They picked up the little bunch of papers and shuffled through them, murmuring. I read the first section of the telex, which dealt exhaustively with Hans Kramer’s life history, and included far more details than I’d expected or asked for. He had won prizes on ponies from the age of three. He had been to eight different schools. He appeared to have been ill on and off during his teens and twenties, as there were several references to doctors and clinics, but he seemed to have grown out of it at about twenty-eight. His earlier interest in horses had from that time intensified, and he had begun to win horse trials at top level. For two years, until his death, he had travelled extensively on the international scene, sometimes as an individual, and sometimes as part of the West German team.
Then came a paragraph headed ‘CHARACTER ASSESSMENT’, which uninhibitedly spoke ill of the dead. ‘TOLERATED BUT NOT MUCH LIKED BY FELLOW MEMBERS OF EVENT TEAM. UNUSUAL PERSONALITY, COLD, UNABLE TO MAKE FRIENDS. ATTRACTED BY PORNOGRAPHY, HETERO AND HOMO, BUT HAD NO KNOWN SEXUAL RELATIONSHIP OF ANY LENGTH. LATENT VIOLENCE SUSPECTED, BUT BEHAVIOUR IN GENERAL SELF-CONTROLLED.’
Then a bald, brief statement. ‘BODY RETURNED TO PARENTS, STILL LIVING IN DUSSELDORF. BODY CREMATED.’
There was a good deal more to read on other subjects, but I looked up from the typed sheets to see how Stephen and Gudrun were doing.
‘What’ve you got?’ I said.
‘Four autographs of Germans. A list in Russian of brushes and things to do with looking after horses. Another list in Russian of times and places, which I should think refer to the horse trials, as they say things like “cross-country start two-forty remember weight-cloth”. Both of those must have been written by Misha, because there is also a sort of diary, in which he lists what he did for his horses, and what feed he gave them, and so on, and that’s all.’
‘What about the paper in the cough-lozenge tin?’ I said.
‘Ah. Yes. Well. To be frantically honest, we can’t be much help with that.’
‘Why not?’
‘It doesn’t make sense.’ He raised his eyebrows at me comically.
‘Or do ve have vays of sorting out gibberish?’
‘You never know.’
‘Well, right then. We are of the opinion that the letters on the paper probably say the same thing twice over, once in Russian and once in German. But they aren’t ordinary words in either language, and they’re all strung together anyway, without a break.’
‘Could you write them in English?’
‘Anything to oblige.’
He picked up the envelope which had contained the telex and wrote a long series of letters, one by one.
‘There are some letters which come near the end, which do make an actual English word...’ He finished writing, and handed me the envelope. ‘There you are. Crystal as mud.’
I read: Etorphinehydrochloride245mgaceprornazinernaleate romgchlorocreso lo 1 — dimethylsulphoxidegoantagonistnaloxone.
‘Does it mean anything?’ Stephen said. ‘A chemical formula?’
‘God knows.’ My brains felt scrambled eggs. ‘Maybe it’s what’s in these ampoules: they’re stamped with something about naloxone.’
Stephen held one of the baby phials up to the light, to read the lettering. ‘So they are. Massive chemical name for a minute little product.’ He put the phial back in the tin, and the original paper on top of it. ‘There you are, then. That’s the lot.’ He closed the tin and put it down. ‘What a dingy-looking matrochka.’ He picked up the doll. ‘Where did you get it?’
‘It contains the rest of Misha’s souvenirs.’
‘Does it? Can I look?’
He had almost as much difficulty in pulling it apart as I had had the first time, and everything scattered in a shower out of it, as before. Stephen and Gudrun crawled about on the floor, picking up the pieces.
‘Hm,’ he said, reading the veterinary labels. ‘More of the same gobbledegook. Anything of any use?’
‘Not unless you have bed bugs.’
He put everything back in the doll, and also the tin and the autographs.
‘Do you want me to take this out to Elena’s new flat some time, after she’s settled in?’ he said.
‘That would be great, if you have the time.’
‘Better to give Misha his bits back again.’
‘Yes.’
Stephen looked at me closely. ‘Gudrun and I are on our way out to supper with some friends, and I think you’d better come with us.’ I opened my mouth to say I didn’t feel like it and he gave me no chance to get the words out. ‘Gudrun, be a lamb and go and wait for us in those armchairs by the lifts, while I get our friend here into some clothes and do his buttons up.’ He waved at my non-functioning fingers. ‘Go on, Gudrun, love, we won’t be long.’
Good temperedly, she departed, long-legged and liberal.
‘Right then,’ Stephen said, as the door shut behind her. ‘How bad is your hand? Come on, do come with us. You can’t just sit there all evening looking dazed.’
I remembered dimly that I was supposed to be going to the opera. Natasha’s earnest ticket to fantasy seemed as irrelevant as dust: yet if I stayed alone in my room I should feel worse than I did already, and if I slept there would be visions of death in balaclavas... and hotel bedrooms were not in themselves fortresses.
Frank had not mentioned seeing my attackers, and very likely when he ran to the rescue they had kept out of his sight. But that didn’t mean that they hadn’t hung around for a bit... and they might know that he had fished me out.
‘Randall!’ Stephen said sharply.
‘Sorry...’ I coughed convulsively, and shivered. ‘Wouldn’t your friends mind, if I.came?’
‘Of course not.’ He slid open the wardrobe door and pulled out my spare jacket. ‘Where’s your coat... and hat?’
‘Shirt first,’ I said. ‘That checked one...’
I stood up stiffly and took off the dressing-gown. There were beginnings of bruise marks on my arms, where the riot sticks had landed, but otherwise, I was glad to see, my skin had returned from an interesting pale turquoise to its more normal faded tan. Stephen helped me speechlessly to the point where he went into the bathroom for something and came out looking incredulous.
‘All your clothes are wet!’
‘Er, yes. I got shoved in the river.’
He pointed to my hand. ‘With that sort of shove?’
‘I fear so.’
He opened and closed his mouth like a goldfish. ‘Do you realise that the temperature tonight has dropped way below zero?’
‘You don’t say.’
‘And the Moscow River will freeze to solid ice any day now?’
‘Too late.’
‘Are you delirious?’
‘Shouldn’t be surprised.’ I struggled into a couple of sweaters, and felt lousy. ‘Look,’ I said weakly, ‘I don’t think I can manage the friends... but I also don’t want to stay in this room. Would there be any chance, do you think, of me booking into a different hotel?’
‘Not the faintest. An absolute non-starter. No other hotel would be allowed to take you without a fortnight’s advance booking and a lot of paperwork, and probably not even then.’ He looked around. ‘What’s wrong with this room, though? It looks fine to me.’
I rubbed my hand over my forehead, which was sweating. The two sweaters, I thought, were aptly named.
I said, ‘Three times in two days, someone’s tried to kill me. I’m here through luck... but I’ve a feeling the luck’s running out. I just don’t want to... to stand up in the butts.’
‘Three times?’
I told him about Gorky Street. ‘All I want is a safe place to sleep.’ I pondered. ‘I think I’ll ring Ian Young... he might help.’
I dialled the number Polly Paget had given me for Ian’s flat in the Embassy grounds. The bell rang and rang there, but the Sphinx was out on the town.