“Hardly ever.”
“Did George ever meet any of the KGB people again, after coming out of the army?”
“I don’t remember.”
“What work did he do, after he came out of the army?”
“He didn’t, not for a long time.”
“How could he pay you to live at Hutorskaya Ulitza?” asked Anne.
“He didn’t.”
“He was still drinking?”
“Worse than ever, after the army. Every day. All day.”
“Did you give him the money to buy it?”
The woman shook her head, positively. “There wasn’t any. Not for drink. After Peter died, all I got was a 3,420 ruble-a-month pension.”
She could count it to the last kopek, thought Charlie, less than sixteen pounds a month. “How did he get money to drink?”
“Stealing. He used to go out to Sheremet‘yevo and steal suitcases from tourists. And the same at the railway stations, at the Kiev and Kazan departure terminals and at the central passenger bureau at Komsomol’skaya. There was always a lot of Western things at the apartment. I asked him not to because if he got caught we’d be thrown out of the apartment ….” She briefly trapped her lower lip between her teeth again. “That’ll definitely happen now, won’t it? The detective colonel said it could.”
“I don’t know,” admitted Charlie, who thought it probably would. Hurriedly he went on, “Did he stop?”
She nodded. “Just under a years ago, when he started work at the television station.”
“How did that happen?”
“I never knew how or why it happened, but George stopped stealing ever so suddenly. It was a long time before he told me he was seeing a doctor, a friend, who was helping him. I don’t remember his name but I know you’ll want to know it. I’ll try. I’ll really try.”
“What about the job?”
“He said he’d met someone who’d helped him. I thought it might be the doctor.”
Charlie felt a flare of hope. Don’t rush, he cautioned himself. “Was he still drinking heavily?”
“I don’t know about at work. Certainly at home. There were always bottles.”
“What did he earn?”
“I don’t know.”
It should be easy enough to find out from the station. “But it was certainly enough to keep bottles at home?”
“It seemed to be.”
“Who was the person he’d met who helped him get the job?”
“He never told me.”
“Do you think it could have been the person he went out to meet on Tuesdays and Thursdays: perhaps stayed with on the times he didn’t come home?” asked Anne.
“It could have been.”
“Do you think this person worked at the TV stations, too?”
“It would have made sense, wouldn’t it?”
“Was it a man? Or a woman?”
“I don’t know. He didn’t have girlfriends. It would most likely have been a man, I think.”
“What were the names of the people who came from the KGB to see Peter?”
“They didn’t have names … not names that they were introduced by. Peter never told me.”
“Not ever?” demanded Charlie, disbelievingly.
“Not ever.”
“What about Peter’s papers after he died?” said Charlie, asking the question as it came to him. “Did Peter keep a diary … a journal … letters …?”
“A diary. And other things. He was always writing.”
Charlie was aware of Anne stirring beside him. He said, “What happened to it?”
“Taken,” said Vera, shortly. “The day he died people came … they had security bureau identification. They collected up everything and said it would be returned when they’d finished with it.”
“Was it?”
“No.”
“Did you have the name of anyone to call … to ask …?”
“No.”
“Have you asked for Peter’s things back?”
“I didn’t want to upset anyone. I wouldn’t be able to get another apartment … I can’t survive without the pension …”
“Did George keep a diary … have things written down?”
“Maybe. He didn’t let me go into his room. The militia searched the apartment when they came … brought me here … I don’t know what they took … no one’s told me.”
Natalia hadn’t mentioned anything about George Bendall’s personal property taken from the apartment. Olga Melnik certainly hadn’t, either. “I’ll find out,” promised Charlie.
“Get me out of here. Please,” the old woman suddenly blurted. “I haven’t done anything wrong. I’m in a cell. There’s no toilet … nowhere to wash.”
“I will,” promised the lawyer. “You shouldn’t be kept like this.”
Charlie wished Anne hadn’t been so positive.
“Now! Can I come with you now!”
“It’ll have to be an official release. I have to arrange it,” said the lawyer.
The older woman’s face crumpled. “I don’t know what else to tell you … what else I can do. I don’t know anything that will help.”
“I will do everything I can, as quickly as I can,” said Anne.
Vera Bendall’s lips quivered and her eyes flooded. “Don’t abandon me … please don’t do that.”
“We won’t,” assured the lawyer.
Anne Abbott held back until they stepped through the prison gates. As they did she breathed out, theatrically, and said, “Jesus Christ! I don’t think I’ve ever been in such a terrifying place in my life!”
“That’s what it’s supposed to be,” said Charlie.
“You really believe there was a tape recording being made of us?”
“And a film.”
“Jesus!” repeated the woman.
“Welcome to Russia.”
“There’s no justification for her being there.”
“No,” agreed Charlie.
“Do you think Sir Michael would agree to her being held somewhere within the embassy?”
Charlie looked sideways in disbelief at the woman. “I wouldn’t think so for a minute.”
“She’s British.”
“The wife of a defecting spy-after whom she fled-and the mother of a murderer. Vera Bendall’s going to be kept at the end of a very long barge pole,” reminded Charlie. “The ambassador-and London-will want as little to do with her as possible.”
“So much for compassion.”
“So much for hard assed political reality.”
“We’ve got to find somewhere better than that place.”
“Good luck.”
“How do you think it went, overall?”
She didn’t yet know all that he did and he couldn’t tell her, Charlie realized. “Overall we managed to raise more questions than we’ve got answers for.” And there were more he still had to ask.
