Baxter frowned at his colleague, denied support, but said nothing. He nodded his readiness to the two Russians. Novikov led again; Danilov was the last to go into the room. The formaldehyde and disinfectant stench was as strong as before, but Danilov was not as upset this time. At their entry an assistant withdrew the coffin-sized drawer from the refrigerated bank in a wall to the left: there were puffs of whiteness from the freezing air inside colliding with the warmer, outside atmosphere. Novikov was careful to pull back the covering only to expose Ann Harris’s face and shorn scalp. The face was grey, like the American economist’s in the corridor outside: the death snarl had almost completely melted away.
‘Oh dear God!’ said Baxter, his familiar phrase. He swayed and then retched, so badly that Danilov thought the man was going to vomit. He put a handkerchief to his mouth, coughed, and then wiped his eyes. He said: ‘I’m sorry.’
‘Is this the body of Ann Harris?’ demanded Danilov, formally.
‘Of course it is,’ said Baxter. ‘Oh my God! Poor Ann.’ Weteyed he looked to Danilov for guidance. ‘What must I do now?’
‘Nothing. That’s all,’ said Danilov. He stopped just short of taking the man’s arm, gesturing him instead towards the door. Immediately outside Baxter leaned back against the wall, ignoring Hughes for several minutes. Once he almost retched again, at the last minute turning the distress into a cough, behind his bunched-up handkerchief. Hughes was smoking a fresh cigarette.
‘Awful,’ said Baxter, talking to no one. ‘It was awful.’
Denied translation for a long time, Novikov said: ‘What’s the matter?’
‘He’s not accustomed to dead bodies of people he knows,’ said Danilov. ‘Few are.’
Baxter remained indifferent to an exchange in Russian, still slumped against the wall.
‘Are there any other formalities?’ demanded the economist.
‘No,’ said Danilov.
‘Let’s go,’ said Hughes, taking control of the other American. Baxter obediently fell into step as the Russians saw them to the elevator. The exit was just one floor up. There was uncertainty at the door: Hughes made as if to offer his hand but then quickly withdrew it. Baxter, making a conscious effort to recover, said in a strained voice: ‘We expect to be hearing from you, very shortly.’
‘Thank you for coming,’ said Danilov, refusing to rekindle the dispute.
The two Russians watched the other men go towards their embassy car, parked at the kerb with the driver holding the door open. Novikov said: ‘I didn’t need to speak the language to understand. You’ve upset them, haven’t you? They’re annoyed!’
‘Let’s hope your post-mortem report is comprehensive enough not to upset them further,’ said Danilov, irritated by the other man.
The permanently assigned police car was outside, about twenty yards behind where the American vehicle had been. Pavin had remained at the wheel. Danilov opened the passenger door but didn’t get in, leaning through instead. ‘Go back without me,’ he said. ‘I’ll be there in a couple of hours.’ He could get to the Druzhba Hotel just about the time Larissa finished her shift.
‘You’d better come with me,’ said Pavin, nodding towards the car phone. ‘Lapinsk called. He wants to see you at once. Says it’s urgent.’
Just short of the Militia building Danilov pointed to a street kiosk and said: ‘Stop there. I need to phone.’
Pavin halted, not needing to ask why Danilov didn’t use the car telephone. Calls from the car were recorded and logged.
The Director was taking a stomach pill as Danilov entered. There was a staccato of nervous coughing as Danilov went further into the room. ‘There’ve been more complaints. Official demands for the release of the body and what you took from the flat.’
‘I know. They wanted to serve papers on me at the mortuary: I refused to accept.’
Lapinsk got up from his desk, going to the window to keep his back to the other man. ‘People are beginning to question if you should be allowed to remain on the case.’
‘I don’t think there has been any mistake so far in the investigation.’ At the very moment of speaking Danilov was abruptly seized by the impression that he
had
missed something that was very important. It was an unsettling, unnerving thought.
‘I think you’ve made enough personal protest, for whatever happened at the embassy. Your independence now is becoming idiotic’ Lapinsk turned back into the room, to look directly at Danilov.
‘I don’t want to continue any antagonism,’ insisted Danilov. Nor bow to it, from the Americans, he thought.
‘Is there any good reason for not releasing the body?’
‘I only got Novikov’s full report an hour ago. I haven’t had time to study it.’
‘The body could be released, once you’re satisfied with the report?’
Danilov decided that the man who had always supported him was anxious for concessions. ‘I suppose so.’
Lapinsk returned to his desk, with the slow walk of a tired man. ‘What about the stuff you took from the flat?’
‘I’ve provided a full list. It’s too early yet for me to know what I may or may not want.’
‘Why does the apartment have to remain sealed?’
‘I might want to examine it again. Something might come up from what I’ve already got. Or from the forensic report.’
Lapinsk released a breath, loudly. ‘Why the hell did you go barging in there in the first place?’
‘I wouldn’t have got in at all, any other way.’
‘I almost wish you hadn’t. It hasn’t achieved anything, has it?’
‘I don’t know, not yet.’ Or did he? He’d learned a lot about Ann Harris and was intrigued by a situation which apparently involved pain. And there was the coincidence – which was as high as he was putting it, enticing though it was to invest it with more importance – of a missing kitchen knife. But realistically he had to acknowledge he had found nothing to help him discover a killer. The only surmise he would allow at the moment was that the killer of Ann Harris and Vladimir Suzlev was the same person.
Lapinsk sighed again. ‘The Americans are insisting upon a progress report. There’s no progress
to
report, is there?’
‘It’s fatuous to expect it so soon,’ said Danilov, defensively.
‘What leads?’
‘None.’ It sounded pitifully inadequate: there was every reason for irritation and impatience, from everyone.
‘What’s the possibility of something emerging soon?’ demanded Lapinsk, the anxiety becoming desperation.
‘None,’ conceded the investigator again.
‘It’s not very good, is it? Or encouraging?’
‘No.’
Lapinsk sat examining him over a scrupulously clean desk for several moments, as if making a decision. Finally he uttered his bark-bark cough and said: ‘There are to be some changes.’
So he
was
being removed. Danilov supposed it was inevitable after the American animosity and the absolute failure of any development, however unreal that expectation might have been. He still felt resentment. It was taking away the support for his fragile integrity, and the inner pride which that integrity had in turn provided. Not once since his untarnished, totally uncompromised transfer to Petrovka headquarters had he been taken off an inquiry. Some – although not many – had never been concluded. Others couldn’t ever be solved, because the criminal proved cleverer than he had been: blows to his pride, although rarely admitted. Whatever, he’d adjusted. So why was this bizarre, inexplicable case, file number M-for-Moscow 175, any different?
Danilov, near to personal embarrassment, confronted the fact that this time it was more than integrity or pride. Maybe the reverse side of both. He’d
wanted
this case:
ached
for the chance thrust upon him. From those very first initial minutes in the wind-swept alley off Ulitza Gercena, Danilov had realized the opportunity. This could have been
it
. This could have been his unchallenged pathway to succeed Lapinsk: to earn the promotion and salary (with the official car!) and the interrupted privileges. But he’d pushed too hard: offended too many people in his anxiety, because he’d
wanted
too much. But still in proportion: material benefits, maybe, but the ambition had overwhelmingly been professional.
Who would take over? Kanayev was the most likely successor, next in seniority: three failed fraud cases in the previous two years and Kanayev drove a gleaming new Volga. Petrukhin was another possibility, although two recent prosecutions had failed through casual evidence assembly, which was suspicious, although it probably wouldn’t affect any selection. Zabotin was an outsider: too eagerly impetuous but he’d won his cases and he didn’t even own a car. It didn’t really matter whoever it was: he’d help as much as he could whichever man was selected. Not that there was a lot to contribute: hardly anything, as he’d already admitted. At least he could spare them the routine of initial evidence assembly. He’d spend a day – perhaps two – handing over what he’d got, careful to avoid passing on his own possibly misleading impressions or guesses or even preconceptions. He smiled, trying to keep the obvious regret from the expression, and said: ‘Who?’
Lapinsk’s face went beyond a frown, into a grimace. ‘Who?’
‘Is being assigned to take over?’
The coughs came, like an engine reluctant to start. ‘There is to be no reassignment. You are to remain the investigator. But we have had to make political concessions. The decision has been taken, beyond the Foreign Ministry, to accept the American offer of technical and scientific assistance.’
Danilov sat absolutely unmoving, trying to understand. There had to be more. ‘What else, beyond technical and scientific help?’
‘The American FBI have suggested a liaison officer.’
‘It becomes a joint Russian and American investigation?’ He hadn’t lost it! But what fresh dangers were being imposed upon him?
‘It’s judged necessary, politically,’ Lapinsk insisted. ‘And it’s to our advantage.’
‘The entire responsibility is no longer ours?’ anticipated Danilov.
‘Exactly!’
Neither would a successful conviction be entirely his, either. Another balance was quick to settle. Nor would a dismal failure. There was very definitely an advantage, political or otherwise. ‘How is this liaison going to work?’
Once again Lapinsk stared intently across the intervening desk, using the silence to make a point. ‘
Absolutely
,’ the Director insisted. ‘I want the attitudes of the past, whatever the causes, forgotten. I am
ordering
you – because I have been ordered myself to see that it happens – to cooperate completely. Everything shared: nothing withheld.’
‘Which includes Suzlev?’
‘Of course it includes Suzlev.’
‘Nothing like this has ever happened before,’ said Danilov, more to himself than the other man.
‘Never,’ agreed Lapinsk. ‘A successful investigation will be the most visible example yet of the bond between ourselves and the United States of America.’
Danilov was momentarily silenced by the brutal cynicism. Ann Harris was no longer a pretty girl made ugly, the victim of a maniac. She’d become a political pawn, to be shifted around an international chessboard: roll up, roll up, here’s Ann Harris, snarling-in-death example of Russian/American cooperation. He said: ‘Yes.’ It was all he could manage for the moment.
‘It’s our protection,’ insisted the nervously coughing man. ‘I never thought we’d be this lucky.’
‘Yes,’ repeated Danilov. Stirring himself, he said: ‘Do we have a name: know who the liaison is going to be?’
‘Not yet. Just that he’s coming from Washington.’
Danilov fully recognized, belatedly, that he has survived. And still had the opportunity to gain all the professional benefits and advantages he’d hoped to achieve.
If
the investigation trapped a killer. ‘I’ll do nothing to create problems,’ he assured his superior. He probably wouldn’t get a further chance.
‘One more problem,’ warned Lapinsk, in immediate confirmation of the unspoken thought. ‘That’s all it will take. One more mistake and it will be taken away from you. Everything. You might be allowed to remain in the department but effectively your career will be over. I won’t protect you any more: couldn’t risk protecting you any more.’
Danilov decided he was a prepared and trussed sacrifice for any future difficulty or disaster. His mind stayed with one word –
trussed –
momentarily unable to recall where he had encountered it recently. And then he remembered. It had been the word used by Ann Harris’s economist friend in Washington, to describe what it was like to be the victim of bondage. Danilov decided he didn’t feel quite that helpless, not yet. Close, though.
Larissa was annoyed and determined to show it, irritably shrugging off his first attempt to kiss her, slumping in the narrow hotel room chair that enclosed her like a protective cast so that the only way he could make any effective contact was to kneel at her feet, which he guessed was what she wanted. When he stretched up to kiss her from the ungainly kneeling position she again turned her head away from him.
‘I got here as soon as I could.’ He should really have gone back to his office to study the pathologist’s report. He hoped it would not be incomplete, forcing further contact with the childishly obstructive man.