Russian Roulette by Bernard Knight Page A

Elizabeth’s voice.
    â€˜Simon, please, let me in!’
    The hope that she had come to seduce him did not even flicker through his mind. Early morning and the events of the night before had chased any lust from his mind. Even when he opened the door and had the luscious brunette almost fall in on him, dressed only in a revealing black and pink negligee, his mood remained one of fuddled resentment.
    â€˜Liz – what the hell? It’s only half five!’
    His voice trailed away as he saw her face through his own red-rimmed eyes. She was dead white and without make-up, looked like a corpse.
    â€˜Didn’t you hear the commotion … listen!’ she quavered.
    Her usual poise had gone. Fighting off the dark-brown feeling that threatened to engulf him, Simon heard something above the buzzing in his ears.
    In the corridor, he could hear the muffled tramp of feet and men’s voices.
    â€˜What’s going on?’ he muttered, but Liz had broken away and run to the window. Heedless of her revealing silhouette against the light, she threw open the two frames and leaned out. Immediately, the sounds of an engine revving, metallic scraping noises and voices shouting in Russian came up to the fourth floor.
    Simon shuffled across, clutching his maroon robe about him in an apology to modesty.
    Looking down – which gave him momentary nausea – he saw half a dozen figures apparently wrestling on the waste ground inside the Chinese Wall. From that height, they were curiously foreshortened and looked like Japanese dolls.
    â€˜They woke me up a few minutes ago!’ gabbled Liz Treasure. ‘Isn’t it terrible, the poor man!’ Her voice rose in a wail.
    Simon rested his head in his hands and closed his eyes for a second.
    â€˜Isn’t what terrible,’ he asked dully, then leaned out again and refocused with an effort.
    The lethargy left him as if iced water had been thrown in his face. The ‘wrestlers’ had parted and he saw that they had been struggling with a stretcher. Some of them were blue uniformed militia, the rest hotel staff. On the stretcher lay a still figure dressed in a vivid yellow outfit.
    Simon swung around to Liz, who had been hovering behind him, trying to see over his shoulder.
    â€˜Who is it – what’s happened?’
    â€˜Poor Monsieur Fragonard … he’s dead!’
    She wailed again and put her knuckles to her mouth.
    Simon found time to compare her with the heroine of an old silent movie. Then he turned back to the window, his hangover forgotten.
    The men below were carrying the stretcher across a few yards of barren, weed-strewn ground to a grey ambulance, which was providing the engine noises.
    â€˜How do you know it’s him?’ he called ungrammatically over his shoulder.
    She leant on his back, trembling. He was momentarily conscious of the pressure of her soft body.
    â€˜Those lime-coloured pyjamas … they’re his. I saw them when he opened his case at the Customs. And anyway, he’s directly below his window … and he’s dead!’
    As her voice shrilled at the end, the fact of death was convincingly proved down below, as one of the militiamen took a blanket from the ambulance and spread it over the body, covering the face.
    As they slid the stretcher into the back of the vehicle. Simon swung back into the room and took Elizabeth by the shoulders.
    â€˜You shouldn’t have looked, dear … come and sit down.’
    She looked at him with a sudden wildness. ‘That’s not it – it’s the police I’m afraid of … they’ll be all over us … they’ll …’
    She got no further as there was a violent rapping on the door and it was pushed open without more ado.
    A thin, cadaverous-faced man stood there, dressed in an ill-fitting blue uniform with wide red epaulettes on the shoulders. He held a military-style cap in one hand.
    Behind him hovered a