He took the wine, watching the bubbles rise. So what would Cowley do? Stay strictly professional, judge the appointment on its unquestioned merits and approve it? Or take the heaven-sent opportunity to settle a still tender score and reject it? Andrews’s mind stayed with the second possibility, examining it completely. He’d exposed himself badly if there was a rejection. It would be recorded on his unblemished file, without any explanatory note, for every other department head to see if he had to apply elsewhere. Leaving the obvious inference that he had some failing not shown up by the record which made him unacceptable. Not badly exposed, he tried to reassure himself. There was no secret in Pennsylvania Avenue, about the break-up and his remarriage to Pauline. So any rejection by Cowley wouldn’t need an explanation. Everyone would understand immediately why it was and if anything the criticism would be directed towards Cowley himself, for allowing personal feelings to affect professional decisions.
There’d never been open anger, not even in London when Pauline had demanded the divorce and they’d confronted him, purple-faced from the previous day’s booze, sweating and befuddled by that day’s intake, and announced their intention to marry. Instead Cowley had cried, like a child about to lose a toy, his nose running to make his face even wetter. Nor anger later, either, when the man was sober and they were going through the formalities. And certainly, since the Moscow episode had begun, he hadn’t detected any deep-rooted feeling against him. There’d been the spat about returning the stuff from Ann’s office, but that had been professional irritation, which Andrews could understand: it was the personal stuff he
couldn’t
understand. Andrews decided, abruptly, that Cowley was a wimp. Always had been. Just didn’t drown it in a booze bottle any more, that’s all. He was glad the cloying togetherness of Moscow was ending: he’d done his best – Christ, hadn’t he done his best – but it hadn’t been easy. Cowley the wimp hadn’t suspected, of course: hadn’t suspected a thing.
Andrews gestured for his empty glass to be refilled. Cowley wouldn’t block him, he decided confidently. He’d think of doing so, obviously: wouldn’t be human if he didn’t. But in the final analysis he’d be the complete professional he’d always been – even during the drunken period – and make his decision on the merits of the proven record and the recommendation of Personnel.
But what if Cowley didn’t do that? What if Cowley was a bastard and allowed himself the pleasure of a refusal?
He
wanted
the Russian division: was determined to get it. What about appealing the decision, if Cowley turned him down? There was a job discrimination tribunal, but there was a catch–22 in using it. Even if you won, you got yourself labelled a trouble-maker throughout the Bureau. Which could be a worse, unofficial, stigma than an unexplained official rejection on your file. In this case, though, it would stigmatize Cowley equally badly, for letting personal feelings influence a Bureau decision.
Premature concern, he told himself: nothing could block him, get in his way, not now. Which was why he’d ordered the letting agency to serve notice on the tenants in Bethesda. Get Pauline in there as soon as possible, sorting things out, getting the place right in the way she knew he liked to live. But there was Moscow to pack up. She’d have to do that first. Maybe they’d stay for a while in an hotel, although not the shit-hole in Pentagon City, while she got things ready. He’d go through it all with her, when he got back. Didn’t want her to get anything wrong. She did get things wrong, sometimes. It was annoying when she got things wrong. Stupid.
He’d give a farewell party, Andrews decided. Invite everybody to the social club, not just from their own embassy but from others as well, the Brits and the one or two people he’d got to know among the French. Andrews smiled, caught by a thought. It was ironic – even amusing – that one of the guests would be William Cowley, to be left behind in Moscow hunting a killer he was no nearer finding now than when he’d arrived.
His mind back on the man whose decision could settle his future, Andrews concluded that as soon as he got back – tomorrow, definitely – he’d tell Cowley of his official application and directly say he hoped the man would support and accept it. No reason why he shouldn’t. Absurd not to say something, in fact: might even offend the man, antagonize him unnecessarily, for him to learn about it from some official memorandum in the diplomatic bag from Washington. It was a positive benefit, not the delaying nuisance he’d first thought it to be, having Cowley
in
Moscow where they could talk about it openly, face to face.
The request to re-fasten seat-belts came with the announcement of the Amsterdam stop-over. Transit passengers could briefly disembark if they wished. Andrews decided to stay aboard: even try to get some sleep if he could. He wanted to be as fresh as possible when he arrived in Moscow. He had a lot to do.
Dimitri Danilov was becoming depressingly convinced that he had missed something among the evidence they had assembled, maybe some unconnected, minuscule piece of information or fact that was either obstructing them or, alternatively, pointing them in the wrong direction, just as they’d already once gone in the wrong direction, although at that moment Danilov would have welcomed any direction to follow, wrong or otherwise.
He accepted, the depression worsening, that the orders he was issuing now were little more than clutching at straws, activity for activity’s sake, with little hope of producing anything positive. At last Pavin had discovered the identity of the press conference questioner, which opened a narrow pathway to continue along. Pavin was also instructed to locate the one remaining psychiatric patient whose apartment on Bronnaja Boulevard had always been empty, once to an approach from Danilov himself.
The daily meetings with Lapinsk became scenes of constant argument but without any definite point, the older man clearly passing on ill-tempered pressure from above, irritably anxious for the whole insoluble business to be taken from the Militia.
And Danilov, justifiably but unsoundly, passed the criticism on down. He took over the morning duty conference on the day after Cowley’s return – the day of Lapinsk’s strongest rebuke – to lecture the ineffective street teams on their failures, itemizing particularly by name the officers who had conducted the provably flawed psychiatric inquiries, declaring and meaning it that he intended attaching his complaints to their work files. Such a challenge would have been unheard of at a Militia district or precinct level. It was positively unprecedented at the echelon of Petrovka, where everyone regarded themselves as above question or censure. The response was predictable and immediate, by the same afternoon. The resistance and sneers towards Danilov went beyond the headquarters building, reaching out into the districts because the Petrovka officers methodically manned telephones to spread stories claiming Danilov’s panicked incompetence and impending demotion. Pavin, confident of their relationship, postponed his visit to Bronnaja Boulevard to tell Danilov he shouldn’t have staged the confrontation and most definitely shouldn’t have threatened recorded discontent: professionally it would achieve nothing apart from creating an unbridgable gulf between himself and all junior officers. Equal-ranking officers would shun him, regarding him as a disruptive, incomprehensible threat to the established system. Senior officers, even General Lapinsk, would dismiss him as a fool. Danilov recognized every assessment to be true. And he wished he even felt better having made his stand. He didn’t.
On several occasions since the encounter at Leninskii Prospekt he’d considered speaking to Kosov about Eduard Agayans, but hadn’t. He wanted the intervention to be forceful but appear at the same time a casual, oh-by-the-way approach, not a positive protest. He was reluctant to put himself in a subservient position with the other man, asking as a petitioning intermediary for Agayans to be allowed to operate as before. He wanted to speak from the level of an equal whose views should be respected and acted upon when he insisted the black marketeer
should
be allowed to resume business. And Danilov accepted that he was not equal: that he had no bargaining power. He decided to wait for the right opportunity, whenever and whatever that might be.
He supposed there would never be a right opportunity with Larissa: perhaps there never had been.
He actually welcomed her obvious reluctance to see him that evening, imagining it might make the encounter he intended easier, until he entered the selected hotel room behind her and realized that it was all part of the familiar play-acting, the aggrieved demi-mondaine demanding to be wooed.
‘You never bring me presents!’ she pouted at once. ‘The other girls I work with get presents. I don’t.’
Something else that was true in a day of various truths, conceded Danilov. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘Do you think your prick’s bigger than anybody else’s: that it’s enough, by itself?’
It had seemed sufficient until now, reflected Danilov. ‘I had a difficult situation with Olga the other night.’
‘So?’ said Larissa, carelessly.
‘She accused me of having an affair with you. By name.’
‘So?’ said the woman, again. ‘What did you say?’
‘Denied it, of course. Said it was nonsense like I did before when she started talking about you.’
‘So why are we talking about it now?’ He wasn’t behaving as he should, standing there. There should have been more apologies: promises of a gift. She put her hand up, playing with the buttons of the blouse she would soon slowly start to take off.
‘I think it’s time we started to ease off.’
Larissa stopped fingering the blouse opening. ‘What?’
‘Maybe call a halt to the whole thing.’
‘Call a … what the hell are you saying?’
‘I think it’s time we stopped, Larissa.’
‘Stopped! Just like that!’ She snapped her fingers.
‘Yes.’
For the first time her manner wavered. ‘Don’t say that. As if it didn’t matter. As if it was just a fuck: that it didn’t mean anything. It wasn’t like that for you, was it? Tell me it wasn’t like that.’
‘Of course it wasn’t!’ he said, trying to imbue the feeling into his voice. Falling back on cliché, he said: ‘But it isn’t as easy as that. There are other people.’
‘Who?’ she demanded. ‘Olga? Yevgennie? That’s all. They don’t matter. I can divorce Yevgennie:
want
to divorce Yevgennie. You can divorce Olga. We can be
married
!
That’s what you want, isn’t it? What you’ve always wanted.’
No, thought Danilov. He’d never wanted that. He wasn’t sure what remained between himself and Olga, but he’d never really contemplated anything permanent with Larissa. So why had he begun and pursued the affair? Reassurance, he supposed, unable to think of another word and deciding it was the right one in any case: he’d wanted the reassurance that he could still impress a beautiful woman if he tried. Which was pitiful: pitiful and selfish and cruel and despicable. Obscene even. He was ashamed of himself, ‘I don’t want it.’ He had to force himself to say the words. When she flinched, as if she had been physically slapped, he said: ‘Not now. Not yet. I have to think … to decide.’
‘When? How long?’ She was pleading now, the confident arrogance all gone.
‘I don’t know … that’s why I think we should ease off … give ourselves time …’
Larissa straightened, regaining control. ‘You’re a bastard. A complete and utter bastard.’
‘Yes,’ agreed Danilov, knowing it was true. A day of truths, he thought again.
Chapter Thirty-Three
The book cover was red, with black lettering, and Nadia Revin knew it would stand out, look impressive, among the others on the Uspenskii bookshelves. He’d said it was being made into a film, so she determined to read it before putting it away, trying to visualize from the Hollywood actors and actresses whose names and faces she knew who she imagined would take the parts. It was a game Nadia played a lot in the afternoons and early evenings, waiting for the telephone to ring.
She was glad it had rung that night. It had been the sort of evening Nadia genuinely enjoyed, the way it was going to be all the time when she got to America. He had been an urbanely courteous, considerate, dollar-carrying Englishman who had told her to call him Charles and tried from the moment of the first greeting to please her, before himself. It hadn’t been difficult. Nadia considered the Metropole the best and most luxurious in Moscow since its refurbishment: certainly it was the most expensive. The food had been superb and he’d known a lot about wine, showing her how to sniff what he called a nose and swirling the sample taste around the glass for rivulets, which he called legs, to form. She’d listened attentively, considering it to be the sort of thing she needed to know, an addition to everything else she tried to learn to make her more sophisticated.
Like reading the English-language newspapers so assiduously. When he’d started to talk about the book fair she’d been immediately able to pick up the conversation from the recent, memorized reviews, one of which had turned out to be for the novel that now lay beside her on the passenger seat of the BMW and which he’d said his firm had published. It had been a fulsome review and he’d been clearly and obviously impressed, as she already was by then, with him.
They’d stayed at the hotel, with no suggestion of her apartment, and that had been right, too, because he’d had a suite which merged perfectly into the relaxed indulgence of the evening. Not that he’d wanted to indulge himself with anything unusual or special, apart from asking her to undress very slowly while he watched, which she did not consider unusual at all. In bed he had remained considerate, wanted her to achieve her orgasm as well as himself, the foreplay leisurely and gentle until she urged him to be faster, harder. And she had achieved it, although it meant briefly losing control, which she didn’t ever like to do. She guessed her doing so had made it better for him.