The Silent Oligarch: A Novel

by Christopher Morgan Jones

  She buzzed him in without saying anything. As he climbed the stairs he was conscious of how sticky he felt, how grimy from airports and planes and taxis.

  Marina was waiting for him on the second-floor landing. She was wearing a plain dress in dark gray and a black shawl. Against the black her skin was the palest white. She wore no makeup and her hair was tied back, so that nothing distracted attention from her eyes: dry, tired, a strange light shining through the green. She held out her hand and he put his suitcase down to take it.

  “Mr. Webster.”

  “Mrs. Lock.”

  “Please.”

  He followed her into a living room that overlooked the street. Light-gray sofas, a cream carpet, a console table to the right with photographs in simple silver frames; one of Lock, tanned and smiling, younger, his pale-blue shirt unbuttoned, behind him grass-green trees out of focus; one in black and white of him looking down at a baby bundled in his arms.

  “Please, sit down.”

  Webster sat in an armchair with his back to the window, Marina on a sofa to his left, her hands clasped in her lap, her eyes calmly on his. He put the flowers down on a coffee table in front of him.

  “Thank you for seeing me,” said Webster. “I . . . I wanted to let you know how very sorry I am.” He looked down, rubbed his hands together. “Really. I wanted . . .” He could find no more words.

  “Mr. Webster, thank you. Please understand, I know little about you. I know that you helped my husband. He talked about you when he called. He said he had some help, and I assume that was you. I am grateful to you for that. But before that you hounded him. I do not know you, and I do not need to. I have no interest in judging you. I told him he should call you, so perhaps I played my part.”

  Her voice was even and precise, with a steady rhythm. Webster felt faintly shamed by her composure.

  “I wanted to see you, Mr. Webster, because . . . I want you to tell me how he died. I want to know what happened since I last saw him here. He called, but he said nothing. I would like to know.”

  “I can do that. I can tell you.”

  Webster told her what he knew. He left out nothing: not his mistakes, not his culpability. And he told her what he thought: that Lock had been killed to safeguard a secret; that the secret was indeed safe; that they would never know who was responsible.

  “What about Konstantin?” said Marina.

  “He’s back in Moscow. The Germans didn’t press charges. They arrested his bodyguard for attempted kidnapping.” He paused. “My guess is that he’ll be quietly retired. If he’s not too dangerous.”

  “When . . . When Richard was shot, what did he do? Konstantin.”

  “He walked away. When I looked up he was gone. I saw him again after they’d picked him up at the airfield. They brought him in as I was sitting in the police station. He told me he was sorry about Richard. In Russian, as if he knew I’d understand.”

  Marina nodded, her eyes clouding.

  “For what it’s worth,” said Webster, “I think he meant it.”

  “But he walked away.” Her voice was quiet and for a moment afterward they were silent. “And how was he that morning? Richard. How did he seem?”

  “Like his mind was made up. The man I met in London was scared. He wasn’t scared that day.”

  Neither said anything for a moment. Marina rubbed her eyes and looked down.

  “He said something to me as he was dying,” he said.

  Marina didn’t respond. She sat with her hand across her eyes.

  “He said, ‘I want Vika to know. It was me.’”

  Marina took her hand away from her face and looked at him. Her eyes were wet with tears and she wiped them away.

  “What does that mean?”

  “That Malin was finished. That Richard had done what he wanted to do.”

  Marina said nothing.

  “I don’t know what else it can mean.”

  She nodded. “Mr. Webster, I . . .”

  Webster shifted forward in his seat.

  “I think I should go. I should go.” He met her eye. “I’m sorry for my part in this.”

  “You thought you could rescue him. There are worse things. I never stopped thinking it.” She looked down. “I think you may have done more than me.”

  Webster watched her for a moment and then stood up. “If you ever want to talk again . . .” He reached into his pocket for a card.

  Marina shook her head. “It’s all right, Mr. Webster.” She stood. “I’ll see you out.”

  OUTSIDE, IN THE COLD AGAIN, Webster stopped on the porch and took off his tie. He had bought it at the airport that morning: dark blue, soberly patterned. He rolled it loosely and put it in one of the building’s dustbins.

  At the end of the short path to the street he looked back at the house and for a moment could see Lock on the other side of the wall, with mud on his city shoes and soft rain in his hair, alone in the vast darkness of the park. The image stayed with him as he walked to the main road. His hand was sweating around the handle of his case; he felt an urge to throw the thing away, and with it the work shirts and the exhausted razor blades and the chargers for his phones.

  He found a taxi in moments. “Hampstead please. Well Walk.”

  HAMMER ANSWERED the door just a moment after Webster’s double knock, as if he had been passing, or waiting.

  “Ben. It’s good to have you back.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Come in. Let me take that.”

  Webster gave Hammer his case and walked past him into the hall, dark despite the sun.

  “No Mary?”

  “I have no idea what she does with her days. I’m never usually here.”

  “I’m sorry. I couldn’t face the office.”

  Hammer guided him toward the study. “Let’s go in here.” He moved over to his chair, sat and smiled. “You’d have met with ranks of concerned faces. They’re all worried about you.”

  The room was cold and the fire, as before, was laid but unlit. A spotlight on the desk by the window picked out a mess of files and papers. Outside the sun shone starkly on the brown-gray bricks of the houses across the street.

  “That’s sweet of them.”

  “Yes and no. They know it could have been them. But for the grace of God.”

  “I doubt that.”

  Hammer said nothing but raised his eyebrows just enough to indicate that there was more to say. For a moment the two men sat, Hammer drumming silently on the arm of the chair with the pads of his fingers, Webster looking around the room—at the fire, the books on the walls, the piles of newspapers on the floor—and occasionally catching the steady eye opposite him.

  Hammer broke the silence. “I was expecting a call from the Germans.”

  “I managed to persuade them to leave you alone.”

  He nodded. “They want you back?”

  “If there’s a trial.”

  “Which there won’t be.”

  Webster said nothing. No trial; barely any investigation.

  “Malin?” said Hammer.

  “He went home yesterday. I’ll be amazed if they see him again.”

  “Maybe no one will.”

  “Quite.”

  More drumming. “And how are you?”

  “I’m OK.”

  “Really?”

  Webster sighed. “Yes and no.” He took a phone out of his pocket. “These are his last words. Well, nearly his last. I can’t stop listening to them. Can’t get them out of my head. If I’d heard this I would have understood. I could have saved him.”

  “It worked?”

  “It worked. I didn’t want to tell you over the phone.”

  “The police don’t know?”

  Webster shook
his head. “I gave them the suicide note and they ignored it. And the syringe. The whole thing was hopeless.”

  “So what was said?”

  “Do you want to hear it?”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “It’s in Russian.”

  “Talk me through it.”

  Webster pressed a sequence of buttons and put the phone on an upholstered stool between them.

  “That’s Lock’s voice. That’s Malin.”

  “What are they saying?”

  Webster described the scene—the bodyguard, Malin at the table, Lock calm, Black’s men positioned around—and went through the conversation, as he had in his head a hundred times. The whole thing lasted less than three minutes. The exchange of papers; Malin’s disappointment; his insistence that all along he had been protecting Lock. As they listened and he talked Webster took off his watch, cleaned its face on his shirt and stared absently at the slow, strict progress of the second hand.

  “Do you believe him?”

  “I think Lock did.”

  “And you?”

  “I do. There’s no way he’d have had Lock die next to him. Look at the mess he’s in. Look at the papers.”

  Hammer nodded. He had stopped tapping but now he started again.

  “So who did it?” he said.

  Webster sighed. “The next man up. Someone in the Kremlin. A faction in the Kremlin. It’s Russia. We’ll never know.”

  Hammer grunted. “They were there already.”

  “The Russians?”

  He nodded. “Those two guys on the plane? They had nothing to do with it.”

  “How do you know?”

  “They spent a night in the Holiday Inn at the airport. Then I couldn’t see them anywhere. They vanished. In the end I found a hotel in Hannover. They were there for two nights, then Dortmund for two nights. They’re salesmen. They sell fertilizer.”

  “How far is Hannover from Berlin?”

  “They couldn’t have done it. You said it. This wasn’t Malin.”

  Webster nodded. “The Germans weren’t interested either way.” He looked down at his hands. “I should have listened to Alan Knight. He tried to tell me this was different. I thought he was being paranoid. I think he had reason to be.”

  “Never underestimate the power of your opponent,” said Hammer, as if repeating a familiar refrain. Webster nodded, still looking down. “If you know who your opponent is.”

  “No news of Alan?”

  Hammer shook his head. They were silent for a while.

  “Sorry about the press,” said Webster.

  Hammer snorted. “God, don’t worry about that. I’m afraid that will do us no harm. Especially once Tourna starts blabbing about it.”

  “Christ. How is the client?” He had all but forgotten Tourna.

  “Happy as a clam. He thinks you’re wonderful.”

  “You’re not serious?”

  “I am. He wants to hire you.”

  “He didn’t mind the cost?”

  “He told me he’d have paid it twice.”

  “He’s grotesque.”

  “Oh yes. I called him on Monday evening to tell him what had happened and warn him there’d be some press. On Tuesday he called me to congratulate me. He knows there’s no way Malin will survive this.”

  “I wish I felt better about that.”

  Hammer said nothing.

  “Did he mention Lock?” said Webster.

  “Not a word.”

  Webster shook his head and gave a silent sigh.

  Hammer watched him for a moment. “You should go home.”

  “Nothing happened at my house?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Thanks.” Webster made to stand up, then stopped himself, as if he had something to say. They looked at each other for a moment. “I’m not sure when I’ll be back.”

  “Take your time.”

  “I’m not sure I will be back.”

  Hammer simply watched him with mild eyes. His hand pulled at his chin, his fingers closed over his mouth.

  “I just came from Marina Lock. I had to pass on his last words.”

  Still Hammer said nothing.

  “I should have given them to his daughter, because they were for her. But she wasn’t there. All week I’ve been imagining meeting that little girl—Christ, I don’t even know how old she is.” He shook his head. The words were fast, his tone harsh. “All week I’ve been imagining telling her and dreading her asking me who I am. Terrified. Who am I? I’m the man who finished off your father. The man who made him pay for his frankly banal mistakes. But that’s OK, because this other man you may have met but probably don’t remember, he’s finished too.” He stopped, collected himself. “I was relieved. I didn’t even ask where she was. Better for her that I didn’t.”

  Hammer held Webster’s eye and nodded gently, bringing his hand away from his mouth.

  “How do you feel now about Gerstman?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Do you still feel responsible?”

  “Yes. I think I set things off. Primed the mechanism.”

  “But you went on with the case.”

  Webster frowned slightly, looking closely at Hammer for a hint of his meaning.

  “I did.”

  “I’m not criticizing you. But we go on. It’s who we are. We weren’t made to leave things alone.”

  “That’s just it. I want to leave things alone. I want to leave them exactly as they are. It doesn’t matter whether that’s me or not.”

  Hammer nodded. “I’m not saying that in time you’ll feel better. You won’t. I had a source hang himself once. Years ago, before Ikertu. To this day I don’t know why he did it and to this day it makes me feel sick. You won’t feel better. But you will see better.”

  “See what?”

  “What we do. Why we do it. That on balance we do some good.”

  Not for Gerstman. Not for poor Lock. And for Inessa, he would never know.

  He looked away. From the light on the bare trees outside he could tell that the day would be gone in an hour or so.

  “Take some time,” said Hammer. “Come back in a month. Two. But come back.”

  Webster looked down at the floor and nodded once, the merest inclination of his head.

  “Thanks, Ike. We’ll see.”

  WEBSTER WALKED EAST ACROSS the Heath. The sun shone low through an avenue of bare limes and picked out in crazed patterns the dead leaves on the ground. It was half past two and Nancy and Daniel would be out of school in an hour. The park was quiet: some runners running, some mothers pushing prams. At the top of a hill he came into the light and there was London beneath him in a bright, cold haze. He walked along a wall of deep green holly and then down the shaded passageway to the pond. Two old men were drying themselves with white towels on the wooden deck. In the changing room he took off his coat, his shoes, his suit, his shirt and his socks, and stepped outside in his shorts. The air pinched his skin. At the end of the diving board he stopped, looked up at the sky above him, a perfect ultramarine, looked down at the green-black water below, and dived, the cold embracing his hands, his head, his tired body, shocking him awake.