No Time for Heroes (23 page)

The murder file already created by Pavin on Ivan Ignatsevich Ignatov was far more comprehensive than any on the organised crime Families. Ignatov was thought to have been forty-nine years old at the time of his death, although the date of birth in Kiev, in the Ukraine, was uncertain. There was no date, either, for his arrival in Moscow or record of the permission to live in the city that had been a legal requirement under the old Communist system, so he had been permanently breaking the law until five years earlier. Each time, there had been a sentence for the residential offence in addition to the verdicts on eight of the ten separately listed criminal convictions. Five had been for physical violence, the others for larceny, burglary and running prostitutes. He'd served a total of eight years in various prisons, two in the Ukraine, the rest in Russia. Apart from extra jail terms for illegal residency, there had always been enforcement orders for the man to be returned to the Ukraine at the completion of each jail term.

Ignatov had been linked to the Ostankino Family during his last arrest. It had been for violence, for smashing the arms and legs of a breadshop owner on Ulitza Ogarova during an extortion demand, for which he had been jailed for three years. The baker had named the Ostankino as a crime syndicate to which he had been paying protection money: Ignatov had been the collector, demanding side payments for himself. In court Ignatov had denied any knowledge of any gang. Eight months after the trial at which the Ostankino Family had been named, the extortion victim, who had just started to walk again, had been knocked down in a hit-and-run accident and was now permanently crippled, confined for the rest of his life to a wheelchair.

Court records provided three different addresses in Moscow – one a brothel operated by three
shalava
, sleevesnatching street whores unable to get foreign clients because of age or feared disease, reduced to charging visiting peasants less than a hundred roubles a time. No-one, at any address, admitted any knowledge of the dead man. His occupation was variously given as a labourer and a porter, never with any workplace or employer. So far no friends or acquaintances had been found, nor any record of his having been married or permanently involved with any woman.

‘A man who didn't properly exist,' said Danilov. Holding up the last pages, listing the arrests and court appearances, he said to emphasise his point: ‘And stupid. Every arrest at the scene of a crime, convicted because he was taken straight from police detention to a court. What's that tell us?'

‘Small time,' agreed Cowley. Enjoying the new word, he said: ‘A
lokhi
.'

‘So what's the connection between a street-level pimp and thug and a murdered Soviet diplomat? OK, we've accepted Serov was dirty. But surely Ignatov was
too
small time!'

Pavin answered the telephone when it rang, listening without interruption. At the end of the one-sided conversation he put his hand over the mouthpiece and said: ‘A uniformed Militia search party has found a gun, close to where Ignatov's body was recovered. It's a 9mm Makarov.'

‘Leave it where it is,' ordered Danilov, as he got up from his desk. Exhausted or not, it had been a mistake not to have gone to the scene the previous night.

‘It don't make sense!' protested Bradley, probing for beef in the stroganoff before him. He chomped, open-mouth, and said: ‘This really isn't bad. Great, in fact.' He gulped at some red wine before he'd emptied his mouth. ‘You should have had it.'

Hank Slowen had already pushed his pork aside, deciding it was too rich roasted with plums: he was convinced he had an ulcer, although two examinations hadn't discovered any medical evidence. ‘It's early days yet.'

‘All the druggies in the fucking place should be pleading for mercy by now!'

‘They are,' pointed out the FBI supervisor. ‘We've got hospital registers to prove it. They're screaming.' They'd chosen the Gastronom Moscow, right on the Brighton Beach boardwalk, making themselves very visible, like the rest of the Task Force throughout the area.

‘For methadone or whatever other shit substitute they can get!' dismissed the detective. ‘They're not screaming what we want to hear! Neither are the hookers or their pimps or any other bastard. It's like a monastery under a vow of silence out there!'

‘Too early,' repeated Slowen. He wondered if Bradley knew whether it was monks or nuns who lived in a monastery: probably not.

Bradley finished his stroganoff: he missed a grease blob on his chin with his napkin and the FBI man couldn't bring himself to point it out. ‘Not too early,' argued Bradley. ‘Too fucking scared. And if everyone in Brighton Beach is that scared, they've got something to be scared
about
. Like we've got something to worry about, because it means we're wasting our fucking time.'

Sergei Ivanovich Stupar believed himself a lawyer whose time had finally come. He had a brilliant, analytical brain which he'd known was being wasted in the former Soviet Union, mourning his inability then to quit for the West, where he knew he could have made a fortune.

He had been forty-five years old when Communism died, which was too old for a man seeking long-delayed rewards to study for any postgraduate degree in a foreign law school. Which Stupar, who was also a conceited man, decided he didn't have to do anyway. International law – particularly international financial law – was subject to interpretation from both sides of a no longer divisive barrier. Stupar, who had spent the beginning of his career manipulating the doubtful laws of Communist finance, blended perfectly into the milieu of adjusting and fashioning financial arrangements between East and West. Legitimate negotiations were, however, poorly paid.

The Chechen, on the other hand, promised to make him very rich, even paying him in dollars. He had initially been excited about the Swiss assignment, because it was precisely the financial environment in which he wanted to become involved. He decided he needed to exaggerate the problems he'd encountered in Geneva, to preserve his professional mystique and also because he was frightened of this man to whom he was reporting and wanted to impress.

‘I've found a lawyer who will act for us,' he said, which was true. ‘But not as long as there are police enquiries into the American murder of Michel Paulac.'

‘The police have discovered the corporation?' demanded Yerin.

‘They won't,' assured Stupar, also exaggerating his knowledge of international law and, more particularly, country-to-country treaty agreements. ‘Switzerland is a complete bank secrecy country. But the Swiss are cautious. The lawyer won't move immediately.'

‘How quickly could there be a transfer?' asked Gusovsky. He was unsure about excluding Zimin from this encounter.

‘All it needs is a replacement Founder's Certificate and a nomination of new directors.'

‘So we can go ahead,' said Gusovsky, to Yerin. ‘We don't need formal control before the meeting. We know we can take over whenever we like.'

‘It's important to keep to the schedule,' agreed the blind man.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

The previous investigation had been in the winter, everything wrapped in a half-light of smothering greyness, sometimes fog, and Cowley had thought of it as a city with a blanket pulled over its head. In summer the greyness was still everywhere, unbroken by the faded green of the river-bordering trees. The streets were grey and the river was grey – except where the dredger was working, where it was black with churned mud – and the unsmiling people all around were grey. The uniforms of the street Militia were even officially grey.

And the murder scene was beyond professional belief.

Until that moment – based upon the police photographs – Cowley had imagined the alarm raised from above, from street level over an unbroken river wall. But the wall
was
broken, with steps leading to a concrete base beyond which floated a slat-board pontoon for passengers to board cruise boats and ferries: from where the dredger was working, he assumed the body had jammed on a mud-bank directly against one edge of the jetty, where it abutted the wall.

There was no taped-off cordon keeping the street clear for forensic examination, as there would have been in America. Onlookers were shoulder-to-shoulder along the wall on both sides of the entry to the river, littering fingerprints everywhere and foot-shuffling into oblivion any possible evidence. The pontoon steps were crowded with more milling, evidence-trampling sightseers and police and officials connected with the dredging operation.

‘For Christ's sake let's clear these people away!' Cowley exclaimed. ‘This is a goddamned shambles!'

‘Too late,' said Danilov, as angry as the American. He still had Pavin locate the uniformed Militia major to clear the pontoon and the immediate street above.

‘I can't believe this!' said Cowley, quiet-voiced in fury. ‘I simply can't believe it! I'll have to tell Washington! And not to save my ass. They
should
know.'

‘I think you should,' agreed Danilov again. What about his ass? Safe, he decided. Pavin's? There'd be efforts to side-step the responsibility. But a general, which Metkin was, or the senior investigating colonel, which Kabalin was, couldn't dump it on someone of Pavin's rank. Abruptly, a far more sinister realisation came to him. His safety had nothing at all to do with his being 5,000 miles away when Ivan Ignatov had been found. If Cowley had not returned to Moscow with him – which no-one had expected – all this staggering ineptitude and inefficiency would have been blamed upon him. Danilov hoped at least the Makarov had stayed in place and not been passed around between any interested hands before they'd got there.

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?'