He’d risked insubordination, thought Danilov: could he get away with arrogance as well? ‘An essential remit of any enquiry must be the attitude of Mikhail Antipov…’ They weren’t going to cut him off: they were frowning, but in interest, not irritation any longer. ‘… You have all seen the transcripts of the interrogations of this man: entirely pointless, unproductive questioning… Why? Why has a man – a man arrested by senior Colonel Kabalin – remained contemptuous and patronising, knowing, because I told him at the first interview, that his fingerprints were on the murder weapon: knowing a conviction that carries the death penalty was inevitable? That’s inexplicable, even for a hardened criminal like Mikhail Pavlovich Antipov…’
‘… This is unfair!’ erupted Kabalin at last. ‘… I am not being given an opportunity to explain…’
Danilov could hardly believe the interruption. More quickly than anyone else, he said: ‘Explain, then!’
Kabalin was even appearing awkward. He’d half risen, but not completed the movement; now he was neither sitting nor standing but at a crouch, as if he were about to run. Danilov guessed the other man would have probably liked to do just that.
Kabalin said: ‘There is a clear inference being made, entirely unsubstantiated by any fact. I reject it!’
This time Smolin got in first. ‘What inference?’
‘That in some way Antipov learned from me the gun would never be produced.’
‘Did he?’ asked Oskin directly.
‘No!’
‘Something that may be possible to prove, either way,’ reentered Danilov, abandoning any reservation on how far he might go. ‘Antipov was due to be questioned again today, although long before now. That interview, like all the others, will be fully recorded. He would suspect something if I wasn’t the person who accompanied the American. How much would his attitude change if I told him his protectors – his protectors, not naming anyone – had failed to dispose of the gun…’
‘This is preposterous!’ exploded Metkin. ‘I am being accused -!’
‘You’ve already been accused, by me!’ Danilov shot back. To the three men sitting in judgement, he said: ‘Let me be accompanied by a ministry official, to authenticate everything that occurs: everything that will also be authenticated quite separately by the tape recording.’
‘The entire thing could be twisted!’ persisted Metkin.
‘Like other things have already been twisted,’ scored Danilov.
‘It would not be independent!’ said Kabalin.
‘Would you accept my independent integrity?’ demanded Smolin.
‘You!’ blinked Metkin.
‘If I were the official present at today’s interview? And I conducted it, and were the person to announce to the man that the gun hadn’t been disposed of?’
‘Of course,’ mumbled Metkin, with no choice.
Smolin had been identified as an honest man by Lapinsk, remembered Danilov.
‘Then it is settled,’ said Oskin.
Not yet, thought Danilov urgently. ‘There are other factors to be considered. Apart from myself and Major Pavin, only three other people were authorised to know the combination of the evidence safe. One, obviously, was the Director. The second was senior Colonel Kabalin. The third was his scene-of-crime officer, Major Aleksei Raina…’
‘This is intolerable!’ tried Metkin again. The man was extremely red-faced now, seemingly finding it difficult to remain still. Beside him Kabalin remained ashen, looking nervously from speaker to speaker.
‘It is a factor to be considered,’ judged Vorobie.
The communications register, remembered Danilov. ‘It is possible someone else might be able to help in the enquiry. There is still the matter of falsified documents.’
‘What falsified documents?’ demanded Metkin.
Uninvited, Danilov crossed to the table where the forgotten dossiers lay, allowing himself the briefest of checks before smiling up, satisfied, at the signature he wanted to find. He picked the register up and carried it to where the three men sat, putting it open at the relevant pages in front of them. Alongside, he set his nightly maintained photocopies. ‘The duplicates are the true record. The memorandum ordering Major Pavin to seal the scene of the crime, and those between the Director and Colonel Kabalin, have been added subsequently and the entire numbering sequence, referencing and indexing also changed, to cover their attempt to discredit…’
‘… Ridiculous!’ blustered Metkin, aware for the first time there was an accurate record. Groping desperately, he said: ‘Why should he have made a copy, other than to protect himself from the justifiable charge that he and his assistant failed to obey my orders!’
Danilov let the other man’s question hang in the air. ‘If I intended altering the communications register, why would I have made copies showing the message as not on file but let the originals remain? That just doesn’t make sense. Wouldn’t I have removed them and had the dossier falsified my way to erase all traces?’
‘You knew I’d have my secretarial copy!’ said Metkin, unthinking now in his panic. ‘That’s how I’ve exposed you!’
‘Then there would have been no purpose in my trying to change anything in the first place, would there?’ deflated Danilov. He was supremely sure of himself at last, confident he was beyond any further attack. He returned to the officials, ‘It’s the system that any document received and put into any record is signed for, as a receipt. You’ll see the signature on all the disputed slips is that of my secretary, Ludmilla Radsic. I would suggest her evidence, of how – and when – they came to be in the register would form an important part of whatever enquiry is set up.’
Oskin gave the verdict. ‘Pending that enquiry, supervision of the Organised Crime Bureau will be transferred to my personal directorship at the Interior Ministry.’
Metkin, thick-voiced, said: ‘What does that mean for my position?’
‘It is suspended,’ declared Oskin.
A good homicide detective with a hunch like a burr under a saddle blanket knows when the time for cosy relaxation is over. Rafferty was a very good homicide detective. And Johannsen respected his partner’s hunches.
They went through everything assembled in America and everything shipped from Moscow and Geneva, and crosschecked each other’s re-examination. When that blanked out they tried to refine the scrutiny to the stages of the investigation, working backwards instead of forwards, from the first moment of Rafferty’s intuitive feeling. Which had been directly after they’d received the shipment from the New York Task Force of the items taken from the abandoned home of Igor Rimyans.
‘Got it!’ announced Johannsen triumphantly. He held up one of the photographs taken from the Rimyans’ home, waving it like a flag, then offered it to Rafferty. ‘Look in the background, beyond the group being snapped! See the guy, almost out of the frame?’
‘What about him?’ asked Rafferty, staring down but seeing nothing of significance.
‘There he is again!’ declared Johannsen, proffering a second print. ‘Third from the left in one of the pictures the Swiss police sent us: pictures of Russian guys who’d been entertained in Geneva by our late lamented Michel Paulac!’
‘Eric, my son, I’ve said it once and I’ll say it again. One day you’re going to make a great detective. And on that day your country is going to be as proud of you as I am.’
‘And my life will be fulfilled,’ said Johannsen.
The blind man took the call, because the attempted entrapment had been his idea. He talked Metkin down, impatient with the incoherent babble. ‘Who knows about the gun?’
‘Me. Kabalin.’
‘So nothing can be proved, providing you both insist you know nothing about it.’
‘Kabalin is shaky.’
‘Tell him if he tries to do a deal – causes us any problems – we will kill him. Make sure he understands. But we’ll kill his wife and his children first. One by one. Make sure he understands we mean it. Because we do.’
‘It hasn’t gone right, has it?’ gloated Zimin. ‘In fact, it’s gone very wrong.’