Brian Freemantle: No Time for Heroes

‘There was nothing in Russian or Ukrainian. He said he’d left it in Switzerland; that there was no reason to carry it to Washington. I brought back some things I couldn’t read: French or German, I think. They might be it.’

‘You frighten him enough, so that he would have handed it over if he’d had it?’

‘I made him watch me kill Serov! How much more frightened could he have been!’

‘So what’s he going to do?’

Antipov frowned sideways. ‘Do? He’s not going to do anything. I killed him too.’

‘ What! ’

‘He was a witness to murder!’

‘Which didn’t achieve anything,’ dismissed Zimin. It had all gone badly wrong. And it was going to reflect upon him, because he was supposed to have organised it.

‘You said there had to be warnings,’ reminded Antipov, defensively. He’d taken his jacket off and laid it in the back of the car, to prevent it creasing as he sat. He’d done the same in the Ford, with the man jibbering in fear beside him.

‘We needed the documents!’

‘Isn’t there any other way?’

‘I don’t know,’ admitted Zimin. He was going to look very stupid. He couldn’t think of any way of avoiding the responsibility, either.

Dimitri Ivanovich Danilov prepared carefully because there was always the possibility others would be there – the Federal Prosecutor or someone high up in the Interior Ministry, perhaps – and he wanted to look right. He’d waited a long time, sometimes he thought too long, and he wanted his appearance to be correct in every detail. Danilov was professionally meticulous about detail, although the outward chaos in which he appeared to work hardly indicated that.

The Director had virtually promised Danilov the succession, before he’d gone to America the previous year during the joint murder investigation, and he’d shopped there with this sort of moment in mind, an occasion when he needed to look his best. He’d scarcely worn the shirt with the pin that fastened the collar behind the tie, which was also new. The shirt was more rumpled than he would have liked but it wouldn’t be improved by Olga ironing it again, because she was hopeless at laundry, like she was about most household chores. The American sports coat was newer and held its shape better than either of his two suit jackets, but he chose a suit, the thinner one because of the summer heat. A sports outfit would be too casual.

Danilov dressed as quietly as possible to avoid disturbing Olga, who lay on her back, the sheets bundled around her, her mouth slightly open. The snore was irregular, rising and falling like a faulty engine. A shaft of early light was across her tangled hair, showing the greyness through the uneven brown tint. He hadn’t noticed the varying shades until that moment – but then, they didn’t look at each other that closely any more.

Danilov was genuinely sad about the way things had collapsed between himself and Olga. Wrong word, he rejected at once. It had been more of an erosion, a wearing away through neglect and lack of interest until the shell of a marriage was left, with no substance to support it. They existed now in polite pretence, performing a weary charade, each waiting for the other to declare the last act. More his pretence than Olga’s, Danilov corrected, refusing himself the escape. He’d been the one knowingly and cynically to prolong it, letting her think there was a chance of salvaging something long after he’d fallen in love with Larissa and no chance remained. And he’d cheated Larissa as well as Olga, making both wait until this moment, this day.

He’d be powerful enough after today to resist the possible embarrassment of long-ago compromises. Would Yevgennie Kosov disclose those compromises, when Larissa asked for the divorce, as he could now ask Olga? For a policeman as boastfully corrupt as Kosov it would be an act of suicide, because of the cross-accusations Danilov could make in return, but having known Kosov for as long as he had, Danilov guessed the man might be vindictive enough to pull the roof down on his own head if he felt his property was being stolen, which was how he’d think of Larissa leaving him – although the Kosov marriage was even more of a mockery than his own to Olga. So it had been sensible to wait until now: indefensible, by his much vaunted moral integrity, but sensible for the career culminating today.

Danilov’s final, most careful preparation was to comb the fair, thinning hair over that part of his forehead where it had already retreated. It was an oversight, not to have had it cut: the threat of impending baldness wasn’t so obvious, close cropped.

Danilov left the Kirovskaya apartment without waking Olga. There was a crush at the Kazan metro station, and he looked forward to having a permanent official car. He’d have to pressure the local Militia station to increase patrols around his block to protect the vehicle: it would be humiliating if the wipers or windscreen or wheels were stolen, which would happen if he didn’t have it guarded. He’d have the power, as Director, to get it looked after: power for whatever he wanted to do. And he wanted to do a lot.

He tried to check the time, not wanting to be late, but his watch – one of the few remaining tributes from his erstwhile grateful friends – had stopped again, so he had to wait for a station clock. He was ahead of time.

His elevation wouldn’t be welcomed by anyone in the Organised Crime Bureau of the Moscow Militia. From the moment of his transfer, six years earlier, Danilov had regained an integrity that had lapsed when he was in uniform, and refused to get involved in the deals and the trading and the pay-offs. He’d been virtually the only one, apart perhaps from the Director. Danilov guessed that when his appointment became public there would be a lot of worried fellow officers who’d sneered and laughed and openly called him stupid over those previous six years. And they’d have every reason to be worried: under his directorship the Organised Crime Bureau would stop being a rigged lottery, with every player a winner.

He wouldn’t move too hurriedly. Or without proper consideration. If he purged it as quickly and as thoroughly as it deserved, there’d hardly be an investigator left, and he wouldn’t be improving a bureau by wrecking it. In fact he probably wouldn’t do anything about the past at all, except to use his awareness for the future. He’d let it be known, subtly but clearly enough, that the old days and the old ways were over: that under his command the back alley meetings and package-filled handshakes were gone. He’d move hard against those who disregarded the warnings, either transferring them back into uniform or dismissing them entirely as examples to those who remained.

There was no-one else apart from General Leonid Lapinsk in the top floor office at Petrovka, and the Director did not rise from behind his desk when Danilov entered. Lapinsk had been showing his age in the last couple of years, but now Danilov decided the man looked positively ill, his face not just grey but cadaverous. Under stress the General had the habit of coughing, puntuating his words. He did it now, during the greetings, and Danilov wondered why: he couldn’t image anything stressful about this encounter, virtually a meeting between friends.

‘There are matters for us to discuss,’ said the older man.

‘Yes,’ accepted Danilov. He supposed Lapinsk could make the announcement himself. Or perhaps they’d go on to the Federal Prosecutor’s office on Pushkinskaya, or to the Interior Ministry, after Lapinsk had made clear how much he’d had to do with promotion.

‘You brought particular credit to this department after the joint American investigation…’ There was a burst of coughing. ‘After which I gave you what amounted to an undertaking, about your future.’