Child 44 - Страница 41

Having recruited workers from the lumber mills to make up the search teams, Nesterov split the men and women into seven groups of ten. Leo was assigned to a group searching the forests beside State Hospital 379, on the opposite side of town from where the body was located. This was ideal since it would be better if he didn’t make the discovery. There was also a possibility that there were more bodies to be found. He was convinced that these victims weren’t the first.

The ten members of Leo’s team broke down into two groups of three and one group of four. Leo was working with Nesterov’s deputy, a man instructed, no doubt, to keep an eye on him. They were joined by a woman, a mill worker. It took them the entire day to complete their portion of the search, several square kilometres through difficult snow drifts which needed to be prodded with sticks to make sure there was nothing underneath them. They found no body. Reassembling back at the hospital, none of the other two teams had found anything either. These forests were empty. Leo was impatient to know what was happening on the other side of town.

Nesterov was standing by the edge of the forest, near the railway maintenance cabin which had been commandeered and turned into a temporary headquarters. Leo approached, trying to seem unhurried and indifferent. Nesterov asked:

— What have you found?

— Nothing.

And after a calculated pause Leo added:

— What about here?

— No, nothing, nothing at all.

Leo’s poise of cool indifference fell away from him. Aware that his reaction was being watched, he turned away trying to work out what could have gone wrong. How had they missed the body? Was it still there? The tracks were clearly visible. It was possible that the search perimeter hadn’t stretched as far as the body but it must have stretched as far as the tracks. Was it that the team hadn’t followed them to their end? If they were unmotivated, then they might have given up once the tracks continued past the edge of their designated search area. Most of the teams were returning: there wasn’t much time before the entire operation would be concluded with the boy’s body still in the woods.

Leo began questioning the returning men. Two militia officers, neither of them much older than eighteen, had been part of the team searching the area of the forests closest to where the body lay. They admitted there’d been tracks but they’d appeared to be innocent since they were four sets of prints rather than two: they’d presumed that they were nothing more than a family on an expedition. Leo had neglected to take into consideration that he and Raisa had made an additional set of tracks running parallel to those of the victim and the murderer. Fighting back his exasperation he forgot that he no longer had any authority and ordered the two men back into the woods to follow the tracks to their conclusion. The officers weren’t convinced. The tracks might go on for kilometres. And more to the point: who was Leo to give orders?

Leo had no option but to go to Nesterov, illustrating with the use of a map that there were no nearby villages in that direction, arguing that the tracks were suspicious. But Nesterov agreed with the two young officers. The fact there were four sets of prints made it an unlikely trail and not worth following. Unable to contain his frustration, Leo said:

— I’ll go alone, then.

Nesterov stared at him.

— We’ll both go.

Leo was following his own footsteps deeper and deeper into the forests, accompanied only by Nesterov. Belatedly he realized that he was in danger, unarmed and alone with this man who wanted him dead. If he was going to be killed this was a good place. Nesterov seemed calm. He was smoking.

— Tell me, Leo, what are we going to find at the end of these tracks?

— I have no idea.

— But these are your footprints.

Nesterov pointed to the tracks in front of them and then at the tracks Leo had just made. They were identical.

— We’re going to find the body of a dead child.

— Which you’ve already discovered?

— Two days ago.

— But you didn’t report it?

— I wanted to establish that Varlam Babinich knew nothing about this murder.

— You were worried we’d blame him for the murder?

— I’m still worried.

Was Nesterov going to draw his gun? Leo waited. Nesterov finished his cigarette and continued walking. They said nothing more until they reached the body. The boy lay exactly as Leo remembered, on his back, naked, his mouth full of bark, his torso a savaged mess. Leo stood back, watching as Nesterov made an examination. He took his time. Leo could see that his superior officer was outraged by the crime. That was of some comfort.

Finally, Nesterov approached Leo:

— I want you to go back, call the procurator’s officer. I’m going to stay here with the body.

Remembering Leo’s concerns, Nesterov added:

— It’s obvious that Varlam Babinich had nothing to do with this murder.

— I agree.

— These are two separate cases.

Leo stared blankly, bewildered by the assertion.

— But these children were murdered by the same man.

— A girl has been sexually assaulted and murdered. A boy has been sexually assaulted and murdered. These are different crimes. These are different depravities.

— We don’t know the boy was sexually assaulted.

— Look at him!

— I don’t believe, nor does the doctor I spoke to, that the girl was sexually assaulted.

— She was naked.

— But they both had bark, tree bark, ground-up tree bark stuffed into their mouths.

— Larisa’s mouth was stuffed with soil.

— That’s wrong.

— Varlam Babinich has admitted stuffing her mouth with soil.

— Which is why he can’t have killed her — the ground is frozen. If it was soil where did he get it from? Her mouth was stuffed with bark just as this boy’s mouth was stuffed with bark. The bark was prepared in advance, I don’t know why.

— Babinich has confessed.

— He’d admit anything if you asked him enough times.

— Why are you so sure this is the same killer? One child was murdered close to the station: careless, reckless, barely out of sight. The screams could have been heard by the passengers. It was an idiot’s crime and an idiot has confessed. But this child has been led almost an hour’s walk into the forest. Care has been taken, so that no one could interrupt him. This is a different man.

— Who knows what happened with the girl, maybe he wanted to walk further into the woods and she changed her mind so he had to kill her there. Why do they both have string around their ankles?

— This is a different crime.

— Tell me you’re not so desperate to prosecute that you’ll say and believe anything.

— You tell me what kind of person rapes a girl, kills her, and then rapes a boy and kills him? Who is this person? I’ve worked in the militia for twenty years. I’ve never encountered such a person. I’ve never heard of such a person. Can you give me one example?

— The girl wasn’t raped.

— You’re right. There was a reason the girl was killed — she was killed for her blonde hair. She was killed by a sick man. There was a reason this boy was killed. He was killed by a different man, with a different sickness.

23 March

Aleksandr closed the ticket office, lowering the blind and sitting back in his chair. Although the office was small, no more than a couple of square metres, he liked the fact that it was his. He didn’t share it with anyone nor did he have anyone overseeing his work. He had a kind of freedom, unburdened by quotas or productivity reviews. There was just one downside to having this job. Everyone who knew him presumed that he must be disappointed with how life had turned out.

Five years ago Aleksandr had been the fastest sprinter at Secondary School 151. People had believed he was destined for success on a national level, perhaps even an international one if the Soviet Union were to compete in the Olympics. Instead, he’d ended up in a sedentary job manning a ticket office, watching other people embark on journeys while he went nowhere. He’d spent years following a punishing exercise regime, winning regional competitions. And to what end? Timetables and tickets: work which could be done by anyone. He remembered the exact moment the dream came to nothing. He and his father had taken a train to Moscow, attending the selection process at the Central Army Sports Club, the CSKA — part of the Ministry of Defence. The CSKA was renowned for selecting the best athletes from all over the country and pushing them to become exceptional. Ninety per cent of applicants were rejected. Aleksandr had raced until he was sick by the side of the track. He’d run faster than he’d ever run before, beating his personal best. He hadn’t made the cut. On the return trip home his father had tried to put a positive slant on the rejection. It would motivate them to train harder, he’d make the cut next year for certain and he’d be the stronger for having been made to fight for his dream. But Aleksandr had given everything and it hadn’t been enough. There’d be no next year. Though his father had continued to press, Aleksandr’s heart wasn’t in it and soon his father’s heart wasn’t in it either. Aleksandr had left school, begun work, settling into an easy routine.