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

asked the professor. ‘Sofia, I knew through you, but those two, Maxim and Nadya, well, so many students pass through this conservatory.’ She tapped her cigarette into a metal ashtray. Beneath her calm demeanour she could be an absolute tyrant. It was considered all but impossible to get into her class, and certainly impossible to please her once you got there. ‘We lost so many students, past and present, during the war and since. From the German bombs, the siege and the starvation. I used to dream of food. One night I dreamt it was New Year’s Eve and instead of making dumplings I had married one.’ Lebedeva smiled but the smile did not last.

‘It is bad to be on a list. They must be in danger,’ she added.

‘Not anymore,’ said Rossel. ‘They are all dead.’

She recoiled and crossed herself, then caught herself doing it and stopped.

‘Why are you here?’ she said, looking him in the eye – no longer reminiscing with a favourite old student but confronting a man in uniform who was talking of the dead.

‘I am asking people who knew the victims.’

‘But why me?’ Professor Lebedeva spread her hands. ‘I told you, I barely knew those two, this Max and this Nadya.’

‘But you knew the others well.’

‘Not well,’ she protested.

‘Felix,’ said Rossel. ‘Him you knew very well.’

‘My student, yes, but how well do a student and teacher ever know each other? Passionate when he played, so I knew there was more to Felix than the prancing peacock he let us all see.’

‘Passionate in other ways, too, Professor?’

She held his gaze for a moment as if to convey she was making a mental note of his impertinence. As if she wasn’t scared.

‘He told you that?’

Rossel nodded.

‘Felix told me about all his conquests. That’s why I came to see you.’

‘Yes, he would mention it to you. The pleasure for boys like Felix is always less in the act itself and more in the telling of the tale. We were lovers, I admit it. I did not know the war had claimed him. Do you know how he died? Was it terrible? I hope not.’

Rossel saw no need to tell her the truth. The professor took a last drag at her cigarette and stubbed it out.

‘I loved him a little, Revol. Foolish I know. He was twenty. I was twice his age – more. But the heart cannot be tamed.’

‘Did Felix talk about any of them, back then? If they were all connected by something other than the murders themselves, my investigation shows it has to be by something that happened when they were here at the conservatory, when they were all students. I’ve checked the files and after that they all go very different ways.’

The professor stared down at the four names for a moment. Then she pointed to one of them.

‘The one called Nadya. Describe her to me.’

‘Short and round. A clarinettist. Chatty.’

She nodded. ‘Well, there is one thing then,’ she said.

‘Go on.’

Professor Lebedeva took off her glasses for a moment and gave them an unnecessary polish.

‘Felix liked to gamble, you remember that?’ she said.

‘He would bet on anything.’

‘One wager sticks in my mind. He told me he might be able to get us some food, horsemeat from a conservatory graduate who was in the army. That he’d put a bet on with this soldier about who would win what Felix – and others by then – were calling The Great Symphonic Contest. And he said a girl, who I think was the clarinettist you describe, would help him win because she had the inside track on what the outcome would be.’

‘The Great Symphonic Contest? Vronsky versus Shostakovich?’

Professor Lebedeva nodded.

‘Why not?’ she said. ‘It was the perfect game for someone who was being classically trained. The race between the two leading composers of the day to see which one of them would have their work become the anthem of the war. “Nadya has the inside track.” That’s what he said.’

Rossel closed his notebook. Then slipped it into his pocket.

‘I played at that contest, Professor. The great symphonic battle, the great audition. But so did many others.’

She stood. ‘Revol, may I be allowed to continue with my teaching duties?’

‘Of course, my apologies.’

She walked down the side aisle towards the double doors at the rear of the hall. She stopped halfway and turned, starting to say something. But she thought better of it and scuttled off.

*

On a whim, he called in at the library on the ground floor – a dusty maze guarded, as it always had been, by a couple of fearsome women. But they had no idea how to find a score written during the years of the siege.

‘Madame Shishani would know,’ said one, ‘she knows every piece of music that ever went in and out of this building. But, she’s away today, comrade, nursing her mother. Can you come back tomorrow?’

Rossel shook his head. Then sighed.

‘Not tomorrow. Later this week, yes. I have a prior appointment in Moscow.’

32

Thursday November 1

The round clock in the stone tower of Moscow’s Leningrad Station read 7.15 as Rossel and Nikitin walked down the granite steps that led to the city’s busy streets. A black limousine was parked up on the south side of Komsomolskaya Square. The morning crowds milling past it tried not to stare or get too close. They didn’t want to be noticed taking notice. But everyone knew a car like that must belong to someone important.

As they walked towards the black American Packard limousine, an MGB officer got out from the passenger side and came over to greet them.

Nikitin held out his hand.

‘Colonel Sarkisov.’

The officer shook it.

‘Comrade Nikitin.’

Rossel stood to attention and saluted.

‘This is the lieutenant I told you about,’ said Nikitin. ‘The musician.’

Sarkisov gave Rossel a quick appraisal.

‘We’ve met,’ he said. ‘Comrade Beria has read your file with interest, Lieutenant. I even heard him laugh at one of your many ill-advised student jokes.’ Sarkisov turned away again. ‘The chief used to play something –