Russian Roulette (20 page)

To escape the ponderous atmosphere, Simon and Liz danced quite a few times; the usual succession of waltzes and quicksteps being leavened with some jive and even a twist or two in the racier climate of the Moskva.

Their mood gradually lightened and when they sat the next one out, Shaw's brooding presence seemed less forbidding to Simon. The Irishman had never indicated by such as a flicker of an eyelid that only a few hours ago he had been threatening Simon with exposure to the militia. Simon wasn't sure whether he would have risked doing it, but he had no intention of calling the bluff, if that was what it was.

Simon was pinning his hopes on the Security police jumping Shaw when he kept the alternative rendezvous with Pabst, next morning in Gorky Park. Whether the other man would promptly drag Simon in with him was a risk he was willing to take – he prayed that the whole story of Shaw killing Fragonard would satisfy the Soviets enough for them to disregard his little part in the plot.

Suddenly, Michael Shaw stuck his hairy arm across the table.

‘What time is it, folks – I've bashed me watch against the door, it's on the blink. Falling to bits, in fact.'

Idly, Simon noticed that both hands had indeed fallen off and were lying loose inside the glass.

‘There's a darned great clock over there,' said Gilbert helpfully. His Russian girl had gone back to her party and he was with them again.

The restaurant clock said nine fifty – they had been there an hour already and Simon was beginning to feel more at ease with the world. He flagged a passing waiter down from orbit and rashly ordered another flask of vodka and a beef stroganoff.

‘My God, you'll burst, you pig – you've had one meal already!'

Liz was coming back on to form again and in spite of everything, the frustrated ‘old Adam' in him began to speculate on prospects for the night ahead.

She had lost a lot of her up-stage manner these past few days – rubbed off by the ding-dong events since Helsinki. To Simon, she became more and more attractive, especially when his libido was not crushed by the worries of the trip.

The band started again and they danced again. His stroganoff arrived in the surprisingly short time of fifteen minutes and he savoured it while Gilbert took Liz out for the next daring foxtrot.

Shaw said nothing, but eyed Simon with supercilious amusement. It was apparent that his drunken state could be switched on and off at will, irrespective of how much he'd had to drink. He seemed obsessed by the time tonight. He looked at the clock with annoying regularity and even at the ruined face of his own watch now and then.

Eventually he spoke, but it was nothing dramatic. ‘Must go to see a man about a dog!' he muttered and lurched up from the table. He made his way out, moving slowly. He wore a good suit, though it was crumpled and needed cleaning. He had succumbed to Western convention enough to wear a tie, though the loose knot was inches below his collar; as fully a third of the Russian patrons wore no tie at all,
he needn't have bothered
, thought Simon acidly.

Shaw made for the door, his big shoulders drooped. He didn't waver at all, but he gripped the backs of chairs to steady himself. Simon couldn't decide whether he really
was
drunk or playing some stunt.

If he could have seen around corners, he would have found out. As soon as Michael Shaw left the restaurant, he straightened up and moved quickly and purposefully. He had no real need to play the drunk, but it was the role he had kept up while on this job and he automatically stuck to it whilst under the public gaze.

In the deserted corridor, he hurried down stairs to the underground cloakrooms. A clock on the wall said ten twenty exactly.

He went into the basement toilets and went to the row of cubicles. A few of the doors were shut with the ‘Engaged' signs up and he tightened his lips in annoyance when he saw the last door on the left was also closed.

When he got to it, he was relieved to see that it was merely pulled shut and was not occupied. He slipped in and bolted the door. Jumping up on the seat, he fumbled his hand behind the cistern up on the wall.

For a moment, his fingers found nothing at all and he began to curse Simon Smith, whose trick with Fragonard's pistol had given him the idea for this hiding place.

Then he came across something sticking up from the gap between the tank and the tiled wall. He gripped the end of it and pulled up a leather strap, carrying a wristwatch of about the same size as his own. Looking at it with satisfaction, he saw that it also had the hands lying loose inside the glass.

He took off his own watch and dropped it into the space behind the tank, then buckled on the new one. A moment later, he was heading back to the restaurant. At the doors, he resumed his rolling slouch and went back to the table. Gilbert was again on the floor with Liz Treasure and he was left alone with Simon, who eyed him sourly.

‘Kept your part of the bargain?' muttered the younger man.

Shaw nodded calmly ‘I always do – no point in turning muck over if there's naught to be gained but a smell.'

Simon thought about this typically Irish proverb for a moment, then asked, ‘Got that straight about tomorrow morning?'

The bearded man shrugged indifferently. ‘Won't be needed now – the job is done, as a matter of fact.'

Simon felt a sudden pang of annoyance, partly because Shaw had so easily avoided the trap he had optimistically laid, but partly chagrin at the professional succeeding where an amateur had bodged it all up.

‘Had it dropped in your lap!' he said bitterly. ‘All I've got is the leftovers from the cost of the trip and a good chance of being arrested.'

Shaw looked at him contemptuously. ‘If ye're hinting at a cut of the proceeds, you can go to hell – though I'll buy you a drink the next time I see you in London – which might be in about twenty years, if the Soviet bobbies nab you!'

‘I'll shop you as well, if they do, don't worry!' snarled Simon under his breath. The end of the dance and the return of the other two put a stop to any more acrimony, especially as Shaw suddenly seemed to have tired of the Hotel Moskva.

‘I'm for bed – early mornings like today play the diwil with me constitution.' He uncoiled himself from the chair and stood up. He shot a sneer across to Liz and Simon. ‘Don't come because of me, though.'

Gilbert, having lost his female company, was ready to join him. Simon looked at Elizabeth and she returned the meaningful glance with a similar thought in her mind.

They strolled out of the hotel into the Moscow night. A solid stream of traffic met them as they tried to cross the wide expanse of Manezhnaya Square at the bottom of Gorky Street. They gave up their idea of a stroll around the block, starting back to the Metropol by the shortest route.

They reached the gloomy entrance after only one delay – Liz insisted on gazing for a couple of minutes at the illuminated red stars rotating on the tips of the Kremlin spires.

Simon urged her up the steps and through the tall glass doors, eager to take up where Fragonard had interrupted the previous evening. Then, in the centre of the foyer, was the sight least wanted to see in all the world – a pair of blue uniformed figures, the taller one waiting with hands on hips.

Pudovkin stepped forward to meet them, his eagle-like face grim.

‘I am sorry, I must ask you all to come into the bureau here – I have an unpleasant task to perform.'

Simon knew only too well what task would be.

Chapter Thirteen

‘This concerns only one of you, but I wish to display to the other tourists all the main facts so that you can be witness to what I think is called “fair play” in your idiom.'

Pudovkin stood before them in his now familiar way, back hunched and head thrust out. They had moved into the deserted Intourist office, just off the foyer – a large room hung with dozens of travel posters and airline publicity displays. Simon thought ironically that it was likely to be a long time before he needed any travel facilities out of the Soviet Union. Although his mind told him that this was ‘it' – the final denouement, the arrest and another Moscow spy trial – his heart refused to give up a tiny grain of hope that somehow the nightmare might pass.

Pudovkin did nothing to encourage this hope.

He waved them all to the easy chairs that were scattered about the room. As soon as they were uneasily settled, he took a pace forward leaving Moiseyenko hovering in the background and Lev Pomansky with his broad back to the door.

Alexei looked down at Simon.

‘Mr Smith, I regret this very much, but I have my duty to do.' He fished in his breast pocket and took out a folded document. ‘I have here an order for your detention on a charge of murder – that you killed Jules Honore Fragonard earlier today.'

Expected as they were, the actual words shocked Simon into numbness. Foolishly, all he could think of was that the British bit about ‘anything you might say will be taken down …' was apparently not the vogue in Russia.

He cleared his mind with an effort and picked up again halfway through Pudovkin's solemn speech – ‘… additional evidence was obtained this afternoon which makes further delay unjustified.'

‘Additional evidence!' –
that bastard Shaw has split on me after all
, he thought.
Right, then I'll do all I can to land him in it with me
!

He shot a furious glance at the Irishman, and was disconcerted to see him shake his head ever so slightly and make a definite shrug. Though Simon didn't trust him a fraction of an inch, he gave him the benefit of the doubt for the moment. It was a symptom of his shocked state of mind that he had not yet fully comprehended that he was being charged for a murder that the other man had committed and that everything he could do to incriminate Shaw was fair game – but the thought of simultaneously having to confess his implication in the tool steel business stayed his tongue for the moment.

Gilbert and Elizabeth were staring at him as if he had suddenly grown horns. He found his voice. ‘What additional evidence? Whatever it is, it's untrue. I didn't kill that man and it is bound to be proved so eventually.'

Pudovkin stepped back and sat on the arm of a chair, so that he still had the psychological advantage of being above the accused man.

‘You are entitled to know … you will have the benefit of a Soviet lawyer to assist you with your defence and these matters of evidence will be thoroughly gone into before the trial, if the Public Prosecutor decides to press the case against you – which, I must warn you, is almost inevitable.'

Pudovkin's English, rusty for some years, had improved enormously with the use it had had over the past day or so, but he still took a long time to come to the point.

‘The new evidence is scientific – the All-Union Institute for Research in Forensic Medicine has produced definite proof that you were in close contact with the dead man. Fibres from the suit you were wearing last night were found on the front of his dressing gown. There is no other suit like that in the Soviet Union, Mr Smith.'

There was a pregnant silence, while everyone stared at the suit he now wore as if expecting it to burst into flames with the enormity of Pudovkin's disclosure.

Elizabeth's knuckles came up to her mouth, like a shot from the old silent movies. ‘Oh, Simon, they must know,' she breathed.

Simon wasn't sure what she was talking about, but Pudovkin was on to her like a terrier pouncing on a rat.

‘What was that, Mrs Treasure … I think you have not told us the whole truth about last night – please do so now, for your sake and Mr Smith's.'

She stared back at him wide-eyed, her mouth hidden, then shook her head.

Simon sighed heavily ‘Go on, Liz – tell them. This fibre business can't be dodged, so they know I was in there – doesn't alter the fact that I didn't kill him.'

He stressed the ‘I' and threw an indecisive glance at Michael Shaw.

Pudovkin's eyes switched back and forth between them like a spectator at Wimbledon. ‘Well, please?' he snapped.

Liz Treasure looked round-eyed at Simon and he nodded curtly. She swallowed and began to whisper her story.

‘Speak louder, please, this will have to be written down later on, but I want to hear it all now,' commanded the detective captain.

Obediently, she raised her voice to a barely audible level.

‘Fragonard –– he came to Simon's … Mr Smith's room after we left the restaurant.'

‘You were there?'

‘Yes.'

‘At what time?'

‘Eleven fifteen – eleven thirty. Something like that.' Her voice dropped again and Pudovkin made an impatient pantomime of cupping a hand to his ear.

‘As early as that? Are you sure?'

She nodded.

‘And how long did you stay there – or how long did Smith stay there?'

‘Only a few minutes. I told you, Fragonard came and took him away to his room.'

Pudovkin considered this. He looked back at Moiseyenko and spoke rapidly in Russian. ‘Couldn't have happened then – hours too soon.'

The lieutenant nodded. ‘But the black eye and injured head – that fits.'

Pudovkin turned back to Elizabeth. ‘This is the truth now?' he demanded.

‘Of course.' Even through her nervousness, she sounded offended.

‘And Smith did not come back to you later.'

She coloured up. ‘Of course not! Look, I've told you all I know.'

He grunted. ‘I should ask you why you did not tell us before, but it seems obvious.' His bright eyes swivelled to Simon.

‘Now, you heard that. You are not going to deny it, as you gave Mrs Treasure permission to speak. You denied it earlier today – another fact to add to your list of perjuries. Now, what is your version of the affair, faced with these facts, eh?'

He managed to be direct without blustering, and triumphant without sneering.