He wasn’t sure about the joint American-Russian press conference he’d been told to attend: there’d be the need for further guidance from Washington about that, particularly about whether to link the taxi-driver murder, which at the moment they wanted kept separate.
Cowley, who had developed a living-alone neatness, had almost finished clearing away and tidying the kitchen when the telephone rang, momentarily startling him. He answered expectantly, hoping it might have been Danilov with some sort of news. Instead he immediately recognized Barry Andrews. The man sounded slightly drunk, his words slipping at the sibilants.
‘Just got back from the social club,’ announced Andrews.
‘Yes?’
‘Talking about you, Pauline and me. Wanna know when you’re going to come to dinner, like old times.’
In those old times Pauline had been his wife, Cowley reflected. ‘I’m still trying to sort out a work pattern,’ he said, cautiously.
‘You’re not working day and night. You’re not working now!’
Why was he avoiding the decision? Nervous of seeing her, now the opportunity was there? Of course not! Ridiculous! What conceivable reason was there for him to be nervous? Any date could possibly be disrupted if things moved as quickly as he hoped they would now. ‘What is most convenient for you? I’ll fit in.’
There was a brief mumble of conversation, as Andrews talked away from the telephone. ‘Night after tomorrow?’
‘Perfect,’ agreed Cowley.
‘Pauline’s here!’ announced Andrews. ‘You wanna say hello?’
There was another mumble of conversation, the delay longer this time, before a faint voice came on to the telephone. ‘Hello.’
‘Hello.’
‘It’s a surprise, your being here.’
‘For me, too. You OK?’ Pauline sounded uncertain, but he supposed that was understandable. Three years was a long time.
‘Yes. You?’
‘Fine.’ An inconsequential exchange of strangers, Cowley thought. He didn’t consider himself a stranger. He hoped she didn’t, either. It was good to hear her voice, frail though it sounded.
There was a silence, neither knowing how to go on.
‘The day after tomorrow then?’ said Pauline.
‘Don’t go to any real trouble,’ urged Cowley, knowing she would. She’d enjoyed entertaining, in Rome and London.
‘You want to speak to Barry again?’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘I’ll be seeing you.’ Cowley remained by the telephone, staring down at it. He decided he was genuinely looking forward to seeing her again. Although looking forward didn’t really seem to be the right phrase.
‘Well?’ demanded Andrews. He looked at her over the top of his brandy bowl.
‘Well what?’
‘How was it, speaking to him again?’
‘Don’t, Barry!’
‘It’s a simple enough question.’
Pauline wished it were. ‘It was nothing. You know that.’
‘Good,’ said the man. ‘Wear your red dress. I like your red dress.’
‘All right,’ agreed Pauline, at once. It would be a mistake to tell him Cowley hadn’t liked her in red.
Chapter Eighteen
In his anxiety to correct the oversight, Danilov was at Petrovka before his assistant, which was unnecessary because it was still too early in the day for the man to begin the inquiry. Major Pavin listened without expression to the briefing, not showing in any way that he knew it to be overdue and clearly forgotten until now. Danilov said: ‘It was obvious, knowing there hadn’t been a Russian in the apartment. And that she’d eaten. It’s my fault.’ Only to Pavin would Danilov have made such an open admission.
With attempted helpfulness Pavin said: ‘I didn’t think of it, either. They just might have eaten in a Russian-currency restaurant.’
‘Would you, with easy access to dollars?’
‘No,’ Pavin admitted.
‘And neither would Ann Harris. Remember the apartment? Everything was American. And the letters? How much she disliked it here? She ate the night of her death in a hard-currency restaurant, with as little contact as possible with anything Russian. I’m sure of it.’ He paused. ‘And those restaurants can be checked!’
Pavin gave a resigned grimace. ‘It’ll occupy a lot of people again.’
‘How about the Militia posts in the area of the murders?’
‘Nothing so far.’
‘Take men off that: this has priority. But not off the hospital inquiries: I don’t like the time that’s taking.’ He was still personally angry at overlooking basic routine: it had been obvious. He’d even isolated the fact that she’d eaten from the pathologist’s written account, marking it for significance! ‘Work through from top to bottom, tourist hotels and hard-currency and credit-card places first. Leave until last those that also take roubles.’
Pavin nodded to the instructions, smiling to one side of Danilov’s desk. ‘So you finally got a new bulb!’ he said, satisfied the pressure on maintenance had got results.
The bulb that had been dead in its socket for several weeks had been replaced before Danilov arrived that morning. Instead of thanking his assistant Danilov said, uncomfortably: ‘There’s a problem with the car.’
‘It’s almost new!’
‘I parked overnight outside my flat,’ said Danilov, in another admission he wished he didn’t have to make. ‘The wipers were stolen.’ He’d already decided not to tell Olga.
‘A lot of people take them off.’
‘I should have done,’ said Danilov, shortly. Hurrying to end his further embarrassment he said: ‘Let’s start the restaurant checks, OK?’
‘I’m not sure what I’ll be able to do about the car.’
Belatedly showing his thanks Danilov said: ‘It’s better in here, with the proper light.’
Danilov had warned the reception area again and Cowley was ushered into his office minutes after he replaced the telephone from his initial, nothing-to-report contact of the day with the Militia Director.
‘You had some inquiries to make at the embassy?’ prompted Danilov, at once. How much of the truth would he really hear?
Cowley had already determined that an edited account would be quite easy: all he had to do, almost literally, was stick to the truth. He repeated the explanation for the out-of-hours telephone calls given by Paul Hughes and declared that none of the diplomats to whom he had talked could suggest who the girl’s lover had been: there’d been no indication whatsoever during the social rounds at the embassy.
So much for cooperation, thought Danilov, disappointed. Interested in the effect it would have upon the other man, he said: ‘So they lied to you, too?’
The reaction tilted Cowley, putting him on the defensive. ‘I’m sorry?’
‘Can you honestly believe there would be no indication who Ann Harris’s lover was, in that closed situation?’
Cowley smiled, humourlessly. ‘It’s difficult,’ he conceded.
‘Wasn’t there anything, from anyone? Baxter and Hughes particularly?’
‘Nothing positive from anyone.’ His first direct lie.
‘I didn’t ask that. I asked if there was anything.’
Cowley guessed the Russian didn’t completely believe him: he wondered at the black stains on the other man’s shirt cuffs. ‘Nothing,’ he insisted.
Danilov was convinced the other man was holding back. ‘How did they treat you, your people?’
Cowley smiled again, for better reason this time, toe-stretching for firmer ground. ‘Badly,’ he admitted, honest again. ‘They resent the suggestion of dirty smells inside their own house.’
Clever, decided Danilov. He regarded that as a truthful answer — an invitation for empathy between the two of them — which made him unsure where the untruthfulness was. ‘So it was completely unproductive?’