Brian Freemantle - In the Name of a Killer

‘You really think I’d block you?’ It was time to stop being ridiculous.

Andrews shrugged. ‘There could be reasons.’

‘I told Pauline I wouldn’t.’ Wrong, he thought at once; he shouldn’t have given the impression they’d discussed Andrews behind his back. Quickly he said: ‘My approval will go in the diplomatic bag tonight.’

There had been a tension between them, since her outburst, but Olga hadn’t made any fresh accusations and Danilov hadn’t referred to it, either. Nor had they talked about the planned reciprocal evening with Larissa and Yevgennie Kosov. Danilov didn’t expect Larissa to accept now if an evening was suggested, but supposed that if a dinner party didn’t take place Olga would regard it as confirmation of her suspicion. He decided to go on saying and doing nothing: Dimitri Danilov, expert at burying his head in the sand, he thought.

With the new murder there was a genuine excuse for Danilov’s late return to Kirovskaya. As usual, Olga was in bed, her back turned away from his side of the bed. He didn’t think she was asleep but moved around with elaborate care. He wasn’t sure but he thought the night-dress was new: certainly it looked fresh. Perhaps the washing machine was fixed. Hopefully he checked the drawer. There were at least six clean shirts, crisp and neatly ironed. He’d have to remember to thank her, in the morning.

Danilov got carefully into bed but lay unsleeping in the darkness, re-examining everything for the hundredth — or was it the thousandth? — time, seeking anything he might have forgotten to do or check that might unlock a door. And finding nothing.

He was still alertly awake when the telephone shrilled.

‘We’ve got him!’ announced the thick, slightly slurred voice of Yevgennie Kosov. ‘His name’s Petr Yakovlevich Yezhov.’

Danilov recognized it.

There was no real justification in his going that night, but Danilov had always been uncomfortable with the thought of a vigilante posse: at that moment, as a result of such a posse, a man was in some sort of police custody for no other reason than taking a late-night walk in a Moscow street. There was certainly no cause to rouse Pavin. Or contact Cowley. It was routine, something he could do himself, and with an additional reason for going alone. Kosov, predictably inflating the situation, had said he was at the Militia post: there would be the opportunity, without it in any way appearing contrived, to talk about Eduard Agayans. Danilov pinched his finger again, re-attaching the windscreen wipers outside the flat: it was bitterly cold, well below zero, which seemed to make the bruise hurt more than it should have done. He’d forgotten his hat. He’d done that the night Ann Harris had been killed, he remembered.

It was the first time in two years that he had crossed the threshold of his old Militia station. So late he had expected to find it sleeping, with just a minimal nightstaff on duty, but there were two men inside the glass-hatched ground-floor office and a third at an extensive, light-blinking switchboard which was an innovation since his command. Danilov didn’t recognize any of them. Lights blazed throughout the building and Danilov thought, jealously, that clearly there was no difficulty in getting replacement bulbs here, and he was sure he heard sounds behind two day-room doors. It was impressive.

Danilov had expected to be directed upstairs, to his old office, but instead Kosov descended to him and Danilov belatedly realized that the other man, naturally, intended sitting in if not taking part in an interview being conducted on his own premises: the cells and the interrogation rooms were on the ground floor. Kosov wore his complete uniform, even his hat. There were effusive foyer greetings, continuing the display. To the uninterested counter officers Danilov was identified as a former commander: needing something to say, having involved the men, Kosov said that if they were needed they would be with what he called the prisoner.

On their way to the rear of the building, Kosov said: ‘Bastard tried to escape. Ran like hell. Luckily there were four of my people: two lorries. When they caught him two held him while the others called us. Knew it would work.’

‘Where?’

‘Ulitza Mickiewicz. Ducked into an alley, when he saw the trucks, but they saw him too. So one went around and blocked off the other end, in Spiridonievskii. He ran, like I said. But he wasn’t expecting them to do that, so he didn’t have much of a start. He didn’t fight, though, once they got him.’

Fortunately, thought Danilov. ‘What’s he said?’

‘Nothing. Cried a bit. Makes a whining, humming sound in his throat.’

‘Hummed?’ demanded Danilov, instantly alert.

‘Like a whine really. Like an animal. I think he’s mad.’

Kosov didn’t know the psychiatric history, Danilov remembered. ‘Where did you get the name?’

‘From his workbook. He’s a labourer in a marshalling yard. You wouldn’t think so. He’s very clean.’

They could hear Petr Yezhov before they reached the cell. The sound was neither a hum nor a whine: to Danilov it sounded like the whimpered, repetitive bark of a puppy chained too long in one place. It changed when Kosov opened the cell door, into a longer, more positive whimper, definitely of fear. The man had been hunched sideways on the bunk, boots on the blanket, his arms clutched around knees drawn tightly up to his chest, rocking back and forth. As they entered he briefly uncoiled himself, scrabbling further into the corner where the bunk abutted the wall, then bunched up again.

Danilov decided the man was trying to make himself smaller. There was a bruise under his left eye, and the side of his right hand, nearest to where Danilov stood, was badly grazed, although the bleeding appeared to have stopped. But it was not that which caught Danilov’s attention. He was oddly bald, an alopecia sufferer, isolated patches of hair clinging to his head. He looked just like the victims, after they had been shorn. ‘Petr Yakovlevich?’

Don’t look at them, say anything. Two men. A uniform. Angry uniform.

‘Petr Yakovlevich, what were you doing, on Ulitza Mickiewicz?’

Had to get out: stop being locked up. ‘Yes.’ The voice was high-pitched, girlish.

‘Why?’ Nothing sensible could possibly emerge from this.

‘Yes.’ The voice was lower.

‘Why do you walk at night?’

‘Walk.’

‘Why do you walk?’ This was cruel. But so had the killing of Vladimir Suzlev and Ann Harris and Nadia Revin been cruel. And the attempt upon Lydia Orlenko.

A trick. Wouldn’t be tricked. Say nothing.

‘Do you look for women when you walk?’

Didn’t do it, not any more. ‘No.’ Shouldn’t have spoken.

‘You did once, didn’t you? You hurt women. Bit them.’ Danilov was conscious of Kosov’s startled attention beside him. He prayed the man wouldn’t intervene, with some needless comment. Kosov didn’t.

Needed maht : his mother would know what to say. More than he did: he didn’t understand. ‘Got well now.’

‘ Are you well, Petr Yakovlevich?’

Yezhov began to rock again, a gentle back and forth movement. The whining sound started.

Lydia Orlenko had talked of her attacker humming, as he bent over her, Danilov recalled. This could be mistaken for someone humming. Danilov’s mind ran on, to the American psychological profile he’d disdained — still doubted — as modern witchcraft. There was the strange, disfiguring baldness. Although he was dishevelled and crumpled, the disarray of his clothes was obviously recent, the result of whatever had happened during and after his pursuit and the way he had rolled himself up, inside this cramped cell. There was still a discernible crease in his trousers, the shoes were polished, scarcely scuffed, and his shirt crisper than any Olga had finally put into his drawer, that night. And the jacket was double-breasted: Danilov was sure there had been something in the profile about double-breasted jackets being important. ‘Have you hurt people again? Looked for women as you walked at night? Attacked them? You must tell me. It will be better if you tell me.’