Brian Freemantle - No Time for Heroes

Cowley had just finished going through the list when Rafferty and Johannsen arrived. Even before he sat down Rafferty said: ‘We didn’t know we were with a celebrity! Do we give autographs when we’re asked or not?’

There wasn’t the earlier resentful edge of cynicism, and Cowley was glad. ‘What about the house-to-house?’

‘Zilch,’ dismissed Rafferty.

‘The captain wants to know if you need the scene to remain sealed. All your guys have gone,’ said Johannsen.

‘I’m seeing our scientific co-ordinator this morning. I’ll check if it can be released. And there is something from the scene: a shell casing from a Russian gun.’

Both homicide detectives straightened slightly in their chairs, discarding the professional casualness. ‘You think maybe he was killed by one of his own people?’ queried Johannsen. ‘That it is the Russian Mafia!’

‘Could be a set-up, to make it look like that,’ cautioned Rafferty.

‘Let’s wait for the evidence,’ warned Cowley. He’d already made up his own mind what it proved, and he wasn’t happy with the conclusion.

‘If this is an in-house Russian affair we’re not going to get diddly squat, judging from the co-operation of those two embassy guys yesterday,’ said Johannsen.

‘Maybe there’ll be something we can pick up from the memo pad?’ suggested Rafferty, studying the list Cowley handed him.

‘The MasterCharge and American Express billing is local,’ pointed out Cowley. ‘Check with both: get the charge sheets, particularly if there were any on the night of the murder.’

‘There would have been a counterfoil on him, if he’d picked up a tab,’ argued Johannsen.

‘Not necessarily, if he didn’t want to put it against an expense account,’ said Rafferty.

‘Let’s get the accounts,’ insisted Cowley. ‘If there’s nothing for the night in question, they might still isolate a favourite restaurant. And restaurants are going to be today’s enquiry. There are photographs of Serov coming through State, from the embassy.’

‘It’ll need to be done at night,’ argued Johannsen. ‘That’s when he ate.’

‘Done twice,’ corrected Cowley. ‘Some lunchtime shifts run over, into early evening. We could miss whoever served him if we leave it too late.’

Rafferty breathed out noisily but didn’t protest. ‘It’ll need a squad again.’

‘The taxi checks haven’t been completed, but there’s nothing so far,’ reported Johannsen. Unexpectedly he added: ‘The papers say you speak fluent Russian. You get anything of what they were whispering to each other yesterday?’

Despite the assumed nonchalance they were both good, Cowley acknowledged. ‘When you pressed Pavlenko about social engagements, particularly on the night Serov died, the guy who wasn’t introduced told Pavlenko he couldn’t talk about it.’

‘That all?’ demanded Johannsen, disappointed.

‘What I did get was incomplete. Just two words: “ You can’t.” They were taking a lot of trouble not to be overheard.’

‘The papers also say you’re head of the Bureau’s Russian division, monitoring all Russian personnel in this country,’ said Johannsen. ‘You make the second guy, who wasn’t introduced?’

Very good, thought Cowley. ‘Nikolai Fedorovich Redin. KGB when it was the KGB. Now it’s called an external security service.’

‘What about Serov planning to defect?’ suggested Rafferty. ‘It’s happened elsewhere, despite all the changes. Redin discovers it, knocks Serov off and throws in the mouth shot to blow smoke in our eyes…’ The man paused, apparently unaware of the appalling metaphor. ‘… It would even be appropriate, if Serov were going to tell us things we shouldn’t have heard. And the Russians do kill people who try to run: it’s happened a lot.’

‘In the past,’ disputed Cowley. ‘One, defectors invariably are intelligence officers, with something to offer: our files mark Serov as a genuine diplomat. Two, there’s usually some approach, before they try to run. It’s very rarely a walk-in: someone literally coming off the street. Three, I am head of the Russian division: if there’d been any prior contact, I’d know about it already. There wasn’t.’

Both detectives looked unconvinced.

‘Your files could be wrong,’ said Rafferty.

‘Maybe, rare though it is, he did intend to be a walk-in,’ said Johannsen. ‘You think the CIA would tell you if they had Serov about to jump into the bag?’

‘Not necessarily,’ conceded Cowley.

‘Shouldn’t you ask the Cousins at Langley?’ suggested Rafferty.

It had been an impressive double act, admired Cowley: probably carefully rehearsed, like using the tradecraft word Cousins, which was coming close to going over the top. Cowley didn’t think it would produce anything, but then neither had the house-to-house enquiries. ‘Yes, we should,’ he admitted. ‘I hadn’t thought of it, which I should have done. Thank you.’

Both detectives smiled, satisfied.

Harry Robertson was standing expectantly in his office, shifting from one foot to the other with the impatience of a dedicated specialist. He was a giant of a man who wanted to be bigger and was trying hard to achieve it. His hair was long, part secured by a coloured bandana in a pony tail and the rest matted into a beard that had never been trimmed and exploded in all directions to hang fully down to his chest, like a napkin. His stomach was enormous, encased in a lumberjack-check workshirt and bulging over corduroys held up by a death’s head buckled belt at least two inches wide. The ensemble, predictably, was finished off by high-laced work boots.

Cowley decided Robertson had to be damned good to be allowed to get away with such determined affectation: J. Edgar Hoover would be corkscrewing in his grave. But then, the homosexual Hoover would probably be wearing a dress.

‘Here’s the little feller!’ announced Robertson, with the pride of a conjuror producing the rabbit from an empty hat.

The shell casing was still enclosed in a see-through exhibit pouch. To Cowley it looked like an ordinary brass shell sleeve. ‘How can you be sure it’s Russian?’

‘Size!’ declared Robertson. He gestured towards a desk as dishevelled as he was. For the first time Cowley saw two handguns, side by side. They looked identical. There were bullets alongside each.

Robertson picked up the gun on the right of the desk, offering it for examination. ‘Observe the Walther PP!’ he invited. ‘One of the most successful hand weapons after the invention of the bow and arrow. Developed by the Germans in 1929 as a police pistol, not to be confused with its smaller brother, the PPK, of James Bond fame and all that crap…’ The man paused, to make his point. ‘It is also the most copied handgun in the world, both with and without permission.’

Cowley shook his head against taking the gun. He supposed the theatrical presentation went with the man’s appearance.

‘Specifications,’ itemised the scientist. ‘It’s 6.38 inches long and has a six-grooved, right-hand-twist barrel 3.35 inches long and an eight round magazine. Most popular chambering is known as a Short…’ Robertson picked up one of the unspent bullets and held it forward for inspection.

Cowley looked, dutifully.

Robertson took up the second gun. ‘The Russian 9mm Makarov,’ he announced. ‘It’s 6.35 inches long and has a four-grooved, right-hand-twist barrel 3.85 inches long. And uses an eight round magazine…’ He turned back to his desk, hefting the Walther again, making balancing movements with a gun in either hand. ‘The Makarov is the unlicensed, unauthorised Russian copy of this…’

‘So how can you be sure it was a 9mm Russian copy and not a 9mm German original that killed Serov?’ demanded Cowley. ‘Or any other 9mm copy?’