Child 44 by Tom Rob Smith

walls covered in mould and slime. A five-day stretch was sufficient to ensure the body never recovered, sickness permanently stitched into a prisoner’s lungs. There were narrow closets, like wooden coffins, where bedbugs had been left to multiply and in which a prisoner would remain, naked, feasted upon, until ready to sign a confession. There were cork-lined rooms where prisoners were heated, cooked by the building’s ventilation system, until blood seeped out of their pores. There were rooms with hooks and chains and electric wires. There were all kinds of punishments for all kinds of people. The imagination was the only barrier and not much of one at that. All these horrors seemed small when placed beside the size and magnitude of the greater good.

    Greater Good the Greater Good the Greater Good

    The justification of such methods was simple and persuasive and needed constant repeating: these people were enemies. Had Leo not seen equally extreme measures during war? Yes, and worse. Had that war not won them freedom? Was this not the same, a war against a different kind of enemy, an enemy within but an enemy all the same? Was it necessary? Yes, it was. The survival of their political system justified anything. The promise of a golden age where none of this brutality would exist, where everything would be in plenty and poverty would be a memory, justified anything. These methods were not desirable, they were not to be celebrated and the officers who took pleasure from their work were incomprehensible. Yet Leo was no fool. Within this polished and practised sequence of self-justification there was a small amount of denial, denial which sat dormant in the pit of his stomach like an undigested seed pod.
    Finally, the last type of cells, were the interrogation cells. Leo had arrived at one such cell where they were holding the traitor: a plate-steel door with a viewing hole. He knocked, wondering what he would find inside. The door was unlocked by a boy barely seventeen years old. The cell itself was small and rectangular with stark concrete walls and stark concrete floors but so brightly lit that Leo squinted as he entered. Five powerful bulbs hung from the ceiling. Against the back wall, incongruous in the bleak setting, was a sofa. Anatoly Brodsky was sitting on it, his wrists and ankles tied with rope. The young officer proudly explained:
    —He keeps shutting his eyes, keeps trying to sleep. But me, I keep hitting him. He hasn’t had a moment’s rest, I promise you. That sofa’s the best part. All he wants to do is sit back and doze off. It’s comfortable, really soft. I’ve sat on it. But I won’t let him sleep. It’s like putting food just out of reach of a starving man.
    Leo nodded and could see the young officer was a little disappointed not to receive more gushing praise of his dedication. The officer took up position in the corner of the room, armed with his black wooden baton. Rigid, earnest, with red cheeks, he looked like a toy soldier.
    Brodsky was sat on the edge of the sofa, hunched forward, his eyes half closed. There were no other chairs and Leo sat on the sofa beside him. It was a preposterous arrangement. The sofa was indeed very soft and Leo sank back, appreciating the peculiar torture of this room. But he didn’t have time to waste, he had to work quickly. Vasili would be here any minute and Leo hoped that Anatoly could be persuaded to cooperate before he arrived.
    Anatoly looked up, his eyes widening a fraction. It took him a moment before his sleep-deprived brain recognized the man seated beside him. This was the man who’d caught him. This was the man who’d saved his life. Drowsy, his words slurred, he said as though he’d been drugged.
    —The children? Mikhail’s daughters? Where are they now?
    —They’ve been placed in an orphanage. They’re safe.
    An orphanage–was that meant as a joke, was that part of this punishment? No, this man wouldn’t make a joke. He was a