Brian Freemantle - Kings of Many Castles

Affronted, the surgeon-administrator said, “Heroes of the Crimea were treated here!”

“Probably in beds that haven’t been changed since,” said Zenin, briskly careless of offense. “What’s the situation with the prisoner!”

“You can have thirty minutes.”

“I wasn’t asking for a time limit. He’s fully conscious?”

“Yes.”

“And fully comprehending?”

“According to Guerguen Semonvich Agayan.”

“What’s Bendall said?”

“Your officers are with him.”

“I meant to you.”

“He’s responded to our medical questions.”

“Nothing else?”

“We haven’t asked him anything else.”

“It’s about time someone did then.”

The almost overbearing confidence surprised Olga. In official surroundings, only those in which she’d been with him until now, Zenin had always appeared more subdued.

Striving to achieve some of his dismissed authority, the doctor said, “I’ll check with Guerguen Semonvich. Wait for me here.”

Zenin said, “I’ve come directly from the Kremlin. Okulov’s panicking, everyone’s panicking. They’ve doubled the protection around Yudkin. Many more security people at the Pirogov hospital and they’ll have to shift patients out to make room …” He smiled again. “And there’s going to be a presidential commission into the missing KGB stuff. I suggested it at this morning’s meeting: Okulov ordered it on the spot when the conspiracy was confirmed.”

“The one person we’ve got to keep alive is George Bendall. I’ve permanently doubled the guard here.” She had to find a way to tell him about the things missing from the Bendall apartment.

“Nothing’s going to happen to him, believe me,” said Zenin. “What’s it like at the American embassy?”

“I don’t know about stepped up internal security. The American ballistics man claims he’d recognized the difference but was waiting for our material.”

“What’s the excuse from our people at Chagino?”

“They hadn’t got around to it yet.”

“After more than two days!”

“They obviously thought they didn’t have to bother.”

“Log it, for it to be dealt with later.”

“I already have.”

“Is the Englishman crowing?”

Olga hesitated. “Not noticeably,” she answered, honestly. Itwould be better if Zenin heard the other embarrassments from her. “He asked about the bullet casings. They were looked for, of course, after the area was cleared. We didn’t find any.”

“Would they have been automatically discharged from the rifle?”

“Apparently.”

“We should have recovered some,” complained Zenin.

“Further evidence of the conspiracy. How well planned it’s all been.” She wished that excuse had come to her in the embassy basement.

“Yes,” accepted Zenin, doubtfully.

It was an acceptable excuse. “There’s something else. You remember Vera Bendall saying militia officers took away her son’s papers, among his other belongings?”

“Yes,” said Zenin, cautiously.

“No written material is recorded among what was taken from Bendall’s apartment. I’ve spoken to the squad that went there first, personally, to all three of them. Each insist there weren’t any documents, nothing written down at all.”

“The woman could have been wrong,” Zenin pointed out.

“Or other people could have got to the apartment before our officers.”

“Was there any indications of a search, ahead of them?”

“They said his room was a mess,” Olga replied, honestly again.

“It should be laid before the commission,” agreed Zenin.

Home clear! decided Olga, as the doctor reentered the room.

“Half an hour,” stipulated the man.

“We’ll see how long it takes,” dismissed Zenin.

The walls of the corridor along which they followed the doctor were stained and in places adorned with uncleared graffiti-“fuck” and “hell hole” appeared several times-and narrowed by bed frames, once by two ancient, boat-shaped perambulators and unrecognizable scraps of metal and frame-like pieces of wood.

Zenin said, “This come up from the Crimea, too?”

The doctor ignored him.

Bendall’s ward was identifiable some way off by the phalanx of guards outside it. Olga said, “Do you want to lead the interrogation?”

“You’re the investigating officer, Olga Ivanova. I’ll sit and listen.”

The feeling she experienced surprised Olga. It wasn’t unease. It was, almost sexually, of anticipation. She didn’t normally feel she had to impress a man. “I’d appreciate your input, if you think it’s necessary.”

“It’ll be there, if it is.”

The protective cordon stiffened, respectfully, at their approach, then parted for them to enter. It was an individual ward, further crowded inside by three more militia officers. Recording apparatus was already assembled. Its operator was late standing when they came into the room. The walls were streaked and discolored but there was no graffiti, at least none that was apparent. The sheets matched the grayness of the blankets, though, which also toned with the doubtful color of the bandages helmeting George Bendall’s head and seeming to extend, unbroken, to the dressings trebling the size of the man’s broken shoulder. A half-circular frame kept the bedding off the shattered leg but he was not connected to any monitors, although a catheter tube ran to a container beneath the bed. There was a perfect spider’s web covering the inside of one of the upperpaned windows, complete with its spread-legged creator, and rivulets of long-past rain had tracked top to bottom patterns through the caked grime. The recording apparatus occupied the only table and its technician had the only chair. Militia-discarded cigarettes pebbled the floor. The cubicle stank, not just of cigarettes but of stale bodies. Maybe, thought Olga, indulging herself, patients from the 1850s really had been here.

“We think thirty minutes,” said the psychiatrist.

“I think as long as it takes,” said Zenin.

Olga, concentrating upon the prisoner, saw Bendall’s eyes darting from person to person. When he became aware of her staring at him he abruptly stopped, gazing fixedly up at the ceiling. She said, “Everyone can go now. We need another chair.” The recording technician looked surprised but then shrugged.

The doctor said, “I think I should stay.”

“I’ll stay too,” announced Agayan.

“You won’t,” said Olga.

“No,” agreed Zenin. “Neither of you will. Out!”

“We’ll be directly outside,” insisted Badim.

A chair was chain-passed in from outside by the departing inner squad, one of whom cupped the doctor’s arm. Zenin took the chair and sat just inside the door. Olga realized the militia commandant would not have come into Bendall’s vision: the man would believe she was the only person-the only possible interrogator-in the room. Bendall’s virtually unbroken gaze remained fixed upon the ceiling. Olga glanced up, seeing it was as dirty as everything else.

Looking more towards the recording apparatus Olga said, “George Bendall-alias Georgi Gugin-you are charged with murder and attempted murder. There will be other charges officially proffered at a later date.”

Bendall smiled, turning slightly towards her.

“But you failed,” Olga declared, her tone at once sneering.

The man continued to stare at her, unresponsive.

“The person you killed was an American guard. You’ll still get the death sentence.”

Nothing.

“And we know there are others. They found the perfect idiot in you, didn’t they? That was clever of them.”

A blink. A throat-clearing swallow. The mummified head remained unmoving.