One Night in Winter

Kobylov rolled his eyes at Mogilchuk. ‘He never saw a gun!’ he imitated Vlad in a girlish intellectual voice. ‘You’ll spit it out in the end.’ He ruffled Vlad’s hair and chuckled. ‘Mogilchuk, a word!’

The two MGB officers stepped outside. General Bogdan ‘Bull’ Kobylov was Beria’s right-hand man, and Colonel Mogilchuk, standing to attention in his blue shoulderboards and tunic, hurried to light Kobylov’s cigarette.

‘Comrade colonel,’ Kobylov said, ‘remember Comrade Beria’s orders?’

‘A murder. A conspiracy. To be solved without regard to rank or position. The very words of the Instantsiya.’ Mogilchuk paused. ‘But they’re just kids.’

‘You milksop! You’re getting soft. There are two children with gunshot wounds on Professor Schpigelglaz’s slab right now down at the Kremlevka. And not just any teenagers either. Did you ever hear about the Lakoba case in Georgia?’

Mogilchuk pretended that he hadn’t.

‘Well, I’ve got some experience of working with kids,’ said Kobylov modestly. Comrades Beria and Kobylov had killed the Abkhazian leader Lakoba and then they had inflicted unspeakable torments on his young sons, but they couldn’t be executed until they were twelve so they were kept alive. On the day they celebrated their twelfth birthdays, Kobylov shot one and beat the other to death. ‘Comrade Stalin says, “You can’t make a revolution with silk gloves,”’ he went on. ‘But so far the order is: no French wrestling, and that suits me. I don’t want to hurt a bunch of kids either.’

‘So what do you suggest, comrade general? Should we wait for Schpigelglaz’s post-mortem?’

‘The Instantsiya wants this solved fast, Mogilchuk. It’s obvious what happened. Let’s just tie it up quickly and get on with some real work.’ Kobylov took a drag on his cigarette and then kicked open the interrogating-room door.

Vlad, startled, recoiled, knocking his chair over backwards and crouching in the far corner.

‘Hey, easy now! Not so jumpy, eh? Come on. Sit down again.’ Kobylov coaxed Vlad back into his chair. ‘Who else was in this poetry-reading, transvestite, cock-sucking, arse-licking, Pushkin-duelling strip club?’

‘It wasn’t like that at all, I promise!’

‘Look, just cough up the names and you can go home. Who helped Nikolasha plan the murder? Or did he do it alone?’

Satinov’s bodyguard, Losha, collected George from the football game later that evening.

‘What’s news, Losha?’ George asked anxiously as he got into the car.

‘On the shooting case? Nothing yet. Chinese saying: Never worry worry until worry worries you!’

George nodded. ‘How are you, Losha?’

‘Sizzling, son. Now, have you kissed that girl yet?’ He accelerated through the traffic in the Packard.

‘Which girl?’

‘Minka Dorova, you sissy. She’s your girl, ain’t she?’

‘Well, I suppose so, but I haven’t kissed her.’

‘What are you, a sissy or a man?’ Losha boomed. ‘She’s longing for a Georgian man. You can tell by the way she’s always looking around under those long black eyelashes. It’s time you kissed her. Now you’ve got to kiss her tonight. Or I’ll… shave off half my moustaches in protest!’

‘You’re joking, Losha!’

‘No, I swear. Everyone will say, “Losha, where’re your whiskers,” and I’ll tell ’em what a sissy you are. Ask her for a walk in Sokolniki Park. Give her a full meal. With girls, a full stomach goes straight between their legs. Kerboosh! Like a train when you put coal in the furnace. The train builds up steam and, kerboosh, it toots its whistle! Add a few shots of cognac. Losha knows. Call her now.’

George thought for a few moments. Losha was right. He did like Minka. He dreamed of her. It was now or never. ‘Drop me off at the House on the Embankment.’

‘Kerboosh! Attaboy!’

George, still in his Spartak football strip and white shorts, watched the limousine speed away across the bridge. He peered up at the eighth floor of the eastern wing of the modernist complex beside the Moskva. The lights burned in the Dorov apartment. He prayed Minka’s father, the Uncooked Chicken, wouldn’t answer: with any luck he would be at Old Square bullying his staff as usual. And surely her mother Dr Dorova was at the Kremlin Clinic? Ludmilla the housekeeper would be cooking supper for Senka, Demian and his own adorable Minka. He picked up the phone in the public phone booth, listening to it ringing, then he dropped the kopeck in.

‘I’m listening.’ Victory! Minka’s voice, soft as the buzz of a bumblebee.

‘What’s news? It’s George. My parents are driving me mad about… about the case. What about you?’

‘Same here. Papa says the club was un-Bolshevik, a bourgeois heresy. He thinks everything’s a conspiracy. But Mama says that’s nonsense. The school’s seething with rumours. It’s ridiculous! Shall we ask Andrei and Serafima to join us somewhere? I called Andrei earlier, and said we might…’

George panicked suddenly. Losha would have to shave off half his moustaches. Courage!

‘No, let’s just be the two of us tonight. There’s so much to discuss.’

A pause. Had she guessed? ‘Oh, all right. Are you inviting me to supper?’