Russian Roulette (9 page)

After a moment, the captain dropped the receiver into its cradle with a final grunt, and stretched his long legs under the table.

‘Time to go home, lad.'

‘That was the Metropol, I take it?'

‘Yes, Yelena Voronina – a good girl, that. She hasn't had a very exciting time today, but monitoring the hotel phones is a change from spotting pickpockets in the GUM stores.'

Vasily's attractive face split into a grin. ‘She's a girl all right … if I wasn't a confirmed bachelor and she wasn't married, I might get ideas about Woman Officer Voronina!'

Alexei grunted again, his mind suddenly full of Darya's scolding.

‘Leave them all alone, son – you can get all you want without actually marrying them.'

His voice was bitter and the young lieutenant was wise enough to say nothing for the moment.

‘So what's the score?' he asked after a long silence, ‘Do we just go home – what did she have to say?'

Alexei rocked his chair back against his filing cabinets. ‘They're all there, having a good time. Some are just off to bed. Nothing to report, except one curious thing … our man, this Simon Smith, was seen coming back into the Metropol at about six o'clock, though no one had seen him go out! Nothing else suspicious, but we haven't any idea where he went.'

Moiseyenko raised his eyebrows. ‘But we had a chap sitting in the foyer from the time they arrived from the airport – didn't he spot him going out?'

‘No – Yelena says that he swears blind that Smith didn't pass him – and he had him pointed out at lunch, so he could recognise him.'

‘Who was it?'

‘Lev Pomansky – your old pal.'

Moiseyenko snorted derisively. ‘That old clodhopper! He wouldn't notice a suspect if they were to tread on his feet as they left!'

Alexei smiled tolerantly. The ambitious, impatient Moiseyenko always took the chance to needle old Pomansky, who made up for his admitted lack of brilliance by good humour and dogged devotion.

‘So now we just go home, none the wiser as to what it's all about?'

Pudovkin nodded his grey cropped head. ‘Carry on all night with the surveillance and the telephone watch – Yelena finishes at midnight … I've left another man to relieve Pomansky at ten. If there are any calls from Smith's room extension, the night switchboard operator has orders to call our man in to listen to them at once.'

‘I hope he understands English,' said Vasily quickly.

Pudovkin glowered at him. ‘Look, sonny, I was at this game for years before your curly little head ever appeared in the nursery, so don't try to teach me now, eh?'

Vasily grinned back impudently. ‘I'll catch you out one day, Alexei Alexandrovich!'

Pudovkin stared at his protégé, sensing his impatience with old frumps like himself and Pomansky, who had never got above lieutenant in twenty-four years' service.

He got up suddenly … he wasn't going to get senile, by damn he wasn't! Not to please Moiseyenko or anyone else. He still had eight years before he need retire and he was going to make the most of them – starting now!

‘Let's have a last walk around there before we go home – we can get the Metro from Sverdlov Square.'

They walked in silence down Petrovka Street, now quiet except for the occasional car or taxi. The homeward surge from cinema and theatre was over; they started and finished earlier than their Western counterparts. As they passed the great bulk of the Bolshoi Theatre, the imposing portico was shuttered and silent beneath the prancing horse statues that stood above them, clearly bathed in the yellow light that still came from the western horizon.

Sverdlov Square was still busy and they waited for the traffic lights before crossing the wide street to the Metropol.

‘Can't imagine living anywhere but Moscow, can you?' said Moiseyenko, intuitively tuning himself to the old man's thoughts and nostalgic mood.

Pudovkin sighed, but it was contentment, for once. Here he was
really
home, amongst the streets and pavements of Moscow – far more so than up in his office or home at the apartment, where Darya dominated every tense moment.

‘I did seven years on the beat in Central Division,' he said, as they crossed on the green light. ‘Every corner, every alley almost, has a story I could tell – nowhere like old Moskva!'

Like half a million other city policemen the world over, each thought that their own ‘manor' was unique – their proprietary patch, loved and sometimes hated for the evils it contained or the drudgery it provided.

They strolled under the dark window-studded precipice that was the front of the hotel and reached the rather insignificant main entrance. A relic from long before the Revolution, the Metropol was far inferior to the ‘wedding cake' showpieces put up by Stalin, like the Peking or the Ukraina, but inside it still had a charm of its own.

They came through the tall glass doors into the foyer. The newspaper and picture postcard stalls were closed and the Intourist bureau was in darkness, but a few people still sat around under the old chandeliers. As they entered, a group of men came down the steps from the restaurant carrying violin cases: the orchestra finished well before midnight, Pudovkin remembered.

He looked around and saw a burly figure seated in a corner. He wore a plastic mackintosh and was unsuccessfully trying to hide the broad red stripe of his militia trousers beneath a coffee table. Alexei sighed and beckoned him over.

‘Why don't you stick your whistle in your mouth and hold up a placard saying “Militia”?' snapped the captain, sarcastically. ‘You look about as inconspicuous as a firing squad over there.'

‘Probably doing what that fool Pomansky told him,' cut in Moiseyenko nastily.

The militiaman, young and untried, shuffled his feet awkwardly and Pudovkin, recollecting his own shortcomings when a recruit, softened his voice.

‘Get over there behind the reception desk – take that coat off and scrounge a porter's jacket. Your pants won't be seen behind the counter.'

The solitary woman behind the desk lifted the flap for them, then went incuriously back to her book – disinterest in law enforcement was built-in to every Russian above middle age.

‘Nothing happened since you've been on?' Pudovkin asked the militiaman.

The young patrolman shook his head; he had been taken off his night beat for this and was mystified and uneasy. ‘The man that Pomansky pointed out to me went upstairs with an Englishwoman about eleven – they'd been drinking a bit.'

‘No sign of him since?'

‘Not a thing.'

‘Any phone calls?' cut in Vasily, determined to flash his rank.

‘No – not all day, so Woman Officer Voronina said – not since the listening watch was set up, anyway.'

Pudovkin nodded. As soon as they had left the airport that morning, they had come to see the manager of the Metropol to arrange for round-the-clock observation of Simon Smith.

A militia engineer had come to fix a special circuit from the big telephone switchboard, which could tap any of the room phones of the Trans-Europa party and make a permanent record on a tape recorder. The apparatus was installed in a corner of the exchange room behind the reception desk. The manager seemed most unhappy at the prospect – his uneasiness, unknown to the detectives, was due to the fact that a similar request, or rather command, had been made some hours earlier and, in fact, another listening team was already installed in the basement. The operators had offered the manager an unpleasant fate if he revealed their presence to anyone,
including
the Moscow Militia.

Elizabeth Treasure couldn't have been as tipsy as Simon had thought. Immediately after the knock came on the door, she sat bolt upright on the bed, said an extremely rude word and hurriedly began to do up the top buttons of her dress.

Simon's feverish mood deflated as rapidly as a punctured tyre. He cursed and pushed himself up on one hand on the side of the bed, glowering at the door as if daring it to make more noise. It dared. A rapid urgent tattoo echoed through the high-ceilinged room.

‘Ignore it and they'll go away,' he hissed to Liz, though he knew it was now a waste of time to try to salvage the operation – the interruption had broken the thread of passion and their risen sap was falling fast. Her lipstick and her hair were mussed, even one false eyelash hung awry. The magic of the moment was killed stone-dead.

‘You'll have to answer it,' she said petulantly, as a third rapping clattered on the panels.

Spitting tin-tacks, Simon climbed out of bed and ran hasty fingers through his tumbled hair. He feebly tried to straighten the scarf around his neck and smooth down his crumpled suit. Forcing his feet into his shoes, he stumbled to the door.

‘What is it – who's there?'

‘Please open – it is I, Fragonard.'

With a groan, followed by a sudden mental flash of apprehension, Simon put his hand on the knob, then looked over his shoulder. From the door, the edge of the bathroom cut off all but the foot of the bed. He opened it, to be confronted by the very sober and unusually business-like figure of Monsieur Fragonard. The Swiss seemed to have lost all his benign rotundity, and to the still bemused Simon, he looked somehow menacing in spite of his small size and ridiculous goatee.

‘What is it – it's very late?' He felt in his bones that this was no social call.

‘I have a matter of the utmost importance to discuss with you, Mr Smith – may I enter?' he said pedantically.

‘It's very inconvenient at the moment,' replied Simon. As soon as the words were out of his mouth, he knew he had been tricked. Fragonard had spoken in Russian and he had automatically answered in the same language. There was a gleam of triumph in the other man's eyes and he hazily realized that he had been outmanoeuvred in some way. Fragonard peered beneath the arm that Simon still had on the door. Though he could see nothing, there was a sudden distinct creaking of bed springs and a muttered ‘Damn' as Elizabeth dropped her compact. The visitor gave a quick man-of-the-world nod of understanding.

‘I apologise for my intrusion – but the matter
is
urgent. Could you come to my room for a few moments?'

There was a sudden cold spot in the middle of Simon's chest. He tried to bluff it out.

‘Look here, it's getting on for midnight – can't it wait until morning?'

Fragonard smiled icily. His mouth moved in a brief travesty of humour; he was a different man from an hour ago. ‘I think not – it should have been said before.' A pause – they were speaking English again now – then the shot right between Simon's eyes. ‘I think Mr Kramer would have understood.'

Simon felt as if a handful of ice cubes had been stuffed down his neck. He stood transfixed, savouring the horrible flavour of the past tense that Fragonard had used over Kramer.

Then he turned, almost shut the door in the other man's face and walked back into the bedroom. As he opened his mouth to speak, Liz beat him to it. ‘Don't worry about me, I'm off! One reputation is enough to lose in a night. Caught red-handed – almost,' she added with a touch of regret.

Simon murmured something vague about seeing her later, then walked out to Fragonard.

Without a word, the little man marched in front of his own room, Number 515, two doors further up the corridor.

Inside, it was identical with Simon's, except that it was the other way around – the bathroom was on the left as one went in, instead of on the right.

Fragonard waved him to a chair, but Simon stood obstinately in the middle of the carpet.

‘What is all this?' he demanded.

Fragonard took off his jacket and hung it carefully in the wardrobe before answering. He put on a woollen dressing gown of an unlikely tartan pattern over his trousers and shirt, tying up the cord slowly.

‘I have been all over this room for listening devices – there is nothing, and I am well-versed in these matters.' He waved a hand around the furnishings ‘So we may speak freely – only the telephone is dangerous.'

Simon carried on lamely with his innocent act. ‘What the devil are you driving at?'

‘Let us stop this silly pretence, Mr Smith.' Fragonard sat astride a hard chair near the desk, leaning his arms on the back of it. ‘You are young, inexperienced and foolish. Why on earth an old hand like Kramer picked an amateur for an important job like this, I cannot understand – perhaps it
was
time he left the business.'

His voice was insulting in its tone and matched his pale eyes, which sat in his face like polished marbles in a pink blancmange.

Simon said nothing – he felt cold, frightened and utterly disillusioned.

‘To save your breath in any further denials, I will tell you that you were to contact Gustav Pabst, who lives in Borovitskaya Avenue 89, and his telephone number is 39-24-59.'

Simon stared at Jules Honore Fragonard and swallowed. He had nothing to say.

The fat man rocked gently to and fro on his chair and gave a smile that almost had some of his old humour in it. He seemed to be enjoying himself.

‘To complete the picture, you have been paid a thousand pounds and were to have got another two on delivery of the steel in London.'

‘What d'you mean –
were
to have got?' snapped Simon defiantly.

The mention of his money had snapped him out of his paralysis. ‘Have you been sent to replace Kramer?'

Fragonard's face darkened as if a shutter had fallen over it.

‘You bloody young fool – stupid as well as incompetent.'

Anger began to rise, deep in Simon's soul, but nothing showed yet.

‘How do you know all these details then?' he grated.

Fragonard looked at him with contempt ‘The same way as you – from Kramer, of course – you idiot! … he told me just before he died.'

Simon digested this and reached a horrifying conclusion. ‘You … you killed him!'-His smouldering wrath caught alight, but he kept it screwed down. He had never been closeted with a murderer before.