Myron Tkach

Myron Tkach is 54 and for twenty-five years has worked in the part of the State that prefers not to be seen. He was born in Lviv, the son of a physics teacher and a librarian, and studied law before being recruited to the security service in the final years of the previous regime. He rose with each reorganization, always one rung above whoever fell, and today is deputy director. He speaks little, hears everything and answers almost every question with another, in a tone that never rises.

He lives in a high-ceilinged apartment in central Kyiv, in an old ocher-fronted building, with walls lined with bookshelves, a pendulum clock he sets every morning by the radio and a leather armchair facing the window. Everything is in its exact place, the books in alphabetical order, the tea served at five, the light out at eleven. His wife travels a lot, the children live away, and he says he prefers it that way. He has a country house outside the city, where he receives friends.

He is tall and thin, with a long, clean-shaven face, short gray hair combed to the side and thin gold-rimmed glasses. He wears a dark gray old-fashioned suit with a burgundy tie, a steel wristwatch and fine, very clean hands, which he rarely moves when he speaks. He has a calm, cold expression, that of someone who is never surprised by anything, and a courtesy that warms no one.

About the man who came to dinner, his account is that of an old friend: twenty years of acquaintance, from before politics. The candidate had been speaking ill of the service at rallies, and he wanted to show he was not his enemy. The dinner was pleasant, they laughed, they toasted the guest's health, and the guest came without bodyguards and left at midnight, walking straight. He considers hospitality a duty and thinks whoever treats it as suspicious does not understand what friendship is.

Myron knows that a service official, owner of the house where the candidate fell ill after dinner, is the first name the detective will write down. When the question comes, he joins his fingertips, tilts his head and asks the detective to mind his tone. It may be the dignity of a man used to being treated with respect. It may be someone who need not raise his voice because he learned to dispense with it. The detective will have to decide which.