The Englishman

by David Gilman

‘Yes. But he said they could not involve the British intelligence service.’

  ‘In what?’

  ‘Sending a man to kill him.’

  38

  The bookshop in the narrow lane known as Cecil Court, in the West End of London, was a favourite haunt for anyone seeking signed first editions. It was a quiet store where a bibliophile could browse undisturbed. Two rooms up and two down meant there was always a quiet corner for a whispered conversation, words cushioned by wall-to-wall books.

  Maguire pushed a hardcover book about the Hundred Years War back on to the shelf. ‘A bloody period of our history. Killing was a far more straightforward business then. No passport required.’

  ‘Why did you want to see me? Are you buying me a book for the trip?’

  ‘Raglan, Moscow got in touch with me and I gave them a categorical answer. I will not involve us in this venture. We did our bit here in London. It’s a done deal. It’s over. If you do this because of some sense of personal loyalty to Carter’s family then I am in no position to offer any assistance. If you’re lucky enough to be captured rather than killed, we have no chance of reaching out on your behalf.’

  ‘And you’re scared to death that if I’m caught there might be an association between you and me.’

  ‘In a word, yes. We cannot risk embarrassing Her Majesty’s Government.’

  ‘She didn’t seem to mind when you brought me in from France. Surely you told Her Majesty I was in the country?’

  ‘Christ, man, this is no time for bloody jokes. You’re being asked to kill him.’

  ‘He needs killing.’

  ‘Not by you. Let me speak to Ivanov again. See if he can’t use someone.’

  ‘The Moscow police are stitched up. It needs an outsider. Why do you think she came to me?’

  Maguire bid farewell to the owner behind the counter and stepped out into the bookshop-lined alleyway. He pulled on a pair of gloves and turned up his collar against the wind funnelling down the passage.

  ‘Are you going to try and stop me? I need a clear run at this without your people picking me up at the airport,’ said Raglan.

  Maguire shook his head. ‘You’re on your own. Besides – and I don’t care how many contacts you have from your Legion days – getting to him will be impossible. You won’t even get close, wherever he is. The people protecting him will have him squirrelled away. Going to Russia as a tourist is one thing, going to find one of their killers…’ He shook his head. ‘Raglan, I value what you did for us. I thought I would make a personal appeal to stop you. What’s done is done. JD will resurface in the future. Here, Europe, the States, wherever, and when he does we’ll get him.’

  ‘Good luck with that, Maguire.’

  Raglan turned down the lane. Time was short. The winter snow would hit Russia soon. Its bitter harshness didn’t come close to what Raglan felt about the double agent. The brutal torture and death of Carter and Abbie’s cold-blooded murder needed justice. If he was going to find and kill JD, it had to be now.

  *

  Raglan packed his holdall. Before she returned to Moscow Sorokina explained that despite corrupt officials forging documents for JD’s trial and sentencing, she had others who had helped her. Cops don’t forget their own being murdered: it was the same the world over. Given that her father was a judge whose detective son had been shot to death, she had skilled friends ready to help. And Raglan could help her to set the record straight.

  Raglan checked the forged Russian passport Sorokina had given him. It looked as genuine as any other, even down to border stamps for Ukraine. It was sufficiently dog-eared and finger-smudged. Raglan’s image stared back at him as its owner, now named as Daniil Regnev, was shown to have held the passport for five years, with another five to go before expiry. Sorokina had colluded with no one other than her boss, General Ivanov, and her father had in turn approached others in authority who wanted to halt the corruption infecting their beloved homeland. Once Raglan was in Moscow then wheels would be put into motion and they would help him reach his target.

  At the Carters’ house Raglan took Amanda aside and told her he had a tip-off about the man who had caused her husband’s death. They sat across from each other at the kitchen table. Amanda stone-faced, drained from grief and tears; Raglan sipping a mug of coffee.

  ‘What I said to Maguire at the cemetery, I… I shouldn’t have said it. If anything happened to you I’d blame myself.’

  ‘It goes beyond Jeremy. He also murdered the young woman who was here, at the beginning. She helped me.’

  Amanda searched her memory. ‘I remember her.’

  ‘There’s a score to be settled, Mandy. You’ll manage now. Steve is strong and Melissa, well, she’s very young, and as long as she has you she’ll be OK in time. All of you will.’

  She nodded and reached out with her hands for his. ‘I’ve known you since we were kids. Longer than any love affair or husband, longer than anything else. I want you to be around for a lot longer.’

  He smiled. ‘That’s my plan.’

  ‘When will you tell Steve you’re leaving?’

  ‘I already have. He’s OK with it, don’t worry.’

  A sudden look of alarm crossed her face. ‘When are you going?’

  ‘Now.’

  *

  Raglan sat at a bar on the upper level of London’s St Pancras International Station watching the late shoppers and commuters scurrying along the concourse below. He had dropped into his conversation with Maguire that he would travel from an airport, a lie should Maguire have a change of heart and decide to try and stop him. All the same Raglan expected Maguire would not only have his people at the London airports checking overseas flights but would have covered his bets by having officers at St Pancras to watch international trains too. Providing they didn’t try to stop him, there would be no trouble. If there was, Raglan would deal with it. There was a thirty-minute check-in for the Eurostar to Paris and he had ten minutes left. As yet he had only a half-formed plan in his head to get to Moscow.

  He pressed the phone to his ear and heard the gruff tones of his old comrade. ‘Raglan, you are fucking mad,’ said Sokol after Raglan had explained where he was going and why. He had related the saga of JD while the Russian former legionnaire remained silent, listening. Raglan did not mention his time with Elena Sorokina.

  ‘Bird, what do we know about the Russian mafia?’ said Raglan.

  ‘Enough that you shouldn’t get mixed up with them,’ said Sokol.

  ‘Too late for that. I need to be seen as one of them. Not sure yet how that’s going to happen.’

  ‘If they’re pond-feeder muscle then they’ll have tattoos. If they’re the bosses who sit at the top of the table they’re the suits. Six-figure cars, trophy women, property in London. Which end of the scale are you?’

  Raglan knew there was little point in trying to masquerade as a fixer for the Russian mafia; he didn’t have the money available to buy the handmade suit or hire a luxury car. None of that would help find JD in a penal colony in the wilds of Russia. ‘I’m working class. The muscle. I need tatts to prove it.’

  ‘Can’t be done in a hurry. You’ll stick out like a painted tart at the officers’ regimental dance. Wait out…’ said his friend.

  Raglan heard the rustle of a paper as if Sokol was turning the pages of a book. ‘There’s something here, maybe… or maybe not. OK. I will scan pictures of mafia tattoos. They all have a meaning. They denote your status.’

  ‘No good. I’m on a burner which I’m about to dump. I’ll pick up another when I get to Paris and phone you when I’m there. I need somewhere that can receive those scans. I’m heading for the train now. I’ll be in Paris in a couple of hours. See what you can do.’

  He switched off the phone, stripped it and threw it into the refuse bin. A man in a suit and overcoat who was sitting further along the bar with a good-looking girl stood up, picked up his briefcase and readied himself to leave. He pecked the girl’s cheek but Raglan saw he
r eyes dart past the man’s shoulder towards him. Raglan had seen them earlier walking around the concourse below him before they appeared on the upper level and sat at the end of the bar. To all intents and purposes, he was a young businessman going off somewhere and she was here to bid him farewell. She had no luggage and her casually smart outfit was offset with running shoes. Fashion aside, the scruffy trainers didn’t gel with the rest of her outfit. If he was mistaken and she was nothing more than a city commuter wearing them for comfort then he’d soon find out. He had a bet with himself that she was wearing them for a fast pursuit.

  There was only one way for Raglan to confirm his instincts that they were a team on the lookout for him. He stepped into the main bar area, making his way through to the restrooms. As Raglan entered the toilets the businessman was a few paces behind him. Raglan slammed the swing door into him. The man stood no chance of defending himself. Raglan hit him once and then dragged him into a cubicle, lifting him on to the toilet seat. He found his identification. Maguire’s people were getting clumsy.

  He locked the cubicle door and clambered over the top. When he got outside the young woman didn’t disguise her look of concern quickly enough. Raglan winked at her and hurried towards the Eurostar platform as the woman hesitated a moment and then ran into the restaurant looking for her partner, her phone already pressed to her ear. When he had arrived at St Pancras Raglan had reconnoitred the station and estimated that Gate 28b was the nearest to where he would be sitting and that it would take him four minutes to get there from the upper level. He had made allowances for any interruptions. Ignoring the lift, he jogged down the stairs, made his way through the crowds and presented himself at the security gate.

  The station clock told him it had taken three minutes and forty-three seconds.

  39

  The train was a safe environment. Things might change once he reached Paris but for now, he relaxed. The Eurostar, slow-moving across the southern English countryside, picked up speed on the continent. The dark landscape outside reflected his image in the window as he stared into the glass, running through in his head what Sorokina had told him of how JD might be found and how her allies had put together false documents to get Raglan close to him. A deal had been made with the deputy governor of the prison where JD was hidden. This deputy governor had endured half his life in the wilderness but if all went to plan he would be moved to a better prison nearer civilization. Everything was in place. Once Raglan had killed JD then the district police would move in. The investigative committee would have the deputy governor detained and questioned as a matter of procedure, but there was enough influence in place to see that he would be exonerated and then get the reward promised to him. The question was could Raglan get to JD before they moved him? Raglan would be on his own and no one had ever escaped from a penal colony in such a hostile environment. Imagining the worst could be fatal. He’d make a plan. Personal survival sharpened the mind. Like a condemned man facing the noose.

  Every soldier knows to sleep when they can and he dozed until he heard the announcement of the train’s imminent arrival. Before he had cleared the concourse he had bought a new phone and then stood at the entrance on the Rue de Dunkerque considering how to move on to Moscow. He and Sorokina had agreed on a two-day window for him to get to Moscow. If anything had gone wrong at her end then her enemies would likely be waiting for him at an airport, and it was now highly likely, too, that Maguire would have French flics watching out for him. They were all in the same old boys’ club.

  ‘I’ve got something,’ said Sokol, answering Raglan’s call. ‘You remember Milosz?’

  ‘He left the Legion three years after me.’

  ‘Correct. Works security now. Set himself up as a small company, corporate protection, that kind of thing.’

  ‘How can he help?’

  ‘I’m not sure yet but he has a young brother in Warsaw. He’s something to do with the film business, special effects or something. I can’t remember his name. I’m trying to get hold of Milosz – I’ve left a message.’

  Raglan knew that if he diverted from Moscow he could lose valuable time. ‘I’ll give it an hour. If he can help me somehow then I’ll get a ticket there.’

  ‘And Moscow?’

  ‘Not sure, yet.’

  ‘OK, listen, I’ve got a distant cousin who’s a few hours outside Moscow. Some small village. I’ll pay her a visit. Give you a chance to have a bolthole. Can’t do any harm.’

  ‘It looks as though we’re still in the fight,’ Raglan said.

  ‘Never left it,’ said Sokol.

  *

  Raglan added his own message on Milosz’s voicemail and forty-two minutes later his phone rang as he quaffed coffee and devoured a ham and cheese baguette. ‘You on a job, Dan?’ said the gruff voice. He hadn’t heard it for a few years but the length of time made no difference; it was as if they had spoken that morning. No need for a greeting or small talk.

  ‘Milosz. I need help.’

  ‘Where and when? I’m in Israel right now.’

  Raglan explained what Sokol had said and that he was preparing to go undercover as a member of the Russian mafia.

  ‘Don’t do it. They’ll spot you before you knock on their door.’

  ‘I’ve only got one crack at this. Can you help?’

  Milosz sighed. ‘It’s your neck. I reckon my kid brother can help. My family disowned him years ago because he’s queer but I didn’t, and anyone gave him a bad time I sorted them. So he’ll always help me out. He’s in the film business, does makeup. He’s some kind of genius. The only one we’ve got in the family other than me. He’s in Warsaw. Can you get there?’

  ‘Yes, I’m in Paris now.’

  ‘Bird told me. You have money?’

  ‘Enough to get there. After that I don’t need much where I’m going. Sokol can wire me some.’

  ‘Don’t, it’s all traceable. My brother will give you what you need; he knows I’m good for it. I’ll phone him now. The movie studio he works for is in Lodz; it’s a hundred clicks from Warsaw. You can’t get a direct flight there but I know he’s between jobs. I’ll get him to meet you in Warsaw. He’ll sort something out. He does private work at home. Society women flock to him. They strip to the skin so he can work his magic. Doesn’t that make you wanna cry? What a waste. Better you go there. Get on the next flight at Charles de Gaulle.’

  ‘Got it. Talk to Bird because he needs to send scans through to your brother. Can you do that?’

  ‘Consider it done. You always were a crazy bastard. If you live through this we need a reunion. And you’re buying.’

  Raglan ran for the train and the thirty-minute ride to CDG airport. The elements of a plan were coming together now. He felt the keen sense of anticipation. The gap between him and the man he hunted was closing.

  *

  A lean, tall man stood at the entrance to Warsaw’s Frederick Chopin airport. He wore a tailored grey overcoat and his fashionably trimmed beard might convince a casual onlooker that he was one of the many successful younger entrepreneurs that modern Poland boasted. There was no physical resemblance to the hardened legionnaire that Raglan had fought alongside. The only way he knew he was Milosz’s brother was the discreetly folded legionnaire’s beret held at his side: better than any name board and more discreet.

  Raglan walked up to him. ‘I’m Raglan.’

  The man extended a delicate hand, long fingers, hands that could play a piano concerto. ‘I know.’ He smiled without further explanation. ‘I am Tomasz,’ he said with a slight inflection to his English accent. ‘I live in the city so do not drive myself, but I have a private cab waiting nearby and a meal ready for you at home. I hope you like traditional Polish food.’

  Raglan smiled. ‘That’s kind of you, thanks. I lived alongside your brother for many years. Back then I had no choice about the food, but I’m certain you will improve on his cooking.’

  ‘From what he said you need more than food. I hope I can help you.
It’s lucky I’m between films. You’d have been delayed further getting down to the studios at Lodz,’ he said as they walked briskly in the cold air.

  Winter in Eastern Europe was already closing in and the chill reminded Raglan that he could not linger here.

  ‘But from what Milosz told me, I was afraid I would not have the materials here in Warsaw. I have sent my friend to the studio to get what I need. He will get there and back in four hours – he drives like a crazy man. By the time we have eaten I will have what I need and in the meantime, I will prepare you. The tattoo images you want take time.’

  It took twenty minutes to travel the ten kilometres into the old town. The car turned down a narrow street, tyres rumbling over the wet cobblestones past burghers’ townhouses painted in various hues. It stopped on a street corner which offered a fine view across a vast square towards the city’s Royal Castle.

  ‘Let me,’ said Raglan, reaching for his wallet to pay the driver.

  ‘It’s on my account. I use them all the time,’ Tomasz said, wishing the driver goodnight by name. He led Raglan through an ornate old door and upstairs to his apartment, which covered the top two floors of the four-storey building. His host opened the door on to polished wood floors, oriental carpets and the appetizing smell of a meal on the stove. An ornate marble fireplace dominated the high-ceilinged room furnished with an eclectic mix of antique and modern furniture. To one side of the mantel, a gold statuette stood with an official awards ceremony photograph of Tomasz receiving his Oscar. Raglan stopped to admire it. The inscription told him it was awarded for best makeup on a well-known movie.

  The walls displayed what appeared to be select pieces of modern art. On the sideboard next to the fireplace were several silver-framed photographs. In one Tomasz embraced another man of similar age, probably his partner, Raglan thought. In another picture, Tomasz was laughing with Milosz. Pride of place went to Milosz in legionnaire dress uniform. A group photograph of Sokol, Milosz, Sammy and Raglan in combat fatigues, looking somewhat worse for wear, explained how Tomasz had recognized him at the station. And it was obvious that Tomasz hero-worshipped his older brother.