The Moscow Sleepers

6

The little plane landed with a teeth-jarring bump and bounced along the runway. Special Agent Harry Fitzpatrick opened his eyes. He hated flying in small planes. They seemed to swirl about like kites, swooping and soaring with every thermal or breeze. He could cope with big planes; they seemed robust enough to survive turbulence, but propeller planes with just sixteen seats such as these were to his mind obviously unsafe. As soon as the plane had juddered to a halt he unclipped his seatbelt and stood up, anxious to be out of the flimsy little cabin as soon as possible.

As he climbed down the steps he saw a large, dark-haired man in a navy-blue suit and dark glasses standing on the tarmac. This must be Boyd, the local Agent who had alerted him to activity in what Fitzpatrick thought to be a dead duck case. When the first lead had come in from the British that there was a Russian Illegal in the States who had been hospitalised with a serious illness, it seemed important to quickly identify the man in case he recovered and became active again.

It had taken a good few months to locate the man and he had sometimes wondered whether he was justified in using the resources on a case that looked as though it would go nowhere. Eventually, after extensive searches involving dates and nationality, age and type of illness he had decided that the Swede Petersen was the best fit, however unlikely it seemed. By the time he had got on to him, however, Petersen had been moved from the large hospital where he had been having treatment to a small hospice.

Since then Petersen hadn’t moved from his bed, and apparently no one had been in touch with him; it looked as if when he died, the case, if it ever was a case, would die too. But a couple of days ago Boyd’s report had come in, and now it seemed possible that there was just the smallest of threads to unravel. And to Harry Fitzpatrick that was irresistible.

As Boyd drove them both to the hospice where Petersen had died he outlined the arrangements he had made for Fitzpatrick’s visit. After the hospice they would go to the rented house where Petersen had lived for the last five years and then on to the university to interview the head of department where Petersen had worked. ‘I got a key to the house from the realtor who manages the rental,’ Boyd said, ‘but I haven’t been in. Thought you’d want to see it as he left it.’

‘Good thinking,’ said Harry. ‘Has the realtor been in?’

‘No. I told him not to.’

At the hospice, Nurse Sarah Burns showed them Room 112 where Petersen had spent the last four months.

‘We haven’t moved anything, except to strip the bed,’ she said, looking at Boyd.

‘Has anyone else been in here except you and your colleagues?’ asked Fitzpatrick. She shook her head. ‘So this is all the stuff he had in here?’

‘Yes,’ she said, looking over at the things on the top of the dressing table. A few books, a wallet, small change and some car keys. ‘His clothes are in the closet.’

Fitzpatrick stood with his hands in his pockets, looking around him. ‘Those are his keys?’ he asked eventually, pointing to the dressing table.

‘Yes. Car keys and house keys.’

‘I can see the car keys. But where are the house keys?’

Sarah walked across the room to look. ‘That’s odd,’ she said. ‘They were always there – with the car keys. Where have they gone?’ She paused, frowned. ‘I wonder if Mr Ohlson took them.’

‘That’s possible,’ agreed Fitzpatrick. ‘Could you ask the nurse who was here when Mr Ohlson left whether he mentioned the keys? And did Mr Ohlson say how he learned Mr Petersen was dying?’

‘No. I assumed he’d heard from someone else – I didn’t have the impression he’d heard from Petersen himself.’

‘But this “someone else” didn’t visit Petersen?’

‘No. He didn’t have any other visitors. When he first came in someone from the university was with him but they never came back. No one else came. I’m sure of that because we insist anyone visiting signs the book.’

‘How long was Ohlson with the patient?’

‘I think it was no more than half an hour. He was still here when I went off duty but Emily – that’s the night nurse – said he’d left shortly after she came on. I thought it seemed a long way to come for such a short visit, especially as he knew he’d probably never see Mr Petersen alive again.’

‘Are you sure he knew how ill Petersen was?’

‘Yes. I pretty much told him that he was dying.’

Fitzpatrick nodded. ‘Did anything else seem unusual about this visitor?’

The nurse thought it over for a moment. ‘Not really. He was Swedish, but then so was Petersen.’ She paused, and Fitzpatrick could see that she wanted to be careful in what she said next. ‘I guess if anything did strike me, it was the sense that they were talking confidentially.’

‘Why did you think that?’

Nurse Burns looked a little embarrassed. She said reluctantly, ‘I stood outside the door to the room for a minute after I left Ohlson in there. I was trying to hear what they were talking about,’ adding defensively, ‘I thought the Bureau might want to know.’

‘Absolutely,’ said Fitzpatrick reassuringly. ‘And what did you hear?’

She laughed awkwardly. ‘Nothing really. I suppose I was silly to think I would as they must have been speaking in Swedish. There was just what sounded like a lot of questions from Ohlson and murmured replies from Mr Petersen. It was all very calm and quiet.’

After the visit to the hospice, Boyd drove Fitzpatrick to the brick ranch house on the outskirts of the city Petersen had rented for the last five years. The landlord lived in Florida and the letting was managed by a local agent. From what Boyd had gathered, little was known about Petersen. There was no one still working at the agency who’d been there when Petersen had first taken on the tenancy, but from the file it seemed he had done it without seeing the house. They did a lot of lettings for the university and that was not unusual. No one currently working in the office had ever met him and they had never had cause to go into the house since he took up residence. He paid the rent punctually from an account at his bank in Burlington.

Boyd parked in the drive. The front lawn had not been mown or the front borders weeded, but once inside, the house was tidy, almost clinically so.

‘He lived alone, right?’ asked Fitzpatrick, pulling on thin cotton gloves. ‘So why’s there no dust?’

Boyd nodded. ‘Looks as though it’s been professionally cleaned – and very recently. They didn’t mention a cleaner at the agency.’

In the study there was a wall of books, mainly sets of contemporary fiction. ‘I guess they’re part of the fittings,’ said Boyd.

A filing cabinet contained folders of academic papers – student recommendations, student grades, applications for grants. ‘I can’t see much of interest here,’ said Fitzpatrick, ‘but we’ll have to get it taken back to HQ to check. No sign of any private papers – no will, not even any bills.’

‘Maybe we’ll find them at the university.’

Fitzpatrick scratched his head thoughtfully. ‘What do you make of this Petersen, Tom?’

‘How do you mean?’

‘What sort of guy do you think he was?’

Boyd looked bemused by the question, but eventually he said, ‘I guess if I had to use one word to describe this man it would be boring. There’s nothing unusual about him at all.’ He saw Fitzpatrick’s expression and asked, ‘What’s the matter?’

‘I don’t think it’s so much boring as unreal. I think someone has been in here very recently and removed any sign of a real person. This place is like a stage set after the play is over. Tidied up and dusted and all the props put safely away. I bet Mr Ohlson has been in to make sure no trace of Petersen was left. I guarantee that when we get the labs boys in here there won’t be a single fingerprint they can lift. Not one.’ He exhaled in frustration. ‘You know, when I flew up today I had real doubts about whether we’d got the right man. Now I’m sure we have. But what the hell was he doing here?’