by T. M. Parris
Vadim had brought the new bottle and another glass. Roman was itching to invite him to sit down, but there were only two chairs.
“Rose!” Roman turned to her. “Please, take one of my cars. It will drop you anywhere. My gift to you. Vadim will show you. Please, go with. It’s no trouble.”
That didn’t please Rose at all. But whatever they’d been talking about, as far as Roman was concerned the conversation was over. And most of the time, most people did what Roman wanted. At least they used to. Vadim was shepherding her out. She turned to look at him, perhaps hoping he’d engineer for her to stay. No chance. He wanted her out of there more than anyone. Mainly for his own peace of mind.
The two of them sat. Roman wrapped two hands around the vodka bottle as if finding warmth in it.
“You know, Fairchild, I’m not a huge drinker. Drink has brought this country to its knees, men dying before their time, too weak to stop. But tonight – today, my friend, I lost my son, my only child. Now I am alone in the world. I will drink tonight. You will join me, yes?”
“Of course.” Fairchild slid his glass over for Roman to fill it.
“To family!” They drank and the glasses were full again.
“I’ve had similar news myself,” said Fairchild. The gangster’s mild blue eyes rested on him. “You remember I told you how my parents disappeared?”
He told Roman what he’d discovered in Tuva, but skipping over the names and the horror of what happened afterwards. Roman was one of his contacts, part of the network he’d built over the years and maintained worldwide. These were people he’d courted and befriended, people he could bring himself to trust. Some were intelligence operatives, many were not. But they could see and hear things, and they wanted to help because they knew that Fairchild could help them in return. He told these people the story of his parents, told them exactly what he wanted to know, asked them to watch and listen, no more, and pass it on if they heard anything. That was all. And for the best part of twenty years this army of observers had nothing for him – until one of them met Dimitri, and realised the significance of the old Russian monk. So in the end Fairchild’s patience paid off and he got his answers. That ought to mean his search was at an end and he no longer needed all these helpers. But it didn’t feel that way.
Roman nodded sympathetically. “Ha. So you have also found yourself alone in the world. A survivor from the past. We have much in common.”
They raised glasses again, and drank.
“Your friend, who was here,” said Roman.
“She’s not really a friend. Just someone I know.” Roman was watching him carefully.
“Someone you work with?”
“Not really. Not exactly.”
“Not exactly? But in some inexact way, yes? So she is a spy?”
“Of course she’s a spy,” said Fairchild. “She’s British! We’re all spies! You know that, Roman.”
“Come now! I’m asking you a question. You know these things, I’m not sure how. Why did she come here?”
“I honestly don’t know.” That was the truth. “I’m not someone she confides in.”
“Ah!” Light dawned in the man’s face. “But you’d like to be! Yes, that makes sense.”
Since when had he become so easily readable? Not good. He needed to work on that.
Roman poured. They drank.
24
Darkness fell entirely while Rose took the Metro back to the city centre. She’d got Roman’s driver to drop her at Krylatskoye. She didn’t want a Morozov car dropping her at home for all to see. Besides, traffic being what it was, the Metro was quicker.
She fumed as she sat. Great result: as soon as the man arrives, the woman gets turfed out. Get rid of the chaff, so the guys can get down to the serious business. Her journey wasn’t entirely wasted, though; Roman had some interesting things to say about Kamila. It put her in a new light. If Kamila were capable of theft and had the nerve to steal like that from Morozov, she could shoot someone in the head. Would Roman and Fairchild talk about Kamila? Or would they have more important matters to discuss? She wasn’t too worried that Peter would find out she’d been there. Instinctively, she knew that Fairchild would keep it to himself.
The train slowed to a halt. The doors opened to let in tired-looking Moscow commuters, hatted, hooded and scarved. Rose looked at her watch. It was mid-evening. After all that vodka she could do with some food. But a night in her goldfish-bowl flat didn’t appeal. The background research on Kamila ought to be available by now. She’d have to go into the office to access it; downloading sensitive files onto a laptop at home was a no-no. She pondered the Moscow transit map in front of her, made a decision, and jumped up to get off the train just as the doors were about to close.
25
More vodka, another silent toast and fiery gulp. The bottle was half-empty already. Roman was waxing lyrical on his favourite topic, the Russian tragedy. He sighed.
“Here in Russia we never seem to want to just live in peace. Make some money and look after our own. No, we must create empires and amass huge wealth and wage extravagant wars. Our borders are a threat, our neighbours are a threat, our own people are a threat. The history of Russia! Death and suffering. Then for a while there is hope that we can change. But that hope is extinguished. More death and suffering! Worse than before. In the Russian story, everybody dies.”
“And where are we in the story?” asked Fairchild. His tongue seemed thick.
“Fairchild, you know our history! The USSR, such a terrible thing. My father. You know what happened to my father. He was sent to the gulag. You know why?”
Fairchild knew why, but he asked anyway.
“Because he fought for Russia! Because he was captured by the Germans and was a prisoner of war. Him and many others. And when they came back, Stalin decided they were spies for the Germans now! So they went to prison for their service. He became vor. A criminal with a code, a black market operator. When he got out, he carried on, passed the business to me. We gave people goods, livelihoods, food sometimes, when the state could not. When the government becomes criminal, criminals become the government.”
Roman drank. Fairchild waited for the rest of the history lesson.
“When the Soviet Union came to an end, what an opportunity! Russia could emerge a great nation, with confidence in its people, serving its citizens and putting aside those futile ideologies. But what happened? We descended into gang warfare. Running fights on the streets, when we could have been helping to rebuild our country. Greed, Fairchild, greed. I had to beat them down, but it cost me, it cost me.”
Fairchild nodded. He knew about the turf wars and the price Roman paid. “And now?”
“Now, we are being swallowed up. Taken one by one into the big machine, bought like cakes in a shop. My old adversaries. Yes, we were at war sometimes, but we respected each other. We stood on our own feet and lost sometimes, won sometimes. Now everyone is controlled by the invisible strings that all lead back to – you know where they lead.”
“The Kremlin.”
Roman paused as he was pouring. “I thought we were fierce and proud. But it seems everyone has a price. They may talk in the old way, but they do as they’re told, for money. For cars and women and property and currency, hard currency.” His eyes tracked around the plush furnishings. “Moscow honey. It attracts everything, the peasants, the dogs, the flies.”
He poured. They drank.
“Bears like honey,” said Fairchild.
“Not this bear. Not this honey. I would not dance to another’s tune. It gets worse all the time, my people tell me. The government seizes businesses just because corrupt officials want the money. No law, no code. Some are leaving, taking their money with them. Me, I will stay and fight.”
“You said everyone has a price.”
“Not me! I don’t care about money or status. I gave it all to my son, for him to do as he pleased. So that I could go home, live in peace.”
“And what
was Alexei’s price?”
Roman shook his head sadly. “Too low, I’m sorry to say. He put the goods on display so eagerly. It is a terrible thing to lose a child. A parent cannot help but invest their hopes and dreams in their children. Then to see them destroyed…”
“You’re talking about the FSB? The government people who approached Alexei?”
“Yes, FSB! KGB, FSB, the same, the soldiers of governments who can’t trust their own people, the puppeteers!”
“Do you know who it was? Who he was talking to in the FSB?”
“What does it matter? They’re all the same.”
“Maybe not.” Fairchild slid his glass over. Roman poured. “My parents. They were abducted by a crew working for a KGB operative with the nickname Grom. I’ve been told he may still be active. He had a reputation.”
“Grom? He calls himself Grom? What is he, a gangster like me? These people, who do they think they are?”
“He was known on the streets. But he was KGB.”
Roman shrugged. “What do your friends say?”
“My friends,” said Fairchild, “say that he doesn’t exist.” He raised his glass. They drank.
“You don’t believe your friends?”
“They’re not really friends. They’re liars. They’re government stooges too, just a different government. Trying to cover up the past.” He slid his glass towards Roman. “You and I, Roman. We’re friends, aren’t we?”
Roman smiled as he poured. “Yes, we’re friends. We’re friends for a long time.” He put the bottle down. “But I know of no Grom-KGB-gangster type. The name of the guy Alexei spoke to, the man he trusted, it’s in the records. I’ve seen it. But it’s just a name, a Russian name. Maybe real, maybe not.”
“And what are you going to do with this name?”
“Nothing. I have no business with the FSB. They come to find me, I tell them to leave Morozov alone. Why? You want the name? I give you the name, if you like.”
“Maybe it could help. Maybe this man can lead me to Grom.”
“Okay, okay, if it makes you happy. I write it down.”
“There’s no need.”
“My friend, we’re both drunk! I write it down, no need to remember! You have paper?”
Fairchild felt in his jacket for a scrap of paper.
26
Rose stared out of the office window at the Embassy, mesmerised by the flow of headlights along the riverside. Behind her, the remains of a McDonald’s meal littered her desk. Her laptop sat amongst the detritus, open on the latest intelligence report on Kamila Morozova.
They’d always known that she met Alexei while working in Moscow as an escort. Kamila had been one of many, targeting the most exclusive night clubs, bribing the doormen for an opportunity to come in and display themselves on the dance floor in front of the watching millionaires. They hoped to be installed as someone’s mistress, with an apartment and an allowance and free time, and a little money to send home sometimes, in exchange for keeping themselves looking nice and always being available. That had been Kamila’s game, and it seemed to have worked out much better for her than that. But what about before? The records from Grozny painted a different picture.
First, Kamila was older than she looked. Rose had put her in her mid-twenties. She was actually forty-two. Why did that change her view of the woman so much? She’d thought that Kamila was a decade younger than her, but in fact she was a few years older. Should it matter? She didn’t know, but somehow it did. Alexei was in his early thirties. Would he knowingly have married a woman a good deal older than himself? Was he expecting children? She must have lied to him, and her lie was understandable. But her whole manner, her dismissiveness, her vulnerability – how much of that was real?
The second finding was where exactly the real Kamila was from, a village outside of Grozny. In the war of 2008, the entire area was overrun with Russian troops which successfully besieged Grozny and defeated the Chechen separatists. It had been a bloody war with bitterness and retributions. Kamila’s village was occupied by Russian troops. Its population was wiped out. Alexei served in the Russian army, served in Chechnya. Something he was proud of. Now, years later, Kamila was missing and Alexei was dead. Rose shook her head slowly. They should have known about this from the start.
The third revelation was Kamila’s career back home in Chechnya. Not everyone who lived in a village was a farmer. Kamila had studied at school and gone on to do a college course. She had a job, in Grozny, although her home address was always back in the village.
Her career? Book-keeping.
She thought back to Kamila in the ladies’ room at the opera, calmly applying her make-up while handing over the deepest of Morozov secrets. Earlier, in the clothes store, her round-eyed dismay at the sight of the film. But how quickly she recovered from it. Better to be human and risk everything than be safe and locked inside yourself. So philosophical, so blasé. When Rose had done this before, if people didn’t regret the act, they at least regretted being caught.
She sat and did what she’d known for several hours she needed to do, but had put off. She opened up the laptop and went to the video.
It took her back to that foggy evening in St Petersburg, standing in the empty flat sipping tea in her uncomfortable shoes. She took it right from the beginning, the door buzzer, the muffled conversation with no picture – the sound quality was still awful. The silence, then the moan in the darkness, the gasp of breath, the light in the bedroom coming on and Kamila, breasts bare to the world, lifting her head. Rose paused the video. She remembered how she’d felt at that moment, her involuntary step backwards as if she were being looked at. Frozen on the screen, Kamila’s expression was curiously bland.
Rose resumed playing. This was where Kamila turned and was pulled down onto the bed. Odd, that they never got a glimpse of the man’s face. The sound intensified, Kamila’s rhythmic moaning. Now she appeared again, facing the window, astride her lover. She was looking down. Rose advanced frame by frame, watching every expression and movement, Kamila looking up, her mouth widening, her head tilting back, her eyes closing. Then all motion came to a halt. Rose rewound, back to when Kamila turned to face the window. She zoomed in on the woman’s face and played it again, several times. She focused on the part when Kamila first looked up, her eyes wide open. She played it again and again until she was sure.
Kamila was not just facing the window. Her eyes changed focus, tracking along the building opposite. Kamila was looking out of the window.
Did she know they were there?
27
“It’s all my fault, you know.” Roman’s voice was muffled. His head was resting on the table, his arms outstretched across it. Fairchild was lying on the floor. It was the only way to stop it moving. “I expected too much of him. After his mother died, it all went wrong. She was good with Alexei. She understood him. Maybe I never did.”
A pause went on for some unmeasured time. Fairchild felt he should fill it. “You mustn’t blame yourself. You did what you thought was best.”
The noise from Roman’s general direction could have been a snort or a snore. There was a crash: Roman’s fist hitting the table. An empty glass fell and rolled on the carpet.
“Women! Women! The women have built Russia, my friend. Us men, we just play games, fight each other, drink too much, die. When she died, she took half of me, too. The better half. I never wanted anyone else. But you, Fairchild!” His voice was less muffled; he’d lifted his head slightly. “Your woman. What does she mean to you?”
This again. “What woman? I don’t have a woman.”
“No, no! I saw that you like her. You weren’t expecting her to be here. You give yourself away, when you’re not prepared. Men should be strong, like a fortress, a wall. Of course, love, but don’t lose your guard. Could be dangerous.”
“That’s good advice.” Fairchild shifted on the carpet. The ceiling had an interesting overlapping plaster effect. Another long pause. A rushing sound was
coming from somewhere.
“Why do you love her? Why?” Roman spoke with a sudden urgency.
There seemed no point denying it. Roman wouldn’t have believed him anyway. “What does why mean? Why did you love your wife?”
“Ah! Yes, I loved her…” Silence again. Fairchild lifted his head. Roman was trying to open another bottle. Another one? Vadim had brought the whole case in and left them to it.
“Here!” Roman had unscrewed the lid. Now he leaned dangerously down to pick up the fallen glass. “My wife, she was pretty! Most lovely girl in the village. Very good cook. Very kind mother. We wanted more children but she was ill as a child, lack of food, almost died. Was never healthy. Russia! But she looked after us. Come, come!”
Fairchild climbed with difficulty to his knees and leaned on the table to take the offered glass. They toasted silently and drank. He could barely taste it now.
“So, your woman!” Roman insisted. “What was her name? Rosa, yes?”
“Rose,” said Fairchild, while the room started to spin again.
“Why you like Rose?”
“Why do I like her?” Fairchild clambered back down to the floor. All the words, images, that rushed into his head. What could he say?
“She’s…” A force, an energy, the centre of everything but she doesn’t even know. When she looks at me with those eyes, judging me, shaming me, I see my miserable, shambling self and my meaningless farce of a life. Centred, grounded, true, loyal, she’s everything I’m not, I could never please her.
“She’s…” The gangster was waiting. What was in his mind that moment in Kathmandu, when the pieces fell into place, when he realised what she was to him?
“…magnificent,” he said.
A silence. “Magnificent?”
“Magnificent.”