Brian Freemantle - No Time for Heroes

‘That first arrest was always a joke, wasn’t it?’ picked up Cowley. ‘Because there was the gun, briefly, there didn’t seem the need for all the rest that should have been done. And which was done this time, seizing all your belongings for scientific examination…’ Cowley reached out, picking up the plastic bag containing the shoes. ‘You did a lot of shopping in America, didn’t you, Mikhail Pavlovich? These are a very popular make of shoe. Florsham. The colour, ironically, is oxblood. But it wasn’t oxblood the Bureau scientists found; it was human blood…’

He paused, opening a file on the table between them, where the enlarged photographs better identified the spot. ‘See that!’ he invited, pushing it closer towards the other man. ‘Deep into the welt there, where the sole is stitched on to the upper part of the shoes? It’s very strong twine, but it absorbs. That’s where it was found. Blood isn’t as good as other cellular material, for DNA discovery: red cells don’t have a nucleus, so there’s no DNA. It’s got to come from the white cells, which means you need a lot of it. But there was a lot when you killed Petr Serov. So much I had the highway authority hose the scene down, when we’d finished with it. You didn’t have any on your clothes – because we’ve checked them – and you may have wiped your shoes clean, but you did step in it and enough went into the welt to soak into the twine to give us a trace… a trace that’s again been positively matched with the DNA of Petr Serov…’

The nerve near Antipov’s mouth was vibrating now, and he wasn’t trying to cover it any more: ‘Bastards!’ he said, in weak defiance.

‘There was other material on your shoes, which we can use,’ continued Cowley. ‘In the welt again, where it isn’t easily brushed away. Minute particles of cement dust, but sufficient to make a batch comparison. There’s more, in the cuffs of those trousers there – the trousers you wore the night you killed them. The Bureau have a special scene-of-crime vacuum device. Sucks up everything. They ran it over the entire area where Serov’s body was and picked up a lot more. There was some in the Ford Paulac hired from Hertz, and on his shoes and trousers, too. Did you make him watch, when you killed Serov?’

Antipov’s eyes were bulging, and he looked hurriedly around him, a rat looking for its escape hole.

Cowley turned the pages of the file. ‘Here we are! All the dust was traced to batch numbers 4421 and 4422, manufactured by the Hardseal Cement Corporation based in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, and shipped two weeks prior to the murders to the Dart and Bell Construction Company of Silver Spring, Virginia. The Dart and Bell company are carrying out warehouse repairs to a block fronting the Potomac, at the bottom of Wisconsin Avenue: they started work four days before the killings. They’re still doing it…’

‘Awesome, isn’t it?’ goaded Danilov, to give Cowley a minimal break. ‘See how closely you’re tied in with everything?’

Antipov shook his head, swallowing heavily again.

‘And then there’s this!’ announced Cowley, offering a glassine envelope containing four threads, one thicker than the other three. ‘All clothing manufacturers keep batch records, too: all part of their quality control, which is a Federal requirement. Ever noticed how new clothes always have the odd pieces of cotton or fibre attached? That thicker grey strand there is polyester which accords absolutely in dye colouring to those pants of yours that held the cement dust. So does the cotton. Both, through the dye, were traced by the Bureau to the Fashion First company in Trenton, New Jersey. Their records showed the pants had been shipped, with the jackets, to five stores in New York and two in Washington, a week prior to the murders…’ He had to pause, dry-throated. ‘The polyester fibre and the three cotton threads were recovered from the Ford car, in which Paulac’s body was found…’ The American smiled. ‘You know what I thought, when this case began? I actually thought it wasn’t going to be helped much by the Bureau’s scientific expertise. Just shows how wrong you can be sometimes, doesn’t it?’

‘We’ve told you what we know,’ said Danilov. ‘You want to tell us all you know?’

Antipov did. It took him four hours. When he came to the murder of Lena Zurov he said he had been ordered to kill her, without a reason being given, which was fortunate. The reference to the whore came before either expected it, and there would not have been time to switch the tape off if the man had named Cowley as the intended blackmail victim.

Danilov finally took the call he had been refusing, pleased at the fear in Kosov’s voice. He guessed it was being made from the car, although the reception was very clear: Kosov must be parked somewhere.

‘What the hell’s going on! You any idea the situation you’ve put me in?’

‘Everything’s got to be timed just right. It’s taking a lot of planning.’

‘They say they won’t wait!’

Danilov wasn’t ready: wouldn’t be until he learned the final decision upon the entire case file – with the exception of the intercepts from Kosov’s car – that he had presented. All there had been so far was a formal acknowledgement from the Federal Prosecutor that it was being considered.

‘Tell them they must…’ Danilov hesitated, unsure if he could make the commitment. Deciding he had to, he said: ‘Just two more days. Make arrangements for a meeting the day after tomorrow. Tell them I’ll have the deal in place by then.’

‘It’s not going to-work!’ said Cowley, making his usual protest when Danilov finished talking.

‘Yes it is,’ insisted the Russian.

That evening Cowley received a copy of the official response from Washington agreeing to every demand made by Moscow. Danilov decided it was reason enough to approach the Federal Prosecutor rather than wait for Smolin to contact him.

Cowley decided it was reason enough for several whiskies in the Savoy bar, because it meant Pauline was safe from public humiliation.

Danilov went worriedly to Pushkinskaya. The conclusion had to have been reached at Ministry level – at presidential level, even – and should have been given to them from one of the baroque, chandeliered chambers, not the Federal Prosecutor’s office. So perhaps the final decision had not been made. Perhaps they weren’t going to be told in detail: there was no official requirement. Danilov hadn’t thought of that until now. It was even more reason to worry. Yet Smolin had agreed to Cowley’s attendance, which surely gave the encounter some semblance of officialdom. Would there be enough at least for him to go on with the move into which he was inextricably locked?

Maybe it wouldn’t be what they’d already told him and upon which his entire plan was founded. Maybe they would after all go for a major show trial, naming and charging everybody, even the identified Mafia leaders. No, he told himself, bringing the see-saw down in the other direction. They’d diplomatically pressured Washington, using the serial killings, and Washington had agreed to go along with a limited prosecution. But did that limitation exclude any charges against the Chechen? It was the most obvious surmise, because there had not been any orders to make arrests and he would surely have been the officer-in-charge of any such operation.

Danilov sighed, beside Cowley in the back of the Volga: for every argument there was a counter-argument, for every reassurance a deflating doubt. He believed Kosov, about the Chechen impatience: so he’d have to keep his arranged appointment, whatever he learned – or didn’t learn – today.

He was surprised by the reception awaiting them, guessing Cowley was too. It actually was a reception, although very low key: there was vodka and small dishes of zakuski, but only the three of them to celebrate. Nikolai Smolin played host, pouring the vodka, and made a self-conscious toast praising the success of the investigation.