doing? You’re filthy.’

  ‘More to the point, what are you doing?’ he demanded. ‘You don’t work on this floor. You’re on the eighth.’

  She flushed.

  ‘That’s right. But I had to go down to ground floor for something and the lift was marked Out of Order. Well, to tell the truth, I’ve tended to use the stairs anyway rather than get in by myself. But I heard it start moving as I reached the seventh landing and I thought, this is stupid, I’m not a child to be frightened of ghosts in broad daylight, so I came along here and pressed the button.’

  She spoke defiantly as if challenging him to laugh at her. When she looked defiant, she still looked beautiful. It was perhaps at this moment that Chislenko realized he was in love with her.

  He said, ‘Well, get in if you’re getting in. We can’t hang around here all day.’

  Gingerly she stepped inside. When the lift stopped at the ground floor, he said formally, ‘I may have some more questions to put to you later, Comrade Lovchev. I would like you to be available for interview this evening.’