It was difficult for the dredger to operate so close to the landing stage jutting sideways to the swirling current. The engine roared constantly between forward and reverse to keep it steady. Its bow-mounted scoop lifted and received mud so fine it looked like black, oily slime. It stank, of sewage and rot and filth, so badly that the three crewmen wore bandanas across their mouths and noses. Cowley thought it wasn’t quite as bad as the hire car at National Airport, although he would have welcomed some mentholated salve beneath his nose.
There were two uniformed Militiamen and three river officials remaining on the pontoon. The policemen, near the river wall, reacted curiously when Cowley, obviously not a Russian but someone who could speak the language, asked if boats and passengers had gone on using the pontoon after Ignatov’s body was found. When the older of the two, seemingly the more surprised by the question, said of course, Cowley physically had to turn to stare downriver, his mouth clamped shut against an outburst. He did not turn back until the arrival of the Militiaman who had found the gun.
The man was extremely young, the uniform still stiff with newness, the boots not yet scuffed. He seemed unsure what to do when he confronted Danilov. He half raised his arm to make a salute, but did not complete it. There was a suggestion of a blush.
‘Udalov,’ he announced, rigidly to attention. ‘Aleksandr Vasilevich. Militia Post 22.’
One of the lucky army conscripts who’d managed to get into the police service after the dismantling of the Russian military, guessed Danilov: how long before the kid got involved in side-street kickbacks and compromises? Danilov said: ‘You found a gun?’
Udalov pointed to where the two other Militiamen were standing. ‘We were told to leave it where it was. There.’
The pistol was on a ledge less than a metre above the waterline and perhaps a metre from the furthest edge of the pontoon. Turning back to the young man, Danilov started to shout: ‘Did you…?’ but then stopped, completing the turn to the river officials. Gesturing to the bellowing dredger, he said: ‘Can you close that down?’
‘Police orders were to dredge the area,’ insisted an official.
‘These are new police orders,’ said Danilov. ‘Take it out into the river until we’ve finished.’ It was several minutes before the fat-bellied ship reversed away.
‘Did you touch it?’ Danilov resumed.
‘No sir!’
‘Our message said it was a Makarov,’ came in Cowley. ‘How did you know that if you didn’t examine it? It’s not very distinct that far away on the ledge.’
‘I was in the Army until nine months ago,’ confirmed the man. ‘The Makarov was the gun I was trained to use.’
‘It hasn’t been touched or moved?’ persisted Danilov.
‘I didn’t touch it,’ said Udalov.
Both investigators recognised the qualification. ‘Who did?’
‘I do not know that anyone did.’
‘Get the major down here,’ Danilov said sideways, to Pavin. When the officer in charge arrived, Danilov pointed along the ledge and said: ‘I want to know if anyone touched that gun. I either want an admission right now, or I will have everyone in your squad – you first – fingerprinted for elimination. Which will be an irritating waste of time, about which I will complain directly to Deputy Interior Minister Oskin…’ He allowed time for the threat to settle. ‘So, did anyone take that gun from the ledge?’
‘I did,’ admitted the major. ‘We didn’t know it was a proper gun until we looked.’ He was a pock-faced man, ragged voiced with uncertainty.
Cowley felt the anger spread through him again. ‘What part did you touch?’
‘The top, near the hammer. That was the part nearest.’
‘Nowhere else?’
‘No.’
As frustrated as the American beside him, Danilov said to Pavin: ‘Fingerprint him.’ He looked suspiciously at the two men guarding the Makarov. ‘Fingerprint them all!’ Pointing to Udalov, ‘Him last; I want to talk to him. And find out why a photographer and forensic aren’t here yet.’ Both departments had been ordered out before he’d left Petrovka.
Cowley leaned forward from the edge of the jetty. Over his shoulder he said: ‘There could still be something on it: the watermark doesn’t get that high.’
To the remaining Militiaman, Danilov said: ‘Was there any rain in Moscow since the body was found?’
‘I don’t think so,’ said Udalov doubtfully.
‘No,’ came the positive assurance from someone in the group supervising the dredging, who were now their audience.
Still to the young man, Danilov said: ‘Tell us how you found it?’
‘It was just there,’ said Udalov simply. ‘We all had to assemble this morning, a lot of us from different Militia stations, to search along this section. For anything that looked odd. I was told to come down here to see if anything came up in the dredger…’ He smiled, shy but gaining confidence. ‘It wasn’t very interesting. And the smell was bad. After about an hour I looked along the inside of the river wall. And there it was, on the ledge!’
‘You knew immediately it was a pistol?’ said Cowley.
The man shook his head. ‘I thought it was, but I wasn’t sure. I was at the far end of the jetty when I first saw it. I was sure, when I came to where we’re standing now.’
‘Is it now exactly where it was when you first saw it? Or was it lying differently?’ pressed Danilov.
Udalov stared along the ledge. ‘That was how it was, the hammer the closest part to us: that’s why the major got hold of it there.’
‘As near to the edge as it now is? Or further in, nearer the wall?’ demanded Cowley.
‘Maybe a little closer to the wall. But only a millimetre or two.’
There was the clatter of descending footsteps as the scientific team clumped down the walkway.
Cowley said: ‘It was good of them to come.’ Even more pointedly, quoting the uniformed policeman, he went on: ‘“We all had to assemble this morning, a lot of us from different Militia stations, to search along this section. For anything that looked odd.”’
‘What have I said wrong?’ pleaded Udalov, recognising the words. ‘I’ve told the truth!’
‘ You haven’t said anything wrong,’ assured Cowley. ‘It’s other people who haven’t been telling us the truth.’
‘It’s beyond incompetence,’ said Danilov. ‘It’s intentional obstruction.’ He was convinced now that was exactly what it had been.
There was a silence between the two men, for several moments. Then Cowley, in English, said: ‘I can’t tell you how pissed off I am!’
In English, too, Danilov said: ‘How do you think I feel? This was supposed to reflect upon me! Maybe it still will.’
Cowley shook his head but didn’t say anything.
Danilov directed the nervously bewildered Udalov to be fingerprinted and for several minutes afterwards stood beside Cowley in matching silence, studying the gun and the ledge and the pontoon, positioning everything in his mind before stepping back for the technical experts. He decided the uncertainty with which the photographer assembled his camera and lights was quite understandable if he were the same man who had taken the earlier, totally inadequate sequence which had misrepresented the scene.
The far end of the jetty, to which they had to withdraw for the technicians to work, seemed to catch more of the smell from the disturbed river bed.
‘He went into the water here,’ suggested Danilov, starting a professional to professional discussion.
‘And the gun with him,’ agreed Cowley.
Cowley walked part way back to where the forensic team was working. ‘No blood anywhere on the pontoon.’
‘Or up on the street, which there would have been if he’d been killed there.’ Now Danilov paused, longer than the other man. ‘Bloodstaining that would still be evident, even after people walking all over it, from the sort of wounds Ignatov suffered.’
‘Too much for them to walk over,’ accepted Cowley. ‘The blood itself would have caused an alarm, even before the body was found.’