Brian Freemantle - No Time for Heroes

‘Satisfied?’ she demanded.

It was Cowley who answered. ‘Your husband was murdered. Horribly.’

‘Yes?’

‘We are trying to find his killer. Or killers.’

‘Yes?’ she questioned again.

‘Why are you so resistant, Mrs Serova? Don’t you want the murderer caught?’

Raisa Serova stared up at Cowley for several moments: briefly her impassive face twisted, close to an expression of anguish. ‘All you have done – every question you have asked – makes out Petr Aleksandrovich was a criminal!’

‘Wasn’t he?’ demanded Cowley remorselessly.

‘No! He was a kind, loving man dedicated to the job he did! He cried for joy when Communism ended here! And again when the coup against Gorbachov failed!’

‘He knew criminals!’ insisted Danilov.

‘I DON’T KNOW THEM! OR ABOUT THEM!’ The screaming, near-hysterical outburst startled them all: Pavin, less prepared than anyone because he was head-bent over the notebook, actually gasped in astonishment, jerking up towards the woman.

‘This is disgusting! Disgraceful!’ protested Yasev. ‘I insist it stops!’

Again both investigators ignored him. Danilov reached out again for the photograph of Serov with an unknown man. ‘Who is this with your husband?’

Raisa remained gazing down at the picture so long Danilov was about to prompt her when she spoke. All the hard, supercilious control had gone. She was wet-eyed and her lips were trembling. ‘My father,’ she said, broken-voiced. ‘He died two years ago. Of exactly the same cancer that is going to kill my mother, whom I took into hospital three days ago: less than two months, the doctors say. In the bowel, so they suffer a lot. And in between Petr Aleksandrovich has been murdered. Which leaves me with no-one…’ She looked towards Cowley. ‘Is this better, now I am crying…?’

There was a loud silence.

Cowley said: ‘I am not trying to make you cry, Mrs Serova. I’m trying to find your husband’s killers. And the reason for his being killed. And how he came to know the people he apparently did.’

‘Don’t you think I’d tell you, if I knew! Don’t you think I want them caught and punished; gassed or hanged or however it is you execute people in America!’

‘You knew nothing at all?’ said Cowley, less aggressively.

‘Nothing!’ She indicated Yasev again, behind her. ‘So unless there was some official reasons that I don’t – you don’t – know, I lived with a man who kept secrets from me. A man I didn’t know at all, but thought I did. So I don’t know now what sort of marriage I had.’

Danilov looked sideways, enquiringly, at Cowley who shrugged back, no questions left.

Sensing the embarrassment of both investigators, Yasev said: ‘Are you satisfied?’

Danilov retrieved from Pavin the final photograph, that of Serov with the elderly couple, offering it to the woman without the need to ask the question. Raisa glanced at it and said: ‘Petr’s parents. They live at Kuntsevo: they were very proud of him.’

Cowley was disappointed. He’d actually been encouraged by Raisa Serova’s initial arrogance, believing from the psychological sessions at the FBI’s Behavioral Science Unit at Quantico he recognised a barrier behind which she was hiding and which could be broken down: that was why he had been so hard, showing no sympathy. It had been a barrier, he supposed: one behind which she had every reason to crouch, in her grief. He was disgusted with himself, without needing any accusation from the pompous asshole of a ministry official. Cowley’s head ached, too, and his stomach was sour. He made a resolution to go easier in the bar tonight.

‘Can I have the photographs?’ asked the woman. She was practically pleading.

Danilov handed them to her, along with her diary.

‘What about Petr’s diary?’

‘I need to keep that,’ refused Danilov. ‘I need to understand the marked entries.’

There was no protest this time. Raisa said, more to herself than to anyone else: ‘The funeral’s on Wednesday. At Novadichy…’ Then, as if there had been some doubt, she went on: ‘… his parents are coming.’

Danilov welcomed the dismissive gesture from Yasev, moving towards the door ahead of Cowley and Pavin. In the car – in Russian for Pavin’s benefit – Danilov said: ‘That got us nowhere.’

‘It could have done,’ said Cowley.

At Petrovka, on the far side of town, Metkin smiled up at his former partner. ‘All set?’

‘An apartment on Ulitza Fadajeva,’ said Kabalin. He still wasn’t as confident as the other man.

‘Make sure it’s recorded in absolute detail.’

‘Of course.’

‘The Foreign Ministry have asked for a full explanation of what happened at the river. There’s to be an enquiry.’

‘Everything in place?’

‘It will be. Antipov will complete it.’

Every official ministry and investigation branch in both Moscow and Washington was inundated by media demands after the Washington Post exclusive. The American State Department liaised with the Russian Foreign Ministry, each denying any knowledge of the source and each promising an enquiry to discover it. A joint, confirmatory press statement was issued in both capitals.

Cowley learned about it when Washington demanded if he had had any contact with the press – which he immediately denied – and caught Danilov at Petrovka to warn him.

‘Part of our ongoing problem with your people?’ asked the American.

‘It could be. It certainly wasn’t Pavin or me.’

‘Now we’ll have cameras over our shoulders all the time. Fame again.’

‘Fuck fame,’ said Danilov. It was a better obscenity in English.

The arrest of Mikhail Pavlovich Antipov was perfectly co-ordinated, even to the hour. It was carried out by a squad of plainclothes and uniformed Militia officers under the command of Vladimir Kabalin. They smashed their way with sledgehammers into the Ulitza Fadajeva apartment at four o’clock in the morning, when the man was in bed asleep. He was with two girls who later turned out to be mother and daughter: the daughter was fifteen years old.

The surprise was so absolute there were three officers with pistols drawn and trained upon him before Antipov properly awoke. He tensed, beginning to move his right hand behind him, but stopped when he saw the pistols: after he and the girls, without embarrassment, got nakedly out of bed one of the uniformed men found a 9mm Stetchkin pistol beneath the pillow.

‘What’s this about?’ demanded the man. He remained naked. The girls were also taking their time getting dressed: the fifteen-year-old giggled openly at the ogling policemen.

‘Murder,’ announced Kabalin shortly.

Antipov laughed. ‘Who did I kill?’

‘Ivan Ignatsevich Ignatov,’ identified Kabalin formally. One of the plainclothes officers was taking note of the exchange.

‘I didn’t kill anyone.’

‘We know you did,’ sighed Kabalin. ‘We’ve all had enough time to admire the size of your prick. Get dressed.’

Antipov started to, but slowly. Nodding to the girls, now fully clothed, he said: ‘What about them?’

The apartment block had been under surveillance from early the previous evening, which was how they’d known Antipov was there, but the girls hadn’t entered with the man and Kabalin was uncertain what to do with them. ‘They’re coming too.’

Antipov stopped dressing, smiling again. ‘They almost killed me last night: nearly fucked me to death!’

The girls laughed.

‘Remember it,’ advised Kabalin. ‘Could be a long time before you get it again.’

As well as putting on clothes – a knitted sports shirt beneath a deep brown chamois jacket that matched the Gucci loafers – Antipov slipped a gold wristwatch on his left arm, a gold bracelet on his other wrist and took his time selecting rings, a platformed gold band for his left hand, a silver one with an onyx centre for the right.