“Yes, I do. See?”
“Estelle,” I said, leaning closer to her. “Are you under orders not to talk about the Russians?”
“If such an order had come down since you gave the MPs the slip, I wouldn’t be able to answer that question, would I, Lieutenant Boyle?”
“See, I told you she was smart,” Big Mike said. He was leaning against the filing cabinets, keeping watch and threatening to crush them. Estelle rewarded him with a smile. A nice one.
“OK,” I said. “I’m not going to ask you anything. But I am going to show you a photograph. I’m sorry, but it’s not pretty.”
“The dead… individual?” Estelle asked.
“Yes.”
“And you’d like to know if I recognize this person, regardless of nationality?”
“Exactly,” I said, glad to have finally figured out how to play this game. I placed the picture of Gennady Egorov’s face on her desk.
“That’s the bastard who told me to get lost,” she said. “He wasn’t very nice about it either.”
“Somebody wasn’t nice to him either.”
“Hey, it wasn’t me,” Estelle said, raising her arms in mock surrender. “I haven’t had a pass to London in weeks. Although I am due one in a couple of days.” This was followed by a wink in Big Mike’s direction.
“When was this, exactly?”
“Oh, I’d say about two weeks ago,” Estelle said, checking her calendar. “Just short of that, actually. It was the same day we had a big meeting with Fighter Command, so I remember. Twelve days ago. When was he killed?”
“Six days ago. Last Friday night,” I said. “Did you see him again?”
“Yes, one more time, but I kept my distance. It was two days later, when they all came here again, along with three officers from the Royal Navy.”
“The Royal Navy? Why?”
“No idea, Lieutenant. And I’m not asking. I want to get to London, not Leavenworth.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
Big Mike dropped me off at New Scotland Yard, after bending my ear about Estelle. Apparently he’d done a very thorough interrogation, and had ended up with a date for Saturday night. He wanted to show her London in style, and quizzed me on the best restaurants. I told him to talk to Kaz about that. As he drove off in the direction of the Rubens Hotel, I gazed at the Thames, thinking of all the happy couples making the most of a weekend pass, and all the lonely people, pining for the dead and the living. Big Mike was lucky, with someone new and exciting to look forward to. For guys like Kaz, there were only memories, some good, some bad. Either way, the past had bricked up a wall around them, and it would be damned hard for anyone to bust through it.
I had to count myself lucky, but in a distant, someday sort of way. Diana might never return from her mission. But she could, and that had to be enough to get me through the night. That, and the memories of our last nights in Naples, with room service and wine, clean sheets and a soft bed. I could see Diana in her dressing gown, her arms around my neck, as we danced in her room to the sound of a band drifting up from the piazza. The memory was heaven, except for the possibility that it would be my last of her. I almost envied Kaz his certainty, but I knew it was because I hadn’t paid the price he had for it. I focused on that dressing gown, shimmering and silky in the moonlight, praying that this memory would serve until we could make new ones.
The wind howled up the river, casting a damp chill along the banks. To the south, I could see streams of contrails, heavy bombers making their way back to bases north and west of London. Were they the same groups we’d seen this morning? The formations were more ragged now, individual aircraft flying behind the others. The drone from their engines was faint, a distant mechanical sound you could easily ignore, unless you thought about the shot-up boys inside, especially in those last, low, limping bombers. The sound stayed with me as I entered the Met and took the stairs to CID. I let the clatter of footsteps and conversation work their way into my brain and bring me back.
“Tell us again,” I heard Detective Sergeant Flack say. He was leaning against Detective Inspector Scutt’s desk. He and Scutt were staring at a young boy, maybe ten years old, seated on a ’ard-back wooden chair. The kid twisted around to look up at his father. I knew it was his father because he stood with his arms folded in the way a father does when he finds his kid in trouble with the cops. Tight across his chest, and a scowl on his face. The kid’s eyes were wide, and his lower lip quivered a bit. Flack gave me a quick nod and I moved closer.
“Speak when yer spoken to, lad. And look to the sergeant there, not me!”
“It was like I told you,” the boy said. “I found ’im, but it was Tommy who ran off ta call the rozzers and I didn’t want ’im claiming all the credit. I figured if I got a medal or somethin’ offa the dead Jerry, they’d know who found ’im. Thought there might be a reward. Is there a reward?”
“Your reward, young man,” said Scutt, “shall be the knowledge you served the Crown by telling the truth.”
“Oh,” he said, in a small voice.
“Where did you find the map exactly?” Scutt said.
“All folded up, inside ’is cap, it was. I was gonna take the cap, but I thought the map might be important, so I took it ’ome to work it out as best I could.”
“What did you work out then?” Flack said. I moved closer and saw a road map unfolded on Scutt’s desk.
“They’re bringing somethin’ right into London, from up north. Nazi commandos, maybe? The road is marked clear as day, right to the palace, all the way from the country. I been up there, when we was evacuated. I ’ated it. Too quiet, with sheep and whatnot roaming about. I was glad ta get back.”
“Alfred, please do us a favor. The next time you find a map that might direct German commandos to Buckingham Palace, please bring it to me,” Scutt said. “And the victim was not a German, he was a Russian officer.”
“Oh,” said Alfred, taking in this new information, nodding his head as if he were a connoisseur of dead foreign officers.
“Sorry for the trouble, guv,” his father said. “Ever since his mum was killed, I’ve had a hard time keeping my eye on him. I’m a docker, and we get double shifts as often as not. Not so bad now that they ain’t bombing us, but it’s ’ard enough. The boy didn’t mean any ’arm by it.”
“The Blitz?” Scutt asked, standing to look the man in the eye.
“Aye. October 1940 it was. Alfred was up north. I came ’ome after a big raid, fires burning all around. Could ’ardly see. Thought the smoke had got to my eyes when I couldn’t find our ’ouse. The whole street was gone. Gone.”
“Can we go now?” Alfred asked, sounding older than a kid still in short pants. He stood and took his father’s hand.
“There’s nothing else you can tell us, Alfred?” Flack said. “Nothing else you saw, or took with you? Even something small?”
“No, and I ain’t lyin’.”
“Had you ever seen this man before?” I asked. Alfred and his father turned, surprised to find me standing behind them.
“A Yank!” Alfred said. “Got any chewing gum?”
“Alfred!” His father gave him a light cuff on the ear. “Show some respect.”
“That’s OK,” I said.
“I don’t mean for you, I mean for the lad ’imself. Ain’t right to go begging.”
“I didn’t look at ’is face,” Alfred said, rubbing his ear and chancing a glance at his father. “There was blood and stuff everywhere, and ’is face was to the ground. I didn’t want to touch it, know what I mean?”
“I do. Take a look at this photograph. Recognize him?” I laid the picture of Egorov on the desk. Alfred and his father leaned in to study it.
“Well, ’e don’t look so good, but that’s the fellow what asked about Chapman outside the Tube,” the father
