His parents had whispered about it in the bathroom as parents did in those days – with the taps running. ‘Can he be guilty?’ asked Tamara. ‘Read this,’ answered his father. Tamara quietly read out: ‘“Protocols of Interrogation of Mendel Barmakid . . .” But they could have used excessive methods,’ she said. ‘Excessive methods’ meant torture in Bolshevik language. ‘I doubt it,’ answered Satinov. ‘Look. He confesses everything and every page is signed by him. See? That’s convincing. If he wasn’t guilty, he wouldn’t confess. Confession is the mother of justice. The lesson is to tell the truth but never confess anything!’ George Satinov was repeating this to himself now. ‘Who is NV?’ Colonel Likhachev was asking. ‘And what was his relationship to Serafima Romashkina?’ George thought of Vasily Stalin. He recalled his brother David saying, ‘Vaska’s crazy about Serafima, and he always gets what he wants. When the rogue takes girls flying, they fall into bed with him out of sheer terror!’ What if Likhachev found out George had not told him about Serafima’s partying with Vasily Stalin?
