Mazurka Page 5

  So Greshko used the telephone freely, though not without some caution. He might have a lock on Martynov, but such locks could stand only so much pressure. His callers, on the other hand, who knew nothing of Martynov’s editorial wizardry, were always wary. A retired admiral in Minsk, a former UN ambassador in Kharkov, a Party boss ingloriously ousted in Perm, a retired Minister of Foreign Affairs who called from his dacha in Stavropol, a former Deputy of the Supreme Soviet from Moldavia, and many others – Greshko’s callers were men who had previously been in power and who were now living reclusive lives filled with bitterness and a desperate yearning for what they had lost. But there were other supporters too, the kind who wished to remain anonymous because they were men who still had prominent positions they wanted to keep. A Deputy Chairman on the Council of Ministers, a dozen or so members of the All-Russian Congress of Soviets, a Vice President of the Supreme Soviet, several KGB rezidents overseas, and a variety of personnel in five different Directorates who owed their promotions to Greshko’s patronage in the past.

  These men did not risk telephone calls. They smuggled notes to Greshko, messages brought by visitors, terse words of support, commitments, promises for the future, loosely-worded statements that, read carefully, left no doubt about their feelings concerning Birthmark Billy and his gang. It was a subterranean network, an amorphous one in need of strong organisation, but nevertheless huge, and what gave it strength was its resistance to change, its longing for the way things had been before. It was growing daily, drawing recruits from the ranks of the dissatisfied, or from those whose power-bases had been eroded or whose privileges had been removed. It was growing quietly and in secret, pulling in politicans, army officers, bureaucrats, ordinary workers, and it would continue to do so, just as long as things continued their decline inside Russia.

  Greshko suddenly perceived the vastness of the Soviet Union, the great plains, the mountain ranges, the lakes and rivers, the taiga, in a flash of illumination and love. What was that line the Americans used in one of their songs? From sea to shining sea …

  They were such apt songwriters, the Americans.

  3

  London

  Martin Burr, the Commissioner of Scotland Yard, had spent several years of his life in the Royal Navy and had lost his right eye during a vicious skirmish with a Nazi U-boat at Scapa Flow in 1943. He wore a black eyepatch which gave him a jaunty, seasoned appearance. The one good eye, green and bloodshot, surveyed the world with weary intelligence.

  Pagan respected the Commissioner. At least he wasn’t a politician. He was first and foremost a policeman and loyal to those he commanded. And if sometimes he was imperiously paternal, then that was almost forgivable in view of his enormous responsibility, which was to keep the peace among the thousands of men – some of them highly-strung – whose careers and destinies he controlled.

  Now, as he hobbled around his large office with his walnut cane supporting his bulk, he kept glancing sideways at Pagan, and there was just a hint of explosiveness in the good eye. Pagan, who had returned from Edinburgh by plane only a few short hours ago, still wore the suit that had been made grubby during his scuffle with Romanenko’s killer.

  “There will be some form of protest,” said the Commissioner. “No doubt there’s some damned First Secretary from the Russian Embassy already brow-beating the Foreign Minister. They’ll bitch every chance they get, Frank. Bloody Bolsheviks.”

  Bolsheviks, Pagan thought. That was a quaint one. He noticed that the Commissioner’s office was without windows. The light in this room was always artificial, issuing from recessed tubes of fluorescence that made objects seem ghostly.

  The Commissioner sat down and looked gloomy. He rapped the carpet with his cane and for a second he reminded Frank Pagan of an English country squire. It was deceptive. There was nothing sleepily bucolic in Martin Burr’s character. And his public-school speech patterns concealed a sharp brain and a streak of ruthless determination. “Let’s see what we’ve got here, Frank, before I come up with some bland yarn to feed to the wolfhounds of Fleet Street.”

  Pagan longed for a window, a view, a sight of the city. This office oppressed him, despite the collection of sailing ships in wine-bottles and the small models of British destroyers that littered a shelf, the only items of a personal nature in the whole place.

  “Romanenko gets himself shot. And I’m not blaming you because a man can’t have eyes in the back of his head, after all. But a lot of people, and I include the press as well as the Russians, are going to think us incompetent idiots. Be warned, laddie – some people are going to say you might have been more vigilant.” The Commissioner looked at Pagan and shrugged. “Some people are already saying it, Frank. When the Yard isn’t solving crimes, it’s doing the thing it does best. I’m talking about gossip. I’m telling you I sit atop a pyramid of bitchery like some bloody pharaoh who’s got nothing better to do than listen to the whining of his courtiers and the moaning of his soothsayers.”

  The Commissioner smiled and Pagan wondered if there was some sympathy to be detected in the expression. Sometimes, when he didn’t want you to observe his true expression, the Commissioner had the habit of turning his face to one side so that only the inscrutable eyepatch was visible, which gave him the crafty demeanour of a pirate who possesses one half of the map to the secret place where the doubloons are buried.

  “Now the briefcase, Frank. According to the wallahs along Whitehall, it’s theoretically the property of the Soviet Union because Romanenko was a representative of that country. Therefore it has to be returned. However, I’m not in any great hurry to oblige. One doesn’t want to be scurrying around doing the Russians favours, does one?”

  Pagan stared at the briefcase, which was propped against the wall. Alongside the case, there lay the contents of Jacob Kiviranna’s backpack and the weapon, the Bersa, that had been used to kill Romanenko. It was a sorry little collection of items and Pagan had some difficulty in associating these things with the violence that had happened only a few short hours ago in Edinburgh. There was a harsh dreamlike quality to the experience now, and yet he could still hear the sound of the gun being fired as if it were trapped inside the echo-chamber of his skull.

  “But first,” the Commissioner said, “before you talk to this fellow Kiviranna, let’s examine his cargo.” He hobbled toward the backpack, staring at a couple of shirts, a pair of jeans, socks, underwear, a guidebook to Edinburgh, a rail ticket, two hundred and seven dollars, a prescription bottle that contained several capsules of Seconal, and Kiviranna’s American passport.

  Pagan picked up the document and stared at the photograph. It showed a man with a rather sulky expression, a petulant set to the lips, hair drawn back tightly against the sides of the head. The ponytail couldn’t be seen because of the direct angle of the shot.

  “He entered London at Heathrow three days ago. It’s the only stamp.” Pagan flipped through the blank pages in the manner of a man scanning a murder mystery to reach the denouement without having to wade through the locked rooms and the poisoned sherry and all the other red herrings. “And somewhere along the way he acquired the Bersa.”

  The Commissioner said, “And since it’s damned near impossible to smuggle a weapon into any country these days, it stands to reason he had an accomplice who provided him with the weapon. So what are we dealing with, Frank? And who the hell is Jacob Kiviranna anyway? Is he part of some bloody mad right-wing cult? And did he really expect to shoot our Soviet friend in broad daylight and make an escape? These are questions we need to have answered, Frank. And I’m tossing it all, lock stock and bloody barrel, into your court.”

  Where else could it be tossed? Pagan wondered.

  The Commissioner continued. “Besides, what was so important about Romanenko that he deserved to be shot? As I understand it, he was nothing more than the First Secretary of the Communist Party in some Baltic Soviet Republic, which is not exactly a place where hot-shot Party comrades make a name for themselves.
And all he came here for was to discuss some humdrum business proposition pertaining to computers, for heaven’s sake. It isn’t quite the kind of thing that marks a man out for assassination.”

  Frank Pagan replaced the passport alongside Kiviranna’s other possessions. It was Romanenko’s briefcase that absorbed his attention now. He wanted to open it, but he realised he was going to have to wait for the Commissioner to give him permission. The Commissioner seemed to be savouring the closed briefcase, wandering around it, and once actually prodding it with his walnut stick.

  “I wonder if there’s anything in this case that might suggest a reason why Romanenko was shot,” Burr said.

  “I’ve been wondering myself.”

  Burr paused a second, then said, “Do the honours, Frank.”

  Pagan picked up the case, which was of good brown leather. It was locked, but he easily forced it open with the use of the Commissioner’s sharp brass letter-knife. He dumped the contents on the desk. Papers, files, documents in Russian, a schematic diagram of a computer which looked like a maze in a child’s book of fun. There was a packet of Player’s cigarettes, a disposable razor, a hairbrush, and a shirt, purchased in the Burlington Arcade in London, that was still enclosed in its original cellophane wrapping. There was also a sealed envelope with no address on it.

  The Commissioner sifted through the papers. “It’s a pathetic assortment, Frank. Apart from what looks to me like business documents, it’s just the kind of stuff a man might carry if he plans a quick overnight stay in another city.”

  Pagan spread the papers on the desk. He knew no Russian at all and he felt, as he always did when he encountered a language with which he was unfamiliar, that he’d been stripped of a vital cognitive sense. He might have been staring at a complicated code. He was also touched a little by sadness, because he’d liked Romanenko. Pagan had always had an affinity for people who courted excess.

  The Commissioner, whose own Russian was limited to the word nyet, looked perplexed. “We’re going to have to call in one of the smart boys from the Foreign Office. Otherwise, this is gobbledygook. And I’d personally like it translated before we turn it over to the Soviets.” The Commissioner sniffed. “I’d like to know what’s inside that sealed envelope, though.”

  Pagan picked up the envelope and held it up to the light. He longed to tear it open.

  The Commissioner asked, “Do we use a steam kettle? Or do we simply slice the thing with a knife?”

  Frank Pagan grinned. “Go for broke,” he said, and he ripped the envelope open. It contained a single sheet of yellowing paper covered in a language completely alien to him. Disappointed, he stared at the strange words, written in faded blue ink, as if they might be made to yield up some kind of sense simply by an act of concentration. The Commissioner peered at the sheet with a look of frustration on his face. He even pressed his nose close to it, sniffing the old sheet of paper which smelled musty, like something stored for many years in a damp attic.

  “What language is that?” the Commissioner asked.

  “I haven’t got a clue,” Pagan said. He glanced at a couple of words – Kalev, Eesti, tooma. The handwriting wasn’t very good. “Danus Oates is something of a linguist.”

  “Then let’s fetch the lad,” said the Commissioner.

  “He’s somewhere in the building,” Pagan said. “Last time I saw him he was swallowing Valium in the canteen. Events in Edinburgh unsettled his delicate constitution.” As they had unsettled his own, Pagan thought, which was a lot less sensitive than Danus Oates’s.

  “Fat lot of good Valium’s going to do him,” said the Commissioner. “In the meantime, you ought to have a word with our American friends in Grosvenor Square, Frank. See if they’ve got anything on this Jacob Kiviranna. The fellow to contact over there is a chap called Teddy Gunther. See what you can get from Kiviranna first, although from what I hear he’s either rather surly or two bricks shy of a load.”

  Pagan arranged Aleksis’s papers in a neat pile.

  The Commissioner said, “So far as Romanenko is concerned, if you want to find out if there’s anything that made him a suitable candidate for assassination, the man to see is Tommy Witherspoon. He’s got something to do with the Foreign Office, though if you ask me that’s only a cover. I think Tommy really liaises between the FO and some of our intelligence agencies. Tommy lives and breathes Russia. I’ll give him a call and tell him you might have a question or two for him.”

  Pagan looked down at Romanenko’s papers a second. The dead man’s effects. The bits and pieces of a life. A life that had been blown away right in front of his own eyes. He felt acutely depressed, as if he might have done something to prevent the catastrophe. It was too late for regrets – but then when were regrets ever timely? He remembered the hours he’d spent drinking with Romanenko, how the Russian’s booming laughter filled the hotel room, the conspiratorial way Aleksis had said You will see differences, Frank Pagan, such as you have never dreamed of. Big changes are coming. The biggest change so far had been Aleksis’s murder, which was surely the last thing Romanenko had had in mind.

  “By the way, if the press gets on your arse, you’ve got nothing to tell them. Keep that in mind.” The Commissioner paused a moment. “Whole thing’s a bit of a bloody mess. But you’ve had worse, haven’t you, Frank?”

  Frank Pagan looked up at one of the fluorescent tubes which, slightly flawed, blinked now and again. “Maybe,” he answered. He moved towards the door. “Don’t you want to sit in on my interview with Kiviranna?”

  The Commissioner shook his head. “As I said, Frank, I’m leaving it entirely to you. In any case, I’m sure to have some Russians to deal with very shortly.” He adjusted his eyepatch. “One last thing. Change your suit first chance you get. You look like something the cat dragged in.”

  Jacob Kiviranna was being held in an interrogation room on the second floor, a bare chamber with no windows, a table, a couple of uncomfortable chairs. He chain-smoked, tilting his chair back against the wall and blowing rings up at the ceiling. He’d undone the ponytail and now his long brown hair fell around his shoulders. He had a glum expression on his face, disturbed only by the occasional tic of a pulse beneath his right eye. Pagan’s impression was of a man whose life was a closed book which, once you opened it, would contain a drab little story of childhood neglect, lonely adolescence and fruitless adulthood, a serial of failures and pitiful vignettes.

  He glanced at the young uniformed policeman who stood, arms folded, in the corner of the room, then sat down facing Kiviranna and tossed the US passport on the table. It fell open at the photograph. Pagan wondered about the ethnic origin of the name Kiviranna.

  “Jake or Jacob?” he asked.

  “I don’t care,” Kiviranna replied. He had a flat, lifeless voice, like that of a man whose verbal interplay with others has been strictly limited.

  “Let’s start with the biggie, Jake. Why did you kill Romanenko?”

  Kiviranna didn’t answer. He dropped a cigarette on the floor, crushed it with his ragged sneaker.

  “It’s going to make my life a whole lot easier if you answer my questions, Jake,” Pagan said.

  Kiviranna shut his eyes, placed his arms on the table, then lowered his face. His mouth hung open and he made exaggerated snoring noises. Bloody comedian, Pagan thought. He glanced again at the cop who stood in the corner. The young man looked about nine years of age. Every year’s influx of new recruits seemed younger than ever and they made Pagan, at forty-one, feel old and weatherbeaten.

  “Let’s try another question,” Pagan said. “Where did you get the gun?”

  Kiviranna opened one eye. He smiled at Pagan but remained silent. He had brown teeth misaligned in his dark gums. Pagan studied the man’s combat jacket, the Mickey Mouse patch on one sleeve, the small US flag on the other. He gazed at the beard, which was shapeless. He had the feeling he was peering into the past, confronting a species that, if not extinct, was at the very least threatened. You rarely e
ncountered hippies these days. Now and then an old DayGlo van would chug past you on the street and it would be plastered with faded peace signs and weathered bumper-stickers bearing mellow messages, or you’d see some clapped-out forty-year-old flower-child sliding quietly along the sidewalk – but they didn’t seem to come in bunches any more. Pagan remembered a time when he’d admired the lifestyle, before it became ugly and drugged.

  He wandered around the room, pausing when he reached the door. “I wish you’d talk to me, Jake,” he said. “If it’s something simple, if it’s just that you don’t like Russians and you think the only good Commie’s a dead one, I wish you’d say so.”

  Kiviranna sucked on a cigarette. There was some tiny response just then when Pagan had mentioned the Russians, a very slight thing, a small change in the man’s expression.

  Pagan decided to pursue the opening. “By the way, Jake, they want you. Did I mention that already? They’d like to talk to you. In the circumstances, I can’t say I blame them.”

  “Who wants me?”

  Pagan went back to the table and sat down. “The Soviets. They’d like me to turn you over to them. They’re being pretty persistent about it. And I’m not sure I can prevent it.”

  “You’re out of your mind,” Kiviranna said. “No way would you hand me over.”