Brian Freemantle - In the Name of a Killer

There’d never been open anger, not even in London when Pauline had demanded the divorce and they’d confronted him, purple-faced from the previous day’s booze, sweating and befuddled by that day’s intake, and announced their intention to marry. Instead Cowley had cried, like a child about to lose a toy, his nose running to make his face even wetter. Nor anger later, either, when the man was sober and they were going through the formalities. And certainly, since the Moscow episode had begun, he hadn’t detected any deep-rooted feeling against him. There’d been the spat about returning the stuff from Ann’s office, but that had been professional irritation, which Andrews could understand: it was the personal stuff he couldn’t understand. Andrews decided, abruptly, that Cowley was a wimp. Always had been. Just didn’t drown it in a booze bottle any more, that’s all. He was glad the cloying togetherness of Moscow was ending: he’d done his best — Christ, hadn’t he done his best — but it hadn’t been easy. Cowley the wimp hadn’t suspected, of course: hadn’t suspected a thing.

Andrews gestured for his empty glass to be refilled. Cowley wouldn’t block him, he decided confidently. He’d think of doing so, obviously: wouldn’t be human if he didn’t. But in the final analysis he’d be the complete professional he’d always been — even during the drunken period — and make his decision on the merits of the proven record and the recommendation of Personnel.

But what if Cowley didn’t do that? What if Cowley was a bastard and allowed himself the pleasure of a refusal?

He wanted the Russian division: was determined to get it. What about appealing the decision, if Cowley turned him down? There was a job discrimination tribunal, but there was a catch-22 in using it. Even if you won, you got yourself labelled a trouble-maker throughout the Bureau. Which could be a worse, unofficial, stigma than an unexplained official rejection on your file. In this case, though, it would stigmatize Cowley equally badly, for letting personal feelings influence a Bureau decision.

Premature concern, he told himself: nothing could block him, get in his way, not now. Which was why he’d ordered the letting agency to serve notice on the tenants in Bethesda. Get Pauline in there as soon as possible, sorting things out, getting the place right in the way she knew he liked to live. But there was Moscow to pack up. She’d have to do that first. Maybe they’d stay for a while in an hotel, although not the shit-hole in Pentagon City, while she got things ready. He’d go through it all with her, when he got back. Didn’t want her to get anything wrong. She did get things wrong, sometimes. It was annoying when she got things wrong. Stupid.

He’d give a farewell party, Andrews decided. Invite everybody to the social club, not just from their own embassy but from others as well, the Brits and the one or two people he’d got to know among the French. Andrews smiled, caught by a thought. It was ironic — even amusing — that one of the guests would be William Cowley, to be left behind in Moscow hunting a killer he was no nearer finding now than when he’d arrived.

His mind back on the man whose decision could settle his future, Andrews concluded that as soon as he got back — tomorrow, definitely — he’d tell Cowley of his official application and directly say he hoped the man would support and accept it. No reason why he shouldn’t. Absurd not to say something, in fact: might even offend the man, antagonize him unnecessarily, for him to learn about it from some official memorandum in the diplomatic bag from Washington. It was a positive benefit, not the delaying nuisance he’d first thought it to be, having Cowley in Moscow where they could talk about it openly, face to face.

The request to re-fasten seat-belts came with the announcement of the Amsterdam stop-over. Transit passengers could briefly disembark if they wished. Andrews decided to stay aboard: even try to get some sleep if he could. He wanted to be as fresh as possible when he arrived in Moscow. He had a lot to do.

Dimitri Danilov was becoming depressingly convinced that he had missed something among the evidence they had assembled, maybe some unconnected, minuscule piece of information or fact that was either obstructing them or, alternatively, pointing them in the wrong direction, just as they’d already once gone in the wrong direction, although at that moment Danilov would have welcomed any direction to follow, wrong or otherwise.

He accepted, the depression worsening, that the orders he was issuing now were little more than clutching at straws, activity for activity’s sake, with little hope of producing anything positive. At last Pavin had discovered the identity of the press conference questioner, which opened a narrow pathway to continue along. Pavin was also instructed to locate the one remaining psychiatric patient whose apartment on Bronnaja Boulevard had always been empty, once to an approach from Danilov himself.

The daily meetings with Lapinsk became scenes of constant argument but without any definite point, the older man clearly passing on ill-tempered pressure from above, irritably anxious for the whole insoluble business to be taken from the Militia.

And Danilov, justifiably but unsoundly, passed the criticism on down. He took over the morning duty conference on the day after Cowley’s return — the day of Lapinsk’s strongest rebuke — to lecture the ineffective street teams on their failures, itemizing particularly by name the officers who had conducted the provably flawed psychiatric inquiries, declaring and meaning it that he intended attaching his complaints to their work files. Such a challenge would have been unheard of at a Militia district or precinct level. It was positively unprecedented at the echelon of Petrovka, where everyone regarded themselves as above question or censure. The response was predictable and immediate, by the same afternoon. The resistance and sneers towards Danilov went beyond the headquarters building, reaching out into the districts because the Petrovka officers methodically manned telephones to spread stories claiming Danilov’s panicked incompetence and impending demotion. Pavin, confident of their relationship, postponed his visit to Bronnaja Boulevard to tell Danilov he shouldn’t have staged the confrontation and most definitely shouldn’t have threatened recorded discontent: professionally it would achieve nothing apart from creating an unbridgable gulf between himself and all junior officers. Equal-ranking officers would shun him, regarding him as a disruptive, incomprehensible threat to the established system. Senior officers, even General Lapinsk, would dismiss him as a fool. Danilov recognized every assessment to be true. And he wished he even felt better having made his stand. He didn’t.

On several occasions since the encounter at Leninskii Prospekt he’d considered speaking to Kosov about Eduard Agayans, but hadn’t. He wanted the intervention to be forceful but appear at the same time a casual, oh-by-the-way approach, not a positive protest. He was reluctant to put himself in a subservient position with the other man, asking as a petitioning intermediary for Agayans to be allowed to operate as before. He wanted to speak from the level of an equal whose views should be respected and acted upon when he insisted the black marketeer should be allowed to resume business. And Danilov accepted that he was not equal: that he had no bargaining power. He decided to wait for the right opportunity, whenever and whatever that might be.

He supposed there would never be a right opportunity with Larissa: perhaps there never had been.

He actually welcomed her obvious reluctance to see him that evening, imagining it might make the encounter he intended easier, until he entered the selected hotel room behind her and realized that it was all part of the familiar play-acting, the aggrieved demi-mondaine demanding to be wooed.