Tom Smith - Agent 6

She tried speaking the words aloud, wondering if that would make them real to her.

– Jesse is dead. I am alive.

It was impossible to imagine her life without him, impossible to imagine waking up tomorrow without him beside her, going to work and coming home to their empty apartment. They had survived adversities together and enjoyed success together. They’d travelled the entire country together and shared a cramped space in Harlem. No matter what they’d done, they’d done it together.

It had taken the authorities nearly fifty years but finally they’d got him. There might not have been a length of rope tied around his neck, they might not have killed in him on the edge of a forest, and though the killers couldn’t show their faces and proudly pat each other on the back, make no mistake, it was a lynching just the same, complete with photographs and audience. She would not cry, not yet. She would not mourn his death as a widow weeping by his graveside. Jesse had taught her better than that. Jesse deserved better than that.

Feeling her body come under some semblance of control, she straightened up, shutting off the cold water. She walked to the door of the restroom, opened it. In the corridor, in the distance, she saw the police officers waiting to interview her. She turned in the opposite direction, knowing exactly what she had to do.

Raisa had foreseen the danger, spoken to Leo, heard his confirmation that the danger was real and then wished the threat away. For many years she’d trusted in nothing, doubted every promise, and presumed that all interactions were based around self-interest and deceit. It had proved an exhausting, corrosive existence but it had worked – she’d survived while the regime had murdered many thousands. However, it was not a state of mind, nor a way of life, that she’d wanted for her daughters. She’d not taught them to lie when asked their name by a stranger. She’d not drilled into them the need for caution and suspicion as a matter of routine. She’d not wanted them to second-guess every display of affection and interrogate every friendship. In so doing she’d failed as a mother and she’d failed as a teacher. Just because Leo had left his past behind did not mean those dark forces no longer existed. He’d changed. But she’d been wrong to believe that the world had changed too.

Watched over by a female police officer, Raisa refused to sit down, standing in the corner of the cell, her back against the wall, her arms crossed. She’d been given no news of Elena. They’d been taken into custody in separate cars, pulled apart in the chaotic aftermath of the murder. In the few seconds that Raisa had been able to hold her daughter, Elena had been a little girl again, the girl she’d adopted twelve years ago – lost and confused and seeking protection from a world she didn’t understand. She’d buried her face in Raisa’s shoulder, hands wet with Jesse Austin’s blood, and wept like a child. Raisa had wanted to say everything was going to be OK but it wasn’t, not this time, and she couldn’t manage even a comforting lie, too stunned at events to tell Elena that she loved her. It would be the first thing she said the moment they next met, even if it was for a second. Raisa didn’t know the details of the plot Elena had become embroiled in. Whatever it was, she could only have been seduced by the promise of a better world. With her quiet optimism, she was like Leo, a dreamer who’d ended up with blood on his hands. Raisa’s heart broke to think that her idealistic young girl would never be the same, no matter what she was told, or how she was reassured. Leo would help her. He had gone through the same process – he would know what to say. They just needed to get home.

The door opened and the agent from the hotel, Yates, stepped into the room. For a man who’d presided over a security disaster, he seemed peculiarly satisfied. There could only be one interpretation: he was involved somehow. An older woman stood beside him – she was not in uniform. She spoke first, in perfect Russian.

– You’re to come with us.

– Where is my daughter?

The woman translated to Yates. He said:

– She’s being questioned.

Raisa followed them out, saying in Russian:

– My daughter did not kill anyone.

The woman translated and Yates listened but offered no response, leading them into the main office – an open space with desks and chairs, and many people, mostly police officers, phones ringing, people shouting over each other, pushing past each other.

– Where am I being taken?

After hearing the translation, Yates said:

– You’re being moved.

– Is my daughter also being moved?

To this question she received no reply. Yates was busy talking to another man.

Waiting, disorientated and afraid, Raisa peered about the room, feeling dizzy. She was about to ask for a glass of water when, among the crowd, she glimpsed a woman – the only black woman in the room. She was wearing civilian clothes. There was a uniformed officer by her side. He was talking to her but she wasn’t paying him any attention. She was concentrated on them, staring towards them with startling intensity. Belatedly, Yates also saw the woman and reacted strongly, shouting orders. The uniformed officer grabbed the woman’s arm, trying to pull her away. She shook him free, raising her other arm. She was holding a gun.

Raisa had seen the woman before, by the body of Jesse Austin, screaming out to the sky for help when no help would come. She recognized love and pain in the woman’s expression, love turned to anger. As the gun flashed explosions of white light, she wished that the last thing she’dtold Elena was that she didn’t blame her for anything and that she loved her very much.

None of the staff were working, none of the customers were eating, all were turned towards the radio, listening to the news broadcast. Nelson was standing, hand on the volume dial, turned up as loud as it could go. Several of the women were crying. Several of the men were crying. In contrast, the voice on the radio was clipped and without emotion.

– Last night the once-popular singer Jesse Austin was murdered, shot dead in public. The suspect is a Russian woman, a Communist, suspected of being his lover. A source inside the NYPD reports that the Russian woman told police officers after the murder that she shot Mr Austin because he failed to live up to his promise to marry her and rescue her from Soviet Russia. Mr Austin is already married. The tragic affair did not end there. Last night his wife, in revenge for the murder, took a gun and entered the police precinct, where she shot the Russian woman. After killing the suspect Mrs Austin turned the gun on herself…

Nelson picked the radio off the counter, pulling it from the power socket, raising it above his head. The customers watched. He reconsidered, put it down. After a moment, he addressed the room.

– Anyone want to listen to those lies, they can do it someplace else.

He walked into his office, returning with a large glass jar that he placed on the counter by the cash register.

– I’m setting up a collection. Not for the funeral, this isn’t a time for flowers and Jesse wouldn’t want them anyway. I’m going to hire someone to figure out who really murdered Jesse and Anna. We need lawyers. Private detectives. I can’t speak for you. But I need to know. I have to know.

He took out his wallet and emptied it into the jar.

By the end of the morning the jar was full, waitresses contributing their tips, customers donating too. As Nelson counted out the collection, noting it down in a ledger, he heard one of Jesse’s songs. He left his office to find his customers and waitresses standing by the window, looking out onto the street where the music was coming from. He crossed the restaurant, opened the door and stepped outside. A young man called William whose parents Nelson knew well was standing on top of a crate, singing one of Jesse’s songs. He didn’t have any music in his hands. He knew the words by heart.