A Negotiable Instrument

Chapter Eleven

Tursunov returned to the office late in the afternoon. It was dark outside and Dolmatov thought his boss looked pale, cold, and listless. Tursunov gave no explanation of where he had been or what he had been doing, and Dolmatov wasn't about to ask. He knew that his boss needed to walk when he had things on his mind, a habit left over from his student days. From the little that Tursunov had told him about his life before he joined the police service Dolmatov suspected that being reminded of those days was part of the need. Tursunov had been happy then, that much was clear. A happiness that had been cut short, like his university career, by the death of his father. The walks, Dolmatov knew from experience, allowed his boss to put his thoughts in order. They had the unexpected side-effect of endowing him with a certain air of mystery. There was never a smell of alcohol on his breath, so it was natural that canteen speculation ran to whores. Whether Tursunov was conscious of this or not, Dolmatov had never been sure. The walks also acted as a pressure valve. They gave Tursunov and the people around him the necessary time to adjust their perspectives.

Dolmatov had known his boss for over ten years, both as his superior and now reporting to him, but he still didn't understand why Tursunov had become a policeman. He admired his capacity for hard work, his determination to uncover the truth of a situation, his ability to cut through the dead wood to the heart of the matter. Against that, his contempt for the job and most of those who did it had been obvious from the start. The stupidity and greed of the people they had to deal with, the shit they had to wade through on a daily basis, was eating away at him. But what really worried Dolmatov was that it appeared that Tursunov was oblivious to the effect it was having on him. Getting up from his desk, and flinching at the stab of pain that shot through his head from his bastard tooth, he went over to the samovar and prepared a cup of tea. He carried it over to the door to Tursunov's office, knocked, and went in without waiting for an answer.

'Cup of tea?' He put the cup down on Tursunov's desk and brandished his hip flask.

'Yes. Thank you.'

'I thought you might want something to warm you. Bloody cold out there.'

'Yes, it's cold. Stupid, really.'

'It might have helped it you had taken your coat.'

'Yes. No, I didn't mean that.' Tursunov lit a Zefir, his hands shaking.

'What did you mean?'

'Hickl. Stupid to hit him like that.'

'The lad is sure you had a good reason.'

'Is he? I find his faith in me touching. Well, I suppose I should think of a good reason, then. We don't want to disillusion the poor lad.'

'It will take more than that.'

'Do I detect a softening in your attitude?'

'I give him credit for his arrest of Hickl. That stunt with the motor car was a bit of quick thinking.'

'I told you he has a career in the circus waiting for him should he ever tire of the joys of police work.'

'Talking of tiring of police work, do you want to go for a drink when we've finished tonight?'

'What's the occasion? I haven't forgotten your name day, have I?'

'No. But it's been a while.'

'I didn't know you kept a diary.'

'We could go to the gambling den where Berdichevski spent his last, the one that joker Menshov told the lad about. Check out the locals.'

'So, it's work?'

'It needs to be done. We might as well do it at the same time.'

'It's a waste of time. There's no connection between Berdichevski's murder and the places he went to launder the counterfeit notes.'