The Friday Flight

0:00 A Visitor Who Would Rather Stand

0:04 Narrator: Moscow, the autumn of nineteen ninety-seven. I am Doctor Grigori Melnik, and our visitor got no farther than the doorway of the Chistye Prudy flat, where Volkov's papers had long ago beaten the furniture and his coat lay across the piano. Mind the newspapers. Volkov, this is Nina, who telephoned. Do sit.

0:26 Nina: I'll stand, Doctor. If I sit, I'll start to think. I'm Arkady Zimin's secretary, the metals dealer. Three weeks ago Friday he went to Sheremetyevo and never boarded.

0:37 Volkov: By his own choice? Nina: A girl at the check-in desk saw two men in long coats show Federal Security Service passes. They walked him out.

0:46 Volkov: Then you want the Lubyanka. Not a man with a piano, and not— Nina: The militia said the same, and shrugged. That afternoon a man telephoned the office. An officer, he said. Zimin was only detained. Since then, nothing.

1:01 Volkov: Detained for what? Nina: He gave a reason. He went on for some time. I...

1:07 Narrator: You can't recall it. Nina: I stood with the receiver and two words in my head. Only detained. Eleven years I've taken down that man's every word, and I didn't— I wrote nothing.

1:21 Narrator: You heard the first thing you could bear and the rest went by, Nina. I've watched it on the wards. Volkov: A pity. An officer's reason is usually the interesting part. Nobody else heard it?

1:34 Nina: The machine did. Zimin tapes every call on that line. He says in Moscow a contract is whatever the other man said. The militia kept the tape.

1:44 Volkov: So a box at Petrovka knows the rest of that sentence. And he says, not he said. Three weeks, and fresh carbon on your thumb. You still go in.

1:54 Nina: Somebody must answer his telephone. Volkov: Show me his desk.

2:00 Two Rooms Above a Shuttered Bakery

2:04 Narrator: She led us down Myasnitskaya to two rooms above a shuttered bakery, and unlocked the inner one with a key from her handbag.

2:18 Nina: Zimin's office. No, he's only away. Monday, I should think. Yes, I'll tell him.

2:27 Narrator: Is that what they all get? Nina: It's what he'd want them told. There's the desk. I dust round it.

2:34 Volkov: Wage sheets, Ustelsk. Four months of them, and no signature. Nina: He meant to sign when he got back. The men haven't been paid since May.

2:45 Narrator: Poor devils. Volkov: And under them the Americans, dated first September. Control of the Ustelsk smelter, one hundred forty million dollars.

2:56 Nina: He was flying to New York to put his name to it. Volkov: Then he didn't run. A man who bolts doesn't leave the payroll on the blotter, or that little book with the brass lock. Now that—

3:07 Nina: His diary. No. Volkov: I haven't asked.

3:11 Nina: You were about to. It stays shut while he lives. Volkov: Was I.

3:16 Narrator: Leave it, Volkov. I've kept a journal thirty years. You only lock the pages where you've told the truth.

3:24 Volkov: Then tell me something else that's true. Who loses if the Americans sign? Nina: Kask, who runs the other metals house. Kask has wanted Ustelsk for years.

3:35 Narrator: A fresh glass of tea. Who's it for, Nina? Nina: It's eleven. He takes it at eleven.

3:43 A Boardroom Nine Floors Above the River

3:47 Narrator: Kask's house kept its boardroom nine floors above the river, and a lean man from security walked us to the door. Rudakov: Rudakov, security. Five minutes, the Director says. Chairs there.

3:59 Narrator: You know what we've come about? Rudakov: Zimin. All Moscow's asking. Director, Volkov and the doctor.

4:07 Kask: Sit. I'm Kask. I'll save you the question. August and September I was at my dacha. This I swear. I've been back at this desk not two weeks.

4:19 Narrator: Two months of country air, Director, and you've come home the colour of candle wax. Kask: I'm Estonian, Doctor. We're born this colour.

4:28 Volkov: That's the Americans' offer under your hand, a copy, and the corner's worn soft. You've read it more than— Kask: Every morning, as others read scripture. Ustelsk! My people kept that smelter breathing when nobody in Moscow could find it on a map.

4:44 Rudakov: Director, the lawyers would prefer— Kask: The lawyers may go and drown. He carries it to the Americans in a briefcase, like a man selling his grandmother's spoons!

4:54 Kask: Ustelsk never goes to Americans. Never. Zimin earned his bullet.

5:00 Volkov: Nobody has said he's dead. Kask: In Moscow? Nobody has to.

5:06 Dusk and the Absent Man's Chair

5:10 Narrator: The light was going when we climbed back over the bakery; Volkov took the absent man's chair and telephone, and Nina stood at the door.

5:28 Volkov: The Lubyanka duty officer. Volkov. Tell him he owes me for Tula. A name: Zimin, Arkady. Held from Sheremetyevo, three weeks ago Friday. Yes. I'll wait.

5:40 Nina: They'll say they can't say. They always say they can't say. Narrator: They changed the name over that door two Aprils back. Nothing else.

5:51 Volkov: Say again. No file at all? And passes shown at the airport that day? None issued. Thank you. We're quits.

6:01 Nina: Well? They won't tell you where he is. It doesn't mean—

6:04 Volkov: That building keeps files on men arrested in nineteen thirty-seven. It has none on Arkady Zimin. The Service never held him. Those passes were forged.

6:14 Nina: But he telephoned. An officer telephoned, he said— Volkov: A man telephoned.

6:19 Nina: No. No, he's only... I told them Monday. I've told them all Monday, three weeks of—

6:25 Narrator: Sit down, Nina. Here. Nina: I made his tea. This morning I... I warmed the glass first, he likes the glass warm, and he's... he's been...

6:38 Narrator: Leave that, it's stone cold. The kettle's hot, if you want a fresh one. Nina: No, Doctor. He won't be wanting it.

6:46 Nina Shuts the Door on an Empty Room

6:50 Narrator: Nina washed her face, came back to us, and shut the office door herself, though the outer room stood empty. Volkov: Forged passes, ready at the right airport on the right Friday. Who knew his flight?

7:04 Nina: The Americans. The ticket office. I did. And— and one other, and I can't tell you who.

7:11 Narrator: His own secretary, and you can't? Nina: Here's the carbon. "Dear", then a blank. He had me leave the name out, then wrote the envelope himself, with his back to me. "Come over to my side before my Friday flight to New York, and the sum below is yours." Then the flight, and the figure.

7:30 Narrator: Dictates the bribe and hides the name! Didn't mind you seeing the money, then. Volkov: Then whoever opened it knew the day and the hour. What's the figure?

7:41 Nina: He dictated seventy thousand dollars. Volkov: That's what he dictated. What does the page say?

7:48 Nina: Seven and eight sit— they're side by side on my machine. I typed eighty. He signed without reading, as he always did, and sealed it. I saw it on the carbon, an hour later, with the letter gone. I meant to own up after New York. I told not one soul.

8:08 Narrator: Oh, my dear. Volkov: So Zimin went to that airport believing seventy, and the page said eighty. You can't name who got it. But only its opener could know that figure, so—

8:19 Nina: So it goes back in the drawer.

8:22 Two Hard Chairs in a Room Blue with Smoke

8:27 Narrator: Petrovka thirty-eight gave us two hard chairs in a room blue with smoke, and the inspector across the desk gave us rather less. Volkov: The Lubyanka never held Zimin, Major Tarasenko. Those passes were forged.

8:43 Tarasenko: Forged. Well. For three weeks that was the Service's drawer, and nobody in this building puts a hand in that drawer.

8:52 Volkov: Now it's your drawer. I want the secretary's tape back, the office call. Tarasenko: It's a numbered box in a basement. I'll find it and take it to her myself. What else have you got?

9:03 Narrator: Kask swears to August and September at the dacha. Volkov: That file came very readily, for a shrug, and it's older than three weeks. You were after Kask before Zimin ever vanished.

9:17 Tarasenko: Two years back. Kask's lawyers stood me up in open court and read my salary aloud. The gallery laughed. Well. Patrol log, the Olkhovo post, sent for the day Zimin's name came in. Gate chained, shutters up, no smoke. Swear all you like, that dacha stood empty those weeks.

9:39 Narrator: A careless lie, from somebody with so many lawyers. Tarasenko: Careless or proud, Doctor. Kask sent those men with their passes. I'd sign it tonight, I'd—

9:49 Volkov: You'd sign it any night, Major. Answer me first. If the dacha stood empty, where was Kask when Zimin vanished?

9:57 Cabs Nose to Tail Beyond Departures

10:01 Narrator: Out at Sheremetyevo the private cabs stood nose to tail beyond departures, and the rank pointed Volkov and me to a rusting Volga with its window down. You're Yegor? They say your cab stood right beside that car.

10:16 Yegor: They owe me money. Town's forty dollars, friend. For that I drive, I don't remember.

10:23 Narrator: Charming. Volkov: Keep the money and stay parked. That Friday. Two long coats.

10:30 Yegor: Long coats, passes out at the door, flash, flash, everybody steps back. One takes the wheel. I'm smoking, window down.

10:38 Volkov: Their faces? Yegor: No faces. Volkov: A metre from your mirror. You saw no faces the way a sensible man sees no traffic police.

10:48 Narrator: A man pays for his place on a rank like this. He knows every car that stops on it. Yegor: And which ones to leave alone.

10:57 Volkov: And Zimin? Dragged out, was he? Yegor: That's the funny part. Strolled out like he's off to lunch. No hand on his arm, not one finger.

11:09 Narrator: Strange. Volkov: You watched him all the way, then. Did he speak?

11:13 Yegor: At the car. Something to the one in front, over the roof, cheerful. My window's right there, so I...

11:21 Volkov: Then you heard it. Nobody in the Service ever signed those passes, Yegor. They weren't the Service.

11:28 Yegor: Forged or real, friend. A man who'd carry a forged one isn't a man you quote. Volkov: What did Zimin say?

11:37 Narrator: There goes your money. Volkov: Cheap. He's just told me those words are worth running from.

11:44 Four of Us Sinking in a Panelled Lift

11:48 Narrator: We caught Kask leaving that evening, in a lift panelled like a good coffin, four of us sinking from the ninth floor with Rudakov at the buttons. Rudakov: Ground floor. Car's at the front, Director.

12:01 Volkov: Thank you, Rudakov. Nine floors, Director, and one question. Where were you?

12:07 Kask: At my dacha. I have sworn it. Volkov: The Olkhovo post logged a chained gate, shutters up, no smoke.

12:15 Rudakov: The Director's movements are the Director's. Talk to the lawyers. Kask: I have nothing more. You may ride down, it's free.

12:23 Narrator: How generous. Volkov: You don't ask what else the log says. The innocent get curious. You decided what you won't say long before I came.

12:34 Volkov: There's a small sound in this box, Director. What is— Kask: Only my watch. Do you audit my pockets also?

12:40 Narrator: A strong movement. Swiss? Kask: You're a doctor, Doctor. Not a jeweller.

12:47 Rudakov: Doors, Director. Mind the step. Narrator: I took that for the lift's machinery.

12:53 Volkov: So did I. The lift's still here.

12:58 A Cardboard Box on the Empty Desk

13:01 Narrator: Tarasenko kept the promise two mornings on, carrying a cardboard box up to the empty desk, where Nina sat with Volkov and me. Tarasenko: Your tape. Major Tarasenko, Petrovka. Nobody ever played it; it was the Service's drawer, so—

13:18 Nina: A major, to return a tape. You've found him. Tarasenko: Beside the Leningrad Highway, in the trees. One bullet, that same Friday. Three weeks in a Khimki morgue with no papers and no name.

13:33 Nina: That Friday. And I told them— I told them Monday. Yes. Thank you, Major.

13:40 Tarasenko: And your cabman's gone, Volkov. Yegor, cab and all. He'll come back when those coats are in a cell.

13:48 Volkov: Play it, Nina. Nina: Zimin's office. Voice: Federal Security Service. Your Zimin's stopped at Sheremetyevo. He is only detained.

13:58 Nina: Detained? But why? Who's this?

14:02 Voice: He offered an official a bribe of eighty thousand dollars. A day or two of questions. Tell nobody, it goes easier for him.

14:10 Narrator: Who talks like that? Volkov: Nobody. A cloth on the mouthpiece and a bad line; his own mother couldn't swear to him.

14:18 Tarasenko: So Zimin bribed. What's the matter with her? Nina: He said eighty. To me. I asked him why, and he told me—

14:26 Narrator: Nina. Nina: I heard detained, and then nothing in the room but those two words, and he went on talking... Tarasenko: And?

14:36 Nina: That's my finger. My finger on the wrong key, and he read it to me, and I never... I never heard it...

14:44 Tarasenko: What finger? Volkov: Show the major your drawer. Nina: He dictated seventy. I typed eighty. He sealed it unread.

14:55 Tarasenko: "Dear", and a blank. "Come over to my side." To whom?

15:00 Nina: He wrote the envelope himself. I never saw the name. Volkov: Whoever rang her read that page, or was told by the man who did. Which means—

15:09 Tarasenko: I'll tell you what it means. Who do you pay to come over? The man across the table. Zimin tried to buy Kask herself. Kask read that page, and the flight.

15:20 Up Again to the Long Table

15:24 Narrator: Nine floors up again, the long table lay between us: Tarasenko with a warrant, Volkov with a theory, Kask in the chair, Rudakov at the door. Rudakov: Have you paper for this, Major? The lawyers are twenty minutes off.

15:40 Tarasenko: I've paper. Let them come and read my salary to the cells. Volkov: A sealed letter, Director, from Zimin. A price to come over to his side, and his Friday flight.

15:52 Kask: I know of no letter. Tarasenko: Naturally. Volkov: His secretary mistyped the sum. Only the man who opened it could repeat that figure, and a false officer repeated it to her down the telephone.

16:05 Kask: Figures. You come into my house with figures. Volkov: And this. I heard you say Zimin earned his bullet before any of us knew he had one.

16:15 Kask: Then write it down. Volkov: Put it down, Major. Sworn to August and September, while the dacha stood empty those weeks. My name on it: Kask opened that letter and sent those coats.

16:27 Narrator: One sentence would end this, Director. Where were— Kask: No. Not to you. Not to these walls. I kept Ustelsk breathing, and you come— you dare— in my own...

16:40 Rudakov: Director, not one word more, please— Tarasenko: Kask, you're under arrest for the murder of Arkady Zimin. Narrator: Give me room! Open that collar! Listen to that tick, it's galloping—

16:51 Rudakov: Reception! A doctor, ninth floor, now! Get a doctor up here!

16:56 A Night Visit Across the City

17:00 Narrator: That night Tarasenko, Volkov and I sat at a narrow bed in a closed heart ward across the city. Thirty years on the wards, Director, and I asked if it was Swiss. A steel disc in a ring, shutting at every beat. That's a new heart valve.

17:19 Kask: Say it louder. There is a corridor that hasn't heard. Tarasenko: A bad heart gives orders like a good one, Doctor.

17:28 Narrator: Not from here, Major. Ward register. Admitted in August, surgeon's order in red: closed ward, no telephone, no visitors. Until ten days past that Friday.

17:41 Tarasenko: And we walk in tonight? Narrator: The rule was for a fresh valve, and it ended at discharge. Volkov: So the Americans' offer, first September, came to an office with an empty chair. No letter reached this bed; no order left it. I staked my name on the wrong door.

17:59 Tarasenko: Two years... Strike it. The charge is dropped. Your lawyers will enjoy that.

18:07 Volkov: You could have said so in your boardroom. Why the dacha? Kask: A director with a tin heart? They'd circle by morning. I lay here— I was frightened, if you want it. Counting it, every night.

18:20 Narrator: And in the lift, Director? Kask: Only my watch, I told you, lest rivals smell weakness. The Americans? I read it afterward.

18:31 Nina in Her Good Coat, Next Morning

18:35 Narrator: Nina came to Petrovka next morning in her good coat, and laid a small locked book on Tarasenko's desk, before Volkov and me. Nina: Not while he lives, I said. Well.

18:48 Tarasenko: That's Kask out, then. Forged passes, a dead man, a voice with your figure, and no reader. Where's the key?

18:58 Nina: On him, I'd have thought... Tarasenko: Nothing on him. Emptied to the lining.

19:04 Nina: Oh. Narrator: Give it here, Major. Thirty years of these. A paper knife'll do it.

19:12 Nina: You read it, Doctor. I'd only hear him. Narrator: The Tuesday before his flight. "Seventy, and cheap. Sealed it myself. I handed it to Rudakov at the Hotel Zarya, and he pocketed it without a word."

19:28 Nina: Rudakov. So that's my blank. Eleven years, and he— he turned his back on me for that name. Who's he?

19:37 Narrator: A lean fellow who holds lift doors. Volkov: Your carbon, beside his page. He writes seventy, the carbon says eighty. Beyond that, nothing. I've staked my name once this week.

19:50 Tarasenko: Kask's own man? Volkov: Ask Kask.

19:55 Back Again That Afternoon

19:59 Narrator: We went back to the heart ward that afternoon and found Rudakov ahead of us, at Kask's bed with a folder, while Tarasenko shut the door behind Volkov and me. Rudakov: Sign there, Director, and there. Major. Volkov. I understood you'd finished with this house.

20:16 Volkov: Nearly. Folders get through this door now. In September it was closed ward, no telephone, no visitors. So nothing Zimin wrote ever reached this bed.

20:27 Kask: You've cleared me already. Why are you still on my floor? Volkov: For this. Zimin's diary, the Tuesday before his flight. "Seventy, and cheap." Then the envelope: "I handed it to Rudakov," he writes, and you're the only one I know.

20:44 Rudakov: He did. At the Hotel Zarya. Kask: Did he.

20:48 Tarasenko: You stood in that boardroom while I arrested your Director over that letter, and you didn't think to— Rudakov: I was shouting for a doctor, Major. Nobody asked.

20:57 Volkov: I'm asking. What did it say? Rudakov: No idea. Burned it unopened, showed nobody. Rivals hand me envelopes, three a year. Read one and you've a problem.

21:08 Narrator: Not even a look against the light? I've never met that man. Rudakov: You've never done my job, Doctor.

21:16 Volkov: Then on your own account the letter stops with you. Director, why would Zimin want to pay this man? Kask: Because he ran my house while I lay here. Every key. Every signature.

21:30 Narrator: And what had he to lose by the Americans? Kask: A cut of Ustelsk. I promised it to him, for the day the smelter came to me. Their paper killed that promise, and he—

21:41 Rudakov: You promised the whole ninth floor something, Director. Tarasenko: And when you came back to your desk, did he speak of Zimin's envelope? Kask: He stood at that desk the day I returned and read me the accounts. He read me— no. He never told me of any letter.

21:58 Rudakov: You haven't signed, Director. Tarasenko: Leave that. Two men worked Sheremetyevo with forged passes, Rudakov, and you know how such men work a crowd. Walk it with me tomorrow. I could use the help.

22:12 An Evening in the Outer Room

22:16 Narrator: Volkov wanted the typewriter itself next, so that evening Nina took the cover off it in the outer room and I found a chair. Volkov: Seven. Eight. A tired finger's whole journey. Bring your tape to Sheremetyevo tomorrow, Nina. First I need every road to that figure shut.

22:36 Nina: We know the road. He had it in his pocket. Volkov: He says it burned unopened. So what else could have told it? The ribbon?

22:44 Nina: Cloth. It runs back and forth until it's grey. You'd read eleven years of nothing.

22:51 Volkov: The carbon went into your drawer, under your key, with nobody else the wiser. And Zimin never looked at the page at all. Narrator: Which leaves the voice, and you. What did it say, Nina?

23:04 Nina: Eighty thousand. As if he were reading me a bill. Volkov: Hm.

23:10 Narrator: I have you in the journal, that day with the door shut. You meant to own up after New York, and kept it to yourself till then. But a friend? A word over supper, or—

23:21 Nina: Eleven years without an error, Doctor. You think I passed that round with the bread? Volkov: A ribbon nobody can read. A drawer nobody opened. A man who signed blind. And a proud typist. If you told not one soul, who told that voice?

23:41 Departures Loud by Ten Next Morning

23:44 Narrator: Departures was loud by ten next morning, and Rudakov led Tarasenko, Volkov and me across it like a man showing a flat. Rudakov: Check-in there. Two men, long coats, passes held high. Nobody reads a pass, Major. They read the coat.

24:01 Narrator: Is that so. Tarasenko: And to the doors? Rudakov: Forty paces. Walk slow. Run, and somebody looks.

24:09 Narrator: You might have been here yourself. Rudakov: My trade's— my trade's stopping it, Doctor. You learn.

24:15 Volkov: Here's Nina, with her tape. Nina, this is the name on your envelope. Play us the end of it.

24:22 Rudakov: By all means. Voice: Tell nobody, it goes easier for him. Volkov: That caller had a figure, Rudakov. It's your trade. Where would he get one?

24:32 Rudakov: Secretaries talk, Volkov. Keeps men like me in work. Nina: Talk? One wrong key in eleven years, and I told not one soul. Not him. Not my own mother—

24:44 Narrator: Nina. Nina: Three weeks I warmed his glass, sick over it... afraid to tell him... and he was lying in Khimki with no name, and I... Volkov: There's your secretary, Rudakov. She didn't talk.

25:00 Narrator: Then Zimin let it slip himself, surely. Across a table, over a— Volkov: No. He'd have said seventy. He believed seventy and wrote it in his diary. He never read the page.

25:12 Tarasenko: Which leaves your envelope. Volkov: Burned unopened, he told us at that bedside. The ribbon's cloth, the carbon's locked away. Yet a voice on that tape says eighty thousand dollars.

25:25 Nina: My eighty. My finger... Volkov: So choose, Rudakov. You opened it after all, and you're the reader. Or you didn't, and you tell me who read it through the ash.

25:37 Narrator: Nothing? All morning he's clipped his sentences, and now he won't start one. Tarasenko: Then we'll walk the rest my way, Rudakov. Forty paces. Slowly. This is how it's done: by the arm.

25:53 Out Through the Doors, a Step Behind

25:57 Narrator: Tarasenko took Rudakov out through the doors to the cabs, Volkov and I a step behind, and on the rank sat a Volga we had last seen leaving. Yegor! You'd left town, we heard, cab and—

26:10 Tarasenko: His sister's, in Khimki. I sent a car last night and told him to watch these doors. Narrator: Well, well.

26:18 Yegor: That's him. That's the— that's the one in front. Look at him, friend, with the Major's fist in his sleeve!

26:26 Volkov: No hand on his arm, you told me. There's one on this man's. Now, what did Zimin say over that roof? Yegor: Now he's a man I can quote. Cheerful, like I said. "Rudakov, very clever! Arrest me, and nobody sees you taking my money."

26:42 Volkov: Ah. Narrator: He knew him. He walked out of that hall knowing him.

26:48 Yegor: Got in laughing. Volkov: And "no faces"? Yegor: That was for my health, friend. I knew the one at the wheel soon as he sat down. Hired driver, works this rank, three cars from me, four years.

27:03 Narrator: As I said. Every car. Tarasenko: His name.

27:07 Yegor: In your car, windows up. Name and plate both. Volkov: So I had that walk wrong. The passes were for the crowd, for the girl at check-in. Zimin was never fooled. He strolled out to a man he believed he'd paid.

27:22 Rudakov: He thought he'd bought me.

27:25 The Flat Again, Newspapers Where We Left Them

27:29 Narrator: Moscow, the flat again, the newspapers where we had left them: Volkov let his coat drop on the piano, and I unfolded the charge sheet. Volkov: Well. What has Petrovka signed?

27:43 Narrator: Rudakov, charged with murder and two forged Service passes. The wheelman your cabman named was taken on his own rank. He swears he sat at the wheel while Rudakov marched Zimin alone into the trees.

27:58 Volkov: I believe him. Nobody hires a driver for the rest of it. And a week's delay was never enough: hold Zimin that long and he signs the week after. Only a dead man left Rudakov his cut of Ustelsk.

28:10 Narrator: Tell me one thing. Detained would have done. Why give her a figure at all?

28:16 Volkov: To sound like an officer. I told Nina in this doorway, the reason is the interesting part. He gave the best one he had, straight off the page.

28:26 Narrator: And then swore at that bedside he'd never opened it. Volkov: He'd stood at the boardroom door and heard me say only the opener could repeat it. I staked my name on the wrong desk, and wrote his lie for him.

28:39 Narrator: The Americans are gone, and their deal with them. Nina still goes in. Somebody must answer his telephone. She tells them he's dead now.

28:50 Volkov: Does she. And Ustelsk? Narrator: The wage sheets are still on the blotter. Nobody at that smelter has seen a rouble since May.

28:58 Volkov: One hundred forty million dollars, and it came down to the gap between two keys. Put that in your journal. Narrator: I'll put this. Moscow forgets its dead sooner than it forgets a figure.