He’d give a farewell party, Andrews decided. Invite everybody to the social club, not just from their own embassy but from others as well, the Brits and the one or two people he’d got to know among the French. Andrews smiled, caught by a thought. It was ironic — even amusing — that one of the guests would be William Cowley, to be left behind in Moscow hunting a killer he was no nearer finding now than when he’d arrived.
His mind back on the man whose decision could settle his future, Andrews concluded that as soon as he got back — tomorrow, definitely — he’d tell Cowley of his official application and directly say he hoped the man would support and accept it. No reason why he shouldn’t. Absurd not to say something, in fact: might even offend the man, antagonize him unnecessarily, for him to learn about it from some official memorandum in the diplomatic bag from Washington. It was a positive benefit, not the delaying nuisance he’d first thought it to be, having Cowley in Moscow where they could talk about it openly, face to face.
The request to re-fasten seat-belts came with the announcement of the Amsterdam stop-over. Transit passengers could briefly disembark if they wished. Andrews decided to stay aboard: even try to get some sleep if he could. He wanted to be as fresh as possible when he arrived in Moscow. He had a lot to do.
Dimitri Danilov was becoming depressingly convinced that he had missed something among the evidence they had assembled, maybe some unconnected, minuscule piece of information or fact that was either obstructing them or, alternatively, pointing them in the wrong direction, just as they’d already once gone in the wrong direction, although at that moment Danilov would have welcomed any direction to follow, wrong or otherwise.
He accepted, the depression worsening, that the orders he was issuing now were little more than clutching at straws, activity for activity’s sake, with little hope of producing anything positive. At last Pavin had discovered the identity of the press conference questioner, which opened a narrow pathway to continue along. Pavin was also instructed to locate the one remaining psychiatric patient whose apartment on Bronnaja Boulevard had always been empty, once to an approach from Danilov himself.
The daily meetings with Lapinsk became scenes of constant argument but without any definite point, the older man clearly passing on ill-tempered pressure from above, irritably anxious for the whole insoluble business to be taken from the Militia.
And Danilov, justifiably but unsoundly, passed the criticism on down. He took over the morning duty conference on the day after Cowley’s return — the day of Lapinsk’s strongest rebuke — to lecture the ineffective street teams on their failures, itemizing particularly by name the officers who had conducted the provably flawed psychiatric inquiries, declaring and meaning it that he intended attaching his complaints to their work files. Such a challenge would have been unheard of at a Militia district or precinct level. It was positively unprecedented at the echelon of Petrovka, where everyone regarded themselves as above question or censure. The response was predictable and immediate, by the same afternoon. The resistance and sneers towards Danilov went beyond the headquarters building, reaching out into the districts because the Petrovka officers methodically manned telephones to spread stories claiming Danilov’s panicked incompetence and impending demotion. Pavin, confident of their relationship, postponed his visit to Bronnaja Boulevard to tell Danilov he shouldn’t have staged the confrontation and most definitely shouldn’t have threatened recorded discontent: professionally it would achieve nothing apart from creating an unbridgable gulf between himself and all junior officers. Equal-ranking officers would shun him, regarding him as a disruptive, incomprehensible threat to the established system. Senior officers, even General Lapinsk, would dismiss him as a fool. Danilov recognized every assessment to be true. And he wished he even felt better having made his stand. He didn’t.
On several occasions since the encounter at Leninskii Prospekt he’d considered speaking to Kosov about Eduard Agayans, but hadn’t. He wanted the intervention to be forceful but appear at the same time a casual, oh-by-the-way approach, not a positive protest. He was reluctant to put himself in a subservient position with the other man, asking as a petitioning intermediary for Agayans to be allowed to operate as before. He wanted to speak from the level of an equal whose views should be respected and acted upon when he insisted the black marketeer should be allowed to resume business. And Danilov accepted that he was not equal: that he had no bargaining power. He decided to wait for the right opportunity, whenever and whatever that might be.
He supposed there would never be a right opportunity with Larissa: perhaps there never had been.
He actually welcomed her obvious reluctance to see him that evening, imagining it might make the encounter he intended easier, until he entered the selected hotel room behind her and realized that it was all part of the familiar play-acting, the aggrieved demi-mondaine demanding to be wooed.
‘You never bring me presents!’ she pouted at once. ‘The other girls I work with get presents. I don’t.’
Something else that was true in a day of various truths, conceded Danilov. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘Do you think your prick’s bigger than anybody else’s: that it’s enough, by itself?’
It had seemed sufficient until now, reflected Danilov. ‘I had a difficult situation with Olga the other night.’
‘So?’ said Larissa, carelessly.
‘She accused me of having an affair with you. By name.’
‘So?’ said the woman, again. ‘What did you say?’
‘Denied it, of course. Said it was nonsense like I did before when she started talking about you.’
‘So why are we talking about it now?’ He wasn’t behaving as he should, standing there. There should have been more apologies: promises of a gift. She put her hand up, playing with the buttons of the blouse she would soon slowly start to take off.
‘I think it’s time we started to ease off.’
Larissa stopped fingering the blouse opening. ‘What?’
‘Maybe call a halt to the whole thing.’
‘Call a … what the hell are you saying?’
‘I think it’s time we stopped, Larissa.’
‘Stopped! Just like that!’ She snapped her fingers.
‘Yes.’
For the first time her manner wavered. ‘Don’t say that. As if it didn’t matter. As if it was just a fuck: that it didn’t mean anything. It wasn’t like that for you, was it? Tell me it wasn’t like that.’
‘Of course it wasn’t!’ he said, trying to imbue the feeling into his voice. Falling back on cliche, he said: ‘But it isn’t as easy as that. There are other people.’
‘Who?’ she demanded. ‘Olga? Yevgennie? That’s all. They don’t matter. I can divorce Yevgennie: want to divorce Yevgennie. You can divorce Olga. We can be married! That’s what you want, isn’t it? What you’ve always wanted.’
No, thought Danilov. He’d never wanted that. He wasn’t sure what remained between himself and Olga, but he’d never really contemplated anything permanent with Larissa. So why had he begun and pursued the affair? Reassurance, he supposed, unable to think of another word and deciding it was the right one in any case: he’d wanted the reassurance that he could still impress a beautiful woman if he tried. Which was pitiful: pitiful and selfish and cruel and despicable. Obscene even. He was ashamed of himself, ‘I don’t want it.’ He had to force himself to say the words. When she flinched, as if she had been physically slapped, he said: ‘Not now. Not yet. I have to think … to decide.’
‘When? How long?’ She was pleading now, the confident arrogance all gone.
‘I don’t know … that’s why I think we should ease off … give ourselves time …’
Larissa straightened, regaining control. ‘You’re a bastard. A complete and utter bastard.’
‘Yes,’ agreed Danilov, knowing it was true. A day of truths, he thought again.
Chapter Thirty-Three
The book cover was red, with black lettering,
and Nadia Revin knew it would stand out, look impressive, among the others on the Uspenskii bookshelves. He’d said it was being made into a film, so she determined to read it before putting it away, trying to visualize from the Hollywood actors and actresses whose names and faces she knew who she imagined would take the parts. It was a game Nadia played a lot in the afternoons and early evenings, waiting for the telephone to ring.
She was glad it had rung that night. It had been the sort of evening Nadia genuinely enjoyed, the way it was going to be all the time when she got to America. He had been an urbanely courteous, considerate, dollar-carrying Englishman who had told her to call him Charles and tried from the moment of the first greeting to please her, before himself. It hadn’t been difficult. Nadia considered the Metropole the best and most luxurious in Moscow since its refurbishment: certainly it was the most expensive. The food had been superb and he’d known a lot about wine, showing her how to sniff what he called a nose and swirling the sample taste around the glass for rivulets, which he called legs, to form. She’d listened attentively, considering it to be the sort of thing she needed to know, an addition to everything else she tried to learn to make her more sophisticated.
Like reading the English-language newspapers so assiduously. When he’d started to talk about the book fair she’d been immediately able to pick up the conversation from the recent, memorized reviews, one of which had turned out to be for the novel that now lay beside her on the passenger seat of the BMW and which he’d said his firm had published. It had been a fulsome review and he’d been clearly and obviously impressed, as she already was by then, with him.
They’d stayed at the hotel, with no suggestion of her apartment, and that had been right, too, because he’d had a suite which merged perfectly into the relaxed indulgence of the evening. Not that he’d wanted to indulge himself with anything unusual or special, apart from asking her to undress very slowly while he watched, which she did not consider unusual at all. In bed he had remained considerate, wanted her to achieve her orgasm as well as himself, the foreplay leisurely and gentle until she urged him to be faster, harder. And she had achieved it, although it meant briefly losing control, which she didn’t ever like to do. She guessed her doing so had made it better for him.
He’d given her $20 more than she’d stipulated, saying it was for a present other than the book, and asked, politely, if he could see her the following night. Nadia had agreed, of course. They’d talked of eating somewhere else — she’d suggested the Atrium or the Stoleshniki Cafe — and she’d thought they’d probably come back to Uspenskii afterwards. She might even suggest it: certainly prepare some champagne in the refrigerator.
They’d also talked about his having her telephone number, so he could contact her during subsequent visits. She’d readily given it to him, because it was business and regular clients were good business, but Nadia doubted she would be in Moscow for Charles’s next trip. The warning card, their established way of early contact, had arrived that morning from the regular client from New York, saying he was arriving three weeks earlier than expected, and Nadia had definitely decided to ask him to sponsor her American entry. She was sure she could phrase it in a way that wouldn’t alarm him into thinking she expected any more than help with her admission. No hassle, she thought, remembering the word. He wouldn’t be frightened. Hadn’t he said, a lot of times, how wonderful it would be if she were set up in Manhattan? Nadia’s mind ran on, building plan upon plan. The new man, Charles, had spoken of visiting New York several times a year. He could see her there, just as easily — maybe more so — as in Moscow. It was all going to work so well, she knew: so very, very well.
Nadia took the car around by the dark gardens, black trees starkly naked against the brief snatch of skyline. There were no people on the bordering roads, not this late. She turned into Uspenskii but went by her apartment, turning left to go beside the block to get to the back. A car as precious as the BMW had to be protected, so it couldn’t be openly parked in the street. The shed on the rear allotments had originally been built for gardening equipment but made a quite satisfactory garage: the cost of renting it was an additional but necessary expense.
She left the engine running while she released the lock, by the illumination of the headlights. The fit was tight, but she was well practised at manoeuvring the vehicle inside. There was instant, thick blackness when she turned off the lights. She picked up the book beside her by feel.
Even relaxed, as she was now, Nadia was more alert to everything around her than any of the other women had been. Prostitutes — even those who called themselves by other titles and didn’t work the streets — developed permanent antennae to potential physical danger. She sensed the presence and began to turn before the hand came over her face and the arm locked around her body, so the attack was not completely from behind. She didn’t freeze with terror like the others, either, but instantly tried to struggle, although the grip was strong, almost numbing, so it was impossible properly to fight against. She kept struggling, frenzied when the knife started to go in, snatching backwards for his crotch, the instinctive defence. Her arm and hand twitched and stopped, before it reached him.
There was a lot of hair, more than he’d ever had. A lot of buttons, too. He hummed as he took his souvenirs. Got it right this time. No more mistakes. Perfect.
Because the shed was up a track, off even a paved alley, it was not until the following morning, when it was quite light, that the body of Nadia Revin was discovered, defiled and ugly, like all the others.
Danilov collected Cowley from the embassy compound, as before, and as before there was little conversation on the way to Uspenskii. Viktor Novikov was still conducting his scene-of-the-crime examination when they arrived and became nervous under the blank stare of the critical American. At Cowley’s request, the forensic team collected to be shipped back to Washington duplicate samples of everything they considered relevant. The mournful-faced Pavin, who had arrived ahead of them to supervise the evidence assembly, said there was nothing of any immediate significance, not even footprints on the soft, sometimes muddy allotment ground underfoot: at the time that Nadia Revin had been stabbed, the ground would have been frozen hard. One curious discovery had been an English-language book beneath the body. Her handbag had contained make-up, most of it Western-made, book matches from the Metropole Hotel, $150 in cash, a packet of Western contraceptives from which two condoms were missing, and a dildo. There was also an address book, listing the owner’s name as Nadia Revin and an apartment in the block beneath which they were standing. A possible key to that apartment was on the same ring holding the ignition and other keys to the BMW.
It fitted, when the three of them got to the seventh floor, in advance of the forensic teams which had been left with instructions to follow. Pavin trailed the two senior detectives throughout their examination, evidence sachets ready.
Despite Nadia Revin’s hopes and pretensions, the apartment was a whore’s home. The main room had heavy, red-flocked wallpaper. There was no bright, overhead light but the Tiffany shades over the sidelights were red-glassed, too. There was too much overstuffed furniture crowded in, making the place seem smaller than it was. The prints on the wall were art nouveau, chiffon wisped over female nakedness, but no other decorations, certainly not any personal photographs. There was another address book in a bureau: a number of pages listed only given names against hotels and their numbers. The cupboard beneath held an extensive range of liquor.
The intimate red colouring was continued in the bedroom, where a great effort had been made to heighten the mood of opulent sensuousness. The bed had a pole-supported canopy, into which was set a large mirror to reflect the activity below. There was a selection of bound books of pornography as well as some loose, isolated prints held in folders, in a bedside cupboard. None featured Nadia Revin. There was a comprehensive selection showing cunnilingus and fellatio, some groups homosexual, but none portraying bondage or masochistic deviancy. In a drawe
r above the cupboard were two dildos, several packets of Western contraceptives, oil, and contraceptive and lubricating creams. The wall prints here were of erotic Greek and Roman brothel bas-reliefs, huge-penised men and suppliant, eager women.
There were two clothes closets, one given over entirely to diaphanous silk or gauzed negliges and night-wear: in a pull-out drawer within the closet was a range of sexual underwear, pants without crotches, bras without tips, for nipples to protrude, and lacy garter belts and suspender belts.
It was behind the drawer, which he fully withdrew to take it free of the closet, that Danilov found the hide-away place, a hollowed rectangular space concealed behind a sliding panel that looked at first like the rigid back to the closet. Inside was Nadia Revin’s birth certificate, passport, $22,000 in cash and a manila envelope containing documents. Danilov briefly flicked through the papers before offering them to Cowley.
‘She wanted to go to America,’ said the Russian, simply.
‘And Ralph Baxter signed the acknowledging letter to her visa application,’ said Cowley, reading more thoroughly.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Everything fitted — the shorn hair, the positioning of the shoes, the severed buttons — yet once more there was no way for them to go forward from the already established pattern. The routine began again, a roundabout making another circle, ending where it began.
Novikov’s early and more careful autopsy report gave the same measurements for the weapon, with the exception of the entry wound. The cut here, by what would have been the sharp edge of the knife, was wider than on any of the other victims, nearly six millimetres. The likeliest explanation was that the woman had tried to turn towards her attacker, driving the knife against her own body to cause herself a greater injury. All her perfectly manicured nails were intact, with no evidence of her having fought. There was no vaginal deposit indicating recent sexual intercourse, despite her profession, but this was consistent with the condoms found in her handbag. Novikov insisted that, following the second American post-mortem on Ann Harris and the Quantico assessment that the buttons indicated a nipple fetish, he had closely examined Nadia Revin’s breasts for injury or abrasions. There had been none.
In the Name of a Killer cad-1 Page 36
