That afternoon he went snorkelling with a guide and Marina stayed at the hotel. She was bored. It took him a while to realize it, but she was. At the time he told himself that this was because he worked hard in a stressful job and needed to switch off, completely – had earned the right to, in fact – whereas she had space left in her head. Marina seemed to think the same. For the rest of their stay they were happy with each other but somehow this was his holiday now, not hers.
And ten years later here he was, back at the Ritz-Carlton, in a smaller room, preparing for his interview with the Cayman police. This time, instead of his beautiful wife, he had with him Lawrence Griffin and two immense Russian men. Still, he was happy to arrive. After checking in he stood by the window in his room, unable to concentrate; he was meant to be going through long lists of companies and transactions that he had drawn up for the following day. Looking down on the beach he could only think of Marina. The reason she didn’t like it here, he finally understood, was that she needed to remain engaged with the world. Always. Escape made no sense to her because she had nothing to escape from.
It still made sense to him, though, a little to his surprise. He might be about to be questioned by a policeman for the first time in his life, he might be silently terrified, but he was pleased to be here. He liked his room, with its high bed, its radio alarm clock, the top layers of bedding that were magically removed every night before he went to sleep. He liked going down to breakfast and filling his bowl with yoghurt and orange segments before going to the chef for fried eggs. He liked changing the settings on the showerhead so that the water in a hard jet buffeted the back of his neck. He liked hanging up his suits and his shirts, rolling his ties, arranging his razor and his toothbrush in the bathroom and making a compact, temporary world for himself where Russians, even the one stationed outside his door, didn’t exist. He liked the heat, and the calmness of the sea. Most of all, though, he liked remembering Marina, and a time when he was still fresh enough to want to impress her.
The police were not terrifying, in the end. They were both Englishmen, in their fifties, polite but firm. They asked him many of the same questions that Greene had asked two weeks earlier in Paris, but fewer of them, and without the same sneer. And Griffin was there to prevent him from digging any holes. It wasn’t comfortable, but nor was it bloody. Lock got the impression that they were being as thorough as their resources allowed. He attended two sessions, one the afternoon he arrived and one the following morning, and towards the end, when it was clear that loose ends were now being tied up, he began to think about what he would do with his day of freedom in paradise. Later he would see that as the moment he must have irritated fate.
One of the detectives, until now the quieter of the two, began to ask Lock detailed questions about the banks that his Cayman companies used. Lock named them: two in Cayman, one in the BVI, one in Bermuda. Then the detective began to concentrate on which international banks those banks used to hold and transfer money for them. This was new to Lock, and to Griffin; in fact, neither knew. The final question was whether Lock knew if any of his banks had correspondent relationships with US banks. Again, Lock said he didn’t know. After some final formalities, Lock and Griffin left.
Outside the police station, Lock breezily suggested that he and Griffin go to get lunch and a beer. He couldn’t remember the last time he had felt relieved about anything. He might even buy a drink for his bodyguards, if they’d take it. But Griffin was preoccupied.
‘Why do you think they asked you about the banks?’
‘I have no idea,’ said Lock, squinting at Griffin in the sun. ‘Maybe they always ask about the banks. They are the financial crimes unit. Maybe they can’t help themselves.’
Griffin didn’t say anything. Lock started to steer him up the street towards a bar he knew. God, it was a beautiful day, hot, enough breeze.
‘Wait,’ said Griffin. ‘I think it meant something. That thing about the US? My guess is that either they’re hoping to get the Bureau involved because they know they can’t crack this, or the Bureau’s already expressed an interest. That would explain why we had it so easy in there.’
Lock looked down at the ground and shook his head. ‘Fuck, Lawrence. You are a tonic. You could at least have let me have my beer. What do you mean? Why the fuck would the FBI – you mean the FBI, yes? Why would the FBI be interested, all of a sudden, in Cayman companies and Russian oil? For crying out loud. I thought that went well, for once.’
‘Because the money flows through the States. All money flows through the States, just about. Let me tell you something. In Manhattan, southern district, on an ugly stretch of wall in the Assistant US Attorney’s office, there’s a big poster showing the Milky Way. And underneath, it reads “Jurisdiction of the Southern District of Manhattan”.’ Griffin looked at Lock, who was staring up the street and out to sea. ‘They can go anywhere. They’d love this.’
FBI. Those three letters followed Lock all the way back to London. They wouldn’t leave his head. He saw men in dark suits and white shirts coming for him in the night, locking him in a dark room under a bright light and refusing to believe that he didn’t know enough to convict Malin. He needed a lawyer. How on earth was he going to find a lawyer with his constant escort?
A prisoner in Claridge’s. At least that was funny. Quite funny. He was tired of the constant attention. How could the politicians and the oligarchs stand it? Apart from anything else they were so big, his two henchmen; at every moment they seemed to occupy most of the space around him. He felt small and airless in between. And still he didn’t know whether they were there to stop him running, or to keep him out of trouble.
Someone knocked on the door. ‘Housekeeping.’
‘Wait a moment. Hang on.’ Lock went to the bathroom for a dressing gown. Wrapping it round him he went and opened the door.
‘Housekeeping. Turn-down service. May I come in?’ A maid in a white pinafore and pale-blue housecoat was standing there, a pile of fresh white towels in her arms.
‘Yes. Yes, come in,’ said Lock automatically, standing out of the maid’s way. She closed the door. ‘But the bed’s already turned down.’
The maid adjusted her grip on the towels and pulled an envelope from in amongst them. ‘A gentleman asked me to give you this,’ she said, handing it to Lock and taking the towels into the bathroom. He looked at it for a moment, front and back, and then opened it. The maid came back into the room, said goodnight and left. Inside the envelope was a card: Benedict Webster, Principal, Ikertu Consulting Ltd. Nothing else. He threw it into a waste-paper basket and then thought better of it. He didn’t want someone finding it there. As he retrieved it he saw that there was writing on the back: I meant what I said.
Taking his whisky from his bedside table Lock sat down on the bed and flicked the card in his fingers. He found his phone, keyed in Webster’s number and added it to the memory under his father’s name. Then he took the card and inserted it in between a chest of drawers and the wall, letting it drop down out of sight.
For a moment he stood and thought. Then he put his trousers on, his socks and shoes, grabbed his coat and a sweater from his suitcase and left the room.
‘I’m going to see my wife,’ he said to the bodyguard. This one was called Ivan. Lock had tried talking to him on the flight back from Cayman but conversation hadn’t flowed. ‘Are you coming?’
He set off towards the stairs. Ivan, taken aback for a second, followed him at a run, reaching into his pocket for his phone and snapping Russian into it as they waited for the lift. Downstairs they walked together through the lobby, Lock a few paces ahead and walking quickly.
‘Arkady is bringing the car,’ said Ivan, as Lock slipped through the revolving doors.
Arkady was clearly annoyed at being disturbed, perhaps at being woken, and he drove fast through the wet streets, Lock giving him directions. At Holland Park Lock told them that he didn’t know how long he would be and that they could go back to bed if t
hey liked. Neither said anything. Lock walked up the broad white steps to Marina’s porch and rang the buzzer. He looked at his watch; it was nearly eleven. It was possible she was in bed. He waited for a full minute, conscious of Arkady watching him from the car. Then the intercom clicked.
‘Hello.’
‘Hi. It’s me.’
‘Richard? Richard, why . . .’ She let the sentence die away and buzzed him in.
Halfway up the stairs Lock heard Marina’s door open on the landing above. When he reached it she wasn’t there – he gave a delicate double knock and went in. She was in the kitchen, wearing a pale-green cotton dressing gown printed with lilies. As Lock entered, she was at the sink pouring herself a glass of water, half turned away from him. A large pine table was between them, and on it a small crystal vase full of blue and purple anemones. Lock could smell onions and coffee.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I had to talk to someone.’
She put the glass down on the draining board and turned to him. ‘You woke Vika.’
‘I’m sorry. Is she still awake?’
‘I told her to go back to sleep.’ Marina moved past him and shut the kitchen door. ‘What are you doing here?’ She went back to the sink and stood against it, her arms crossed.
‘I wanted to see you.’
‘Richard, I didn’t even know you were in London. Why didn’t you call?’
‘It’s not been an easy time.’ He moved towards the table, rested his hands on the back of a chair and dipped his head so that his chin almost touched his chest. ‘I’m sorry.’ When he looked up again there were tears starting in his eyes. Marina watched him, worried. ‘I wanted to see someone who didn’t want anything from me. That’s all.’
Neither said anything for a moment. Lock looked down at the table. ‘Can I have a drink?’
‘I don’t have much. There’s some vodka. How much have you had?’
‘Not a lot.’ He looked up and smiled, his charming smile. ‘I managed the stairs.’
Marina went to the freezer, produced a frosted bottle and poured the thick liquid, like syrup, into a tumbler.
‘We don’t have proper glasses.’ She handed it to him and he sat down at the table.
‘Will you join me?’
‘It’s late, Richard. I was in bed.’
‘Please.’
‘No. Thank you.’
‘Well, sit, at least.’
Marina pulled out a chair and sat across the table from him. She rested her chin on her thumbs and watched him take a sip of the vodka. The bags under his eyes were heavy and grey.
‘What is it? Has something happened?’
He took a moment to respond, as if trying to frame everything right.
‘Outside,’ he said, gesturing to the window with his glass, ‘are two ugly Russians in a Volvo. They go everywhere with me. I’ve just been to Cayman with them, and they’ll be going back to Moscow with me tomorrow. They’re a new feature. They daren’t leave me alone. I should be flattered.’
Marina looked at him with serious eyes. ‘I don’t understand.’
‘They’re here to stop me making good my escape. They’re Malin’s. When I went back to Moscow after Paris they were waiting for me. I think they’re here to make sure I don’t fall off a hotel roof. Or that I do. I can’t work it out.’
‘You look terrible.’
‘I’m tired. Some of it’s jet lag. Some of it’s thinking about Dmitry.’ He drank again, a gulp this time. ‘And I’m sure that . . . when we went for dinner – with Vika, before Paris. God, Paris. That’s another story. But that night, when I walked you back here I’m sure I was being followed. Sure of it. There was a car outside the restaurant and as we turned into your road it pulled past us and into the next street.’ He put his glass down and ran his hand through his hair. ‘My phone squawks all the time. I think they’re listening to it. And Ivan and bloody Igor at my side all day. I can’t stand it. It’s driving me nuts. And meanwhile, Christ . . . That’s just the Russians, but meanwhile I’ve got the FBI, the FB fucking I – sorry, I’m sorry. I’ve got the FBI wanting to know who I am and what I’ve been doing for that vicious fat crook for the last fifteen years, and investigators turning up in my bloody hotel room. I can’t stand it, Marina.’
Marina pushed her chair back, stood up and moved round to sit next to him. He looked at her with his head resting on one hand and she put her hand on his forearm.
‘Come here,’ she said.
Lock turned in his chair so that they were facing each other and close. He put his head on her shoulder, his hands on her back, and for a minute they sat like that, a little awkward, Lock gently jolting with sobs. When he sat up to look at her his eyes were bloodshot and full of tears.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I didn’t mean to come here and collapse.’ He dried his eyes on the sleeve of his jumper. ‘It’s just . . .’
‘Tell me everything,’ said Marina, and stood up. She came back to the table with a glass, and poured more vodka for Lock and some for herself. ‘I want to know.’
So Lock did. He told her about Paris. He told her what he had learned about Gerstman’s death. He told her about the reception waiting for him on his return to Moscow, about his failed attempt to steal himself some insurance, about Cayman, and the FBI, and Webster. And about Webster’s card. He talked fluently and forcefully, and in explaining it to Marina some things began to make sense to him. He steadily drank the vodka. Marina listened gravely, sipping at hers, alive to every word.
‘I can’t go back to Moscow,’ he said when he was done. ‘You’re right. It sucks me dry. There’s nothing there any more. Do you know what I feel like? I feel like an informer, and everyone knows, and it’s just a matter of time before they come to lynch me. And I haven’t said anything.’ He gave an abrupt, sarcastic laugh. ‘I haven’t said anything to anyone.’
‘Maybe it’s time you did.’
Lock sighed. ‘The problem is, I don’t have much to tell. That’s the hell of it.’
‘So what will you do?’
‘I don’t know. Stay here for ever?’ He looked at her steadily. She was still pale. Still beautiful. She didn’t respond. ‘Can I stay tonight, at least? I’d like to. I miss you.’
Holding his gaze Marina took his hand in hers. ‘Richard, no,’ she said. ‘I hate what you’re going through. But we are the same, for now. You and I. That hasn’t changed.’
‘Even after the letter?’
‘That’s not what the letter meant. You have to get out. Otherwise nothing can happen.’
Lock nodded, the slightest movement of his head. ‘Thank you, though. For writing. I read it sometimes. It’s about the only company I have.’
For a second Marina looked at him and in the deep green of her eyes – still clear, still intense – he saw some trace of her love for him, not yet extinguished, communicated to him so sharply in that instant that even he, his instincts withered almost to nothing, could not mistake it.
He broke the silence. ‘Can I sleep on the sofa? I’ve had enough of hotels.’ He smiled. ‘Not something you’ve heard me say before.’
‘No, Richard. It’s not good. Not for Vika. One day, but not now.’ This time he didn’t nod; he just looked at the flowers on the table. Marina watched him. ‘Maybe you should talk to Webster.’
He lifted his head and looked at her.
‘Maybe he does mean what he says,’ she said.
‘For the last three months he’s made my life a misery. Now it suits him to finish me off. No.’
Marina thought for a while. ‘He’s the only person who wants what you want. Something that will hurt Konstantin.’
Lock shook his head. ‘No. I don’t want to hurt Konstantin. I just want him to go away. I want to be left alone. I want a new life. I want my family back.’ He paused to see her reaction; she took his hand and held it in hers. ‘I do. I really do. I can’t believe how blind I was to this. To you. You cannot imagine how much I want to wake up here with you ne
xt to me tomorrow morning. With Vika in our bed. That’s punishment enough. I shouldn’t be going through this.’
Marina got up from her chair and stood over him, her hand on his shoulder. ‘Richard, I think you should go. Go and sleep. Maybe stay a day or two in London. Come and see us. After school tomorrow.’
Lock sat with his head in his hands and his elbows on the table. That sounded good. But it was just delay. The last freedoms of a dying man.
‘How do you get into your garden?’ he said at last.
Marina looked puzzled.
‘Do you have access to your garden?’ he said.
‘Yes, it’s shared. Why?’
‘How do you get to it?’
‘There’s a door at the back. In the basement. Why? What do you mean?’
‘I’ve had enough. I need a night of freedom. A few days. I can’t think with those two thugs in my lap.’ He got up to leave.
‘That’s crazy. Where will you go?’
‘I don’t know. Anywhere. I am not walking back into that prison of a city. Come on. Show me.’
Slightly wary of him now, Marina told him to follow her. Together they descended the stairs by the light from the street lamps outside; Lock told her not to switch the landing lights on. A minute later they were in the garden, a large open space of lawn lined with narrow planted beds. Marina stood in the doorway and Lock turned to say goodbye.
‘Richard, this is crazy. How are you going to get over the wall?’
‘Over the shed. It’s made for it.’ At the far end of the garden, a shed, painted white and looking ghostly in the orange night of the city, sat next to a high brick wall, perhaps twelve feet high, that separated this row of houses from Holland Park beyond. Above the wall spindly branches poked up like twig brooms.
An Agent of Deceit Page 21