‘Nonsense,’ said Larissa. ‘You’re a star!’
‘Of which we’ve been reminded,’ said Kosov. ‘See you were mentioned in the newspapers today.’
‘History,’ dismissed Danilov.
‘Don’t be modest,’ chided Larissa. ‘Aren’t you proud of him, Olga?’
The idea seemed to surprise Olga. ‘Of course,’ she said, hurriedly. Her tan dress had a stain on the left sleeve and the shoes did not co-ordinate; she looked dowdy in comparison to the other woman.
‘Thought you might have got the Directorship,’ said Kosov. It was a question more than an opinion, a remark inviting a reply.
Danilov met the other man’s look. ‘It’s an enlargement of the Bureau.’ He wished he hadn’t had to fall back upon Anatoli Metkin’s empty insistence in the corridor the day Lapinsk had retired.
‘A division of authority?’ asked Kosov.
‘Yes.’ Danilov was curious at Kosov’s interest.
‘You’ll go on heading the investigative side of things?’
Danilov didn’t think this was polite interest. It sounded like someone trying to pin down rumours – which would, among other things, account for Kosov’s sobriety. ‘It’s interesting you should mention the newspaper references,’ he evaded easily. ‘I’m liaising with the Foreign Ministry about this business in Washington.’
‘You’re going to investigate that!’ said Larissa excitedly.
Danilov decided she was very brave – or very confident – wearing a black wool dress: Larissa moved her head a lot but there was no stray blonde hair on her shoulders. ‘We need to know all we can,’ Danilov avoided again. He hurried around with the champagne: neither Larissa nor her husband had drunk very much.
‘You get on well with Metkin?’ persisted Kosov.
‘There’s a professional relationship,’ said Danilov.
‘Wasn’t he junior to you, when Lapinsk was Director?’
Danilov saw both Olga and Larissa look at Kosov, then to him. Danilov said: ‘We held equal rank.’
‘Why didn’t you get the Directorship, with Metkin as your deputy?’ demanded Olga. ‘You should have done, shouldn’t you!’
Bastards, thought Danilov. Metkin was a bastard and those above him in the Interior Ministry were bastards and those who sneered in the squad room were bastards and Kosov, who’d clearly heard rumours if he’d not been openly told, was a bastard for making this scene in the middle of his living room. ‘If I had been made Director I would have been removed from any investigative role. This way I’m not.’
‘So you will continue as an investigator!’ said Larissa.
‘In certain, particular circumstances,’ said Danilov, uncaring of his lie, wanting only to close off the inquisition.
Which it appeared to do. Olga bustled into the kitchen, taking Larissa with her, and Kosov switched to vodka and began to catch up on his alcohol intake. He made half-hearted attempts to get back to discussing Danilov’s new role, but Danilov always managed to deflect him. Danilov had been unable to reach the commander of the Militia district covering Kirovskaya to get protection for the Volga, and had intended asking Kosov to fix it: now, that would be quite the wrong thing to do.
The steaks were excellent and the wine, which actually wasn’t Russian but Georgian, was as good as any Danilov had been served by Kosov.
It was over coffee and brandy that Larissa whispered to Danilov she was working afternoon split-shift, with access to rooms throughout the week. He whispered back he would try. Larissa, in turn, insisted they had their future to talk about: he’d asked her to wait until he was promoted, which he’d now been.
After they left, Olga said: ‘I thought Yevgennie kept on at you, at the begining of the evening.’
‘I didn’t notice,’ lied Danilov. How much longer could he go on dodging the personal situation? Larissa had been right, of course; they had a lot to talk about. Danilov acknowledged, abruptly, that he was frightened: he was frightened of abandoning Olga, and he was frightened of trying to look after Larissa after the luxuries heaped upon her by Kosov, and now he didn’t have the protective directorship he was frightened the uniformed colonel would try to use his past to cause as much harm as possible when Larissa announced whom she was leaving him for.
‘Do you like Larissa?’ asked Olga innocently.
‘Of course I do. She’s a friend.’
‘I think she likes you. I saw the way she was looking at you tonight.’
Danilov had removed the wipers from the Volga. The following morning both wing mirrors had been stolen.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Leonard Ross was an independently wealthy man and therefore completely sure of himself both publicly and privately, with no need constantly to play centre stage, so he was quite happy for Cowley, the Bureau expert, to present their suspicions. The Secretary of State stared throughout from the window of his seventh-floor office over the park and the very tip of the Washington monument.
‘It’s still speculation,’ Hartz insisted, when Cowley finished. The hope was obvious in the man’s voice.
‘On known facts,’ argued Ross. Somehow he’d rumpled the pure white hair and a part of it, near his forehead, stuck up like a surrender flag.
‘Very few facts,’ disputed the Secretary of State. ‘Little more than that it’s a Russian pistol and ammunition.’
At Ross’s gestured invitation, Cowley said: ‘We know in the Eighties the former KGB used world pressure for Jewish emigration from the old Soviet Union to infiltrate into this country a large number of professional criminals, to put as big a burden as possible upon our law enforcement. We even know where they predominantly settled, in Brighton Beach…’
‘… And since the collapse of Communism, organised crime has literally exploded in Russia,’ broke in Ross. ‘It’s taken the name of the role model it’s copied from here – the Mafia.’
‘I know about Brighton Beach! And the Moscow Mafia!’ said the Secretary of State. ‘What I want to know is the link with the Russian embassy!’
‘We don’t know that, not yet,’ admitted Ross. ‘Any more than we know why a Swiss financier was involved. And we’re not going to find out by approaching the Russian embassy ourselves. They’re blocking us, solidly.’
‘What do the Swiss say?’ asked Hartz.
Again the FBI Director deferred to Cowley.
‘Not a lot, as yet,’ conceded the Russian specialist. ‘We’ve got to assume there was some financial involvement between Serov and Paulac. We’re going to be blocked here, again, by the bank secrecy regulations, which we can’t break into. Paulac was a bachelor. Thirty-eight years old, head of an international investment company, unknown to the police until now. No reason for thinking he’s not quite respectable. As well as the office in Geneva there’s an offshoot in Vaduz, Liechtenstein. It’s the way these guys work, shuttling money between one bank secrecy country to another and back again, until it gets lost.’
‘Often the profits from organised crime,’ chipped in Ross. ‘They rarely ask the source: that way their integrity isn’t compromised.’ He seemed to become aware of the dishevelled hair, smoothing it down. Cowley liked the improvement: Ross wasn’t the surrendering type.
‘The Swiss say they’ll respond as best they can to any enquiry we make,’ said Cowley. ‘Problem is, we don’t know the questions to ask.’
‘You sure the Russians won’t help?’ queried Hartz, the long-ago accent sounding in his voice.
‘Definitely not if the collusion is official,’ said Cowley. ‘Or, from their response so far, even if it’s not. We’re stymied, either way.’
Hartz shook his head, doubtfully. ‘Could we have the Russian Mafia linking with the Cosa Nostra here?’
‘Yes,’ said the FBI Director brutally.
Without turning from the window, Hartz said: ‘OK, we could invite Russian participation: we established the precedent with the senator’s niece. But if there is official collusion, we’d get a programmed stooge, even if they agreed to come in on it.’