The candlelight against the dark wood gave the Skazka a genuine Russian ambience, heightened by the gypsy musicians. They ate bliny, filling each pancake themselves with caviar, and pelmeni, dumplings floating in sour cream. There was pork served two ways, in a mushroom sauce and roasted with plums, and lamb shashlik. Danilov ordered both red and white Georgian wine.
Cowley enjoyed the evening. He made everyone laugh with anecdotes of investigation mistakes that were legendary and most likely apocryphal in the FBI, which encouraged matching stories from the other two policemen: Danilov told his tales better than Kosov, who was showing signs of getting drunk. Olga’s words, when she tried to speak which wasn’t often, were slurring by now, too. Even Larissa attempted a contribution, telling of bedroom mix-ups and unusual assignations at the hotel. Cowley was conscious of her seeming to address Danilov when she told them, as if he would be more interested than the rest of them. Kosov made two more attempts to talk about the investigation, both of which were easily evaded.
It was Olga, over Armenian brandy, who eagerly suggested they all go on to a nightclub, looking expectantly at Kosov. But the man didn’t respond as she anticipated: he didn’t give any reaction at all, in fact, and she was about to repeat the idea, imagining he hadn’t heard, when Cowley said maybe another time.
Kosov insisted it was no trouble to drop the American off at his hoteclass="underline" at the Savoy Cowley invited them in for a nightcap, allowing himself a final brandy, but still didn’t take up the nightclub idea. They parted noisily with promises to get together again sometime.
In the Volga, going home, Danilov decided the evening had been saved, socially, by the Skazka. And that Kosov had been blatantly over-interested, even for a policeman, in the Mafia murders. He’d known Kosov to be dirty, he thought, calling up the new English word: but not this dirty. Which was not part of his current problem. Or was it?
‘Why didn’t you kiss Larissa goodnight?’ Olga demanded, breaking into his reflections.
‘Forgot.’ Danilov thought he’d almost gone too far in the other direction, ignoring Larissa as he had, although it was how they’d agreed to behave when they’d spoken by telephone that afternoon. She’d practically been too obvious ignoring him, as well.
‘She looked beautiful tonight, didn’t she?’
‘I didn’t notice.’ He’d have to stop lying soon.
It was not raining that night, so it was not until the following day – when it was – that he discovered the windscreen wipers on the Volga had been stolen while it was parked near the Metropole.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
The ministry summons was extremely specific, almost legally detailed. Danilov was ordered to bring with him the complete and interlocking master file on all three cases and to be accompanied by Yuri Pavin, whose assistance would have been necessary anyway because there was so much to transport. Expanded by the Washington and Geneva material referenced and indexed to the Moscow murder, the files occupied five bulging dossier boxes. A special table had to be brought to the Deputy Foreign Minister’s chamber to accommodate it all.
Everyone had assembled in advance of their arrivaclass="underline" Danilov’s impression was that a conference had been held between the two ministers and the Federal Prosecutor in advance. Chairs were set for him and Pavin at a small table, already in place, and Danilov’s further impression, from the first question, was of hostility towards them.
It came from Vasili Oskin, who rose to go to where all the dossiers lay but selected only one, the master record. ‘Who is responsible for this comprehensive file?’
‘As the officer in charge of the investigation, I am,’ accepted Danilov. It was a tribunal. But why!
‘You are aware of its full contents?’ demanded Nikolai Smolin.
‘I have read what it contains,’ said Danilov. ‘Quite obviously, with the volume there now is, I need to remind myself of individual items from the index or referencing.’
Vorobie looked at Pavin. ‘Formulated by you?’
Pavin, who had recognised an inquisition as quickly as Danilov, stumbled the start of his reply and had to begin again. At his second attempt Pavin said: ‘It’s the system I customarily use, on all serious crime investigations.’
Smolin replaced Oskin at the table during the exchange. No-one spoke while he flicked through the master dossier, and Danilov guessed some rehearsal had gone into this encounter. The Federal Prosecutor looked up and said to Pavin: ‘It is arranged chronologically in order of date and discovery?’
‘In this case – these cases – the file begins with the American murders, in dated sequence,’ agreed Pavin. ‘The Ignatov killing has a separate dossier, annotated where there are provable links with those in America: the names of known criminals in Serov’s papers is the obvious illustration. Those annotations are picked up by cross-referencing, one dossier to another, and additionally held in the full index. That way, by daily maintaining the system, it is possible to move in sequential order through each separate file it controls. The master also contains all ministry and interdepartmental communications.’
The two government officials appeared to have withdrawn, leaving the questioning to the trained lawyer. Danilov was uneasy at the prosecutorial questioning. Why? he thought again. He had the sudden fear Pavin was being edged towards a concession, but couldn’t think what there was to concede.
Smolin went briefly back to where he had first been sitting, picked up several sheets of paper, and carried them back to Danilov and Pavin. ‘These will be indexed, like everything else?’
Danilov had never seen any of them before.
The sheets were all dated on the fifteenth of the month, the day Ignatov’s body was found in the river. The first was a memorandum from Vladimir Kabalin, acknowledging his appointment as senior investigator into the murder of Ivan Ignatsevich Ignatov and suggesting to the Director that because of the man’s existing knowledge and involvement, Major Yuri Pavin be seconded as operational scene-of-crime officer at the river bank, in addition to Aleksai Raina, to organise all the necessary and essential routine. There was a reply, signed by Metkin, agreeing. A third sheet, from Kabalin to Pavin, contained detailed instructions that the entire area be sealed for scientific examination.
Danilov felt satisfaction, the first of a switchback of emotions he was to experience that day, sweep over him. He’d taken just the right precautions, without knowing why, to expose this whole charade as the evidence tampering it was. He remained utterly impassive, handing page after page to Pavin in the order in which he’d read them. Danilov knew Pavin was apprehensively respectful of authority, and would be awed in the presence of ranked officialdom, being questioned by the Federal Prosecutor; he ached for a way to let the man know there was no danger.
Pavin was red with confusion. He looked helplessly at Danilov, then back to the three officials. Stumbling again, Pavin said: ‘This can’t be. This never happened. I don’t understand…’
Much as he wanted to, Danilov decided he couldn’t intervene yet, not until he’d fully gauged the manoeuvre against them.