Brian Freemantle - In the Name of a Killer

Cowley hesitated, uncertain how much he should disclose.

‘Hughes has been withdrawn. He won’t be coming back.’

Danilov nodded, slowly. ‘Withdrawn to be questioned further?’

The obvious anticipation of a trained detective or of a planted intelligence officer, wondered Cowley, remembering the doubt about Danilov at the CIA meeting. He could be wrong — he’d been too often wrong already on this case — but he found it difficult to think of the Russian as anything but a policeman. ‘He’ll be questioned further.’

‘Will we be told the result?’ asked Danilov.

Cowley guessed the other man was still suspicious, despite their cooperation agreement just before his return to Washington. ‘I would expect to hear, if anything relevant emerges.’

The recall was obvious, Danilov supposed. And at once concentrated the thought. And would have been obvious to Gugin from the beginning, just as it would have been obvious when the man had made the telephone transcripts available that the Americans would instantly recognize the source and act upon it. So Gugin had planned — wanted — it to happen. One realization led logically to another, bringing a burn of anger: he’d played the performing monkey to the intelligence agency’s organ-grinder. The anger deepened at the thought that it should have occurred to him earlier. ‘And you’ll tell me, if you hear?’

He had to make a decision, thought Cowley: they would go round in circles, chasing their own tails and getting nowhere, unless they started operating as a team rather than competitors. He said: ‘At our last meeting I gave you an undertaking. I mean to stick to it.’

Danilov smiled at the reassurance, which he hadn’t sought. ‘I intend to do the same. After what’s already occurred, I don’t think either of us can afford to do anything else.’

Cowley was unsure whether he should continue the honesty by openly making the request. He’d gone a long way to creating the initial difficulty by covertly making the fingerprint comparison, he reflected. ‘I would like my own copy of the telephone transcript.’

Danilov didn’t respond for several moments. Gugin would have probably expected this demand, too. So to agree would mean his continuing to be the organ-grinder’s monkey. To refuse would endanger the fragile working relationship still not provably established with the American. Practicality was more important than pride, he decided, easily: being manipulated by Gugin was a side issue, little more than an irritating distraction. He tapped the documentation that Cowley had delivered and said: ‘Why don’t I read this, while you’re getting whatever you want?’

The sequence was as Cowley had described at Langley, the conversations seeming to be from Ann Harris to Paul Hughes. But without the actual tapes, it would always be impossible to establish the precise order. Not his concern any more, thought Cowley. He’d obtained what he’d been told to get. And it supported his account: now it was for the CIA to establish whatever they wanted from their own interrogation of Paul Hughes.

Pavin was re-emerging to get the required hair sample from Lydia Orlenko when Cowley returned to Danilov’s office. The American stood back to allow the Major to leave. Beyond him, from his jumbled desk, Danilov nodded after his departing assistant and said: ‘Another blank. The man he went to interview had been re-admitted to hospital by the date of Ann Harris’s murder.’ The fact that the re-admission had not been recorded on the first report was yet again clear proof that the original street team had not bothered to visit this man, either. Danilov added: ‘Pavin tried to see another one on the list but there was no one at the flat.’

‘There was a Tuesday during the time I was away,’ reminded Cowley.

‘There was nothing,’ said Danilov. ‘So now it looks as if the day has no significance, either.’

The second interview Pavin had attempted had been at the Bronnaja Boulevard apartment of Petr Yezhov. He had not been at home, but his mother was. She’d seen the obviously official car stop in the forecourt below and tensed for the knock, which came within minutes. She’d hunched in a chair, motionless against any betraying sound — even breathing lightly — until the knocking stopped and she heard the footsteps retreat. She was sure Petr was lying, denying he’d done anything wrong: was absolutely convinced of it.

In the old days they’d operated a schedule convenient to them both, Danilov always getting there around six in the evening on his way home, a time when Eduard Agayans had fixed the arrivals and departures of the lorries he wanted unhindered the following day. Danilov observed it that night, wanting to be sure the Armenian would be at the Leninskii block. He’d already formulated an excuse for the visit and on his way evolved another even more childlike rubric. If Agayans was there, he was meant to have a meeting: if the office was empty, he wasn’t meant to re-establish contact with the man and wouldn’t try again.

Agayans was there.

But there was a long delay in the door being opened. Danilov waited, patiently, knowing he would be under self-preserving scrutiny from various vantage points. Agayans eventually unbolted the door himself, gazing through the narrow gap he allowed with frowning, almost disbelieving curiosity. The smile came with the final recognition, but the former back-slapping, hugging exuberance wasn’t there. Instead the Armenian nodded, in some private reassurance to himself, and said: ‘Hello, old friend. Welcome back. I hope I’m glad to see you.’

The door was briefly opened wide enough for Danilov to enter, just as quickly closed and bolted again. Danilov was at once aware of the change. Previously the offices, glassed squares around the vast warehouse expanse, had been a beehive of activity, the warehouse floor swarming with people loading and unloading regiments of lorries. Now more than half the offices appeared deserted — Danilov could only count a total of six people in all of them — and there were only two lorries down below. Neither was being worked upon. The place had an abandoned, slowly dying air.

Unspeaking, Danilov followed the wiry, black-haired man to his personal den: after the slightest hesitation, Agayans took the brandy bottle from a desk drawer, half filled two tumblers and offered one across the desk. Danilov accepted, waiting for the familiar toast. Tonight there wasn’t one.

The invented reason for Danilov’s visit had been to inquire about mystery wanderers Agayans’s drivers might have seen on their nightly journeys around Moscow, but Danilov abandoned the pretence at once. Instead he said, simply: ‘What’s happened, Eduard?’

‘There have been a lot of changes,’ said the black marketeer.

‘I don’t need to be told that. Why? How?’

‘I know you are not involved,’ said the Armenian, obscurely. ‘You didn’t know: don’t know.’

‘Tell me!’ said Danilov, impatiently.

‘I don’t have Militia friends any more. My lorries get stopped. The contents stolen. My customers have to look elsewhere. I am being squeezed dry.’

‘But I introduced you … made sure …’

‘Introduced me,’ agreed Agayans. ‘You couldn’t make sure. For a time it was as it always had been. Then the hijacking started: the stealing of entire consignments by the organized syndicates. I protested to Kosov, of course: asked for the protection that was understood always between us. He told me not to worry: that he would see to it. His visits became less frequent. He didn’t seem to want anything. The lorry interception got worse. I asked him again but Kosov said there was nothing he could do. Now he doesn’t come at all.’