Kings of Many Castles (19 page)
Read Kings of Many Castles Online
Authors: Brian Freemantle
“But not for me,” declared Charlie, carrying the report out into the larger room as Kayley and Olga emerged from theirs.
“I think I hear you,” welcomed Kayley.
“And I’ve heard John’s opinion,” continued Olga.
There was an inherent moment of reluctance, not actually at sharing but at the worry of not knowing how it would be interpreted and acted upon by people whose minds worked so much differently from his. This was a static evaluation of something that had to be carried on, Charlie reminded himself. Which Kayley had obviously already decided. “As the pathologist remarks, there unfortunately aren’t any photographs of Vera Bendall in the position in which she actually died. Three guards-and the prison doctor-have sworn statements that she choked herself, by twisting her bra around her throat, attaching it to the cell’s protruding locking mechanism and then dropping in the expectation of breaking her neck. Which wasn’t ever possible. We know the precise measurements of the lock, from the ground, is only a meter. Her neck didn’t break, couldn’t have broken. She was suspended-according to what the guards’ evidence suggest-with her legs and buttocks virtually against the ground, slowly to suffocate …”
“Which is what the pathologist describes,” broke in Olga, playing Devil’s Advocate.
“There are too many things that don’t click together,” came back Charlie. “Lividity is
after
death bruising, when the blood puddles at the lowest possible point in the body, where it’s no longer being pumped because the heart’s stopped. Medically—provably—Vera Bendall has blood puddling in both knees
and
both buttocks. She can’t have died in two positions. She either died on her knees. Or on her back, which accounts for the much more substantial blood collection in her buttocks …” Charlie offered the series of mortuary photographs showing the continuous, unbroken pre-death bruising around Vera Bendall’s throat. “That marking isn’t possible if she half-suspended herself, with her back against the door and her calves and buttocks against the ground. The strangulation line would have been continuous in the front but not at the back: her weight would have kept the ligature
away
from the nape of her neck, leaving it unmarked. Vera Bendall was choked to death from behind, on her knees, her neck totally encircled
from
behind until she died. The bruising to her head and shoulders came from her struggling against the knees, pressed hard up against her, of her killer like the bruising
to her fingers came from trying to prise the ligature away. She was held like that, throttled on her knees, long enough for the blood to begin to puddle in the front. Which it did even more obviously in these pictures when she was turned on to her back and the bra attached to the door lock.”
after
death bruising, when the blood puddles at the lowest possible point in the body, where it’s no longer being pumped because the heart’s stopped. Medically—provably—Vera Bendall has blood puddling in both knees
and
both buttocks. She can’t have died in two positions. She either died on her knees. Or on her back, which accounts for the much more substantial blood collection in her buttocks …” Charlie offered the series of mortuary photographs showing the continuous, unbroken pre-death bruising around Vera Bendall’s throat. “That marking isn’t possible if she half-suspended herself, with her back against the door and her calves and buttocks against the ground. The strangulation line would have been continuous in the front but not at the back: her weight would have kept the ligature
away
from the nape of her neck, leaving it unmarked. Vera Bendall was choked to death from behind, on her knees, her neck totally encircled
from
behind until she died. The bruising to her head and shoulders came from her struggling against the knees, pressed hard up against her, of her killer like the bruising
to her fingers came from trying to prise the ligature away. She was held like that, throttled on her knees, long enough for the blood to begin to puddle in the front. Which it did even more obviously in these pictures when she was turned on to her back and the bra attached to the door lock.”
Olga turned to Kayley. The American said, “I didn’t get the total neck encirclement. It makes it even stronger.”
“I want to take all the autopsy material back to England, get independent pathology opinions,” said Charlie, talking to the American. “You doing the same?”
Kayley nodded, lighting one of his aromatic cigars. “You want to tell us about England?”
Charlie wasn’t aware of any air extractors in the main room, feeling the passive fumes at the back of his throat. “Consultation, with my directorate. Bullshit bureaucracy. The usual stuff. You’re both set up here: no need. I’m not.”
There was obvious disbelief on the faces of both Olga Melnik and John Kayley. Charlie humped his shoulders, exaggeratedly. “That’s all it is. There isn’t anything more.” He was glad of the precaution of taking his packed case to Protocnyj Pereulok that morning: he had hoped to go back to Lesnaya to say goodbye again to Natalia and Sasha but this was taking longer than he expected.
The American matched Charlie’s shrug, exhaling a wobbling smoke ring at the same time. “If you say so, Charlie.”
“I say so.” Why the fuck didn’t anyone believe him when he was actually
being
honest!
being
honest!
Kayley made a flag of the transcript Charlie had just delivered. “You sure as hell got under his skin.”
“Opened some doors, maybe,” allowed Charlie. To Olga he said, “Is there anything on the Isakov death at Timiryazev?”
“Accepted—until now—as an accident,” replied the woman. “All I’ve been able to get so far is the basic militia report. It’s an ungated crossing. His car stalled, straddling the line. Hit by the Kalininin express so hard it virtually broke in half …”
“Autopsy?” interrupted Charlie.
Olga shook her head. “And of course he’s been buried. I’ll apply for his exhumation.”
“What about a military record?”
“The detailed request has gone to the Ministry of Defense.”
“And an organization … a brotherhood …?” pressed Charlie. He’d definitely run out of time to get back to Lesnaya.
“That too, as soon as we find, if we can find, whatever service Vasili Isakov was in.”
“I bumped into a lot of your guys checking vantage points for the second gunman?” Charlie told Kayley. “There were more of them than me so I left them to it.”
“Four possible high rises, the tallest the Comecon building,” recounted Kayley, wearily. “They even checked the Ukraina Hotel across the river. Between the most obvious buildings there’s a total of forty-two positions, eight more if you want to include the almost impossible hanging-out-of-the-window points. No one heard anything, saw anything, although most were looking from their windows at the presidential arrival. No shell casings found by my guys or handed in, before they asked. Two more high rises that could conceivably have been used. They’re being checked because everything’s being checked.”
It was like climbing Everest backwards, wearing skis, thought Charlie, who’d never dreamed of risking his feet in such contraptions. “I’ll only be away two days, tops. Donald Morrison’s taking over.”
“I want to see Bendall for myself,” announced Kayley. “It’s the murder of an American that’s going to be the major charge. You’ve had your consular access.”
“He’s Russia’s prisoner,” said Charlie.
“But you’re no official problem?”
Charlie supposed he should have checked legally with Anne Abbott. Richard Brooking never came into his thinking. “None at all.”
Kayley said, “Thanks for that at least.”
Charlie let it go. “Luck with the interview.” He already knew how he would pursue the next meeting with Bendall but had no intention of prompting the American. It was always possible John Kayley might nerve-touch something far more productive than what he’d so far achieved. It would be interesting—although hopefully not ultimately demoralizing-to see.
“I intended to get back, to say goodbye, but we over-ran.”
“OK.” There even seemed to be a distance in the sound of her voice on the telephone.
“I think the Bendall interview is good. It’s on file in the incident room, if you want to access it.”
“OK.”
“Any problems today?”
“No.”
“I’ll only be gone a couple of days.”
“You said.”
“Tell Sasha I love her.”
“Remember what I said about a present.”
“I love you.”
“I love you, too.”
“Keep safe.”
On their way to Sheremet’yevo in the embassy car Anne Abbott said, “I’m back to thinking there’s a dramatic defense.”
“We’re a long way from finding it.”
“You sure the accountants will stand our staying at the Dorchester?”
“By the time they get the bill we’ll have been and gone. They won’t have any alternative.”
“Do you go out of your way to upset people?”
“Do I upset you?”
“You make me laugh. And curious.”
“You ever see Liberace perform?”
Anne exploded into laughter. “I only just know who Liberace
was
! What the hell are you talking about?”
was
! What the hell are you talking about?”
“They’ve got his glass piano in the Dorchester bar. It’s pure kitsch. You’ll like it.”
Charlie answered the car phone, on the central reservation beside the driver. Morrison said, “Moscow Radio has disclosed the second gunman. There’s been an official Russian government enquiry; Brooking’s going around in circles. Olga Melnik’s been on, demanding to know if it was us. I told her we hadn’t broken the agreement.”
“Who did it?” asked Anne, when Charlie relayed the conversation.
“Something else on the long list of what we don’t know,” said Charlie.
“It worked letting the British have the second interview,” declared Zenin.
“It was a good idea,” agreed Olga.
It had been his idea for her to cook at his apartment that night and she was nervous because in this ridiculously short time it had become overwhelmingly important to go on impressing him, the unfamiliar need for which made her even more nervous. She’d chosen pasta with clams and mussels and squid—trying for the joke by insisting the Black Sea fish were a Crimean souvenir she’d collected from the hospital the previous day-and he’d seemed to think it funny as well as continuing the Italian theme with Chianti.
“The Englishman’s very good. The woman, too.”
“What did the Defense Ministry say?” asked Olga. The request for anything known about Vasili Gregorevich Isakov and brotherhoods had been made with Zenin’s superior authority to ensure a matchingly authoratitive response.
“That secret societies aren’t permitted in any of the services. I told them that wasn’t the question.”
“What about my—our—interrogating Bendall again?”
“We’ll see if giving the Americans as well as the English their turn is the good idea it’s proved to be so far. The Americans can go ahead of us; we can use whatever they get, when we go again. Waiting will also give us time to hear back from the military. That’s where the conspiracy is, what we’ve got to find.”
“What about the second gunman leak?”
“It was anonymous. A telephone call.”
“Which they reported without trying to check?”
“I’ve got people looking into it.”
He leaned across the table, touching his glass to hers. “The pasta’s wonderful. This is wonderful.”
“I’m glad,” she said, responding to both remarks.
“I haven’t asked you yet if you’re married?”
“I’m not,” she said. She looked around the apartment. “I suppose your wife could be away, although speaking as a trained investigator there isn’t any obvious evidence of anyone else living here.”
“If there was one she could be away,” Zenin agreed, smiling back. “But there isn’t.”
“I’m embarrassed now to have said that! Shit!”
“Don’t be. I’m not.”
Olga thought it couldn’t be happening so soon, so quickly.
Charlie Muffin’s tightly structured timetable—most specifically his intention to get back to Moscow in two days-began to unravel before his first appointment. That was scheduled for ten thirty. He was at Millbank before nine, to set up the various tests and analyses he wanted upon the material he’d brought with him. No longer with an office or any working facility within the building, everything had to go through Sir Rupert Dean’s personal assistant, a dedicated spinster whose christian name remained unknown and who had long ago decreed she should be universally known and addressed simply by her surname—Spence—without the courtesy of Miss. He had to negotiate his way past two junior secretaries to get into her sanctum and having done so reflected-and passingly mourned-the transition from Roedean-accented, experimentally-eager debutantes with legs that went all the way up to their shoulders to unsmiling, business-like practicality from women whose legs looked as if they’d been carved from solid oak by a man with a blunt hatchet. Spence herself needed such support for a granite body formidable enough to have single-handedly repelled a Special Forces invasion of the director-general’s office. The woman listened in intimidating silence to everything Charlie wanted-even asking to ensure he’d finishedbefore bluntly declaring it wasn’t possible in two days. He should have known there were no laboratory resources in the headquarters
building: the ballistics people worked from Woolwich Arsenal and she very much doubted psychiatrists and psychologists would drop everything to put him at the top of their lists. It took Charlie thirty wheedling minutes to persuade her personally to try to arrange the mental assessment from the tapes and their transcripts and to dispatch the ballistic and blood samples to their respective testing centres.
building: the ballistics people worked from Woolwich Arsenal and she very much doubted psychiatrists and psychologists would drop everything to put him at the top of their lists. It took Charlie thirty wheedling minutes to persuade her personally to try to arrange the mental assessment from the tapes and their transcripts and to dispatch the ballistic and blood samples to their respective testing centres.
“It’s still not possible,” she insisted.
“I’ve heard everything’s possible backed by your authority.”
“And I’ve heard bullshit and how good you are shovelling it.”
But she’d enjoyed it, Charlie decided. “I brought you a souvenir, to thank you in advance.” Charlie took the joke
maestroika
set from his briefcase doll by doll, identifying each Russian leader depicted in succeeding order of leadership. Whose face would be the next in line, he wondered, reassembling the figures one inside the other.
maestroika
set from his briefcase doll by doll, identifying each Russian leader depicted in succeeding order of leadership. Whose face would be the next in line, he wondered, reassembling the figures one inside the other.
The smile—finally—broke the professional shell in which she clearly existed within the building, illuminating a surprisingly young face. “Don’t expect two days. But I’ll try to get it done as quickly as I can.”
Still with time to spare before the meeting with Sir Rupert and his advisors, Charlie took his time shuffling along nostalgically familiar corridors to the cafeteria in which he recognized no one and where no one recognized or acknowledged him in return. The coffee was as he remembered, like a long-term alcoholic’s urine sample, and all the riverview tables were occupied. So were those in the middle section. Charlie found an empty, single-seated table near the clattering service entrance. One of its legs were uneven, so the coffee spilled the moment he put it down. Why nostalgia? he demanded. Familiarity perhaps-even to being shunted to the worst table in the room-but there shouldn’t have been the smallest iota of remembered regret. So why was there? Why had he enjoyed the innocent flirtation of being with Anne Abbott in the Liberace-pianoed Dorchester bar the previous night and the cab ride through the flower dazzling Green Park and actually looked at and liked, for the first time, the hump-shouldered statue of Churchill glowering at the parliament buildings?
Just
remembrance: not nostalgia and certainly not regret. He never thought-reminisced-of any of this
in Moscow. It was a freak of
deja vu
or something he couldn’t find a better phrase to describe. He
had
enjoyed being with Anne Abbott the previous night. Not in any silly, dangerous way: not even flirtatious. They’d just made each other laugh and in his case he’d been able to say things, make jokes, without balancing every word for hidden, misunderstood or misconstrued meaning before uttering it. Relaxed, he thought, surprised. Despite the impending encounter and whatever it was in which he was professionally involved in Moscow, for this brief returning moment he felt relaxed. At ease. Would Natalia be feeling that, with his not being in Moscow? Unburdened; briefly, gratefully, unendangered?
Just
remembrance: not nostalgia and certainly not regret. He never thought-reminisced-of any of this
in Moscow. It was a freak of
deja vu
or something he couldn’t find a better phrase to describe. He
had
enjoyed being with Anne Abbott the previous night. Not in any silly, dangerous way: not even flirtatious. They’d just made each other laugh and in his case he’d been able to say things, make jokes, without balancing every word for hidden, misunderstood or misconstrued meaning before uttering it. Relaxed, he thought, surprised. Despite the impending encounter and whatever it was in which he was professionally involved in Moscow, for this brief returning moment he felt relaxed. At ease. Would Natalia be feeling that, with his not being in Moscow? Unburdened; briefly, gratefully, unendangered?
When Charlie got back to the top, executive-level floor Spence said, “Everything’s gone off and I’ve got calls in to those who can read our minds.”
Charlie wished he had a mind reading facility. He said, “I knew you could make it work for me, Spence.”
“I haven’t, not yet. Everyone’s waiting for you in the conference room.”
It adjoined Sir Rupert Dean’s office and was necessary for a full gathering. They were assembled at a long table, with the director-general in the center, their backs to the Thames. From where Charlie was directed to sit he could see the yellow and green, antenna-haired MI6 building on the other side of the river. It reminded him to call Donald Morrison sometime that day.
It was not Charlie’s first encounter with the control group and Dean didn’t bother with reintroductions. Instead he said, “We’ve kept ahead until now. So well done, so far. But now it’s all changed. The only thing that isn’t changed is our need to stay ahead.”
“Which is why you’ve been withdrawn,” announced Jocelyn Hamilton, brusquely eager. “We need to know the extent of the conspiracy: how much more deeply we might become involved.”
His adversary, Charlie knew, from the past; there always seemed to be one. As he looked directly to the burly deputy director, Charlie caught the sharp, sideways look from Dean and thought, shot yourself in your stupid mouth, asshole. Charlie said: “I know what we need. At the moment I can’t provide it.”
“Then perhaps you need help, supervision even,” seized Hamilton, at once.
“Perhaps what we all need is to hear what Charlie’s got to tell us before we start offering suggestions,” said Patrick Pacey, irritably.
An ally, Charlie recognized. He remained unspeaking, using the silence against his attacker until Dean came in, supporting him too. “Let’s hear that, Charlie. What is there to add to what you’ve already shipped back, which we’ve all seen?”
“I’m having our own ballisic confirmation, obviously, but it’s already come from the Americans,” said Charlie. “There were definitely two gunmen and it was the second one who hit the Russian president and Ruth Anandale. I believe Vera Bendall was murdered, inside Lefortovo. I’m hoping our pathologists will agree with me on that: the Russian autopsy verdict is that the evidence is inconclusive …”
“ … Why would she have been killed?” broke in Jeremy Simpson, the group’s legal advisor. “The statements you’ve given us don’t read as if she knew anything?”
“I don’t have answers for most of the questions you’re going to ask,” admitted Charlie, reluctantly. “Maybe she did know something but didn’t realize it, had to be silenced before it emerged.”
“Maybe she
did
know, was part of the conspiracy but hadn’t expected to be put in jail. Committed suicide because she couldn’t withstand the interrogation?” said Hamilton.
did
know, was part of the conspiracy but hadn’t expected to be put in jail. Committed suicide because she couldn’t withstand the interrogation?” said Hamilton.
“Which would be the worst imaginable scenario,” unnecessarily reminded the permanently red-faced political officer. “Assassin son of a British defector is bad enough: assassin son with British defector’s wife as an accomplice is appalling.”
Charlie shook his head. “Vera Bendall was neither clever nor strong enough to have been actively involved or included. What she knew-if anything—she knew accidentally. Or was killed for an entirely different reason.”
“Prove it, any of it!” demanded the deputy director-general.
“I can’t,” said Charlie. This wasn’t how he’d expected it to be. He was appearing to have reached far too many conclusions upon far too little evidence.
“If Vera Bendall
was
murdered the conspiracy has in some way
to involve disaffected factions among highly placed Russians with access to Lefortovo,” said Sir Rupert Dean.
was
murdered the conspiracy has in some way
to involve disaffected factions among highly placed Russians with access to Lefortovo,” said Sir Rupert Dean.
“Which points to the FSB, formerly-or alias, even-the KGB, whose files have disappeared,” completed Charlie. He added, “An intelligence service, irrespective of whatever its name is now, that was in the forefront of the 1991 coup against change.”
“We’re going around and around in unresolved circles!” protested Hamilton.
“Maybe that’s the intention,” suggested Charlie. Another “maybe” he recognized, uncomfortably.
Hamilton sighed. “Off we skip down another yellow brick road! I can’t wait to hear this theory!”
In Charlie’s mind everything made sense: was supported by known, established facts. But as he paraded them-analyzed themin his mind he stumbled over too many maybes. “It’s too clumsy. George Bendall is mentally unstable, possibly alcoholic. If the intention was to kill one—possibly two-presidents, no conspiracy group would trust George Bendall to carry it out. Or only allow him just two bullets to do it. Or put him in a position where it was inevitable that he would be seized … .” Charlie paused for breath, wondering if his parting question to Bendal—
how were they going to get you away
?—had properly registered with the man. There were various expressions on the faces of the men opposite him, none which Charlie judged receptive. Pressing on determinedly, he said, “It was the second gunman who put two bullets into Lev Yudkin. And hit the American First Lady, most likely in mistake for the American president. They didn’t
need
George Bendall …”
how were they going to get you away
?—had properly registered with the man. There were various expressions on the faces of the men opposite him, none which Charlie judged receptive. Pressing on determinedly, he said, “It was the second gunman who put two bullets into Lev Yudkin. And hit the American First Lady, most likely in mistake for the American president. They didn’t
need
George Bendall …”
“Except to be caught?” queried the bald, moustached Simpson, following Charlie’s argument.
“Except to be caught,” agreed Charlie.
“Why!” demanded Hamilton. “What for?”
“I don’t know,” Charlie was forced to admit. “To create a confusion, send everyone the wrong way.”
“They’ve certainly succeeded here, if that was the intention!” jeered Hamilton.
Charlie didn’t feel relaxed anymore. He felt exposed—wallowing—and he didn’t like it.
“We’ve all read your hospital interview with the man,” said the director-general, his spectacles moving back and forth between his hands like the preparation for a conjuring trick. “Give us your analysis of that.”
“Again, I’m having it assessed by experts,” assured Charlie, grateful for the escape. “But I think Bendall fits a mold. He comes from a totally dysfunctional family, hates everything and everyone. He’d got a predilection to violence, usually under the influence of drink. The army doesn’t help him; appears—I repeat
appears
—to make it worse. But there seems to have been a group, a brotherhood to use his word, that admitted him. His first-only-acceptance. They had a song. If you’ve listened yet to the tape I sent, along with the transcript, you heard him humming it. You also heard-and readhim several times use the word ‘special.’ There were a lot of mentally questionable, often drunk, violence-inclined men in beerhalls in Munich from the 1920s onwards who had their own particular song and thought themselves part of a special, select brotherhood … .”
appears
—to make it worse. But there seems to have been a group, a brotherhood to use his word, that admitted him. His first-only-acceptance. They had a song. If you’ve listened yet to the tape I sent, along with the transcript, you heard him humming it. You also heard-and readhim several times use the word ‘special.’ There were a lot of mentally questionable, often drunk, violence-inclined men in beerhalls in Munich from the 1920s onwards who had their own particular song and thought themselves part of a special, select brotherhood … .”
“I don’t believe this …” broke in Hamilton, shaking his head in exaggerated incredulity.
Charlie wasn’t sure that he did anymore. Before he could continue, Simpson said, “Do you think that’s where the conspiracy is, among this so called brotherhood?”
“Yes. And I think I can establish it, in time,” insisted Charlie. “It’s a question I want to put to a psychiatrist or psychologist but I don’t infer that first encounter with Bendall as obstructive, a refusal to talk. He thinks he’s clever: there is often a deceptive cleverness in madness. I believe Bendall imagines he’s playing with me, being cleverer than me, but that he
wants
to tell me about whoever or whatever it is he was a part of.”
wants
to tell me about whoever or whatever it is he was a part of.”
“I’m trying to work it out,” mocked Hamilton. “Are we following the theories of Freud here? Or could it be Jung? Or there again could it be the teachings and crystal ball of Madam Maud, the clairvoyant in a gypsy tent at the bottom of a pier somewhere?”
Jocelyn Hamilton clearly wasn’t aware of the profound Russian belief in clairvoyants and superstition, Charlie decided. Ignoring the
ridicule, he said, “I’m hoping to get some sort of psychiatric or psychological report within twenty-four hours.”
ridicule, he said, “I’m hoping to get some sort of psychiatric or psychological report within twenty-four hours.”
“We accept a conspiracy,” conceded the director-general, slowly. “There’s forensic proof, at least, of that. It succeeded in removing the Russian president from the political scene, possibly forever, if it didn’t actually kill him. Hurt-in one instance killed—others. Why should a well organized group in any way involve someone as unstable as Bendall who, if you’re right, will eventually expose them? It doesn’t make sense.”
“That’s my point!” pleaded Charlie, only just avoiding the exasperation being obvious. “Not yet it doesn’t make sense, far too little does. It might when the Russians trace Bendall’s army medical records … find evidence of a special group in the units in which Bendall served. And there’s a proper investigation into the death of the NTV cameraman Vasili Isakov.”
“But then again, it might not,” sneered Hamilton.
Every other face remained blank, unconvinced, and unimpressed. Patrick Pacey, whose function as political officer was to liaise with the Home Office and Downing Street, said, “I want a positive answer. Is there any possibility of another Briton being involved in this?”
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