by James Craig
The nature of his trip back from London had been a little improvised — ferry to Zeebrugge, train to Munich, flight to Kiev — but his Czech passport had been up to the job and, although slow, the journey had proceeded without drama. Sitting here, in the calm beauty of the carefully tended gardens, it was almost as if the grime and violence of London had never existed. Such a horrible city! He was more than pleased that he would never be going back there again.
At the same time, Ihor knew that he would not be staying in Kiev for long. The investigation into the Sandokan International Children’s Camp had been completed, and the Prosecutor General’s Office had called for arrests to be made. Deputy Prosecutor General Dmytro Gazizulin would now have to throw Parliament and the media a bone or two. Ihor knew that Falkirk might be untouchable, but he himself wasn’t. He would have to work hard to prove his continuing usefulness or face a bullet or, at least, a prison sentence. Ihor wasn’t sure which was worse. Going back on the road would be a small price to pay to avoid either.
Draining the last of his beer, he watched the woman’s slow, steady progress up the path towards him. As she got closer, he noticed that she wore no make-up. Her hair was pulled back into a simple ponytail, and she was dressed plainly, in jeans and a red fleece jacket, with a pair of black slip-on, flat shoes. My God, she is beautiful, he thought, in the detached way of a man aware that he has the intelligence and the strength to keep his thoughts to himself.
As she approached his table, he stood up.
‘Let’s go inside,’ she said, not breaking her stride.
The dining room of the Grand Restaurant was as empty as the terrace had been. A couple of waiters hovered around anxiously, possibly wondering if they’d ever see another customer. Choosing a table by the window, the woman ordered a mint tea. Ihor asked for another beer. ‘How are you, Olga?’ he asked, once the waiters had scurried away.
She frowned. Up close, he could see that she looked tired. ‘We’re not in London now,’ she said. ‘You don’t have to call me that any more.’
Ihor bowed slightly. ‘Of course, Ms Gazizulin.’
‘For God’s sake, Ihor.’ Pulling a packet of Marlboros out of her bag, she gestured through the window, towards the city. ‘Here, in the real world, Alexandra is my name.’ She offered him a cigarette. ‘But you know I’m not into formality or hierarchies, like my father. Alex is fine.’
‘Okay, Alex.’ Ihor accepted the cigarette, lighting it from a book of matches taken from the table. He lit her cigarette next and dropped the match in an ashtray, before sitting back in his chair, waiting for the lecture to begin.
The waiter arrived and placed their drinks on the table. Alexandra Gazizulin stirred her tea at length, then took a drag on her cigarette and exhaled vigorously. ‘Ah! It’s so nice to be able to smoke where you like.’
‘Yes.’
She flicked some ash into the saucer of her cup. ‘My father is not happy.’
Ihor fingered the full bottle of Lvivske Premium but did not lift it from the table. ‘I can understand that. But there was no real alternative.’
She cut him off with a sharp look. ‘There is always an alternative. You have destroyed a valuable business.’
‘We were going to have to get out of London anyway,’ he said, as casually as he could manage, the relaxed mood he’d been enjoying since his return ebbing away. ‘Your English friend had already had enough.’
‘Falkirk?’ she scowled. ‘He was just being melodramatic.’
Ihor said nothing.
‘He’s confused,’ she continued, a sneer draining the beauty from her face. ‘He thinks he is some kind of entrepreneur, rather than what he really is.’ She stubbed her cigarette out violently in the ashtray.
‘Which is what?’ Ihor asked.
‘A rich pig.’
One of the waiters reappeared with menus in hand. Alex waved him away.
‘So what do we do now?’ Ihor asked, finishing his own cigarette.
‘Any ideas?’
Ihor knew better than to suggest anything. ‘No.’
‘I didn’t think you would.’ She pulled another cigarette from the packet and stuck it in her mouth, this time not offering him one. ‘Finish your beer quickly,’ she said, pulling a match from the book while glancing over his shoulder. ‘We have to go and see my father.’
Ihor felt a dull pain in his stomach. Turning in his seat, he saw the two men standing by the door. Suited, shaven-headed, expressionless, they were facsimiles of himself from fifteen years ago. Faces like granite, while smiling on the inside. Slowly he forced himself to finish the beer. Who knows? It might be his last in this life. Placing the empty bottle on the table, he fished a couple of notes from his pocket and let out a small burp.
‘Urgh!’ Alex grimaced. ‘Let’s go.’
Another night, another drinks reception. It was all so tiring. This time it was abstract paintings by a famous actor. All well and good, but if the old bugger hadn’t won a couple of Oscars, no one would give a hoot. Tiring of the gallery owner’s attempt to sell him one of the canvases for a ridiculous price, Gordon Elstree-Ullick stepped into the street to bum a cigarette from his protection officer.
‘Got a fag, Tommy?’
Stepping out of the shadows, Dolan pulled a packet of Rothmans King Size from the breast pocket of his jacket and tossed it to Falkirk.
Falkirk removed a cigarette, stuck it in his mouth and handed back the packet. ‘Got a light?’
‘Here you go.’ Dolan handed him a lighter, waited for him to light up, and then decided to have a cigarette himself.
For a few moments, both men stood smoking on the pavement eyeing each other carefully. This was the first time in almost a week that the SO14 man had turned up for work. Something was going on but, so far, Dolan hadn’t said a thing about what he had been up to. If there was one thing that Falkirk hated above all else, it was the help being unreliable. Unreliable and secretive.
At the same time, however, the Earl realised that things with Tommy Dolan were considerably more complicated than the traditional master-servant relationship. Taking a final couple of puffs, he ground out the remains of his cigarette beneath his Lobb shoes. ‘How’s it going?’
Dolan grunted noncommittally.
Falkirk watched a pretty girl walking down the other side of the road. ‘I hear you’ve lost another colleague.’
‘Messy,’ was Dolan’s only reply.
Falkirk half-turned to re-open the door to the gallery. ‘Tommy,’ he said almost casually, as if it was an afterthought, ‘if you had anything to do with that, anything at all, it will have a. . significant impact on our working relationship.’ Without waiting for a reply, he stepped back inside. Maybe he should spring for one of the limited-edition prints. It might make a nice Christmas present for the Queen.
‘Plonker!’ Dolan hissed, before retreating to the shadows.
Sitting in his ramshackle office, in front of a poster proclaiming the 1997 NATO-Ukraine Commission, General Dmytro Gazizulin puffed on his Montecristo № 2. Through a cloud of cigar smoke, he gazed across the desk at Ihor, his expression an uncomfortable mix of displeasure and resignation. ‘Alexandra tells me that the situation in London is irredeemable.’
Ihor shrugged. He looked at the bottle of Nemiroff Black Label on the desk. Beside it lay a Makarov PM semi-automatic, with the safety-catch on. Behind that was a framed photo of the general in his younger, Red Army days, his head popping out from the top of a T55 tank. Back then, Gazizulin was heading off to Afghanistan, fighting for the Motherland. Now all he wanted was to suck up to NATO and squeeze out whatever was on offer from the European Union.
The general was the ultimate pragmatist. Ihor liked him like that, since it gave him hope for his own future — over the next few minutes and beyond.
Normally, the vodka would have been flowing by now. Not today, however. That was fair enough. Ihor knew that he was not going to be considered Employee of the Month this time around.
&nbs
p; The question was: just exactly how deep in the shit was he?
The fact that he had been brought to the Kirichenko barracks, thirty kilometres outside Kiev, gave Ihor confidence. He had relaxed as soon as Alex’s black BMW X5, with the four of them inside, had turned on to the H-08, heading south towards Cherkasy. Driving down the familiar four-lane highway the general’s daughter had even slipped the latest Sade CD on to the stereo. To Ihor’s mind, it was not as good as the old stuff, but still not bad. Soon Alex was singing along quietly, apparently oblivious to her travelling companions. Leaning back, closing his eyes, Ihor was able to ignore the goons in the back and enjoy the smooth tunes of Lovers Rock for the rest of their short journey.
Those same goons were now standing outside the general’s office, awaiting further instructions. If they were going to kill him, they would not kill him here. That at least gave him a chance of escape. And, anyway, maybe things hadn’t come to that, not yet at least. He knew better than to give the impression of being a condemned man. The Ukraine was not like London; people here could smell the fear. And they would act on it in an instant. He flicked a glance at Alex standing to his right, just at the edge of his vision, with a blank expression on her face. She had not said a single word since they had arrived at the Kirichenko.
The comforting sound of boots on the parade ground reminded Ihor that here he was on home territory. He felt a pang of nostalgia for the simplicity of the old days. He remembered hours spent on the square outside; in the snow in only a vest, his skin turning blue; the crunch of gravel underfoot; the cold air in his lungs.
That had been before things had gone out of control: before his discharge, before his move into the private sector, working abroad to avoid jail, and making money. Good money. The money had always been good. Ihor was not greedy; he had made money for the general and had never taken more than his own due. There was surely no reason why it should end now.
Inside the office the general had the heating turned up high, till Ihor felt the sweat beading on his brow. He felt drowsy. Maybe it would be better to be outside. He stifled a yawn. The general pulled a pile of papers out of a drawer and dropped them on his desk. ‘My final report.’
‘What does it say?’ Alex asked.
The general shrugged. ‘What do you expect? It concludes that the rumours about children being sold to Western countries have been grossly exaggerated. However, some people have a case to answer. By the time it goes to Parliament next week, the Director of the Sandokan International Children’s Camp will be in jail.’
‘But,’ Ihor frowned, ‘if he talks. .’
‘He will not talk,’ the general said, with quiet finality. ‘Parliament will accept the report, return to hurling insults at each other, and we will get back to business as usual.’
‘Assuming that we can still operate in London,’ Alex chipped in, giving Ihor a sour glance.
‘Quite.’ The general poked his half-finished cigar towards Ihor. ‘So?’
‘So?’ Ihor repeated vaguely.
‘Is it irretrievable or not?’ the general asked, clearly irritated, before clamping the cigar back between his teeth.
‘I can’t go back,’ Ihor said evenly.
The general picked up the gun. ‘Shooting two policemen,’ he said slowly, ‘that was a fairly stupid thing to do.’
Alex grunted her assent.
‘Only one of them was a policeman,’ Ihor protested, careful to keep a straight face, ‘and he’s not dead.’
The general looked over at his daughter for confirmation.
‘He was discharged from hospital in London yesterday,’ Alex confirmed. ‘He should be able to go back to work.’
‘Not that it makes any difference to our situation,’ the general complained. ‘We have invested a lot of time and effort in England.’
‘And made a lot of money,’ Ihor chipped in.
‘Which is just as well for you, or you’d already be pig food.’
Ihor bowed his head in penitent understanding.
‘There is also the question of the girls,’ Alex said quietly.
The general gave her a quizzical look.
‘The children,’ she added.
‘Ach!’ The general waved away the smoke around his head. ‘You are too soft. I have said so many times.’
‘There are some that are just too young to be sent over there,’ Alex persisted.
‘That is not our decision,’ the general snapped. ‘I have already told you — that is a matter for our English friends.’ He looked at Ihor. ‘That is how the free market works, is it not? The buyer is always right!’
‘Always!’ Seizing the chance for some male bonding in the face of the woman’s weakness, Ihor risked a grin. ‘It has always been the Englishman’s decision. He said that the young ones were his USP.’
‘His what?’
‘Unique Selling Point,’ Alex translated, with a sigh. ‘He is a sick bastard, that one. He wanted to fuck me as well.’
‘I would have thought you were too old for him,’ the general sneered, ‘by quite some margin.’ Reaching behind his chair, he opened the bottom drawer of a filing cabinet and pulled out three glasses, before finally uncorking the bottle of vodka.
Ihor laughed, ignoring her dirty look.
‘The man is a degenerate pervert,’ Alex complained.
‘Which is why we are doing business with him.’ The general smiled mirthlessly, pouring half an inch of vodka into each glass.
‘He was planning to go elsewhere already,’ Ihor declared. ‘He was finished with the Ukraine. Said he was worried that things were getting too difficult.’
‘Is that so,’ said the general, handing out the glasses. ‘Maybe if you explained to our royal friend about my role in all of this,’ he continued, ‘his concerns would be alleviated.’ He raised his glass. ‘Drink!’ The general downed his vodka in one, and signalled for the others to do the same.
Ihor enjoyed the warm feeling on the back of his throat, then spreading through his body.
Alex emptied her glass and placed it back on the table. Leaning over the desk, she kissed her father on the forehead. ‘Falkirk doesn’t know the truth about me,’ she said, ‘never mind about you. That is as it should be. He is capricious and weak. One day he will give up his associates to the police — for all we know, he may have done so already.’ She nodded at Ihor. ‘They won’t find him. But they would find us.’
The general nodded as she stepped away from the table. ‘Ihor?’
‘Yes?’
‘We are in business, are we not?’
‘Yes, of course.’
‘Good.’ The general slowly, carefully, refilled the three glasses. ‘In business,’ he said softly, ‘you have to plan for different scenarios.’ He handed over two of the glasses, before sipping with evident pleasure from his own. ‘So, let us assume that we have two basic scenarios here. One — we stay in London. Two — we leave. Alex will go back there to work out which strategy is the most practical.’
‘But. .’ Ihor glanced at the devilishly handsome woman beside him who said nothing, gave nothing away.
‘Either way,’ the general continued, ‘there will have to be changes. There is more than enough scrutiny of our affairs as it is. We have to make sure that nothing comes back to our door.’
‘How do we do that?’ Ihor nervously chucked the vodka down his throat.
‘We do that,’ the general said gently, ‘by you taking care of the royal pervert.’
TWENTY-SIX
It was a heartbreakingly beautiful North London day, the sense of wonder and anticipation enhanced by the presence of early death. Carlyle stood under an oak tree in Stoke Newington’s Abney Park Cemetery, drinking a bitter flat white from a paper cup and imagining his own funeral.
When his time came, he wanted to take his leave on a dark, gloomy day, just to help get everyone into the right mood. Blue skies, sunshine and a friendly nip in the air made you celebrate life, rather than embrace death.
As he watched Simon Merrett’s coffin being lowered into the ground, he thought back on Alzbetha. He still hadn’t worked out what to do with her ashes, which were sitting in the Covent Garden flat, on top of the microwave in the kitchen. Alice thought it was ‘sick’ to hold on to them, but Helen was sanguine. ‘No one’s in any rush,’ she told him, when he had fretted about his daughter’s reaction, ‘certainly not Alzbetha. Anyway, before we do anything, we need to be sure that the girl’s parents are not going to suddenly turn up.’
‘Not much chance of that,’ Carlyle observed.
‘Anyway.’ She kissed him gently on the lips. ‘We’ll think of something.’
Not for the first time he was grateful for his wife’s level-headedness. She knew how much this case had troubled him, and he was deeply grateful for her calm support.
The only funeral that really troubled Carlyle was his own. As a child, he had dreamed of travelling through space in a coffin, on a serene journey that would go on for ever. How he got into space in the first place was never made clear, but the idea appealed. Even now it seemed far preferable to any of the earthbound options. Carlyle felt a fear of being buried; nor did he much fancy being incinerated. Assuming he couldn’t eventually make it into orbit, he had decided that he would prefer being interred in his own crypt — situated somewhere windswept, but with a nice view.
Over the years, he had given this considerable thought. When he tried to discuss it with them, however, Helen and Alice just laughed. He knew that, when the time came, he would be dead and therefore past caring, but still. . The idea that he should get it properly written into a will gnawed away at the back of his mind.