Kings of Many Castles

“No,” said Charlie. He slid across the table towards her two of the photographs the FBI obtained in their background investigation of Vasili Gregorovich Isakov. The clearer showed the young man in shorts and a singlet, smiling into the sunlight at a beach bar with a wine glass half-raised towards his lips, as if he were responding to a toast. “Bendall’s closest-only-friend who died on the Timiryazev level crossing too drugged and drunk literally to know what hit him. Look at his left arm-the one holding the wine-just above his wrist …”

“I can see it,” said Anne.

“Now look at this,” said Charlie, restarting the presidential shooting tape but very quickly into the struggle pressing the pause button and pointing with his finger right against the screen. “The sametattoo, two parallel lines with an arrow, like a fulcrum, in between them, on the same place on Sakov’s wrist. London’s done the comparison, although it wasn’t really necessary. They’re identical.”

“You any idea what we’re talking about here?”

“Some,” said Charlie. Her admiration was obvious and he enjoyed it.

Anne insisted on stopping to get crackers and cheese and changed to wine, although Charlie stayed with scotch, and asked for both films to be shown again against their transcripts.

“Why let Bendall live!” Anne demanded, when the transmission finally stopped. “Sakov fails, the first time. But they-whoever ‘they’ are-have got Bendall at their mercy, in hospital ….”

“Maybe they tried, with the injection,” reminded Charlie. “Pentathol and alcohol: alcohol we thought-because we were supposed to think-was residual in an alcoholic. An abnormally high level, injected directly into a vein, into the blood stream, to kill a man suffering advanced cirrhosis. Except that it didn’t. And afterwards he was under heavier guard, surrounded by doctors and nurses. It was too dangerous to try again.”

Anne shook her head. “I think you’re close but not close enough.”

“Where am I going wrong?” demanded Charlie, unoffended, glad she was questioning with a lawyer’s mind.

“I don’t know but it’s too loose an end. It always was,” insisted Anne, bent forward in total concentration. “Bendall was alive, uncontrolled and liable at any moment to tell us-tell anyone-what it was all about! Compared to that, the risk of trying a third time to kill him wouldn’t have been a consideration.”

“I said maybe the injection was another attempt to kill him,” said Charlie. “You want another scenario?”

“What?” prompted Anne, bringing her head up to him.

“He wasn’t uncontrolled! The very opposite. He was controlled. What weren’t we-haven’t we-been given!”

“You’ve lost me, Charlie.”

“There aren’t any taped records of George Bendall being treated: talking to doctors but probably more importantly to a psychiatrist.”

“Agayan?”

“Not necessarily but Agayan told us himself that he’d had several sessions with Bendall. Remember him saying something about Bendall being a classic, textbook case?”

Anne nodded, doubtfully.

“It’s Agayan’s voice on the tape closing Kayley and the Americans down, when their one interview blew up in their faces,” said Charlie. “And Guerguen Agayan was always around at every interview we had with Bendall … interviews that Arnold Nolan, our own psychiatrist, said at the beginning were entirely wrong, misdirected, to get a proper response from anyone with the mental condition Nolan suspected Bendall to be suffering … the mental condition Agayan would have known how to govern when he wanted to and manipulate when he wanted to. I talked to you in London about what Nolan told me-that people with Bendall’s condition are totally susceptible to directional suggestion …” Charlie paused, at the further recollection. “Totally susceptible to directional suggestion particularly under the administration of drugs like pentathol. How about Bendall being kept total controlled by an injected drug his medical doctor chanced upon finding just that once?”

“I don’t want to piss on the fire you’re stoking up here, Charlie, but there are so many holes it’s threadbare. You’re suggesting Guerguen Semonovich Agayan is in this conspiracy right up to his neck, right?”

“It’s a possibility. Or another psychiatrist.”

“And that he’s the mind manipulator who got George Bendall up on a TV platform with a gun in his hand to be held responsible while others carried out the assassinations?”

“We know that’s what Bendall was there for. We just don’t know who put him there.”

Anne held up her hand. “Let’s keep it simple. Bendall’s supposed to be pushed over and killed but instead he’s just badly injured. Now for the coincidence! Of all the hospitals in Moscow Bendall gets taken to, bingo, it’s the one to which his puppet-master, Guerguen Agayan, is attached and, double-bingo, gets assigned to care for the guy whose strings he’s been pulling. I believe in coincidences but I don’t believe in this one.”

During Anne’s dismissal Charlie had sat staring down into hisglass, locked into the sort of concentration she’d shown earlier. When he looked up he was smiling. “‘I never knew how or why it happened but George stopped stealing ever so suddenly,’” he quoted. “‘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. I’ll try. I’ll really try.’ There it is, Anne. Why Vera had to be killed in Lefortovo, before she could remember.”

“You’re forcing the bits into the jigsaw because they look the right shape.”

“It fits.”

“You’ll have to do a lot more to prove it. And whether there’s a need to prove anything is another debatable point, isn’t it?”

Instead of answering, Charlie said, “I need to see Bendall’s body. I’d like to see Davidov’s, too, but even though he’s dead we’ve got the right of consular access to see Bendall’s body, haven’t we?”

“I haven’t got a clue,” admitted Anne. “But what are you looking for?”

“Tattoos.”

“I wouldn’t have believed that if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes. I’d have dismissed it as kids’ stuff,” conceded Anne.

Charlie shook his head. “Remember how George reacted at belonging to an elite? Elite groups-societies-have often used tattooes as a sign of elitism. The praetorian guard of the Roman emperors marked themselves out like that. So did the Nazi SS. It’s the sort of shit George would have gone for.”

“And so did Vladimir Petrovich Sakov,” picked up Anne. “You think there’s a chance in hell of making him tell you about it …?” She waved towards the VCR. “You’ve got evidence there of his being part of the conspiracy! He’s not going to incriminate himself by admitting anything else.”

“I’m working on it.” Which wasn’t true. Charlie thought there was a way to turn Sakov but it could also be the way to expose Natalia if she’d become part of an intelligence service cover-up. He was already officially on hold. Why push it any further?

Anne topped up her glass and leaned back in her encompassing chair, tucking her bare feet beneath her. “We could have done this in the office.”

“I know.” He’d forgotten the directness.

“How did your daughter like her doll?”

“She already had one just like it.”

“London was good. A lot of fun.”

“Yes.”

“I’m not looking for commitment, Charlie. Or to pick up other people’s pieces.”

“I wasn’t going to ask you to.”

“You sure about microwave magic?”

“Yes. But thanks.”

“Another time. When it’s right.”

“Yes, when it’s right.”

Natalia had eaten but was still up when Charlie got back to Lesnaya, watching the only story being covered on the late night news.