Brian Freemantle - In the Name of a Killer

Too many words: too many to understand. Where was m aht ? She would understand. Maht understood everything. Go on making a noise, in his throat. He couldn’t hear the words — too many words — if he made the noise in his throat.

‘Tell me, Petr Yakovlevich!’

Both angry now. Wouldn’t unlock him, if they were angry. That’s how you got locked up, by making them angry. ‘Didn’t do it. Didn’t hurt anyone.’

Danilov wished he could sit down: make the encounter easier for all of them. ‘Did you cut off their hair? And the buttons. Why did you do that? Tell me!’

‘Want to,’ said Yezhov, trying to convey that he wanted to be out of the cramped cell, made even smaller by these two men.

Danilov released a small sigh, of satisfaction. ‘That’s it!’ he encouraged. ‘You want to. Why do you want to?’

‘Can’t be locked up. Inside,’ answered the man, honestly.

‘Mad,’ insisted Kosov, intruding at last. ‘I said he was mad. But it’s him, isn’t it? The one you want?’

Uniforms were always angry. Men who locked you up. ‘Better. I’m better. They said. Mother knows.’ There. Said a lot. Have to unlock him now because he’d said a lot.

Danilov saw for the first time the blood smear on the wall, over the bunk, guessing that Yezhov had grazed his hand hitting at it. The man was mad: retarded and confused, certainly. And with a history of sexual attacks upon women. And had said, minutes before, that he’d wanted to cut off their hair and buttons. Whose hair or buttons? Had he meant the woman — and Suzlev by mistake — or hadn’t he meant that at all? ‘Tell me how you did it. How you hurt them.’

The doctors knew. Everyone knew. Why did this man want to know again. ‘Bit them. Wanted to taste. Not now. Better.’

‘You stabbed them, didn’t you? From behind? With a knife?’

‘Didn’t.’

‘And then cut off their hair? And the buttons? Why did you put the shoes where you did?’

‘Don’t know …’ Yezhov intended the denial to be that he didn’t know what the man was saying, what he was talking about, but it was too many words, so he stopped. He hadn’t done anything wrong: he was sure he hadn’t. But his mother thought he had: kept holding his hands and saying that she had to know, just like this man, although he wasn’t holding his hands. What was it, that he’d done? He couldn’t remember. He’d tell them, if he could remember. Then they’d let him go. Walk again. He wanted to walk, not feel things tight around him. Didn’t like things tight around him. The first time, when he’d been locked up, they’d put him in a funny jacket, with sleeves that didn’t end and were tied behind him, so that he couldn’t move at all, the tightest thing he’d ever known all wrapped around him. Screamed to get out: screamed and cried and thrown himself around the cell just like this but he couldn’t get out of it. Didn’t ever want to be put in a funny jacket like that again. In a cell just like this one. He made a great effort to at last look towards the men, towards the one who wasn’t wearing a uniform and whose voice was kinder. ‘No jacket. Please, no jacket.’

I’m hunting a maniac, thought Danilov: someone deranged, mentally unstable. And he was facing someone deranged and mentally unstable. There could be no question that the man had to be held, for more investigation. Mother knows . The home had to be scientifically examined. Danilov’s mind stopped, at the word. It was routine for a detained person’s belongings to be taken away. It might have been an idea to have examined it all before attempting this befuddled interview. ‘Are you going to tell me about it? What you did to these women?’

‘No.’ How could he tell what he couldn’t remember? ‘Want to go now.’

Kosov sniggered and said, without sympathy: ‘This is pathetic!’

Danilov thought so too, but differently from Kosov. He said to Yezhov: ‘You can’t go. You’ve got to stay here.’

‘NO!’

The outburst was so abrupt and unexpected that both Militia Colonels were completely startled. Yezhov broke like a spring from his coiled position, swiping out wildly at both of them as he tried to get to the door. The blow caught Danilov directly in the stomach, driving the wind from him: he staggered back, retching, against the unseen wall behind. Another blow missed Kosov. The indulgently fat uniformed man was grossly out of condition but solid-bodied. Yezhov had no support and little momentum as he came up off the bed. Kosov simply stepped forward, blocking the man. But Yezhov didn’t fall back. Instead he entwined his arms around Kosov’s neck, using the other man to pull himself up. In turn Kosov locked his arms around Yezhov and together the two pirouetted in a tight, violent embrace. Danilov pushed himself away from the wall, breath groaning into him, groping to dislodge Yezhov’s arms from the other policeman. He couldn’t, at first: the mindless grip was rigid, impossible to shift. Danilov had to use two hands and all his strength to prise first the fingers, then the arm loose. Partially freed, Kosov twisted to get further away from the other man, then drove his knee up full into Yezhov’s groin.

Breath and pain screeched from Yezhov. He jack-knifed, and as he doubled up Kosov kneed him in the side of the head, sending him reeling back on to the bunk. His head hit the wall as he collapsed.

Kosov went forward, fist raised, but Danilov said: ‘No more! You’ve controlled him! No more!’

Panting, Danilov still having difficulty in breathing properly, both men backed into the corridor. Kosov crashed the door furiously behind them, automatically looking back in through the sliding peep-hole. ‘Can you imagine the strength of that bastard? He’s like a fucking gorilla!’

‘He was very strong,’ Danilov agreed. Lydia Orlenko had made a point of her attacker’s strength. And the American medical opinion was that the killer had to be extremely strong, to drive the knife into his victims as he had done.

‘But we’ve got him!’ Kosov insisted, leading the way back towards the front of the building.

‘I want to see what he had on him,’ said Danilov.

‘All waiting,’ said Kosov, efficiently.

Everything was already in a plastic evidence bag, a list attached. Danilov picked out the contents for himself, itemizing them against the list, and creating a pile on the table in the day-room from which he had earlier imagined hearing a noise. There was a comb, with several teeth missing. Two keys, on a ring. Three unidentified white pills, in a paper twist. And fifteen roubles. Danilov halted at the workbook from which Yezhov’s name had been obtained.

Left in the bag was a knife, in a homemade, roughly stitched leather sheath. And two buttons, one white, one brown, large and ornate, the sort used on women’s clothes. Danilov withdrew the knife. The blade was single-edged, the honed edge extremely sharp. Without actually measuring it, Danilov judged the blade to be about twenty-six centimetres long, possibly five centimetres across at its widest part, near the hilt, and five millimetres thick at its back. He guessed it would have perfectly fitted the wounds of each victim.

He looked back up at Kosov. ‘I need a telephone.’

Cowley and Pavin joined him at the Militia station in less than an hour, arriving separately, the American first. The prepared explanation, initially for Cowley’s benefit but intended to be the official version, was that Yezhov had been detained after being routinely questioned in the street by a Militia patrol officer curious at the man walking so late at night. Several times Kosov offered unnecessary details, which Danilov wished he hadn’t. He realized Kosov regarded himself as part of the investigatory team, intending to come with them to the Bronnaja apartment. Cowley snorted a laugh, shaking his head, and said it was difficult to believe the whole thing could be sorted out like this, almost by accident. Pavin immediately recognized the name, as quickly as Danilov had earlier, and said he’d been to Bronnaja twice the previous day without getting a reply on either occasion. The neighbours, recognizing him as officialdom, had denied knowing anything about the family, apart from confirming that the apartment was occupied by a mother and her son.