Brian Freemantle - No Time for Heroes

Danilov replaced the contents of each drawer as he had found it before extending the search in the way he guessed Redin would have done. He extracted each drawer completely from its slot, running his hands inside the cavity for anything secured or taped to the desk frame. He repeated the examination around every edge and the bottom of each drawer before replacing it. He got down on his hands and knees, probing the knee space for any concealed item, and at the end had found absolutely nothing.

The filing cabinet was as unproductive as everything else. There were brochures of events, both past and for the immediate future, all inserted according to date. Two drawers contained material and documents for the not-yet-assembled records that would have joined the rest of Serov’s career history on the shelves of the bookcase opposite. Two more contained correspondence stretching back over two years, annotated alphabetically. Recognising his own naivety, particularly after the failed attempt with the address book, he looked up P for Paulac and M for Michel before going on to F for finance and S for Switzerland. He even switched the combinations, in case Serov had filed European names under the designation of the Russian Cyrillic alphabet.

It had been naive to expect to find anything in an office that had clearly been cleansed as antiseptically as this. As naive as looking up initial letters in address books and filing cabinets, or imagining himself better trained in his art than Redin was in his. He’d given way to pride, Danilov accepted: he’d enjoyed the publicity too much, and too easily believed the media descriptions of his supposed ability. So he’d wanted to find within hours of his arrival in Washington the key that would unlock the entire mystery, like the English fictional detective who played a violin and wore a strange hat and solved crime in minutes, about whom a series was currently being shown on Moscow television. But he wasn’t operating in a fictional setting. He was operating in real life, in hard reality, and his entire future depended upon his behaving like a proper detective.

Wherever that elusive somewhere was in which Petr Aleksandrovich might have left the secret of his association with Michel Paulac, it definitely wasn’t here, indexed under letter heading.

Danilov slumped head forward against his chest, the momentarily unfocused appointments diary open before him, embarrassed with himself for expecting it to be so easy, pushing the personal discomfort aside by concentrating yet again upon the murder date. He saw the grouping of the words but he wasn’t consciously trying to read them: seeing more the pattern than the construction of the spelling. Which was probably why the oddness abruptly and sharply registered: that and the fact that he had juggled with the script of two languages with different alphabets while looking at the address book and through the cabinet.

Danilov had read English at Moscow University, and learned it so well that his first intention, before joining the Militia, had been to become a translator and interpreter. He didn’t need his expertise or fluency to be curious at what he was staring down at now.

Everything about what he had seen and read in this office told him Petr Aleksandrovich was a man of consummate attention to infinite accuracy. Yet the entry at which he was looking was inaccurate. The entry for the murder day read: Exhibition of Native American Art. Smithsonian. Noon. Attend. And Serov had written it in English. But the two ‘R’s in the phrase were written with the Cyrillic ‘p’ and the ‘n’ of ‘exhibition’ was printed with the Cyrillic ‘h’.

Serov would not have made that sort of mistake. Danilov’s conviction grew as he read the diary entries once more from the beginning, coming again and again upon the correct use of both letters. But there were exceptions: he found four dates, one in each of the preceding four months, when Cyrillic again intruded.

Carefully Danilov noted each date, stretching back into the chair as the fatigue finally washed over him. He was sure it was significant. Hopefully there was a way to find out what that significance was. It would also create a test, to see if Cowley really intended full co-operation. Danilov was uncomfortable at doubting the American, but supposed there would have to be such a test. He wondered if Cowley would attempt one with him.

‘You’ve been in there a very long time,’ said Redin, close to complaint, when Danilov emerged.

‘I wasn’t aware of a time limit,’ said Danilov.

‘Anything?’ demanded Pavlenko, who was also waiting.

‘After only four hours?’ mocked Danilov, extending his rejection of the security man’s remark.

‘You haven’t finished?’ frowned Redin.

‘Of course not,’ said Danilov. Could there be a way for Pavin to dissect Serov’s work files with his usual thoroughness? It would be something to consider tomorrow.

Danilov remained as vague when he telephoned William Cowley from the surprisingly spacious apartment allocated to him in the Russian compound on Massachusetts Avenue.

‘When can we meet?’ demanded the American.

‘Tomorrow afternoon, after I’ve looked at Serov’s home,’ promised Danilov. ‘I’ll telephone.’

‘How’s it looking?’

‘Too soon to say.’ Unlike the telephone system in Moscow, calls here were routed through a central switch-board and he guessed the conversation, like any he had over the following days, would be monitored. It would be unsafe to initiate any discussion he did not want overheard from any Russian facility.

He collapsed gratefully into bed, curious whether he would find any more oddly spelled words in Serov’s apartment the following day. And then discover what they meant, in the way he thought he could.

There were wrongly spelled words. And on the same dates as those in the cumbersome office desk diary, although this time in a more convenient pocket version which matched the one produced by Raisa Serova in Moscow and which Danilov found in a bureau in the Serov apartment.

It wasn’t an easy search. Oleg Firsov, the resentful counsellor, had insisted on accompanying him to the murdered diplomat’s home, and Danilov had decided he couldn’t oppose, as he had at the embassy. With Firsov constantly at his elbow, Danilov moved through the flat appearing to ignore a lot but missing nothing. He was sure it had been searched like Serov’s office, but those before him had tried hard not to replace things too tidily, to maintain a lived-in impression. Danilov might not have realised the mistaken effort if he had not earlier been in the Serovs’ sterile Leninskaya penthouse. It should have been the same here, despite Raisa’s absence, because someone of Petr Aleksandrovich’s neatness would not have allowed the indented seat cushions and dishevelled magazines and partially opened closet doors and drawers.

There were fewer personal or family photographs than he’d expected. There were four of Serov and Raisa by themselves in Russia or America and six of them with other people, four with the same elderly couple and two of Serov with a man. He overrode Firsov’s protests against taking some away, packing them neatly in his briefcase.

‘They’re personal!’ insisted the diplomat.

‘So’s being shot in the mouth.’

‘I shall report this to Moscow!’

The only personal correspondence in the bureau was to Raisa Serova, always in the same wavering handwriting of an elderly mother bemoaning ill health. There were other complaints as well. Lawlessness had increased on the streets of Moscow since the collapse of communism. Economic reform and market economies had failed. Raisa was lucky to be out of it.

Bills were clipped together, as they had been in Serov’s desk. There was a detailed accounts ledger, completed up to the day before Serov’s death: in a pouch in the back, again clipped together and in numerical order, were statements from the Narodny bank. The joint account was ten thousand roubles in credit. Every listed transaction was doubly recorded in the accounts book, but here with a fuller explanation of income and expenditure. The income never varied, in any of the statements, neither did the source, in the audit book. Every deposit was listed as salary. Raisa was not shown to have any income.