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“Odd hour to call.”
“I’m sorry. Things just came up in a rush. I can wait while you finish dinner.”
“No need. Just finished. Anyway, it’s cartoon time on the telly now, so I’m well out of it. Come in here.”
He led the way into a study off the hall. In the better light Monk could see that the crime buster was no older than he was and just as fit.
Three times, with the Patriarch, the general, and the banker, he had begun by revealing that his identity-of-access was false and had just got away with it. This time he calculated he could well end up dead, with apologies later. He flipped open his attaché case. The guards outside had searched it, but seen only two files in Russian and had not read a word. Monk offered the gray file, the verification report.
“It’s this, General. We take the view it is pretty disturbing.”
“Can I read it later?”
“It really could be an action-this-night affair.”
“Oh, screw it. Do you drink?”
“Not on duty, sir.”
“Then they’re improving down at the MVD. Coffee?”
“Love some, it’s been a long day.”
General Petrovsky smiled.
“When isn’t it?”
He summoned the manservant and ordered coffee for two. Then he began to read. The valet came, delivered coffee, and left. Monk served himself. Finally General Petrovsky looked up.
“Where the hell did this come from?”
“British Intelligence.”
“What?”
“But it’s not a provokatsia. It’s been checked out. You could double-check in the morning. N. I. Akopov, the secretary who left the manifesto lying around, is dead. Ditto the old cleaner, Zaitsev. Ditto the British journalist, who actually knew nothing.”
“I remember him,” said Petrovsky pensively. “It looked like a gang killing, but no motive. Not for a foreign reporter. You think it was Komarov’s Black Guards?”
“Or Dolgoruki killers hired for the job.”
“So where is this mysterious Black Manifesto?”
“Here, General.”
Monk tapped his briefcase.
“You’ve got a copy? You brought it with you?”
“Yes.”
“But according to this it went to the British Embassy. Then to London. How did you get hold of it?”
“I was given it.”
General Petrovsky was staring at him with open suspicion.
“And how the hell does the MVD get hold of a copy? … You’re not from the MVD. Who the hell are you from? SVR? FSB?”