Brian Freemantle: Red Star Rising

“I’ve just got back from home leave,” the man said, quickly evading the question. “I can’t believe he climbed over the walls or the railings without setting off the sensors.”

It always paid to pass the time of day with the lowest of the gossiping staff, reflected Charlie. “Neither can I, with or without sensors. He only had one arm.”

“Ah!” exclaimed the man, with the intensity with which Charlie imagined St. Paul greeted the revelation on the road to Damascus. “It has to be the gates then, doesn’t it? Makes sense now.”

“How does it make sense now?” encouraged Charlie.

“The closed circuit television cameras have been playing up.”

“What about gate guards?”

Again, with the military spontaneity of someone trained always to avoid any responsibility, the man said, “I’m internal, not external. Don’t know anything about that. Or them.”

And he already knew more than enough, Charlie accepted, as they reached the door to the intelligence rezidentura, for him to be passed on to another uniformed guard. Charlie went again through the ID ritual, including facial measurement and retina recognition before finally entering the inner sanctum.

“I’ve been waiting!” impatiently complained the woman on the other side of the door.

Paula-Jane Venables was a slight-bodied though full-busted woman, who wore her auburn hair short and who knew she looked good in designer clothes. The dress was blue, knee-length, and had the logo-identifying matching shoes. Charlie guessed there would be an ensemble-completing handbag somewhere in the river-fronting office into which she led him, but if there were, it was hidden away to maintain the dust-free neatness of the uncluttered office.

Charlie took what he recognized to be the victim’s chair and sat back for the obviously intended inquisition. He crossed one leg over the other, to make it easer to lift the pressure on his left heel. The Hush Puppies were new, not yet broken in, and they pinched. She frowned at his doing it. It was too early to tell but she looked capable of pulling out fingernails, which prompted an immediate question. Had those on the right hand of the man back in the mortuary been intact? He’d forgotten to ask, and certainly to look, and he felt a surge of annoyance at the oversight that might have gone further to confirm the extent of any torture to which the man had been subjected.

“We need to get to know each other,” Paula-Jane announced. “I want to get things straight between us from the start.”

“That’s always best,” agreed Charlie, noting the peremptory tone.

There was an imperceptible tightening to her mouth at his close-to-mocking response. “There was clearly a change in your travel plans?”

Charlie frowned. “You’ve lost me already.”

“London’s alert was that you were arriving yesterday. I’m guessing that, instead, you flew in this morning and went straight to the mortuary, without having time to make contact with me here.”

“No. I got here yesterday.”

“But didn’t bother to call or make personal contact before seeing the body?”

“Didn’t London tell you in their message why I have been sent in?” asked Charlie, patiently.

“To minimize as much as possible any direct connection with the embassy,” acknowledged the woman. “I’m the MI5 resident here: it’s my territory. You can front it all, but I want to know everything that goes on. Understood?”

Charlie sighed. Instead of bothering to answer, he said, “Why don’t you tell me what you know? Like where and how the body was found. By whom. And how you think it got there.”

Paula-Jane hesitated, clearly undecided whether to dismiss his questions or to demand an answer to her own. Eventually she said, “It was found by one of the grounds staff-”

“A Russian?” Charlie interrupted at once, knowing the diplomatic agreement-and counterespionage nightmare-requiring local nationals to be employed as domestic support staff.

“Yes,” answered Paula-Jane, shortly.

“Name?”

“Personnel will have it.”

“So you haven’t questioned him?”

“I was making arrangements to do so when London told me you were being assigned.”

“Making arrangements!”

“The protocol is that in any criminal investigation involving a Russian national employed at the embassy, a Russian Foreign Ministry official has to be present.”

“Did you go to the scene?”

“Yes.”

“While the groundsman who found the body was still there?”

“Yes.” Her face was beginning to redden with anger.

“And you didn’t ask him anything!”

“I told you. .”

“. . about the unbreachable protocol,” finished Charlie, angry himself and intentionally mocking.

“I was told to obey the rules.”

What was the benefit of pissing into the wind? Charlie asked himself, resigned. “You saw the scene?”

“Yes.”

“Was he on his back or his front?”

“His front.”

The answer was vital to keeping him on the investigation, and she wasn’t sure, Charlie guessed. If the Russians found a half unarguable reason or excuse to shoulder him aside-or if he fucked up-the personal repercussions in London would be far more serious than here in Moscow. Charlie knew he was on the weaker side of the power struggle being waged between Aubrey Smith, the ascetic, quiet-voiced man who had championed him since his unexpected appointment from Cambridge University don to Director-General and his passed-over and resentful deputy, Jeffrey Smale. Who hated his guts, like so many in a department in which for far too long-apart from rare respites like that which he’d initially enjoyed under Smith-Charlie had clung by his fingertips. Which would be destroyed like those of this murder victim, if he screwed this assignment up.

“I don’t think we’re getting off to a particularly good start and I know you think the same,” Charlie said. “So let’s, as you suggested at the beginning, understand each other. I’m going to work this job entirely alone, keeping you well away from any involvement and any possible risk to the career you’ve just begun. But here, with just the two of us in the room, I want everything you can give me. Which is why this question is very important. Are you absolutely sure that the murdered man was lying face down on his front? I know he didn’t have a face. . not much of a head left at all. . but front’s very different from back. So which was it?”

“He was definitely lying on his front,” said Paula-Jane, formally.

“Whereabouts, precisely, in the grounds?”

“Quite close to the conference hall. There’s a grassed verge, with flower beds beyond. The body was mostly on the grass, with what was left of the head and his shoulders protruding over onto the flower bed.”

“How closely did you look?”

“It was disgusting!”

Charlie sighed again. “So you can’t tell me how much blood loss or facial debris there was?”

“Why’s it so important to know that?” she demanded, truculently.

“If there was a lot of blood and skin and bone debris, it would indicate he was shot where he was found. If there wasn’t, it indicates he was shot elsewhere and dumped. If he was dumped, the Russians have a reason to keep me at arm’s length or to exclude me altogether.”

“My recollection is that there was a lot of blood around.” The belligerence was receding.

“Did you stay for the forensic and medical examinations at the scene?”

“Most of it.”

Charlie avoided another sigh of frustration. “Tell me about it. In as much detail as possible.”

Paula-Jane hesitated, assembling her recollections. “External security was there first, obviously. When I got there, summoned as an afterthought I think, I was told the Moscow authorities had already been called and were on their way-”