Moscow Honey: A dark suspenseful spy thriller (Clarke and Fairchild Book 2)

by T. M. Parris

Roman frowned. “John Fairchild?” Several times he’d tried to get in touch with his friend Fairchild, but hadn’t heard anything in weeks.

  “No, not him. The woman.”

  “The woman?”

  “Rose Clarke. But it was because of the man. It is a shame. I liked her. But Grom likes to play games with people. That’s what he does. He sends them running off after what they want, but it’s because he has tricked them. Alexei was easy, for a man like that. Alexei was vain, he thought he was clever, especially if you told him so. He had so many needs, so many wants. You only had to —”

  The bullet blast echoed in the empty space, took Roman’s breath away. Then another: one, two. Kamila fell to the ground, hit in the head and the chest. Vadim’s hand shook as he lowered the gun. He turned to Roman, eyes wide.

  “That scheming little whore! How can you listen to that?”

  “Vadim!”

  His voice trembled with anger. “Trying to save herself by turning a father against his own son. She’s a Chechen! A thief! A murderer! She stole from Alexei and then she killed him. And you listen to her while she puts her claws in you!”

  Roman punched him in the mouth. He fell to his hands and knees, the gun skittering along the floor. Roman kicked him in the chest. He slid to the ground.

  “I am Morozov! I am Morozov! Not you!” Roman walked away and kicked the wall. Vadim breathed hard, starting to pick himself up.

  “You’re a lonely old man. You don’t need her.”

  Roman turned and punched him again. Vadim slammed into the ground. There was blood in his mouth, but still he wouldn’t shut up.

  “This is all yours now. You came here to kill her. That’s what you came here for. But she knew how to turn you. Can you tell me you didn’t notice, how much she looks like her? Looks like your wife, on the day you got married? You can tell me you didn’t see it?”

  Roman kicked him in the stomach. He heaved. He didn’t try to get up. Roman faced the wall and listened to Vadim’s breathing come back to normal. The whining voice started up again.

  “I won’t fight you, Roman. How many years have we known each other? I won’t fight you. You can kill me if you want.”

  Roman strode over and picked up the gun.

  “Get up.”

  Vadim got to his knees, then his feet. He wiped the blood from his face and stood, facing Roman.

  “You came here to kill her, and now she’s dead. That’s what you wanted.”

  He waited, his sad eyes watching. Roman could end him. He should. In years gone by, he wouldn’t hesitate. But from those years gone by, Vadim was the only one left.

  He looked at the gun in his hand. He held it out. Vadim stepped forward and took it.

  Roman cast a final look round, at the cases of cheese and the body on the floor.

  “Let’s go home,” he said.

  59

  Several days of strenuous cross-country trekking got them to the Russian border. They walked at night, hiding during the day, short of food and water with inadequate kit, but Rose felt nothing. Fairchild knew the route; she followed blind, not finding it in herself to contribute or question. At the border, Fairchild’s contact, a dark-eyed young Georgian, escorted them across, and then to Nalchik and a long train journey back to Moscow.

  They shared a carriage and a lot of silence. Rose slept or stared out of the window, staring at the passing scenery: wide rivers with scrubby banks; clusters of concrete tower blocks; soggy marshland with puddles reflecting the low grey sky; massive concrete silos joined by conveyors, smoke billowing out of vents. Every now and then something would remind her of Katya’s messy straw-coloured hair, or Ilya’s earnest young voice, or Marta and her quiet presence, and she would battle against tears. Fairchild pretended not to notice. Good: she didn’t want sympathy, or company.

  She had vivid dreams. Once she was in a flotilla of boats crossing a river at night, flashes and bangs overhead, but when she looked up she realised they weren’t missiles but fireworks, vibrant colours and patterns painting the sky, watched by hundreds of upturned faces. And when she got to shore and stepped out of the boat they were all there, Marta and Ilya and Katya, and they hugged her and everyone smiled. When she woke in her narrow bunk in the airless, rocking carriage, she sobbed silently, face to the wall.

  They got news of what was happening en route. Tbilisi was still a stalemate, but the taking of Lali and the river crossing strengthened the Russians’ supply lines. International condemnation was widespread, with a handful of pro-Russian (ie anti-American) nations prevaricating, calling on “both sides” to find a peaceful solution. The only news coming out of Lali itself was via Russian media channels. God knows what was really happening there.

  By the time they were pulling into Moscow, things started to seem heart-achingly normal. She’d managed a phone conversation with Peter and a meeting had been arranged for the following day. From the train, Moscow looked grey and gloomy. All the snow had gone. She didn’t want to be back here, to recognise these familiar sights, take up her life as if nothing had happened. Fire was what she wanted, a great roaring, sweltering, hissing, crackling, raging force to take over and eat it all up, turn this whole miserable thing into stinking, smoking ash.

  Walking up the platform, Fairchild muttered something about sharing a car. One of his executive fleet, no doubt. Rose shrugged. The idea of going back to her goldfish-bowl flat had no appeal. He left her standing at the pick-up point saying he needed to buy a new SIM card to call for the car. It sounded like an excuse, and clearly it was because he wasn’t back after twenty minutes.

  She didn’t blame him for regretting the offer. She could hardly look him in the face and he knew it. At times back there she’d relied on him, needed him. He knew of her weakness now. He’d seen her passion, her desperation, and there was no unseeing it. He’d glimpsed inside her, discovered things about her that no one knew, that she hadn’t even known herself. You don’t expose yourself in this trade, not to anybody. Especially not to someone like Fairchild. In some ways she hated him for showing up in Lali. She’d prefer to be dead right now, crushed in the same pile of rubble as Katya and all the others. But she wasn’t. She was here, waiting for a car that wasn’t going to arrive and it was cold, and getting dark.

  She gave up on Fairchild and headed for the Metro.

  60

  It must have been obvious it was an excuse. Fairchild walked away from her, exhaling slowly, barely looking where he was going. He needed a moment to himself, a moment to think, try and clear his head.

  The train journey had been agony. He knew she didn’t want him there. She was so fragile, so silently despairing, so keen to hide it, that he worried about what she might do. Having seen her in her fury and shock and rage, to watch her draw it all in, internalise, suffer it alone while he was right there, was almost unbearable. He remembered every detail of that night lying in the cellar, her body warm and solid and real, her breathing, her hair, her touch. Every cell in his body wanted to hold her now, comfort her, tell her she wasn’t alone, that he’d been there too and that he thought he understood. But she’d pulled back and withdrawn from him quite deliberately.

  He understood why, respected it, admired her strength in some ways, but it was a dangerous kind of strength, the kind that might lead her out into a desert and leave her there, stranded and parched. He’d been there himself so often, concluding a long time ago that he could trust no one with his soul. But he had an outlet for his loss, he had a mystery to solve, a puzzle to complete, the puzzle of what happened that night. He’d turned his inner grief into an intellectual exercise, conducting ever more research, digging ever deeper, building a bigger and bigger network, convincing himself that all he needed was to know what happened and everything would be better. And now he knew, but it wasn’t better. He was even more alone than before, mocked by the life he’d built. What was the point of John Fairchild? He had no purpose.

  She could be his purpose. He’d use it all for her. If he
had it in his ability, if it fell within his gift, if he could do something that would mend her, give her peace again, it would make everything meaningful once more. But that wasn’t what she wanted. Mile after mile the elastic binding him internally grew ever more taut. As they drew into Moscow it tightened and squeezed so that he couldn’t even keep still. He couldn’t stand this. He couldn’t stand the idea, after what they had been through, of things between them simply returning to how they were before. He had to say something.

  He wanted to say this: I understand how you feel because I was there and I know what happened. I feel like that too, and it’s okay. It’s okay because I’m not going to use it against you, or foist myself on you, but don’t ever think that you’re alone. Because I’m here for you, forever, whenever you want me. And if you don’t want me, that’s fine as well. Just know that I’m yours.

  But they pulled in and got off the train and walked up the platform, and still he didn’t say anything. So he offered her a lift, to give himself more time. But he needed to get away for a minute and think, think what to say, plan something while she wasn’t there in front of him, something perfect, something that exactly expressed how he felt.

  He walked past the arcade of shops out to the back, an access road for deliveries and a hidden spot for smokers. Nobody was there. He leaned back against a wall and closed his eyes.

  Footsteps. He opened his eyes. Hands gripped both his arms. Two men were standing either side of him. Two big chunky guys.

  “You come with us, please,” one of them said.

  “I don’t think so.”

  “No, you come.”

  He tried to pull out of their grip but it was solid. Before he could try anything else a car squealed to a halt in front of them. Another thickset guy got out. He opened the back door and pointed Fairchild in. All three of them stood, waiting.

  Fairchild twisted both arms and ducked, sliding backwards between them. He turned, but the third was in front of him already, and shoved his head backwards. A blow in the stomach winded him. They lifted him up and threw him bodily into the back of the car. He slid on the leather seat into the lap of a fourth heavy.

  The door slammed shut and the car accelerated away.

  61

  A man standing on the platform was wearing a trenchcoat and reading a folded newspaper. Rose noticed him just as her train built speed. She stared at him as the train went past. They plunged into a tunnel and he was gone. It was such a familiar image, a stereotypical spy from Cold War days, a Moscow shadow.

  He was nothing. Modern day street watchers didn’t dress like extras off a film set, even the FSB. But that image somehow penetrated the fog she’d been walking around in since arriving back in Moscow. She was a fool to go back to her flat. If sending her to Lali was a trap set by Grom, it had a purpose to it. They might be waiting for her. Part of her didn’t care, but another part, now awakening, protested. You’re going to give them what they want? After what they did? She wouldn’t make it that easy for them. She focused on the Metro map in front of her and made another plan.

  The hotel looked decent enough, but explaining at the front desk that she’d lost all her ID but did have quite a lot of cash, the room options became more limited. Her room key number took her through the lobby, along a corridor with plush carpets right to the end, round a corner into a corridor with no carpet at all, where the lights were bare bulbs and the room doors were badly fitting, to the end of this one too. Her room had a single bed with a threadbare blanket, a washbasin with a tiny bar of soap and two pieces of paper towel, and a tiny rickety wooden desk and chair. After an extensive search she located a toilet at the end of the corridor, in the corner of a room used for cleaning materials.

  She sat on the bed. No relaxing steam bath for her then. It didn’t matter. A charger would be useful, though, for her phone. She eventually found a socket under the bed. Then she lay on the bed having nothing else to do, no place to be, no plans or ambitions of any kind.

  She closed her eyes, dozed, maybe for a minute. She woke with a start and sat up, thinking she was on the sofa cushions in the flat in Lali. For a moment she was right back in that room, looking round for the children, checking they were okay. She lay back down again, empty. But in that moment something else popped into her head.

  Boris. What happened to Boris? Sensitive, damaged Boris, another innocent in all of this. She dreaded to think, but she still had his letter somewhere.

  She emptied her bag on the floor. It was odd to think that these trivial personal items, hurriedly packed three weeks ago, had endured intact. The letter was among them, wrapped up with her paperwork inside an improvised dry bag. She looked at the writing on the envelope, reliving the conversation they’d had on the landing. She prised the flap open carefully and drew the letter out. It ran to four pages, neatly printed Cyrillic on old-fashioned gossamer-thin writing paper.

  She read it. She put the letter down, lay back on the bed and stared out of the window at the night sky, her thoughts in another place. Then she sat up suddenly. In the same bundle of paperwork she still had the business card of Jannes, the journalist she’d met on that first night in Lali. She found his card and thought for a while, looking at the words on the card. Then she retrieved her phone from under the bed and called the number.

  62

  Fairchild was escorted out of the car and led by a man on each arm into the tired lobby of one of Moscow’s towering Stalinist skyscrapers. One lift took them up to the twentieth floor, the next, round the corner with its own security code, up another two floors. There, two more men were already waiting as the lift doors opened. The door opposite led into a large room, overheated and stuffy. A row of dirty windows offered a magnificent view of Moscow. The thick brown carpet and wooden furniture probably dated from the 1950s. There was not enough furniture for the room, which stretched alongside the windows like an empty gallery. Towards the far end was a single armchair and a coffee table.

  The door closed. The men stationed inside the door made it clear that Fairchild was expected to stay. He sat in the armchair, put his feet on the table and drifted in and out of sleep sitting there overlooking the city lights. When awake, his eyes would trace the streets below wondering where she was. How long did she wait for him? He thought of phoning her and got his phone out, only for one of the goons to snatch it out of his hand. He fell into a deeper sleep and dreamed he was in a cellar, with Rose, and the sound of falling shells was so loud that he couldn’t hear what she was saying. She was agitated, trying to say something important, something that mattered to her, but he couldn’t make it out. A thud, as a shell landed near them. He woke with a jump, the sound echoing in his ears. Standing by the door was a familiar figure, a large well-built man with an air of authority.

  “Sleep is a good thing,” Roman Morozov said. “It will help you heal. I imagine you will need to recover from the last few weeks.” He placed a hand on Fairchild’s shoulder. “But it will take time.”

  A guard brought an upright chair, and a bottle of vodka and two glasses were placed on the table.

  “I apologise for how you were brought here,” said Roman. “We have an urgent need to talk.”

  The Bear sat squarely opposite him, and poured the shots. Despite the vodka and the greeting, there was no doubting the situation; Fairchild was in the man’s custody.

  He took his feet off the table. “How did you know we were back in Moscow?” he asked.

  “I have people watching every train going through to Baku. Anything unusual, I hear about it.”

  “It sounds like you’re back in charge already.” He shifted in his seat.

  “You are injured?” asked Roman.

  “Just a flesh wound.” Fairchild indicated his shoulder, which was still sore.

  “My friend! You should have said. You need a doctor?”

  “No, it’s okay. It’s healing.”

  “That’s good. You are not defeated by pain. You can endure it, knowing it will come to an
end. I was hoping the army would give such a mentality to Alexei, but it was not to be. He was always in the moment.”

  “Perhaps I should be grateful to you for bringing me here and looking after me so generously.”

  Roman ignored his irony. “We have important things to discuss.” He raised his glass.

  “I thought you weren’t a big drinker.”

  “Ha! Well, maybe I am these days. People change. To good health!”

  They both drank. It had been weeks since Fairchild had drunk anything. He felt lightheaded straight away. Roman poured again. The bottle seemed very large. He hoped this wouldn’t be a repeat of their last encounter.

  “Do you know why you were lured into a war zone?” asked the Bear.

  “Was I?”

  “Yes.” Morozov settled into his chair. “I now know, I now understand, who it is you and I are against. We have a common enemy, and he is a dangerous person.”

  Fairchild waited. He’d begun to suspect something like this. Roman leaned forward.

  “The state is taking over everything, you know this. We used to have balance, different sides. Yes, there was violence, fighting, but because we had something to fight for. Now, everyone gives their soul to the government. Some for money, others because they see no other option. Why try? they ask. They will take it anyway. I may as well get what I can. So they do whatever they are told, become puppets, outwardly the same but behind the scenes following orders. We’re going back to how things were before, all power in the hands of a few, our great country at the mercy of individuals who decide on a whim who will live and who will die. You don’t believe me?”

  Roman had picked up on the tiniest change in Fairchild’s expression. His eyes glittered; his face was set. This was the man who terrorised Siberia, built the Morozov empire on the bodies of his rivals. This was the man Fairchild was afraid of. But the Bear was waiting for an answer.