The Russian Interpreter

‘An address: “Churavayev K.S., Kurumalinskaya Street 93, Flat 67”.’

‘Konstantin’s?’

‘I suppose so.’

‘Give the name of the street to the driver. Tell him to drop us on the corner.’

As the car pulled away Manning became aware of a face looking in from the pavement. It was Raya. She seemed uncertain, as if she was unable to make up her mind whether to rap on the window, and when Manning looked back as the car turned the corner at the end of the street, she was still standing there, gazing uncertainly after them.

24

Kurumalinskaya Street turned out to be familiar. It was one of the narrow, busy thoroughfares Manning had walked along with Katerina, talking of God and love. Number 93 was a seedy tenement block lined on the street side with small, flyblown shops. The entrance gateway lay between a sign saying FO TWE R REPAI S and a grocery. The window of the grocery was boarded up, and on the boards someone had whitewashed: ‘Overfulfill the plan for the distributive sector!’ The letters had dribbled down to the pavement and had the appearance of being on stalks, as if they were an organic product of dereliction, a sort of complex urban cow-parsley growing out of the grey pavement.

‘I still don’t see what we’re going to do,’ said Manning, as they gazed at the outside.

‘We’re going to take advantage of Konstantin’s mistake,’ said Proctor-Gould. His weariness had vanished. He seemed excited.

‘What mistake?’

‘He shouldn’t have given us his address, Paul.’

‘Why not? He had to, if you were ever going to take up his offer.’

‘He should have rung later.’

‘What’s the difference?’

They walked through the archway into the courtyard. It was full of noise and movement. Small children ran about without apparent direction, shouting. An old woman walked painfully from one doorway to another with a bucket of water. A man with a shaven head wearing striped pyjamas came out of a door, walked slowly into the middle of the yard, stopped, yawned, scratched each armpit in turn, and then walked slowly back again.

‘The difference,’ said Proctor-Gould, as they cast about for the right staircase, ‘is that we’re going to get all the books back. For nothing.’

‘But how can we? Konstantin isn’t at home now.’

‘Exactly, Paul.’

‘You’re not thinking of breaking in, Gordon?’

‘We’ll see.’

‘But the books aren’t there. Konstantin sold them.’

‘I don’t think he did, Paul. I don’t think he can have done. Look, he was already back in the restaurant waiting for Raya to bring the second case when we arrived, and he’d had time to drink at least three cups of coffee. In fact he must have been expecting Raya about three-quarters of an hour earlier – at the time she would have arrived if I hadn’t stopped her. In other words, the only time he had to dispose of the first case was about as long as it would take Raya to get to the hotel and return with the second one. How long would that be? Well, it depends whether she went by bus or took a taxi. Either way it can’t have been much more than half an hour. Now I don’t believe that within half an hour he can have got the case open, examined the books, and found a buyer for them.’

‘You think he just took the case home and dumped it?’

‘Wouldn’t you, if you’d been in his position?’

‘I suppose so.’

A small boy crashed into Manning’s legs, looked up at the two abstracted faces above him, and ran away shouting.

‘But, Gordon,’ said Manning, ‘why did Konstantin say he’d sold the books if he hadn’t?’

‘I don’t know. Perhaps as an excuse for raising the price by claiming that he had to cover the fence’s margin as well.’

‘But that’s not the line he took at all. He said that he couldn’t get all the books back at any price. And then he said that he could get any one of them back for nothing.’

Proctor-Gould stopped and gazed at the ground, pulling his ear. Some of the children stood round in a semi-circle, watching them, and an old woman sitting on a doorstep shouted something that Manning couldn’t catch.

‘Well, I don’t know,’ said Proctor-Gould finally. ‘It was some piece of sales talk. The details aren’t important. All I’m interested in is getting the books back. Come on.’

Manning followed Proctor-Gould dubiously up a staircase in the corner of the yard. The walls of the staircase were pitted all over, as if they had been subjected to rifle fire, worn down to such a variety of levels of paint and plaster and brick that the mottling seemed almost uniform and intentional. On each dark landing there were four front doors, all of them the colour of Konstantin’s tie – neutral with age and dirt – except at the edges and around the locks, where use had exposed the wood itself.

The front door of number 67 was exactly like the rest, identified only by a rusted and empty bell-push on the lintel, with a piece of card stuffed behind the flange bearing the name ‘Churavayev’ in a ballpoint scribble.

Proctor-Gould rapped on the door with his knuckles.

‘Gordon, what am I going to say …?’ began Manning.

‘Sh!’