Brian Freemantle - No Time for Heroes

‘Just like yours, so I thought you’d be interested,’ suggested the Alexandria detective, Hal Maine. ‘Two in the chest and the third right in the mouth. And Christ, does he stink!’

It looked precisely the triumphal procession it was intended to be; a cavalcade of five BMWs, Gusovsky, Yerin and Zimin protectively in the middle vehicle, their minders in the others. They drove too fast along the central corridor which, until the collapse of Communism, had been exclusively reserved on the major Moscow highways for members of the Party. Now the Mafia considered if rightfully theirs, as the new rulers. No other cars impeded their progress. The GIA traffic police, in their elevated pods at the main intersections, controlled the lights in favour of the Mafia cars, as they once had for Party limousines.

‘The Ostankino torched two of our airport lorries last night,’ reported Zimin.

‘How do you know it was them?’ demanded Yerin. The Ostankino were the rival Family, jealous of the Chechen rule at airports, disputing all their territory.

‘It’s the word around,’ said Zimin, which was sufficient.

‘I’m not anxious for a war until we get the Swiss thing settled and make the arrangements in Italy,’ said Gusovsky.

‘If we don’t respond it’ll be regarded as weakness,’ warned Yerin.

That morning’s motorised tour was intended publicly to demonstrate their presence in their domain. Gusovsky leaned slightly forwards, to the driver. ‘Make the left, on Ulitza Sadovaya,’ he ordered.

‘That’ll take us on to Ostankino turf,’ warned the man.

‘Exactly,’ smiled Gusovsky. ‘Let’s hope they take it as the warning it’s meant to be.’

He did stink.

Few drivers had parked near the grey Ford for the past two days, so it had been easy to tape the area off, which Cowley thought hardly necessary because no-one was coming anywhere close to look. Four scene-of-crime technicians around the open trunk all wore respirators and gloves as well as protective overalls; the local officers, plain-clothed and uniformed, were well away from the car and carefully upwind. Cowley looked for Rafferty and Johannsen, whom he had alerted, but they hadn’t arrived. Rafferty had said they’d found out where Serov had eaten the night he’d been killed, and sounded rebuffed when Cowley topped that news with the announcement of a second, matching murder.

As he approached the police group there was the now familiar burst of television lights and flash-gun bulbs from the penned-off media. The commotion alerted the watching police group. Hal Maine hoped he’d done right calling Cowley direct; conscious of boundary jealousies, Cowley warned the local man he’d asked the two DC homicide detectives to join him.

‘You’re welcome to this,’ said Maine sincerely. He was a faded man in a creased suit and shirt; Cowley guessed he had about five years before retirement.

‘What do we know?’ asked Cowley.

Maine waved towards an open-doored, unmarked police car inside the cordon, where an overalled FBI specialist, a respirator discarded beside him, was sitting in the rear, transferring things from a crocodile briefcase into exhibit bags. ‘The case was in the car, not the trunk, so there’s not much smell. Swiss passport, in the name of Michel Paulac. Difficult to make a facial comparison with the photograph, because of the state of the body. Swiss driving licence in the same name, which matches that in which the car was rented from Hertz at Dulles, nine days ago. The rental agreement was in the briefcase, too. So was a first class return ticket, which should have been taken up four days ago, to Geneva. There’s a wallet of visiting cards. Paulac’s address is given as Rue Calvin, Geneva. There’s quite a few documents in languages I can’t read; looks like bank or financial stuff.’

There was another blaze of light from the media pack and Cowley turned to see two cars being allowed through the yellow tape by a uniformed patrolman. Rafferty and Johannsen were in the first, Brierly and Robertson in the second.

‘Jesus!’ said Rafferty, nose wrinkled, as he joined them.

Brierly was zipping up a protective all-in-one as he followed. He took a tube of highly mentholated emulsion from his examination bag, smearing it on his upper lip, directly beneath his nose, then offered it generally to the group. Cowley took some but the bear-like Robertson, who was wearing the same lumberjack workshirt of the previous day, shook his head. Rafferty said he wasn’t curious enough to want to look and Johannsen said he wasn’t, either.

Cowley had never before seen a body in such an advanced state of putrefaction. It was grossly swollen and the skin had split within the constriction of the clothing. Most of the face and hands were black. The body lay on its back, with the legs twisted sideways and the arms tightly above the head, to fit into the trunk. The smell began to get past the barrier gel and Cowley backed away, his stomach bubbling. He kept the white smear of emulsion under his nose, not caring if he looked ridiculous, although he pointedly kept his back to the cameras when he returned to the upwind group. Hal Maine had briefed the two DC detectives during his absence.

Johannsen said: ‘First Russian, now Swiss. And all in America. Could be a job for a UN peacekeeping force.’

Cowley didn’t join in the professional cynicism. To Rafferty he said: ‘So where was Serov the night he was killed?’

‘The French cafe near the Georgetown Mall,’ announced the man. ‘Waitress named Mary Ann Bell made a positive ID. Puts him there around six thirty, before the place properly filled up. Thinks he left around seven forty-five: she’s pretty definite about that, because that’s the time her shift ends and she handled the check.’

‘Alone?’ queried Cowley.

Johannsen shook his head, taking up the story. ‘One other guy. Foreign accent, although not like Serov’s. She remembers the second one better than Serov. The kid’s working her way through college, like they all are. She’s pretty: black hair and a tight ass. The guy came on strong and she was flattered. He promised to come back to see her again. She puts him around thirty, thirty-five. Says he dressed well: thinks it was a brown suit. Lightweight. Had a nice cologne. Good-looking guy.’

Cowley indicated the Ford. ‘He’s wearing a brown suit.’

‘Pity about the cologne,’ said Rafferty.

‘Anything unusual while they were in the cafe?’

There was another head shake from Johannsen. ‘When the second guy wasn’t trying to hit on Mary Ann there was a lot of head-together stuff. She says they were serious.’

‘Serov had eaten fish, just before he died,’ reminded Rafferty. ‘The special that night was scrod. They both had it.’

‘With a bottle of Californian chardonnay,’ completed Johannsen.

The huge scientific co-ordinator lumbered back from the Ford. Behind him Cowley saw the masked technicians manoeuvring a black body bag into the boot.

‘Lookee here!’ demanded Robertson, when he reached their group. The man held up a glassine bag with a brass shell casing in it.

‘Makarov?’ asked Cowley.

Everyone else looked between him and Robertson, without comprehension.

Robertson said: ‘I’ll tell you within an hour of getting back.’

Brierly followed immediately afterwards. He said the autopsy would be more difficult because of the decomposition but it looked like an exact copy of the first. Unless there were bone injury, it would be hard to find any marks of torture or resistance. He’d try for fingernail scrapings, but he wasn’t hopeful there, either. He’d do his best to help forensic get usable fingerprints but the best chance of provable indentification would be dental records, although the teeth were extensively damaged. The mouth shot had been inflicted in the car, which was how the shell jacket came to be in the trunk: the slug would be found, among the head debris.