The Veils of the Budapest Palace (Darke of Night Book 3) (29 page)

“I wondered about that. I have this feeling he’s wasting our time—probably didn’t expect us to find someone.”

“God bless Mother,” Nell murmured.

Lamont stopped outside the door she’d first seen him exiting. “I take it you’ve never sat in on a police interview before?”

Nell shook her head.

“It will all be recorded,” Lamont said briskly. “All I need you to do is translate what I say to our man and what he says back to me. Be as clear and as accurate as possible. I’ll name you and your job for the benefit of the tape before we begin.”

He laid his hand on the doorknob and paused. “For what it’s worth, he seems to me to be hiding signs of agitation, but there’s no hint of violence about him. There’ll be two police officers present at all times.”

Nell nodded gratefully. She was a writer, a translator, a desk woman. These days, at least, her criminals all came in books. Like her spies. Until tonight.
Focus, Nell.

“What’s his name?” she asked, more because she felt she should than because she really wanted to know.

“Kolnikov,” Lamont replied, extracting a pad from his pocket. “R. Kolnikov.”

She lifted her gaze to Lamont’s face. “What does the ‘R’ stand for?”

He glanced at the pad. “Razz, apparently.” He opened the door and went in.

Razz Kolnikov? Really? The bastard was guilty
and
laughing at them. It seemed the mysterious Mr. Derryn might be right.

Nell followed Sergeant Lamont inside, to where a group of people sat around a rather bashed-up table, ornamented only by a crushed packet of cigarettes. Lamont clearly felt time was of the essence, because even as he pulled a chair forward for Nell, he was speaking, combining the social politeness of introductions with naming those present for the police recording.

His police colleague, seated beside him, was a young detective constable called Livingstone. The suspect’s solicitor on the opposite side of the table was Gregor Gallini. Nell’s chair was squashed in at the end of the table, with Gallini on one side and Lamont on the other.

The suspect himself, Kolnikov, lounged next to his lawyer. Nell found herself in no hurry to face him. Instead, she concentrated on sitting down and arranging her coat and bag, giving quick smiles and nods to everyone else as they were introduced. Her first impression of the suspect, gained from half glances and glimpses from the corner of her eye, was of long legs in blue jeans, a sloppy grey sweatshirt with the sleeves pushed up to the elbow to reveal colourful tattoos among the golden hairs on his forearms. And a sort of shimmering light—burning amber and gold—like an aura.

Nell didn’t believe in auras, largely because she’d never taken to the sort of people who talked about them. Therefore, she’d always felt slightly ashamed of the fact that she occasionally imagined different coloured outlines around some people, usually from exactly this kind of half glance. When she looked properly, the “aura” had always gone. Imagination combined with nerves, of course, and tonight she had an excuse for both.

“And Nell Black, translator,” Lamont finished, “present at the request of Mr. Kolnikov.”

“What are her qualifications?” Gallini demanded at once. “She must be fluent in Zavreki.”

“I am,” Nell said mildly. She reached into her bag and brought out copies of her degrees and diplomas. Although she was aware of Kolnikov’s gaze upon her, she passed the documents to the solicitor, who pushed them nearer to his client so that they could both view them. In the belief she would now have a free, if brief moment to examine the suspect, she lifted her gaze to his face. Mistake.

It was a bit like falling out of a tree when she was a kid: a sense of dizziness, followed swiftly by a thud that sucked all the air out of her lungs. Not because he was particularly good-looking—although he was, all straight, sharp lines and shaggy blond hair—but because his hard, intense blue eyes were staring right at her, as if he could see into every corner of her existence. She prayed he couldn’t.

At least there was no “aura” now.

His lips separated, and he spoke in Zavreki. “How come?”

The words were brief, without emphasis, and yet they threw her. Perhaps it was his voice, quiet and deep as dark velvet, that made her shiver.

“How come what?” she demanded.

“How come you speak my language?”

“My mother came from Zavrekestan.”

He picked up the packet of cigarettes from the table. “And they say you can never escape,” he said flippantly.

“You’re here, aren’t you?”

“Out of the frying pan, into the fire,” he observed, placing a cigarette between his lips. His hands were large but slender, his fingers long and oddly elegant compared to the rest of his flung-together if attractive appearance. He wore no rings, no wristwatch. And the tattoos licking down his forearms to his wrists were flames. Bizarre. Though no reason to arrest someone for arson.

“I’ve told you, there’s no smoking in here, Mr. Kolnikov,” Lamont said impatiently. “Can we get on? I take it you’re happy to have Miss Black as your translator?” He fixed Nell with his gaze, and she almost jumped with the realization that her job had now begun.

Hastily, she translated Lamont’s words, and Kolnikov threw the cigarette down on the table. “Hit me.”

Nell translated that as, “He agrees.”

Both the policemen fixed their attention on Kolnikov, although it was to Nell, presumably, that he addressed his words.

“Ask him what he was doing in the burning warehouse in Abbeyhill tonight at five minutes to eleven.”

Nell translated without expression, although she felt a chill run through her bones.

Kolnikov shrugged. “If that’s when I met the police, I was running out of the warehouse before I burned to death. I only went in because it was on fire and I heard someone calling for help.”

Lamont and his sidekick both looked sceptical. “Was that not dangerously reckless? Could he not just have called the fire brigade?”

The solicitor seemed about to intervene, then waved one hand as if it wasn’t worth the fuss.

Kolnikov answered. “What can I say? I’m a good citizen. And I did.”

“Did what?” Lamont demanded.

Kolnikov’s hand closed around the cigarette. “Call the fire brigade.”

“We can check on that, you know,” Detective Constable Livingstone warned.

Kolnikov said nothing, just looked at him.

“Did you know who was in the warehouse?” Lamont asked.

When Nell translated, Kolnikov shook his head.

“For the tape, please,” Livingstone intoned.

While Nell translated, Kolnikov’s hard, impenetrable blue eyes came back into focus on her face.

“No,” he said.

Something twisted inside her. It seemed likely he was looking at her to avoid the policemen; and yet, just for a moment, she imagined his eyes weren’t impenetrable at all but in pain, almost—desperate. Then his lashes came down, thick and concealing.

Perhaps Lamont caught that instant too. Or perhaps he just scented weakness or lies. At any rate, he leaned forward to ram his point home. “Two people died in that blaze, Mr. Kolnikov. Burned to death so that their own mothers wouldn’t recognise them. Did you start the fire?”

Nell translated, trying desperately to keep any emotion from her voice. Her cold lips seemed reluctant to say the words, but at least her brain kept working.

Kolnikov’s gaze flickered to hers and then on to Lamont. “No.”

“At least one of the victims seems to’ve been Russian,” Lamont said casually. “We found the remains of a damaged passport. Is that just coincidence?”

“I suppose it must be.”

Lamont sat back. Kolnikov didn’t move, except for the slow play of his fingers on the cigarette, turning it over and over and tapping it occasionally on the table. There was nothing quick or nervous about it, and yet it looked to Nell as if his hands were shaking.

Kolnikov was a lot more bothered than he wanted anyone to think.

“So what were you doing in Abbeyhill?” Lamont asked. However he asked the questions, his attention was always on his suspect, looking, Nell was sure, for signs that Kolnikov understood before the translation, and for any tiny signals that might betray him before he was ready.

“I was on my way home,” Kolnikov answered.

“Which is where?” Livingstone asked.

“The Royal Hotel in Leith.”

Nell knew it. Despite its grandiose name, it wasn’t an impressive establishment. It catered largely for the homeless and for passing trade who wanted very cheap rooms.

“And where were you coming from?” Livingstone asked.

“Deacon Brodie’s bar,” the answer came back.

“Wasn’t Abbeyhill a bit out of your way?” Livingstone enquired.

“I got lost,” Kolnikov replied.

“Okay.” Livingstone obviously decided to let that one go. “Did you have much to drink in the bar?”

“A whisky and a pint of heavy,” Kolnikov said in heavily accented English. The funny thing was, the Scots intonation came through. Nell only just stopped herself from smiling, and from the sudden twitch of Lamont’s severe lips, she rather thought he had the same problem.

“Anyone who’d remember seeing you there?” Livingstone asked.

Kolnikov shrugged. “I spoke to a couple of people. Don’t know their names, though. I played chess with one.”

The translation of that managed to surprise the cops, but before they could ask any more, Kolnikov added, “One of the barmaids might remember me. I asked her for a drink on her next night off.”

“Did she say yes?” Livingstone asked.

Kolnikov smiled. “Actually, she did.”

“So when did you leave the bar?”

“Before eleven. Maybe half past ten.”

Lamont said abruptly, “Ask him if he knows what was in the warehouse.”

Kolnikov shook his head. “There were a lot of cardboard boxes on the stairs. Everywhere I looked.”

“Some of it was heroin. The female victim threw a bag of it through the window to attract attention.”

“Shit,” said Kolnikov. Anyone might have had that reaction. There was no way to tell if he cared any more than he would for a stranger.

“We also found guns,” Lamont went on. “Regular gangster’s paradise. We really don’t like that.”

Kolnikov let her say all of it before he answered mildly enough, “No one would.”

Lamont fired the questions quick and curt now, barely giving Nell time to translate the replies before he snapped out the next.

“Ever taken heroin, Mr. Kolnikov?”

“Once, when I was sixteen. In Zavrekestan. Never since.”

“Do you own a firearm?”

“No.”

“Have you ever?”

“No.”

“What are you doing in Scotland?”

“I’m travelling. Seeing the world.”

“Would you consent to your clothes and skin being tested for deposits?”

“No,” said Gallini, as if he’d just woken up.

“Yes,” said Kolnikov, then glanced at his solicitor and shrugged. “I don’t care. What are you looking for?” he added.

“Anything that might eliminate you from our enquiries,” Lamont said smoothly, before spoiling it by adding, “Any reason we might discover anything incriminating on you?”

“Like what?” Kolnikov asked, apparently amused.

“Petrol,” Livingstone said dryly. “Matches.”

“Is that how the fire was started?” Kolnikov enquired.

“We don’t know yet. Please answer the question.”

He did them the courtesy of appearing to think about it. “I don’t have a car here, so I haven’t been near petrol to my knowledge. Matches...” He held up the cigarette and shrugged. “And I crashed about on the stairs of the warehouse as far as the first floor before I realised it was useless.”

“We’d also like to take your fingerprints and DNA swabs,” Lamont said.

Gallini opened his mouth, presumably to object, but again his client merely shrugged and said, “Fine.”

Nell could almost have imagined he was innocent.
Aye, right, Mr. Razz Kolnikov.

“In that case, interview ended at”—he glanced at his watch—“three fifteen a.m., in order to take evidence swabs from Mr. Kolnikov.” He stood and regarded Nell. “Would you mind sticking around?”

“Sure.” Sleep was overrated. She’d already resigned herself to the fact that she wasn’t going to get any for a long time. Besides, the caffeine pills had clocked in, and she felt
almost
bright-eyed and bushy-tailed.

****

I
t was six thirty a.m. and almost light. Nell, fortunate enough to find a café open on Leith Walk to catch the shift workers and early starters, sat staring into her black coffee. She felt as if her eyes were kept open with matchsticks, and yet her brain was churning so fast she couldn’t have slept on a featherbed with the sandman in attendance and lullabies in the background.

It was years since she’d been in a police station.
That
police station. And the memories it stirred up didn’t help her to deal with the rest of tonight’s crap. She shivered, wondered if Derryn would know if she just went home. Or was someone watching her watching the street? Uncomfortable, unsafe thought.

At the police station, she’d hung around in an outer room for a while, just in case Kolnikov chose to say anything while the police took away his clothes. He didn’t. She’d only glimpsed him once through the swinging door as his clothes were returned to him. He’d been sitting in a dull white bathrobe that seemed too small, his head back against the wall, his eyes closed, his long legs spread casually wide and constantly vibrating to the tapping of his feet, which seemed to be the only part of him moving. In different surroundings, it would have been a sight worth memorizing. Even with the ends of the robe dragged together almost as far as his throat, as if he were cold, he was a sexy bastard. Nell’s body had acknowledged it, surprising her with its brief, shocking stir of interest.

She didn’t want to think about that either.

She took a sip of coffee and hugged the warmth of her cup in both hands while she gazed out the window. Rain was spitting down in a halfhearted sort of way. Apart from the passing cars, the street was almost empty. A woman hurried by with a bawling baby in a car seat.