Russian Roulette

RUSSIAN ROULETTE

A Sixties Mystery

BERNARD KNIGHT

A classic murder mystery by acclaimed crime writer Bernard Knight, set in London and Moscow at the height of the Cold War.

Simon Smith, an ex-Army man with a gift for languages, is drafted in by a shady businessman to do some ‘work' in the USSR. Simon thinks it'll be an easy job with an ample reward…but what with multiple murders, beautiful femmes fatale, and devious master criminals, it's not as simple as he'd hoped! Meanwhile, the Russian detectives set to trail a suspected thief have all their expectations confounded… A thrilling tale of international politics and police work on the other side of the ‘Iron Curtain'.

To Boris, Raya, Natasha, Polina Semyonovna, and all my forensic colleagues in Moscow – with apologies to the Hotel Metropol for having a murder in their backyard!

Author's note

The Sixties Mysteries is a series of reissues of my early crime stories, the first of which was originally published in 1963. Looking back now, it is evident how criminal investigation has changed over the last half-century. Though basic police procedure is broadly the same, in these pages you will find no Crime Scene Managers or Crown Prosecution Service, no DNA, CSI, PACE, nor any of the other acronyms beloved of modern novels and television. These were the days when detectives still wore belted raincoats and trilby hats. There was no Health and Safety to plague us and the police smoked and drank tea alongside the post-mortem table!

Modern juries are now more interested in the reports of the forensic laboratory than in the diligent labours of the humble detective, though it is still the latter that solves most serious crimes. This is not to by any means belittle the enormous advances made in forensic science in recent years, but to serve as a reminder that the old murder teams did a pretty good job based simply on experience and dogged investigation.

Bernard Knight

2015

Prologue

It was one of those cold, windy Sunday nights, when torn newspapers tangled around empty milk bottles and even the tomcats cowered behind their dustbins.

Already early May, it felt like Christmas. It was even raining.

‘Like sumpt'n outta goddam Dickens!' muttered the American, as he paused under a gas lamp in the Covent Garden backstreet to peer at a scrap of paper. He pushed the address back into his pocket and stared at Crouch Street with distaste.

The grimy windows of the tall grey houses scowled back at him with Victorian disdain. A row of overfilled garbage cans stood like a line of crippled pensioners along the edge of the pavement.

Glimmers of light struggled reluctantly from behind shabby curtains, but further along the street he could see a brighter glow over a doorway. Kramer shrugged his expensive overcoat higher around his neck and moved up the street until he could read the illuminated Perspex sign.

‘
Happy Dragon
!' he sneered under his breath. ‘What a helluva place to pick for a meeting!'

He turned in off the dismal street and began to trudge up the surprisingly well-carpeted stairway to the first floor.

In the restaurant above, Simon Smith waited with mounting impatience. He had eaten three exotic Chinese dishes, none of which he had wanted. He'd had to justify his sitting there for forty minutes beyond the arranged time. Never a lover of oriental food, his stomach was now reminding him that egg foo yung and curried prawns were incompatible. A brandy, a lager and three coffees had failed to put out the fire in his abdomen and he was beginning to wish that he had told Harry Lee Kramer to meet him in a Wimpy Bar instead of the Happy Dragon.

He looked at his watch for the second time in a minute and hissed with annoyance. His gaze strayed around the dimly lit room.

There were open tables in the central part, but all around the walls were alcoves formed by heavy brocade curtains. In these discreet niches, a few courting couples and furtive co-respondents lurked in the gloom. A slim Chinese youth glided by with empty dishes, his almond eyes flickering briefly over Simon's face.

Where the hell was Kramer? Surely even a Yank could find this place, not a hundred yards from the Strand. Simon's nerves were as good as the next man's, but after the broad hints about the nature of the proposition that Kramer had dropped on the telephone, he had every right to be a bit on edge. The delay did nothing to soothe him.

He played restlessly with his coffee cup, half-f of cold brown mud, then flicked a microscopic crumb from his lapel. A very smart, if not actually ‘sharp', dresser, his normal fastidiousness was heightened by the waiting. The thirty-five guinea suit was less than half paid for and even his glassy elastic-sided shoes were not yet wholly his own. In fact, he thought sourly, unless Kramer showed up and the deal went through, his creditors would have him going around London in his underpants before the month was out.

A corner of his eye saw the swing-door open and his head jerked up in anticipation. A lean, tall figure sidled in, muffled in a tweed overcoat, which was soon spirited away by a dinner-jacketed Chinese who materialized from nowhere. After a few whispered words, the manager waved regally towards Simon's alcove.

Harry Lee Kramer came across and scowled down at the younger man.

‘Say, pal, I know we're supposed to be going into the cloak-and-dagger business, but ain't this carrying it a bit far?'

Simon rose and shook hands briefly with the American, whom he had never seen before. Kramer's long, dyspeptic face turned even sourer. He slumped down into a seat opposite and began massaging his stomach with two fingers slipped between his waistcoat buttons.

‘You going to eat?' asked Simon.

‘Naw, I'm not having this Hong Kong chow. I had a decent steak back at the hotel … but I'll have me a drink.'

The Chinese boy appeared like the genie of the lamp. They waited in stony silence until he came back with two brandies.

Simon Smith sat primly attentive, hands folded in front of his glass, bottling up the seething fears and excitement within himself.

‘Well?' he said, when he could stand Kramer's heavy silence no longer.

The American took his heavy horn-rimmed glasses off his executive-style face and began to polish the lenses with maddening slowness.

‘Did you get the visa and the tickets?' he asked, ignoring Simon's question.

The other man nodded impatiently. ‘They cost me every penny of that hundred quid you sent.'

Kramer ignored that as well.

‘I represent a member of a big stateside corporation,' he began heavily, as if launching into an hour's lecture, ‘It don't matter which one. I'm not supposed to know, so I'm sure
you're
not! '

Satisfied with his spectacles, he put them back on his nose and nudged them into place with an almost obsessive grimace.

‘The research department of this outfit have had the tip-off that the Commies have developed a new kind of tool steel that's really something … I'm no engineer, God knows, just a plain old undercover man, but it seems that this stuff will slice through metal like a hot knife through butter.'

He paused to gulp some of his brandy and take a long look at his companion over the rim of the glass.
About thirty
, Kramer thought –
a bit more, perhaps
. Nicely compact, well-built shape –
make a good middleweight, though he looks too fond of his face for the ring
. Bit of a ladies' man – fair wavy hair, baby-blue eyes –
be a good conman if he had the personality to go with it
, he mused.

Simon suddenly spoke, his voice brittle with pent-up tension.

‘I hope you haven't got any bloody silly ideas about me cracking safes or shinning over factory walls, have you?'

Kramer shook his head like a bull with an old sack caught in its horns.

‘Naw, naw, naw … jus' let me finish, will yuh?'

He swallowed some more brandy as if it was cough mixture and winced as it hit his ulcer.

‘Look, it seems that this stuff will revolutionise automated production lines – our people will be able to cut the ground from under Ford and General Motors. So they want it fast – especially before the French or the West Germans get in on the act.'

He looked around furtively and lowered his voice.

‘We've already had the whisper that the Krauts have got wind of it, so we gotta beat 'em to it, see?'

Simon nodded, his eyes fixed on the other man. ‘And just where do I come in – and for how much?'

Kramer peered around again, more from force of habit than from fear of being seen. He dipped a hand into his inner pocket and slid a thick envelope across the tablecloth. ‘There's a thousand bucks in there. Deliver the goods – like I'm gonna tell you – and there'll be another two grand for you.'

‘Pounds sterling?'

‘Dollars – US.'

‘I want pounds.'

‘Nothing doing, bud – I got my orders. You ain't the only pebble on the beach – just the first one we happened to pick up.'

‘Let's hear the details – see what it's worth.'

Harry grimaced his glasses back up his nose. ‘Right … we've got another feller to do all the graft – you're just the legman. You contact this guy in Moscow and bring back a sample of the stuff for analysis.'

Simon's hand jumped from the packet as if it had suddenly become red-hot. He leant across the table. ‘Bring the actual stuff back! You must be joking, chum.' He snorted. ‘I thought you just wanted some bit of paper or a microdot or something … I'm not hawking a steel ingot through Soviet Customs, thank you!'

He sat back with the aggrieved air of one who has just been mortally insulted, though internally he was shaking with excitement. Kramer did another head-shaking act.

‘Naw, naw, naw … there's nothing to it! What the hell, any idiot can get in and out of Russia these days, it's not like it used to be. There's nothing political in it,' he wheedled illogically, ‘just a bit of good old-fashioned industrial competition, that's all.'

‘Well, you get some other sucker to stick his neck out!' snapped Simon, in a rash display of falsely nonchalant heroics.

‘Take it easy,' placated the American. ‘We only dealt with you because it was such a cinch, even for a beginner. I know you ain't done any of this before, but with you speaking the lingo so well, it'll be a pushover. I told you, it's only legwork, no risks involved. It'll be a paid holiday!'

‘I could get shot.'

‘Naw, naw, naw!' Kramer made vaguely conciliatory movements with his hands.

‘Or twenty years in a labour camp.'

Kramer sighed. ‘How much, then?' He was never one for beating too long about the bush.

‘Make those dollars into pounds.'

‘You're nuts!'

There was a stirring sound across the table as Simon prepared to get up.

Harry hurriedly raised a hand. ‘OK, OK … I thought it would come to this,' he muttered, rubbing his belly mournfully. His duodenum always played him up at this point in every business deal.

Simon spoke again, his voice tremulous as fear wrestled with greed. ‘And you're sure it's just a simple pick-up job?'

‘Yeah, yeah … now listen, here's what you have to do. And for Gahd's sake, don't louse it up, pal. If this contact man gets the chop, you, me and my ulcer will be outta work for a long time!'

CONTENTS

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

The Sixties Mysteries

Chapter One

An empty vodka bottle fell with a satisfying splash into the mirror-calm waters of the Baltic.

The sleek white ship slid past in the moonlight, her long wake pointing back towards the tiny flashing light that marked the Swedish coast.

The bottle had come from an open porthole on ‘A' deck, which spilled light, music and a babble of voices into the quiet of the late evening. Shrill laughter and the clinking of glasses heralded yet another mid-voyage celebration.

‘Of course, I thought of taking a first class cabin, but then, I said “what's the point?” … I mean, it's supposed to be a classless society,
isn't
it? … we all eat the same food, share the same decks, so why pay absolutely pounds more, just to have a private loo and an extra washbasin!'

The affected accents of the hostess battled against a transistor radio going full blast and the Assistant Purser's attempts to render ‘The Foggy Dew' in his native Russian.

Simon Smith clutched the brunette's arm – a thing he did at the slightest opportunity. ‘Come on, Liz, let's evaporate before the old dragon buttonholes us again.' He referred to the formidable blue-rinsed widow who was giving the party, but his companion refused to budge.