Brian Freemantle - In the Name of a Killer

‘I want him to answer,’ Danilov insisted, annoyed at the deflection.

‘Did you stab those women?’ said Valentina, using both hands now to hold her son’s. ‘Look at me! Did you hurt them, with that knife?’

‘Don’t remember.’

‘Did you cut their hair off?’ came in Danilov.

‘Don’t remember.’

‘And take buttons from their clothes?’

‘Don’t remember.’

Careless of Yezhov hearing him, the psychiatrist said to Danilov: ‘There is no purpose in this. He probably genuinely doesn’t remember, even if he did do it.’

‘That’s what I want to know, if he did !’ said Danilov.

‘You’re not going to learn it this way, with a confession,’ Tarasov insisted.

‘Could we?’ pressed Danilov. ‘Not here, perhaps, where he’s obviously bewildered. Clearly frightened. But somewhere else: the Serbsky, perhaps, where he’d feel more relaxed?’

Tarasov laughed, in open derision. ‘He was never relaxed and cooperative at the Institute.’

‘How then?’

‘When he decides to tell you. If he’s got anything to tell you. Maybe never,’ said the psychiatrist, with defeated honesty.

‘Home now,’ announced Yezhov, brightly, not appearing to be frightened any more. ‘We’ll go home now.’

‘No!’ said Valentina, her fear surfacing. ‘I don’t want … I couldn’t …’

‘He can’t stay here,’ said Danilov, talking to the psychiatrist. He was worried, too late, that it had been a mistake to unchain a man as strong as Yezhov who might fight against being returned to a hospital where he had developed a phobia against confinement.

The worry was unfounded.

Tarasov briefly left the room, to summon an ambulance, and brought a medical bag with him when he returned. Valentina encouraged her son to swallow the sedating pill, which took effect before the vehicle arrived. To make certain, Tarasov administered an injection when he was quite sure Yezhov was too subdued to object. The man had to be carried out on a stretcher.

Danilov stopped the psychiatrist at the door. ‘I want a blood sample, as soon as possible. And some hair, from what he’s got left.’

Tarasov nodded, and walked on.

Cowley wondered how many invasion of privacy statutes existed in America forbidding samples being taken from suspects rendered unconscious. He halted Valentina Yezhov at the door and said: ‘I want to know something important. Does Petr Yakovlevich smoke?’

The woman frowned back at him. ‘Never! He hates smoking.’

Cowley stood back for her to leave, looking across the less crowded room to the Russian. ‘Well?’

‘Lydia Orlenko was in shock. We know that.’

‘There’s not enough. It’s all circumstantial, like it was with Hughes.’

‘I know.’

The FBI questioning of Angela Hughes was gently sympathetic — even to the extent of appointing a woman agent to conduct the interview — and very early it was disclosed that there was now doubt about her husband’s alibi for the day the Russian taxi driver was killed.

‘In Moscow you told an agent that your husband came home before midnight on the night when the Russian woman was attacked? That you heard a clock strike?’

‘Yes.’

‘Are you positive about that?’

‘I think so,’ said Angela. The intentional doubt in her voice covered any hint of vindictiveness.

‘You think . I asked if you were positive , Mrs Hughes.’

‘I thought so, at the time. Now I really can’t be sure.’

By the time the transcript reached the FBI Director he had received the alert from Moscow of the arrest of Petr Yakovlevich Yezhov. The Director decided to let both inquiries continue independently: he couldn’t decide what else to do.

In Moscow the days following Yezhov’s detention were crowded: more familiar routine, then the wind-down procedure of preparing reports of all the available evidence that in this case would never be presented to any court.

And throughout it all Danilov felt a depressing anticlimax.

He refused to accept it was because of the never-to-be-disclosed true circumstances of Petr Yezhov’s initial capture: that would have been ridiculous. He’d dismissed any professional distaste at how it had been achieved on the night of the arrest. And even to contemplate the idea of jealousy of Kosov was unthinkable: he actually intended trying to get Kosov’s part in the affair publicly acknowledged. So why? The best explanation Danilov could evolve was in what the American had said: that there could probably never be a trial, despite the preparations he was now having made, and therefore never a legally conclusive ending. Which was scarcely an explanation at all.

Trying to be objective, he recognized he should feel the complete opposite to the way he did and be thoroughly satisfied. Despite Kosov’s involvement, the case would be marked on his file as successfully investigated. And most importantly, without any security agency takeover, which made it much more than a personal triumph, elevating it into a success for the Militia as a whole, particularly as uniformed officers could be included as well. The false starts and wrong directions weren’t recorded anywhere, were certainly not publicly known, and in the official euphoria of the moment would be instantly forgotten by those who did know, like General Lapinsk and the Federal Prosecutor. He was being stupid, Danilov told himself: behaving like someone wallowing in a mid-life crisis or the male menopause. And he knew he wasn’t suffering either.

He deputed Pavin to organize the evidence assembly, futile though the operation possibly was, and stood down the disgruntled squads who had so bungled the routine inquiries. He also talked through with Pavin the threat officially to note on their personnel sheets the criticism against the most inefficient, particularly the two who had failed with the first interview and search at Yezhov’s apartment. Pavin acknowledged that regulations existed for such complaints to be appended, but pragmatically pointed out that no one would be censured or transferred from Petrovka; that wasn’t the way the system worked. All he would be doing, therefore, would be increasing the considerable ill-feeling he had already generated, without any practical benefit. And he had to go on working at Petrovka, didn’t he? Danilov decided not to bother.

He maintained daily contact with the Serbsky Institute and the psychiatrist, hoping for some improvement in Yezhov’s condition for further and better interviews to be possible. Tarasov insisted just as regularly that anything approaching a reasonable, comprehensible conversation with the man would be impossible for a long time, possibly forever. Yezhov had realized where he was the moment he’d recovered from the sedation that got him back into the clinic, erupting into a cell-wrecking frenzy, and for his own safety was having to remain almost continuously sedated. Tarasov feared the regression into persecuted paranoia was permanent. Yezhov’s mother visited every day: he didn’t appear to recognize her, even when they briefly relaxed the sedation. Danilov said he’d keep trying. Tarasov said he could do what he liked, but he was wasting his time.

The daily conferences with Lapinsk continued as well, although after that first triumphant day there wasn’t a great deal for them to discuss. The anticipated media hysteria had burst with the Tass announcement of Nadia Revin’s murder and continued with the second statement, within thirty-six hours, of a suspect’s detention. Lapinsk was glad they had delayed the press conference. Now they had the success of a joint investigation between the United States of America and Russia, the first of its kind, to talk about. Both he and the Federal Prosecutor had reversed their previous reluctance to participate.