Brian Freemantle - The Watchmen

Zotin yawned exaggeratedly. “I don’t know anything about Viktor Nikov or what he was doing in Moscow. I haven’t seen him for months. You’re wasting your time.”

He was, admitted Danilov. He hoped the other things he was doing would not be so frustrating.

Patrick Hollis hadn’t anticipated his mother demanding to ride with him when he’d announced he was going out in the new car. He hated upsetting her, and the dispute had delayed him. Now he was having to drive faster than he should have to keep strictly to the time schedule. He wasn’t sure what he would do if the booth was occupied. If it was, then it would be an omen, a sign that he wasn’t intended to take the call, so he’d drive away-keep to his original intention and sever the link.

But the booth wasn’t occupied, although the telephone was ringing when he pulled up outside.

“Where were you?” demanded the voice when Hollis picked up the receiver.

“Traffic,” said Hollis. He was short of breath from hurrying and apprehension.

“Build in time for delays.”

“You did it, didn’t you? The missile in New York?”

“You knew we were going to. You’re part of it.”

Hollis hesitated, trying to calm his breathing. “A lot of people got killed.”

“We’re fighting a war, aren’t we?”

“I don’t want any part of it.”

“You are part of it.”

“Not anymore.” It had been right to take the call. Proved himself to be a man, confronting a situation and refusing to go on.

“Listen to me! The war’s ongoing and we need more money. You’ve got to help us get it. Give us more account numbers-a lot more than you have already.”

The man was frightened he was going to pull out. It was a strange feeling-a feeling he’d never had before-knowing another man was frightened of him. “No.”

The sensation he’d never known before-power? authority? — stayed with Hollis as he drove away. It was going to be easy asking Carole Parker out, too. He’d have to make up a story for his mother. He didn’t want another scene like the one tonight.

The duty complaint detective didn’t hide the sigh, knowing everyone else in the squad room was laughing and finding it difficult not to laugh himself. He said, “Sir, you’re telling me that in six months you’ve been shortchanged a total of seven bucks!”

“Seven dollars and sixty cents,” corrected Clarence Snelling.

“What does the bank say?”

“That they’re sorry.”

“They make it up to you?”

“Yes.”

“So there’s no actual loss?”

“No. But it’s the principle.”

“What exactly would you have me do?”

“Investigate it, what else?”

“Sure,” said the man. “You’d better let me have the details.” He’d be able to turn it into that day’s funny story in the bar later.

There were a lot of officers and detectives who became distressed, vomited even, when confronted with the victim of violent death. Dimitri Danilov never had been, apart from Larissa, whom he’d had to identify from her belongings and which hadn’t been an uninvolved professional duty.

A dead body mattered to him only for the clues it might scientifically provide to catch its killer. Beyond that it was a lifeless thing, of no interest or emotion. He felt absolutely none as he stood beside Pavin in the police mortuary, staring down at the naked gray flesh, following the pathologist through the external medical findings. The testes of both victims were ballooned from torture before they died. There were also whip marks across their backs and the round marks of cigarette burns on both faces, which no longer had eyes. There was severe restraint bruising to the ankles and wrists, which the pathologist guessed to have been caused by metal handcuffs, not softer rope, and the doctor also thought from the testicle damage that they had been tortured over a period of several hours-as much, even, as an entire day. The head shots had been what killed them, the teeth-shattering mouth wounds following, for symbolism. Medically Nikov had been suffering gonorrhea and Karpov ulcers, for which antacid medication was among the man’s effects.

Pavin had met Danilov in at the airport that morning and brought with him the recovered pocket contents of each victim, but they’d spent the journey to the mortuary discussing Gorki.

Pavin identified ownership by placing the appropriate plastic evidence sacks at the foot of each body on its adjacent gurney. As Danilov picked up the bag marked with Nikov’s name, his deputy said, “The other one’s more intriguing.”

Danilov said, “I want to keep my head in sequence. All I’ve heard about for the past three days is this man.”

Viktor Nikolaevich Nikov had come to Moscow to be murdered carrying $1,470 in American currency, a gold cigarette case containing ten now-soaked Marlboro cigarettes, and a gold Zippo lighter. The watch was gold, too, a Cartier, and the gold signet ring had an onyx setting. The only other jewelry was a gold, unengraved identity bracelet. There was a passport, showing two American visa entries and two driver’s licenses, one in his own name, the other in that of Eduard Babkendovich Kulik. They reminded Danilov that he’d forgotten the previous day to check for a vehicle or a garage that might have belonged to the man’s apartment. Carelessness was obviously contagious in Gorki.

Danilov said, “Like they always say, crime pays.”

“Until you get shot in the head and mouth,” said Pavin. “Now try the other one.”

Valeri Alexandrovich Karpov had been carrying $420, again in American currency. There was a gold, Swiss-made watch, which had stopped at 12:40, and a wedding ring. All the contents had been removed to dry from a new leather wallet. There were curling photographs of a blond woman, from the background standing on the bank of the river into which Karpov had been thrown untold years later, one of a much younger Karpov with the same woman, and two more of the man with smiling children, both girls. There was only one driver’s license. As Danilov put it aside for the next item Pavin, beside him, said, “And finally the interesting part.”

It was an official pass, on yellow cardboard kept dry by its laminated plastic case, and contained a photograph of the dead man, whose job description was given as stores supervisor. Reading the cover page imprint, Danilov said, “Do I need to ask what’s manufactured at Plant 43, Moscow provincial area?”

“Chemical as well as biological,” confirmed Pavin. “It’s some way out of Moscow, to the northwest. Actually on the Skhodaya River, in the Tushino region.”

“Which connects with the canal and the Khimkinskoy Reservoir,” recognized Danilov. “I wonder if anyone ever worries what would happen to Moscow if there were to be a leak, like there was at Chernobyl?”

“Of course they don’t,” said Pavin, responding seriously to Danilov’s cynicism. “Our appointment there is for three this afternoon.”

“Did you tell them why?”

“I didn’t need to. Did you see the television coverage of what happened in America?”

“Some. What did the factory say?”

“That we needed authority from the Ministry of Science as well as the Ministry of Defense. So I called Chelyag’s secretariat at the White House. We got permission an hour before you landed.”

“Thank you,” said Danilov. It hadn’t been a mistake at all to leave Pavin in Moscow.

“We’ve got time to check out Pereulok Samokatnaja,” Pavin pointed out.

“The wife been informed yet?”

“You told me to wait,” reminded Pavin.

Which might have been a mistake, thought Danilov-not putting any family there under protection at least. “I think we should.”