‘Can’t remember.’
‘The dates of your leaves and furloughs would be a matter of existing record, on army files,’ she warned, heavily. ‘It was six months before you left the army, wasn’t it?’
‘Maybe.’
Natalia was too far away to be sure, but she suspected there was a sheen of perspiration on her son’s face. Sweat you bastard, sweat, she thought. ‘What rank do I hold?’
‘Colonel. That’s what it was.’
‘Not what it was. What is it, now?’
‘Not sure.’
‘Where do you live?’
‘Tverskaya.’
‘In what? An apartment?’
‘You should know! You’ve been there often enough!’
Natalia realized that her son was really remarkably stupid. ‘Is that what you’re telling this inquiry? That I’ve visited you there?’
‘You know you have.’
‘That’s not true, is it?’
‘You know it’s true! That’s where we reached our understanding!’
Tudin was turned away from Eduard now, head lowered towards the floor, and Natalia wondered how the man could have possibly imagined he would succeed with an attack like this. At once she answered her own question. The ways of the past, she remembered: once an accusation as blatantly false as this could have succeeded. ‘Tell the inquiry about that understanding.’
‘Already have,’ said Eduard. He’d been tensed but now he relaxed, believing he had beaten her.
It was important to inflate the confidence, in the hope that it would burst. ‘Let’s do it again. You were sure I’d get you out of Militia custody?’
‘That’s what you’d always said you’d do.’
‘When I came to Tverskaya?’
Eduard smiled. ‘Yes.’
The balloon was becoming stretched, decided Natalia. ‘What did I say, when I saw you in the cell?’
‘That it wasn’t just a matter for you: that you had to consider the Militia position.’
That was a fairly accurate recollection, she conceded. ‘How long had you been in detention when I saw you?’
‘Five days.’
‘When were you released?’
‘This morning.’
‘That is the agreement, is it? Your release in return for talking to this inquiry today?’
Natalia had hoped to get the over-confident, unthinking admission, but before Eduard could reply Tudin hurriedly stood. ‘I should tell the committee that I have today sent a full report to the Federal Prosecutor, recommending immunity in return for this man’s cooperation. At the moment, technically, he remains in Militia custody.’
It was the perfect rebuttal of what Natalia was striving to establish, that a freedom deal had been reached between Eduard and Tudin in return for Eduard’s testimony, and briefly Natalia was numbed by the despair of being so easily thwarted. For several moments her mind blocked and she couldn’t think how to continue – but more importantly how to win – this exchange with her son. And then her mind did start working again and the despair lessened, although she suspected everyone -the committee headed by the security chairman, and Tudin and Eduard and Kapitsa – would believe she had failed miserably to establish any sort of defence. Briskly she said: ‘We weren’t alone in the detention cell, were we? Investigator Kapitsa was there all the time?’
‘Yes.’ Eduard’s caution had returned.
‘He witnessed everything?’ A great deal depended on the honesty of the detective, Natalia realized: more than she’d anticipated until this moment.
‘Yes.’
‘Did you want him to be there?’
Eduard shrugged. ‘It was a matter for you. I didn’t mind.’
‘You didn’t suggest he should leave?’ Natalia concentrated not upon her son but upon Kapitsa when she asked the question. The detective was frowning.
‘No.’
Kapitsa’s frown deepened. Dear God, thought Natalia, don’t let him have reached any agreement or understanding with Tudin, as Eduard obviously has. ‘You identified me as your mother to Investigator Kapitsa the moment you were stopped on the Serpukhov road?’
‘That was what you’d always told me to do: announce it at once to prevent any investigation becoming established.’
Natalia intruded the pause, wanting the silence. Then she said: ‘So it had to be done quickly? You were to be got out quickly?’ Natalia saw Tudin stiffen.
Eduard said: ‘Yes.’
‘But it was five days before I came to Petrovka.’
Eduard appeared to realize the danger. He nodded, nibbling his lower lip, not replying.
‘Was it not five days before I came to Petrovka?’
‘Yes.’
‘If we’d always agreed to move quickly, why do you think it took five days for me to come to you?’
‘You tell me!’ said Eduard, defiantly.
‘I will! You didn’t have an address to contact me, because there had been no meeting between us for almost two years, had there? Just as there was no understanding or agreement between us, to look after you if you got into trouble.’
‘Always said you’d help!’ insisted Eduard, desperately. In front of him, Tudin was rigid, head predictably down over his papers.
Destruction time, decided Natalia: she was savouring the moment, even delaying for the pleasure of it. ‘Why do you think it was that when I promised you protection, which you say I did at Tverskaya, I didn’t tell you I’d been promoted to General, which would have been a much better guarantee than if I had remained a Colonel? Or why, during those visits, did I never give you my new address? And how did I know you lived at Tverskaya, when we hadn’t had any contact for six months before you left the army? Eighteen months before you even had somewhere to live at Tverskaya!’
There wasn’t any impatient shifting from the panel now. In fact there was no movement or sound at all in the room.
Natalia pressed on, relentlessly. ‘Colonel Tudin promised there would be no prosecution if you came here today, didn’t he? That’s the deal, isn’t it? Give evidence against me – incriminate me – and you’ll go free!’
‘He said he would recommend it,’ said Eduard, trying to stick to what they had rehearsed.
‘It’s with Colonel Tudin that you have an arrangement, isn’t it? Not with me? There’s never been an understanding or arrangement with me.’
Again Tudin came to his feet before Eduard could reply. Tudin said: ‘This evidence is becoming distorted: twisted. The facts are that General Fedova went to Petrovka and in front of Investigator Kapitsa, who has still to address this committee, undertook to prevent a prosecution.’
Tudin was floundering. Natalia didn’t think she’d won yet, not as absolutely as she intended, but the hostility from the panel wasn’t so easy to discern any more. She said: ‘The distortion of this matter is not mine. It’s that of Colonel Tudin, for the reasons I have already brought before you. I ask you to insist my question is answered.’
‘Well?’ demanded Lestov, of Eduard.
‘Colonel Tudin promised to recommend leniency,’ said Eduard, doggedly. ‘There was always an understanding between my mother and me prior to any undertaking from Colonel Tudin.’
Natalia risked the silence that lasted until there was a positive shift from the men at the table before saying: ‘So what happened to our understanding? Why did you have to wait another six days in custody after I had been to Petrovka before you were released, to come here? Released upon the instructions of Colonel Tudin?’
Before Eduard could respond to a question she didn’t want answered anyway – believing her intended effect was best achieved without an answer – Natalia sat down. The gesture left her son standing as ineffectually as she wanted him to appear and Tudin having to grope to his feet, to indicate that Eduard’s testimony was finished. But Natalia remained ready, believing that the inquiry was swinging in her favour, and when Tudin moved to call the Militia investigator she rose up, stopping him in mid-sentence, asking if she could recall the lawyer. The agreement from Lestov was immediate, which she took to be a good omen.