“Thank you, that’s useful. Was there anything else you noticed? Anything at all?”

“Only the footsteps-they’re blurred by the snow, but there were two of them, I’d say. Do you see? One behind the other?”

Korolev crouched down beside the trail Akunin indicated.

“But on the way out they walked alongside each other.”

“Look, Vanya,” Korolev said, pointing down, ‘this fellow’s steps are wider apart. So he was probably taller; quite a bit taller, by the look of it.” Starostin was looking at his watch and Korolev took the hint. “Thanks for your time, Nikolai. We’ll just follow the tracks out. There’s no need for you to wait around-but if you could join us, Sergei Timofeevich, it might be useful.”

Starostin made his farewells and left the investigators to their work, along with their willing assistant, the former referee. Korolev looked with regret at where the body had lain.

“I wish I’d seen it myself. There might have been something, you never know.” He turned to the others. “Come on; let’s see if there’s anything else.” They walked alongside the two sets of footprints, following them to the northeastern entrance. Someone had taken a crowbar to the gate and it hung open, the lock disembowelled.

“Another job to be done,” the groundskeeper muttered.

“Wait a second,” Semionov said and pointed to the snow in front of them. “No one else has been over here. Right, Sergei Timofeevich?”

“No, your colleague, the short fat one, said it was too cold to be running around in the snow on a wild-goose chase for a dead Thief.”

“Look, Alexei Dmitriyevich.” Semionov pointed to a half-covered empty packet of cigarettes. “Doesn’t that mean this would have had to have been left by the killers? Seeing as there’s snow underneath it.”

“Good lad, let’s get it out and have a look.”

Semionov stooped down and carefully picked the packet out, a small damp patch forming around it on the palm of his leather glove.

“Hercegovina Flor. Expensive. Restricted stores and restaurants. A friend of mine smokes them.” Semionov imparted the last piece of information with a certain reluctance.

“A woman friend?”

“Men smoke them too,” Semionov said defensively.

“I see. Got something to put the packet in?”

Semionov rooted in his pockets without finding anything suitable so he tore a page out of his notebook and wrapped it round the damp packet before following the older man through the gate. There were indeed tire tracks, but the snow covered an asphalted area so no distinguishable markings could be made out, just tracks coming in and then going out, and a circle where the car had turned. They followed them to the main road anyway, just in case.

“A shame,” Semionov said, kicking at the snow.

“Well, nothing to take a cast from, but it looks like it was a car, rather than a truck. And how many people have access to cars in Moscow? Not that many. We’ll ask at the local Militia station-see if one of their patrols saw any vehicles near here last night. Is there a nightwatchman, Sergei Timofeevich?”

“Of course, but he normally keeps to the office building if it’s snowing.”

“Thank you. Ask him to call the lieutenant when he comes in. Ivan Ivanovich will give you the telephone number.”

Korolev was quiet on the drive back to Petrovka Street as he tried to make something of the visit to the stadium. The expedition had been useful he supposed. Now they knew there were two men involved, that one was tall and the other shorter, that they’d access to a car and that one of them possibly smoked Hercegovina Flor. Progress, sure, but unless the killer struck again not much to go on. He growled once more with the frustration of it all.

Semionov looked over at him.

“It’s nothing. Keep your eyes on the road.”

The motive must be the key. Nine times out of ten with a murder, if you found the motive you found the killer attached to it. Gregorin had as good as confirmed that the murder was linked to someone in State Security flogging artworks on the side. So, if the dead girl was a nun, the logical deduction would be that she’d been after some item of religious significance or value. Gregorin had seemed to hint as much. A relic, perhaps. Or an icon? Many relics and icons had been destroyed since the Revolution, as had the churches they’d been displayed in. Still, it was worth following up. But what about the dead Thief? He didn’t look like someone who’d have anything to do with icons, unless they were drawn in blue ink. It was confusing, but it seemed to him that if the killer wasn’t a madman, or a pair of madmen now, then it was odd the bodies had been left in such public places. There weren’t so many murders in Moscow that two like this wouldn’t stand out. So, although the electricity burns and the signs of torture were the only definite links between the victims, he was pretty sure the killers were the same, but it was worth considering whether there might be different motives for the murders. He caught Semionov looking at him again, and pointed his assistant’s attention back to the road ahead.

Hopefully Larinin, who’d gone back to Petrovka to see if he could find the Thief’s file, would come up with something. There must be a file-he’d seen it on the fellow’s fingers. If they knew which gang he belonged to, they could round up a few of his pals and give them a grilling. Not that Thieves talked to policemen willingly, given that cooperation with the Soviet State in any form was forbidden by their code. Even having a paying job was frowned upon, unless it was a front for criminal activity. He scratched his head in frustration-he felt like a dog in a field of rabbits, chasing after ideas that seemed to breed in front of his very eyes. And what was it Gregorin had said about the nun? That she was one of two possible candidates. Did that mean there was another American wandering round Moscow? What on earth were they up to, these Americans?

“Alexei Dmitriyevich?” Semionov said.

“Yes?” Korolev barely succeeded in keeping the irritation out of his voice.

“He was a real gentleman, wasn’t he? Starostin? And giving us two tickets for the final against the squaddies. Will we go? It should be a great game.”

“I don’t see why not, I’ve a feeling this investigation is about to hit a brick wall.”

“Don’t say that, Alexei Dmitriyevich. You told me yourself, my first day on the job-when it looks like there’s nothing to be done, that’s the time you go back to the beginning and start all over. One berry at a time, and the basket will be full. We still have avenues to explore.”

“Yes, there are certainly things to be done and berries to be picked.” He tried to sound more positive than he felt. They were driving along Okhotny Row and about to turn into Teatralnaya Square, when the Metropol came into view. And it occurred to him-hadn’t Gregorin as good as told him to go and talk to this American, Schwartz?

“Pull over, will you, Vanya? I’ll walk the rest of the way. I need to go and see someone.”

Semionov brought the car to a halt and noted his superior’s changed demeanor. “A berry, Alexei Dmitriyevich?”

“Maybe-we’ll see. Start looking into the cars, Vanya. There are probably only twenty privately owned cars in the whole city, so you’ll have to go to the factories, the big concerns, the ministries. See if you can find out who had cars available to them last night. It’s a needle in a haystack job, but you never know. And take that cigarette packet over to forensics.”

It would keep him busy and away from the Metropol-full as it was of foreigners, bigwigs, speculators and the like-and, also, as a result, the NKVD.