Brian Freemantle - In the Name of a Killer

And senior Militia Colonel Dimitri Danilov, with assistant Major Yuri Pavin, arrived at a third-floor flat on Ulitza Pushkinskaya ahead of any American presence.

Petr Yakovlevich Yezhov had carried out two known assaults on women. During the second he had completely bitten off the left nipple of a prostitute who in unintended retribution had given him gonorrhoea minutes before the bite.

For both attacks, mental evidence having been called at each trial, Yezhov served periods of detention in Moscow psychiatric institutions. As a result he had developed an obsessional hatred of incarceration and was determined never to be locked up again.

Yezhov’s was one of fifty names to emerge during the case history search of the city’s psychiatric clinics and hospitals.

Danilov disliked entering the homes of murder victims. He’d had to do it too many times and always had a sense of awkwardness, feeling he was intruding into the privacy of someone whose privacy had already been too much violated. In the minute entrance hall he said: ‘This isn’t a normal situation. I want everything — and I mean everything — completed now . There won’t be another chance. There must be no damage …’ Nodding towards Pavin, who carried the specimen case, Danilov said: ‘The Major will compile a complete and detailed inventory of anything removed. List it at the moment of collection. I want nothing overlooked, to be complained about later. Understood?’

There were grunts and nods from the assembled men: as if investing him with the responsibility for what might go wrong, they remained slightly behind as Danilov went further into the apartment.

The curtains were drawn, but all the lights still burned, showing an apartment luxurious by Russian standards, comfortable by Western. The wallpaper was heavily patterned, unlike any Danilov had seen in Russia, and the furniture was obviously also imported. There was an extensive stereo system along one wall, with records stacked on a shelf above. All the books in a cabinet against a far wall were English-language. Cushions on a couch and an easy chair fronting a small table were crumpled from the pressure of being sat upon. There were two glasses — one still containing some clear liquid — on the table. Delicately he sniffed and then carefully dipped his finger into the liquid. It was vodka.

Ann Harris’s handbag was on a small occasional table that supported a sidelamp, which was on. The bag was the sort that secured by a snap clasp. The clasp was undone.

With a wooden medical spatula Danilov opened the handbag fully, so that it gaped, and used long-armed tweezers to lift out the contents, one by one. As he did so, he listed the items for Pavin to record. There was a compact, with a fixture at the side, empty, for a lipstick canister. The billfold was Vuitton: it held American Express and Visa cards, American and Russian driving licences, a plasticized embassy ID card, seventy-five roubles and eighty US dollars. There was one photograph, a studio portrait without any background, of a smiling couple, both grey-haired. Danilov estimated their age at about sixty. The address book was very small, clearly designed for a handbag or a pocket. Danilov flicked through, quickly, seeing both American and Moscow numbers. He offered it sideways to Pavin, who held out a waiting plastic envelope. The diary was a slender one, pocket-sized again, with a line-a-day entry. Danilov looked more intently than he had at the address book, realizing at once it was very much an appointments record, with no personal entries. The line for the previous day was blank. That, too, went into a plastic exhibit envelope. Danilov gestured to the fingerprint man for the handbag to be tested.

The kitchen was clean, with no indication of a cleared-away evening meal the previous night. The dishwasher — a dinosaur rarity in a Russian home — was empty. Everything in the store cupboards carried American labels, bought from the embassy commissary. The tins were regimented on the shelves, sectioned by their contents, so that selection would only take moments. Even the perishable goods in the refrigerator, like milk and butter and bread, carried American brand names.

There was an extensive range of alcohol in a cupboard beneath sink level, bourbon and scotch whisky, brandy and gin. The vodka bottle was at the front, half empty. All the labels — even the vodka — showed them to be imported. There were fifteen bottles of wine, a selection of white and red, laid in a rack where the kitchen cabinets ended. All came from California.

The bedroom was at the end of a corridor. The door was half open: Danilov used the spatula to push it further, so they could enter. The bed was in chaos, most of the covers on the floor, the sheets crumpled into kicked-aside rolls.

Pavin indicated the pillows and said, needlessly: ‘Both indented.’

Danilov called back into the lounge for the evidence experts. When they reached him he said: ‘I want this room checked everywhere for prints …’ He nodded to the bed. ‘Search it, now, for fibres or hair. Then take it all to the laboratory. I want any stains checked, for blood, semen, anything.’

Perfume, skin-care creams and cleansers were ordered along the glass top of the dressing-table. In addition there were three framed photographs. One was of Ann Harris taken in Moscow, against the background of the onion domes of St Basil’s Cathedral. The second was of the couple whose picture had been in her handbag. The third was of a man standing in such a way that the Capitol in Washington was in the background: the photograph had been taken low, but even without that trick for elevation the man appeared large. The dressing-table drawers held carefully folded underwear, sweaters and scarves, each in allocated places. Danilov sifted through, with the spatula: nothing was concealed between the folds of the clothes. The closets were just as carefully arranged, first suits and then dresses and finally separate skirts. There were twelve pairs of shoes, in a rack at the bottom of the closet. Danilov guessed there were more clothes than Larissa or Olga owned between them. Reminded, he thought he would have to contact Larissa sometime: she’d have to be told how difficult it was going to be for a while. How long, he wondered.

There was another framed photograph of the large man, this time with Ann Harris beside him on Capitol Hill, on top of a cabinet to the left of the bed. The upper drawer held a blank pad of paper and a pencil, a jar of contraceptive cream, a packet of contraceptive pessaries and Ann Harris’s American passport. The larger cupboard beneath held only a padded silk make-up bag. With some difficulty Danilov eased the zip open with the tweezers. It contained a battery-driven vibrator and a small jar of lubricant jelly. Danilov’s fresh discomfort was neither from surprise nor criticism but once again at the intrusion: this had been her business, her intimate pleasure, something to which she’d had the right of privacy. Invariably there were secrets, he reflected, recalling his mental promise to the dead girl in the alleyway. I’ll go on trying, he promised again.

He found her correspondence in the cabinet on the other side of the bed. She had kept her letters in their envelopes and held packs together, about ten at a time, with elastic bands. At the back — he couldn’t decide whether they were intentionally hidden or not — was a thicker bundle, different-sized sheets of paper without envelopes.

‘Everything,’ decided Danilov. Pavin offered one of the largest exhibit bags.

The adjoining, American-style bathroom was as well kept as the rest of the apartment. There was an abundance of chrome and glass with more cleaning creams in tight lines. The cabinets contained analgesics and shampoos and hair conditioners, a proprietary brand of American cough linctus and, surprisingly, a small phial of mosquito repellent.