Brian Freemantle - In the Name of a Killer

Hughes. How much of that morning’s profile could fit the economist? Would the CIA polygraphs prove the alibis a lie, after all?’

‘… and one of the diplomats, although that was a one-night disaster …’ she giggled. ‘Got drunk, couldn’t get it up and cried. That’s what she told me, anyhow … Someone she called Mr Droop. There was a musical on Broadway: Edwin Drood . She got it from that.’ The smile widened. ‘There was one identity. The ambassador had the hots. Always used to touch her ass or her arm, supposedly easing his way past her at receptions or when they were in the same place socially: it’s the sort of things some guys do. Always included her in official things, too. But he could never bring himself to make the big pass. Ann thought it was funny. She guessed it would have been another hold-it-for-me-while-I-cry number.’

‘What about Russians?’

‘She couldn’t stand Russia!’

‘We’re not talking about the place: we’re talking about men. She didn’t hate men.’

‘No Russian men. And I think she would have told me.’

‘What about other embassies?’

There was an immediate nod. ‘Her first thing was with an attache at the French embassy …’ She looked up, pleased at the recollection. ‘And a name! Guy. His name was Guy. She was crazy about him at first: said he was fantastic …’

At last! thought Cowley. So it wasn’t a fruitless afternoon: he could get the complete identity of an attache named Guy in minutes. ‘You said at first. What happened?’

Judy regarded him curiously. ‘He went back to France, of course. Over a year ago. They kept in touch for a while but he was married, like they all are, so it kind of fizzled out.’

Cowley felt almost physically deflated, nearly as deflated as he’d been at the end of the interview with Hughes. Deciding to use what he knew about the economist and the dead girl, hopefully to jog Judy Billington’s memory of other things, he said: ‘The guy who liked to hurt her, in bed: you wrote to each other about it. Did she ever talk or write about feeling threatened by him? Or anybody? Ever imagine she might have been picked out?’

‘Stalked, you mean?’ For the first time the woman became properly serious.

‘She was , by somebody.’ At Quantico the psychologist had told him victims were invariably strangers to their killers. So why was he pursuing this point?

It took Judy longer this time to answer. She did so shaking her head. ‘Never that she thought she was being picked out. She didn’t mind the pain bit, not altogether. Just sometimes. Said they were all a bunch of kinky bastards.’

‘You’re absolutely sure she wasn’t ever involved with a Russian?’

‘If she was, she didn’t say a word about it.’

At least Quantico hadn’t been wasted, although so much of what he’d been told seemed to be information that would be useful after an arrest, not directly guiding him towards making one. About which the psychologist had warned him, he remembered: normal investigation methods had to come first. ‘You’ve been very patient.’

She frowned. ‘Have I helped?’

‘Sure,’ he lied.

The provocative smile came back. ‘You look better in the flesh than you did on television, from Moscow. You looked very pissed off there.’

‘It was a media event. There wasn’t any point.’

‘Can you believe what that asshole Burden did today? He posed for the photographers at the cemetery. And answered questions for reporters. Practically shoved Ann’s parents out of the way. She told me once how he dominated her mother and father, but I never believed it was as gross as that.’

‘I would have thought by now he would have run out of complaints about the way the investigation is going.’ Cowley paused. Cynically he added: ‘But then maybe I wouldn’t.’

‘The Washington Post said you’d been sent specially to Moscow.’

‘Yes.’

‘Other times you’re based here?’

Cowley just stopped short of saying his regular apartment was practically within walking distance. ‘Yes.’

‘When you get back — when it’s all over — why not call me sometime?’

‘Sure,’ agreed Cowley, with no intention of doing so.

He watched Burden’s cemetery media event on Live at Five, back at the hotel. The Senator said he intended to give the FBI the courtesy of a reply to his belief in a cover-up, before initiating a public debate in the Senate. A beautiful, innocent girl shouldn’t be used like a shuttlecock in some God-knows-what international diplomatic mess: it was too bad if Russia had something to hide.

Cowley sat shaking his head in disgust. It was all performance, he thought: Burden at the interment, Judy Billington after the same ceremony. Who was bothering to grieve for Ann Harris? He guessed her parents were: somebody had to.

The FBI Director saw Burden’s telecast, too, on the set in the Secretary of State’s office to which he had been summoned yet again.

‘It’s a direct Presidential order now,’ insisted Henry Hartz. ‘It’s got to be the whole truth, from now on.’

‘OK,’ said Ross. ‘He’ll get the truth.’

Paul Hughes was intercepted at immigration at Dulles airport. There were four men: the one who did the talking and produced the correct identification genuinely was from the State Department.

‘I didn’t expect this sort of treatment!’ said Hughes, settling comfortably into the back of the waiting limousine.

‘You probably don’t expect a lot of the treatment you’re going to get,’ said one of the CIA men. It wasn’t a chance remark: it was important for Hughes to start to sweat right away.

Petr Yezhov didn’t walk all the time. There were certain places where there were seats, dark places where he knew people couldn’t look at him, where he sat and rested. He stopped that night near the Chekhov House, on Ulitza Sadovaya Kudrinskaya, on a bench beneath a sparse collection of trees, wanting to get things clear in his mind, which was always difficult. His mother didn’t believe him. He didn’t care unduly about that: she never properly trusted him. He was worried about the men, though. They were official: people who had to be obeyed. People who had to be obeyed could lock him up again. He was very frightened of that happening.

Leonard Ross was determined everything should work on his terms, although no one was ever to know it. Which was why he personally telephoned Senator Burden’s office, politely requested the meeting through John Prescott and assured the personal assistant there would not be the slightest inconvenience in Ross’s going to the Dirksen Building. The front entrance was cankered with photographers, reporters and television cameramen when the FBI Director, accompanied only by Fletcher, got there: when their arrival was realized, other journalists hurried to join the main group from side doors through which a less public entry might have been attempted. Ross shouldered his way through the question-yelling throng, insisting he had nothing to say prior to the meeting and nor would he have afterwards; any statement would come from the Senator. The Director and his aide were not finally free from the crush until passing through the door into Burden’s suite. Prescott was waiting in the ante-room: Ross guessed the young man’s superior smile reflected the attitude further inside. It did.

Burden did not rise from behind his football-pitch-sized desk. Beth Humphries was immediately alongside, although at a separate table: in front of her was a tape recorder, in addition to an already open notebook. James McBride, the media organizer, was on the couch that ran the length of one wall. He did stand. In contrast to Burden’s high-backed, padded-armed chair, the seat already placed directly in front of the desk was steel-framed, standard office issue. Ross went unquestioningly to it, smiling back to Prescott. ‘We’ll need another one.’ The seat produced for Fletcher was steel-framed, as well. Ross decided everything was going far better than he could have hoped.