Brian Freemantle - Kings of Many Castles

Still partially deafened, Charlie lip-read more than heard Anne ask if there was any reason for her to stay and shook his head and told her to leave. Anne smiled and nodded. Arkadi Noskov and the American attorneys were anxiously filing out without protest. Charlie felt a prod against his shoulders from another officers clearing the court and shook his head again, now in refusal, identifying himself as an investigator. There was another shove, with the order he did hear to leave, as Olga arrived and told the policeman Charlie could remain. Kayley was arguing with another uniformed man by the dock and Charlie walked with her as Olga crossed to them, to repeat the permission. Olga gazed without any emotion at the nearly headless body of George Bendall crumpled in one corner of the dock. The man lay with the bandaged arm oddly thrown up, as ifto protect himself. The warder over whom most of Bendall’s brain debris had scattered had been sick and was slumped in the furthest corner from the body. Caught by a thought, Charlie turned and looked towards the television position, realizing that these killings would again have been caught on camera.

“We back to square one?” wondered Kayley.

Charlie was relieved to begin hearing properly at last. “I wish I knew.” There was, he thought, too much he wished he knew.

They all turned, at Zenin’s approach. Olga made the introductions. When Kayley offered his hand Olga said, “No! You don’t shake hands in the presence of death, it’s bad luck.”

Charlie saw that Zenin had held back from responding. “Everyone’s getting more than their fair share of that, George most of all.”

Zenin looked between the dock and where three uniformed officers-one a major-were standing in a semi-circle around the dead gunman and said loudly that nothing was to be touched or moved until forensic examiners got there.

Beside Charlie the American said, “What’s that saying about stable doors and bolting horses?”

Charlie recognized how immediately Zenin had adopted command. He even followed the man himself as they went back to the body. The gunman, blond-haired and heavily moustached, was lying on his back, his eyes still open. His left leg was folded beneath his right and both arms were spread out. His gun, a Makarov, was about three feet from his right hand. Both militia shots had caught him fully in the chest, caving it in. His shirt, red to begin with, was totally soaked in blood that was seeping into the lapels of an already crumpled fawn suit.

“I’d like to include my forensic people,” said Kayley.

Zenin’s hesitation was momentary. “Of course. I think that would be a good idea.”

The American smiled to find battery power on his cell phone within the confines of the court. The staccato conversation with the embassy incident room was very quick.

“I want every guard officer assembled,” Zenin told the major. As the uniformed squad began filing back into the court Zenin said, “Who called out ‘No’?”

“Alive he might have given us something. Dead he can’t,” said Charlie.

“A gun …” stumbled the militiaman who’d shot the assassin. “He had a gun … in his hand … I thought he was going to fire again ….”

“You behaved totally correctly,” reassured Zenin. “I’ll approve a commendation.” He looked around the assembled officers. “How the hell did an armed man get into the court!”

There was no reply.

“I asked a question!” demanded Zenin.

“He had authority. A shield,” said a man half-hidden at the rear of the group.

“Come forward. Say that again,” ordered Zenin.

The officer was young, his face still actually pimpled with youth. “He had a shield. Authority.”

“What shield!”

“Federtnaia Sluhba Bezopasnosti.”

“Search the body!”

It was Olga who instantly stooped, not repelled by the gore and careless of her formal militia dress uniform getting blood-smeared. It was an expert body search. She lifted the jacket pockets open with a pen tip, more easily for her fingers to go inside with the minimum of displacement. She found the FSB shield in the left side pocket. The congealing blood made it difficult to get the jacket away from the body. She found the wallet in the inside, right pockets, using the pen to flick it open. The photograph was official, the man front facing according to regulations, his name neatly printed beneath it.

“Boris Sergeevich Davidov,” she read out, unnecessarily.

“Knew he had to be around somewhere,” said Kayley.

Air Force One was just clearing Russian air space when the news was patched through from the embassy, relayed by the American lawyers.

Anandale said, “I was right! It is Dallas, November 1963. Oswald kills Kennedy, Ruby kills Oswald, Ruby dies ….”

“And no one ever finds out what it was all about,” said Wendall North, finishing the historical comparison.

There was a babbled surge when they emerged from the court. John Kayley was swallowed up by the waiting American attorneys and Charlie once more found Anne by using Arkadi Noskov as a marker visible above all the rest.

Charlie identified Davidov as the killer and said, “Don’t ask me where that leaves us because I don’t know.” Don’t know, don’t know, don’t know, he thought. It was a constant mocking chant.

“Bendall’s dead?” queried the Russian lawyer.

Charlie thought Noskov would have been able to see into the dock as he’d passed. “Very dead.” Charlie’s ears had cleared completely but they ached.

“I want formally to place on the court record-and publicly announce-the absolute proof of Bendall’s defense to murder,” declared Noskov. “Left as it is the prosecution have an assumption of guilt.”

“Does it matter now?”

“That’s how it will be left on file,” said Anne. “We know-and can prove-he didn’t do it so the consideration is natural justice.”

“You’re the lawyers,” said Charlie. Justice, natural or otherwise, scarcely seemed to fit any of his most pressing considerations. Natalia would hardly be able officially to conclude her enquiry now, although with Davidov dead he couldn’t see how it could be taken any further: how anything could be taken any further. Which was, of course, the intention. The intention? Or Natalia’s intention? It seemed very easy-automatic even-for the suspicion to be part of every thought now.

“I can’t professionally act,” Anne reminded Noskov.

The Russian nodded, understanding her point. “I’ll call you later.”

In the embassy car, Anne said, “I know you told me not to ask where this leaves us but where does this leave us?”

“Beaten,” said Charlie.

“That sounded personal.”

“It is.”

“With Bendall dead-and with the Russians determined that Vera’s death was suicide-there’s nothing more officially for me todo; everything’s down to the Russians,” Anne pointed out. She hesitated. “Isn’t it all over for you, too, Charlie?”

“I don’t like being beaten.”

“Come on, Charlie!”

“I missed something. Two more people are dead.”

“We went through it all,” she said.

“Not properly. I’m going to do it again and again until I find what it is.”

Charlie insisted that Richard Brooking’s demand for an immediate meeting at Protocnyj pereulok could only concern legal matters, which Anne could easily handle by herself, nodding in agreement when she called him a bastard, and actually locked the door of his office against any interruption. He’d been right about the court television, although he hadn’t expected it to be made available so quickly or to every Moscow television channel. It was even on CNN, which used the new footage as an excuse to rerun-sometimes side by side on a split screen-their film of the presidential shooting. Charlie’s initial, total concentration was on the courtroom film, feeling an odd discomfort as his own very clear and visible part of it. He saw himself flinch at the first explosion, his head swivelling between the dock and the gunman. Davidov’s shooting was very quick and accurate, the bucking of his hands the clearer definition between the two shots than the noise itself, which virtually merged into one sound. There didn’t appear to be any separate impact, either, Bendall’s head simply disappearing in one burst. Charlie was turned towards Davidov, facing the camera, when he shouted, able clearly to see his lips form the word, his memory was of calling “No” only once but there were two separate utterances before Davidov was shot by the militiaman.