The Beast in the Red Forest by Sam Eastland Page B

Gatkina. ‘It’s about time they made you a colonel.’
    ‘About time!’ echoed Corporal Korolenko.
    Gatkina turned and stared at her. ‘Must you repeat everything I say?’
    Korolenko did her best to look offended, turning up her nose and looking the other way, as if suddenly fascinated by the wall.
    ‘Well, no,’ began Kirov, ‘it’s not a promotion. Not that, exactly.’
    ‘Is it scandal?’ asked Corporal Korolenko, unable to sustain her indignation. ‘Because I love scandal.’
    ‘Then find yourself some general to seduce!’ grumbled Sergeant Gatkina.
    ‘I might,’ replied Korolenko, sipping at the scalding tea. ‘I just might.’
    ‘Spit it out, Major!’ commanded Gatkina, oblivious to their difference in rank.
    ‘It’s about Pekkala,’ explained Kirov.
    At the mention of the Inspector, a tremor seemed to pass through the room.
    ‘What about him?’ asked Elizaveta.
    ‘I’ve been given new orders by Comrade Stalin. I’m no longer tied down here in Moscow. I am to search for the Inspector, no matter where it takes me. He told me to scour the earth if I had to! And that is exactly what I intend to do. New evidence has surfaced. I can’t talk about it. Not yet. But I can tell you that there’s a chance, a good chance, that Pekkala might still be alive.’
    For a while, there was nothing but silence.
    ‘Tea break is over!’ announced Sergeant Gatkina. ‘Back to work, Korolenko.’
    ‘But I’ve just sat down!’ protested the corporal.
    ‘Then you can just stand up again!’
    Muttering, Korolenko left the room, followed by Sergeant Gatkina, who rested her gnarled hand gently on Elizaveta’s shoulder. ‘Not you, dear,’ she said.
    And then it was just Kirov and Elizaveta.
    ‘What did I say?’ asked Kirov. ‘Why did they leave like that?’
    Elizaveta breathed in slowly. ‘Because they know I have been dreading the day that you would bring me news like this.’
    ‘News that Pekkala . . . ?’
    ‘Yes,’ she told him flatly.
    ‘But I thought you would be pleased!’
    ‘Did it never occur to you that I might wish he would never come back?’
    ‘Of course not!’ replied Kirov. ‘I don’t understand you, Elizaveta.’
    ‘Do you know that when Sergeant Gatkina heard you were working with Pekkala, she gave you six months to live?’
    ‘Why would she do that?’
    ‘Because of something everyone can see. Except you, apparently.’
    ‘And what would this be?’ he demanded.
    ‘Death travels with that man,’ she said. ‘He is drawn to it and it is drawn to him.’
    ‘And yet he has survived!’
    ‘But those around him have not. Don’t you see? He is like the lamb that leads other sheep to the slaughter.’
    ‘That’s ridiculous!’ laughed Kirov. ‘Listen to yourself.’
    But Elizaveta was not smiling. ‘The first time I looked in Pekkala’s eyes, I knew exactly why the Tsar had chosen him.’
    ‘And why is that?’
    ‘Because of what he is.’
    ‘Because of who he is, you mean.’
    ‘No, that is not what I mean. If you go out there,’ Elizaveta aimed a finger through the wall, ‘in search of that man, I’m afraid you will never come back.’
    ‘Even if that were true, what choice do I  have? Stalin has given me orders!’
    ‘To look for him, yes, but how hard you look is up to you.’
    A look of confused disappointment passed like a shadow across Kirov’s face. ‘Even if I had no orders, you know what I would do.’
    She nodded. ‘And that is why I am afraid.’
    *
    With Elizaveta’s words still echoing in his head, Kirov returned to the office.
    Immediately, he set to work. After clearing everything off his desk, he laid out a map of Ukraine. Kirov’s lips moved silently as he whispered the names of places he’d never heard of before. Bolshoi Dvor, Dubovaya, Mintsevo. The vastness of it overwhelmed him.
    If Pekkala really is out there, thought Kirov, somewhere in that wilderness of unfamiliar names, then why did he come all this way to Moscow, only to vanish