The Fourth Protocol (33 page)

“How do you like driving for us?”

“Very much, sir.”

“Well, it gets you out and about, I suppose. Better than a stuffy desk job.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Been driving for my friend Colonel Philby recently, I hear.”

A slight pause. Damn, he’s been told not to mention it, thought Karpov.

“
Er
... yes, sir.”

“Used to drive himself until he had his stroke.”

“So he told me, sir.”

Better get on with it. “Whereabouts did you drive him?”

A longer pause. Karpov could see the driver’s face in the mirror. He was disturbed, in a quandary.

“Oh, just around Moscow, sir.”

“Anywhere specific around Moscow, Gregoriev?”

“No, sir. Just around.”

“Pull over, Gregoriev.”

The Chaika pulled out of the privileged center lane, through the southbound traffic, and onto a shoulder.

Karpov leaned forward. “You know who I am, Gregoriev?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And you know my rank in the KGB?”

“Yes, sir. Lieutenant general.”

“Then don’t play games with me, young man. Where, exactly, did you drive him?”

Gregoriev swallowed. Karpov could see he was wrestling with himself. The question was: Who had told him to stay silent as to where he had driven Philby? If it was Philby himself, Karpov outranked him. But if it was someone higher ... In fact, it had been Major Pavlov, and he had frightened Gregoriev badly. He was only a major, but to a Russian the people from the First Chief Directorate are an unknown quantity, whereas a major of the Kremlin Guards ... Still, a general was a general.

“Mostly to a series of conferences, Comrade General. Some at central Moscow apartments, but I never went inside, so I never saw which exact apartment he went to.”

“Some in central Moscow ... And the others?”

“Mainly—no sir, always, I think—at a dacha out at Zhukovka.”

Central Committee country, thought Karpov. Or Supreme Soviet. “Do you know whose?”

“No, sir. Honestly. He just gave me directions to it. Then I used to wait in the car.”

“Who else turned up at these conferences?”

“There was one occasion, sir, when two cars arrived together. I saw the man from the other car get out and enter the dacha. ...”

“And you recognized him?”

“Yes, sir. Before I joined the KGB motor pool, I was a driver in the Army. In 1985 I used to drive for a colonel of the GRU. We were based at Kandahar, in Afghanistan. Once this officer was in the rear seat with my colonel. It was General Marchenko.”

Well, well, well, thought Karpov, my old friend Pyotr Marchenko, specialist in destabilization. “Anyone else at these conferences?”

“Just one other car, sir. We drivers chatted a bit, what with the hours of waiting and that. But he was a surly devil. All I learned was that he drove for a member of the Academy of Sciences. Honestly, sir, that’s all I know.”

“Drive on, Gregoriev.”

Karpov leaned back and watched the passing landscape of trees. So, there were four of them, meeting to prepare something for the General Secretary. The host was a member of the Central Committee, or maybe the Supreme Soviet, and the other three were Philby, Marchenko, and an unnamed academician.

Tomorrow, Friday, the
vlasti
finished work as early as they could and went to their dachas. Karpov knew that Marchenko had a villa close to Peredelkino, not far from his own. He also knew Marchenko’s weakness, and sighed. He had better take a lot of brandy with him. It would be a heavy session.

Chief Superintendent Charlie Forbes listened carefully and quietly to Constables Craig and McBain, and now and again interjected a soft-spoken question. Forbes had no doubt they were telling the truth, but he had been on the force long enough to know the truth does not always save your neck.

It was a bad business. Technically, the Russian had been in police custody, even though under treatment at a hospital. There had been no one else on that roof but Police Constable Craig. There was no evident reason why the man should have jumped. Forbes did not even care why, assuming, like everyone else, that the man had been severely concussed and in a state of panic due to temporary hallucination. His whole attention was on the possible perspectives for the Strathclyde police.

There would be the ship to trace, the captain to interview, formal identification of the body, the Soviet consul to be informed, and of course the press, the bloody press, some elements of whom would hint darkly at their usual hobbyhorse, police brutality. The darn thing was, when they asked their pointed questions, he did not have any answers. Why should the silly man have jumped?

At half past four there was nothing more to do at the hospital. The investigative machinery would roll into action by dawn. Forbes ordered them all back to divisional headquarters. By six o’clock the two constables had finished their lengthy statements and Charlie Forbes was in his office coping with the demands of the procedural machinery. A search—probably futile—was on for the lady who had dialed 999. Statements had been taken from the two ambulance men who had answered McBain’s call via the divisional switchboard. At least there would be no doubt about the beating the Neds had given the man.

The emergency ward nurse had told her version; the harassed Dr. Mehta had made a statement; the front desk attendant had testified to seeing the bare-chested man, pursued by Craig, run through the waiting room. After that, during the chase up to the roof, no one had seen either of them.

Forbes had identified the only Soviet ship in port as the
Akademik Komarov
and dispatched a police car to ask the captain to identify the body; he had woken the Soviet consul, who would be at his office at nine—protesting, no doubt. He had alerted his own chief constable, and the procurator fiscal, whose office, in Scotland, includes the duties of coroner.

The dead man’s personal effects—the “productions”—had all been bagged and were being taken to Partick police station (the mugging had occurred in Partick) to be retained under lock and key on the direction of the procurator fiscal, who had promised to authorize the postmortem for ten that morning. Charlie Forbes stretched and called the canteen for coffee and rolls.

While Chief Superintendent Forbes at the Strathclyde HQ on Pitt Street did the paperwork, Constables Craig and McBain signed their statements at Division and repaired to their canteen for breakfast. Both were worried men, and they shared their concerns with a grizzled detective sergeant from the plainclothes branch who sat at their table. After breakfast they sought and received permission to go home to sleep.

Something they said caused the detective to go to the pay phone in the hall outside the canteen and make a call. The man he disturbed—at that moment with a faceful of shaving cream—was Detective Inspector Carmichael, who listened carefully, hung up, and finished his shaving in a pensive mood. Carmichael was from Special Branch.

At half past seven, Carmichael traced the chief inspector in the uniformed branch who would be attending the postmortem and asked if he might tag along. “Be my guest,” said the chief inspector. “City morgue at ten.”

At that same morgue, at eight o’clock, the captain of the
Akademik Komarov
,
accompanied by his inseparable political officer, stared at a videoscreen on which the battered face of deckhand Semyonov soon appeared. He nodded slowly and muttered in Russian.

“That is him,” said the political officer. “We wish to see our consul.”

“He’ll be at Pitt Street at nine o’clock,” said the uniformed sergeant who was accompanying them. Both Russians appeared shaken and subdued. It must be bad to lose a close shipmate, thought the sergeant.

At nine the Soviet consul was ushered into the Pitt Street office of Chief Superintendent Forbes. He spoke fluent English. Forbes asked him to be seated and launched into a narration of the night’s events. Before he finished, the consul was coming back at him.

“This is outrage,” the Russian began. “I must contact Soviet Embassy in London without delay. ...”

There was a knock on the door and the
Komarov’s
captain and his political officer were shown in. The uniformed sergeant was their escort, but another man was with them. He nodded to Forbes. “Morning, sir. Mind if I sit in?”

“Help yourself, Carmichael. I think it’s going to be a rough one.”

But no. The political officer had been in the room barely ten seconds before he drew the consul aside and whispered furiously in his ear. The consul made his excuses and the two men withdrew to the corridor. Three minutes later they were back. The consul was formal and correct. He would, of course, have to communicate with his embassy. He was sure the Strathclyde police would do all in their power to apprehend the hooligans. Would it be possible for the body of the seaman and all his effects to depart for Leningrad on the
Akademik Komarov
,
which was due to sail this day?

Forbes was polite but adamant. Police inquiries and efforts to arrest the muggers would continue. During that period the body would have to remain at the morgue and all the dead man’s effects would be retained under lock and key at Partick police station. The consul nodded. He, too, understood procedures. And with that, the Russians left. At ten o’clock, Carmichael entered the postmortem room, where Professor Harland was scrubbing. The chatter, as usual, was about the weather, the golf prospects, the norms of everyday life. A few feet away on a slab above the drains lay the battered and pulped body of Semyonov.

“Mind if I have a look?” asked Carmichael. The police pathologist nodded.

Carmichael spent ten minutes examining what remained of Semyonov. When he left, just as the professor was starting to cut, he went to his office at Pitt Street and made a call to Edinburgh—more precisely, to the Scottish Home and Health Department, known as the Scottish Office, at Saint Andrew’s House. There he spoke to a retired assistant commissioner who was on the staff of the Scottish Office for one reason: as liaison with
MI
5 in London.

At noon the phone rang in the office of C5(C) in Gordon. Bright took it, listened for a moment, and held it out to Preston. “It’s for you. They won’t talk to anyone else.”

“Who is it?”

“The Scottish Office, Edinburgh.”

Preston took the phone. “John Preston ... Yes, good morning to you. ...” He listened for several minutes, his brow furrowed. He noted the name
Carmichael
on a scratch pad. “Yes, I think I’d better come up. Would you tell Inspector Carmichael I’ll be on the three o’clock shuttle, and could he meet me at Glasgow Airport? Thank you.”

“Glasgow?” asked Bright. “What have they been up to?”

“Oh, some Russian seaman who took a tumble off a roof, and who may not have been all he should have been. I’ll be back tomorrow. It’s probably nothing. Still, anything to get out of the office. ...”

Glasgow Airport lies eight miles southwest of the city and is linked to it by the M8 motorway. Preston’s flight landed at just after half past four, and with only hand luggage to carry he was in the concourse ten minutes later. He went to Airport Information and they paged “Mr. Carmichael.” The detective inspector from Special Branch appeared and introduced himself. Five minutes later, they were in the inspector’s car and pulling onto the motorway leading to the darkening city.

“Let’s talk as we drive,” suggested Preston. “Start from the beginning and tell me what happened.”

Carmichael was succinct and accurate. There were a lot of gaps he could not fill, but he had had time to read the statements of the two police constables, especially that of PC Craig, so he could recount most of it. Preston heard him out in silence.

“What caused you to phone the Scottish Office and ask for someone to come up from London?” he asked at length.

“I could be wrong, but there seems to me a possibility the man was not a merchant seaman,” said Carmichael.

“Go on.”

“It was something Craig said in the canteen at Division this morning,” said Carmichael. “I wasn’t there, but the remark was overheard by
a CID
man, who called me up. What Craig said, McBain agreed with. But neither of them mentioned it in their official statements. As you know, statements are about the facts; this was the police officers’ speculation. Still, it seemed worth checking out.”

“I’m listening.”

“They said that when they found the seaman he was huddled in the fetal position, his hands clasped around the gunnysack, which was pressed into his own belly. The phrase Craig used was that ‘he seemed to be protecting it like a baby.’ ”

Preston could see the oddity. If a man is being kicked half to death, the instinct is to roll into a ball, as Semyonov had done, but to use the hands to protect the head. Why would a man take the force of the kicks on his unprotected head in order to guard a worthless canvas bag?

“Then,” resumed Carmichael, “I began to wonder about the time and place. Seamen in the port of Glasgow go to Betty’s or the Stable Bar. This man was four miles from the docks, walking up a road toward nowhere, long after closing hours, without a bar in sight. What the hell was he doing there at that hour?”

“Good question,” said Preston. “What next?”

“At ten this morning I went to the postmortem. The body was pretty badly smashed by the fall, but the front of the face was all right except for a couple of bruises. Most of the blows from the Neds were to the back of the head and the body. I’ve seen the faces of merchant navy deckhands before. They are weather-beaten, wind-burned, brown, and lined. This man had a bland, pale face—the face of a man not accustomed to life on the foredeck.

“Then, his hands. They should have been brown on the backs, callused on the palms. They were soft and white, like those of a desk worker. Lastly, the teeth. I’d expect a deckhand out of Leningrad to have basic dentistry, the fillings of amalgam and any false teeth of steel, Russian-style. This man had gold fillings and two gold caps.”

Preston nodded approvingly. Carmichael was sharp. They had arrived in the parking lot of the hotel where Carmichael had booked Preston for the night.