‘Not here I don’t think.’
‘Let’s clear up then.’
Pavin gave the summons, which was answered within seconds by the strained-gear sound of the reversing ambulance. Danilov wished they’d shown more care, loading the body on to the stretcher. He said: ‘I want all the occupied accommodation in the street checked, before anyone leaves for work. There’s no doubt what we’re looking for: I don’t suppose there was before. I want every psychiatric institution in Moscow checked for discharged patients who might have indicated any of these tendencies.’
‘Every one?’ frowned Pavin.
Danilov nodded after the departing ambulance. ‘If she’s American, I’ll get all the manpower I want.’
‘Do you want me to push Novikov?’
‘I’ll do that.’ The problem between himself and the pathologist was an irritating, unnecessary hindrance in any investigation: certainly not an added complication he needed this time. Danilov normally confronted major difficulties himself, rarely delegating, but maybe this was an occasion to seek superior authority.
‘Where are you going, if I need to get in touch?’
It was a discreet, friend-to-friend question. There were some times during the month when Larissa slept all night at the Druzhba Hotel and was happy to be awakened. Tonight, because of the shift change, she would have been home hours ago: she would be asleep now, turned away from the booze-soaked breath of Yevgennie Kosov, the Colonel-in-charge of Moscow Militia district 19, Danilov’s old command. And now Kosov’s personal fiefdom, which he ruled like a Tsar accepting tribute. Danilov guessed the man had gone far beyond the introductions he had provided, in the last days of the hand-over.
Danilov looked at his watch in the harshly white, deadening light. It was four thirty. ‘Home. I’ll call Lapinsk from there.’ Leonid Lapinsk was the General commanding the murder investigation division at Petrovka: he was only two years from retirement with an undisguised ambition to see that time out as quietly as possible: tonight was going to set his ulcers on fire.
‘He’ll kill again,’ predicted Pavin, gazing down at the chalked outline of where the body had been. It was a distant remark, the man practically talking to himself.
‘Of course he will,’ said Danilov.
The apartment, off Kirovskaya and conveniently close to the metro at Kazan for someone who did not currently have a car, was in the twilight of approaching dawn when Danilov got back. He considered vodka but dismissed it at once. He couldn’t be bothered with coffee, which — in contrast with his now spurned gift-receiving days — was Russian, not imported: powdered grains that floated on top of the cup, like dust, no matter how hot the water. And tea was too much trouble.
Danilov settled, head forward on his chest, in his personal but now lumpy-seated chair, just slightly to the left of the ancient and constantly failing TV that had been a grateful present from Eduard Agayans when he had commanded his own Militia district with such personal discrimination, before the transfer to Petrovka.
The investigation had been difficult enough already. But this morning — this gritty-eyed, cold, gradually forming morning — the murder of an unknown American girl was going to compound his problems in ways he couldn’t even guess. There was one easy surmise, though: Pavin was probably right about the Cheka or the KGB or whatever they wanted to call themselves. They wouldn’t consider an investigator from the People’s Militia — even the senior investigator with the rank of Colonel — qualified to head an inquiry like this. Domestic homicides or quarrel killings, maybe: they were ordinary, unimportant. But the murder of an American was different: that became political, exterior: something possibly to focus international attention upon Moscow and the disintegrated Soviet Union. What if they took over? Danilov confronted the possibility. If it was an official decision, there was nothing he could do to oppose it. But if it stayed just below that authoritative level he would resist any attempt to shunt him aside. In Russian law, the law that almost miraculously was increasingly being the law, despite the failures of the other reforms, the stabbing and the defilement of a dark-haired, brown-eyed girl of about thirty was the indisputable responsibility of the homicide division of the duly appointed Criminal Investigation Department of the Moscow Division of the People’s Militia. His responsibility. The most difficult case of his life, Danilov thought again. Did he want such a responsibility? Wouldn’t the safest way, professionally, be to surrender, after a token protest, to pressure from the Federal Security Agency, just as he’d always taken the easy way in other directions when he’d been a uniformed, more persuadable officer? Undoubtedly. So why didn’t he just back off? He didn’t want to, he decided. The old, look-the-other-way days had gone and the benefits with them. And he didn’t mourn or regret their passing. Rather, he enjoyed the self-respect, a self-respect he knew no one else would understand, with which he felt he ran his life at Petrovka.
It was barely five fifteen. Still too early to disturb his commanding General. Larissa would be stirring soon: this week she was on early shift. It would be difficult for them to meet as regularly as they normally did if he was allowed to remain in charge of the investigation. He’d be under too much scrutiny for unexplained, two- or three-hour disappearances. What about the hypocrisy of sleeping with another man’s wife? And the deceit of cheating his own? Where was the integrity and honesty in that? Not the same as work: quite a different equation. One he didn’t want to examine.
He wished he wasn’t so tired. He needed to be alert for all the unknowns there would be before the day was out. Instead, before anything had really started, he felt exhausted. It would be better when those unknowns became known: the adrenalin would flow then, to keep him going. He hoped. Wise, upon reflection, not to have taken any vodka. Alcohol would have dulled him even more.
Olga’s voice startled him and Danilov straightened almost guiltily in the chair, realizing he’d dozed. ‘What?’
‘I said what are you doing in the chair?’ She was standing at the bedroom door, her brown hair dishevelled and her face still puffed from sleep. She hadn’t tied the robe around her and the nightdress beneath had a dark grey stain over her left breast. The slippers were partially split at both heels: she had to scuff to keep them on when she walked.
‘I was called out.’
‘I didn’t feel you get up.’
‘I didn’t want to disturb you.’ It was seven fifteen: almost time to call the Director.
Olga shuffled towards the kitchen area. ‘I’ll make tea.’
‘That would be good.’ He still felt tired, despite the doze.
‘Who was it?’ She had her back to him in the kitchen annex, filling the kettle to brew the tea and prepare the Thermos, the modern Russian equivalent of the samovar, to keep the water hot.
‘A girl.’
‘Bad?’
Could a murder ever be good? ‘We think she’s American.’
Olga looked across from the stove. ‘That’s going to be complicated, isn’t it?’
‘Yes.’
‘Where?’
‘In the street: near Gercena.’
‘How?’
‘Stabbed.’ He wouldn’t tell her of the connection. Or the details. He didn’t think she would be interested anyway.
‘Sexual?’
‘It doesn’t seem so.’
‘That’s something at least.’
But not much, Danilov thought. He watched his wife filling the teapot, wondering what the stain was on her nightdress.