A Negotiable Instrument

Chapter Six

Tursunov closed the door behind him and looked around the room. Stangl was sitting on the far side, as far away from the door as possible. His hands rested on the table in front of him displaying the handcuffs that shackled his wrists. Dolmatov sat next to him, close but not intimately so, slightly further back from the table to give himself room for manoeuvre. The shutters were closed and bolted across the small window and the lamps were turned up, their quiet insistent hiss the only sound in the room. A third chair had been placed on the near side of the table ready for Tursunov. It was clear from the look on their faces that the two men hadn't made each other promises to visit at New Year.

Tursunov sat on his allotted chair and busied himself spreading his folders on the table. He let his body soak up the tension in the room, needing the stimulus. He had no illusions about the interrogation. He expected to get no answers, but he knew that a complete absence of information could be surprisingly eloquent.

'We know you call yourself Lothar Stangl,' Tursunov began without looking up. 'We also know where you live. There is one other fact that we know about you. Would you care to help us fill in some of the missing parts of your story?' Tursunov looked directly across at Stangl for the first time but got no response.

'We can make several assumptions about you. One - you have no official papers. Two - you are German. Three - you share an apartment with more than one man. Four - you were colleagues with a man who called himself Yuri Svyatoslavov Berdichevski. That is unlikely to be his real name, of course.' He looked at Stangl while he recited his list, but the use of the past tense when he referred to Berdichevski elicited no reaction. It might have been due to Stangl's poor grasp of the language, he thought. Or it might be that he was too much of a professional to be caught out by such an obvious trick. 'Five -,' he continued, 'Berdichevski, who was not only your colleague, but a man who was in the habit of dropping by your apartment in the early hours of the morning, was found with several counterfeit banknotes about his person. Six - we have a witness who states that Berdichevski was in the habit of spending these forged banknotes very freely, specifically by using them to gamble. If we are correct in our assumptions, that would make you an illegal alien. At best you will be deported back to Germany to face whatever it is you thought you had escaped from. Alternatively, you might face a long spell of imprisonment in a hard labour camp somewhere in the frozen depths of Siberia.'

Stangl shifted in his chair and Tursunov noted out of the corner of his eye the corresponding adjustment made by Dolmatov.

'Still nothing to say to us?' he asked again. 'Then let's see if a look at the fate that befell your former colleague might help understand that this is not a game we are playing.'

Tursunov opened one of the folders and began to spread the Kodaks out, positioning each so that the full macabre details of Berdichevski's end were graphically arrayed in front of Stangl. There was no movement from Stangl, who continued to stare back at him. Tursunov nodded to Dolmatov. His sergeant reached forward, clamped his brawny hands in a vice-like grip around Stangl's head, and forced him to look down at the Kodaks.

'Either of the two alternatives that await you would be preferable to your friend's fate. Unless, that is, you were responsible for this.' Tursunov pointed at the Kodaks. 'In which case your execution would be kinder and swifter, but just as certain.' He nodded again and Dolmatov released his grip on Stangl's head. Stangl stared back at Tursunov, his face betraying no emotional response to either the pictures or his words.

'Some kind of punishment, obviously. And a message to others. But what kind of punishment, and who are these others? Still nothing to say to us, Lothar? I can call you Lothar? I thought the Kodaks might have loosened your tongue. Not as loose as Berdichevski's, of course.' He nodded to Dolmatov again.