Brian Freemantle - In the Name of a Killer

‘We know you did it, Barry. All of them. I want you to tell me about it. Everything. You’ll do that now that we know, won’t you?’ Cowley hoped it wouldn’t be a long interrogation. Meadows, the psychiatrist at Quantico, had guessed it wouldn’t be, but then admitted he wasn’t sure.

‘Bill! I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about! Help me here! What’s happening?’

So it wasn’t going to be easy. Hit him hard, Meadows had advised. ‘You miscounted. Miscalculated, too, but you might have gotten away with it if you hadn’t miscounted. And forgotten colours. It’s always the silly little things, isn’t it?’

What was the motherfucker on about? Didn’t Cowley know he had to be careful: that he was going to take over the divisional directorship very soon, replacing him here like he’d replaced him everywhere else, even in bed? ‘Help me understand, Bill! For Christ’s sake!’

‘You know. We know. We just want you to tell us about it.’

‘Bill!’ exclaimed Andrews. Too loud: shouldn’t have sounded so loud, like he had something to be frightened about. Didn’t have anything to be frightened about.

‘Buttons,’ declared Danilov, entering the interrogation: the agreed arrangement, against what might happen later, was that the tape would show shared questioning. ‘When Yezhov was seized, he had two buttons on him. And there were ten, at the apartment. Making twelve. They were all sent back here, because of America’s superior technology. Sent by you. But we got fifteen back: fifteen of which nine all came from the women killed or attacked.’

What did they think they were talking about, trying to trick him? Little people, trying to trick him ! ‘Listen! This isn’t right! I just shipped back what you gave me, Bill. You know that. You gave me the buttons in the plastic exhibit bags and I simply pouched them. That’s how it was: the job I was ordered to do, by he Director. I’m damned if I’m going to get stuck with some problem I don’t even understand, apart from something to do with mistaken arithmetic.’

‘This is a pretty big problem and we didn’t get our arithmetic wrong,’ said Cowley, keeping his voice as low as he’d been instructed at Quantico, although it wasn’t easy for him. ‘I counted. Dimitri counted. Pavin counted. All of us. Separately. And each of those counts before I handed them over to you. You got it wrong, Barry. Finally fucked it up. Blew it.’

Friends could use his Christian name. Not enemies. Not people he hated: the person he hated most of all. Hadn’t fucked anything up.

‘And not just counted,’ Danilov came in. ‘We recorded the individual colours, as well. Three red, three green, two blue, one brown, and three fashioned out of bone. No black. Yet two black buttons arrived here: and one of them conveniently, for the conviction of Petr Yezhov, from Nadia Revin’s skirt.’ He’d been nervous to begin with: nervous at being in America for the first time — alone, vulnerable, not knowing how to behave — and earlier at meeting the FBI Director and then taking part in this interrogation, on show in front of so many Americans, in front of everybody, because it was all being recorded to be listened to and discussed later, back in Moscow. But it was better now it had started. He didn’t think there was going to be a confession, though: would have wagered there wouldn’t be, if he hadn’t wanted the money for other things.

He’d let them talk, Andrews decided. Hear the idiots out.

‘You fooled me,’ Cowley admitted, sacrificing any later discomfort from the tape play-back to achieve the collapse he wanted. ‘I missed it all, until you got the count wrong. Then I went back over everything. It was all disjointed, of course. Like things are. Let me throw something at you. How about your attack upon Lydia Orlenko, when thank God she didn’t die?’

‘This is ridiculous.’ Enough! They should talk, not him.

‘How about your remark?’ suggested Cowley, relentlessly, allowing himself at last to hate this man who’d stolen his wife. ‘“What about the woman last night? There must be something !”’

Andrews shook his head, wearily. ‘This isn’t making any sense. It’s quite ridiculous.’

‘Now it isn’t,’ insisted Cowley. ‘It didn’t make sense, not then. Remember? It was when I came back from interviewing Hughes, about the attack upon Lydia Orlenko. But you didn’t know , then, who the victim had been. So how did you know it was a woman? The first attack was on a man. So it could have been another man. Unless you knew it had been a woman.’

Weak shot. Another trick. Perry Mason shit. Andrews gave a heavy sigh. ‘I really don’t know what we’re doing here. Talking about.’

‘Let’s try another quote,’ suggested Cowley. ‘“And who would have thought it, about innocent little Pamela?” What about that?’

Andrews expanded another tired sigh. ‘Why don’t you tell me? What about it?’

‘I hadn’t even talked about Pamela Donnelly’s alibi then. So how did you know Pamela was involved, unless you’d tracked Hughes? Discovered he’d switched, from Ann to Pam Donnelly. Which you had, hadn’t you? You were stalking everybody, weren’t you? Planning your perfect serial murders: murders you’d learned all about from the FBI training lectures …?’

‘… This is pitiful …’

‘I know how it was,’ Cowley pressed on. ‘I know Ann had dumped you, for Hughes. So I think you set it all up. Killing Vladimir Suzlev, knowing he was often Hughes’s driver, which you could prove. And then killing Ann, taking the hair and everything else to fix all the evidence — like you fixed it in the end — to overwhelm any possible defence Hughes might have. You planned it perfectly, didn’t you? You set out to destroy a rival — a better lover than you — and the mistress who despised you. And intended to solve both the killing of Suzlev and Ann Harris to come back here in glory. Must have knocked you sideways when I got assigned, instead of you.’

Still weak. Still deniable. Cowley was fucking himself: digging a deeper and deeper hole, which would bury him. All this shit would be laughed at, in court. Ruin the motherfucker. Mr Cowley, is it not a fact that my client married your ex-wife, after your marital break-up? Is it not a fact that these entire accusations are motivated by jealousy, an insane desire for revenge? Answer, Mr Cowley! I want an answer! Will the court please order Mr Cowley to answer! Andrews looked towards the stenographer and the red-lighted machine and said: ‘I am very glad this is all being recorded. It needs to be.’

Danilov had been out of the exchange too long: it had had to be this way — the way they had rehearsed on the plane coming from Moscow and again in discussions with the Director and the FBI legal experts — but he was anxious to involve himself in the recording again. Seeing his chance, the Russian said: ‘We’re sure it needs to be recorded, too.’ A pause. Then: ‘Mr Droop.’

Not that! Jesus, not that! He’d hated Ann for laughing at him when he couldn’t make love to her, sneering at him as Mr Droop. He’d loathed worst of all being called that, pleaded with her not to say it, which had made her say it all the more.

Cowley had to strive for control at the expressionless, blank reaction. It was becoming almost impossible not to scream at this man: shout at him, go across the table and beat the shit and a confession from the son-of-a-bitch. Mockery, the Quantico psychiatrist had recommended: just as he’d recommended they wait for Andrews to arrive expecting to learn of his appointment and get hit like this, instead. Staying, hard as it was, with the guidance, Cowley said: ‘That was what she called you, wasn’t it Barry? Laughed at you, because you couldn’t get it up? Not like Hughes could get it up for her, kinky though he might have been. Mr Droop! Shit, Barry, that’s funny! Really funny!’