Brian Freemantle - Kings of Many Castles

“Yes,” agreed Natalia, solemnly. “I’m sorry about that, too.”

When Charlie answered Anne Abbott’s internal voice mail message she at once announced, “I know where Bendall’s body is! And how you might get to see it!”

“Where? How?”

“Back at Burdenko. They’ve called, expecting us to handle the funeral arrangements, by which they really mean the cost. Brooking’s apoplectic.”

“He usually is. Are we going to?”

“Bendall was still officially a British subject: legally there’s a liability. But we need a declared death certificate. Brooking doesn’twant to sully his hands by asking for it and says we know the people there. You volunteering?”

The hospital vestibule seemed oddly empty without its challenging guard detail but the receptionist recognized Charlie and located Nicholai Badim on her second attempt. She said, “You’re lucky he doesn’t have a theater list.”

After the preceding twelve hours his luck deserved to change, Charlie decided. He had a lot of bridges to rebuild and leaving Lesnaya without bothering with breakfast was scarcely the way to begin the reconstruction. He wasn’t sure he yet knew where or how to start but running out of the house wasn’t the way: if anything it was an unspoken admission of what Natalia suspected him of having done in London. Even Sasha had detected the frigid atmosphere, asking why they weren’t talking and why he was leaving so early. The previous night they’d laid-almost theatrically-stiffly apart, Natalia jerking away when she’d relaxed into a half sleep and accidentally touched his leg with hers.

The balding, quickly blinking surgeon-administrator came curiously into the foyer, frowning at Charlie’s reason for being there. “We could have arranged that by telephone.”

The man was anxious to reestablish the authority that had been too often overridden during the questioning of Bendall, Charlie decided. “I’ve also got to satisfy myself that it is Bendall’s body. Formal identification.”

The frown-and irritation-deepened. “See it! There’s hardly anything left of the face to identify!”

“It’s a necessary formality. You must surely know what bureaucracy is like.”

The other man shrugged, gesturing for Charlie to follow as he thrust off deeper into the hospital. “If it will hurry things up. We need the mortuary space. I’ve told the militia I want to get rid of the other one.”

“Davidov’s body is here as well!” His luck was definitely changing.

“We’re the nearest mortuary to the court. It’s inconvenient, an imposition.”

The corridor along which they were walking was littered with dirty laundry, predominantly sheets, some abandoned on the floor and some piled up on a row of empty, metal-framed beds. A lot were bloodstained. There were also equipment cartons and boxes, mostly empty but a few were still sealed and unpacked. There was even a stack, sealed, in the lift in which they descended into the basement. Badim seemed oblivious to it all.

All the mortuary drawers appeared to have name designations on them. Boris Davidov’s was next to Bendall’s. There was only one attendant in the room, who half straightened at Badim’s entry but then decided not to bother with the respect. The surgeon ignored him, too, hauling Bendall’s drawer out himself and flicking the covering sheet back from the near headless body. It was made bloodlessly white by the refrigeration.

“OK?” the Russian demanded, impatiently.

The sheet still covered most of the dead man’s torso. Charlie quickly lifted it, uncovering the left side. The upper part of the injured arm was still bandaged almost down to the elbow but the wrist was bare. On it was the parallel line tattoo separated by the arrow fulcrum.

“What are you looking for?” said Badim, at Charlie’s shoulder.

Charlie lowered the sheet. “I’d like to see Davidov’s body, too.”

“Why?”

“I’m not sure how much information London will want in my report. They might have a query about Davidov and I don’t want to have to bother you a second time.”

The adjoining drawer was withdrawn even more impatiently. Badim said, “I don’t want to be bothered again either.”

The entire upper part of Davidov’s body appeared crushed. No attempt had been made to clean up the bullet wounds. There was the same matching tattoo on the man’s left wrist. “Are you carrying out autopsies?”

“The cause of death is self evident in both cases.”

“They haven’t been asked for?”

“No. Finally satisfied?”

“Thank you,” said Charlie, falling in step with the man as they left the mortuary. “All I need now is the certificate.”

“How quickly can you have the body removed?”

“I’ll try to have things moving as soon as I get back to the embassy.” Charlie wondered upon whom Brooking would unload that chore; the man had actually smiled his gratitude when Charlie had offered to collect the certificate.

“Today, if possible,” urged the Russian.

“I can understand how glad you and Dr. Agayan are to get the hospital back to normality.”

Badim turned to Charlie in the elevator, frowning again. “Agayan? He’s not attached to my staff.”

Charlie’s tell-tale feet throbbed. “But he was here … part of your team …?”

The surgeon-administrator made a disparaging gesture towards the cardboad litter. “We aren’t funded sufficiently for cleaners, let alone a resident psychiatrist. Agayan is at the Serbsky Institute.”

Which was the principal KGB psychiatric institute in which Soviet dissidents were incarcerated and many made mad to justify their imprisonment at the height of the communist oppression, Charlie instantly recognized. “How did he come to be involved?”

“Seconded in, as part of the emergency when Bendall was admitted.”

“Seconded in by whom?”

Badim humped his shoulders, uncertainly. “The militia, I suppose. He would have been the obvious choice.”

There was another foot twinge. “Why the obvious choice?”

“He knew Bendall’s case history. Had treated him in the past, apparently.”

It only took minutes for Badim to complete the certificate. “Are you sure you’ve now got everything you want?”

“More than sufficient,” thanked Charlie. Once the floodgates opened, things usually seemed to come in a surge. But did he want it to anymore?

Her KGB career had been based on psychology and Natalia was sure she psychologically knew Charlie intimately and wished for once that she didn’t. He hadn’t denied it. If he had, positively, she would have accepted it because she wanted to accept it-believe itfor herself and for Sasha and for them- but he hadn’t. So he hadn’t wanted to lie to her personally and by not lying he’d confirmed what had only been the vaguest of suspicions, predicated upon nothing more than the television-captured look and whatever the lip-moving exchange had been between the woman and Charlie as she’d left the court. He hadn’t denied it . The four words were a continuing mantra in Natalia’s head, distracting her-deflecting her-from the reconvened meeting, which had just ended as inconclusively as every other session with Viktor Karelin. Now all she wanted to do was end it, to get away from these two men and their verbal carousel of avoidance. So enclosing was her despair that Natalia felt something close to the need to run-like Charlie had run from Lesnaya that morning-which was absurd because there was nowhere mentally or physically to run. But didn’t she have to? Didn’t she have to make some move, either physically or mentally, to end her impossible, perpetually conflicting situation with Charlie Muffin? What about loving him, which despite everything she still did? She at once acknowledged the much more important question. What about his loving her? He hadn’t, sufficiently, when he’d abandoned her in London all those years ago and he clearly didn’t now. So there was no point in going on with the pretense, convincing herself it was better for Sasha and better for her. There were too many risks, too many dangers, and she’d fooled herself into believing there was some way she could handle it. He hadn’t denied it . Now it was time for her to deny there’d ever been a chance of their making a life together.