Brian Freemantle - In the Name of a Killer

If she did accept it, the encounter continued properly, as such things should. Nadia would never allow a fumbling, groping meeting: the back-against-the-wall couplings were for the street girls, not for her. It either had to be in the clients’ hotel rooms or at Uspenskii Prospekt, for which she always had her small BMW available, which had been expensive to buy and was a headache to protect from theft but was a sign of class: whores in Moscow did not possess cars. But she considered even that — your room or my apartment? — to be rushed. Nadia knew elegant, sophisticated call-girls didn’t rush. Lonely men enjoyed more than just sex: lonely men far from home wanted complete companionship. Nadia liked discreet, unhurried drinks — reciprocal trade for the cooperative hotels, after all — and then equally unhurried dinners in the hard-currency restaurants where the pace of service showed Western understanding, not Russian apathy. She was socially fluent in English and French. She knew the failings of glasnost and perestroika and could talk intelligently about them, just as she could talk intelligently about important political events in the West. And about Western films and Western books, because she read as well as spoke English and avidly studied the Wall Street Journals and the Herald Tribunes she bought from the various hotel outlets: sometimes, from contented clients, she even got the books she’d seen reviewed and described as bestsellers. They looked good on the bookshelves at Uspenskii Prospekt to those men who came home.

She already had four regular clients who made contact whenever they were on business in Moscow, three American, one French. Two of the Americans now brought presents when they came. One lived in New York — he’d shown her photographs of the apartment in Manhattan and the weekend house in Westchester — and had said it would be terrific if she lived there instead of here, where he could only visit three times a year.

Which was what Nadia intended to do — fulfilling her ambition by going to America — although not under his patronage. She’d had no need for male protection in Moscow and definitely intended retaining her independence in Manhattan. Her apartment would be high, with a view across the river, although she wasn’t sure which one because she hadn’t worked out the difference yet. She’d establish the same system as here, through receptionists and concierges and doormen: she didn’t imagine it would be difficult. She’d increase her list of regular clients, men who respected her, felt proud to have her beside them in restaurants. During the day, she’d shop at Bergdorf Goodman and Saks and Bloomingdale’s, which she knew were smartly sophisticated from what she’d read.

Nadia had already made her visa application. The man from New York was due in another six weeks: at the moment she was undecided whether to ask him to sponsor her, which she understood would speed up her getting into America. She didn’t want the permanent, wrongly understood burden of him in America and guessed he would be nervous of the permanent, wrongly understood burden of her, imagining she wanted more than just an entry facility. It was something she had six weeks to think about, although she was already a long way towards deciding to ask the man. She had no family and therefore no ties to Moscow. Neither did she have the attitude about Russia that so many others did, as if they were tied to the country by some invisible umbilical cord.

She felt the excited anticipation of someone embarking on a new career. Which was, she supposed, exactly what she would be doing. Very soon now.

On this occasion there was no coffee served by broad-hipped ladies with iron-grey hair, and Ralph Baxter was already attentively with the ambassador, so Cowley guessed it was going to be a meeting of complaint, if not censure.

It was and it began at once. Hubert Richards said: ‘I was to be told of everything involving this embassy. You blatantly withheld from me this disgraceful business of Hughes and Miss Harris. And of Miss Donnelly, who has also been withdrawn. Mrs Hughes, too, of course. And you brought a member of the Moscow Militia into the embassy without my permission, which should have been sought. The first proper information I received of any of this came from the State Department, to me here. Which is preposterous!’

The ambassador had the hots echoed in Cowley’s head, from his interview with Judy Billington. Could Ralph Baxter be the other, unnamed diplomat who’d cried when he got too drunk to make love to the dead girl? Cowley supposed he could be censured for bringing Danilov on to the premises, but not for much else. He didn’t consider there was anything for which he had to make a grovelling apology. ‘The situation was governed by circumstances. The way it happened was unavoidable.’

‘Bringing a Russian detective into this embassy was avoidable,’ Baxter insisted, joining in the attack. ‘There was sufficient time to have fully briefed the ambassador before you returned to Washington. It would have then been quite possible to keep up the correct order of things, with us providing rather than receiving the information. It was all avoidable.’

In tandem, Richards announced: ‘I am protesting to the Bureau. Both direct and through the State Department. Your behaviour was arrogant and disrespectful.’

Momentarily Cowley couldn’t remember who else had been described as arrogant, and then recalled it had been Danilov, that first day: it seemed a favourite accusation at the embassy. How seriously would any complaint be taken against him? Everyone in Washington already knew the sequence of events: even that he’d brought a Russian investigator into the embassy. So the repeated news wouldn’t come as any startling revelation. ‘I don’t accept that I was either arrogant or disrespectful. But on the subject of information exchange, I consider I was not fully advised — which I could have been — about the sort of woman Ann Harris was. Now it’s no longer relevant: at the time I sought help, it might well have been.’ The two other Americans exchanged looks, and once more Cowley wondered if Baxter had been the disastrous one-night stand mocked by Judy Billington.

‘I want to know — now and fully — of anything else that might affect this embassy,’ Richards insisted.

‘You will have been warned of the security breach on telephone communication, into the embassy?’ questioned Cowley.

Baxter nodded: ‘We have already been advised that electronics experts are flying in to conduct a survey throughout the embassy. The entire staff are anyway under permanent instructions to be guarded in what they say on an open phone line.’

Advice that neither Ann Harris nor Paul Hughes had followed, thought Cowley. ‘There’s obvious concern that Hughes might have been isolated by Russian intelligence, as a blackmail target. The woman, too.’

Richards nodded again, as if he already knew that, as well. ‘Nothing else?’

‘Nothing,’ assured Cowley. He hoped neither man considered this the beginning of a complete information exchange between them. He certainly didn’t regard it as such.

‘The list of articles taken from Miss Harris’s flat refers to correspondence,’ said Baxter. ‘Does it contain anything that might cause any further possible embarrassment to this embassy?’

Cowley looked steadily at the man. ‘Like what?’ he said, question for question.

Baxter shrugged. ‘I don’t know. Anything.’

You wanted information, thought Cowley: so squirm, you bastards. ‘I have reason to believe, from the letters and inquiries I made among her friends back in America, that Ann Harris had been involved in sexual liaisons with other men, in addition to Paul Hughes.’