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

‘Difficult?’ Vassya shook her head. ‘It was beautiful. I was alive, truly alive. You understand that?’

She looked at him as if he didn’t. But he had fought a very different war.

‘That’s why, unlike our neighbours, I’m not bothered about you and the Bolshoi Dom, militiaman. Up there you learned to take your chance. You needed luck to get you home. At first, I was scared every time I took off. But then I taught myself a trick – to pretend I was already dead. That way, I told myself, it doesn’t matter if a bullet or a piece of shrapnel hits me. The dead are braver than the living. They have already lost everything there is to lose. We weren’t witches. We were ghosts.’

‘So, why didn’t you stay on after the war?’ he asked.

‘In the air force? When the war was over, the men took over again and they threw us out. “You have a womb, comrade, go and fill it.” That’s what a staff officer told me. He very kindly offered to help with that, too, but I declined. I’m choosy about who I allow in my bed.’

‘Not last night,’ said Rossel.

Vassya tried not to smile. ‘It was cold,’ she said.

‘So then what?’

‘Now I work as an engineer for Comrade Samodurov, who is building the underground system.’ The window bubbled with condensation. She traced it with a knuckle.

Rossel got up from the table. Right now, more than anything else in the world, he wanted to stay.

But he had to go.

27

A light was glowing through the grimy windows of the militia station. The snow before the main doors had been recently disturbed. Rossel went inside.

He had asked Nikitin for two officers. Not really expected to get them, but he had. And Junior Sergeant Gerashvili and Captain Lipukhin had been joined by Dr Volkova – not present at the time of the raid, but who had found the courage to visit the morgue – to form a small, scared welcoming party.

In just two weeks Gerashvili had become a ghost. Her head was shaved, she was as thin as a wire and one of her front teeth was chipped and broken so she whistled slightly as she spoke. Which she did infrequently, in slow, faltering sentences that trailed away before she was able to finish them. All three of them embraced him, even Lipukhin. However this miracle had been engineered, in their eyes Rossel had arranged it – whatever the reasons for their freedom, Rossel was the source. It seemed that the MGB had relented, had a change of heart. Or simply given them more rope, enabling them to further condemn themselves with their own failure. Who knew which?

‘What did they tell you?’ he asked them.

‘Nothing,’ said Lipukhin. ‘They came and took me from the cells, brought us here and told us nothing more than we are to give you every assistance. So the investigation continues? It must be very important to somebody.’

It was disconcerting, actual leadership. Responsibility, duty, authority – with these he was familiar. Previously, the captain had been in charge, at least in name. Rossel had led not from the front but from the wings, guiding as subtly as he could, stepping in only when he felt it absolutely necessary. It was different to have all eyes on you, expecting you to make all the decisions, with people unable to act without your say-so.

The MGB had gone but, in case they had planted microphones, he chose his words carefully.

‘Let us proceed, comrades, according to the guidance of Lenin,’ he told his new charges. “To delay action is the same as death.” He may not have been referring to murder investigations but we must do our Bolshevik duty.’

Lipukhin sighed. ‘We are only four.’ He reached up and touched a yellowing bruise on his left cheek. Then glanced at Gerashvili. ‘And none of us exactly in the best of shape.’

Rossel raised his index finger and pointed around the room, ending at the grubby ceiling light. The captain nodded. They all understood.

‘Lenin also said that a Marxist must proceed not from what is possible, but from what is real,’ Rossel continued. ‘Following his advice, we shall now descend to the morgue.’

*

Three down, two to go. If they could uncover the remaining two identities, enough of the puzzle might become clear for Rossel to understand the intent behind the murders. The militia officer in him was hungry for progress.

But the more primal parts of his brain were making him as tense and wary as a hare that had heard a twig snap in the undergrowth. He was prepared for those two remaining bodies to point to him but that would hardly lessen the dread if and when everyone’s suspicions were confirmed.

He had no choice but to find out. The only way was forward.

Lipukhin looked a touch green around the gills but seemed ready to put life, or rather death, in perspective. He had, after all, just had a taste of MGB hospitality and now, by some miracle, he was out of jail and able to witness an autopsy other than his own.

‘Are you all right, Junior Sergeant?’ Dr Volkova took care in her tone to establish Gerashvili’s lowly rank. The question was redundant. It was obvious, simply from her appearance, that Gerashvili was in no way her former self.

‘I shall sit here and tell jokes to keep myself light of heart, while you dissect the corpse,’ Gerashvili replied. But the flatness of her voice robbed the words of all meaning. As if lightness of heart was a concept she could not fathom.

Vassya is right, Rossel thought, we are all ghosts. Just look at Gerashvili. A shade in human form. Why does any of this caution really matter now?

Dr Volkova bent over the mottled body and resumed her usual external examination, recording height, weight and other external characteristics. When she inspected what was left of the genitals, she clicked her tongue. ‘I hope our friend was not alive