‘I didn’t know she was going to leave the apartment!’ denied Hughes. ‘How could I have done?’
‘Maybe she told you. Left with you,’ said Cowley.
‘That’s ridiculous!’ said the man. ‘Why should she do that?’
‘You tell us. Why, after going to bed with you, making love to you, did Ann Harris get up out of bed and walk – inadequately dressed – to where she was found?’ said Danilov.
‘I don’t know!’ The denial was another wail.
Danilov thought he heard a sound, a chair scrape, from the kitchen.
‘Why did you kill her, Paul?’ said Cowley, abrupt but quiet, friendly again. ‘Tell me why you killed Ann. And the cab driver. And attacked the woman tonight. Or don’t you know? Is that the way it is, Paul? Don’t you know? Just something that happens? Talk it through with us, whichever way it comes into your head.’
Hughes’s reply was quiet, too, his voice beseeching. ‘I didn’t kill Ann. I don’t know anything about a taxi driver. I don’t know anything about any woman, tonight. I don’t know, a lot of the time, what either of you are talking about. I lied about Ann. I admit that; all of it. I had to, after she was murdered: knew I could be destroyed if you found out, although I realized it was almost inevitable that you would. Trying to put it off, I guess. Hoping it wouldn’t happen.’
‘Where were you last night?’ persisted Cowley.
‘Here,’ said Hughes, too hurriedly.
‘It was a Tuesday,’ reminded Danilov. ‘You didn’t go to the embassy gym?’
‘Early,’ said the man, indistinctly, looking down again.
‘Your wife’s in the kitchen,’ said Cowley. ‘You want me to call her in to ask what time you got home?’
Hughes appeared to shrivel further. ‘I was with someone, after the gym. I got back here late.’
‘How late?’ pressed Danilov.
‘I don’t know. Eleven. Twelve. Nearer twelve, I guess.’
‘How about after twelve? Nearer one, in fact. After attacking a woman whom you didn’t properly kill, in an alley off Granovskaya Street?’
‘No!’ came the plea, again. ‘I was back before twelve.’
‘Was your wife awake?’ asked Cowley.
‘Sort of. She was aware of me coming in.’
‘You going to call her from the kitchen? Or shall I?’
‘No!’ repeated Hughes, pleading more desperately. ‘Don’t involve her. Please don’t involve her!
Cowley sighed. ‘You know what we’re talking about! We’re talking about a double murder. And an attempted murder. We’re questioning you about every one of them. And you’re frightened about your wife finding out you had a piece of ass on the side!’
Hughes looked speechless at both investigators for several moments. Then his head began to shake. ‘I don’t know what to do.’
‘I know what you’re going to do,’ said Cowley, coming forward towards the other American. ‘You’re going to tell us, to the minute, where you were last night. And the moment I think you’re lying, as you’ve tried to lie like the stupid asshole you are since we got here, I’m going to close all this down and have you taken to a Moscow police station and I’m going to have the Russians issue a press release, saying that you’re being questioned in connection with a double murder. You can either tell your wife on your way out or let her see it on CNN. So from the top. What time did you get to the gym?’
‘Six,’ said Hughes, dully.
‘Six exactly? Not earlier? Or later?’
‘Definitely six. I had a game arranged, with Andrews …’ The smile came hopefully. ‘He’ll remember. Tell you.’
‘What time did you leave?’
‘Seven. He’ll confirm that, too.’
‘Then where?’
There was the hesitation. Cowley pulled impatiently back from the intent way he had been sitting, glancing at Danilov and shaking his head in dismissal. ‘OK, let’s wrap it up down at the station!’
‘Pam,’ blurted Hughes. ‘Pam Donnelly. That’s where I was. With Pam Donnelly.’
It took several moments for Cowley to remember the immaculately dressed economic assistant at the embassy on the day he’d first questioned Hughes. He recalled, too, the photographs of the Hughes wife and children, on the man’s desk. ‘Doing what?’
Hughes began the shrug, but stopped it. ‘She made supper, at her place.’
‘Yes?’
‘You don’t need me to tell you.’
‘That’s precisely what I need.’
‘We went to bed. Made love.’
‘Think of Ann, while you were doing it?’
‘That’s a cheap shot!’
‘Tell me about it!’ sneered Cowley, intentionally goading the man, who instead interpreted the remark literally.
‘That’s why the situation with Ann was ending,’ said the financial controller. ‘Because of Pam. It’s been going on for a few months.’
‘Did Ann know?’
Hughes shook his head. ‘I don’t think so, not about Pam. Just that it was over between her and me.’
Danilov thought the questioning was slipping sideways. ‘This other woman, she’ll be able to say what time you left?’
‘Yes.’
‘Where’s her apartment? Inside the compound? Or out?’
‘Outside. Vesnina Street.’
‘How did you get back?’
‘Car.’
Danilov wondered how the American safeguarded his windscreen wipers. ‘It would only have taken five or ten minutes, to get to either Granovskaya or Semasko, by car.’ They hadn’t asked the patrolman who found Lydia Orlenko if he’d heard a car driving away.
‘I don’t know where Granovskaya or Semasko are! I came directly home, after leaving Pam!’
‘We’re going to need to speak to your wife,’ said Cowley. ‘You’re going to need us to speak to your wife.’
‘I don’t want to hurt her.’
‘With your preferences, that sounds a pretty odd remark,’ said Cowley. ‘Don’t you think anyway you went past that a long time ago?’
Hughes made another effort to straighten, pulling the dressing-gown around himself. ‘I didn’t do it, any of it. You’ll accept that, eventually. Why wreck her life, telling her things she doesn’t need to know? It’s only sex. My business. It’s not a crime. I haven’t committed any crime.’
Cowley stood, realizing for the first time an ache, from sitting as long as he had. Looking down at the other American, he said: ‘Courts decide whether crime has been committed or not. And will, in these cases.’
Angela Hughes emerged from the kitchen the moment he knocked, and Cowley wondered how much of their conversation she had already heard from being obviously behind the door. She came apprehensively into the room. Both Danilov and Pavin stood. Pavin offered a chair. ‘What is it?’ she said. It was difficult to hear her words.
‘An embassy confusion,’ said Hughes, ahead of anyone else. ‘That’s all. An embassy confusion.’
The woman looked curiously between Danilov and Cowley. ‘You are investigating the murder of Ann: I saw you both on television, at a press conference!’
‘That’s it!’ said Hughes, in panicked desperation. ‘Still something to do with Ann.’
‘What?’ There was the slightest suggestion of strength in her voice.
Cowley saw she had toast crumbs speckling the front of her swan-procession sweater. As the only possible spokesman, he said: ‘Mrs Hughes, we’d like you to help us on a small point. Tuesdays Paul uses the embassy gym. Stays on maybe. What time did he get home last night?’
The curiosity came to her face again. ‘What’s important about last night? Ann was murdered a week ago.’
‘We’re just filling in squares, familiarizing ourselves with everyone’s regular, normal movements at the embassy,’ said Cowley. ‘Please, Mrs Hughes. Last night?’
The woman looked very directly at her husband. Her voice hard, she said to him: ‘What do you want me to say?�
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‘The truth,’ came in Cowley ‘I–we–want the absolute truth.’
Still looking at Hughes, she said: ‘Around eleven thirty. Maybe just after.’
‘You’re sure it was before midnight? Not after?’
‘It couldn’t have been after,’ she asserted, definitely, looking back to Cowley at last. ‘I woke up, sort of, when he got into bed. And then I heard the church clock strike, in Pecatnikov. It strikes every hour: not the quarters. Just the hour. I know it was midnight, because I counted the chimes. I do that, if I wake up during the night. Don’t know why. I just do. I think lots of people do.’
Neither Cowley nor Danilov looked at each other. Hughes became even straighter in his chair, his demeanour beginning to be that of a man expecting an apology. Foolishly he said: ‘Well? Satisfied?’
‘No,’ deflated Cowley, at once.
‘Satisfied about what?’ demanded the woman.
No one answered her. Indifferent about showing the same consideration as Cowley in front of the economist’s wife, Danilov said: ‘January 17 was a Tuesday. Where were you on January 17 …?’ He looked fully at Angela Hughes. ‘Do you remember the time your husband got home on January 17?’
‘How the hell could anyone remember something so unimportant after five weeks …?’ began Hughes, outraged, but his wife cut across him. ‘There’s no way I could have remembered,’ she said, ‘I was on home leave in Newark, New Jersey, with our sons, for the last three weeks of January: I wasn’t even here, in Moscow, on the 17th.’
There was a brief period of absolute silence, before Cowley said: ‘Mr Hughes, I’d appreciate your getting dressed to come to the embassy with us now. We’d like to speak to …’ He paused. ‘… The rest of the staff in the finance division.’
To Cowley, the woman said: ‘What’s he done? Why are you talking to him like this?’ And then swinging around to confront her husband she said: ‘Tell me what you’ve done!’
‘Nothing!’ Hughes insisted, with matching forcefulness. ‘You heard what he said. They want to speak to my staff: proper – essential in fact – that I am there. It’s my responsibility.’ He finished actually moving away from the group, sparing himself any further demands from anyone.
‘This isn’t right!’ she protested, turning upon them. ‘Not right at all! You’re not telling me the truth.’
‘Mrs Hughes,’ said Cowley, the patient consideration faltering. ‘The person to tell you the truth is your husband. But not now. Later.’
Dressed – although carelessly shaved – Hughes’s demeanour shifted surprisingly in the car going towards the American embassy, something close to confidence showing in the man. As they connected with the inner ring road, he actually turned smiling to Danilov, whose question it had been back at the apartment, and said: ‘Isn’t that funny? I’d forgotten all about Angela being back in America on January 17: wouldn’t have got the significance, not for a long time.’
‘What significance?’ asked Cowley.
‘You tell me,’ replied Hughes, defiantly. ‘Why is January 17 so important? What happened then?’
Danilov was unsettled by the man’s changed attitude. Trying to upset it, he said: ‘Don’t you remember? That’s the night Vladimir Suzlev, the taxi driver, was murdered.’
‘Aah!’ said Hughes, drawing out the expression. More defiant still, he said: ‘That makes January 17 very important, doesn’t it. Crucial, in fact. Good.’
Their arrival at the embassy prevented any continuation of the conversation. By unspoken agreement, Pavin remained with the car in the side road separating the embassy from the museum to Fedor Chaliapin. The entry guard was the marine whom Cowley had encountered on his first day and seen on subsequent visits. Cowley insisted Dimitri Danilov was coming into the legation upon his authority, and Hughes further bewildered both investigators by saying that he also guaranteed the Russian’s admission.
Pamela Donnelly responded immediately to Hughes’s summons, hurrying through the door without knocking and smiling broadly until she saw the other two men, belatedly coming to an uncertain halt, the smile fading.
‘It’s all right,’ said Hughes quietly, calming. ‘You remember Mr Cowley, from the other day?’
The girl nodded, guardedly. She was as carefully dressed as before, mid-calf brown leather boots a perfect match with the deeper brown velvet skirt, the sweater cream this time, with no motif. She didn’t look the sort of girl who would enjoy having her nipples bitten or enduring any other sort of pain for that matter. But who could tell? Cowley said: ‘We want you to tell us something. The truth. About January … particularly a period about five weeks ago.’
She looked questioningly at Hughes. He said: ‘It’s all right, darling. Tell them everything. They know about you and me. So it’s important you tell them what they want to know.’
Pamela looked back to Cowley. ‘What about January, five weeks ago?’
‘Do you remember Tuesday, January 17?’
She frowned. ‘Not particularly. Should I?’
‘We want you to,’ came in Danilov. ‘Were you and Mr Hughes together that night?’
She looked uncertainly again at Hughes, who nodded. She said: ‘Yes.’
‘It was five weeks ago,’ said Danilov, picking up on Hughes’s earlier protest. ‘Can you be definite about that specific date?’
‘Yes,’ she said again, shortly. She was beginning to colour.
‘Why so sure?’ pressed Cowley.
‘I don’t like this … it’s … it’s unpleasant,’ she objected.
‘It’s important, darling. Very important,’ said Hughes, urgently. ‘Tell them everything they want to know.’
Refusing to look directly at them, Pamela said: ‘Angela was in America. For three weeks. The middle week – the 17th was in the middle week – Paul virtually lived with me all the time …’ The colour deepened. ‘Certainly stayed with me every night. He only went home between times to change.’
‘At night?’ demanded Cowley.
‘Sometimes. We’d go back together, pick up what he wanted, and go on somewhere.’
‘He didn’t go out alone, on the night of that Tuesday?’
‘Not any night. Why?’
‘They think I killed Ann,’ Hughes announced. His voice was flat but he smiled, inviting astonishment at the absurdity of the suggestion. ‘There was another murder before her. On the 17th.’
‘What!’ The girl was pebble-eyed with astonishment. ‘But that’s … incredible.’
Cowley had thought she was going to say absurd or ridiculous; that’s what alibi-providers usually said. ‘What about last night?’
‘Paul came to my place from the gym. I cooked a meal.’ She stopped, refusing to go on.
‘What time did he leave?’
‘Sometime after eleven. Quarter after, maybe.’
From his desk Hughes said to Danilov, ‘Which gives me fifteen minutes to get to Pecatnikov, just like Angela told you.’
‘Would you be able to swear in court, on oath, to everything you’ve told us today?’ asked Cowley, resignation in his voice.
‘In court?’ echoed the girl, alarmed.
‘If you were asked?’
She looked at Hughes, briefly, then said: ‘Yes. If I had to.’
‘So would Angela,’ Hughes insisted. ‘You heard what she said.’ The supercilious assurance was fully restored again: he had his hands cupped across the desk, the right one uppermost, showing the twisted finger that had seemed so important such a short time ago. ‘Is there anything else we can help you with? Any of us?’
‘Not for the moment,’ said Cowley, trying for a way to puncture the pomposity. ‘Maybe later. Your wife will probably have questions of her own.’
Cowley escorted Danilov out of the embassy, to the waiting car. There he said: ‘I guess I’ll have a lot of overnight messages.’
‘And I have to brief the Director and the Prosecutor.’
‘We’ll speak by phone,’ said the American.
Barry Andrews was in the FBI office but away from his desk, pacing back and forth in front of the window. When Cowley entered, Andrews said: ‘Thank Christ you’re here! Where the hell have you been?’ He gestured to a pile of messages and diplomatic pouch material. ‘They’re going ape-shit in Washington, particularly over Hughes. You’re to keep the Russians from getting anywhere near him: you’ve personally got to get him back. Hidden in a box if necessary.’
Cowley scooped up the waiting papers. ‘There was another attack last night,’ he announced, wearily. ‘This time the victim didn’t die. And it won’t be necessary to ship Hughes home in a box. He’s a sado-masochist and Christ knows what else, but he didn’t kill Ann Harris. Or anyone else. He’s got alibi witnesses all the way.’ He hammered his fist against the desk, at once regretting the theatricality. ‘We’ve been wasting our fucking time! For days we’ve been chasing the wrong leads to the wrong man!’
‘But who …?’ started Andrews, stopping abruptly at the stupidity of the question.
‘I don’t know,’ said Cowley, depressed by what he saw as defeat. ‘Now we don’t have a clue; not a single goddamned clue.’
‘What about the woman last night? There must be something!’
‘Nothing that points anywhere positive. Just that her attacker was a man. She fainted or went into shock or something, when she was stabbed. Says she didn’t see his face.’
Andrews sat at his desk, lighting the first cigar of the day. ‘Hughes’s wife provide his alibi?’
‘The most convincing part.’
‘How’d she take it, knowing her husband was screwing around?’
‘It didn’t quite come out that way: it will, I guess, when she thinks about it.’
‘And who would have thought it, about innocent little Pamela?’
Cowley shook his head, irritably. ‘That’s all immaterial now.’
‘What are you going to do?’ asked Andrews.
Cowley looked down at all the messages. ‘Read my mail. Then call the Director and tell him I was wrong.’
‘That’s not going to sound good, after the uproar you caused in Washington with the original warning about Hughes.’
In the Name of a Killer (The Cowley and Danilov Thrillers) Page 27