by Dick Francis
‘Boris says,’ Ian Young said, the shock showing, ‘that the German, Hans Kramer, was murdered.’
‘No,’ I said confidently. ‘There was an autopsy. Natural causes.’
Ian shook his head. ‘Boris says that someone has found a way of causing people to drop down dead from heart attacks. He says that the death of Hans Kramer was…’ He turned back briefly to Boris to consult, and then back to me, ‘… the death of Hans Kramer was a sort of demonstration.’
It seemed ridiculous. ‘A demonstration of what?’
A longer chat ensued. Ian Young shook his head and argued. Boris began to make fierce chopping motions with his hands, and spots of colour appeared on his cheeks. I gathered that his information had at this point entered the realms of guesswork, and that Ian Young didn’t believe what was being said. Time to take a pull back to the facts.
‘Look,’ I said, interrupting the agitated flow. ‘Let’s start at the beginning. I’ll ask some questions, and you get me the answers. OK?’
‘Yes,’ Ian Young said, subsiding. ‘Carry on.’
‘Ask him how he travelled to England, and where he went, and where he stayed, and how his team fared in the finals.’
‘But,’ he said, puzzled, ‘what has that to do with Hans Kramer?’
‘Not much,’ I said. ‘But I know how the Russians travelled and where they stayed and how they fared, and I just want to do my own private bit of checking that Boris is who he says he is; and also if he talks about unloaded things like that he will calm down again and we can then get the beliefs without the passion.’
He blinked. ‘My God,’ he said.
‘Ask him.’
‘Yes.’ He turned to Boris and delivered the question.
Boris answered impatiently that they travelled by motor horse box across Europe to The Hague, and from there by sea to England, still with the horse boxes, and drove on to Burghley, where they stayed in quarters especially reserved for them.
‘How many horses, and how many men?’ I said.
Boris said six horses, and stumbled over the number of people. I suggested that this was because the Russians had paid for only seven ‘human’ tickets but had actually taken ten or more men… Make it a joke, I said to Ian Young: not an insult.
He made it enough of a joke for Boris and everyone else almost to laugh, which handily released much tension all round and steadied the temperature.
‘They want to know how you know,’ Ian said.
‘The shipping agent told me. Tickets were bought for six riders and a chef d’équipe, but three or four grooms travelled among the legs of the horses. The shipping agents were amused, not angry.’
Ian relayed the answer and got another round of appreciative noises in the throat. Boris gave a more detailed account of the Russian team’s performance in the trials than I had memorised, and by the end I had no doubt that he was genuine. He had also recovered his temper and lost his rigidity, and I reckoned we might go carefully back to the minefield.
‘Right,’ I said. ‘Now ask him if he knew Hans Kramer personally. If he ever spoke to him face to face, and if so in what language.’
The question at once stiffened up the sinews, but the reply looked only moderately nervous.
Ian Young translated. ‘Yes, he did talk to Hans Kramer. They spoke German, though Boris says he knows only a little German. He had met Hans Kramer before, when they both rode in the same trials, and they were friendly together.’
‘Ask him what they talked about,’ I said.
The answer came easily, predictably, with shrugs. ‘Horses. The trials. The Olympics. The weather.’
‘Anything else?’
‘No.’
‘Anything to do with backgammon, gambling clubs, homosexuals or transvestites?’
I saw by the collective indrawn breaths of disapproval round about that if Boris had been discussing such things he had better not say so. His own positive negative, however, looked real enough.
‘Does he know Johnny Farringford?’ I said.
It appeared that Boris knew who Johnny was, and had seen him ride, but had not spoken to him.
‘Did he see Hans Kramer and Johnny Farringford together?’
Boris had not noticed one way or the other.
‘Was he there on the spot when Hans Kramer died?’
Boris’s unemotional response told me the answer before Ian translated.
‘No, he wasn’t. He had finished his cross-country section before Hans Kramer set out. He saw Hans Kramer being weighed… is that right?’ Ian Young looked doubtful.
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘The horses have to carry minimum weights, to make it a fairer test. There is a weighing machine on the course, to weigh the riders with their saddles just before they set off, and also as soon as they come back. The same as in racing.’
Boris, it appeared, had had to wait while Hans Kramer was weighed out, before himself weighing in. He had wished Hans Kramer good luck. ‘Alles Gute.’ The irony of it lugubriously pleased the listening friends.
‘Please ask Boris why he thinks Hans Kramer was murdered.’ I said the words deliberately flatly, and Ian Young relayed them the same way, but they reproduced in Boris the old high alarm.
‘Did he hear anyone say so?’ I asked decisively, to cut off the emotion.
‘Yes.’
‘Who said so?’.
Boris did not know the man who said so.
‘Did he say it to Boris face to face?’
No. Boris had overheard it.
I could see why Ian Young had doubted the whole story.
‘Ask in what language this man spoke.’
In Russian, Boris said, but he was not a Russian.
‘Does he mean that the man spoke Russian with a foreign accent?’
That was right.
‘What accent?’ I said patiently. ‘From what country?’
Boris didn’t know.
‘Where was Boris when he overheard this man?’
It seemed a pretty harmless question to me, but it brought an abrupt intense stillness into the room.
Evgeny Sergeevich Titov finally stirred and said something lengthily to Ian.
‘They want you to understand that Boris should not have been where he was. That if he tells you, you will hold his future in your power.’
‘I see,’ I said.
There was a pause.
Ian said, ‘I think they’re waiting for you to swear you will never reveal where he was.’
‘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.
There were four courses to the evening meal, and the only choice was eat it or don’t. The meat looked identical to the tasteless rubber of the evening before, and when it arrived I stared at it gloomily.
‘Aren’t you going to eat that?’ Frank demanded, pointing fiercely at my plate.
‘Are you still hungry? Would you care for it?’ I said.
‘Do you mean it?’ He took me at my word, slid the plate in front of him, and set to, proving that both his appetite and molars were a lot stronger than mine.
‘Did you know,’ he said with his mouth full, giving us a by now accustomed lecture, ‘that in this country rents are very low, and electricity and transport and telephone calls are cheap. And when I say cheap, I mean cheap.’
Mrs Wilkinson, who had twice the life of Mister, sighed with envy over so perfect a world.
‘But then,’ I said, ‘if you’re a retired welder from Novosibirsk, you can’t go on a package tour of London, just for a bit of interest.’
‘There, Dad,’ Mrs Wilkinson said. ‘That’s true.’
Frank chewed on the meat and made no comment.
‘Isn’t it term time?’ I said to him innocently.
He took his time getting to swallowing-point while he thought of the answer. He was between jobs, he said. Left one school back in July, starting at another in January.
‘What do you teach?’ I said.
He was vague. ‘You know. This and that. Bit of everything. Junior school, of course.’
Mrs Wilkinson told him tha
t her nephew, who had ingrowing toenails, had always wanted to be a teacher. Frank opened his mouth and then decided not to ask what ingrowing toenails had to do with it, and I smothered my laughter in ice-cream and blackcurrant jam.
I was glad to laugh. I needed something to laugh about. The intensity and fear that had vibrated among the Russians in Evgeny Titov’s flat remained with me as a sort of hovering claustrophobic depression. Even leaving the place had had to be carefully managed. It would never have done, I gathered, for so many people to have left at once. Evgeny and Olga had pressed Ian Young and me to stay for a further ten minutes after Boris had gone, so that if anyone were watching, we should not be connected.
‘Is it aways like this?’ I had asked Ian Young, and he had said prosaically, ‘Pretty much.’
Evgeny, having shifted the burden of his knowledge squarely on to me, had shaken hands gravely in farewell, clasping my hands in both of his. He had done his best, I supposed. He had passed on the flaming torch, and if now the Olympics were scorched by it, it would be my fault, not his.
Olga had seen us out with the same prudence as she had let us in. We picked our way through the scaffolding – ‘old apartment building being renovated’ Ian explained in the car later – and walked back through the garden. There were still only two sets of black footprints in the snow on the path – our own from the outward journey; and no one came after us through the gates. Two dark silent figures, we eased our way into the car, and the noise of the engine starting seemed suddenly too loud for safety. To have to live like that, constantly wary, seemed to me dreadful. Yet the Russians and even Ian Young considered it normal: and perhaps that was most dreadful of all.
‘What are you going to do?’ Ian asked, driving back towards the city centre. ‘About this story of Boris’s?’
‘Ask around,’ I said vaguely. ‘What are you?’
‘Nothing. It’s just his overheated imagination.’
I didn’t altogether agree with him, but I didn’t argue.
‘And I’d be glad if you’d do me a favour, my old son.’
‘What’s that?’ I said, internally amused.
‘Don’t mention Evgeny or his apartment to anyone from the Embassy. Don’t mention our visit. I like our good Oliver to be able to put his hand on his heart among the natives and swear he has no knowledge of any of his staff making private visits to Russian homes.’