In the Name of a Killer (35 page)

Danilov finally answered the smile. ‘We can drive by Petrovka, to pick up what we might need to confront him with.’

Pavin drove. On the way through streets still not properly awake Danilov added: ‘Let’s enumerate the points.’

Cowley nodded, splaying a hand to count. ‘Let’s start with Pecatnikov: proximity within the area of every attack. We know he was in her apartment the night before she died, from the fingerprints on the glass and in the place itself. The same fingerprints are on the joke
matryoshka
dolls in her office at the embassy. And on some souvenir Bolshoi ballet tickets: I was told at the embassy, early on, that Hughes is a ballet freak. There’s your positive sighting of them together, at the restaurant. And the telephone conversations and log of the calls. We can’t put it to him yet, but I’ll bet you a turkey dinner that we can get calligraphic proof that it’s his handwriting on those notes about pain. Suzlev’s widow talked to us about a regular embassy customer, who always tried to speak Russian. Again at the embassy I was told that Hughes speaks the language pretty well: likes to practise. And this woman says he smelled of tobacco: Hughes smokes strong French cigarettes. A lot of them.’ He came to a near-breathless halt. ‘Anything left out?’

‘Tuesday,’ said Danilov. ‘Last night was a Tuesday, like all the rest.’

The door of the Pecatnikov apartment was opened quickly and by Hughes, although he was wearing a dressing-gown, the carefully arranged hair disarrayed from getting hurriedly out of bed. He looked at Cowley and Danilov, then at Pavin behind them carrying the evidence bag, and said, flatly: ‘You’re here.’

‘You don’t seem surprised,’ said Cowley.

‘I guessed it would happen.’ Hughes backed into the main room, leaving the door open for them to follow. He had his hands cupped protectively before him in such a way that the deformed index finger was clearly visible on his right hand, bent sideways as if it had been broken and wrongly set. From what was obviously the bedroom a woman called: ‘Paul? What is it?’

The economist looked to the men around him. Cowley said: ‘Your choice.’

‘Something’s come up with the embassy,’ Hughes called back. ‘Leave us, would you?’

‘So you were expecting us?’ said Cowley, not wanting to prompt any more than he had to.

‘I didn’t kill her,’ said the economist. ‘You must believe me. I didn’t kill her.’

‘Which one?’ demanded Danilov, entering the interrogation.

The reaction from the day’s press conference was phenomenal. It had led the three major American television networks and CNN throughout the previous night – with extensive TV coverage in other Western countries as well as in Russia – and newspapers throughout the world maintained the interest with enormous coverage, sometimes occupying entire pages. The more sensational newspapers of America and England used headlines like ‘Moscow Maniac’ and ‘Red Terror’. Unnamed sources allegedly talked of terrified women walking in groups if they went out at all and others insisted on the formation of protective vigilante squads.

A synopsis of the television reports and of the leading American newspaper accounts was telexed and faxed overnight to Burden by his Washington office, for the Senator to digest as soon as he awoke at the Savoy hotel.

He was stirring when the interrogation of Paul Hughes was beginning, less than a mile away.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Paul Hughes stared fixedly at the Russian, mouth slightly agape, throat lumping in small, swallowing movements. There was a bigger swallow as he closed his mouth, but before he could speak Cowley said: ‘She didn’t die tonight, Paul. But your taxi driver did: the taxi driver you always asked for, Vladimir Suzlev. So we’re looking at two. Now we want you to tell us all about it.’

Now the economist went from one to the other and then turned the movement into a positive head shake of bewilderment. ‘What are you saying? I don’t know what you’re saying!’

‘Your speed,’ said Cowley, quietly, almost conversational. ‘Tell us your way, however you like.’

Danilov’s concentration was divided. He was intent upon everything about Hughes but he was also aware of the manner of the FBI man’s questioning, admiring it, unaccustomed to the approach. With the sort of evidence they had the Russian way would have been aggressive, demanding a confession: maybe even making an arrest without any preamble, waiting for the breakdown at the police station after hours or even days of confinement. This was very different. There was no accusing hostility in Cowley’s attitude. The approach was solicitous, friendly even: yet on the way to the hospital to see Lydia Orlenko it had been the American who had shown the anger and later Cowley who’d evolved the ice-thin manoeuvre for a Russian involvement in this interrogation. Should he adjust, put his questions the same way? Or just modify slightly, remain the unknown threatening figure next to Cowley’s kindly consideration?

‘About Ann?’ queried Hughes, cautiously.

‘Sure. About Ann,’ encouraged the other American.

Hughes shrugged, looking away from them at last, vaguely towards his feet. He began fingering the edge of his dressinggown. ‘And so it all comes tumbling down. Job. Wife …’

Danilov moved to speak but there was the smallest, halting gesture from Cowley, so he stopped.

‘… my fault,’ Hughes went on. ‘I know it’s my fault: always has been. But at least Ann knew the score. Enjoyed it.’

‘What was the score, Paul?’ asked Cowley.

The man looked up, smiling hesitatingly. ‘Sex. I liked it. She liked it: it was hardly a secret at the embassy that she liked it. Everyone’s too close together here in Moscow.’

Danilov saw his opening. ‘“I didn’t mean to hurt,”’ he quoted. ‘“Please like it.” Your notes: the ones you wrote to her.’

‘Not me!’ blustered Hughes.

Over his shoulder to Pavin, Danilov said in Russian: ‘Log.’ The telephone records came immediately into his hand from the efficient assistant. Turning back to the American, quoting again, Danilov said: “Just a little. You know it’s good for me …” He looked up. ‘That’s you, three weeks ago. She said: “OK, but not much. Don’t really hurt. It’s not my bag, you know that.” You said: “You do it then: whip if you like. Make me sorry.” She said: “That might be good … I don’t mind head … like it. Greek too, but Christ you hurt me last night. My tits bled, you bastard.” A month ago she said: “You didn’t say you were going to do that when you tied me up. How would you like it with a dildo up your ass …’”

‘Jesus!’ Hughes broke in, eyes bulging, mouth open again. ‘That’s …’

‘… only a small part of what we know,’ Cowley told him. ‘She might have liked sex but she didn’t like pain as you do, did she?’

Hughes remained staring at Danilov. ‘You tapped my phone … were tapping my phone … there’ll be a protest …’

‘Shut up, Paul!’ said Cowley, the friendliness dropped like a curtain. ‘And let’s cut the crap, OK? Just the truth from now on.’

‘I didn’t kill her!’

‘We think you did,’ said Danilov. ‘We know all the lies you told.’

‘I had to, didn’t I? Think how I was caught up! My position!’

Danilov was aware of the slight tightening of Cowley’s hands, the only hint of anger. Cowley said: ‘Tell us about last Tuesday: not
last
night. The one before. And the entire truth this time. No tidying up.’

‘I need to smoke. Can I smoke?’

Cowley nodded agreement. ‘Take your time.’

The economist did, fumbling for cigarettes from a side-table and then appearing to have difficulty with a lighter, as if he were trying to delay as long as possible the final confession. The pungent smell of the French tobacco permeated the room. Cowley and Danilov looked at each other. Hughes brought the pack back to the chair with him, settling himself, gazing down at the floor again, ‘It was usually Tuesday,’ he began, haltingly. ‘I work out at the embassy gym that night. Angela expects me home late: thinks I have a few drinks afterwards. Last Tuesday we went to the Trenmos, Ann and I. She liked it there …’ He looked up, briefly, towards Danilov. ‘She wasn’t very fond of anything Russian. We had a meal: went back to her place like we usually did. Had a drink. Went to bed. Then I left …’ He looked up again, to both of them. ‘That’s it.’

‘No, it isn’t,’ said Danilov, just ahead of the other irritated investigator. ‘Do it again. From the restaurant. What did you eat? What did you talk about?’

Hughes shrugged. ‘Can’t remember what we ate.’

‘What did you talk about?’ repeated Cowley. ‘Were you happy, the two of you? Or not?’

‘OK,’ said Hughes, shrugging again, the evasion blatant.

‘Stop it, for Christ’s sake!’ said Cowley, the friendship curtain still down. ‘Or would you rather come with us to a Russian station-house? You’re outside embassy jurisdiction: I’m here as a concession. You fancy a Russian prison interrogation, where I wouldn’t have access?’

Danilov took the cue, turning to Pavin to return the telephone log and nodding, as if some decision had been made between them.

‘No!’ pleaded Hughes, at once, too alarmed to argue about diplomatic immunity. ‘No, please! I’m sorry. OK, so it wasn’t a good evening. It was all coming to an end, we both knew that. The messy part: getting on each other’s nerves.’

‘So you argued?’ demanded Danilov.

‘No, not argued!’ Hughes retorted. ‘Just irritated with each other: things I said annoyed her, things she said annoyed me.’

‘But you still went to bed?’ said Cowley.

‘That’s what it was all about.’

‘It was uncomfortable at the restaurant,’ Cowley goaded. ‘What happened back at Pushkinskaya?’

‘Had a drink or two, like I said. Usual squabble: she was very house-proud, almost a fetish with her. She wouldn’t let me smoke that night, not like she normally did. She was being awkward, on purpose: said concessions were being withdrawn …’

‘But they weren’t, in bed?’ broke in Danilov.

‘Old times stuff,’ dismissed Hughes. He smiled hopefully at both of them.

Neither detective smiled back. Cowley’s hands flexed. Danilov said: ‘Her breasts were bitten.’

‘She liked …’ Hughes began, but Cowley, too loudly, said: ‘Don’t! You try it once more and you’re downtown on your own and I couldn’t give a fuck. I’ll
insist
you go downtown.’

Hughes’s cigarette had a long hang of ash. He stubbed it out hurriedly, strangely seeming to wither physically. ‘She let me. That was all. She let me.’ His voice was cracked, jagged. Then he said: ‘Jesus, this is awful! Embarrassing!’

Sure he knew how to play the interrogation now, Danilov said: ‘Ann Harris’s death was awful, too. She was stabbed in the back. All her hair was cut off. What was wrong with her hair? Didn’t you like it? Or was it some sex thing, like the buttons and the shoes?’

‘What buttons and shoes? I don’t understand.’

‘When you’re ready,’ said Cowley, accepting the denial for the moment. ‘You were in bed and you bit her.’

‘Not like that! You make it sound … like it was …’

‘… Deviant? Dangerously violent? Something we shouldn’t find unusual involving a girl who was killed and abused the same night with your teethmarks in her breasts?’ interrupted Danilov.

‘It was what we did!’

‘Why Suzlev?’ demanded Cowley. ‘Why kill him?’

‘I didn’t kill him.’

‘You did,’ insisted Danilov.

‘Paul?’

The American economist had been slumped, almost unnaturally bowed forward, but he stiffened at his wife’s voice. There was a sound like a groan as he half-turned towards the living-room door at which she stood. Unlike her husband she was dressed, in a red skirt and homeknit sweater decorated with matching red swans proceeding across the front, a squat woman on the point of fatness, freshly washed face shining free of make-up, her hair completely grey without any attempt at disguising dye or tinted highlights.

‘Paul?’ she questioned again. ‘What is it? What’s going on? What’s happened at the embassy?’ Towards the end she extended her look beyond her husband, inviting a reply from anyone.

‘I asked you to leave us,’ said Hughes. His voice was even more broken.

The dumpy woman looked puzzled, but at the same time appeared to realize her husband was under some sort of pressure. She smiled tentatively and said: ‘Can I get anything? Coffee?’

‘Just leave us. Please,’ said Hughes.

She didn’t move, at once. Then, with the skeletal words people use in times of personal uncertainty, she said: ‘I’ll be in the kitchen if you want me.’

Hughes scratched a match back and forth to light another cigarette and both Cowley and Danilov shifted, practically at the same time, angrily aware that the momentum had been broken. Trying too quickly to bring it back, Cowley said: ‘Was that how it happened, Paul? A lot of small arguments, early in the evening? Some sex stuff that got out of hand? Then, before you knew what was really happening, she was dead?’

Danilov prevented himself looking curiously at the FBI agent, who’d proposed a sequence they knew hadn’t occurred, supposing the man was simply trying to frighten the economist into an admission.

‘No!’ wailed Hughes. He looked up at them, eyes filmed. ‘We went to bed, right? She let me do what I wanted. We actually made love, but it wasn’t good, not for either of us. It was late by then: I had to get back. I said I’d see her the following day. I got dressed and left. Came straight back here.’