Russian Roulette (17 page)

This brought Simon up short. His outrage evaporated and he had to think fast. ‘I don't know … someone did jump on me in Helsinki – I didn't see them. It must have been a common thief, that's all.'

Pudovkin slid the next question in smoothly.

‘A common thief … and what did they steal from you?'

Simon's brain seized up.
He's got me cold
, he thought desperately.
If I say ‘my wallet', they can easily find that I still have it
.

‘And why did you not tell all this to the ship's officers, instead of some childish story about falling in the dock … you had nothing to hide, so you say?'

The militia officer shook his head dolefully. ‘No, Mr Smith, you were “up to something” … I think that is the expression. Within a day of this, one of your fellow travellers is found murdered. This is too much a coincidence!'

He stopped and stared at Simon expectantly, waiting for some answer. Simon thought desperately and then muttered some banal excuse about not wanting to be delayed in Helsinki by raising a fuss with the police, but he found that the other was not listening … Moiseyenko was whispering into his senior's ear.

Pudovkin nodded impatiently and waved the lieutenant away. ‘Now, we come to this morning. You deliberately tricked one of my officers who was quite justifiably watching you … on the Metro, you eluded him. Why was this?'

Simon had been waiting for this one and had his injured innocence expression ready for use ‘I'd no idea anyone was following me … I don't know how I could have eluded him, if I didn't know he was there.'

Pudovkin patiently explained the rout of Lev Pomansky at the Mayakovskaya station.

‘Oh, that … I thought I had forgotten my wallet and jumped off the train to make sure,' he said airily.

‘The wallet that
wasn't
stolen from you by the thief in Finland?' asked Alexei sarcastically.

He passed on to the next episode.

‘Now we must speak of last evening. You say in your statement that …'

They went over it all again, every movement from the time the party broke up until the next morning. At the end of every sentence, Pudovkin rubbed in the fact that Simon was Suspect Number One and did he now want to tell the truth and make a confession.

The treatment was most effective and at the end of fifteen minutes, Simon was sweating and ready to start shouting the truth just to shut the other man up. Then, for some reason, the detective stopped just in time and Simon's self-control held out, with little to spare.

Another couple of minutes would have had him pouring out his story of his visit to Fragonard's room, though even then he would have hung fire on the basic facts of the tool steel.

This deep urgent desire for self-purgation came as a shock to Simon, when later that day he went over the interview in his mind. The old police trick of endless repetition of the questions by a relay of questioners, used by every police force in the world, was a most effective means of breaking down resistance … Moiseyenko had joined in with Pudovkin in turn. Abruptly, Pudovkin stopped and stood up, his fists leaning heavily on the desk.

‘You may go for the present. I am afraid that we may need to see you before long.'

There seemed no more to be said and Simon thankfully hurried from the room. He felt later that he should have put up some sort of bluster, on the principle that attack is the best form of defence. But a shouting match with Pudovkin seemed futile – no amount of yelling to see the British Consul would have cut any ice with him. When it came to the point, Simon was glad enough to scurry out with his tail between his legs, thankful that he had not done himself irretrievable damage by some rash answers.

He went towards his room, intending to wash the perspiration from his brow before collecting Liz Treasure for lunch.

As he passed a small side corridor near his room, Michael Shaw turned out of it. It was too well-timed to be a coincidence.

‘How did it go?' asked the Irishman.

Simon rolled his eyes at the ceiling ‘Bloody awful – they must be round the twist. The senior bobby accused me point-blank of doing in old Fragonard.'

Shaw grinned at him crookedly. ‘Well,
didn't
you?'

He leaned against the wall and regarded the suspect with open amusement.

Simon's temper, rubbed raw by recent events, flared up at once.

‘What's so damn funny? I'm in a spot – a conspiracy, organised by that little bastard that's dead!'

Shaw heaved himself off the wall and grabbed Simon's arm.

‘Come up to my room – we've got some talking to do.'

Simon, feeling that he'd heard those words before in this very corridor, was half dragged along to Room 516, three doors up from his own and next door to the murder room.

Shaw slammed the door behind them, tore off his jacket and dragged the tie from his throat with a grunt of relief. Looking more his usual untidy self, he went into the bathroom and came out with a bottle of Dimple Haig and two glasses. Without a word, he splashed two liberal measures into each and thrust one into Simon's hand.

‘Now, let's get down to business.'

He swallowed half his drink, put the glass on the bedside table and hurled himself full-length onto the eiderdown.

Simon still stood in the centre of the room, looked sulky and bewildered, as Shaw hoisted his back up against the top of the bed and folded his arms behind his neck.

‘Sorry about the throat, lad, but those who play with fire are likely to get hurt.'

This was too much for Simon. He put the untasted whisky down and grabbed the rail at the bottom of the bed. ‘Now what the hell do you mean by that?' he demanded shakily.

Shaw waved his hand impatiently ‘Aw, the saints preserve us! Can't you see the nose on your own face?' His more genuine Irish accent broke through instead of his artificial brogue. ‘As that fool Fragonard told you last night, I can't understand why an old hand like Harry Kramer picked a raw amateur for a job as important as this.'

A star shell seemed to go off inside Simon's head.
God, here's another of them
, he thought desperately.

Shaw swigged the rest of his drink and stared at the younger man. His good humour had evaporated and he looked callous and impatient.

‘To save your endless, foolish questions, get this straight once and for all … ‘twas I that tried to do away with you in Helsinki; I planted that ruddy pistol on you.
And
I killed Fragonard last night – or this morning, to be more accurate.'

He suddenly uncoiled from the bed and stood towering over Simon.

‘And get this! I'm collecting that steel sample from Gustav Pabst … so if you want to keep on breathing, keep out of my way.'

Simon had been silent through all this – not because there was anything wrong with his voice, but because his mind was so overwhelmed that it had no time to spare for his vocal cords. At last, he got his brain into commission again and came up with a choice selection of swear words, which he flung at Shaw with the uttermost venom that he could muster.

The bearded ‘journalist' appeared to take no offence. ‘All right, all right, spare us the cussing, lad,' he sighed, when Simon ran out of breath and inspiration ‘Just get this clear … I heard you in the room next door last night. Heard every word, in fact, as I had me ear to the door panels there. Dam' nearly got deafened when you smacked the old man up against the doorpost, incidentally. Now, if you don't keep your nose out of my business, I'll have a sudden return of my memory and tell Comrade Pudovkin that I heard the sound of your voice and a scuffle and few other details, like you tiptoeing away down the corridor afterwards … got a darling imagination, have I! You're already in big trouble with the rozzers and that would just about nail you for good.'

Simon jumped at him and grabbed him by the shirt front, but he was not dealing with Fragonard now. With a contemptuous twitch, Shaw flung him off like a mastiff getting rid of a toy poodle. Simon staggered back and fell against the wardrobe, hitting his shoulder painfully.

‘Don't be silly, chum … I can't afford to bounce another out of the window just now – two in a day is a bit much.' Shaw calmly picked up Simon's whisky and drained it at a gulp.

‘Tell me how far you've got with this Pabst character. Fragonard spilt all the beans to me that he had from Kramer … a few little raps with me knuckles on his pressure points made him sing like a canary, but he didn't seem to have got the actual rendezvous points out of you. So save me the trouble, will you – and talk.'

Simon nursed his shoulder. ‘You can't get away with this!' He sounded like the hero of a corny novelette, he realized, but it was happening, so he had to accept it. ‘You killed Fragonard … I'll tell the militia, they'll soon check on your movements.'

He was mouthing nonsense and he dribbled to a halt. He dare not say anything to the militia – he was already in a spot; any more voluntary statements and he would be in it right up to his injured neck.

Shaw watched his mind working and grinned sardonically. ‘No, you can't, can you – so now, spill it, there's a good boy.'

Simon backed away and said, ‘To hell with you!'

Shaw hardly moved his body, but his long arm shot out and a bundle of knuckles hit Simon just above the elbow, where the radial nerve lies just under the surface. He grunted with an excruciating pain and turned white, as his fingers went dead.

Shaw pushed him down into a nearby chair.

‘Now cut it out, sonny, or I'll make you feel as if you'd spent a day inside a cement mixer! Tell me about Pabst, or I'll squeak to the coppers.'

Simon felt sick with pain – he could understand now why Fragonard talked just before Shaw killed him. He managed to speak through clenched teeth.

‘Why should they believe you? It's your word against mine.'

‘You're in the mire already, Jack – they'll believe anything against you if it helps hook you. And your girlfriend won't last long when old Hawk-eye Pudovkin gets cracking on her.'

Simon looked wildly at Shaw. ‘Leave her out of this.'

‘Be damned will I! She was in your room last night – I was peeping, I'm afraid. Not really so drunk as I try to make out, you know … it's a good act that, more pleasant than false noses and stick-on moustaches.'

He grinned and poured himself another whisky – none for Simon this time.

‘Aye, you lucky old satyr – she was in there, and I'm quite ready to say that I heard her voice in the corridor.'

‘You bastard! How do you spend your holidays … looking through bedroom keyholes.'

Shaw laughed, then punched him again on the same arm, though not so hard this time. ‘I've been keeping tabs on Fragonard since London. I knew he'd got to Kramer and had the dope on this steel stuff from him. I nearly lost him after that but found he'd joined this ship, in Copenhagen. I had to fly all the way to Stockholm to get a free berth. It wasn't until the night of that party that I tumbled that you were the chap he was following.'

‘So you tried to get me out of the way in Finland,' said Simon bitterly.

‘I slipped up there – you must tell me how you managed it sometime. I'll meet you in London if you don't land in some Russian nick … we'll have a few pints and a chat.'

‘Go to hell.'

Simon was beginning to think that he had stepped into someone's nightmare – he had met two self-confessed murderers in the space of just over twelve hours and now one of them was proposing cosy meetings with one of the intended victims.

‘If you were so clever in getting Fragonard to talk, why bother with me – you're so keen on telling me what small fry I am.'

Shaw punched his own hand, almost gaily. ‘Ha! I'm getting old or somet'in … slipped up again last night. I got half the yarn from him, when the old devil turned nasty on me and tried to pull a knife when I wasn't looking. He tried to puncture me gizzard and I had to let him have a quick one across the throat, just to quieten him, but the old goat dropped dead on me, blast him. Good job he didn't have a gun.'

‘He did – but I dropped it in his lavatory cistern.'

Shaw gave a great bellow of laughter, genuine and unrestrained.

‘Be damned you did! …
now
I can tell the militia that I heard you clanking around with the bog – they'll look inside and – wow! Your suspect rating will go up off the scale!'

Simon cursed his big mouth. His brain worked overtime while Shaw chattered on – the glimmerings of an idea flickered in his agile mind.

Shaw was still talking. ‘… so with the little feller dead, I'd lost me chance of getting these details of the contact with Pabst. I've got his address, but I'm sure that you've fixed up something already to collect the stuff from him.' He jabbed a great finger almost in Simon's eye. ‘So talk, or I'll be after having a few words with the constabulary about you!'

Simon rapidly made up his mind and took the plunge.

‘All right, you great slob … but if anything goes wrong, boy, I'll drag you right in after me.' He took a deep breath. ‘I've arranged to meet Pabst tomorrow morning in Gorky Park, just inside the main entrance. He's to carry two folded newspapers under his right arm … he should have the steel with him, so it will be easy, blast you!'

Privately, he prayed that the same reception party would be there as this morning, all ready to jump on Shaw as soon as he showed the slightest interest in the man in the blue suit.

Chapter Eleven

The taking of the fingerprints proved less terrifying than the band of suspects had expected.

Moiseyenko sent a wooden-faced militiaman to escort them to Petrovka. He spoke indifferent English, but managed to lead them out into Sverdlov Square. Like an anxious sheepdog with a reluctant flock, he herded them up Petrovka Street and ushered them into a room on the ground floor of Militia Headquarters.