Brian Freemantle - In the Name of a Killer

‘“It was pretty common knowledge that Ann moved about a bit but I didn’t know she was quite like she was,”’ quoted Cowley. ‘How’s that strike you?’

Andrews shook his head, in patronizing dismissal. ‘This will have to end sometime, I suppose?’

‘That was something else Pauline said, after the embassy party. Again I missed it, then. But not now. How come, if Pauline knew Ann screwed around — that it was pretty common knowledge — that you didn’t tell me? You didn’t want me to start looking in your direction, did you? Steered me away, all the time.’

An even weaker shot. Stay disdainful.

Cowley shook his head, both in revulsion and in uncertainty that he’d properly followed the guidance Dr Meadows had suggested. ‘I know you’re sick. Doubly sick, because we’ve discussed it with psychiatrists and had it explained to us how, mad as you are, you faked another madness to fit all the profiles of a serial killer and became one, by intent … Remember telling me you’d heard all the Quantico lectures? I know you have. We’ve checked all your course attendances, when you learned how to do it …’

Bastard was out of control now: wallowing. Nothing to worry about.

‘But you even took your sickness lower, didn’t you Barry? Beyond belief. No one at Quantico has ever heard of something quite as obscene. I don’t suppose obscene is a big enough word, but I can’t think of another. Don’t want to think of another.’ The psychiatrist had instructed him constantly to show contempt, judging Andrews’s motivation to be personal, between the two of them, but there wasn’t much left and Andrews hadn’t broken. It wasn’t necessary, with all they had, but Cowley needed the man to break. He didn’t give a fuck about illness, mental or physical. It was personal with him now. Like he supposed it always had been.

What was Cowley talking about? It couldn’t be that! Not that!

Cowley forced himself on. ‘When I went to Pauline she was packing, like I said. I poked about, making out to help: didn’t want to alarm her, thinking you were under suspicion, not then …’ How the hell could he show more contempt — goad further — than he’d done already? Lying, he said: ‘She liked me being there. Told me it was like the old times you kept on about, only better without you there. She felt good about it.’ Andrews was flushing, shifting his feet, angry! Cowley said: ‘You really think she wouldn’t have noticed? Someone like Pauline! Christ that was dumb! That was really dumb! What was it you called her? Goddess of the kitchen?’

Andrews looked warily across the table. No! It wasn’t possible! No one was to know!

‘She couldn’t understand it, of course. Held it up to me and said she knew everything in her kitchen and that the knife definitely wasn’t hers. Didn’t even fit any of the sets she had.’

‘But it did fit a set.’ Danilov picked it up on rehearsed cue. ‘Perfectly. The set I recovered from Ann Harris’s apartment on Ulitza Pushkinskaya. It’s even printed with the maker’s name, Kuikut, on the blade. And it’s on the knife rack we took for evidence, too.’

‘And the handle has your fingerprints all over it. You should have kept your rubber gloves on: the rubber kitchen gloves Pauline could never understand disappearing like they did. Had to spend a lot of time, I guess, getting the tobacco smell all over them from that cigar habit you specially acquired to connect with Hughes’s smoking. With the knife maybe you should have better remembered the Quantico lectures about serial killers needing souvenirs. And stopped yourself. But you couldn’t by then, could you? You’d become the serial killer you wanted to be.’

Andrews smiled. ‘Cleverer than you. Always cleverer than you.’ He’d wanted them to know. Now they would. Perfect.

He began to hum.

Neither felt like celebrating — Cowley least of all — but the American decided he had to make as big an effort as possible for the few days Danilov remained in Washington, and they both ended up trying, each for the other.

They ate at the Occidental, close to the FBI headquarters, and at two separate restaurants in Georgetown, a district Danilov preferred to any others they visited. Cowley imposed upon the Secret Service and got the Russian ahead of the normal tour of the White House and waited in a queue he didn’t want to be part of to get to the top of the Washington Monument. There was another special visit to the Congress buildings and the usual tourist route to the Lincoln and Vietnam monuments. One night they saw a Shakespeare production at the Kennedy Center. Cowley considered asking Pauline to join them, but quickly abandoned the idea. On the last day they returned to Georgetown, to eat and for Danilov to shop: Cowley planned to drive direct to Dulles airport, when they’d finished.

‘It all worked out in the end,’ Danilov suggested. They were in a French cafe just beyond Wisconsin Avenue, at Danilov’s request. He ordered soft-shelled crabs, which he’d eaten at most meals.

‘We put Yezhov into psychiatric clinic. Sent him irreversibly mad,’ Cowley insisted. He’d ordered the crabs, too, although he wasn’t hungry. He had more tidying up to do, after putting Danilov on the plane. He was uncertain how it was going to go.

‘Andrews’s victim, as much as any of the others.’

‘We contributed.’

‘There hasn’t been an investigation in the history of crime where mistakes weren’t made.’

‘I wish we hadn’t made this one.’

‘What’s happened to Hughes?’

‘They’ve had to stop: worried about his mental health. He’s denied everything. They’re still unsure about entrapment but the inconsistencies about the murder alibis have to be accepted simply as that now, inconsistencies. Maybe the wife was trying to get even: that’s what he said. Difficult to believe she’d go that far, but who knows what a woman would do, in her situation …?’ He hesitated, sure of friendship with Danilov now. ‘You think the KGB, or whatever it’s called, had him?’

Danilov made a doubtful head movement. ‘He’d have been useful, kept in the position he was. So they would have protected him, if they’d had him already. I don’t know, but I’d guess they decided to sacrifice a potential, to cause as much disruption as possible. At which they did pretty well.’

‘I’m curious,’ announced Cowley. ‘About you.’

‘Me?’

‘There’s been a suggestion that you’re KGB.’

Danilov laughed, hugely. ‘Not me. The tapes were, obviously. But I’m not.’

‘I don’t suppose you’d tell me, if you were,’ said Cowley, mildly.

‘I suppose not. But I’m not.’

Cowley nodded, satisfied. ‘The ambassador is being withdrawn, because of the other recordings. And Baxter. Ann Harris was a very busy girl. It’s all pretty devastating.’

‘The Cheka will regard it as a good operation,’ guessed Danilov. He supposed during his visit to the FBI headquarters he would have been covertly photographed: there would have been fingerprints, too. ‘Why didn’t you tell me that your ex-wife married Andrews?’

Cowley pushed aside the barely touched meal. He shrugged. ‘It didn’t seem important. To affect anything.’

‘It became the most important fact there was.’

‘Hindsight,’ shrugged Cowley. ‘You sure you got everything you want?’

‘Quite sure,’ said Danilov. He’d had a far better haircut than he could ever have got in Moscow: at the moment there wasn’t any grey showing at all. He’d bought three of the shirts he liked, the ones with the pin that went behind the tie, and perfume for Olga. He’d returned to the perfumery after the first purchase to get a second bottle for Larissa. The grateful Agayans had exceeded himself, changing roubles for dollars, the reverse of how it normally worked. Danilov was still determined against accepting the television or the washing machine or the dresses Olga wanted. He finished eating and said: ‘All ready to go!’