Brian Freemantle: No Time for Heroes

‘Will the Bureau want its own autopsy, for DNA and stuff like that?’ asked the young examiner.

Cowley nodded. ‘But we’re going to need more than science and technology to catch whoever did this.’

‘I’ve packaged all the clothes up. I guessed you’d want them?’

‘All part of the system,’ confirmed Cowley. ‘What about time of death?’

‘Nine,’ said Brierly. ‘Maybe half an hour earlier.’

‘How long before that had he eaten?’ asked Johannsen.

‘Perhaps an hour,’ said Brierly.

‘And Georgetown is full of restaurants,’ reflected Cowley.

‘He could have eaten at home and left immediately afterwards,’ disputed Johannsen.

‘Entree salads aren’t a Russian way of eating,’ said Cowley. ‘It’s American restaurant style.’

‘This investigation is going to wear out a lot of shoe leather,’ complained Johannsen.

‘Investigations do,’ said Cowley.

Warning of the Russians’ arrival came from the downstairs reception, which Cowley, Johannsen and Brierly reached as the foreigners entered. There were two men, only one of whom identified himself: his visiting card described Valery Pavlenko as a member of the cultural section of the embassy. Cowley, who over the previous five years, as Director of the Russian division, had supervised the assembly of the FBI files on Russian diplomats in the United States, recognised the second Russian as Nikolai Fedorovich Redin, supposedly in the embassy’s trade section. He was, in fact, a member of the Russian external security service: when the man had been posted to Washington, four years earlier, it had still been called the KGB. A year after his arrival Redin had been positively identified trying to buy export-controlled computer base plates; Cowley had had the Department of Commerce ban the export, but argued against expelling Redin on the well established grounds that it was better to retain a spy they knew than discover who his successor might be.

There was a puff of white condensation at the temperature change in the examination room when Brierly withdrew the drawer. Some cosmetic effort had been made to pad a sheet around what remained of the head, and the face had been cleaned of blood; the same disguising sheet was arranged to cover the chest wounds. The coldness of the preservation drawer had whitened Serov’s face, heightening the blackness of the bruising and powder burns to the mouth. Rigor had frozen it wide open, as if the man had died screaming. The eyes were closed. The identity label was tied to the big toe of the left foot, like a price tag.

‘That is Petr Aleksandrovich,’ said Pavlenko evenly. There was no facial reaction from either Russian at Serov’s disfigurement.

‘We’d like to talk,’ said Cowley, not wanting to lose the opportunity with a Russian away from the confines of the embassy.

The pathologist led them back along the corridor to a small room opposite the reception desk. As Cowley sat, Redin leaned close to Pavlenko and spoke: the grating of his chair prevented Cowley hearing what was said.

‘We regret this incident very much indeed,’ began Cowley. He’d served in overseas embassies, in Rome and in London when he had been a full-time field agent, and knew the need for diplomatic niceties.

‘You are police?’

‘Yes.’ Cowley didn’t intend openly identifying himself as FBI in front of Redin.

‘You know who did this?’

‘There’s been no arrest yet.’

‘Why was he shot like that, in the mouth? It is bestial.’

‘We don’t know,’ admitted Cowley. He did not yet intend getting into a Mafia discussion, either.

There was another head-bent, whispered exchange between the two Russians. Again Cowley didn’t hear what was said.

‘Was he robbed?’ asked Pavlenko.

‘There is no obvious indication of that.’

‘We would like his belongings,’ announced Pavlenko. ‘And the return of the body.’

‘We are still making enquiries,’ said Cowley, held by the sensation of deja vu. The Russians had initially refused to release the body of the senator’s niece or her effects, after the Moscow murder that had taken him to Russia the previous year. It had been one of several early disputes.

‘What have your enquiries got to do with returning the body and the contents of Petr Aleksandrovich’s pockets!’ demanded Pavlenko.

‘The investigation has only been under way a very short time,’ pointed out Cowley. ‘Everything will be released as soon as possible.’

Pavlenko was a thin-faced man. His features hardened now, in anger. ‘We do not want this to become even more difficult than it is. A Russian national has been murdered!’

‘And we’re trying to find out who did it,’ said Johannsen, close to rudeness. ‘And why.’

Quickly interceding, Cowley said: ‘Where did Petr Aleksandrovich live?’

Pavlenko hesitated. ‘The Russian compound.’

‘We need to learn his movements last night. We would like to interview Mrs Serova.’ He instantly regretted demonstrating his knowledge of the language by his correct feminisation of the name, but the Russians appeared to miss it.

‘She returned to Moscow on compassionate leave two weeks ago,’ disclosed the diplomat. ‘She has an elderly mother who is ill.’

‘So Serov was living alone?’ said Johannsen.

‘Yes.’

‘Does anyone at the embassy know what he was doing last night?’

Pavlenko shrugged. ‘I have not asked.’

‘We would like to be allowed to visit the embassy, to talk particularly to people in the cultural division, to discover if he had an appointment or an arrangement to meet anyone,’ said Cowley.

‘He said nothing to me,’ replied Pavlenko.

‘He might have talked to someone else,’ persisted Johannsen.

‘I do not think so,’ insisted the Russian.

‘Why not?’

‘I was Petr Aleksandrovich’s immediate deputy. The conversations were between the two of us.’

‘He must have spoken to other people as well!’ challenged Johannsen, and Cowley thought he detected the beginning of a policeman’s belligerence at being given the runaround.

‘Not yesterday. There were only secretaries in the office, apart from Petr Aleksandrovich and myself. He would not have talked about any social event with them.’

‘Were you social friends as well as work colleagues?’

Pavlenko hesitated again. ‘Yes.’

‘So you would talk about social things?’ said Johannsen.

‘Not yesterday,’ refuted the Russian.

‘Would you have known if he was on an official engagement?’ The homicide detective was still polite, but only just.

‘There was nothing last night.’ There was the faintest sheen of perspiration on Pavlenko’s face.

Once again Cowley failed to hear all that passed between the two Russians, but he thought he caught Redin say neel’z’ah and wondered what it was Pavlenko had been warned he couldn’t or shouldn’t say.

‘So there is an appointments diary?’ pressed Johannsen. ‘We’d like to see that.’

Pavlenko stopped just before the angry rejection, breathing deeply. ‘It is unthinkable for you to examine official documentation belonging to the Russian embassy. I have told you there was no official function last night.’

‘We would also like to examine the apartment at Massachusetts Avenue,’ bulldozed Johannsen. ‘There could be some indication there of where he went.’

‘That’s equally ridiculous!’ refused Pavlenko.

Delicately, choosing each word, Cowley said: ‘You have Russian staff responsible for the security of your embassy facilities, just as we have marines at our embassy in Moscow. Would it be possible for us to provide a list of questions to which we need answers – like, for instance, any diary entry or note at the Massachusetts Avenue apartment – for your own officials to answer for us?’