‘Perhaps he had better just tell me what he heard,’ I said.
There was a brief consultation among all of them, but they must have decided before I came that I would have to know.
Evgeny Sergeevich did the talking. Boris, he said, had been on a train, going to London. It was absolutely against orders. If he had been discovered, he would have been sent home immediately in disgrace. He would never be considered for the Olympic team, and he might even have faced imprisonment, as he was carrying letters and other papers to Russians who had defected to the West. The papers were not political, Evgeny said earnestly, but just personal messages and photographs from the defectors’ families still in Russia, and a few small writings for publication in literary magazines. Not State secrets, but highly illegal. There would have been much trouble for many people, not just for Boris, if he had been stopped and searched. So that when he heard someone speaking Russian on the train he had been very frightened, and his first urgent priority had been to keep out of sight himself, not to see who had been speaking. He had crept out of the carriage he was in, and walked forward as far as he could through the train. When it reached London, he left it fast, and was met by friends at the barrier.
‘I understand all that,’ I said, when Ian Young finished translating. ‘Tell them I won’t tell.’
Encouraged, Boris came to the nub.
‘There were two men,’ Ian Young relayed. ‘Because of the noise of the train, Boris could only hear one of them.’
‘Right. Go on.’
Boris spoke into a breath-held attentive silence. Ian Young listened with his former scepticism once again showing.
‘He says,’ he said, ‘that he overheard a man say “It was a perfect demonstration. You could kill half the Olympic riders the same way, if that’s what you want. But it will cost you.” Then the other man said something inaudible, and the voice Boris could hear said “I have another client”. The other man spoke, and then the man Boris could hear said, “Kramer took ninety seconds.” ’
Bloody hell, I thought. Shimmering scarlet hell.
Boris crept away at that point, Ian said. Boris was too worried about being discovered himself for the meaning of what he had heard to sink in. And in any case it was not until the next day that he learned of Kramer’s death. When he did hear, he was shattered. Before that, he had thought the ninety seconds was something to do with timing on the Event course.’
‘Ask him to repeat what he heard the man say,’ I said.
The exchanges took place.
‘Did Boris use exactly the same words as the first time?’ I said.
‘Yes, exactly.’
‘But you don’t believe him?’
‘He half heard something perfectly innocent and the rest’s imagination.’
‘But he believes it,’ I said. ‘He got angry when you argued. He certainly believes that’s what he heard.’
I thought it over, all too aware of seven pairs of eyes directed unwaveringly at my face.
‘Please ask Mr Titov,’ I said, ‘why he has persuaded Boris to tell us all this. I might guess, but I would like him to confirm it.’
Evgeny, sitting on a wooden chair in front of a bookcase, answered with responsibility visibly bowing his shoulders. Lines ridged his forehead. His eyes were sombre.
Ian said, ‘He has been very worried since Boris came home from England and told him what he had heard. There was the possibility that Boris was mistaken, and also the possibility that he was not. If he did really hear what he thought he heard, there might be another murder at the Olympics. Or more than one. As a good Russian, Evgeny was anxious that nothing should harm his country in the eyes of the world. It wouldn’t do for competitors to be murdered on Russian soil. A way had to be found of warning someone who could get an investigation made, but Evgeny knew no one in England or Germany to write to, even if you could entrust such a letter to the mail. He couldn’t explain how he had come by such knowledge, because Boris’s whole life would be spoiled, and yet he couldn’t see anyone believing the story without Boris’s own testimony, so he was up a creek without a paddle.’
‘Or words to that effect?’
‘You got it.’
‘Ask if they know anyone called Alyosha who is even remotely concerned with the Russian team, or the trials, or the Olympics, or Hans Kramer, or anything.’
There was a general unhurried discussion, and the answer was no.
‘Is Boris related to Evgeny?’ I said.
The question was asked and answered.
‘No. Boris just values Evgeny’s advice... Evgeny consulted the others.’
I looked thoughtfully at Ian. His face, as always, gave away as much as a slab of granite, and I found it disconcerting to have no clue at all to what he was thinking.
‘You yourself knew Mr Titov before this evening, didn’t you?’ I said. ‘And you’d been here before?’
‘Yes, two or three times. Olga Ivanova works in Cultural Relations, and she’s a good friend. But I have to be careful. I’m not allowed to be here.’
‘Complicated,’ I agreed.
‘Evgeny rang me this afternoon and said you were in Moscow, and would I bring you here this evening. I said I would if I could, after you’d been to the Embassy.’
The speed of communications had me gasping. ‘Just how did Evgeny know I was in Moscow?’
‘Nikolai Alexandrovich happened to tell Boris...’
‘Who?’
‘Nikolai Alexandrovich Kropotkin. The chef d’équipe. You have an appointment with him tomorrow morning.’
‘For Christ’s sake...’
‘Kropotkin told Boris, Boris told Evgeny, Evgeny rang me, and I had heard from Oliver Waterman that you would be round for a drink.’
‘So simple,’ I said, shaking my head. ‘And if Evgeny knew you, why didn’t he tell you all this weeks ago?’
Ian Young gave me a cool stare and relayed the question.
‘Evgeny says it was because Boris wouldn’t talk to me.’
‘Well, go on,’ I said, as he stopped. ‘Why did Boris decide he would talk to me?’
Ian shrugged, and asked, and translated Boris’s reply.
‘Because you are a rider. A man who knows horses. Boris trusts you because you are a comrade.’
6
The lifts at the Intourist Hotel did not stop at the lower of the two restaurant floors, which was where the English tourists ate. One could either walk up one storey from the lobby, or stop the lift at the floor above and walk down. I did that, after parking my coat in my room, and walked down the shallow treads of the broad circular staircase, where, through the handrail, I could see the faces in the dining-room before they looked up and saw me.
Natasha was on her feet, consulting her watch and looking worried. The Lancashire Wilkinsons were drinking coffee, unaffected: and if I read anxiety and anger into the fidgets of Frank Jones it was probably only because I guessed they were there.
‘Evening,’ I said, reaching the bottom. ‘Am I too late? Is there anything left?’
Natasha sped across with visible relief. ‘We thought you were lost.’
I gave her a full and ingenuous story about a friend driving me up to the University to look down on the lights of the city by night. The Wilkinsons listened with interest, and Frank with slowly evaporating tenseness, as they all, like me, had been up at the semi-official look-out spot in the afternoon on the bus tour; and I almost convinced myself. ‘Afraid we were a bit longer than I expected,’ I said apologetically.
The Wilkinsons and Frank stayed for company while I ate, and kept up a thoroughly touristy flow of chat. I looked at Frank with a great deal more interest than before, trying to see behind the mask, and failing to do so. Outwardly he was still a raw-boned twenty-eight or so with an undercombed generosity of reddish-brown curls and the pits and scars of long-term acne. His views were still diluted Marx and his manner still based on the belief in his own superiority to the bulk of mankind.