Brian Freemantle - No Time for Heroes

Oskin gave the verdict. ‘Pending that enquiry, supervision of the Organised Crime Bureau will be transferred to my personal directorship at the Interior Ministry.’

Metkin, thick-voiced, said: ‘What does that mean for my position?’

‘It is suspended,’ declared Oskin.

A good homicide detective with a hunch like a burr under a saddle blanket knows when the time for cosy relaxation is over. Rafferty was a very good homicide detective. And Johannsen respected his partner’s hunches.

They went through everything assembled in America and everything shipped from Moscow and Geneva, and crosschecked each other’s re-examination. When that blanked out they tried to refine the scrutiny to the stages of the investigation, working backwards instead of forwards, from the first moment of Rafferty’s intuitive feeling. Which had been directly after they’d received the shipment from the New York Task Force of the items taken from the abandoned home of Igor Rimyans.

‘Got it!’ announced Johannsen triumphantly. He held up one of the photographs taken from the Rimyans’ home, waving it like a flag, then offered it to Rafferty. ‘Look in the background, beyond the group being snapped! See the guy, almost out of the frame?’

‘What about him?’ asked Rafferty, staring down but seeing nothing of significance.

‘There he is again!’ declared Johannsen, proffering a second print. ‘Third from the left in one of the pictures the Swiss police sent us: pictures of Russian guys who’d been entertained in Geneva by our late lamented Michel Paulac!’

‘Eric, my son, I’ve said it once and I’ll say it again. One day you’re going to make a great detective. And on that day your country is going to be as proud of you as I am.’

‘And my life will be fulfilled,’ said Johannsen.

The blind man took the call, because the attempted entrapment had been his idea. He talked Metkin down, impatient with the incoherent babble. ‘Who knows about the gun?’

‘Me. Kabalin.’

‘So nothing can be proved, providing you both insist you know nothing about it.’

‘Kabalin is shaky.’

‘Tell him if he tries to do a deal – causes us any problems – we will kill him. Make sure he understands. But we’ll kill his wife and his children first. One by one. Make sure he understands we mean it. Because we do.’

‘It hasn’t gone right, has it?’ gloated Zimin. ‘In fact, it’s gone very wrong.’

The interrogation of Mikhail Antipov did not resume the day of the confrontation, nor for several days after. The Russian Foreign Ministry offered the American State Department an expanded apology at international diplomatic level, and the Federal Prosecutor invited William Cowley to Pushkinskaya and talked of personality clashes and internal jealousies to be examined by an immediately convened tribunal. Washington agreed not to make any public disclosure, accepting Moscow’s argument it could further impede an already interrupted investigation, with no practical benefit.

Ludmilla Radsic told the tribunal that upon the Director’s personal instructions, following the original American protest, she had signed receipt of memoranda she had not been permitted to read. She’d had nothing whatsoever to do with the compilation of the register and did not know its contents. She had been personally briefed by the Director prior to her appointment as Danilov’s secretary to make separate notes and report back to him on everything that occurred in his office. She’d been told to listen to every telephone conversation and to every conversation in Russian between Danilov, Pavin and Cowley. She’d had to write down the exchanges in as much detail as possible: once, entering the Director’s office, she’d heard him relaying something about the unsuccessful interview with Raisa Serova to someone on the telephone. She did not know the combination of the exhibit safe, nor what had happened to the Makarov. She’d had to surrender every reminder she’d made, so she had no written evidence Each of Metkin’s secretarial staff testified they had not prepared the disputed messages.

Metkin and Kabalin continued to deny falsification, insisting the memoranda were genuine, or any knowledge of the missing murder weapon. Metkin also categorically denied ordering Ludmilla Radsic to spy for him. The woman’s circumstantial evidence was judged enough to continue the suspension of both men but insufficient to bring any formal, criminal charges of conspiracy to impede the course of justice.

Danilov regarded that as a cover-up, to remove a problem but prevent a public government humiliation, and Cowley agreed with him. Their disillusionment worsened when the questioning of Antipov re-started.

Although directorship of the Bureau remained with Oskin, the day-to-day supervision was passed to Smolin, who conducted the session as he’d undertaken. Antipov still swaggered, lolling sideways with one arm lodged over the chair back: by now he virtually had a full beard and he smelled badly, from not washing. When Smolin identified himself Antipov laughed in Danilov’s direction and said: ‘He so bad you’ve got to do his job for him?’

Smolin was too experienced a lawyer ever to feel irritation. ‘It’s all gone wrong,’ he said. ‘They were caught, trying to get rid of the gun. That’s why I’m here: this is official. We’ve still got the gun and it’s going to put you in front of a firing squad. And we have their confessions, too.’

‘Congratulations!’

‘It’s everyone for himself now. That’s all they’re interested in, saving themselves. As you should be.’

‘Who’s they?’ demanded Antipov.

‘You tell me,’ said the prosecutor, possibly his only mistake.

‘No!’ refused Antipov. ‘ You tell me!’

‘Metkin. Kabalin.’

The Mafia man pulled a face, turning down both corners of his mouth. ‘Never heard of them. Like I never heard of anyone named Ivan Ignatov. Or something or someone called Chechen or Ostankino.’

That was the moment Danilov and Cowley – and Smolin – knew they’d lost. The Federal Prosecutor persisted for almost a further hour, until the repetition risked becoming farcical.

‘Metkin and Kabalin weren’t his only protectors!’ decided Danilov in the conference that followed, careless in his frustration at making the accusation to a government minister in the presence of the American.

There was no disapproval from Smolin. ‘Which would have to mean someone within the Interior Ministry.’

‘Or the judiciary,’ added Danilov.

‘Which might also account for the decision not to proceed with criminal charges against Metkin or Kabalin!’ suggested Cowley, emboldened by Smolin’s easy acceptance of what Danilov had said.

‘That was taken on my advice,’ corrected the Federal Prosecutor, although still with no resentment. ‘There wasn’t enough, legally, to proceed.’

‘When will there be?’

‘When there is a mistake that can’t be covered up,’ insisted Smolin.

Danilov hoped there was still the possibility of finding one, but didn’t tell Smolin. He’d insisted upon a replacement secretary. She was a hopefully smiling woman named Galina Kanayev, who had a dumpling face on a dumpling body and whose first job, under Pavin’s guidance, had been to correct the falsified communications dossier. She welcomed the relief of typing Danilov’s official request to the Foreign Ministry for a re-examination of all Petr Serov’s material returned from Washington. Prompted by being told of the comparison he was going to have to make, Pavin said the three names Lapinsk had provided had not shown up in any criminal record: he was about to begin on the records of government personnel.