City of Ghosts by Ben Creed (most important books of all time txt) 📕

you should have interrogated some clothes factories, some tailors, some theatrical costume designers? Perhaps you should have requested information from the Ministry for State Security itself? In short, comrades, there has been a distinct lack of progress, of legwork, of a revolutionary spirit of duty towards Soviet justice.’

And it is this lack of revolutionary spirit inside an insignificant police station in a district of Leningrad looking into five murders that has brought Colonel Sarkisov of the Fifth Directorate of the MGB, a man who begins his day with briefings to Beria and Stalin, all the way here to bawl us out, thought Rossel.

‘We are working under difficult circumstances, Comrade Colonel,’ Lipukhin began.

‘Difficult circumstances?’ Sarkisov sneered. ‘I am glad you were not one of our military commanders during the war, Captain.’

Perhaps Comrade Sarkisov could be persuaded to give some more indications as to the reasons for his presence here, thought Rossel.

He stepped forward, treading on a squeaky floorboard as he did so. The noise echoed around the room.

‘I believe the circumstances to which Captain Lipukhin refers are a shortage of personnel, given the arrest of the entire local militia department in the district where the crime was committed and the further difficulty in procuring the services of one of Leningrad’s pathologists for more than five minutes,’ Rossel said. ‘Which in turn may be to do with the nefarious conspiracy of doctors, apparently including pathologists, we read about in our newspapers. It is not easy for mere militia officers to determine a person’s identity when they have no face, teeth and fingers. Or perhaps I missed that part of training?’

Sarkisov’s thin blue lips turned upwards at the corners. The smile looked exactly like what it was: a strategic expression that he needed to practise a lot more if he were to come close to making it in any way convincing. He closed the file and put it back into the briefcase.

‘You have a tendency to insolence, Lieutenant. The NKVD officer who interrogated you, after your arrest in May of 1942, made the same observation. It took Major Nikitin some time, I believe, to properly convince you of the need to pay proper respect to the essential role played in Soviet justice by the organs of state security.’

Major Nikitin. For the first time, Rossel heard the name of his torturer, the man who had ended his musical career. The Chekist bastard who had taken his fingers. Major Nikitin. He bit his lip and stored the name away in his brain just as neatly as Sarkisov had tucked the file away in his briefcase.

That was his first thought. His second was that Comrade Sarkisov had not come to Leningrad without doing his homework.

‘But you were fortunate, is that not so?’ Sarkisov’s smile widened. ‘A month later, the chance of rehabilitation presented itself. For thousands, Lieutenant Rossel, the Sinyavino Offensive was a meat grinder. For you, your time with the 2nd Shock Army was an opportunity for redemption.’

Rossel felt everyone’s eyes on him.

‘You fought in the Sinyavino Offensive?’ Grachev said with a look of disbelief.

‘Many people did,’ Rossel answered.

‘But very few of them lived to tell the tale,’ Sarkisov broke in. ‘Although it seems you have not been telling your comrades much about your past – both distinctions and indiscretions. Understandable, if regrettable. Comrades, before you is a man who in the early stages of the siege was denounced by a concerned citizen – concerned, according to the record, over his disdain for, even hostility towards, the Soviet state – and yet who was given the chance to rehabilitate himself on the battlefield in Leningrad’s hour of need. In other circumstances, had his status not decreed otherwise, he might have been awarded a medal. Or two. Instead, he was grateful to seize with, if I may put it like this, both hands, the opportunity to wipe the slate clean.’

Rossel felt his face colouring. Over six years he had worked his way from private to lieutenant while managing to reveal almost nothing about his past to his colleagues. Pointed comments about his gloved hands had been deflected early on with vague references to the war. Grachev was a braggart but most survivors were guarded about their experiences and Rossel had managed to brush off any enquiries with the habitual reticence of the veteran. As a young violinist, the spotlight had been nothing to fear. As the ghost of Vosstaniya Street, it was toxic.

‘The sacrifice of the officer that stands before you,’ continued the colonel, ‘earned him the right to be accepted for further service to the Motherland in the Workers’ and Peasants’ Militia – though we might not call it that any longer, I am not sure – enrolling in, it says here, late 1946. And he is already a lieutenant. Promotion comes fast to those who fulfil their responsibilities and whose loyalty, though sorely tested, is no longer in doubt. Probably. But back to the matter in hand. Your erstwhile colleague, Junior Sergeant Gerashvili, is helping us with our enquiries on a related matter at the moment.’

So she had been arrested.

‘A related matter?’ said Rossel.

‘An instance of fraud. We believe she may have fabricated some entries into the sales ledgers of a noted jewel merchant in Passazh.’

‘But why would Lidia – why would she do that? She is an exemplary junior officer. She wouldn’t make up evidence.’ Rossel’s voice was too loud. ‘Many would, but not Gerashvili, comrade. It is barely credible.’

‘What you can, or cannot, bring yourself to believe is of no consequence here, Comrade Lieutenant,’ answered Sarkisov. ‘All that matters is revolutionary justice. And it is clear to me that, in an attempt to further her career, Gerashvili created evidence which she hoped would facilitate a prestigious arrest. One of the nurses she shared a room with at her apartment is a reliable informant who has confirmed to us that Gerashvili was dissatisfied with her role as the archive clerk here at Vosstaniya Street and felt she could, I gather, “better herself”. A