Brian Freemantle - In the Name of a Killer

‘The husband and the patrolman?’ demanded Danilov.

Pavin gestured along the corridor. ‘In the waiting-room.’

The two men were sitting in silence, facing each other from opposite sides of the room, which was quite empty apart from chairs arranged around all four walls. The uniformed patrolman was smoking, papirosi , the butts of the hollow-tubed Russian cigarettes already around his feet. The husband was wearing a loud, brown-checked jerkin that reminded Cowley of blanket material, over oil-stained blue work overalls. Both men looked curiously at the American, instantly recognizing a foreigner.

Cowley let Danilov lead. The patrolman had been walking along Granovskaya when the screaming started. It had taken him a few moments to locate the alley, because it was so small. The woman had been propped up on her left elbow, hysterical, shouting nothing he could understand. He’d thought she’d been wildly drunk until he’d seen the blood. At the same time as seeing the blood he’d realized her hair had been cut off, in clumps, and strewn all around her. She became unconscious before the ambulance arrived. She’d been entirely alone when he reached her and he’d neither seen nor heard anyone running away. He’d obviously entered the alley from Ulitza Granovskaya: at its other end, it emerged into Semasko. He hadn’t thought to go on, to check that street for anyone: his concern had been to get help for the wounded woman. He was sorry if he’d done wrong.

Boris Orlenko was a nervous, sharp-moving man who spoke too quickly and stuttered because of it. He said his wife had been a waitress at the Intourist Hotel for five years: mostly she worked in the ground-floor coffee-shop but occasionally she helped out in one of the upstairs restaurants. She always walked home, even when she was on late shift, because they lived so close. He couldn’t understand why she had been attacked and wanted to know if they did. Why had her hair been cut off? It didn’t make sense. None of it made sense. She was just an ordinary person, with nothing worth stealing. They were both just ordinary people. He had to be at the terminus by six: would he be allowed to get away by then? If not he’d have to telephone somebody: it would cause problems at the depot. He could come back to see his wife when he finished work. That would be all right, wouldn’t it?

‘Did your wife ever speak of knowing people — anyone — from the American embassy?’ asked Cowley, coming into the questioning for the first time.

Orlenko fidgeted, uncomfortably. ‘The embassy? No. She knew Americans … not knew them, you understand. Served them, at the hotel. That’s all. I suppose some could have come from the embassy. She never said.’

‘What about regular American customers? Someone who came a lot?’

The Russian shook his head. ‘No one. Not that she said.’

‘Do you think she would have done? Did she talk about the hotel?’

Orlenko frowned. ‘Not a lot. Just sometimes. You’re American, aren’t you? What’s she got to do with the embassy?’

‘Nothing,’ said Cowley, sighing. He looked to Danilov to take over, but the Russian detective shook his head, with nothing left to ask. To the seated men Danilov said: ‘You can both go: we know where you’ll be.’

‘No possible connection with the embassy this time,’ said Cowley in English, as the two filed out.

‘We didn’t know Suzlev concentrated upon embassy customers until we saw his wife a second time,’ Danilov pointed out. ‘It’s the woman here who’s important.’

It was another hour before Lydia Orlenko recovered consciousness and almost a further hour again before they were permitted into the minuscule side-ward. She was lying on her left, the side furthest from the wound, with a pillow behind her to keep her in position. There was an arched frame over the upper part of her body but beneath the bedding, keeping its weight off. Her shorn head was completely covered by the sort of protective mobcap that women wear for hygienic reasons in places where food is prepared. She had her eyes closed and was breathing deeply and Danilov thought she might have gone to sleep again.

‘Lydia?’ he said, quietly. ‘Lydia Markovina Orlenko?’ Her eyes flickered open, but heavily, without immediate focus. He was stooped low, close to her: her breath stank appallingly, fouled by the anaesthetic. ‘Can you hear me? Understand what I’m saying?’

She grunted, thickly.

‘I’m from the Militia: from Petrovka. I have to know what happened.’

She moved, very slightly, and there was an instant wince of pain. ‘Hurt.’

‘How were you hurt?’

Her eyes cleared, properly registering him at last. ‘Don’t know.’

There was a chair in the room, but Danilov ignored it, kneeling on the floor beside the bed. Cowley did the same, but with more difficulty, because of his size. There was no room at all for Pavin, who remained just inside the door, able to hear everything for his notes. Danilov said: ‘You finished work and left the hotel to walk home, as you usually do. What street were you on, approaching the alley? Granovskaya? Or Semasko?’

‘Semasko. From the hotel. Always.’

‘By yourself?’

‘Yes?’

‘No one with you?’

‘No.’

‘How about behind? Following?’

‘Didn’t see.’

‘Or hear?’

‘No.’

‘What happened at the passage?’

‘Went in. Always do. Dark, but I know it. Hurt me.’ Without warning or any movement of her body, to indicate the breakdown, the woman began to weep, a solitary tear path forming along the side of her nose.

She moved to wipe it away, but whimpered with the pain of the movement. Danilov felt for his own handkerchief and realized he didn’t have one. Cowley passed his along the bed and the Russian gently wiped the wetness away. He said: ‘It’ll hurt more if you cry. You’re safe now. Tell me what happened then.’

‘Someone behind me, very close. Very close and then pressing into me. Hand over my mouth, so I couldn’t breath: squeezing my nose. Hurt me. Pulled me backwards. Then awful pain. Something going into me. Felt like burning. Tried to scream but I couldn’t. Hand too tight across my mouth. Fell down. Awful pain. Then I can’t remember …’

She began to cough, whimpering again each time at the jar to her back. Danilov tried to help her to some water from the glass by the bedside, but she couldn’t drink properly and some spilled on to the pillow. As close as he was he detected the bruising on her upper lip and under her nose and remembered that Ann Harris and Vladimir Suzlev had both been similarly marked, according to the pathology report.

Tentatively Lydia Orlenko moved her head, keeping it on the pillow but looking down to include Cowley. ‘Who are you?’

‘Another policeman, helping me,’ answered Danilov, speaking for the other man. ‘You can remember, after falling down. You screamed. A patrolman came.’

‘Can’t remember falling down, after the burning in my back. I was just there. Like waking up. Felt him over me. Standing, looking down. Screamed and tried to hit him, to push him away. Did hit him. Heard him grunt when I hit him. Then he was gone. Screamed more then, to keep him away …’ There was a fresh outburst of painful coughing. She shook her head against more water and said: ‘Stop! I want the pain to stop!’

‘You’re doing very well,’ encouraged Danilov. ‘Telling us a lot of important things. You’re sure it was a man?’

She hesitated. ‘He wore trousers. And a jacket.’

‘No topcoat?’

‘Quilted jacket.’

‘Listen carefully,’ ordered Danilov, speaking very precisely. ‘You must tell us what he looked like: everything you can remember.’