‘Like that,’ he said. ‘So be happy!’
‘Be happy?’ Dasha said furiously, hands on hips.
‘I will be stronger than before!’ Grigor said, sipping some tea. ‘And stronger means richer! It will be better for our sons, to have a father who is stronger and richer! And for you; I will always take care of you, protect you, because of the sons you gave me. So your protector will be stronger and richer! You can marry again – some French prince to give you a title. You can buy ten French princes with the money I will settle on you. Or you can keep the money and stay with your gigolos.’ He looked up at her, genuinely taken aback that she was making such a big scene about a highly advantageous business decision.
‘You should be happy, Dasha,’ he repeated.
Dasha pounded her chest below the huge cantaloupe breasts.
‘It’s humiliating!’ she wailed. ‘I’ll be humiliated if my husband divorces me to marry a girl young enough to be his own daughter!’
Grigor heaved a long, deep sigh, and took another sip of tea. ‘Dasha,’ he eventually said, shrugging. ‘What can I say? Most rich men do it eventually. Look at Abramovich, Berezovsky. I’m not doing it for sex – it’s for an alliance. But older men, younger women...’ He looked straight at her. ‘What did you expect, Dasha? It’s the way of the world. What can’t be cured must be endured, as they say in English. Or,’ he added, ‘as they say in French, c’est la vie. Eh?’
Silence fell: you could have heard a pin drop in the huge room. Sergei was actually hiding behind the Picasso now; even the bodyguards had frozen in place, as if hoping that if they turned themselves into living statues, no one would notice them. Magnificently, Dasha pulled herself up to her full height, poised on the spike heels of her shoes. Her elaborately curled hair, threaded with the gold tinsel extensions that were the rage with rich Arab and Russian women, tumbled down the back of her satin blouse, whose buttons strained over the half-melon breasts as she took in a deep breath of her own. ‘Fuck you,’ Dasha spat at him. ‘I came to give you one last chance, Grigor. Now it’s on your own head.’
Holding her head as high as if she were wearing a crown, like the queen Grigor had called her, she stalked with superb hauteur across the vast expanse of the room. A lesser woman would have been daunted by such a drawn-out exit, under the watching eyes of a whole group of men, but Dasha made the most of every step, her hair and breasts bouncing, her heels driving down into the floor like the daggers she would clearly love to drive into Grigor’s heart. It was Sergei’s job to rush ahead of her and withdraw her mink from the fur closet, but he was too frightened of her nails to do anything but cower behind the sculpture and hope that someone else would do it. Kirill manfully stepped up to the challenge, but even he held the coat out at arm’s length, the metre-and-a-half span of a six foot five bruiser, and couldn’t help jerking back as soon as Dasha had snatched it dramatically from his grasp. It was no coincidence that his hands immediately, like those of the other bodyguards, went to his crotch, cupping it protectively. One of the other men had already summoned the lift for her, and they fell back into a tight, protective, black-clad phalanx, lining her way as, the yellow mink tossed with glorious abandon over one shoulder, she stormed into the gleaming chrome interior of the car.
Dasha
The men who had been struck into absolute silence by Dasha’s intimidating scowl would have been very surprised to see that, as soon as the lift doors closed behind her, she wiped the expression from her face. Dasha might have made an exit worthy of Joan Collins in Dynasty, but, just like that very experienced actress, as soon as a scene was over, she relaxed instantly, preparing for the next one. Because the entire pantomime she had enacted with Grigor had been just that: an exaggerated piece of dramatic mugging which had gone exactly as she had planned. Men are so naïve, so ready to believe that a woman’s prone to lose her head and get hysterical, she thought contemptuously. Could Grigor really have credited that I would think that I could plead with him like that and have him call off the divorce, this wedding to the little Fyodorova? Does he really believe I’m stupid enough to and tear my hair to try to make him change his mind about such a huge business decision?
Apparently. All these years of working together, and he still thinks I’m a complete idiot.
She smiled nastily.
Well, he’ll find out soon enough who the idiot is.
Most people would have needed a considerable amount of time to calm down after a confrontation of that magnitude. But to Dasha, it had simply been a warm-up for the main event.
The penthouse lift went straight to the ground floor, where its doors opened into a special marble recess of its own. Dasha waited for a few moments, holding the doors, judging her timing; then she slipped out, round the corner, hitting the call button on the closest bank of the building’s main lifts. The building was almost unoccupied, and most of the lifts were waiting on the ground floor. One pinged and opened almost immediately, and Dasha slid inside, unobserved by the concierge or doorman. She might have been seen on the many CCTV monitors placed around Limehouse Reach, but she knew perfectly well that the less a building’s security guards had to do, the less they noticed. On balance, she considered it a very acceptable risk.
Because the entire scene with Grigor had been created to give Dasha an explanation for her presence in the building. Dasha had never needed to see Grigor at all; she had known, when he informed her of the plan to divorce her and remarry his new business partner’s daughter, that there would be no possibility of changing his mind. Their sons were grown; the need to keep the family together would not be a factor in his decision. Alek, the eventual heir to the Khalovksy commercial interests, had just graduated from Harvard Business School; Dmitri, the sweet younger boy, had recently done a gap year with VSO, building a school for an African village, and was now volunteering at a workers’ collective in Portland, Oregon. Dasha shuddered: she hadn’t told Grigor yet about the collective – Grigor would literally explode with rage.
She sighed, as she always did when she thought of Dmitri. He’s as wet as the Moskva River and a lot less useful. But at least we have Alek, she thought, cheering up. He’s a chip off the old block. Hopefully Grigor will be so happy with Alek joining the business that he’ll let Dmitri piss around with his hippy-dippy, bleeding-heart career. He should have been born a girl, dammit. God knows where he gets it from.
Grigor would treat Dasha very well in the divorce; his lawyers had already made that clear. Like the oligarchs he had mentioned, Abramovich and Berezovsky, who had both divorced their first wives, with whom they had not had prenups, he had made a settlement offer generous enough to pre-empt any messy, publicity-ridden court case.
But it’s not enough. It isn’t half. I was an equal partner to Grigor, and I should have half of all the money we made. Everything he’s made, even since we started to live apart, is built on the foundations I created with him. And I don’t want this damn divorce! It’s humiliating, just like I said.
It was a cruel fact of their world that to have a husband – not a bought French prince, but a real husband, the father of your children, a player on the international stage – gave you much more status. Without Grigor, Dasha would be just another billionairess divorcee, two a penny in her social circle.
He’s not going to get away with this. He’s not going to throw me aside like a used piece of clothing. He’s not going to marry that little nothing of a girl and breed with her – because no matter how low his sex drive is, he’s definitely going to fuck her until he knocks her up – and make children who’ll grow up to be rivals to my own.
Grigor is the biggest fucking idiot in the history of the world if he thinks I’ll stand for that.
Ping! The lift doors opened onto the forty-third floor. Dasha stepped out, consulted the brushed-steel plaque set into the faux-suede wall opposite, and headed down the hallway to the apartment she really wanted to visit. Hassan Nassri, terrified into complete submission by the Polaroids of Arkady
Chertkov’s poor, abused body, had stammered out the information Dasha had wanted as soon as he could get his lips to stop trembling with fear. Caught between a hitman and a psychotic Russian gangster, there was no meaningful choice. Jon might kill him for giving up the information, but it would be swift and clean. Better that than having his balls ripped off with pliers before his inevitable death at the hands of a vengeful Grigor Khalovsky defending his wife’s honour.
Of course, I was actually the one who dealt with Chertkov, Dasha reflected. But it was more frightening to dangle Grigor in front of Nassri, the bogeyman in the shadows. People always fear more what they can’t see.
She smiled to herself.
I was so smart. Years before, when she’d scheduled her boob job at the Canary Clinic, wanting even larger ones than the previous surgeon had given her, she’d had the PI she used hack into the computer that controlled the security cameras in the Clinic and download the footage of her operation. She’d wanted to make sure that Dr Nassri was giving her the very expensive implants that she’d paid for, not fobbing her off with inferior products. It wasn’t that she had any reason not to trust Dr Nassri; it was much more simple than that. Dasha never trusted anyone.
And when I saw that video, I knew I had complete leverage over him for ever.
It hadn’t been a sure thing that Nassri would know a hitman, but it had been more than likely; plastic surgeons of his level were few and far between, and this kind of facial reconstructive surgery was very difficult indeed. There weren’t many surgeons capable of giving someone a new identity. And as it turned out, this one saved Nassri’s son from kidnappers! What a sweet story! How upset Nassri was to have to give him away! And what perfect, perfect timing that he happened to be recuperating right now, in this very building. It simply couldn’t have worked out better.
She was smiling with pleasure as she rang the bell on Jon’s apartment door.
Jon
Jon didn’t have visitors. No cleaning staff either: as a basic security precaution, he didn’t use the Four Seasons’ room service, and had opted to clean the apartment himself, doing his own laundry, sending the rubbish down the built-in chute in the kitchen. It was a good hour before Aniela, his only visitor, was due. There was absolutely no reason for anyone to be ringing his doorbell.
A normal person would have walked up to the door and looked through the peephole, but Jon was not a normal person. The easiest way to kill someone on the other side of a door with a peephole in it was to wait for them to put their eye to it and then fire a gun through it; the bullet would go right through the orbital socket and into the brain, a sure and certain death shot. Jon should know: he’d killed two people like that himself.
So, with lightning speed, he dropped and rolled along the hallway, arriving in a tight little ball to one side of the door, putting the hallway cupboard between himself and the wall for cover. A bullet from a gun with any kind of kick to it would go right through a modern stud wall with no trouble at all.
‘Who is it?’ he called, his voice as calm and untroubled as ever.
‘I’m from the Clinic,’ Dasha said. ‘Come to check on how you’re doing.’
‘Bullshit,’ Jon said easily.
‘Okay,’ she said just as easily. ‘I’m not from the Clinic, okay? Let me in, I want to talk to you. You can search me, no problem.’
Jon didn’t even bother to answer this one; he stayed exactly where he was, waiting for the woman’s next move. Russian, he thought. Damn it. A Russian woman outside my door – this is not good. Women are tougher than men, and a Russian one to boot? Fuck it. This is trouble.
There was rustling outside; a piece of paper came sliding slowly under the door, folded over. Jon waited until the whole thing appeared. Then he opened the cupboard, pulled down a hanger, inched away from the paper as far as he could, and carefully pushed the paper a little. Enough to see that it wasn’t trailing any strings, that it wasn’t going to explode when touched, or lifted. Hooking it with the hanger, he dragged it towards him along the carpet, and unfolded it, still using the edge of the hanger.
On it were written two words. Just two words, but they were more than enough.
‘Who are you?’ he said, staring down at the name he had been using ever since he dropped out of the CIA – Gregory Cunningham – scrawled in black ink. ‘And are you alone?’
The questions were a cover. He wasn’t expecting her to answer the first, and he already knew the answer to the second; his hearing was that of a sniper, preternaturally acute, and he had heard only one person breathing outside.
‘Let me in and you’ll find out,’ the woman said. ‘And yes, I’m—’
Her voice cut off, half-strangled. Because while she was speaking, Jon had unlocked the door with his right hand and whisked it open, fast enough to shock her; with his left, he reached out, grabbed her by the neck of her blouse and dragged her inside, shoving her up against the wall face-first, kicking the door shut and swinging her round so she landed against it, her body a shield between himself and anyone she might have waiting further down the corridor.
The wind had been knocked out of her; she gasped for breath. Jon held her in place with two fingers to her carotid artery, ready to knock her out if she tried anything, as he expertly frisked up and down her body, his hand darting between her legs, her inner thighs, reaching round to circle her back, up into her hair, making sure she had no concealed weapons on her. Wrenching her bag from her shoulder, knocking her coat to the floor, he took three swift steps back, kicking the coat with him as he went. Without ever taking his eyes off her, he searched first the bag, then the coat; then he tossed both of them into a far corner of the living area, stepped back into the kitchen and beckoned her forward.
‘Come in,’ he said.
‘What a nice welcome! You have very strong hands,’ Dasha purred.
She smoothed down her blouse, tucking it back into her leopard-print silk YSL pencil skirt, taking her time to adjust her clothing until she was perfectly happy with her appearance. Then she sashayed along the corridor, swinging her hips, surveyed the living room, and, hitching up her tight skirt fractionally, took a seat on one of the sofas, swinging one leg over the other, tossing her head so that the heavy yellow tinsel-threaded ringlets fell over her right shoulder.
‘Won’t you sit down?’ she asked, nodding at the opposite sofa. ‘Well.’ She looked him up and down, taking in the formfitting white T-shirt which clung to his body and outlined every ridge and slope of muscle, the bulge of his biceps as they swelled out from the short sleeves of the T-shirt. ‘I hope Dr Nassri’s made you a face as nice as your body. If that’s even possible.’
Jon was a hill boy from Appalachia. He didn’t make conversation, he didn’t flirt, and he was more than used to women who were tough as nails to be able to take Dasha in his stride. She might be Russian, and clearly richer than Croesus, but to him she was just a more moneyed version of the Mackenzie and Henderson women in Jackson County. They lived in trailers and run-down shacks; they drank home-made applejack and cranberry in jelly glasses, or moonshine and Crystal Light – when they were celebrating, it was sparkling wine and Sunny D, what his Aunt Eileen had called a ‘poor-mosa’. This one wouldn’t touch anything but Cristal in Lalique glasses: but, as his Aunt Eileen had used to say over her applejack, quoting an old Kipling poem, the Colonel’s lady and Judy O’Grady were sisters under the skin.
Jon had learnt young to let women run their mouths off; that way, they’d get to the meat quicker. Sure enough, as he looked at Dasha, she shrugged, seeing that he wasn’t going to respond, and continued:
‘You’re wondering where I got your previous name from, aren’t you? And, even more importantly, what I’m going to do with it.’
She paused again, but it was impossible to size up his reaction. His face was so bruised, his eye sockets so swollen, that she couldn’t tell anything from his expression, and he had his body utterly under control; the only movement was the shallow rise and fa
ll of his tight firm pectorals as he breathed slowly and steadily.
‘Keep going,’ he said flatly.
She shrugged once more. ‘Very well, let’s get to business. My name is Dasha Khalovsky, and I want you to kill my husband.’
Oh, this one’s a killer all right, she thought with satisfaction; not a muscle moved as he absorbed this information.
‘He’s currently in residence upstairs,’ she added with a smile. ‘In the penthouse. It really couldn’t be easier for you.’
‘That’s convenient,’ Jon said dryly.
‘And in return,’ she said, ‘I will tell the private investigators who have been looking into your history for me to go no further. Because they have found something very interesting. They have found that Gregory Cunningham appears from out of nowhere, seven years ago. And already, he seems very experienced in what he does. Mr Cunningham has learned his skills somewhere. It would be very interesting to learn where.’
Jon absorbed this without any visible reaction.
‘Let’s see some proof,’ he said equably. ‘Dates, places, people.’
Dasha spread her hands wide.
‘There’s no paper trail. As I’m sure you know already. Everything’s hearsay. Believe me, no one wants to talk about you on the record. No one even wants to say your name.’
Bad Angels Page 11