Free The Margin of Evil! by Simon Boxall Page A

Georgii lay on the sofa and thought. He went through the description of the man the two children had given him. He also wondered if there was a connection between 'The Man' with the funny accent, Goldstein, and these Kevshor crooks.
    The next day there was no contact between Geo rgii Radetzky and Anya Trofimov or, for that matter, the day after that. The second Thursday came around quickly and he found himself walking at a brisk pace to meet Gerhardt. By the time Georgii arrived at 'The Immaculate Winter Garden,' Auguste Gerhardt was seated on the bench patiently waiting for him. Comrade Radetzky was late.
    He looked up with a frown and then shook Georgii's hand. 'Georgii, I'm so glad that you could make it.'  He paused, 'So now that you've got here, what have you got to tell me?'
    Georgii told him about his visit to 'The Cheka', and the mysterious arrival of the two files and their equally mysterious disappearance. Georgii Radetzky talked at length about Isaak Goldstein and his connection with 'The Kevshors.  'He believed that the whole key to the case lay with this organised group. But he had to be honest with Gerhardt he did not have a clue where all of this was leading. Gerhardt listened intently to Georgii's debrief.
    ' Tuesday night I want you to meet me near the main railway yard on the Southside of town at four thirty. Bring some field glasses, and some warm clothes with you. What you will see will really open up your eyes.  'With that Gerhardt got up and left. Georgii followed shortly afterwards.
    The next day was Thursday and it was one of those drab Moscow days. On the way to work Georgii noticed that the mood on the street was worse than ever. Ironically later that morning he was dispatched with a group of Red Guards to quell a riot outside a bread shop. The usual form was to shoot first and ask questions later. They arrived at the scene to find the area deserted. The bread shop was nothing more than a smouldering ruin. The surrounding streets were deserted. Georgii decided that the best thing to do was to conduct a house to house search. He knocked on the first door. There was no reply. Georgii instructed two guards to force the door. Inside the house the group moved through rooms crammed full of old men, women and children. They were all bunched up and huddled together. No one seemed to know anything. These were the leanest of times and nobody wanted to volunteer any information at all. Instinct told him that these 'Comrades' were all lying. He also detected an undercurrent of seething malevolence in each building that they entered. He could have evicted the inhabitants; he could have ripped up the floorboards and strip-searched the women and children. But intuition told him that he would have been putting all of their lives in grave danger. They returned to the Militsya Station where he expected to receive a 'balling out' from Trofimov. He got no such thing. Something of greater significance had crept onto the agenda.
    ' Comrade Radetzky, two boys have been reported throwing horse dung at visiting dignitaries going into and out of the Kremlin. I want you to go down there and bring these little rascals to justice. Do not come back until you have arrested them!'  With that she pointed her finger towards the door. Georgii left. He departed for Red Square.
    En-route, Georgii asked himself some hard questions based on the morning events. The dark and dirty expressions on the faces of the people appalled him, as did their living conditions, and why did people stay in a city where death loomed around every street corner. Where the government, acting in the name of 'The People', had outlawed all personal liberty: free speech, free press, freedom of association and political plurality, freedoms that had been won during the last years of Tsarist state. Looking back on it now, the last years of Nicholas's reign seemed like a long gone 'Golden Age.'  Where did it all go wrong he thought? The sad thing was, if he