by Faye Brann
‘Dmitri’s coming?’ Evie’s eyes were glittering.
‘He certainly is,’ Chris said.
Vicky ignored Chris’s mild ironic undertone. ‘His family are booked in a hotel just down the road from us. I found out from Matisse when I told her about winning the competition.’
‘No way!’ Evie looked delighted at the news. Vicky was happy too. If Evie and Dmitri wanted to hang out, she would have a good reason to meet with Matisse.
‘It’s all going to be great,’ Vicky said, ‘but now it’s bedtime.’
‘I’m on it,’ Chris said. ‘Come on kids, let’s get upstairs.’
Chris herded Evie and James upstairs to get ready for bath and bed, their excited chatter continuing all the way. Ollie helped her clear up the mugs from the coffee table and take them through to the kitchen.
‘That’s so cool that you won the competition, Mum,’ Ollie said.
She hated lying to the kids. ‘Yes, luck like that doesn’t come along very often.’
‘Will you still do all the Father Christmas stuff for James and Evie?’
‘Of course we will. We’ll just have to be a bit more creative about how he delivers the presents, that’s all. And buy gifts we can fit in the suitcases, I suppose.’
‘Mum … will I be able to Facetime from Dubai?’
‘I imagine so. Why?’
‘Nothing.’ Ollie moved out of the kitchen with all the speed a teenage sloth could muster. Vicky let him go, but she was curious as hell. Facetime? Who would he want to Facetime? A girlfriend, maybe? She ignored the desire to poke around his room to see if there was any evidence. Not that he’d ever know she’d been in there; however, it was one thing to spy for a living and another thing entirely to do it to her own son.
Vicky washed the pots and pans from dinner while Chris got Evie and James ready for bed, and then she began to make plans. Listening to bugged rooms, hacking computers and tapping phones had told them a lot of a story, but the missing piece that would make all the difference more often than not, came from inside a person – from somewhere you could never reach with technology. Matisse had been so close to confiding in her at the Christmas Fair. She was sure, if she just got Matisse in the right place, at the right time, that she would reveal something more to her that would pull everything into focus. Vicky pulled off her rubber gloves and draped them over the tap to dry, then pulled her phone from her back pocket and sent Matisse a message to see if she fancied meeting up in the morning. This time, she hoped her intuition was right.
Vicky and Matisse sat at coffee the next morning and discussed their various plans for the trip. Vicky hedged as hard as she dared.
‘I just hope Chris puts down his phone and computer for long enough to actually enjoy the holiday.’ In truth, as hard as he worked, Chris believed a holiday was a holiday. Vicky had never checked, but she bet that he still put the out-of-office reply on his email when he was away.
‘I am expecting I will be alone with Dmitri for much of the time,’ Matisse said. ‘Sacha is … well, Dubai is a place of business for him. He will no doubt have some things to attend to, and people to meet. But it doesn’t matter too much. Dmitri and I will be fine on our own.’
‘Matisse, is everything all right with you and Sacha?’
Matisse stared into her espresso. ‘When I was younger, he was attractive because of his power, and his money. Now I wonder if any of it matters …’
Vicky put a comforting arm out towards her.
‘Well, we’re around. I know Evie was really excited to find out that Dmitri would be there.’
Matisse nodded. ‘I know, thank you, Victoria.’
The two women finished their coffee.
‘Well, I must go. I have shopping to do for our trip, and some banking to do as well,’ Matisse said. She put on her cream leather jacket, flicked her hair out from inside the collar and zipped up the front against the cold. Vicky shucked on her big blue duvet and a woolly hat.
‘See you at the carol concert tomorrow?’
‘Of course. Sacha and I will both be there. Dmitri is really looking forward to it.’
‘Evie too. Sacha’s coming then?’
‘Oui. I tell him he must come to this, the last concert, for Dmitri.’
‘Last concert?’
Matisse faltered slightly. ‘Of the year, I mean.’
Everything became clear to Vicky then. The two women exchanged a kiss on either cheek and she watched the Frenchwoman sashay down the high street towards the taxi rank. She reached inside her bag and called Jonathan.
‘Sacha’s going to Dubai, but I don’t think it’s just to oversee the deal. I think he’s planning to run.’
‘With a wife and a kid?’
‘That’s my point. The marriage is over. I think Matisse realises he’s planning to leave her – she all but said it.’
‘So, where’s he running to? Does she know that as well?’
‘Possibly. I doubt it. But maybe there’s something at the house that might give us a clue. Something we weren’t looking for before.’
‘I take it you have a plan, Turnbull?’
‘Of course I do.’
Chapter Twenty-Two
The surveillance team was watching the front door from inside a van somewhere down the street. The security cameras had been successfully accessed and a live feed on the van monitors showed the Kozlovsky family leaving their house. The tracking device inside Sacha’s lighter confirmed as much.
‘Stand by, Ops One.’ Vicky heard Jonathan’s voice in her earpiece.
‘Standing by,’ she whispered, and flexed her ankles and shoulders to get her circulation going again. She’d been lying amongst the bushes outside the Kozlovsky’s main gate since it got dark and was not at all sure she’d be able to get back up without making a bunch of old lady sounds for the crew to snigger at. She blew into her hands, rubbed them together, and checked the time. 6.27 p.m. The carol concert was due to start at seven, but she’d asked Jonathan to arrange a few delays to the Headmaster’s journey to the church, to give her a bit more time at the Kozlovsky’s and still get to the concert herself. Still, she didn’t have long.
The gates eased open and she saw Sacha, Matisse and Dmitri pass by in the car, their faces lit by the security light. Once they were through, the gates began to shut. Vicky moved to a crouch while she waited for the car to disappear around the corner. With seconds – and inches – to spare she nipped through the closing gate.
‘Ops One in position.’ She crouched behind the tree near the front door, masked from the house, and waited for her next instruction.
‘Stand by, Ops One. Cameras switched to pre-recorded footage. Courier go.’
Vicky heard Jacob’s bike rev around the corner to where the service door was situated and stop. The ‘courier’ had a parcel for Sacha, which would divert Magda from hearing Vicky open the front door.
‘Ringing the buzzer now.’
The buzzer rang through her headset and she waited for Jonathan’s command. She heard the intercom, and Magda’s voice.
‘Diversion successful. Entry secure. Ops One go.’
Vicky eased herself out of the bushes, went through the gate, and let herself into the house as silently as she possibly could. Time check. 6.31 p.m.
‘I’m in.’
The house was quiet but fully lit. She could hear Magda getting irate with Jacob, who was stalling to give Vicky the maximum time possible, asking for Magda’s signature and having technical problems scanning the parcel. Vicky started a quick check of the ground floor, looking in the few cupboards she could find and behind the art on the walls for any hiding places where evidence might be lurking. It was the first time she’d really seen the living room. It was less overtly opulent than she’d been expecting, given the extravagant kitchen, but no less exquisite. The art on the pale grey walls had been carefully chosen: a large slab of acrylic-on-canvas rectangles hung behind the sofa, and either side of the fireplace were two beautiful b
utterfly foil block prints – unmistakably Damien Hirst – stunning in their simplicity. The coffee table housed a Chihuly Macchia in brilliant aubergine, turquoise, and magenta. Vicky would have loved more time to look at each piece but had none.
She heard a door close downstairs.
‘Courier is out. Ops One, get yourself upstairs.’
‘Roger that.’
She crept out of the living room and back into the hallway, stopping for a moment to make sure Magda wasn’t headed her way. Vicky heard the closing and locking of the housekeeper’s bedroom door. Magda wouldn’t be coming back out again on her night off without a good reason.
Vicky trod carefully up the spiral stairs to the first floor. 6.37 p.m. Inside Sacha’s office, she shut the door and relaxed a little.
‘I’m in the office,’ she said, and began a more thorough search of Sacha’s desk drawers and the panelled walls, looking for anything which might give a clue to what he was planning – tickets, a passport – anything to prove her suspicions right. She looked in the bin.
‘I’ve found the Christmas card.’
‘And?’
Vicky opened it up and was instantly disappointed. ‘It just says “Merry Christmas” and no signature. There’s nothing else inside it.’ She dug into the bin. ‘The envelope it came in is here too. But—’ she turned it over in her hands ‘—it looks from the indentations like it had something more than a card in it.’
‘Bring it back with you, we’ll send it to Forensics. Keep searching. There has to be something.’
‘Office is clean,’ she said, after another three minutes.
‘Are you sure?’ came the response.
‘Yes,’ she hissed. ‘There’s literally nothing here. He’s cleaned out. Whatever he’s planning, he’s made sure nothing got left behind.’
‘Okay, pull out.’
‘Roger.’ Vicky moved back down the stairs and headed for the front door. She was nearly out when she remembered something.
‘Wait a minute,’ she said. ‘There’s a door in the kitchen that I’ve never seen inside. Maybe there’s something in there. Do you have access to the floorplan?’
‘Vicky, I said get out.’
‘Just tell me, do you have access?’
‘Hang on.’
She waited for her team to locate a plan of the house.
‘It looks like a small room – maybe a walk-in food store or something.’
‘No, it’s on the wrong side of the kitchen for that. No one would keep their food that far away. I’m going down.’
‘Victoria, stop, we said—’
‘I’m going down, Jonathan. Can you hold up the concert for another five minutes?’
‘You’ve got no back-up if the housekeeper comes out and finds you.’
‘She won’t. I’ll be in and out before you know it.’
Vicky put her head over the railings and checked for any noise. She could hear the faint strains of a television game show coming from Magda’s room, but the lights in the kitchen were off and there was no other sign of life. She took a few steps down the stairs.
‘Shit!’
The sensors did their job and lit up the entire staircase like a fairground ride.
‘Vicky? Come in, Ops One. Report!’
‘Nothing … it’s nothing … I’m carrying on down the stairs.’
She pelted down the stairs and held her breath at the bottom, waiting for the last motion sensor to turn off and plunge her back into darkness again.
‘Okay, I’m downstairs,’ she whispered.
She made her way across the room to the door by the table. It was locked, but Vicky had bought a little bag of tricks with her this evening and pulled out her lockpicker from the bum bag strapped to her waist. It didn’t take more than a few seconds until she heard the click to tell her she was in. A small sliver of light came from underneath the door, and she made one last check towards Magda’s room before opening it up and slipping inside.
An innocuous table lamp sat on the desk, its gentle glow lighting the small office laid out before her. This room looked different to the rest of the house. A little more … real. There were books stacked on a shelf to the right; the books were about fashion and travel and interior design, with a beautiful Missoni candle sitting in a central space on the shelf nearest eye level. Lower down the shelves were a set of small storage boxes, and at the bottom a set of file boxes conveniently labelled with things like ‘MAISON’, ‘VACANCES’ and ‘DMITRI’.
It must be Matisse’s office. 6.44 p.m. Just enough time to take a quick look.
On top of the desk was the usual pile of paperwork, bills and bank statements – more money than her and Chris would ever see in their bank account even if they worked until they dropped dead. She continued down to the two desk drawers slung beneath the table top and opened the top one to find two passports, Matisse’s and Dmitri’s, and the family’s travel documents for Dubai. Nothing unusual, three return tickets. Maybe she’d got it wrong. There was no passport for Sacha, but then Chris held on to his own passport too while she kept hers with all the kids’ in a plastic envelope on a shelf in the spare room. It wasn’t anything she could hang her hat on.
‘Time to go, Turnbull.’
‘Just a couple more minutes,’ she whispered to Jonathan, and continued down into the bigger bottom drawer of the desk. It had more files in it – insurance, more bank statements, visa applications, marriage and birth certificates. She took a couple of photos of the tickets with her phone and checked her watch again. 6.48 p.m. She really had to get out of there. Just a quick look inside those boxes on the shelf … she grabbed one and slid it gently on to the desk, not realising that her phone had been shifted along towards the edge. It fell to the floor with a clatter.
Shit. When had she got so clumsy? She heard Magda’s door open and quickly moved to a position just behind the door, hidden from sight unless Magda came all the way into the room. She pressed her back to the wall behind the door, slid out the stun gun from her bum bag and clutched it in her right hand, holding it out, ready to strike.
She heard Magda come into the kitchen and pause to listen. Vicky held her breath. She didn’t want to electrocute Magda if she didn’t have to and was relieved a few seconds later when she heard the older lady mutter what she assumed to be several Hungarian profanities, shuffle back to her room and shut the door again. Vicky relaxed and put the stunner back in her pack. Then she picked up the box and opened it.
Matisse’s phone pinged, and she fished it out of her handbag to several disapproving looks. ‘Move up, I need to save some seats.’
‘Who for?’
‘For Vicky. She messaged to say she’s running late.’
‘Why couldn’t she get here on time like the rest of us?’
Sacha reluctantly shifted himself along the pew a few inches and she did the same. The church was bursting at the seams with eager parents all waiting for the service to begin, and Matisse had to throw her bag and coat quickly into the newly created space to discourage anyone from nabbing the seats.
‘She’s waiting for James’s babysitter. Chris had to leave her waiting and bring Evie by himself.’ Matisse saw Chris appear in the crowded vestibule of the church and waved. ‘There’s Chris now.’
‘Hello,’ Chris said, reaching where Matisse and Sacha sat. Evie ran to find her class. ‘The babysitter didn’t turn up on time, what a nightmare.’
‘Ollie is not home?’ Matisse asked.
‘He’s gone on a date with his girlfriend,’ Chris said, a nervous grin on his face. ‘Of course, we’re all pretending it’s not a date, but they’re off to Pizza Express and then back to her house afterwards to play computer games until we pick him up. We’ve managed to confirm at least that her parents are home, so there’s no chance of anything getting out of hand … not that, well, you know, he’s only thirteen … oh, hello, Sacha,’ Chris had gone bright red.
‘Christopher,’ Sacha said, nodding.
Chr
is turned back to Matisse. ‘How come they haven’t started yet?’
‘Vicky isn’t the only one who is late. The Headmaster is also held up,’ Matisse said. She got out her phone to take a quick photo of Dmitri and saw he was chatting away to Evie and the pair of them were laughing. She took the shot and showed it to Chris.
‘Look at our two. Thick as thieves,’ she said.
Chris looked at the photo and Matisse saw a flicker of disapproval pass across his face. ‘Well, I suppose I’d better go and sit down,’ he said.
Matisse motioned Sacha to move along the pew some more. ‘We have space here for you.’
‘Thanks … but I think I’m going to sit at the back so I can save a place for Vicky when she arrives.’ Chris backed away from them towards the rear of the church. ‘Evie prefers us to be unseen and unheard anyway. See you afterwards for a mince pie. Oops, sorry!’ He crashed into the Headmaster who had just arrived and was making his way to the front, apologising along the way. Matisse put her phone on to silent as the Headmaster lumbered past her.
‘Ladies and gentlemen, and children, I’m so very sorry I’m late,’ he boomed, ignoring the many parents giving pointed looks at their watches and tutting with displeasure as he spoke. ‘I was held up at some roadworks rather suddenly placed at the end of my road, and then on my way here there was a problem with my rear tail-light and the police stopped me to caution … anyway, the point is that we’re all here, and it’s Christmas, so I do hope the spirit of forgiveness is with you and that your enjoyment of what promises to be a wonderful evening isn’t hampered by my tardiness. The children have been practising very hard, and we are extremely proud …’
The Headmaster droned on and then the service finally started. Just as the first reading began, Matisse saw her phone light up with a message from Vicky to say she’d made it. She turned around and saw her slide in next to Chris, giving him a peck on the cheek and muttering something. Chris pointed at Matisse, caught her eye, and they exchanged a small wave, Vicky rolling her eyes while she mouthed, ‘Bloody babysitter.’ She looked even more dishevelled than usual.