Tatiana: An Arkady Renko Novel (Arkady Renko Novels) by Martin Cruz Smith Page B

doesn’t sound like you got very far.”
    “You never know.”
    “Profound. Is there any milk?” Zhenya launched himself in the direction of the refrigerator.
    “See for yourself.” A psychologist had once told Arkady that Zhenya was finding it difficult to separate. Arkady was finding that harder and harder to buy. “So, what do you know about expensive, custom-made bikes?”
    “About as much as you do.”
    “That’s too bad, because I know nothing.”
    “Then you’re fucked, aren’t you? Well . . . I only came to pick up some clothes.”
    That served Zhenya as hello and good-bye.

9
    Whenever Arkady opened the laptop on his desk, he felt like a pianist who, as he sat at the keyboard, realized he had no idea which keys to hit. He felt the audience stir, caught the panicky eye of the conductor, heard whispers from the string section. Fraud!
    Arkady searched for “Kaliningrad interpreter.” It turned out that Kaliningrad interpreters doubled as romantic escorts, which was a bit too general. He tried “Kaliningrad conference interpreter” and learned that various conferences would soon be held: “Immanuel Kant Today,” “Endangered Mollusks of the Baltic Sea,” “Friendship with North Korea,” “Amity with Poland,” “Welcome to BMW,” etc., all of which demanded interpreters but gave not a hint of who they were. “Kaliningrad hotels” prompted a list that offered a fitness center, indoor pools and views of Old Town and Victory Square. More specifically, “Kaliningrad conference hotels” offered Wi-Fi, business centers, meeting rooms andauthentic Russian banyas. Arkady pictured foreign businessmen, red as boiled lobsters, whipping each other with birch twigs.
    Arkady felt reasonably sure that an international interpreter was well paid and well traveled. He discounted the possibility that the dead man had been staying with friends. Why sleep on a couch when he could enjoy the attentions of a luxury hotel where his employers presumably paid the bills? They wouldn’t want their interpreter out of reach, not when he was vital to any business they carried on. Anyway, there was something solitary about the interpreter. Arkady could not imagine two people with less in common than himself and Tatiana Petrovna.
    How long could they keep the interpreter’s body if he went unclaimed? That depended on shelf space at the morgue and the medical school’s demand for cadavers, in which case he would be whittled away, slice after slice, like a Spanish ham.
    Arkady called Kaliningrad’s small clutch of four- and five-star hotels; the replies were humiliating.
    “You want to know if we have lost a guest. You don’t know his name or nationality. When he checked in or checked out. Whether he was at a conference or alone. You think he rode a bike. That’s all?”
    “Yes.”
    “Is this a joke?”
    “So far.”
    One hotel advised Arkady that “all inquiries concerning criminal or suspicious activity should be reported immediately to Lieutenant Stasov.” A plum assignment, Arkady thought, to have passports, credit cards and luggage pass through his hands.
    Arkady moved on to “bicycle rentals.” He doubted that anyone would risk bringing his own custom bike to a city that wasfamous for the theft of anything on wheels. The problem was that thieves did not advertise and few shops could afford a website.
    Noon. After four hours at the computer, he couldn’t stand one more cup of bitter coffee and went to an Irish pub around the corner. The bartender was a genuine Irishman surrounded by faux atmosphere: crossed hurley sticks, a ladder of Irish football teams, a song wailed by the Chieftains. A flat-screen monitor showed of all things a bicycle race in progress. Arkady watched the wheels hypnotically go round and round and round. The chalkboard offered ten beers on tap. A food board offered, among other items, soda bread, barmbrack, goody and crubeens.
    Arkady was intrigued. “What is barmbrack?”
    “Fooked