No Time for Heroes

CHAPTER FIFTY

Danilov laid the photographs aside after glancing at only four or five, uninterested in the rest. He thought the girl was very pretty. Her body reminded him of Larissa: a lot of the activity, too. ‘I didn’t need to see them.’

‘A lot of people are going to, very soon now.’ They were in Cowley’s hotel room. He collected the prints from the table and put them back in his briefcase, as if wanting to hide them away again as quickly as possible. The man was physically bowed, pressed down by a burden he couldn’t finally support.

Danilov wasn’t sure whether the remark was cynicism or self-pity: perhaps a mixture of both. He had a sickening feeling a very recent puzzle was to become very clear very quickly: he wanted to hear everything Cowley had to say, before telling the American.

‘There are newspapers and magazines in Moscow now who would publish them: not the most explicit, but some.’

‘In America they’d even use the explicit ones,’ accepted Cowley. He hadn’t detected any criticism or disgust from the Russian. It was important to make the other man understand it wouldn’t jeopardise the investigation.

The query came suddenly to Danilov. ‘She was in the bar for about a week before you went with her?’

‘About that.’

‘Be more specific,’ insisted Danilov, almost peremptorily.

‘What’s it matter?’ frowned Cowley.

‘How soon, after the night out with Yevgennie Kosov?’

Cowley nodded slowly, in gradual understanding. ‘The motherfucker! It fits! The night after: two at the most.’

Danilov nodded back. ‘He insisted we all travel in the BMW: I thought he was boasting about the car. But they had to find out where you were staying.’ Would the Chechen hit him with the same determination they had hit Cowley, if Kosov had told them of his black-market dealings in the past? Of course they would. So he’d be destroyed as completely and as effectively as the American. And if the Chechen didn’t do it, Kosov still might, when he and Larissa made their announcement. Danilov guessed Larissa would take it much better than Olga. He felt a brief but very positive surge of pity for his wife. ‘They will try to deal. Blackmail!’

‘No deal!’ refused the American, loudly. ‘I did it! I was drunk, which isn’t an excuse, and I was stupid. They set me up and I fell for it, like a jerk. So they won. That time. What we now know is too big – far too big and far too important – for any deal. Which I wouldn’t consider, even if it weren’t. So in the end, I’m going to win. We’re going to win. We’re getting it now. And we’re going to get more. I’ll hang in, for as long as I can: as long, I guess, as they’ll let me. Which is a pretty shitty thing for an FBI man to have to admit about a bunch of punks! But when I go down, they go down!’

Danilov’s admiration for Cowley soared. He wasn’t shocked or offended by the pictures – none showed anything he and Larissa didn’t do most times they were together – and he was tempted to argue they were not as professionally compromising as Cowley was making out. But deep down he recognised that they were, so to say that would be patronising. Danilov’s mind ran on, to a thought that had come to him during that morning’s questioning. ‘I want to use Zimin: he might even see it as a deal.’

Cowley frowned again. ‘How?’

‘He knows about the Ignatov killing: that Antipov did it,’ insisted Danilov. ‘I’m sure he does! About Metkin and Kabalin, too. All of it. He’s got to be sentenced here to satisfy Italian justice, but if it could be arranged he serves his sentence in Russia, he could give evidence against all of them.’

‘That might not delay the exposure. It won’t be Zimin’s decision, whether or not to publish them.’

‘They don’t know what we’re getting. Melega’s agreed no publicity.’

Cowley smiled faintly. ‘ Would Zimin give evidence against them?’

‘Depends how frightened we keep him.’

‘What about special treatment?’

‘Maybe a reduction of sentence,’ suggested Danilov. ‘It would be worth it to get the other convictions.’

It wouldn’t do anything to close the Washington files on Michel Paulac or Petr Serov, but it might just delay his humiliation. Should he feel any different – slightly relieved, perhaps – now he’d shared the personal disaster with someone else, someone who’d accepted it without any critical judgment, professional or moral? If there was going to be any such relief, it hadn’t come yet. His only feeling was surprise at how little there had been to discuss about the entrapment. It was practically an anti-climax. Objectively he knew the hostile enquiries and detailed reports – and the scouring criticism – would come later.

Believing there was nothing more to talk about, Cowley said: ‘There were things waiting for me at the embassy. We’ve got the number Kosov was talking to, so we can get an address. And we know who Ilya Nishin is. He’s the same guy in the photograph you took from Serov’s apartment in Washington…!’

‘Whom Raisa Serova identified as her father!’

‘For the moment we can forget pornographic pictures and blackmail. Get this investigation completely buttoned down!’

‘I’m not sure we can forget it, not entirely,’ cautioned Danilov. ‘The whore in the photographs? Did she have a name?’

Apprehension began to stir through Cowley. ‘Lena. That.’s all. Just Lena.’

‘I had a message waiting for me at the embassy, too. There’s been another killing in Moscow, with a mouth shot: a high-class prostitute named Lena Zurov.’

‘She was killed because of me. It’s as if I killed her.’ Cowley’s voice was distant, cracked.

‘It wasn’t a Makarov,’ completed Danilov. ‘The bullet was from a Smith and Wesson. An American gun.’

Yevgennie Kosov waited for Olga to ask, which she did when she realised they were driving through the outskirts of Moscow. ‘Ilyinskoye village. The Izba. You’ll love it.’ He was having to make it a social occasion, a casual Saturday outing, but it was difficult because he was terrified. She had to know something.

‘Larissa on duty again today?’

‘I don’t know why she insists on working. It’s not as if she needs the money: she can have as much as she likes.’ He shouldn’t rush it but it was difficult not to.

‘I asked her the same thing,’ offered Olga. ‘She said she would get bored in the apartment by herself all day.’

‘Maybe she’s having an affair,’ said Kosov. ‘Working in an hotel would be convenient, wouldn’t it?’

Olga looked sharply across the car. ‘Who with?’

They cleared the city and Kosov stamped on the accelerator, taking out his impatience in physical speed, ‘I just said maybe.’

‘Would it worry you, if she was?’

‘We’ve got a pretty loose marriage,’ admitted Kosov. He didn’t want to talk about Larissa or marriage! He wanted to talk about her bastard husband, cheating him in Italy.

Was the approach she’d worried about on their first outing going to come now? Why had she been worried? She wasn’t now. She wasn’t sure what she would do, if he made a pass, but she wasn’t frightened. Remind him they were friends, probably: say something about not wanting to spoil it. What would it be like, to have an affair? A tiny tremor of excitement flickered through her at the thought. A lot of women had affairs: some women she worked with. It was hardly as if she would be seriously deceiving Dimitri. He didn’t have any physical interest in her any more. They only made love when she practically demanded it, which was rare because she didn’t have a great deal of physical interest in him any more. The marriage had gone beyond that. She wasn’t sure where the marriage had gone to. Perhaps nowhere. Perhaps it had just gone. ‘What would you do, if you found out she was involved with another man?’

‘She’d be very silly, if she was. I’ve got a lot of friends who could help me.’ Who at the moment were probably planning to kill him, if he didn’t find out what they wanted to know! He needed to break the inane conversation. He reached across the car, covering her hand. Olga opened her fingers to receive his, returning the pressure. ‘Why do you work?’

‘Same reason as Larissa, I suppose. And I like having my own money.’

The right direction, he thought. ‘Dimitri Ivanovich doesn’t keep you short, surely!’

Olga hesitated. ‘We have to live on his salary.’

‘That can’t be easy.’

‘It isn’t.’

‘We had a talk, just before he went away.’

‘You’re going to help him meet people!’

‘I’ve offered.’

Olga squeezed his hand. ‘That would be wonderful. You’re a good friend.’

‘From what the newspapers and television say, he seems to have been fantastically brave in Sicily.’

‘Yes.’

‘What’s he said about it to you?’

‘He hasn’t called.’

It couldn’t be! thought Kosov, anguished. ‘Not at all?’

‘I suppose he’s been busy. I actually thought he was in Washington.’

He was wasting his time with this fat, stupid, ugly woman! ‘So did we all. So you don’t know how the investigation is going?’

‘Only what I read in the papers. It must be going well if they’ve made all those arrests.’

At the Risskaya Izba they had smoked fish, with mutton to follow, which was too heavy so she left a lot; when she went to the rest-room to comb her hair and repair her make-up she saw, dismayed, there was a grease spot on the lapel of her cream jacket. Trying to wash it off made it worse.

Kosov, made persistent by fear, suggested walking by the river after lunch. Again he took her hand. ‘You do trust me, don’t you?’

Olga felt the tremor again. She had to prepare her answer. ‘Of course. Why did you ask that?’

The gesture of dismissal came close to being overdone, but Olga didn’t see it as that. ‘It occurred to me that Dimitri Ivanovich and I talk work a lot: police work. I didn’t want to bore you, asking about it today.’ He still wasn’t sure the bitch wasn’t holding back: it didn’t seem possible there hadn’t been one call from Italy, after all the Superman heroics.

‘You don’t bore me, Yevgennie Grigorevich.’ Olga felt warm, heavy-eyed and lethargic from the wine. She was sure he was going to make a pass.

‘I don’t think Dimitri Ivanovich treats you well enough.’

Olga wished he wouldn’t keep reminding her of her husband. ‘People get too used to each other.’

‘He should have called you from Italy. Any wife would have been worried, after all those stories!’

‘He should, shouldn’t he!’ she agreed, in half-drunken belligerence.

‘But he didn’t?’ pressed Kosov, hopefully.

‘What?’ she asked, confused.

‘He didn’t call?’

‘I told you he didn’t: not since the day he left.’

Shit! thought Kosov. ‘I’d really like to hear, if he does. I am a policeman, don’t forget…’ He allowed the necessary lapse. ‘Did he tell you we’ll be working together, soon? That I’ll be going to the Organised Crime Bureau?’

Olga wished he would stop talking about boring police business. ‘No.’

‘We will. Let me know if he calls, won’t you? I’d like to hear what’s happening. Now that we’re going to be partners.’

‘If you like,’ she said, uninterested.

What could he tell Gusovsky and Yerin, to convince them he was useful, stop them doing anything? ‘There should be a celebration when he comes back. You’ll tell me, won’t you?’

Olga brightened. ‘The moment I hear from him.’ She was vaguely disappointed when he led her back to the car. Not that she wanted to make love to the man: not as quickly as this. She wouldn’t have objected if he’d tried to kiss her, though.