Lock didn’t have access to his files, but this hardly mattered because he knew it all. He explained to Kesler that his first piece of work for Malin had been in 1993, when Malin was head of the Ministry of Industry and Energy’s Transportation department. He had told Lock that he wanted to take advantage of some opportunities in the private sector, and for this would need an offshore company capable of making investments in Russia. It would also need an offshore bank account, into which payments could be made. This first company was Spirecrest Holdings, now defunct, and it had been a minor mistake. It had soon been replaced by a Cyprus company, Arctec Holdings, which for a while had done exactly what Malin had wanted. Money from Russia flowed into it and was then funneled back into Russia, to be invested in small independent gas producers and oil equipment manufacturers.
Kesler wanted to know where the money had come from. Lock explained that at the beginning he didn’t really know. He only saw payments coming in. His job wasn’t to worry about where the money was made but simply to process it and make sure it didn’t attract the attention of the taxman—or anyone else. He knew that payments were sometimes made in cash (in the days when cash wasn’t a problem), sometimes from other offshore companies, sometimes from more established Western companies, but in every case its precise origin he could only guess.
Arctec had had the most simple of structures. It had few assets—cash, mainly, safely stowed in a Swiss account—and was owned by a Liechtenstein anstalt, a particularly impenetrable form of company which was in turn owned by a Liechtenstein trust: Longway Trust, the beneficiary of which was not named. Any taxman or investigator trying to find out who owned Arctec would be lucky to get as far as Liechtenstein, but there would meet a thick wall of impenetrable Mitteleuropean discretion.
Arctec would have taken a morning, at most, to discuss. Now, though, the whole affair was very much more complex. It was its own world. Faringdon Holdings, right in the middle, held assets in over forty different companies in Russia and its neighbors. Up above it was a consortium of nine shareholders, each of which owned a roughly equal share. These shareholders were companies registered in the British Virgin Islands, in Cayman, in Malta, in Gibraltar, all over. Lock had set up each of these and each one had its own shareholders in many different places. And above these was another layer still, every company lovingly incorporated by Lock. Draw the whole thing, and it would look like an hourglass, if you stood far enough back. Finally, when it seemed like there was no end to it, everything came together in the airless heights of the scheme in the only constant, Longway, the same unbreakable trust that Lock had set up almost fifteen years earlier. A finial, of sorts.
Kesler and Lock went over every company in the scheme. Griffin had eventually counted and announced that there were eighty-three of them. (These were just the live ones—they ignored for now the dozens that had done their job and been discarded.) Each had a bank account, which Lock, with help, had set up. Each had its directors, whom Lock had had to find. Each required that its fees be paid every year to the local company register; Lock estimated that the annual expense was well over a million dollars. Most had a story that Kesler was determined to know.
On it went. When they had systematically worked their way from the middle of the hourglass to the top and then back to the bottom, Kesler again relieved his colleagues and came to settle on the three questions that seemed to exercise him most of all.
“So, Richard, where does Malin get his money?” he asked when Griffin and the junior had left the room.
“What do you mean?”
“Well, in the ministry he earns what, a thousand dollars a month? But that’s not how he lives. How does he get cash?”
Lock looked down at his hands and then back at Kesler. “There are two Russian consulting companies that provide services to companies in the group. They lend money to him sometimes.”
“Is that all?”
“The companies I look after don’t pay for anything. He’s very careful about that. If money is made in Russia and comes to him in Russia, I wouldn’t know about it. I don’t see it. I only know about everything outside Russia. That’s my job.”
Then Kesler wanted to know who owned Longway. Lock told him that he, Lock, owned it.
“You mean that you own Faringdon?”
“All of it,” said Lock.
“You’re rich.”
“I am. I sometimes wonder why I don’t feel better about it.”
“Why?”
“Well, it’s not always the most comfortable place to sit.”
“No. No. Why do it that way?”
“Why did we do it that way? We changed it three years ago. Think about it. If anyone ever sees the deeds of that trust and Malin’s name is on them he has nowhere to fall back to. Everything is clearly his. There’s nothing left to deny. My name on it creates an extra layer. And you have to prove a negative—that I don’t own it. That’s not easy.”
“He must trust you.”
Lock laughed grimly. “It’s not like I can run off with it all.” More to the point, he thought, Malin knows that I’m a coward. The whole scheme depends on it.
But for the rest of that day, most of an afternoon and into the evening, Kesler grilled Lock on what he called “the real crux”: how the money was made. Where did it come from? What of value was exchanged for it? Could it be shown that it was made honestly? More to the point, could it be shown that it wasn’t? Over and over, Lock said that he really didn’t know.
“I’m not holding out on you, Skip. Really. I take the money offshore, bring it back again, and then make sure it’s invested where Konstantin wants it. That’s it. I may have been in Moscow for fifteen years but I’m not an honorary Russian. There’s a lot they don’t tell me.”
“OK.” Kesler thought for a moment. “Tell me this. If you wanted to prove that Malin was defrauding the Russian state, where would you look?”
“I wouldn’t begin to.”
“Of course not.” Kesler betrayed a touch of impatience, then collected himself. “Let me tell you why this is important. Tourna says that Faringdon exists only to process money. That you are a money-launderer. Now, to prove that, he needs to show—with evidence—that the money flowing through Faringdon is dirty. And there has to be a crime that creates the money in the first place—in the jargon, a predicate crime. Without it, all you have is something that looks like a money-laundering scheme, and that’s not enough. So if anyone is going to destroy Malin—or you for that matter—they have to show an offense. No way around it. So my question is: where is it? Where’s the crime?”
Lock felt his shoulders relax, and felt the urge to stretch. This was heartening. The crimes were deep in Russia, buried under layers of permafrost. If he didn’t know about them—and he really didn’t, not in any detail—then even the Americans would struggle to get close. How often had Moscow fallen to invading powers? Never, he was fairly sure. Not since the Mongols anyway. Russia was impregnable. The Ministry of Internal Affairs would never cooperate with the FBI, and no private investigation would get close. No crime was ever discovered in Russia unless someone more powerful than you wanted to hurt you, and Malin would have to fall badly out of favor to begin to be vulnerable.
“I don’t know,” he said, smiling at Kesler for the first time that week. “I think Tourna’s got his work cut out. He really has.”
FOR TWO HOURS on Saturday morning Lock was released to watch his daughter dance. He arrived early and waited outside in the cool morning light, ill at ease in the only casual clothes he had brought with him on this trip: tan corduroys, a pale-blue work shirt, heavy brown shoes. The church hall was some way north of Marina’s apartment in an area less refined, less pristine: it was a box of stained yellow brick set among older houses, its uniform walls segmented with long, narrow windows of frosted glass. Lock watched the mothers and fathers arriving with their ch
ildren and wondered how many lived alone.
“Daddy!” Vika’s voice cut through the noise of traffic passing and he turned to see her running to him from the corner. As she reached him, he crouched a little to receive her hug and in one movement picked her up, his back stiff and weak. She was so much heavier than he expected, and the plumpness he remembered had given way to ribs and muscle. She was strong.
“Hello, rabbit.” He put her down and smiled at Marina as she walked toward them. “Morning.”
“Morning. How are you?”
“Daddy, are you going to stay and watch?”
“Of course. If I’m allowed.”
Vika pushed him playfully, as if he must be joking.
“Mummy, he can, can’t he?”
“I didn’t mean . . .” said Lock.
“It’s fine,” said Marina, smiling. “I know. We’ll watch from upstairs.”
Vika took Lock’s hand and led him into the hall. “Come on, Daddy.” Inside, parents were saying good-bye to their children or taking stairs up to a gallery that ran the length of the building. The walls were bare brick, the floor a scuffed parquet.
“Don’t you have to get changed?” said Lock.
“Into what?” said Vika.
“I don’t know. Dancing clothes.”
“These are my dancing clothes.” She was wearing sneakers, gray leggings and a grass-green T-shirt with a stylized oak tree on the front, its roots reaching down to the word “growth” printed in bold white letters.
“Come on,” said Marina, and with her hand on his arm guided Lock toward the stairs. “Have fun, darling.”
Vika ran into the hall, turning halfway to wave. Her hair was tied back in a ponytail, and Lock thought how much older she looked, how like her mother—her nose straight, her neck slight but strong. She was less like him now.
He and Marina sat on a bench in the gallery. He rested his forearms on the railing in front of him and looked down at Vika, who was in a cluster of children talking excitedly about their holidays and practicing moves: squatting on their haunches, striking poses. She was on the edge of the group, listening to the others interrupt each other in their need to get their stories out and waiting for her moment.
Marina put her hand on his forearm. “Thank you for coming. It’s nice to see you.”
“I should have been before.”
Marina didn’t reply; she was watching Vika below. After a moment she said, “She’s so pleased to see you.”
“I know. It’s a relief.”
“I’ve been careful not to blame you.”
Lock wanted to thank her but it didn’t feel appropriate. They were quiet for a while.
“What happened to ballet?” he asked.
“She does that on Wednesdays. But she loves this now. She practices all the time.”
“I bet she’s good.”
Marina smiled and looked down at the dancers. They had lined up, in two rows of ten, and were listening to their teacher, a woman of twenty or so who wore a baggy gray T-shirt and held herself in a way that was somehow set and sprung at the same time. The chattering had stopped and the children watched her closely as she walked back and forth. Vika’s face was grave with concentration.
“Good morning, everybody.” She had a teacher’s voice, ringing and clear. “Lovely to see you all looking so well. Let’s hope you’re feeling fit.” One or two of the children grinned, but Vika’s expression didn’t change. “I see we’ve got quite a few new faces, which is lovely. Welcome to St. Luke’s Dance. I’m Jennifer. What I think we’ll do is let the new dancers see what they’re going to be able to do. So everyone who was here last year, let’s have a go at our routine from the show. Let’s see what you can remember. We’ll be missing some dancers but just do your part and don’t worry too much.”
Lock watched Vika walk to the left of the group, bend fluidly down on one knee and crouch in a ball, her hands clasped over her head. Beside her, the other children shaped themselves carefully into their starting positions, some curled up like Vika, some in stars, some arching backward, their arms stretched to the corners of the room. At a nod from the teacher the hall filled with the thump of bass-heavy music. For four bars the dancers were still, almost uncannily so, until with great precision they broke into a syncopated rush of movement, spinning, leaping, kicking, arms and legs making intricate patterns in the air, some keeping better time than others. Each dancer had a style. Vika’s was serious but light, the intent in her eyes at odds with the easy grace of her steps, resembling her mother even in this. She was an inch taller than the others and despite her naturalness more stately, as if something from all those ballet lessons, something of Russia perhaps, would never leave her.
Lock felt tears starting to rise from his chest; he didn’t know why. He was not a sentimental man. When he was on his own in Moscow he missed Vika, but what he missed most plainly was practical: being with her, talking to her, teaching her things, hearing her laugh. What he realized now was that he had fallen behind in his idea of her. She was a different person now, different for being in London, different for being eight years old, different for dancing in this way that was so new and yet so fully her. Watching her move with the music, at once free and in command, he felt some small hint of terror at the thought that he might never really know her again. But the tears that he held in check were not for himself, and had nothing to do with sadness, or fear.
He swallowed, consciously, smiled at Marina and looked away. Down below the dance came to an end, Vika sliding to a stop on her knees with her arms and head thrown back. He clapped, and the handful of parents in the gallery followed. Vika got to her feet and smiled up at him.
“Are you OK?” Marina said.
He turned to her and smiled again, not wholly convincing himself. “It’s just lovely to see her.”
“We’re very lucky.”
“We are.”
Lock paused. He was faintly aware of needing to air a question he couldn’t frame. “Is she happy? Here in London.”
“I think so. She loves London.” Marina looked at him closely, a slight frown across her brow. “Is that what you mean?”
“I don’t know.” He looked down. The teacher was telling the children to form a circle. “I worry about what I’ve done to her.”
“She doesn’t see it as your fault.”
“That doesn’t mean it isn’t. She’ll know one day.”
Marina crossed her arms and watched the dancers. “Is this leading somewhere?”
“I . . . I suppose I’d like to say I’m sorry.”
“She wouldn’t understand.”
“I don’t mean actually say it.”
“What, then?” Marina glanced at him and then turned back to the lesson.
Lock thought. He couldn’t find the words, because he didn’t yet know what he wanted to say. Marina always knew what was in her heart, and the more complicated the situation—where he would grope around among desires and fears that sat forever in shadow, reticent, unassuming—the more clearly she knew it. This was what he remembered of their arguments. What he had since come to realize was that there can have been no sense of triumph for Marina in these easy victories, that they must have been at best an additional disappointment, and he was conscious now, at least, of wanting to show her that he had changed.
So: what did he want? Some knowledge must have been distilled from the slow, dripping process of the last four years. In his mind a pair of images sat juxtaposed: his flat in Moscow, hard and bright, its marble floors polished to a shine, the leather furniture unworn, the kitchen redundant, the whole thing empty now and always empty; and his daughter in her T-shirt dancing and spinning below him.
He wanted to be away from money. That he did know. In his world every act was a transaction, every relationship a wary contract
. He had always thought himself a shrewd if minor player of the game, but since Monaco he had become aware for the first time of the price of competing, of the steep and perhaps unavoidable cost.
He looked at Marina. How often had he sat like this, watching her in profile and failing to find the words that would turn her to him? He felt a flush of guilt and then of failure at the thought.
“I’d . . . I’d like to see more of you,” he said. “Of both of you.”
“You’ve said that before.”
“I haven’t. I’ve said I’d visit more often. This is different.” Marina closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose. He went on. “I want to see more of you. Not just visit but spend time together. Do things.” Marina didn’t reply. “Normal things.”
She turned to look at him and he felt the coolness that was sometimes in her eyes.
“You have work to do, Richard. You know that.” She paused. “Leave Moscow. Find a way. I don’t want that in our family anymore.”
Lock nodded gently, his eyes down. “And if I do?”
Her eyes softened. At times like this they seemed to suggest that there were greater sorrows than her own. “The worst part of this was seeing you lost. I still hate it.”
He nodded again. Below him the dance teacher was counting out a four-four rhythm and Vika, watching her intently, was trying to follow a new move. Lost. It was a good word for him. He had drifted way off course; perhaps too far.
Four
SOMETIMES WHEN A JOB BEGAN you surveyed the ground, found it undisturbed, and simply had to start digging to see what was there; sometimes you arrived to find it churned up by others before you, and set to it with enthusiasm in the loose earth they had left behind. But this was new to Webster. He could guess what was buried and where, almost see it, but he couldn’t get near enough to dig.
The Silent Oligarch: A Novel Page 6