Brian Freemantle - No Time for Heroes

‘ You set us up! ’

‘ I didn’t! He cheated me, too.’

‘ You’re no good to us any more, Yevgennie Grigorevich. We can’t trust you.’

‘ No! I’ll speak to him! ’

‘ There’s nothing to speak about.’

‘ Let me try! ’

‘ No good to us any more,’ repeated Gusovsky, monotonously. ‘ He laughed at us, as fools. Did you both laugh: think we were fools? ’

‘ No!’ wailed Kosov.

‘ You’re the fool, Yevgennie Grigorevich.’

Cowley snapped off the replay button, at the warning marker. ‘They did it.’

‘I know,’ said Danilov simply.

‘It was the last conversation we recorded.’

‘I want to hear the explosion!’ demanded Danilov.

‘No you don’t,’ said Pavin, gently. ‘There’s no point.’

‘They probably brought someone in from another republic to do it,’ said Danilov, close again to personal musing. ‘They’ll never be charged, not Gusovsky or Yerin.’

‘No,’ agreed Cowley. ‘That’s the way it’s done.’

‘It’s not the way it should be,’ said Danilov.

The investigation was not given to the Organised Crime Bureau but to a general criminal unit, which spared Danilov from inevitable participation. When it was learned it had been the car of a Militia district commander, the newspapers speculated it was a revenge killing by someone whom Kosov had arrested: police records of all his cases were being examined, for a likely motive through which to trace the killer. Television as well as newspapers carried photographs of Kosov and Larissa. It was a good picture of her – posing in her head-tilted way – and he cut it from two different newspapers because he didn’t have a picture of her. Olga cried a lot but Danilov didn’t, not after the breakdown that first night, by the crater. He took to arriving at Petrovka by eight in the morning and not leaving until six or seven, but never later, because it was unfair to leave Olga alone.

The man from whom Pavin bought the medal on the Arbat insisted it was for bravery under fire: they were doubtful, but that was what they told Cowley on the day he left Moscow, and he was as delighted as Danilov had guessed he would be. They talked over the reunion plans that didn’t need any more discussions: there had been no reference, from either Cowley or Pavin, to Larissa’s death during the four days since they had got him away from the scene. Only at the moment of parting, at Sheremet’yevo, the last thing Cowley said was: ‘I really am sorry.’ Danilov thanked him.

Danilov hadn’t discussed with the American what he intended doing, because there was no reason for Cowley to know. He didn’t tell Pavin, either, although he guessed the man would realise later because it was Pavin he told to organise the swoop on Wernadski Prospekt, to bring in the Ostankino leader.

Yuri Yermolovich Ryzhikev was much heavier than he’d appeared in the prints, bull-chested and thick-necked, with very full black hair and the dark complexion of someone from one of the southern republics: Danilov thought occasionally there was the trace of a Georgian accent. There was a lot of gold adornment, which seemed to be the requirement of every mafioso in the city: the man came into the Petrovka suite with a camel-coloured topcoat slung cape-like around his shoulders, over a brown silk suit. The shoes were crocodile. There wasn’t the arrogance of the Chechen chieftains, but there was no apprehension over the arrest, either.

He sat where Danilov told him but asked at once if Danilov knew what the fuck he thought he was doing. Danilov quietened the attitude at once by offering across the table the copies of the original Svahbodniy Founder’s Certificate and the second certificate transferring control to Raisa Serova upon her father’s death, both of which held Ryzhikev’s name. The government had recovered the money, Danilov said. Ryzhikev had been stupid like the Chechen had been stupid, but in Ryzhikev’s case it hadn’t happened once but twice, first losing it to the Chechen and then to the Russian authorities. So he did know what the fuck he was doing. He was giving Ryzhikev a warning.

No action was being taken over the embezzlement, and they knew all the murders had been committed by the Chechen. But no Mafia clan was going to be above the law any more. They had a file on the Ostankino, like they had on every other Family: they knew Wernadski Prospekt was the main house, but they had all the other clubs and restaurants as well. To prove it, Danilov listed those they had discovered, during the surveillance, adding the one that had been firebombed by the Chechen. They didn’t just know the locations, they had identities, too, he continued, and to prove that recited all the names listed in Zimin’s confession, as well as the few Pavin had managed to assemble from the sparse Petrovka files. They didn’t rate the Ostankino as seriously as the other Families, because they knew it would be swept up by the Chechen, who were already taking over whatever they wanted. When he said that, Danilov offered the certificate that had never become operable, replacing the Ostankino directors with Gusovsky and Yerin.

‘The Chechen are going to take you over: look how easy it is for them to kill your people, whenever they like. So by eradicating them we get rid of not one but two mobs, don’t we?’

They already had a massive file on the Chechen. They had over thirty names and they knew the meeting places, at Gusovsky’s home on Kutbysevskij Prospekt and the restaurant on Glovin Bol’soj and the well-protected club on Pecatnikov.

Danilov made it a condescending lecture, once waving the man down when Ryzhikev appeared about to speak, and when he finished the man’s face was puce and he was hunched forward in his chair, looking more bull-like than before, as if he were about to charge.

‘You can go now,’ dismissed Danilov. ‘Until you’re absorbed, just remember what I’ve said. We know who you are and where you are. We can swat you like a bug, whenever we want.’

‘You’re out of your fucking mind,’ managed Ryzhikev at last. ‘You got it wrong. All wrong.’

I hope I haven’t, thought Danilov, at the end of that day. He was in the basement, where the incinerator was housed, feeding the car tapes and the transcripts into the flames, carefully and individually, wanting it all completely consumed, like Larissa had been completely consumed. Technically it was evidence, he acknowledged. But as Cowley had agreed, at the embassy the night it happened, Gusovsky and Yerin would never be punished for ordering the assassination. What he had tried to achieve today was much better: justice without trial. The ultimate personal compromise, for a policeman.

The double funeral was at Novodevichy cemetery, like Serov’s. Olga cried. Danilov felt nothing, emptied. Having been at the scene he wondered what, if anything, was in the coffins. There were representatives from the Justice and Interior Ministries, as well as a sizeable contingent of uniformed Militia, eight of whom formed an honour guard. A uniformed Militia colonel whom Danilov did not recognise gave a graveside eulogy in which Yevgennie Kosov was described as an outstanding policeman of integrity and leadership and Larissa as a loyal and loving companion. No matter how long it took, the perpetrators would be brought to justice for one of the vilest crimes in Moscow’s criminal history.

‘It was true, wasn’t it? What a fine man Yevgennie was?’ said Olga, on their way back to Kirovskaya.

‘Yes.’

‘I just can’t imagine what it will be like, not having them any more.’

‘No.’

‘At least Larissa went too. She wasn’t left by herself. I couldn’t bear to be left by myself.’