‘No Russian men. And I think she would have told me.’
‘What about other embassies?’
There was an immediate nod. ‘Her first thing was with an attaché at the French embassy …’ She looked up, pleased at the recollection. ‘And a name! Guy. His name was Guy. She was crazy about him at first: said he was fantastic …’
At last! thought Cowley. So it wasn’t a fruitless afternoon: he could get the complete identity of an attaché named Guy in minutes. ‘You said at first. What happened?’
Judy regarded him curiously. ‘He went back to France, of course. Over a year ago. They kept in touch for a while but he was married, like they all are, so it kind of fizzled out.’
Cowley felt almost physically deflated, nearly as deflated as he’d been at the end of the interview with Hughes. Deciding to use what he knew about the economist and the dead girl, hopefully to jog Judy Billington’s memory of other things, he said: ‘The guy who liked to hurt her, in bed: you wrote to each other about it. Did she ever talk or write about feeling threatened by him? Or anybody? Ever imagine she might have been picked out?’
‘Stalked, you mean?’ For the first time the woman became properly serious.
‘She
was
, by somebody.’ At Quantico the psychologist had told him victims were invariably strangers to their killers. So why was he pursuing this point?
It took Judy longer this time to answer. She did so shaking her head. ‘Never that she thought she was being picked out. She didn’t mind the pain bit, not altogether. Just sometimes. Said they were all a bunch of kinky bastards.’
‘You’re absolutely sure she wasn’t ever involved with a Russian?’
‘If she was, she didn’t say a word about it.’
At least Quantico hadn’t been wasted, although so much of what he’d been told seemed to be information that would be useful
after
an arrest, not directly guiding him towards making one. About which the psychologist had warned him, he remembered: normal investigation methods had to come first. ‘You’ve been very patient.’
She frowned. ‘Have I helped?’
‘Sure,’ he lied.
The provocative smile came back. ‘You look better in the flesh than you did on television, from Moscow. You looked very pissed off there.’
‘It was a media event. There wasn’t any point.’
‘Can you believe what that asshole Burden did today? He posed for the photographers at the cemetery. And answered questions for reporters. Practically shoved Ann’s parents out of the way. She told me once how he dominated her mother and father, but I never believed it was as gross as that.’
‘I would have thought by now he would have run out of complaints about the way the investigation is going.’ Cowley paused. Cynically he added: ‘But then maybe I wouldn’t.’
‘The
Washington Post
said you’d been sent specially to Moscow.’
‘Yes.’
‘Other times you’re based here?’
Cowley just stopped short of saying his regular apartment was practically within walking distance. ‘Yes.’
‘When you get back – when it’s all over – why not call me sometime?’
‘Sure,’ agreed Cowley, with no intention of doing so.
He watched Burden’s cemetery media event on Live at Five, back at the hotel. The Senator said he intended to give the FBI the courtesy of a reply to his belief in a cover-up, before initiating a public debate in the Senate. A beautiful, innocent girl shouldn’t be used like a shuttlecock in some God-knows-what international diplomatic mess: it was too bad if Russia had something to hide.
Cowley sat shaking his head in disgust. It was all performance, he thought: Burden at the interment, Judy Billington after the same ceremony. Who was bothering to grieve for Ann Harris? He guessed her parents were: somebody had to.
The FBI Director saw Burden’s telecast, too, on the set in the Secretary of State’s office to which he had been summoned yet again.
‘It’s a direct Presidential order now,’ insisted Henry Hartz. ‘It’s got to be the whole truth, from now on.’
‘OK,’ said Ross. ‘He’ll get the truth.’
Paul Hughes was intercepted at immigration at Dulles airport. There were four men: the one who did the talking and produced the correct identification genuinely was from the State Department.
‘I didn’t expect this sort of treatment!’ said Hughes, settling comfortably into the back of the waiting limousine.
‘You probably don’t expect a lot of the treatment you’re going to get,’ said one of the CIA men. It wasn’t a chance remark: it was important for Hughes to start to sweat right away.
Petr Yezhov didn’t walk all the time. There were certain places where there were seats, dark places where he knew people couldn’t look at him, where he sat and rested. He stopped that night near the Chekhov House, on Ulitza Sadovaya Kudrinskaya, on a bench beneath a sparse collection of trees, wanting to get things clear in his mind, which was always difficult. His mother didn’t believe him. He didn’t care unduly about that: she never properly trusted him. He was worried about the men, though. They were official: people who had to be obeyed. People who had to be obeyed could lock him up again. He was very frightened of that happening.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Leonard Ross was determined everything should work on his terms, although no one was ever to know it. Which was why he personally telephoned Senator Burden’s office, politely requested the meeting through John Prescott and assured the personal assistant there would not be the slightest inconvenience in Ross’s going to the Dirksen Building. The front entrance was cankered with photographers, reporters and television cameramen when the FBI Director, accompanied only by Fletcher, got there: when their arrival was realized, other journalists hurried to join the main group from side doors through which a less public entry might have been attempted. Ross shouldered his way through the question-yelling throng, insisting he had nothing to say prior to the meeting and nor would he have afterwards; any statement would come from the Senator. The Director and his aide were not finally free from the crush until passing through the door into Burden’s suite. Prescott was waiting in the ante-room: Ross guessed the young man’s superior smile reflected the attitude further inside. It did.
Burden did not rise from behind his football-pitch-sized desk. Beth Humphries was immediately alongside, although at a separate table: in front of her was a tape recorder, in addition to an already open notebook. James McBride, the media organizer, was on the couch that ran the length of one wall. He did stand. In contrast to Burden’s high-backed, padded-armed chair, the seat already placed directly in front of the desk was steel-framed, standard office issue. Ross went unquestioningly to it, smiling back to Prescott. ‘We’ll need another one.’ The seat produced for Fletcher was steel-framed, as well. Ross decided everything was going far better than he could have hoped.
Burden cleared his throat, relaxed back in the enveloping chair, a man contentedly sure of himself. He said: ‘I hope at last all this nonsense will end.’
‘I hope that too,’ said Ross, a man impatient of the charade of Washington. He saw the woman start the recording machine as he spoke. She also began making written notes. Looking back to the Senator, Ross said: ‘I do not think that any member of your staff should be present, during our discussion …’ He nodded sideways to Fletcher, who by now also had a tape recorder working. ‘… if you agree to that, my assistant will withdraw also.’
‘I don’t agree!’ said Burden at once, addressing posterity rather than the FBI Director. ‘I want a full record of this.’
‘You’re sure about that?’
‘Don’t patronize me, Mr Director!’
‘I don’t feel I am the one being patronizing, Senator. I sought to give you a chance.’
‘
You
sought to give
me
a chance!’
With the legal pedantry of his background, Ross spoke directly towards the woman and her machine. ‘Let the record show that the Senator was offered the opportunity of a discreetly private conversation.’
‘What the hell are you talking about?’ It was too soon for any real change, but there was just the slightest tightening of the earlier, completely relaxed demeanour.
The FBI Director refused the answer. Instead, jerking his head beyond the window, he said: ‘There is a mob of media people out there.’
‘We don’t control the press,’ said Burden, glibly.
Again towards the recording machines, the Director said: ‘Let the record show that there was no advanced FBI liaison with any member or outlet of the media. Nor will there be, after this meeting, from either myself or my personal assistant, Nigel Fletcher. We are the only FBI personnel present at this meeting.’
The complacency began to crack. Burden came forward in his chair and said: ‘I just asked you what the hell that sort of remark was all about!’
‘Making provable records,’ said Ross, simply. ‘That’s why you have a stenographer taking notes, as well as making a complete verbal recording, isn’t it?’
‘There have been times in the past when I have told …’ The politician halted, to correct himself. ‘…
asked
you to be careful, Mr Director.’
‘Which is what I am being, Senator: what we’re both being. So I’ll repeat my earlier suggestion. I think it would be advisable for us to talk alone, neither with staff present.’
Burden’s attitude now was the alertness of a jungle animal – a creature of the political jungle – sniffing the wind to detect an intruder into his territory. In a quiet voice – jungle animals don’t make sounds that might alarm – Burden said: ‘You tell me what you’re talking about, sir!’
Once more Ross gestured beyond the window. ‘I’m talking about media circuses and self-promotion and possible impediment of a criminal investigation. And of matters of a personal nature.’
It was possible to see Burden’s face colour, to reach puce: so long and so rare had it been for anyone publicly to confront the man with such disregard that for several moments Burden had difficulty making the words form. ‘I’ll destroy you, Ross! You hear me! You’re destroyed! Dead!’
The FBI Director sat as easily as he could in his steel-framed chair, not feeling the need to reply. Beth kept her head lowered over her notebook. There was the creak of leather, from where McBride had resumed his seat. There was no sound from behind, to identify Prescott. Burden was leaning positively forward over the football expanse, waiting for a reaction. Still Ross refused to give one. He was actually thinking of the theatre of a courtroom, reflecting how much better he had enjoyed it, even before his elevation to the bench. It was possible to resign the FBI Directorship, he supposed. But not yet: not too soon after this episode. It had always been important to win, when he was an advocate. The attitude hadn’t changed.
Forced finally to continue, Burden hissed the words. ‘I demand to know the truth, about what happened to my niece. The
whole
truth. In front of witnesses. Now!’
Ross prolonged the response, groping through his briefcase for the papers he wanted and then sorting them. Satisfied at last, reading from Cowley’s verbatim recollection of the intercepted telephone conversations, he quoted: ‘“I don’t mind head. Like it. Greek too. But Christ you hurt me last night. Made my tits bleed, you bastard …”’
‘… What in the name of God?’ exploded Burden, starting from his chair.
When Ross looked briefly up, he saw Beth’s face was close to being as red as the politician’s. ‘You demanded to know,’ Ross said, selecting a second transcript and starting to quote again. ‘“You didn’t say you were going to do that, when you tied me up. How would you like it with a dildo up your ass …”’
‘Stop it!’ roared Burden.
‘I’d like to,’ said Ross, calmly. Exaggerating, he went on: ‘Those are your niece’s words, Senator. There’s a lot more. Positively recorded. There are a lot of letters, talking like that, too …’ Ross hesitated, looking again at Beth: all Burden’s staff would have a very low level of security clearance. So Hughes couldn’t be named. Ross resumed: ‘She was sexually involved with a member of the American embassy, who we think was either being targeted or has already been suborned by Russian intelligence. At this moment, somewhere here in Washington, he’s strapped to a lie detector: before the interrogation is over he’s going to tell us everything we want to know. Which will unavoidably include every detail of the sado-masochistic affair he enjoyed with your niece. And which she clearly enjoyed, to a point. At first, we thought he’d killed her. It doesn’t seem now that he did …’
Ross paused, for breath. Exaggerating again, he said: ‘That was why there was the news blackout: to get him back here, into American jurisdiction. Which also protected the reputation of your niece. And let’s talk more about her. This man wasn’t her first lover, according to what we know. We don’t see any point in that becoming public knowledge. It won’t, not from the FBI or from any other source. We don’t yet know if she was involved with a Russian. She may well have been …’ Ross had to pause again, his voice becoming strained. ‘What cover-up existed was for the benefit of America. And your niece. Any further protests from you will seriously impede the questioning of a member of the American embassy who has been compromised. It will also, inevitably, lead to the disclosure of your niece’s involvement. I think to involve your niece in any of this is unnecessary. Misleading, too, because her connection would obviously mean yours, as well …’