“Despite a head that feels as if it belongs to someone else, I can only agree, young Vanya. It’s not so bad, being alive. What other words did the general have for me?”

“For us,” Semionov said, his expression serious, once again. “We’re off the case.”

It took a while for the news to sink in and Semionov watched him for his reaction.

“Has someone else been assigned to it?” Korolev said eventually, more to break the silence than anything.

“Paunichev. We’re to be assigned a new case on Monday morning. It’s because of your injury, the boss said. He didn’t want the case to lose momentum. He took the file and all the reports from me this morning.”

“Who did?” Korolev said, finding it difficult to concentrate on what Semionov was telling him and conscious of a vein pulsing in his forehead. He forced himself to keep his voice calm, but he could feel his stomach filling with acid.

“Comrade Paunichev. It was the boss’s orders, Alexei Dmitriyevich. There was nothing to be done. Also the general told me to keep quiet about the second American. If something comes of the missing person inquiry, then the general will decide what to do.”

“Were you allowed to tell Paunichev anything? About the woman Smithson having been a nun? Schwartz’s information? Gregorin even?”

Semionov shook his head and Korolev slammed his right fist into his palm.

“Then they’ve got away with it. Did Popov really order you not to tell Paunichev any of it? What words did he use? Exactly what words, please.”

“He said that all information acquired from Colonel Gregorin has been designated a State secret. Under no circumstances are we to give that information to anyone without express permission. He didn’t tell me not to tell Paunichev-he told me not to tell anyone.”

“And what Schwartz told me?”

“The same. We’re ordered off the case, Alexei Dmitriyevich. I would have thought you’d be pleased.”

Korolev leaned back in his seat and looked up at the ceiling. There was a cobweb in the corner of the room and in the middle of it a spider sat, no doubt looking down at him and thinking, “All I need is a bigger web.” To his surprise, a burst of laughter came from somewhere inside him.

“You’re right. We should be pleased. And Paunichev will find someone that fits for the murder in the church. It won’t be the right person, of course, but the statistics won’t care.”

Semionov was looking at him as though he’d farted at the ballet. Korolev tapped his head in apology.

“Forgive me, Vanya. I still have some pain-I’m probably not in the best of moods to hear this kind of news.”

“You don’t need to apologize, Alexei Dmitriyevich. They say that’s why you’re a good detective-the other investigators. They say it’s because you treat each case as if the victim was your mother. But if you’ll permit me to make the suggestion, you must harden your heart, Comrade. The path of the Party is not always clear to ordinary folk like us, but it must be followed.”

“Stalin?”

“No, Comrade-you.”

Korolev smiled in bleak acknowledgment-the case was in the past and that was all there was to it. So they drank a cup of tea, washing the unpleasantness away, and spoke of other things. Semionov had been out to Gorky Park with some friends and climbed to the top of the parachute tower. For a few kopeks, the attendants had strapped him in and he’d floated down to the ground beneath, just like a real parachutist. Except the parachute itself wasn’t really that white any more, Semionov remembered with a touch of disappointment; more gray after the recent rain and snow. These days it seemed everything in Moscow became dirty after a little while.

They sat for a while in silence, listening to a convoy of military trucks rumble up the lane toward Vorontsovo Pole as the Exercise continued around them. Semionov shifted on his chair.

“I have another message for you,” the younger man said. “The works meeting is this evening and the general orders your non-attendance.”

The words hung there like a bad odor.

“What do you think will happen?” Korolev said in a voice that sounded as though it belonged to someone else.

“It’s difficult to know. The general is much respected, but Mendeleyev is a black mark against the department and ‘vigilance’ is the word of the hour. My impression, and I accept I’m inexperienced in these matters, is that the activists are afraid of things spiraling out of control-Andropov’s accident shocked people. The good news is I detect no external pressure either way-so I would say that public self-criticism should be sufficient. Any more Mendeleyevs, however, and the situation would be different.”

The strange thing was that, as he spoke, Semionov seemed to acquire five years in age and his voice dropped an octave. Korolev was aware the younger man was a Komsomol activist, but the information he had seemed to come from a higher level than that. And he spoke with the clarity and confidence of an insider. It never occurred to Korolev to question what Semionov was saying, but he made a mental note that the young man was no ingenue in the ways of the Party.

“And you? Will you be going?”

“Yes, I’ve been appointed the Komsomol representative on the committee. Yesterday. I’ll support the general, if the situation requires it. Of course I will. But you must rest here. Otherwise you’ll be too tired to go to the game tomorrow.” Semionov smiled. “It will work out fine, Alexei Dmitriyevich. Trust me. What time shall I pick you up?”

“The game is at two.”

“And the American?”

“I don’t see why not. We have Gregorin’s permission to take him and it’s our duty to show him how Soviet sport surpasses that of the capitalist countries. Babel will come too. We’ll make a day of it.”

“Morozov said he could let us have a car.”

“But we should take the tram. He should have the full experience.”

Semionov sighed at the missed opportunity to drive. “The tram it is. Morozov wasn’t very keen to be honest-I think he blames me for the Ford. He was never going to fix the windscreen, you know-we’d have frozen to the seat in January. Perhaps it was for the best, in that regard.”

When Semionov left Korolev sat in silence for a while, and then stood, going over to run a finger along the spines of his small collection of books. He stopped when he reached the faded gold lettering of A Hero of Our Times. With a feeling of pleasant anticipation he opened the cover and read the first line:

I was traveling post from Tiflis. All the luggage in my small springless carriage consisted of one valise half-stuffed with notes on my travels in Georgia. The greater part of them, luckily for you, has been lost; while the valise, with its other contents, luckily for me, remains safe.

Korolev nodded to himself with satisfaction. Now, Lermontov, whatever else they might say about the fellow, was a man who knew which end of a pistol to point where, and how to start a novel.