The Bloody Meadow by William Ryan

handed them to him.
    ‘One. A list of the cast and the crew, including all the production staff, catering etcetera, etcetera, and the staff of the College who aren’t away with the students, which
isn’t many; and, two, a list of the people who have keys to the house. In other words, people who might have had access to the scene of the crime yesterday evening.’
    Korolev looked through the longer list. Beside each name was a number from one to three. ‘And the numbers?’
    ‘I had Comrade Shymko rate each person by the amount of contact they had with Citizen Lenskaya. 1 is daily contact, a 2 means occasional and a 3 means little or none.’
    ‘Excellent. We’ll start with the people who had daily contact.’ He looked down the list – his optimism was misplaced. ‘Most of them, it would seem.’
    ‘Yes. More than we’d like, for sure. Thirty-four.’
    Korolev sighed. He was beginning to feel the dead weight of exhaustion again, as if the last of his energy was being sucked into the floor through the soles of his feet. He rallied himself for
one last push.
    ‘Well, the sooner we start – the sooner we finish.’
    ‘I agree. Can I suggest we use Shymko’s people to arrange the interviews; it will be less disruptive for them if they know what we’re up to.’
    ‘Good thinking,’ Korolev said. ‘Let’s try and keep them short – we’ll interview them again tomorrow likely as not, but our first objective is to identify
potential motives and perpetrators, and anyone who could have been in the house at the time of death.’
    ‘And cherchez l’homme , right?’
    ‘Possibly,’ Korolev said, thinking that the most obvious lover to have been responsible for Lenskaya’s death was probably Ezhov and that wasn’t something he wanted to
think about too much. ‘As it turns out, she may have been romantically inclined, if you take my meaning. Savchenko for one, or so it seems, and probably Comrade Belakovsky as well, although
as Savchenko was filming down in the village and Belakovsky was in Moscow, that doesn’t take us too much further. Still, there may have been others – let’s find out who. It
doesn’t feel like a crime of passion, though; whoever did this was careful and covered their tracks, or tried to at least. My suspicion is that it was premeditated. Also, whoever did it must
have been quite strong. How much did Lenskaya weigh? Sixty kilos or so? It must have been difficult to lift her up to the bracket.’
    ‘Indeed,’ Slivka said, writing in her notebook.
    ‘We need to find out as much as we can about her background as well,’ he continued. ‘I have her Party record, but there’s a lot missing and not much about her private
life. And nothing about her relationships with the people on the filmset. Here, you’d better read it.’
    Slivka took the report and again there was that slight raising of the eyebrows.
    ‘Her Party record? It takes us a bit of time to get them even when they’re held in Odessa.’
    ‘Perhaps things are different in Moscow.’
    ‘I’ll go through it. Anything else I should have? Or know?’
    Korolev decided to give her the report on the film and the other information Rodinov had provided. He handed her the envelope and Slivka took the documents out, looked through them and
whistled.
    ‘Not to be discussed other than with me. And I mean with anyone. For both our sakes.’
    Slivka nodded her agreement, slipping the papers back into the envelope.
    ‘I have Andreychuk waiting outside for you,’ she said when she’d finished.
    ‘Good, I’ll see him as soon as I’ve spoken to the forensics men. In the meantime – ’ Korolev tapped Slivka’s lists – ‘we need to whittle these
down – opportunity, ability and motive. That’s what we’re looking for. Same as always.’
    ‘They filmed the crowd. Maybe we could identify some people from it – rule them out perhaps?’
    Korolev considered her proposal: the problem was he didn’t know any of the