Russian Roulette (11 page)

The eagle-faced officer raised a hand to stop her, but suddenly realized the reason for her flight and quickly looked away. She slipped past him and vanished at top speed, while Pudovkin addressed himself to Simon.

‘Will you come out into the corridor, please?' he asked, speaking good English, but with a hesitancy that suggested that he had not used it for a long time.

Gilbert Bynge rose on tip-toe behind the speaker.

‘Sorry, old chap, there's been a bit of a tragedy … d'you mind rallying round?'

His twitch seems to have worsened
, Simon thought irrelevantly. He put his legs into top gear with an effort and wearily went over to the door, stepping into his slippers en route.

‘I saw it,' he said shortly, as he came up to the Soviet officer. He had seen both the militiaman and the courier opening their mouths to begin explanations and felt like getting in first.

Alexei Pudovkin snapped his shut, then opened it to spit out a question.

‘You say you saw it?'

‘I mean I saw what the trouble was … Monsieur Fragonard, I think.'

Gilbert began babbling almost incoherently. Like Liz, he had lost his normal smoothness in the face of an emergency. ‘Terrible … terrible! Never had a trip like it before … your Helsinki business, then this … can't imagine what the Company will say about it … the man must have been round the bend.'

Simon stared at Gilbert. ‘You mean he jumped out of the window deliberately?' He had already assumed that the still, yellow body had fallen from the fourth floor.

The leathery detective officer threw his hands between them like a referee at a wrestling match.

‘Please, please! Let us keep all talk for a moment. I wish for no discussion between persons yet.'

He said this quite politely, but there was an edge to his voice that allowed no misunderstanding.

They had edged their way out to the corridor and Simon saw that two militiamen were banging on other doors further down.

A young officer came out of Fragonard's room and stood attentively behind the captain, who turned to Simon and said, ‘It is necessary that we all go at once to the sitting room at the head of the stairs to discuss this unfortunate occurrence.'

Gilbert looked at Simon and shrugged expressively. ‘Sorry, old boy … at the double, I'm afraid. Will you give Mrs Treasure a shout or shall I?'

Gilbert went to chivvy the parson, the two old ladies and Michael Shaw, whilst Simon called explanations through Liz's door. In a moment, she appeared elegantly dressed in a red brocade dressing gown over her décolletage. Even in that short time, she had fluffed up her hair and put on some emergency make-up.

As they began the long walk to the stair head, the vicar, the old ladies and Shaw appeared, to join in the procession that formed behind the militia lieutenant.

Michael Shaw looked an even worse mess than usual. His red hair and beard was tangled and his cheeks were grey with a hangover. He wore a shabby green dressing gown which was open to the waist, revealing a bare and hairy chest. The general appearance was that of a dissolute Robin Hood.

Several Russian guests had been rousted out of their rooms and they too joined the migration.

Simon looked over his shoulder at the silent cavalcade and was reminded all too keenly of tales of ‘a knock in the night' in the bad old Stalin days.

He slid a hand under Elizabeth's elbow. ‘Feel a bit like the aristos being carted off to the guillotine,' he whispered jocularly, hoping to raise a smile on the woman's face. To his alarm, her eyes opened wide with horror and she began to sob quietly into her handkerchief.

Terrified, he tried to undo his mistake. ‘Come on, Liz,' he pleaded, ‘Look, these coppers have to ask their questions, the same as our fellows. After all the poor chap
did
fall from his window – they'd have to make inquiries back in England, just the same. You know, “did he fall or was he pushed?” routine.'

He almost bit his tongue out as he said the words, as Elizabeth went off into worse paroxysms of silent weeping.

By the time they reached the last bend, her sobs had subsided to a snivel. ‘But I'm so worried!' she sniffed. He squeezed her arm reassuringly, but frowned to himself.
What the devil does she mean by ‘worried'
? Frightened, scared, perhaps – but ‘worried' was a funny word to use.

He had his own worries.

What the hell happened to Fragonard after I left him last night
? The evil little man seemed to be recovering all right – surely he couldn't have been so chagrined at his failure that he threw himself from the window! Ridiculous! So how did he fall?

He gave it up and concentrated on fighting off his hangover, which threatened to return now that the first shock was passing.

The procession had straggled into single file by the time they reached the lounge and Simon was reminded of a chain gang, minus the shackles, from the weary slouch and silence of the members.

The ‘lounge' was the open space at the head of the staircase where the lift debouched and where the old lady sat guarding her keys at a small desk. Unlike Western hotels, where one leaves one's room key at the reception counter, in the Metropol each floor had a grim old woman who collected and dispensed them. Simon had heard it rumoured that another of her functions was to guard the morals of the floor and see that no one smuggled stray women to their room.

Behind this old dragon's desk was an open carpeted area, with a few sofas and chairs and a large television set, though Simon had yet to see any one actually use the place.

Perhaps they keep them for murders
, he thought cynically.

‘Please, will you all sit down?' Pudovkin had a deep, mellow voice, at odds with his cadaverous appearance.

‘Do you want the rest of my party up here?' asked Gilbert, in English for the benefit of the others. Simon had carefully concealed the fact that he spoke Russian himself.

The militia officer shook his head. ‘They are the other floor, I think – we will confine ourselves to this for now. Please sit,' he added rather testily, as no one had attempted to use the seats.

One by one, they slumped down, Simon steering Elizabeth to a red plush settee which looked as if it may have belonged the last-but-one Tsar.

The Russian guests still stood and looked uncertainly at the militia. Moiseyenko spoke to them and there began a rapid exchange between all the Russians, with much gesticulating.

‘They're saying that they were all fast asleep and don't know anything about anything!' hissed Gilbert in a rapid, free translation, which Simon had already made for himself.

After this brief exchange, the native guests marched stiffly away with righteous expressions on their faces, leaving the detectives with seven Britishers. Two uniformed militiamen stood with their backs to the lift and the old woman sat rigidly at her desk, her back to the group in the lounge.

‘I regret that interruption, but it was necessary to let the citizens go back to their rooms … now!'

Pudovkin cleared his throat for action, then paused as an old-fashioned clock on the wall chimed six o'clock.

His heart sank.

This was the time that Darya and he normally got up. This morning he had been called at five because of this emergency and he had dashed off without taking a bundle of clothes that she had left for the dry-cleaner. She had spent half an hour putting them ready the previous evening and a further hour telling him what she would do to him if he forgot to take them – and he had!

Tonight would be unbearable when he got home … he devoutly wished that this case would go for at least a week, without a break, so that she might have time to simmer down.

He pulled himself together with an effort, and addressed his audience.

‘I am Detective Captain Pudovkin and this is my assistant, Lieutenant Moiseyenko,' he began solemnly. ‘I apologise for my English which may not be so good, but it will be good enough for us to understand each other, I think.'

Elizabeth began to giggle surreptitiously and Simon wondered if his diagnosis of impending hysterics was going to come true. He doubted if he was capable of slapping her face.

Alexei appeared not to have noticed and went on with his build-up.

‘You must all know by now that unfortunately one of your fellow-travellers, Monsieur Fragonard, has met with his death by dropping from his window. The distance was great …'

‘Twenty metres – more than sixty of your feet,' interposed Moiseyenko solemnly.

‘He had severe injuries, as expected,' went on Pudovkin. ‘Our medical service, which attended as soon as possible, was unable to do anything for him. He was quite dead when found on the floor.'

There was a gurgled murmur of understanding from the group.

‘So now we must find out all we can.'

He cleared his throat again.

‘I would like to hear from each of you if you heard or saw anything during the night … firstly, taking the rooms next to Fragonard. Mrs Treasure, I think you are in Room 514?'

Liz's arm jerked nervously beneath Simon's hand. He felt her start to tremble as she sat bolt upright.

‘Take it easy, sweet,' he murmured, ‘He's not going to bite you!'

Pudovkin paused to pull a wad of passports from the side pocket of his jacket. As he sorted through them to find Elizabeth's, Simon wondered how he had got hold of them so quickly, as neither the hotel bureau nor the Intourist office would be open for another couple of hours.

The detective studied the passport, but made no reference to it when he spoke. ‘Did you hear anything unusual during the night … or was there anything about the dead man last evening that was …' he struggled for a word, ‘was unique?'

Even as he said it, he winced. It was the wrong word, but he was immediately distracted by seeing Elizabeth Treasure looking fleetingly but uneasily at the man Smith.

‘Well – was there?' he barked, his eyes flickering between the two of them. Liz coloured up ‘No – no. Only last night, we were all a little confused. We had a party,' she ended lamely.

Simon breathed again. For a moment, he thought she was going to say that he had gone off to Fragonard's room almost at midnight … though she still may have let the cat out of the bag. This Russian Sherlock Holmes must have seen the guilty look she gave him.

He suddenly found that Pudovkin was speaking to him.

‘And you, Mr Smith … what about you?'

The Soviet militia captain was standing now with his hands behind his back, his head stuck out inquiringly like an old crow on a garden fence.

‘Me – no, I heard nothing. Sorry, but we were all a bit drunk last night – weren't we, Gilbert?' He grinned glassily across at the courier, who jumped into life like a puppet on a string.

‘Oh, rather … had a bit of a revel anyway, all of us. Slept like a log myself, until this morning – terrible business; don't know what I'll tell the Company!'

Pudovkin came relentlessly back to Simon.

‘What time did you go to bed?'

‘Ah, I'm not really sure – about eleven thirty, I think. Mrs Treasure was with me,' he added thoughtlessly.

Alexei's eyebrows climbed his forehead.

‘In bed?' he asked primly.

Moiseyenko looked shocked. The young communist puritan in him was offended by the readiness with which the Westerners admitted it.

Simon stuttered out his explanations. ‘No, no – in my room!'

The fact that Liz had
virtually
been in bed with him made it all the more difficult to deny. ‘I mean, she called into my room for a last drink before she went to bed –that's what I mean.'

Pudovkin breathed out heavily through his long nose. ‘And you saw and heard nothing later – nor left your room?'

Simon shook his head mutely, afraid to put his foot in it again. Pudovkin turned to Michael Shaw, who was slumped there like a great zombie. His long body was jack-knifed into an ancient armchair that might have been new when Lenin was a boy.

Shaw's face had got a little colour back, but his eyes still looked like footprints in the snow.

The detective captain shuffled the passports about until he came to one which carried a portrait of a more respectable bearded man.

‘You are Mr Michael Shaw from the Republic of Ireland?' he asked severely, but with perfect politeness.

Shaw's head rose and the red fronds around his mouth parted.

‘I am that.'

His brogue was deliberately overdone, but whether from patriotism or by way of insult, no one could tell.

‘Are you staying in Room 516?'

This rated only a tired nod.

‘The one next to the dead man's room?'

Another jerk of the head.

‘With a communicating door.'

A statement, not a question and it brought a flash of Celtic temper to Shaw's face. ‘Sure, and there's a damned great lump of furniture against it and all!'

He scowled ferociously at Pudovkin, who held up a hand ‘I was going to ask only if you heard anything in the night – a door is more transparent to sound than a wall.'

Another mistake, that ‘transparent', he thought, chiding himself.

Shaw shook his head, apparently mollified. ‘Devil a thing – I was paralytic all night.'

Alexei frowned until he worked out the big man's meaning.

‘When did you see Fragonard last?'

‘God, who knows the time in a place like this! … he went from the restaurant before me – I stayed until no one would give me any more liquor. About half past eleven or thereabouts, I guess.'

His brown eyes rolled a little, showing bloodshot whites at the corners. He scrabbled at the open neck of his dressing gown to hide his chest, which was almost as hairy as his face.

After a few words with the terrified parson and with the two old ladies who seemed half-deaf and half-daft with fright, Pudovkin had a murmured consultation with Moiseyenko, who had written down all that was said. He turned back to the group. ‘Thank you, I have no more questions for the moment, as certain investigations now have to be carried out.'