Brian Freemantle - In the Name of a Killer

‘NO!’ Fuck … fuck! fuck! fuck! Why had he said anything? Reacted? Should have ignored it.

‘Yes, Barry.’

Had to recover: end this nonsense. He looked back to the empty-faced men between him and the door, then back to Cowley. ‘I refuse to go on with this! Get someone here in authority!’

‘Mr Droop.’ Cowley forced himself to laugh again. ‘Imagine being called Mr Droop!’

‘Don’t call me that! Won’t have it!’ Fool! He shouldn’t have spoken. Ann’s fault. All her fault. Whore: dirty, wonderful whore.

It was Danilov who gestured sideways, to the stenographer and all his apparatus. The man seemed to be waiting, primed, his hand going to one of the smaller pieces of equipment. The telephone intercepts that Gugin had provided, along with so much else, echoed into the room, as recordings always seem to echo.

‘ Hi, Mr Droop! Thought I’d see how you’re doing. A week or two since we spoke. Feel better now, Mr Droop? ’

‘ Don’t call me that! I told you not to call me that! ’

His voice! Incontrovertibly his voice. The scientific bastards here in this building could prove voiceprints, as well as fingerprints and DNA genetics and Christ knows what else! Why were they doing this to him? Wasn’t fair.

‘ Paul hurt me again last night, Mr Droop. Not just my tits, either. He’s got this dildo now. Uses it. That turn you on, Mr Droop? You like to play a little, with the dildo? Think it might help? Something needs to help, doesn’t it, Mr Droop? ’

‘ Bitch! ’

Argue inadmissibility. Illegally recorded and not even here in America: in Moscow, the asshole of the world.

‘ That’s not what you said last time, Barry. Liked me talking dirty last time. Telling you. Got the pecker moving then, didn’t we? ’

Why had she been so evil? So wonderful and beautiful and exciting. And evil.

‘ Don’t Ann. Please don’t .’

‘ I think it’s fun Barry. Except you can’t make it. That’s not fun .’

‘ It won’t happen again, Ann. I promise it won’t happen again. Please! ’

‘ Promise not to be Mr Droop ever again! Promise me! ’

‘ I promise! I really promise! ’

It was Danilov who gestured for the recording to be stopped. There was a moment of complete silence. Oddly, Danilov imagined an attitude of embarrassment throughout the room. Which wasn’t odd, he decided. It was absurd. How could they be embarrassed, trapping a monster?

‘Fake,’ said Andrews, the beginning of desperation. ‘Fake. Deniable.’

‘We’ve got a witness,’ said Cowley, sweating, wondering how long he could go on prodding like this. ‘Remember I told you about interviewing the best friend, Judy Billington …’ He stopped, as the Quantico psychiatrist had ordered he should. ‘That must have worried you. Not being sure if there was anything in the letters you couldn’t get to in the apartment … just like there turned out to be a recording, as there was for Hughes … Didn’t that worry you …?’

Ignore it, don’t answer.

‘You remember me telling you about Judy Billington, don’t you?’

Wanted him to speak. Trap himself. Say nothing.

‘Ann did tell her something, on the home leave. Told her about someone at the embassy: someone she called Mr Droop who tried to be a lover but couldn’t make it. I didn’t know who that was at the time. But I do now.’

It took every bit of control that Andrews could find but he did find it. Circumstantial but inadmissible: he was sure of it. They were in America now, land of the free and protected. Not an asshole society like Russia, where everything could be bent to fit. There had to be a formal charge and there had to be formal, legally acceptable evidence, and they didn’t have it. He was cleverer than them all: always had been. Firm-voiced, unafraid, he said: ‘I told you I wanted someone here of authority. Someone to end all this …’ He turned to the men behind him. ‘There’ll be a civil action, against each of you. As well as criminal proceedings. Enjoy today. It’ll be the last for any of you, here at head-quarters. Anywhere. I don’t know how you got caught up in this, but I feel sorry for you. Pity you.’

‘We’ve taken a formal statement from Judy Billington. She will give evidence about Mr Droop, if she’s called.’

‘So will Fred Erickson,’ said Danilov. ‘You know Fred Erickson, the New York Times man, don’t you? He regards you as a good contact. Particularly after your prompting him before the Moscow press conference about Ann Harris being defiled in some way, meaning her hair I guess. Which no one publicly knew about then. But guaranteed a sensation.’

‘Can’t understand why you did that,’ resumed Cowley. ‘Unless, of course, you wanted to build it all up into a case we were never going to be able to solve. Make us look stupid. Or was it to make me look stupid? That’s what the psychiatrist, Dr Meadows, thinks. He thinks you hate me: that stealing Pauline away was part of hating me. And that when I got assigned, taking the case and the glory away from you, you tried to kill Lydia Orlenko and then did kill Nadia Revin to create a serial killing I couldn’t solve. And I wouldn’t have been able to, Barry, if you’d left it there. But you couldn’t, could you? You’d planned the perfect murders and the perfect solution and you wanted to show how you meant Hughes to be convicted, didn’t you? You got confused there. You know what you did? You caught yourself! How about that, Barry! Perfect murders, perfect solutions.’

No! Dear God no! Don’t give the bastards the satisfaction of responding. Would have liked to, though. Careful. Mustn’t lose control. That’s what they wanted. For him to lose control. Blurt something out. Wouldn’t though. Knew all the tricks. Like he knew all about serial killings from what they’d taught him in Quantico.

‘We’ll have your sorority ring, from your left hand,’ said Danilov. ‘It’ll match the bruise measurements on those you killed, won’t it?’

Cowley was holding back by his fingertips the furious disgust he felt for the other man. He forced himself to think of the drill, the inviolable rule: always stay objective, never let personal feelings intrude. But how could he stop personal feelings intruding? ‘I went to see Pauline, after you left. I wasn’t sure, when I got there, what I was even going to say, although I guessed then how you’d fixed the evidence against Yezhov, planting all the stuff you’d collected in the clothing I gave you to send back here. But we didn’t have much then. Just the miscount that could have only been you. Pauline was packing: surrounded by boxes and stuff. I was trying to think of anything odd — anything that didn’t fit — and I remembered something she’d said, the night I took her to the embassy club while you were back here for the relocation interview. We were talking about the first night; the dinner party. You know what she said then? She said: “Did you sort out the problems of the world? You seemed to talk long enough.” It didn’t register at the time, but when I went back, looking for things, I asked her what she’d meant. And she told me that within fifteen minutes of my leaving your apartment after that dinner you went out, too. Told her you had something you’d forgotten that couldn’t wait until morning to talk to me about. And you didn’t get back for two hours. She’s absolutely definite, about that. But you didn’t catch up with me. You went to Granovskaya and attacked Lydia Orlenko, didn’t you? We’ve timed it out. It all fits quite easily into a two-hour time frame.’

Bitch! Didn’t matter. Her word against his, no corroboration. Still in the clear. Still cleverer than them.