Brian Freemantle - Kings of Many Castles

“So the man the KGB put in with you isn’t one of these?” pressed Charlie.

“Not that I recognized.”

Charlie was sure that both Olga and Anne stirred, at the qualification. He said, “You would have recognized it, if he had been among them, wouldn’t you?”

“Maybe.”

“Do you want us to go through the list again?” offered Anne.

“Not so soon.”

Wrong to push him, remembered Charlie. “Would you like a copy of the list, to look through on your own?”

“Yes,” accepted Bendall at once. “Let me have a copy to take my time over.”

“There’s something that we can’t understand, need you to help us with,” said Noskov. “You only had two bullets and we know that five were fired. So there had to be someone else. Did you know there was to be someone else?”

Charlie tensed for the outburst, remembering the hysteria of the American interview, but instead of answering Bendall softly began the dirge, his eyes fixed somewhere above their heads. Hurriedly Charlie said, “Tell us about February 18, Georgi. The Thursday night Vasili Gregorovich died. You were with him that night, weren’t you?”

The humming stopped. “All of us.”

“The brotherhood?” prompted Charlie.

“Drinking. Singing.”

“Where were you drinking?” Don’t anyone interrupt, try to take over, thought Charlie.

“It was a good night. All there.”

“All six of you?” chanced Charlie.

“Felt good,” avoided Bendall.

“Everyone drunk?”

“Everyone drunk,” agreed Bendall. “Anatoli Nikolaevich’s birthday.”

Charlie wished the others in the room would stop shifting, not wanting Bendall’s reverie broken by the slightest distraction. Keeping his own voice an even, dull monotone, wanting only to stroke the strings, Charlie said, “A lot of toasts?”

“Smashed the glasses, the first time. Traditionally.”

“Vasili Gregorovich was all right to drive, though? Knew how to drink?”

“Best drinker among us.”

“Why didn’t you go home to Timiryazev with Vasili? You often did, didn’t you.”

“Don’t remember. I was drunk. Someone did.”

“Who! Give us his name,” abruptly demanded Olga Melnik, strident-voiced.

Bendall physically jumped and blinked, several times, as if being awakened and the fury surged through Charlie. Anne groaned, audibly,and that annoyed Charlie too. Bendall looked carefully, alertly, from one to the other, smiling, and Charlie’s anger went as soon as it had come.

It was Noskov who tried to retrieve the mood, the thunderous voice soothing, encouraging. “You’re doing well, Georgi. We’re getting somewhere. Tell us about the funeral. You all went to that, didn’t you?”

“How do you know?” Bendall was still smiling.

“I don’t,” said the lawyer. “I want you to tell me about it.”

“Not the time.”

“We’ve got all the time in the world, I told you that,” misunderstood Noskov.

“Not the place,” corrected Bendall.

“Of course you’ll be able to tell everyone in court,” accepted Noskov, quickly recovering. “That’s what I want you to do. Tell me and then we’ll tell everyone again, in court. Make sure everyone understands.”

“No,” refused the man. “I decide.”

“I know you do,” said Noskov. “Everything’s your decision. Will you see me tomorrow?”

Bendall appeared to consider the request. “All right.”

Outside in the corridor Olga said at once, “I’m sorry. It was …”

“It’s all right,” stopped Charlie. “We didn’t lose anything.”

Both lawyers looked at him in surprise. Anne said, “We were going like a steam train in there!”

“Bendall was driving,” said Charlie.

Olga’s request to come back to the incident room with him precluded the Noskov-crowded embassy car. Charlie hailed a taxi and rode to Novinskij Bul’var without asking about the apparently renewed cooperation and Olga didn’t offer an explanation. The attention at their entry wasn’t as obvious as Olga had feared and Kayley greeted the Russian as if there had been no interruption in her being there.

Charlie held up the tape like a prize and said, “It’s the best yet.”

Olga matched Charlie’s gesture with what she carried and said,“We’ve got a list of names that possibly includes Bendall’s KGB minder, in the military. We’ve assigned individual teams to trace each one.”

“Let’s hope to Christ that this is lift-off at last,” said Kayley.

That night Zenin took Olga to bed early and was more demanding than he’d been before and afterwards she lay exhausted beside him, wondering how much longer it could possibly last, unsure for the very first time how well-or badly-she would be able to cope when it ended. Whenever it did-again for the very first time-it wouldn’t be by her choice.

“It’s not proof,” he said, picking up the earlier dinner table conversation. “You’re reacting to instinct.”

“I know,” admitted Olga. “But I’m right! I can feel it. The lead we want is among those fifteen names.”

“If he’s there, we’ll find him.”

“We should allow ourselves more time, not worry so much about media timing,” persisted Olga.

“You know the answer to that.”

“Will we share?”

Zenin was quiet for several moments. “After we’ve got him: got everything.”

“What if he’s still serving in the FSB? It’s more than possible.”

“But we’ve got the authority of the presidential commission.”

“Will we invoke it?”

“If we have to.”

“Be careful, darling. Personally careful, I mean.”

“How was it for you, going back today?”

“Better than I thought it would be.”

“You think the Americans, with all their manpower, will try to trace all the fifteen?”

“Without a doubt.”

“That could be our protection,” suggested Zenin. “Maybe we will share. Give the Americans the name, if we think we’ve discovered it, let them take on the FSB.”

Olga turned, moving her hand over his hair-matted chest. “Do that! It’ll be safer.”

“The FSB’s wrecked. And Karelin with it.”

“All the more reason- every reason-for not being associated with its destruction. Russian intelligence changes its face but not its memory.”

“I’ll look after you,” said Zenin.

“For how long?” asked Olga, wishing she could have bitten the words back as she uttered them, stiffening beside him. She lay with her eyes closed, as if by not seeing she shut out the embarrassment. She felt him turn towards her.

“It’s something for us to talk about-think about-isn’t it?”

“Is it?” she said, breath tight in her chest.

“How would you feel about having me as a husband as well as a lover?”

“I’d feel very happy. How would you feel having me as a wife?”

“Very happy. And very proud.”

It wasn’t going to end! It was going to go on, forever and Olga couldn’t imagine anything she wanted more. “Now we’ve got even more reason to be careful. I don’t want to lose this, to risk anything.”

“You think you would have got more?” asked Natalia.

Charlie shook his head. “Bendall wasn’t lost in memories. It was an act, feeding us a bit at a time and making us dance to his tune …” he smiled at the unintentional pun. “And it’s a bloody awful tune, too.”

“You achieved a hell of a lot, though.”

“As much as Bendall wanted to give.” He hadn’t told Natalia-discussed with anyone-what he believed to have been Bendall’s recognition of the Davidov name. Totally unoffended by Charlie’s disbelief and anxious to earn the offered fifty dollars, the concierge of the dilapidated block on Fadeeva Ulitza had two hours earlier let Charlie into Davidov’s listed apartment address to prove the man was no longer there, unprotestingly watching Charlie explore the few pieces of furniture that allowed the place to be described as furnished. Davidov had lived alone and hadn’t been friendly, complained the man. Davidov had been about thirty-five years old and looked fit, as if he trained, running or swimming or something like that. On the few occasions the concierge even remembered seeinghim, Davidov had worn a suit, with a collar and tie, so the caretaker assumed he worked in an office. Three militiamen and some Americans who’d said they were detectives had already been there so he guessed Davidov had done something pretty serious. Charlie agreed it might have been and left with the promise of another fifty dollars if the man called his embassy number to tell him Davidov had reappeared, hoping he’d outbid the Americans to whom, along with the militia, he decided to leave the legwork involved in trying to trace Davidov further, at least until the following day.