“Are you? What sides?”
She knocked back her drink and got off the bar stool. I put out my hand to keep her from going.
“You met Val when?”
“About a year ago at Larry Sverdloff’s house in London, one of his daughters was playing piano, Val was sitting near her, I had never seen anyone so alive, so incredibly vivid. I’m so sorry. I know you and her father are great friends.”
“Was she alone?”
“Greg was there. I think he had a Russian name as well, which I didn’t catch, and frankly until the other day when this case came up, I didn’t think about him again. I told him I spoke the language and I loved the literature and he just opened up. Bit of a bloody nationalist, I thought, just a fraction too zealous, but he was a good-looking young man, charming, and deeply in love with Valentina. Greg told me how he and Valentina were working for the fatherland, explained to me how Putin was turning things around. Very persuasive, but he waited until Valentina was out of his hearing. ”
“What else?”
“They couldn’t keep their hands off each other. She was besotted. They were an astonishing couple, wonderful to look at, whispering to one another as if they had all the secrets to being alive.”
I didn’t answer.
“When Valentina was murdered, Larry Sverdloff called me,” she said. “He thinks whoever killed her did it to warn his cousin, Tolya. Is that what you think?”
“Yes.”
“I’ve been doing a little asking around privately,” she said.
“Can you find this Greg?”
“You really do think he’s a suspect?” Fiona said. “You’re going to need a lot more than thinking, Artie, you need a little bit of evidence,” and then we were interrupted by the long-faced woman I’d seen in the mirror.
“Elena Gagarin,” she said, and held out her hand to me, ignoring Fiona. “We met at the ball.” Sloshed, she had been crying, mascara streaked her face. “I was Valentina’s friend,” she added. “She showed me a photograph of you. She said, this is my Uncle Artie, my dad’s best friend. Also at her daddy’s house, there is a picture of you. So I see you, I try to say this at the party, I think, God, is this Valentina’s Artie?”
She had a mild Russian accent. “I know you loved her,” she went on in the naked way Russians sometimes do, especially women, as if they could peel back your skin, help themselves to your emotions. No embarrassment, nothing coy, she just said, again, “You loved her. Now she is dead. I am very drunk.”
“Let’s get you home,” said Fiona, but Gagarin shoved her away and went on bawling.
“As soon as I heard about Val,” she said, “I cried for one whole day without cease. Val was so good, she helps orphans.” Gagarin looked at the ceiling. “Perhaps she is in better place now?”
“You met these girls Val helped?”
“Some, yes, surely. A few she helped particularly to come from Russia to England.”
“Was one of them named Masha Panchuk? She worked as a maid.”
I saw the hesitation; I saw the eyes twirl like dark saucers, then dart inward. I was sure Gagarin had met Masha, but she wasn’t saying.
“I don’t know this person that worked as maid.”
“Think about it.”
“I am glad you are in London and living close to me, I feel more secure, I am living on same square with Tolya Sverdloff, this is how we all meet.”
And then without warning, Gagarin threw her glass at the wall of bottles behind the bar. The bartender Rolly took her by the arm.
“Go home,” he said.
“No.”
“You don’t feel safe in London?” I said to her.
“No, I think first this Masha is killed, then Valentina, and next, next is me.”
Somehow Rolly bundled Gagarin out into a taxi, came back.
“She comes here a lot?”
He shrugged.
“Some of the time,” he said. “She was friendly with the Sverdloffs. She’s done this before, she gets drunk and breaks things.”
“I must go,” said Fiona, looking at the tiny gold watch on her slim wrist.
“You left your car.”
“I’ll get a cab, I’ve had too much drink to drive. Shall I drop you, Artie?”
“No,” I said, and watched her go.
I liked Fiona Colquhoun, but I didn’t trust her. Her brief wasn’t dead girls in New York. For all her talk about 9/11, she wasn’t a cop anymore. She worked with Roy Pettus and she was some kind of spook, a security liaison between Scotland Yard and MI5, whatever that meant.
Most people in the spy business are so impressed with their own theatrics, the stuff they’ve read or seen, I never really believed them. I didn’t buy the act.
Truth was, I didn’t give a fuck who was running Russia or if another revolution was coming, or for Larry Sverdloff’s feverish fantasies. All I wanted was the creep who had killed Valentina. I wanted something hard, sure, pure, evidence like diamonds that I could give to Tolya to make up for not saving his daughter. Then I wanted to go home.
“You asked me about Valentina Sverdloff?” said Rolly, wiping down the bar. “I didn’t tell you everything.”
“Yes.”
“Once or twice she asked me to post some packages for her. She always asked nicely, but there was this imperious quality, and also she seemed bloody obsessive about it.”
“What was in the packages?”
“I didn’t ask. Best not to. Always to Moscow.”
“You know where the boyfriend lived?”
“Valentina’s fellow?”
“Yeah. Somewhere in south London. He asked me if I knew anybody who wanted to rent a room. Fuck me, it was somewhere, Putney, I think, or maybe Wimbledon.”
“You have any more thoughts about him?”
“Maybe, but not anything I can swear to.”
“Go on.”
“Yeah. You know, no reason, when I heard somebody killed Valentina, it just came to me that it was him.”
“How come? You said he was charming.”
“Don’t know. When I heard, it came into my head. You want a last drink?”
I didn’t. I left. Into the dark empty London night where it was raining, rain dripping down my collar, I walked to Tolya’s house. Bloody London, I thought.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
“What?”
It was four in the morning. It was raining. Water sluiced down the windows, and I was awake and still dressed, but in no mood for drunks at the door and I yelled at the intercom, fuck off. It buzzed again. Out of habit, I grabbed the gun Tolya gave me, went down, yanked open the front door. What? What!
Still in her party dress, Elena Gagarin stood on the steps. She looked scared. Her face was streaked from the rain, make-up smeared over it.
“I want to stay here tonight,” she said. “I am sorry for breaking glass at club.”
“No.”
“Please.”
