‘This is not productive, Miss Gavin,’ he said at last, his dry voice echoing off the tiled walls. ‘I have not the time for this.’
‘Tell me about it,’ she replied, surprised at how level her own voice sounded. She felt a tremor going through her left leg and fought to still it.
He stood for a moment, before turning away. Almost casually, he picked up the rubbish bin. Then, with a vicious surge of rage, he swung it in an arc over his head and brought it crashing down on the end sink. Shards of porcelain flew into the air as the front edge of the basin disintegrated, and a large piece fell to the floor and lay spinning raggedly, like a demented top.
Riley couldn’t help it; she closed her eyes, stunned by the unexpected display of violence. When she opened them again, Fedorov was standing in front of her, breathing heavily, his eyes glittering.
‘You did not call,’ he said quietly, a tremor in his voice. ‘I was disappointed.’ He stepped over to the sinks, his shoes crunching on splinters of porcelain, and studied his reflection in the mirror, turning his face left and right. Then he turned on one of the hot taps and let the water run. He tested the temperature, but turned it off again with a hiss of irritation.
Bending down, he picked up a sliver of porcelain. It was the length of a finger, with a razor-sharp edge. He ran his thumb along it. The skin opened as if sliced with a surgeon’s scalpel, and a hairline of blood welled up. Turning to Riley, he touched the sliver to her face with almost gentle care, and drew it slowly across her cheek from one side to the other. It felt ice-cold to the touch. Riley froze, not daring to move or imagine what it might be doing to her skin.
Dreading what was coming next, she felt herself shrink inside.
Then footsteps approached and Pechov appeared. He was carrying a steaming kettle.
‘I wonder if you remember what I said to you, the last time we met?’ Fedorov murmured. He sounded almost disappointed, as if a spell had been broken. He tossed the porcelain to one side and took the kettle, dismissing Pechov with a jerk of his head. ‘I believe I told you of the custom we have for people who do not do what they have agreed?’
Riley said nothing, her eyes fixed on the wisp of steam coming from the spout of the kettle.
Fedorov nodded. ‘Of course. How silly of me. You are a journalist, trained to remember things.’ His accent had become thicker, the final word pronounced as ‘thinks’. He poured the boiled water into the sink, steam billowing into the air and clouding the mirrors. Then he dropped the kettle casually on the floor. Immersing his fingers in the water, he held them there, gently sucking in air through his teeth in a lengthy hiss.
Riley was stunned. She could see Fedorov’s skin turning red with the heat, but beyond the initial reaction, it didn’t seem to bother him.
‘When I was young boy,’ he explained calmly, ‘I was made to stand out in the cold for hours, as punishment. No coat, no gloves. Arms above my head. It was very cold where I come from. My hands became numb. After a while, they lost most of their feeling. It never quite came back. What it taught me, Miss Gavin, was how to deal with extreme pain. How to close off the mind. How resistant are you to pain, Miss Gavin? Hmm?’
‘What do you want?’ she demanded, her voice shaking. ‘I’m not going to write that article, so you might as well let me go.’
‘Oh, I know that, Miss Gavin. I know that. But that is no longer the issue. Nor, sadly, is letting you go.’
Without warning, he flicked a spray of water into her face.
Riley screamed as the hot liquid stung her skin. Her eyes were saved only by instinctively turning away a split second before the water hit her. She kept her head turned, but Fedorov continued relentlessly, repeatedly flicking droplets at her, content to aim them at the side of her neck, where it burned into the soft skin of her throat and just behind her ears where the tissue was at its most sensitive. Riley clamped her teeth together, struggling as small rivulets began to run down inside her clothing, searing across her upper body and down over her stomach. The effect was like a line of fiery little ants scuttling over her skin, leaving her instantly chilled as the heat diminished. She tried not to scream, but in the end, could not prevent a low, agonised moan from escaping.
Fedorov examined his scalded fingers, which were a vivid, reddened hue. One or two were showing signs of blistering, and he blew on them gently, turning his hand, his intense stare on Riley as she fought in vain against the tape holding her.
‘I can keep this up for a long time,’ he commented. ‘Hurting you slowly. Making you suffer. Or I can save us both a lot of unnecessary pain and effort.’ He moved round behind her and shunted the chair closer to the sink, making her recoil inwardly as his hips thrust against her. His stale breath washed over her as he leaned closer. Then, with slow deliberation, he placed a hand behind her head and forced her forward until she was staring down into the basin, the steam rising to envelope her face and hair.
‘No…please…!’ Riley gasped. She tried to resist, but the Russian was stronger than he looked. Her chest was pressing against the lip of the sink, and she knew that with one push, her face would be-
Suddenly he stopped. ‘Wait - I nearly forgot something.’ He stepped to one side and picked up a plastic bottle from beneath the sink. ‘A little… elaboration of mine.’ He unscrewed the top and dumped the contents of the bottle into the water.
The smell rose, harsh and acrid, and Riley gagged as her throat clamped shut against the familiar fumes.
Neat bleach.
Fedorov took hold of her once more, and began to push her face down to the water. ‘Now,’ he said softly. ‘Where were we?’
Vasiliyev barged through the front door of Pantile House and came face to face with Olek, one of the two tall security guards. The man was rubbing at his face with a more sullen expression than usual, and wincing. He had few conversational powers, but he knew what was expected of him and was unemotional in his work. It was Olek who had been sent to despatch the building’s supervisor, Goricz, and his family.
Vasiliyev noticed a nasty red weal across the man’s cheek. It was peppered with a line of blood dots showing where the skin had broken. ‘What happened to you?’ he asked.
‘I walked into a door,’ Olek replied sourly.
‘You should be more careful. Where is the boss?’
‘Upstairs. He’s been waiting for you.’
‘Why? I’ve been waiting for him to call me.’ Vasiliyev wondered what was going on. Fedorov liked to keep a tight team around him, yet he’d ordered Vasiliyev to wait at the hotel until he was needed. But that had been hours ago. It had been an ominous development, following on Fedorov’s earlier display of anger. In the end, the waiting had become unbearable and he’d come here to find out what was happening.
He turned towards the lift and found Olek right behind him.
‘Where are you going?’
‘The boss said to show you up,’ Olek replied. He had a nasty smirk on his face. ‘Roychev will be along in a moment; he can watch the doors.’
Vasiliyev shrugged, but felt a worm of unease in his belly. There was something going on here. Fedorov was unpredictable, mostly because he rarely took anyone into his confidence – not even Vasiliyev. But this didn’t feel right.
He stepped into the lift, and Olek followed him, punching the button for the fourth floor.
*********
40
Ray Szulu cruised the last half mile towards Pantile House, eyes alert for problems. Traffic was light and easy this late in the evening, the same on the pavements. The fewer people the better, for what he was about to do.
He was driving a white, unmarked Ford Transit, as common as a London taxi. It offered total anonymity and had good vision front and sides. The back he wasn’t so worried about. He’d lifted the van half an hour ago from a deserted sales forecourt in Islington with a seizure notice on the front door. By the time anyone missed it, the van would be old news.
As he drew closer, he began drumming his fi
ngers on the steering wheel. He couldn’t help it; he was trying to convince himself that everything was cool, that he was okay with this. He could do it, no problem. So why, a niggling little voice wheedled in his innermost ear, was he acting like a virgin on her wedding night?
He gripped the wheel to stop the drumming, to cut out the voice. This, it was saying, was the stupidest thing he’d ever agreed to. Doing the surveillance job on the men and the building was one thing; it was easy money and entailed using his eyes, that was all. But this was going up another level. This amounted to direct action, which most definitely wasn’t his thing.
He breathed deeply, forcing himself to calm down. What was he worried about, anyway? According to Palmer, Riley Gavin was the one in the fat-fryer. She’d managed to get herself lifted off the street by some Russian mafia types, and Palmer was sounding like he was ready to waste the entire north side of London to get her out. He could probably do it, too. Palmer was like a one-man search-and-rescue squad.
Szulu smiled suddenly, seeing himself as a Black Knight to Palmer’s White. Gallant characters hadn’t figured much in his upbringing, but now he thought about it, being any kind of knight felt pretty cool. And, if he had to be one, it might as well be black.
He looked down at the glove box with a sense of satisfaction. Palmer had told him he had to create a diversion at a specific time, and to use his initiative. It was an acknowledgment that he actually trusted him to do something without being told what.
‘Be creative,’ the ex-army cop had said on the phone, in that lazy way he had of speaking. But beneath the calm, his voice had been anything but lazy. He’d sounded seriously pissed, and as cold as permafrost. ‘I need a diversion, and I’m relying on you to come up with something.’ He’d paused and added, ‘Make it loud. Just don’t kill anyone. You know what collateral damage is?’
‘Yeah, I know.’
After telling Szulu precisely when he wanted it, he’d disconnected.
Szulu grinned at the memory and reached down for the length of nylon chord hanging from the glove box. He’d make it loud all right. This one was right from the Ray Szulu manual of insurance scams. The original idea had been tricky setting up, but he knew it would work because he’d used it a couple of times already. And best of all, nobody would be able to spot his handiwork. Fortunately, the mechanism was easy to put together and had taken only seconds to rig up.
He slowed his speed and checked the street either side. Palmer had said there could be watchers out, so look for anyone deliberately not doing anything. Like hard men in suits, he’d added.
Szulu shivered, in spite of himself. He knew what they looked like and didn’t want to mess with them. He was just passing one of the doorways he’d used doing a recce of the place before. The building where the Russians had their base was along on the right, set back off a corner. Behind the building was a maze of narrow cross-sections filled with residential blocks and a few commercial properties. He’d taken a stroll earlier to see what was happening, but apart from a couple of small shops, some one-man-band businesses like printers and such, and a couple of pubs, there wasn’t much activity and hardly any through-traffic. Best of all, there were plenty of dark patches between the lights. Ideal.
He drifted past the office block, ignoring it like Palmer had told him.
‘Men like that,’ Palmer had explained, although Szulu didn’t think he needed to, ‘can smell trouble. They’ve got senses most people don’t have. Like radar. They develop it because of what they do.’
Not just them, Szulu had wanted to tell him. I had that sense when I came out of the womb. It was part of the Szulu family DNA.
He glanced at his watch. Right on time. He pulled an about-turn and drove back, then turned sharp left and left again into the street behind the office block. As he did so, he lifted his foot off the accelerator and pumped it hard two or three times. The engine responded with a cough and a rattle, followed by a stutter as the fuel flow was interrupted, then did a kangaroo-hop as he repeated the process. He waved an apology to a car coming the other way and allowed the van to drift to a stop in the middle of the street. The engine stalled with a pop as he let his foot off the clutch. Simultaneously, he reached down and tugged hard at the length of nylon cord hanging from the glove box.
Under the bonnet, the other end of the cord was joined to a simple lever mechanism, then a flint and wheel from a cigarette lighter, and a cardboard Starbucks cup half filled with lighter fuel. A tug of the cord, and the flint made a spark over the fumes and splashes of petrol rising from the cup through the lid. He’d fitted a neat little spring since the last time he’d used it, so he could try again if it didn’t take first time.
He swore. Nothing happened. He tugged again and began sweating. Damned if he was going to go back to Palmer and tell him it hadn’t worked. He’d stick his head under the bonnet and strike the bloody lighter himself before that happened.
There was a whump from the front, followed by a thin plume of smoke curling out of the vent and up the windscreen like a soft lizard. He could smell lighter fuel. He counted to ten, then stamped on the accelerator. The engine flooded, as he knew it would, and he tried to re-start it. The starter motor whined noisily, but refused to catch.
Thicker smoke began seeping from under the bonnet, and he saw a faint flicker of orange in a gap in the bodywork. He checked his watch. Palmer must be counting, too, waiting for the bang.
The smoke became black and oily, snaking lazily out from all sides and lifting into the air. It billowed across the narrow street, gusting in the faint breeze and clinging to the sides of the buildings. Szulu could smell it now, hot and choking, making his eyes water. A voice shouted nearby, and someone laughed.
He jumped out of the van, leaving the door swinging open, and popped the bonnet. The heat surged out fierce and instantaneous, followed by a blast of flame and a curl of black smoke which seemed to reach for him like an angry monster. He dodged sideways and tried to locate where his fire-starter was lodged. If he could get the device out, all the better. There’d be nothing for any nosy accident inspector to find, should they come looking. But one look told him that his little plan had worked too well. The cup and lighter were gone, consumed by the flames. If he got any closer, he’d be roast meat. Best if he bailed out and left it to burn. With a quick check to see nobody else was close enough to try any heroics, he turned and ran.
He was only fifteen yards away when the van exploded. A gust of hot air touched the back of his neck and something whizzed past his left ear and clanged off a Renault parked at the kerb. Glass smashed as something went through a nearby window.
Szulu stumbled, his legs going weak, and hit the ground, his knees burning on the tarmac. He felt a momentary panic, enlivened by a sense of achievement. Was that impressive or what? He scrambled to his feet and turned to watch the van burn, the flames stained blacker than the night air as oil joined the mix. He checked the pavement again for pedestrians; Palmer didn’t want anyone hurt by this. But there was nobody to warn away, the few onlookers still some fifty yards away at the end of the street.
He stood for a moment shaking his head, hoping to preserve the image of a distraught driver with his livelihood going up in flames before him. He rubbed smoke from his eyes, and grinned to himself. For the first time in his life, he didn’t care what anyone thought. He’d done what he’d set out to do.
Up on the fourth floor, in the windowless washroom, the sound of the explosion barely registered, a dull crump above the noise of the extractor fan. Fedorov, always acutely alert for unusual sounds, glanced towards the door.
Riley heard it, too, and strained desperately against the tape holding her in place, hoping against hope that it would weaken enough for her to get free. Her face was already smarting painfully from the splash burns, and she was trying not to imagine the results if Fedorov did what he had threatened, and what effect the bleach would have on her skin, her hair. Her eyes.
She almost gave in and screame
d, but she knew Fedorov would be onto her before the first sound was out.
‘What do you want from me?’ she demanded, coughing and heaving against the smell. A distant part of her brain was dredging up the constituent parts of bleach, recognised from the kitchen at home, the useless details filed away in her subconscious: Sodium Hydroxide and Sodium Hypochlorite. The words were almost harmless when she thought about them; mere chemical words to warn the domestic masses. To be washed off immediately and kept out of the reach of children. In case of contact with eyes, seek medical help.
‘Who says I want anything?’ Fedorov bent over and breathed in the fumes for a few seconds, as if relishing the purity and headiness of a fine wine. He turned his head and smiled, and she felt a cold chill run through her body. It was like coming under the gaze of a killer shark. She began to shiver violently and gritted her teeth, determined that this monster wasn’t going to have the pleasure of seeing her grovel.
Then footsteps approached and Fedorov straightened.
The door burst open and slammed back against the wall. The noise echoed around the room, followed by the sound of a wall tile hitting the floor under the impact of the handle. A tall figure stood in the doorway.
For a split second, Riley felt elation as she recognised Richard Varley. Then, behind him, a vaguely familiar figure. This man had a vivid mark across his face. She realised with a sinking feeling that he was the one she had hit with Palmer’s baton.
Varley looked stunned when he saw her. The colour drained from his face as he surveyed the scene, and he stared at Fedorov as if he didn’t recognise the man.
He shouted something, the words making no sense to Riley, although the tone was full of anger. But the language reminded her that he was really a former Russian soldier named Vasiliyev, and any fleeting thoughts she might have harboured about him being here to help her turned to dust.
NO KISS FOR THE DEVIL (Gavin & Palmer) Page 20