‘I would have thought …’ Pavin started, but stopped at the intrusion of the internal telephone.
Danilov nodded to the announcement and said to his assistant: ‘The American, on time as ever. He’s learned the Marlboro trick.’ When the escorted Cowley was shown into the room, Danilov was instantly aware of the immaculately pressed suit and the hard-starched collar of the shirt, pin-secured, that he so much envied.
At once Cowley said: ‘I think this press conference is going to be difficult. Your people have agreed to Senator Burden taking part. God knows why. Or what the point is. It’ll be a circus.’
The Western ease in criticizing politicians, so new in his own country, still surprised Danilov. He was quite uninterested in any press conference now. Feeling his superiority, he said: ‘You haven’t discussed it, with the Senator?’
Cowley regarded the Russian sourly, ‘I have been instructed not to divulge anything of the investigation, to any outside party.’
Danilov’s germinating idea flowered, but he decided to give the other man one opportunity. ‘How about me?’ he said.
‘You?’
‘In an hour I am going to introduce you to my Militia General — someone I suppose you would call the Moscow police chief. And to the Federal Prosecutor: Attorney General, if you want a comparison. I’ve no idea how they will want the press conference to be conducted, but I think they’ll expect you and I to be in agreement with each other: know precisely where we are in the investigation.’
‘I’m sure they will,’ said Cowley, smoothly. He didn’t like the evasion. Although he did not altogether trust Danilov — he put trust on a different level than this present consideration — he genuinely liked the rumpled Russian with his tight haircut and his permissible pride in his ability to speak English, which he supposed matched his own in the ease he had found with Russian. He didn’t feel he had any choice in the deceit. The forensic results that had arrived overnight in the diplomatic bag had provided far better evidence than he’d expected — even though the unnecessary elimination stuff had to be gone through — and he anxiously needed further guidance. Which he’d already asked for, before leaving the embassy that morning. And until he got Washington’s reply — although he was sure he could predict what it would be — it was impossible for him to confide anything.
‘So you believe we do?’ pressed Danilov. ‘That we both know where we are?’
Danilov did have something! It was poker with strangers whose game he didn’t know, all cards face-down, unsure of the value of his own. ‘I’d certainly like to think so …’ A pause. ‘Wouldn’t you?’
The familiar, evasive response, Danilov recognized. It had been Cowley’s choice, not his: the man had been given his chance, chosen the course he wanted to follow. ‘Yes,’ he said, heavily. ‘I would have liked to think that. You’ve shared everything with me?’
Cowley nodded, wanting to use the directness. ‘And you’ve shared everything with me?’
Danilov nodded agreement back. Confrontations to come, he thought: some sooner rather than later. ‘Shall we go?’
It was only when Pavin turned from Stolesnikov Street towards the conspicuous Marxist-Leninist Institute on Pushkinskaya that Danilov appreciated the ironic coincidence of Ann Harris’s apartment being in the same thoroughfare. Danilov expected Pavin to park in the Institute’s facilities, but at the adjacent Prosecutor’s premises the Major sounded sharply on the horn. The signal was instantly answered by the high iron gates swinging open to admit them. Pavin put their car next to General Lapinsk’s official, freshly washed Volga.
Their smooth and quite unexpected reception continued inside. A uniformed attendant ushered them to the second floor and into a reception room where Lapinsk and Nikolai Smolin were already waiting. Danilov knew he and the American were fifteen minutes ahead of their appointed time. He went through the introductions, assuring the other two Soviet officials there was no problem in any discussion being conducted in Russian. For several moments after the formal greetings, the four men stood in an uncertain group, no one certain how to proceed. At last, with ill-concealed reluctance, Smolin took nominal charge, which had to be his role for the conference.
‘There have been over a hundred journalist applications to attend today,’ the Prosecutor said. ‘And the television teams all have support staffs. We’ve arranged simultaneous translation. The television companies have also asked for individual interviews, after the open session …’ The Prosecutor hesitated, indicating Lapinsk. ‘I have all the police reports, up until yesterday. Is there anything else I should know?’
The first of the confrontations, thought Danilov. He looked briefly to Cowley, unsure how the American would react, before saying: ‘We know who was in her apartment the night she was killed. And he’s lied, not admitting that he was there. His name is Paul Hughes. He’s an American economist, her superior at the embassy.’
There was absolute silence in the room, each of the other three men staring fixedly at Danilov. The American’s face was impassive.
Smolin said: ‘The proof’s incontrovertible?’
Danilov recounted the evidence in the order of uncovering it. He itemized the prints of the twisted finger on the glass and elsewhere in the apartment, a deformity from which Hughes visibly suffered, and set out the proof of Hughes and the girl being at the Trenmos on the evening of her death, the table reserved in Hughes’s name. And finally disclosed the positive identification by the other taxi drivers of Hughes being a regular client of Vladimir Suzlev. Danilov nodded, to include Cowley, and said: ‘There hasn’t been a formal accusation. But in a preliminary interview, he lied. He denied being particularly friendly with her — certainly didn’t admit being in her company on the night of her death. He also lied about the reason for after-hours telephone calls. He insisted the conversations were all official, connected with their work. They weren’t. I have the complete transcript, every word they exchanged. There’s no question of their not being lovers: in two he openly refers to pain, to hurting her.’
The attention was still absolute but the expressions were changing. Smolin was looking around the small group, as if for guidance. Lapinsk was frowning, concentrating upon the American at the obvious disclosure of Russian telephone interception and recording. Cowley was almost imperceptibly shaking his head, a gesture of disappointment: Danilov wondered about what. He hoped it was at the American’s realization of his mistake in not sharing whatever it was he had independently discovered.
‘There’s a lot to consider,’ said Smolin, stating the unnecessary obvious in the manner of a profound statement.
When Cowley began to speak, his voice wavered, high and low. He coughed, clearing his throat as Lapinsk was also doing, creating a frog-like duet. Stronger-voiced, Cowley said: ‘I was asked by Washington, before coming here today, to express again our gratitude at your not publicly suggesting there could be an investigation within the embassy into these killings. And to thank you, too, for keeping separate the murders of the woman and Vladimir Suzlev. I think there is a real need for these things to remain unpublicized.’
Lapinsk rattled more coughs. ‘This man Hughes. You say he hasn’t been formally interrogated? Had this new evidence put to him?’
‘No,’ said Cowley. How could he have believed he was ahead? All he’d had — having recognized at that hostile embassy meeting the obvious significance of Hughes’s twisted finger — was forensic proof returned in the diplomatic bag that morning of a lateral pocket loop print from the glass in the Pushkinskaya apartment matching those on the memo pad and matryoshka dolls in Ann Harris’s office. Cowley could understand Danilov holding out: he’d been doing the same himself. What he couldn’t explain was that having done so — having found the proof by himself — the Russian had then presented it all to the police chief and the prosecutor not as an individual coup, to gain all the personal credit, but as a joint discovery, the way they were supposed to be working.