Arkady ignored Minin’s list. What could be found, he thought, would be more obvious. Sooner or later an apartment fit a man like a shell. He might be gone, but his outline stayed in a worn chair, a photo, a crust of food, a forgotten letter, in the smell of hope or despair. In part he took this approach because technological support for investigations was so weak. The militia had invested in German and Swedish gear, spectrographs and hemotypers, which lay unused for lack of parts for dearth of funds. There was no computer matching of blood or license plates, let alone of something so laughably out of reach as “genetic fingerprints.” What Soviet forensic labs possessed were archaic chemistry sets of blackened test tubes, gas burners and curlicues of glass piping that the West hadn’t seen in fifty years. Polina had extracted answers from the body of Rudy Rosen in spite of her equipment, not because of it.

Since the chain of hard evidence tended to be thin, a Soviet investigator was more dependent on softer clues, on social nuance and logic. Arkady knew investigators who believed that with a sufficiently clear understanding of the scene of a homicide, they could deduce a murderer’s sex, age, occupation and hobbies. The only place in the Soviet Union where psychological analysis was allowed to thrive was criminal investigation.

Of course Soviet investigators had always relied on confession, too. Confession solved everything. But confession really worked only with amateurs and innocents. Makhmud or Kim would no more confess to a crime than suddenly burst into Latin.

What had this apartment said so far? One thing: “Where is Red Square?”

Was Rosen religious? There were no menorahs, Torahs, prayer shawls or Sabbath candles. The portraits of his parents were the bare minimum of family history; generally Russian homes were photo galleries of sepia ancestors in oval frames. Where were Rudy’s pictures of himself or of friends? He was hygienic. The walls were smooth, scrubbed clean, not a nail hole to mar the blank space, as if he had effaced himself.

Arkady pulled books and magazines from the shelves. Business Week and Israel Trade were in English and indicated an international breadth of ambition. Did the stamp album speak of a solitary youth? Inside was a regular aquarium of outsized stamps of tropical fish issued by miniature nations and islands around the world. In a paper sleeve were loose stamps of nondescript variety: Czarist two-kopecks, French “Libertés,” American “Franklins.” No valuable red squares.

He stacked the books and moved to the bedroom, where he balanced the pile on the night table. The sleep mask had a poignant quality, suggesting that a combination of rich food and diet pills made for uneasy nights.