Freedom in a Locker

0:00 An Open Gate and an Empty Guard Hut

0:04 Narrator: Moscow, the late autumn of two thousand and four. The gate at Zhukovka stood wide and the guard's hut was empty when Volkov and I came up the lane from the train at four in the afternoon. Nobody in the hut, Volkov. Not even a dog.

0:21 Volkov: A house like this keeps guards the way it keeps heating. Someone has stopped paying for both. Olga: The guards went first. You're Volkov? I'm Olga. I telephoned you.

0:33 Volkov: You did. This is Doctor Melnik, who writes things down. Olga: A doctor. I hope we won't be needing one.

0:41 Narrator: You're holding that left hand very tight, Olga. The glove's stretched fit to split. Olga: Is it? I've— I've kept it shut for two days.

0:52 Volkov: Then whatever's in it matters more to you than the cold. What's happened? Olga: Someone is selling my husband's freedom. A stranger on the telephone. A fixer, he calls himself.

1:04 Narrator: Selling it to you. Olga: To me. And I've already paid half. Three hundred and fifty thousand dollars, in cash.

1:13 Narrator: Good heavens. Volkov: You don't talk like a woman who's been robbed. You talk like one who isn't sure.

1:21 Olga: I'm not sure of anything any more. That's why I rang you. Before I pay him the rest, is he real?

1:30 Dust Sheets and a Fire in the Drawing Room

1:34 Narrator: Indoors it was colder than the lane. Olga led us past dust-sheeted chairs to a drawing room where her husband's aide knelt at the fire. Olga: Fedya, this is Volkov, and Doctor Melnik. Friends.

1:50 Fedya: Friends. We don't see many of those now. Sit close. They've cut the gas.

1:57 Narrator: An oil baron's house with no heat. There's a joke in that, and I won't make it. Fedya: Make it, Doctor. Every taxi driver in Moscow already has.

2:08 Volkov: You're carrying the logs yourself. The guards are gone, the cook too, I'd guess. And you stayed.

2:14 Fedya: The cook went last. She cried on the step and took the good knives. Volkov: Naturally.

2:21 Olga: Fedya is the only one who didn't run. I don't know what I'd do without him. Fedya: You'd manage, Olga. You always do. So, Volkov. What sort of friend comes calling when the money's gone?

2:35 Volkov: The cheap sort. And what sort of aide stays? Fedya: The habit sort. Ten years I've carried Viktor's bags. Now it's parcels for the prison. Soap, yes. Shoelaces, no.

2:49 Olga: Fedya was with my husband, Viktor, in Siberia. On the plane. Volkov: Velinsk. A refuelling stop, the papers said. Five in the morning.

2:59 Fedya: Earlier. Ten to five. We were drinking tea. Viktor never slept on planes.

3:04 Volkov: Then you were awake, and sitting where you could see out. You saw them coming. Fedya: The lights first. Then men in masks running across the snow. Very quick, like a film.

3:15 Narrator: And Viktor? Fedya: Viktor buttoned his jacket. Volkov: Did he.

3:20 Fedya: I was in the cabin with him. Right there, with him. Then the door burst.

3:25 Out Between the Birches, Away from the Walls

3:29 Narrator: Olga would say nothing more indoors. She walked us out between the birches on a path gone to ice, until the house was only lit windows behind us. Volkov: You brought us out here to talk. You don't trust your own walls.

3:45 Olga: Walls, telephones, drivers. Since the arrest they listen to everything. Fedya says I imagine it.

3:54 Volkov: Maybe he's right. Tell me anyway. Olga: A week ago the telephone rang. A voice through a cloth, slow and rough. I say "he", but honestly, it could have been anyone...

4:07 Olga: It said it spoke for men in epaulettes. Seven hundred thousand dollars, and Viktor walks free. Narrator: Epaulettes. Prosecutors, generals. The people who put him there.

4:21 Olga: Who else could let him out? So I paid half. In a sports bag, in a locker at Kazansky station, and the—

4:27 Volkov: Which the voice chose. The number, and the code to set? Olga: Both. I left the bag late in the evening. Next morning, before eight, it rang again: go and look. Gone. And in its place, "proof", the voice said. Proof they can reach him.

4:46 Volkov: Show me. Narrator: A man's gold watch. Still warm from your hand.

4:52 Olga: I clasped it on his wrist myself, the morning he flew east. He always left it by the basin, and I'd— I'd run down the stairs after him with it, and he'd laugh at me, and...

5:06 Narrator: Take your time. Olga: Don't tell me there are a thousand like it. I know my own engraving.

5:12 Volkov: Then it left his wrist somewhere between your door and that locker. What does it say? Olga: That stays between my husband and me.

5:22 Coats On in the Hall as the Telephone Rang

5:26 Narrator: Back in the hall we were pulling our coats on, Olga on the bottom stair, when the telephone on the side table began to ring. I thought nobody rang this house any more. Olga: Nobody does. Nobody but one.

5:41 Volkov: Answer it. Say little. Let it talk.

5:50 Olga: Yes. It's me. Friday? But the banks won't— no. No, I understand. Wait, please wait—

6:02 Narrator: You've gone white. Sit. Breathe out longer than you breathe in.

6:07 Olga: The rest by Friday. Same locker. Or Viktor— or Viktor rots, it said, and they'll see that he rots slowly.

6:17 Volkov: Four days. It knows your accounts are frozen, and it reckons four days is enough to scrape up— Olga: Everyone knows my accounts are frozen. It's in all the newspapers.

6:27 Volkov: Fair enough. Did the voice ever name the watch? Olga: Never. Only "proof". "You have our proof." Over and over, as if I'd argue.

6:38 Volkov: So the voice has never once said "watch". Who here has seen it? Olga: Not a soul in my house knows of the watch.

6:48 The Visitors' Door in the Old Prison Wall

6:52 Narrator: Next morning we stood across from the old wall of Zarechnaya Remand Prison, where the visitors' door opened twice in an hour and let out only lawyers. Fur hat, fat briefcase, cigarette lit before the door shuts. That's Tarasenko, by Olga's description.

7:11 Tarasenko: You two have been watching that door since I went in. Press? I don't talk to the press.

7:17 Volkov: Volkov. A friend of Olga's. You defend her husband. Tarasenko: Defend. I file motions, and nobody reads them.

7:27 Volkov: New boots, old coat. Your fees stopped not long ago. Tarasenko: The day they froze the accounts. The boots were on credit. I'm an optimist, Volkov, God help me.

7:39 Narrator: Is it hopeless, then? Tarasenko: It's a political case, Doctor. The verdict was typed before the arrest. I'm there so the newspapers can say he had a lawyer.

7:49 Volkov: Who else gets in to see him? Tarasenko: Why? Volkov: Olga thinks he's lonely.

7:55 Tarasenko: He is. No wife: the investigator refuses her permit every week. No aide, no brother, no priest. I'm the only one they let in.

8:06 Narrator: I did a locum once in a remand infirmary. Families wait months for a permit. Lawyers walk straight through.

8:14 Tarasenko: Walk. Through two searches and a dog. Volkov: So anything that goes in to Viktor, or comes out, goes through—

8:23 Tarasenko: Papers. Signatures. His complaints about the soup. Tell Olga to save her tears and send him soap.

8:30 Narrator: The only visitor, Volkov. Did Tarasenko carry the watch out? Volkov: Perhaps.

8:38 A Crew Room Behind the Hangars

8:42 Narrator: The pilots at Vnukovo kept a crew room behind the hangars, and we found Zakhar alone there that afternoon, packing a flight bag on a bench. Zakhar? Doctor Melnik, and this is Volkov. Olga sent us.

8:58 Zakhar: Olga. How's she? No. Don't tell me. Sit. I've ten minutes.

9:03 Volkov: Your aircraft's still impounded in Siberia, I'd think. So what are you flying? Zakhar: Ferry jobs. Test hops. I need the hours or I lose my licence.

9:13 Narrator: Packed for nights away, though. Shaving kit, two shirts. Ferry jobs travel heavy.

9:20 Zakhar: I go where they send me, Doctor. Volkov: Velinsk, then. You were up front when they came.

9:25 Zakhar: Flight deck. Engines off, fuel bowser alongside. Then floodlights, and a rifle at my side window.

9:32 Narrator: And Viktor behind you, in the cabin. Zakhar: Door open behind me. But they had me— they had me face down on the deck, knee in my back, before I could turn my head.

9:44 Volkov: So you heard the whole thing and saw carpet. Zakhar: Boots. Men shouting "floor, floor". That's what I heard.

9:53 Volkov: One more question, and no reason I can give you for it. Saturday just gone, at dawn. Where were—

10:00 Zakhar: I was asleep in my own bed. Saturdays I don't fly. Narrator: Quick.

10:04 Zakhar: Quick and true, Doctor. Volkov: You didn't ask what happened on Saturday. Most men would—

10:09 Zakhar: Most men haven't got a flight to make. Give Olga my— No. Give her nothing from me. Good afternoon.

10:18 Wet Wool and Stewed Tea Under the Platforms

10:22 Narrator: Kazansky's transport police lived in a duty room under the platforms, all wet wool and stewed tea, and Major Brandt heard Volkov out with her boots on the desk. Brandt: Three hundred and fifty thousand dollars walks out of my lockers, and I hear of it three days later. Well? Let's hear it, Volkov.

10:44 Volkov: The wife paid a voice on the telephone. It claims to speak for men in epaulettes. Brandt: Careful whose shoulders you hang that on. I wear a pair myself.

10:54 Volkov: Noted. I don't think it speaks for anyone but itself. Somebody whose fees froze with the Danilov accounts.

11:02 Narrator: And who can reach Viktor in his cell. That's what the voice keeps selling. Volkov: It even left proof. Something of Viktor's own, Major. Something he wore into custody.

11:14 Brandt: Which locker? Volkov: One hundred and fourteen. Brandt: Night book. My sergeants write down everything, God help me. Saturday. Twenty to seven.

11:26 Brandt: "Male, collar up, hat pulled down, at the hundreds row. Left with a sports bag." There's your money, walking.

11:34 Narrator: Well, well. Volkov: Your patrol wrote him down and let him walk. So he looked like he belonged here. Like a traveller.

11:43 Brandt: At that hour everyone here is a traveller. Now. Who reaches a man in Zarechnaya Remand Prison? His wife?

11:52 Narrator: Refused every week. Brandt: So, his lawyer. What's the name... Tarasenko. I've seen that one on the news, waving papers on the court steps. Fur hat, long coat.

12:07 Brandt: Turn the collar up and there's my sergeant's— Narrator: Tarasenko's a woman, Major. Brandt: So? Long coat, before daylight, my sergeant's handwriting. Anyone's a man. And all that about epaulettes, that's bait for a frightened wife.

12:26 Brandt: Leave the uniforms out of it, Volkov. Look at who needs the money. Volkov: Frozen fees. The only visitor. A voice through a cloth that could belong to anyone...

12:38 Volkov: The fixer is Tarasenko.

12:41 One Lamp and a Sleepy Clerk Near Midnight

12:45 Narrator: Near midnight we were in Vnukovo's dispatch office, one lamp and a sleepy clerk, who let us turn the pages of the departures log ourselves. You have your lawyer, Volkov. Why are we reading timetables at midnight?

13:03 Volkov: Because the pilot lied about Saturday, and I want to know what the lie covered before I let him go. Narrator: Then think aloud while I hunt. This clerk writes like a man knitting.

13:14 Volkov: Brandt's man was at the hundreds row at twenty to seven. Money out, proof in. One visit, one pair of hands.

13:22 Narrator: So whoever left the proof was standing at that locker. And if our pilot's in this book before seven— Volkov: Then he was an hour across Moscow, and he's out of it.

13:32 Zakhar: That's the dispatch log. Who gave you— Volkov: The clerk, Zakhar. He's lonely. Come in, you'll want to hear this.

13:39 Zakhar: I've been— delayed all evening, and now I've a flight to file. Narrator: Saturday, the early page. Here. Pilot Zakhar, departing ten past six, and your own signature beside it, I'd say.

13:54 Zakhar: Excuse me.

13:56 The Last of the Birch on Olga's Fire

14:00 Narrator: Olga's fire was the only warm thing at Zhukovka when we came back the following night. She sat in a rug beside it, and Fedya was feeding it the last of the birch. Fedya: Last log, Volkov. Tomorrow I start on the chairs.

14:17 Volkov: Then I'll be quick. Olga, you're not to pay the rest. Not Friday. Not ever.

14:23 Olga: You've found him. Volkov: I've found the voice. There are no men in epaulettes. There's Tarasenko.

14:31 Olga: Tarasenko? She— she sat at this table. She held my hand at the first hearing.

14:39 Fedya: The lawyer. Of course. Who else gets through that door?

14:43 Narrator: Her fees stopped the day your accounts froze. She told us so herself, outside the prison. Volkov: And the voice promised it could reach Viktor. Only one person does that now. The three hundred and fifty thousand dollars you left in a locker at Kazansky is gone, Olga. Write it off.

15:01 Olga: And if I don't pay, they— she— if I don't pay, Viktor rots. Volkov: He rots either way. Paying won't change that.

15:11 Olga: Fedya. You were there. Tell me again.

15:15 Fedya: We've been through it— Olga: He knew they'd take him. He must have known. He must have said something, anything, for me to— All those years, and I don't even know the last thing he... I don't even...

15:29 Fedya: He said nothing at Velinsk, Olga. Not one word for you. Olga: Nothing at all...

15:36 Down a Highway of High Dark Fences

15:40 Narrator: Fedya would not hear of the train. He drove us toward town himself, down a highway of high dark fences and brighter guard huts. Volkov: You braked before the whistle blew. You know this post.

15:54 Fedya: Every night since the arrest. A Danilov car. They search it for oil.

15:58 Narrator: Good of you to drive us, Fedya. It's late for a man who's chopping up chairs tomorrow. Fedya: Better than sitting in that house, listening to her not sleep. That lawyer. All her motions, all her talk of rights, and she robs a family that can't heat its own—

16:15 Volkov: People go strange when the money stops. You've watched it happen. Fedya: I've watched a cook steal knives. That I understand. Not this.

16:24 Narrator: You're angrier than Olga is. Fedya: Olga's too tired to be angry. I've given ten years, Doctor. Which shirts he packed. Which tie for the Kremlin, which for the bank.

16:35 Fedya: And it ends like this. His company in the newspapers, his watch in a station locker, his wife in a rug by the last of the birch. Narrator: She'll be warm again, Fedya. Volkov's stopped the payments, at least.

16:50 Fedya: Stopped the paying. Not the rest of it. Volkov: Drop us at Chistye Prudy. We'll walk from the ponds.

16:57 Fedya: Chistye Prudy. Get some sleep, Volkov. You've done Olga a kindness.

17:02 Volkov: Bolt the gate when you get back. There's no one else to do it. Fedya: There never was.

17:09 Dusk and the One Lamp That Worked

17:13 Narrator: Dusk was settling on the prison wall when Tarasenko came out through the visitors' gate and found us waiting under the one lamp that worked. Tarasenko: Volkov again. And the doctor. Has Olga sent soap?

17:28 Volkov: Olga's sent nothing. Olga's paid enough. Three hundred and fifty thousand dollars, stuffed in a left-luggage box at Kazansky station.

17:37 Tarasenko: Paid whom? Volkov: A voice that promised it could reach Viktor. You told us yourself, you're the only one they let in.

17:45 Tarasenko: I see. Fees frozen, boots on credit. So now I'm a station thief.

17:51 Volkov: Aren't you? Something Viktor wore into that prison came out of it, and lay in that locker as proof. There's only one door it could have come through.

18:00 Tarasenko: Two searches and a dog, Volkov. They take a man's shoelaces in there. And I walk out with his— what, his tie? I've worked unpaid since the day they froze him. I bought these boots to look like someone who wins.

18:17 Tarasenko: Enough. I'm done. Find him another lawyer, one who likes being called a thief at this—

18:22 Narrator: Then he has no visitor at all. Not one. Tarasenko: Tell his wife who to thank for that. And here. His arrest file. I won't need it now.

18:33 Tarasenko: Everything they took off him at Velinsk, item by item. Read it, if you can read. Narrator: She's gone, Volkov. This is the search record from Velinsk. Belt, one. Tie, one. Cufflinks, gold, a pair. Pen. Passport.

18:54 Narrator: And the last line, in the officer's own hand: Wristwatch: none. Volkov: Read that again.

19:03 Back Under the Prison Wall by Eight

19:07 Narrator: Volkov dried Tarasenko's file over our landlady's stove all night, and by eight we were back under the prison wall to hand it to her ourselves. Tarasenko: My file. Dried, even. Is this how a detective apologises?

19:23 Volkov: It's how I start, Tarasenko. I called you a thief at that gate, and I was wrong. Tarasenko: Say it again, slower. I bill by the minute.

19:34 Narrator: The proof in that locker was Viktor's gold watch. Olga clasped it on him the morning he flew. Tarasenko: And you had me carrying it out past the dog.

19:45 Volkov: Until your Velinsk officer wrote "Wristwatch: none." So it was off his wrist before anyone searched him. It never came near this prison.

19:53 Narrator: I filled in property sheets in that infirmary. They list a bootlace. Nobody forgets a gold watch.

20:01 Tarasenko: They might steal it, Doctor. But they'd write it down first. Volkov: True enough. He's had no visitor since you threw that file at our feet.

20:11 Tarasenko: Don't lean on me, Volkov. I'm already going back in. Arrest sheet. Persons aboard at detention. Danilov, Viktor. Pilot. Personal aide. Nobody else on that aircraft.

20:24 Narrator: That's all? Volkov: Then it left him in a minute or two, under the floodlights, before the door burst. Which means—

20:31 Tarasenko: Which means whoever took it off his wrist was one of those two.

20:36 Kerosene and Boot Polish by Daylight

20:40 Narrator: By daylight the crew room smelled of kerosene and boot polish, and Zakhar sat in it in a new uniform, buttoned to the throat. Zakhar: Volkov. I've a flight in an hour. Say it quick.

20:53 Volkov: The night clerk's book says Pilot Zakhar, departing ten past six, Saturday, in your own hand. Zakhar: I told you I was asleep in my own bed. I'd have given a month's pay for it.

21:05 Narrator: That badge is new. And it isn't Danilov's. Zakhar: No. It isn't.

21:11 Volkov: You didn't lie to hide where you were. You lied to hide who sat behind you. Zakhar: Fine. Yes. The state oil firm. Their— their directors. The men circling Viktor's company, waiting for a court to hand it over.

21:28 Zakhar: Out to Siberia at dawn, to walk round his fields like buyers. Narrator: And you at the controls. In his old seat, near enough.

21:38 Zakhar: They pay on time, Doctor. So did Viktor, until they froze him. Volkov: At Velinsk your back was to the cabin. Did you see who reached for Viktor's wrist?

21:48 Zakhar: Never. Floodlights in my eyes, then carpet. On my mother, I never saw.

21:54 Volkov: But you heard more than boots. In this room you started a message for Olga and swallowed it. Zakhar: Something he said, before the rifle came. I told myself it'd reach her another way, and I kept away from her. Before I fly them, I owe Olga two words.

22:12 Down the Birch Path as the Light Failed

22:16 Narrator: Volkov would not go in yet. He walked me down the birch path as the light failed, the house dark but for the kitchen window. You've said nothing since the airfield. That's never good news for somebody.

22:31 Volkov: Two men aboard with Viktor. One of them was in the air before the locker was opened. Narrator: Unless the pilot slipped the watch to someone else in all that shouting.

22:41 Volkov: Face down, with a knee in his back? Then trust it to a partner who'd want half and could hang him? No. One pair of hands, from the wrist to the locker. So hear two things side by side. Olga, in that hall: nobody under her roof knew there was a watch.

22:59 Volkov: And Fedya, in his car, mourning his master's watch, shut up at the station. Narrator: Grief talks loosely, Volkov. I've sat by enough beds. People say what they dread as if it's happened.

23:13 Volkov: We never told him there was any proof. Money, Kazansky, Friday. Of all a man owns, he dreaded a watch?

23:21 Narrator: Or Olga told him since, by that fire, with neither of us there. Volkov: Then she'll say so in front of him. Two sentences, Melnik. Can both be true?

23:33 A Dead Stove and an Empty Knife Block

23:37 Narrator: The kitchen was the coldest room in the house: a dead gas stove, a knife block with no knives, Olga in her rug at the table's end, and Fedya splitting a chair leg. Fedya: Mind the splinters, Volkov. Walnut. Burns slow and smells of money.

23:57 Volkov: Put the hatchet down a moment, Fedya. I've brought you back something you said. Fedya: Ten years I've said "yes, Viktor". Which one?

24:05 Volkov: Driving us to the ponds, mourning him, you spoke of his watch in a station locker. Fedya: Did I? Well, Olga told me—

24:13 Olga: I told you nothing. Fedya: But you— Olga: Not a soul in my house saw it, Fedya. It never left this glove. Not to sleep, not to wash. Once, on the birch walk, for Volkov.

24:26 Volkov: And the voice only ever said "proof". We told you money, Kazansky, Friday. Never a watch.

24:34 Narrator: So who told you, Fedya? Fedya: The papers. Somebody. The lawyer, she must have—

24:39 Volkov: The lawyer never had it. It came off his wrist in the cabin, before the search, and you were in the cabin. Fedya: I didn't... it wasn't...

24:49 Olga: Fedya. Look at me. Fedya: He pushed it into my hand. The lights were on us, they were on the steps, and he unbuckled it and pushed it into my hand. I meant to bring it to you. I swear I did. And then the cook on the step, and the gas, and the guards—

25:04 Olga: So you sold me my own husband. Fedya: Ten years, Olga! Which shirt, which tie, which car! And they'd have put me out in my coat with nothing. A payphone and a dish cloth. My collar up at Kazansky before seven. That's all it took. And you paid so fast, so fast, I—

25:22 Volkov: And the second half wouldn't come so easily. You needed proof, and the only proof you owned was in your pocket. Fedya: It was a watch. Only a watch. I never thought she'd...

25:33 Olga: Where is my money? Fedya: The garage. Behind the— behind the winter tyres. Most of it.

25:50 Olga: They listen to that telephone, Volkov, they'll— Volkov: Good. Let them listen. Kazansky, transport police? Major Brandt, your collar-up man is here.

25:59 Sleet from the Ring Road to the River

26:03 Narrator: Moscow, the next morning, lay under sleet from the ring road to the river; at Zhukovka, where Volkov had sat up all night with Fedya, a militia car came in through the open gate, with Zakhar's taxi behind it. Brandt: Fedya, is it? Major Brandt, Kazansky. Extortion and fraud, three hundred and fifty thousand dollars out of my lockers. You're under arrest.

26:30 Fedya: Your station's a long way off, Major. Brandt: The crime's on my ground, so you're mine wherever you sleep. You ride back to Kazansky in my car. And Volkov. I steered you at the lawyer. A voice selling epaulettes, and I wanted it to be anyone but a uniform. I'll own that.

26:52 Olga: Zakhar. You came. Zakhar: I owe you two words, Olga. At Velinsk, before the rifle... my back was to the cabin, but I heard Viktor say them. "For Olga." That's all. I thought the aide would bring you a message.

27:07 Olga: Oh, he brought me words. Through a cloth. "Not one word for you," you told me, Fedya, by my own fire, with this in your pocket.

27:19 Fedya: I never read it. I never— I never even turned it over. Olga: Then hear it. I know my own engraving: I had it cut for him myself. Don't trust. Don't fear. Don't beg. The old convicts' rule. He used to say every banker in Moscow should learn it.

27:39 Volkov: Two links for your notebook, Melnik. The Velinsk search sheet: wristwatch, none. So it left him in the cabin, never in the prison. And in his own car on the Rublyovka, he grieved for a watch nobody had told him existed.

27:55 Narrator: Then why put it in the locker at all? It was the one thing that could hang him. Volkov: Because the money was only half. Greed needs to be believed. He carried Viktor's last order in his pocket, and used it to make her pay twice.

28:10 Brandt: He'll wait for trial in Zarechnaya Remand Prison. Same roof as his master. Fedya: Bolt the gate after me, Olga. There's no one else now.

28:21 Zakhar: They'll all come asking, Olga. Lawyers, guards, men in epaulettes. Olga: Pay nobody. He told me so.

28:29 Narrator: Fedya waited out the winter in a cell, and in the spring he drew years enough to count every shirt he ever packed. Viktor's own case was not one Volkov and I could touch. And Moscow went on by the old convicts' rule: don't trust, don't fear, don't beg.