The idea of getting his captor to murder Anna and Yevgeniy had come to him in an instant. Anna had to have planned all this. Yevgeniy had to know. They planned to kill him and make it look like a botched kidnapping.
Alexei did not feel safe. Far from it. Nothing was certain, but he had dealt masterfully with bureaucrats all of his life. He had dealt masterfully and patiently. He smiled at the man at the door. He doubted if the man even recognized that the broken, purple face had smiled.
FIVE
Rostnikov’s wife opened the door to their small apartment on Krasikov Street when she heard her husband’s key in the lock.
She was wearing a black dress with an artificial pearl necklace. Her still-red hair was cut short, and she looked, thought Rostnikov, quite beautiful. She had lost a great deal of weight during a long bout with a brain tumor. Her recovery had been slow, but now, with her moments of dizziness fewer, she had gone back to her job at the music store and lately seemed even radiant.
“This is Craig Hamilton,” Rostnikov said.
Sarah took the black man’s extended hand.
“Pleasure to meet you,” Hamilton said.
“Does Emil know?” Sarah asked, closing the door behind the two men. “About Mathilde?”
“I have assigned him to the case,” said Rostnikov.
“The officer whose friend died in the street killing?” Hamilton asked.
“Yes,” said Rostnikov.
“In the United States, if an officer is involved with a victim, we rarely assign him or her to the case,” said Hamilton. “Too close. Too emotional.”
“In Karpo’s case,” said Rostnikov, moving toward the cubbyhole near the window that served as a kitchen and pantry, “emotion will not be a visible factor. But he will be on the killers like a piranha on the carcass of a dying cow.”
Sarah was bustling to a wardrobe in the corner. She took out a lightweight dark overcoat and said, “I’m late. The girls are at school. There’s some bread and herring and a little rice pudding.” She picked up a small handbag from the sofa. “And bring Emil Karpo here tonight. Order him to come.”
She hurried over to Rostnikov, her heels clicking on the tile floor. Rostnikov and their son, Iosef, had done the tiling themselves after a lucky purchase on the black market several months ago. Sarah gave her husband a kiss on the cheek as he searched the cupboard. He turned and hugged her, lifting her easily from the floor.
“If you feel dizzy …” he said.
“I will sit down,” she said.
He put her down, and she hurried to the door, pausing to take Craig Hamilton’s hand again and say, “It was nice to meet you. May we meet again soon.”
And she was off.
“Lovely lady,” said Hamilton, following Rostnikov into the kitchen alcove. “Didn’t even ask who I was.”
“She knows I’ll tell her later,” Rostnikov said, rummaging for something. He found it and said, “Yah.”
He turned triumphantly with a tall jar of French strawberry preserves. “Coffee, bread and jam or bread and herring?”
“The bread and jam,” Hamilton said, sitting at the small table not far from the window.
“So, what do you think?” asked Rostnikov as he prepared the meal.
“Think?”
“About the apartment.” Still focused on the components of the meal before him, Rostnikov absently waved the knife in his hand.
Hamilton had taken in the room without looking around. Now he looked. A faded, flower-patterned sofa was positioned between two solid-colored peach wingback chairs that almost coordinated with the sofa. A bookcase lined an entire wall, its shelves filled with not only books but old LP records and what looked like small dumbbells. There was a large painting on the wall with a woman in the foreground, her back to the viewer, her red hair and green dress billowing forward as she held her left hand up to keep the hair from her face. She looked out along a vast green field toward a house in the distance, a modest farmhouse with a small barn. The sun was going down behind the barn. Hamilton assumed that the painting was of Rostnikov’s wife or that he had bought it because it resembled her.
“The painting was a gift from Mathilde Verson,” said Rostnikov. “That is Mathilde in the painting, a self-portrait in a way, a birthday gift from one redhead to another. Mathilde gave it to Sarah when my wife was recovering from surgery.”
“Mathilde Verson was an artist?” Hamilton asked.
Rostnikov looked at the American and smiled.
“What’s funny?” asked Hamilton.
“You know that Mathilde was a prostitute. I’m sure you read all the reports.”
“She was a talented painter,” said Hamilton, looking at the painting. “Did she do any other work like this?”
“As far as I know, this is the only painting she had done in more than twenty years. As a young girl she studied art briefly.”
“And Karpo was …?”
“It is my hope that her death does not destroy him. As long as he is seeking her killers, he will function. Later, who knows.” Rostnikov looked over at the American. “Real coffee,” he asked, “or decaffeinated?”
“Real,” said Hamilton. “And black.”
“You know Dinah Washington?” asked Rostnikov.
“Personally? No. I think she’s dead.”
“Pity,” said Rostnikov, setting the small table. “She makes me weep. ‘Nothing Ever Changes My Love for You.’ Wonderful song.”
“I’m not terribly familiar with her work,” Hamilton admitted.
Rostnikov paused, a jar of herring in one hand, a half loaf of bread in the other.
“She is the most famous singer in America,” Rostnikov said.
“No,” Hamilton corrected. “She is not even well known.”
Rostnikov pondered this for a moment, shook his head, and continued serving. When the water had boiled, he made the instant coffee.
“Black,” said Rostnikov, setting the cup in front of Hamilton.
“For me, sugar, cream, anything,” said Rostnikov, sitting awkwardly. “I don’t like this fake coffee.”
Hamilton nodded. He had a grinder at home in his apartment in Bethesda. His selection of coffee beans was large, and ranged from the standard to the exotic, all purchased from a nearby shop that dealt exclusively in coffee and coffee products. Craig Hamilton was an early riser. He always had coffee ready for his wife and breakfast plates set out before he woke her and his daughters.
“We are settled now?” Rostnikov asked, adjusting his leg and cutting off a thick slice of dark bread for his guest.
Hamilton nodded.
“Then,” said Rostnikov, “tell me what it was that you put under the coffee table in the Porvinovich apartment.”
Hamilton had been sure no one had seen him make the move.
“Voice-activated recorder,” he said. “Six-hour capacity. When we go back, we can retrieve it.”
“And you were going to tell me about this?” asked Rostnikov, carefully making a lopsided herring sandwich.
“If there was anything on the tape that would either implicate or clear them,” said Hamilton, drinking his coffee.
“So small.” Rostnikov shook his head. “It was so small. We have nothing like that. I mean the police. Internal Security has. They have devices that can hear through walls, as I am sure you do. I do have a recorder taping all phone calls to the Porvinovich apartment, however.”
Hamilton hungrily chewed the rough bread.
“It is possible that in six hours of tape we will be lucky,” said Rostnikov. “On the other hand, we may hear conversations about Madame Porvinovich’s wardrobe.”
Hamilton smiled, and Rostnikov rose, still working on his herring sandwich. The phone was across the room, on a shelf of the bookcase. He checked his notebook and called the Porvinovich apartment. Yevgeniy answered with a tentative “Yes?”