Brian Freemantle - In the Name of a Killer

‘Power and influence,’ warned Hartz. ‘When he says jump, Congress jumps. All together. And Burden controls the budget like a miser worried about cash flow.’ A diplomatic negotiator on every level, Hartz added: ‘If we were allowed in, it would be the Bureau responsibility, right?’

‘Yes,’ said Ross.

‘Would you use your man already at the Moscow embassy?’

The Bureau Director shook his head, at once. ‘From the Bureau here.’

‘Why not run a feasibility, just in case?’

Throughout the day Walter Burden made himself available to all three major television networks and every newspaper or magazine which approached him, which was a lot, not just American but foreign publications as well. He declared himself devastated by the crime. Ann Harris was a niece whom he’d loved dearly, whose life had been only just beginning. He had spoken personally with the President and had been assured that all necessary steps were being taken by the Russian authorities to arrest the killer: the full resources of American criminal investigation agencies were being offered to Moscow. In response to several questions, Burden said he might consider going to the Russian capital himself. Every television appearance was accompanied by still photographs of Ann Harris, some taken with Burden. They were all good reproductions, showing a smiling, typically American girl with brace-sculpted teeth and flowing black hair. Which was how Burden wanted people to think of her, so he said nothing about the shorn hair.

The Ann Harris murder and Walter Burden’s interview remained the lead item through the day on Cable News Network, so William Cowley saw it several times on his office set in the FBI headquarters building. The anger at not already having been informed, which he considered he should have been as a courtesy at least, began and was just as quickly curbed. To have been informed would have been a courtesy, because his responsibility for Russian affairs was officially restricted to counter-espionage within the United States. And it was certainly not a courtesy he could have expected from the FBI agent stationed in Moscow, for altogether personal reasons.

The old memories were inevitable, of course. He wished they hadn’t been. As he wished so much else, too late.

William Cowley accepted that he was probably at the pinnacle of his professional career. Promotion beyond his existing position, as director of the Russian internal desk, was invariably political: he was, in fact, lucky to have achieved this much, after the carelessness. He certainly wasn’t careless any more: didn’t really concede he had been dangerously negligent in the past. He’d never put the job at risk. And now he was unquestionably the copy-book careerist in every way: utterly dedicated, first to arrive, last to leave, FBI personified. Which, he assured himself again, was how he’d always been, professionally. Maybe that was how the personal carelessness had arisen, from the confidence of a natural-born policeman who’d been additionally lucky with the breaks: achieving G-15 grade at the age of forty, eight highest-category commendations on his personal sheet, the most exemplary for jointly controlling with an Italian prosecutor the destruction of a Mafia-backed heroin operation when he had been attached to the embassy in Rome.

Beneficial professionally but disastrous personally, Cowley decided, coming to the bitterest reflection of all. The posting to London had been a direct result of the Rome success: London where the FBI maintained a four-man office and where one of the agents had been Barry Andrews, finger-snapping, smart-as-a-tack, good old Barry, everybody’s buddy. Cowley had regarded the man as his best friend, never suspecting he was more particularly Pauline’s friend. The bitterness was brief, because after so long he’d become objective, the most sensible acceptance of all that none of it had been Pauline’s fault. Not really Barry Andrews’s, either. If the break-up hadn’t happened in London it would have occurred elsewhere: he was neglecting her completely by then, the drinking at its worst, the womanizing open and blatant. Everything had been his fault.

So now he had his career and his title on the door and was as lonely as hell and by the Sod’s Law of fate had the permanent mockery of Barry Andrews in the same department although not in the same division.

Cowley made a conscious effort to slough off the reminiscence and was reaching forward for the stop button to shut off a repeat of the Burden television interview when the telephone rang.

‘The Director wants you,’ said Ross’s personal assistant. ‘Now.’

Petr Yezhov walked almost every night, a regular route and late, when there weren’t many people about. There’d always been people crowded around, in the hospitals. To walk, without people, meant he was free. No walls or locked doors, keeping him in. He’d walk tonight. But not near the Intourist Hotel. There were prostitutes hanging around the Intourist Hotel. Didn’t want to meet any prostitutes.

Danilov was later than he expected getting back to Militia headquarters. He’d let Pavin take the pool car, to get everything back to headquarters for forensic examination, and he’d delayed himself further telephoning Larissa. There was another man with Lapinsk when Danilov entered the Director’s office. Danilov instantly identified the uniform and the shoulder-boards of rank.

‘Lieutenant-Colonel Kir Gugin,’ introduced Lapinsk.

‘Formerly KGB, now of the Agency for Federal Security,’ added the man, as if his authority needed emphasis. He was fat and swarthy with the mottled red face of some physical condition, blood pressure perhaps. ‘We’ve been waiting a long time,’ he added, complaining.

The curbs and disbandments throughout the organization after the failed coup of 1991 had done nothing to diminish the arrogance, reflected Danilov. ‘I’m involved in an investigation.’ Had Gugin waited to announce his takeover?

‘Anything I should know?’ demanded Lapinsk, anxiously. The General was a grey man — grey faced, grey hair, grey suited — and had the slightly tired attitude of someone gratefully declining into retirement. Danilov thought Lapinsk looked very much the grandfather he was: there were two framed photographs on the desk of Lapinsk’s daughter, with her two sons. On the wall behind the man there were larger photographs of the devastation of Stalingrad and a separate picture of a very young Lapinsk, in army uniform. The man had survived the entire siege of 1942 as a corporal in Chuikov’s 62nd Army and was justifiably proud.

‘She’d had sex. But she hadn’t been raped: Novikov is adamant about that. We’ve taken from her apartment a rack of kitchen knives. One that could have caused the wound that killed her is missing.’

‘There’s been a second, more forceful protest from the Americans claiming that you broke into the apartment,’ said Gugin. He didn’t know how, not yet, but there were very definitely some benefits to be manipulated here.

‘I did not break in,’ retorted Danilov. He was determined against being intimidated by the KGB officer: certainly one of lesser rank. ‘We’ve managed to conduct a reasonably thorough forensic examination, which we would not have been able to do otherwise.’

Lapinsk sighed at the squabbling. His ulcer began to nag. ‘What’s the significance of the sex and the knife? That she knew her killer?’

‘I’m not attaching any special significance: merely telling you what might be important. I’m getting Novikov’s written report tomorrow. I need to compare that with the verbal account.’

‘Have you considered the political aspects of this?’ demanded Gugin. ‘It could mean that this woman knew a mass murderer: that he could even be American!’