The fatalistic shrug came again. “That was when the trouble started.”
“What trouble?” asked the lawyer.
“Not going to classes … the beginning of the drinking … he was in an accident, in a stolen car. He wasn’t charged with the theft because he couldn’t drive. He started to use the Russian name around that time. Insisted I call him Georgi …”
“Used a Russian name but didn’t like Russia?” queried Charlie, despite already knowing the answer: it was a logical question the eavesdroppers would expect to be asked.
“He said he didn’t want to be known as George Bendall anymore.”
“The behavior began suddenly?” pressed Anne.
“As I remember it.”
“You must have thought about it, the reason I mean?”
Vera smiled, faintly. “I did. I think in some silly way he thoughtif he misbehaved badly enough he’d get thrown out … expelled from the country.”
“Did you challenge him about it?”
“Not directly. I think I said once that it wouldn’t work, that he’d just end up with a criminal record. He said he didn’t know what I was talking about. That he didn’t care anyway.”
“Was there any more contact between him and the KGB people who came to Hutorskaya Ulitza?”
She nodded. “The same man came back. Peter didn’t go into the room with them this time. Then others came and took him to a psychiatrist and for a while he got better, although he started to spend a lot of time away … not bothering to come home, I mean …”
“Who was the psychiatrist, Vera?”
“I never knew.”
“But you knew he was seeing a psychiatrist?”
“Peter told me. He said it was best. That I’d given birth to an idiot and that it was my fault.”
“Did George continue behaving himself?”
“I don’t know. He would have been about eighteen then. He joined the army. After that we hardly saw him at all.”
Charlie went to speak but suddenly remembered he wasn’t supposed to know about the man’s military record. “How long was he in the army?”
“A long time. He didn’t contact me-it was always me, never ever Peter-for years at a time, two years was the longest. I don’t believe he wrote more than ten letters, the whole time. When he did it was to ask for money. For a long time, towards the end, I thought he was probably dead. Then there was a letter from a prison in Odessa. He said he was being kicked out of the army. One day he just turned up.”
“Was Peter still alive?”
“Yes.”
“What did he say?”
“Accepted it. He wasn’t well by then.”
“Did the KGB still come?”
“Hardly ever.”
“Did George ever meet any of the KGB people again, after coming out of the army?”
“I don’t remember.”
“What work did he do, after he came out of the army?”
“He didn’t, not for a long time.”
“How could he pay you to live at Hutorskaya Ulitza?” asked Anne.
“He didn’t.”
“He was still drinking?”
“Worse than ever, after the army. Every day. All day.”
“Did you give him the money to buy it?”
The woman shook her head, positively. “There wasn’t any. Not for drink. After Peter died, all I got was a 3,420 ruble-a-month pension.”
She could count it to the last kopek, thought Charlie, less than sixteen pounds a month. “How did he get money to drink?”
“Stealing. He used to go out to Sheremet‘yevo and steal suitcases from tourists. And the same at the railway stations, at the Kiev and Kazan departure terminals and at the central passenger bureau at Komsomol’skaya. There was always a lot of Western things at the apartment. I asked him not to because if he got caught we’d be thrown out of the apartment ….” She briefly trapped her lower lip between her teeth again. “That’ll definitely happen now, won’t it? The detective colonel said it could.”
“I don’t know,” admitted Charlie, who thought it probably would. Hurriedly he went on, “Did he stop?”
She nodded. “Just under a years ago, when he started work at the television station.”
“How did that happen?”
“I never knew how or why it happened, but George stopped stealing ever so suddenly. It was a long time before he told me he was seeing a doctor, a friend, who was helping him. I don’t remember his name but I know you’ll want to know it. I’ll try. I’ll really try.”
“What about the job?”
“He said he’d met someone who’d helped him. I thought it might be the doctor.”
Charlie felt a flare of hope. Don’t rush, he cautioned himself. “Was he still drinking heavily?”
“I don’t know about at work. Certainly at home. There were always bottles.”
“What did he earn?”
“I don’t know.”
It should be easy enough to find out from the station. “But it was certainly enough to keep bottles at home?”
“It seemed to be.”
“Who was the person he’d met who helped him get the job?”
“He never told me.”
“Do you think it could have been the person he went out to meet on Tuesdays and Thursdays: perhaps stayed with on the times he didn’t come home?” asked Anne.
“It could have been.”
“Do you think this person worked at the TV stations, too?”
“It would have made sense, wouldn’t it?”
“Was it a man? Or a woman?”
“I don’t know. He didn’t have girlfriends. It would most likely have been a man, I think.”
“What were the names of the people who came from the KGB to see Peter?”
“They didn’t have names … not names that they were introduced by. Peter never told me.”
“Not ever?” demanded Charlie, disbelievingly.
“Not ever.”
“What about Peter’s papers after he died?” said Charlie, asking the question as it came to him. “Did Peter keep a diary … a journal … letters …?”
“A diary. And other things. He was always writing.”
Charlie was aware of Anne stirring beside him. He said, “What happened to it?”
“Taken,” said Vera, shortly. “The day he died people came … they had security bureau identification. They collected up everything and said it would be returned when they’d finished with it.”
“Was it?”
“No.”
“Did you have the name of anyone to call … to ask …?”
“No.”
“Have you asked for Peter’s things back?”
“I didn’t want to upset anyone. I wouldn’t be able to get another apartment … I can’t survive without the pension …”
“Did George keep a diary … have things written down?”
“Maybe. He didn’t let me go into his room. The militia searched the apartment when they came … brought me here … I don’t know what they took … no one’s told me.”
Natalia hadn’t mentioned anything about George Bendall’s personal property taken from the apartment. Olga Melnik certainly hadn’t, either. “I’ll find out,” promised Charlie.
“Get me out of here. Please,” the old woman suddenly blurted. “I haven’t done anything wrong. I’m in a cell. There’s no toilet … nowhere to wash.”
“I will,” promised the lawyer. “You shouldn’t be kept like this.”
Charlie wished Anne hadn’t been so positive.
“Now! Can I come with you now!”
“It’ll have to be an official release. I have to arrange it,” said the lawyer.
The older woman’s face crumpled. “I don’t know what else to tell you … what else I can do. I don’t know anything that will help.”
“I will do everything I can, as quickly as I can,” said Anne.
Vera Bendall’s lips quivered and her eyes flooded. “Don’t abandon me … please don’t do that.”
“We won’t,” assured the lawyer.
Anne Abbott held back until they stepped through the prison gates. As they did she breathed out, theatrically, and said, “Jesus Christ! I don’t think I’ve ever been in such a terrifying place in my life!”
“That’s what it’s supposed to be,” said Charlie.
“You really believe there was a tape recording being made of us?”