No Time for Heroes

CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE

Holding Mikhail Pavlovich Antipov completely incommunicado for so long – and in far different circumstances from before – gave them the psychological edge of which the FBI’s Behavioral Science experts would have approved as a disorienting device, but ethically disapproved of as a Fascist torture and outlawed by every legislation – up to and including the Supreme Court – throughout the United States. But Danilov and Cowley were not in the United States. Cowley had given it a passing, unremembered thought; Danilov not at all.

Antipov came into the interview room shuffling and stinking and arguably verminous. Because he – and his wardrobe – had been stripped of every article of clothing, he wore prison canvas made stiffer by the filth of earlier wearers. A ginger-speckled beard was once more furring his face. There was an indentation in the crew-cut, where the sample had been forcibly taken: Danilov saw that even hacked away the man still possessed more hair than he did. The gold Rolex on the list of confiscated articles was probably still working, too: after a brave remission, Danilov’s fake Cartier had permanently expired.

But Antipov was animal-strong, not as eroded as Vasili Dolya or Maksim Zimin. But not, either, contemptuous and bombastic, like he had been at the first confrontation. Instead the attitude was wary, a predator knowing other predators, circling to define boundaries, the direction from which the sudden pounce might come. He looked intently at the clothes that had been seized. Most of them had been tossed into a pile – another psychological pinprick for someone as clothesconscious as Antipov, and again guessed at by Danilov – near to Pavin and the recording apparatus. Some had been isolated. There was a fawn jacket, hung carefully from a specially brought-in metal rack. Next to it were trousers, also on a hanger over which they were just as carefully folded, and a shirt. All were sealed in plastic bags far thicker than normal cleaners’ wrap. Next to the clothes, in a smaller plastic container, were a pair of heavy, dark brown brogue shoes.

‘We’ve got you, in the end,’ announced Danilov. The plan was for him to open, generally: Cowley had to take over when it became more technical.

The refusal to respond wasn’t theatrical arrogance now but protective caution, waiting for the proper attack.

Danilov’s attitude was different from the previous occasion, too, knowing he had every reason for superciliousness. ‘For three of the murders, this time…’ He gave a palms-upwards, so-what gesture. ‘Which leaves us without a legal conviction for the Ignatov murder but we know you did it, so everything’s wrapped up. We score four out of four. No-one could have done better than that, could they, Mikhail Pavlovich?’

‘You’re talking shit.’

‘Oh, no!’ corrected Danilov. ‘This isn’t going to be like last time. No evidence is going to disappear. And you know what? We don’t even need your confession: not a word! How about that?’

‘Fuck off!’

‘Not before you know just how bad it is for you. Not before I’ve told you of the talk I had with Vasili Dolya, about how you got the gun: about the meeting with Nikolai Redin in Lafayette Park, to get the identification of Serov, so you didn’t make a mistake. Doesn’t that worry you, Mikhail Pavlovich: knowing the evidence they’re going to give? And then there’s Maksim Zimin, whom we’re bringing back from Rome to testify against you, under the deal we’ve done with him and the Italian prosecutor…’

Antipov went back in his chair, as if trying to pull away from the litany. There was no outward indication yet, but Danilov knew the man was frightened: he had to be. And this was only the beginning. Danilov thought he was going to enjoy terrorising someone whose life had been spent terrorising others.

‘… And all because of sex!’ Danilov jeered. ‘You know that? If you’d kept your dick in your trousers just for once – and not liked whores so much – I would never have thought of you…’ He hesitated, knowing he had to be careful here because everything he said was being taped: so he couldn’t refer openly to the Pecatnikov club and Gusovsky’s sneer about men liking whores when the Chechen leader had produced the photographs of Cowley. It was almost time for the American to come in. ‘… Someone said something about men screwing hookers and I thought about how you were first arrested, in bed with the mother and daughter pair we found you with again this time… and then I remembered that there was forensic evidence of Lena Zurov having had sexual intercourse just before her death. Just couldn’t stop yourself, could you? Told to kill her but you had to fuck her as well, didn’t you? It excite you in a special way, fucking whores? Something to do with their having to do whatever you want, maybe?’

‘This going to go on very long?’ tried Antipov.

‘You’ve got a lot to hear yet,’ said Danilov, looking towards the American to prompt his scientific entry. ‘We want you to know just how much we’re going to produce against you to put you in front of a firing squad…’

‘You ever heard of DNA?’ demanded Cowley, taking his cue. Speaking more to the recording apparatus than to Antipov, for the benefit of tape from which the later prosecution would be formulated, he went on: ‘It’s the abbreviation for deoxyribonucleic acid: it’s found in the nucleus of human body cells. DNA is the blueprint for the physical difference between each and every individual ever born, anywhere in the world. And so no two people’s DNA is the same – apart from identical twins, and we’re not discussing identical twins: we’re discussing you. Scientists can extract an individual DNA tracing from any cellular material. And the best source of all is semen. A lot was recovered from Lena Zurov. All we needed was a comparison…’

Cowley put his hand up to his own head, covering the spot where the sample had been hacked from Antipov’s skull: an American defence lawyer would probably have argued physical assault and had the DNA evidence declared inadmissible. ‘… A minimum of twelve separate hairs are necessary for a match. And we got a lot more than that from you, so the FBI technicians at a place in Virginia named Quantico got three separate but quite positive sets…’

A nerve abruptly started to tug at the left of Antipov’s mouth, jumping discernibly under his skin. It was discernible to the man himself. Antipov put his hand up, scratching as if it were an irritation, using the cover to swallow heavily, several times. The growing apprehension wasn’t hidden, and both investigators saw it.

‘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.