In the Name of a Killer (6 page)

‘Everything,’ decided Danilov. Pavin offered one of the largest exhibit bags.

The adjoining, American-style bathroom was as well kept as the rest of the apartment. There was an abundance of chrome and glass with more cleaning creams in tight lines. The cabinets contained analgesics and shampoos and hair conditioners, a proprietary brand of American cough linctus and, surprisingly, a small phial of mosquito repellent.

Back in the bedroom Danilov said to the fingerprint expert: ‘There are a lot of good surfaces in the bathroom. And in the kitchen cabinet there’s a vodka bottle I want checked. Anything so far?’

‘Two different sets on the glasses back in the lounge. On the door here and the dressing-table, too.’

‘I’ll get her elimination prints from the pathologist later today,’ undertook Danilov. To Pavin he said: ‘We’ll take the glasses.’

‘There are a lot of shoes,’ the Major pointed out.

‘Some women like lots of shoes.’

‘They seem important to the killer, too.’

‘Anything we might have missed?’ Danilov asked the man of routine.

Pavin considered the question, looking around the apartment. ‘Not obviously.’

‘That’s the problem,’ said Danilov. ‘Nothing’s obvious.’ He became uncomfortable at the banality. He looked reflectively at the dishevelled bed, then gestured towards it. ‘Apart from that, which looks as if she got up in a hurry, it’s an extremely well kept apartment. There’s virtually no dust, anywhere: everything in the bathroom is highly polished.’

‘Yes?’ agreed Pavin, questioning.

Danilov didn’t respond at once to the curiosity. Instead he said to the technicians: ‘Let’s see what’s on the plastic of the telephone receiver. I particularly want to know if the prints are new.’ Coming back to his assistant, Danilov said: ‘She got up and left urgently: not even covering the bed, which someone as neat as she was would almost automatically have done. Maybe she was called out, in a hurry.’

‘Knowing her killer?’

‘It’s possible.’

Pavin remained frowning. ‘Why call her out?’

‘To make it seem as if she
didn’t
know who it was.’

Pavin’s doubtful look remained. ‘There would be no way to trace a call, if it was incoming. Some outgoing calls might possibly be registered.’

‘Check the exchange to see what’s available,’ ordered Danilov.

‘
Just
the exchange?’ queried Pavin, heavily.

Danilov smiled in understanding. ‘I’ll do it,’ he decided at once. ‘Or try to persuade Lapinsk to make the inquiry. Certainly the Cheka monitored diplomats’ telephones in the past. I’d guess they’re still doing it.’

‘It would mean the Cheka officially admitting they’re continuing to eavesdrop,’ warned Pavin.

‘That could be easily hidden,’ dismissed Danilov.

‘It could be the excuse for the KGB to involve themselves.’

Danilov wondered why the other man used the old, official title for the first time. ‘We still don’t know yet whether they’ll be ordered to take over. They might not even need an excuse.’

‘I would have expected the Americans here by now.’

Danilov looked at the forensic team: the fingerprint expert was already in the bathroom and the other man was delicately folding the sheets and pillows, edges inwards to hold anything trapped inside. As Pavin held the exhibit bags open, Danilov said: ‘Anything?’

‘No blood that’s obvious. Some staining that could be semen. Or might not. What looks like make-up traces, on both pillows. Head hair and some pubic’

The fingerprint specialist emerged from the bathroom at the end of the conversation. ‘The two sets of fingerprints are in there, too.’

‘How much longer?’ asked Danilov.

The men exchanged looks. The technician with the bed linen said: ‘I think we’re pretty well finished.’

Pavin said suddenly, ‘Knives! We didn’t check kitchen knives.’

‘Go on back with what you’ve got,’ Danilov ordered the technicians, anxious to get them and the exhibits away.

Pavin was standing beside a knife rack attached to the wall above the cooker when Danilov reached the kitchen. He pointed, saying nothing. The rack had hollowed-out, grooved positions for seven knives, graduating small to large from left to right. The middle, fourth position was empty.

‘Everywhere you can think of!’ Danilov was annoyed with himself at the oversight: Pavin was invaluable. It took fifteen minutes to search all drawers and possible put-aside places where the knife might have been carelessly discarded by a girl who didn’t, from the condition of the flat, do anything carelessly. They didn’t find it. Danilov said: ‘I’ll go through the rest of the apartment. I want the most precise measurements: length, width, thickness. Don’t try to do it here: take the whole thing as an exhibit.’

Danilov didn’t find the knife anywhere else in the flat. By the time he returned to the kitchen, Pavin had released all the wall screws and was putting the knife rack into the specimen case. It fitted snugly without the apartment-sealing equipment which Pavin removed. Pavin said: ‘The make of the knives printed on the rack isn’t Russian.’

‘It wouldn’t be,’ anticipated Danilov. ‘It says “Kuikut”.’

It took a long time for Pavin to bolt to the outside of the apartment door the fixings for the cross chain for which there was only a Militia key, to criss-cross the further barrier of adhesive tape and to insert the blocks into the existing keyholes, to render them inoperable. Pavin held a cigarette lighter sideways to melt the wax which Danilov positioned to drip on to the ties of the official notice, declaring the apartment secured against unauthorized entry. Danilov was impressing the official seal into the wax when the Americans arrived.

‘What the fuck …!’

Danilov turned to the sports-jacketed man he’d encountered earlier at the embassy and guessed to be FBI. Baxter was slightly behind in the corridor.

The leading American said: ‘Oh Jesus! Oh dear Jesus now the shit’s
really
going to hit the fan in every which way! Just wait until Washington hears about this!’ He was shaking, either from suppressed rage or nervous energy: maybe a combination of both.

‘What right do you think you’ve got, intruding on to diplomatic property?’ demanded Baxter. ‘I want that seal taken …’

‘… They don’t understand English,’ interrupted the other American. ‘We’ve got to get back to the embassy and bring down some heavy pressure about this. I’m going to have his ass for this! Christ am I going to have his ass!’

‘We can’t just walk away like this!’ Baxter protested. ‘I want to know what they’ve been doing in there!’

‘Don’t you think I want to know the same thing?’ demanded the second American.

‘We’re trying to catch a murderer,’ said Danilov, quietly.

‘I don’t care what you’re trying …’ began Barry before the realization registered.

‘You bastard!’ he said, although quietly as well, someone unable to believe what had just happened. The shaking worsened.

‘“Amateur night”,’ quoted Danilov, verbatim. ‘“Win a balloon and a lollipop if you get past the first clue.” Who’s Dick Tracy? I don’t know who Dick Tracy is.’

Both Americans became momentarily speechless. Stiffly again, Baxter said: ‘I know there has already been a formal protest, about your attitude at the embassy. This time the protest is going to be much stronger: possibly from the ambassador himself. I demand, with the authority of the government of the United States of America, that you unseal these premises and return into the custody of the United States embassy anything you might have removed from Ann Harris’s apartment.’ The heavy moustache quivered.

‘You smart-assed son of a bitch!’ said sports jacket, through tight lips. ‘You just don’t know the league you’re getting into, do you?’

It was quite true, conceded Danilov. He said: ‘As I tried to explain this morning, I am investigating the murder of an American national. This apartment remains sealed. Mr Baxter knows my office number.’ He moved, to walk down the corridor. The first man squared up, blocking the way. He was about the same size as Danilov: there was the aroma of sweet cologne, clashing with tainted breath. Danilov wondered which of them was the most apprehensive of what might develop: he was very nervous but he was glad he wasn’t shaking like the other man. He felt Pavin’s bulky presence close behind and was glad about that, too. Danilov stared directly at the American and said: ‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ grateful that his voice remained even.

‘Back off, Barry!’ warned Baxter.

‘Why don’t you do that, Barry?’ demanded Danilov, and wished he hadn’t attempted the tough-guy mockery.

Barry stood reluctantly aside, face aflame. He was having difficulty in controlling his hands. ‘Wait!’ he hissed, lips tighter than ever. ‘Just wait!’

Danilov walked easily by, emboldened by Pavin’s presence behind: relieved, too, that his assistant did not speak until they got down to street level.

‘What happened back there?’ said Pavin.

‘They were upset,’ said Danilov. He knew the American had wanted to hit him: he felt lucky the whole stupid episode hadn’t ended in a brawl.

Danilov expected a protest gesture, but not what Novikov staged at the pathology division. From Novikov’s office he was directed downstairs where an attendant further guided him to the examination theatre. The smell when he got there – a collision of formaldehyde and disinfectant and stale human body waste – clogged in his throat; it was even worse when he pushed through the door, to enter. Novikov wore a stained gown and a cotton protective hat which made him look hairless. He stood at the sink, washing his hands, a mask pushed down around his throat. A sheet, also stained, covered the body of Ann Harris.

‘I was sure you wouldn’t mind coming here,’ said the pathologist, without any tone of apology. ‘I realized from your having Lapinsk intercede that it was incredibly urgent so I knew you wouldn’t want to wait upstairs. You could have asked me yourself, of course.’

Novikov was a large, fleshy man, bulbous-nosed and thick-lipped. His hands were large, the fingers sausage-like. He didn’t even look like a surgeon, Danilov thought: surgeons should have delicate, tender hands. He supposed it wasn’t necessary to be tender with a dead body. He said: ‘I don’t mind at all,’ which wasn’t true.

‘Some people haven’t got the stomach for dissecting rooms.’

Fuck you, decided Danilov. ‘I said I don’t mind.’ Coming through the door he’d had to swallow against the smell: he wanted to do so again but didn’t.

‘Tough policeman, eh?’

‘I need the preliminary report.’ He didn’t want to spar and score debating points. He wanted to learn things that might help him trap a madman. And get out as quickly as he could, away from the smell and away from this man who had hands like a butcher.

‘I suppose senior colonels get all the most important cases.’

Danilov waited. His stomach felt loose. He made himself go further into the room, closer to the covered body. One foot protruded from beneath the sheet: she’d painted her toe-nails a pale pink. Danilov liked the colour. Larissa painted her nails sometimes: Olga never did. Olga even forgot to cut them.

Novikov spent a long time drying his hands and took off the protective hat, releasing a fall of lank hair, before he spoke. ‘White female Caucasian, aged between twenty-five and thirty. Weight, 54 kilos. Brown eyes. Black hair. Cause of death a puncture wound, from the rear, between the eighth and ninth ribs, under the scapula. Clean entry, with no bone contact. The weapon entered from the right side, through the intercostal muscle and lung, severing the aorta before penetrating the heart. There were superficial wounds to the head, which did not contribute to the cause of death …’ He paused. ‘I’m not going too fast: you’re managing to assimilate all this?’

‘I’m managing.’ Danilov almost retched after just two words.

The pathologist smiled, as if he realized. ‘No organic disease. Appendicectomy scar, lower right abdomen. As I told your man at the scene, it’s difficult to establish a precise time of death: I’d estimate between eleven and one o’clock. How’s that?’ He smiled again.

It was inadequate to the point of being absurd: the bastard was forcing him to stay in the room and ask questions. ‘Depth of the wound?’

‘Nineteen and a half centimetres.’

‘Blunt or sharp instrument?’

‘I said a clean entry.’

‘Pointed then?’

‘What else could it be?’ Novikov smiled, a magician arriving at his best trick. ‘Why not see for yourself?’

The sheet came back with a flourish. Ann Harris lay on her back. The rigor had left the body, which had a wax-like sheen and like wax appeared to be melting, bubbled and flaccid. Only the snarl remained, more horrifying than before. Novikov
had
examined like a butcher. The body incision, from neck to crotch, was carelessly jagged, the subsequent stitching uneven. Nothing had been swabbed clean, after being sealed.

‘You’ll have to help me turn her over.’

‘Cover her,’ said Danilov, tightly, not looking. When was the mutilation of Ann Harris going to stop?

‘I thought you wanted to see?’

‘Cover her.’ Strangely, Danilov’s stomach was settling, despite Novikov’s charade. When the pathologist didn’t move, Danilov himself pulled the sheet back over the disfigured corpse. Even-voiced he said: ‘So it was a tapered wound?’