‘Do you want your tea there?’
‘I’ll speak to Lapinsk first.’
The commanding General picked up his receiver on the second ring. ‘Something difficult?’
Danilov recounted the similarity before disclosing the possibility of the girl’s nationality.
When he was stressed Lapinsk would punctuate his conversation with short, throat-clearing coughs. There was a burst now. He said: ‘That couldn’t be worse.’ There was another rattle of coughing. ‘There’s no question of it fitting the pattern?’
‘The buttons are something new.’
‘It’s the same man,’ the General accepted.
‘I want to approach the American embassy: I need it arranged, through you. Do we have to clear it with anyone? A ministry?’
There was another series of short coughs. ‘I’ll advise the Foreign Ministry. And call the embassy at nine.’
‘What about the Cheka?’
‘They’ll probably try to take over,’ agreed Lapinsk.
‘It’s our jurisdiction.’
‘Rules can be changed.’ Lapinsk sounded hopeful.
Danilov felt some pity for the Director. Lapinsk despised and habitually derided the former KGB for its arrogance and imagined superiority. But with so little time before retirement it was easy to understand the man’s anxiety to avoid a murder inquiry like this. Everyone searching for the easy life, thought Danilov: the Russian way. He said: ‘It’s already an established, ongoing investigation.’
‘Tell me the moment you have an identity,’ Lapinsk parried.
‘Novikov is the pathologist.’
‘Bugger!’ Lapinsk knew of the antipathy.
‘I want the autopsy today: he told Pavin there are others ahead of me.’ Danilov didn’t enjoy asking for further intercession.
‘I’ll fix it. Be careful at the embassy. I don’t want any problems beyond what we’ve already got.’
‘If she’s not a diplomat, it might be difficult getting an identity. She could be officially registered at the embassy, but it’s not a requirement.’
‘What if she’s not?’
‘We’ll check the Intourist guides and the foreign visitor hotels first. Then the visa records, for a photograph. The death pictures will be unpleasant.’
‘Too bad to publish in newspapers to get an identity?’
‘Probably,’ warned Danilov. That death snarl would be a further denial of dignity for whoever she had been: they could wait, he supposed, until the rigor relaxed.
‘I’ll clear my diary, after talking to the embassy. And be in the office all the time. If there is any difficulty, call me.’
Olga had poured the tea, despite being asked not to: it was cold by the time he sat down opposite her at the kitchen table. She hadn’t cleaned off the previous day’s make-up, heavy blue around her eyes. He added more water from the prepared Thermos, to warm the tea.
‘Lapinsk will be shitting himself,’ Olga said.
‘Your nightdress is stained.’
Olga looked down curiously, seemingly aware of it for the first time. She rubbed at it, half-heartedly. The stain remained. ‘It’s an old nightdress. I used to be able to get them from the importer, remember?’
Without payment of course, Danilov recalled. Like the television set that had now developed picture slip that couldn’t be corrected. He’d personally liked Eduard Agayans, the moustachioed, fiercely nationalistic Armenian who’d always insisted on toasts in his republic’s best brandy before any favour-for-favour conversation. The document-switching entrepreneur had maintained his largest warehouse in Danilov’s old Militia district and was always generously grateful for Danilov’s guarantee of unimpeded delivery of double the quota registered on the import manifest it was the Militia’s duty to check. ‘Why not buy more?’
Olga laughed derisively. ‘Which of the hundred well stocked designer shops in Moscow would you suggest I try first?’
‘Why not just look around,’ suggested Danilov, indifferently.
Olga continued to examine the stain. ‘It looks like oil. But it can’t be.’
Danilov saw she’d spilled tea — or something — on another part of the nightgown, near her waist. ‘Why not wash it?’
‘The communal machine isn’t working. And our own is broken: you know that.’
Their personal machine had been another gift from Agayans, who had been his chief source of unobtainable luxuries. ‘You could handwash it.’
‘Do you want anything to eat? Breakfast?’
He never ate at the beginning of the day, but this day had begun a long time ago. He still wasn’t hungry. ‘I don’t think so.’
‘Elena wants me to go to the cinema tonight. It’s a war movie: I don’t know which one. She’s asked Larissa, as well.’
Larissa had already warned him: told him she was going because the hotel shifts were convenient. Elena was the supervisor in the Agriculture Ministry post-room where Olga was a typist. ‘Why don’t you do that? I’m involved now, day and night.’
‘We might eat afterwards. Elena says she knows somewhere you don’t have to wait: one of those trade-run cafes, a writers’ place.’
Danilov had heard of such restaurants, set up by craft unions whose members no longer accepted the delays of ordinary Moscow eating houses. ‘Get a taxi home.’
‘Why?’
‘It’s safer.’
‘I’ll need some money.’
Danilov handed twenty roubles across the table. Olga smiled acceptance and put it into the pocket of the loose dressing-gown. There were no thanks. ‘Definitely get a taxi home,’ insisted Danilov. A long time ago he’d discovered Olga hoarded money he gave her: he pretended not to know about the leather satchel in which she kept it, in the box that contained all her family memorabilia.
‘All right,’ she said, too easily.
Danilov pushed aside the tepid tea, half drunk. He looked down at himself as he stood from the table. Slumping in the chair — and then dozing — had concertinaed his suit: he guessed the back of the jacket would be worse than the trousers. Be careful at the embassy, he remembered: it would be careful to dress smartly. ‘I have to change.’
‘Why?’
‘It’s necessary.’
His other suit, the grey one with the faint stripe, was jammed at the far end of their shared closet, crumpled where one lapel had been bent backwards by a dress of Olga’s being thrust in too closely against it. Danilov tried to smooth and then flatten it out: it was better but the crease mark was still visible. His black shoes needed cleaning and he wasn’t sure if there was polish back in the kitchen: he hadn’t noticed before the actual tear in the paper-thin leather on the left toe. Black polish would cover it. Danilov unsuccessfully searched the top level of the chest of drawers where his shirts were kept and then checked, equally unsuccessfully, the drawer below. The second drawer held Olga’s blouses, crisply folded: there was one, patterned in red check, which reminded him of the shirt the dead girl had been wearing. When he returned to the main room, Olga was still sitting at the kitchen table, both hands around the tea which now had to be completely cold.
‘I can’t find a clean shirt. I need a clean shirt.’
‘There should be one.’
‘There isn’t.’
‘I told you the communal machine isn’t working: they promised it would be fixed by tomorrow. People stuff too much in.’
Although the apartment was theirs alone, they had to share certain facilities. A basement washing machine was one. ‘So I haven’t got a clean shirt?’
‘Not if there isn’t one in the drawer.’
Each shirt in the laundry bag was as badly creased as the other. He took a blue patterned one with the cleanest cuffs and collar and said: ‘Could you press this for me?’
‘It’s not washed.’
‘I know. I’ve just got it from the dirty bag.’
‘I’ll be late for work.’
‘Fuck your being late for work!’
Olga looked at him in astonishment. ‘What the hell’s wrong with you!’
‘Please! I just want a shirt ironed.’ He wouldn’t bother about the shoes: it was only a tiny tear.