by Anya Lipska
‘I am glad to hear you say it,’ said Romescu, his rapacious gaze taking an inventory of Janusz’s face. ‘People don’t understand that the body is a gift, something to be cherished and nurtured. And it can be snatched away from you –’ he snapped his fingers, ‘– like that.’
Sensing he’d chanced upon some deeply held belief, Janusz let his gaze linger on the strange scar down the side of the older man’s face, which he’d so far avoided looking at. ‘Please tell me if it’s none of my business, Barbu,’ he said. ‘But perhaps you speak from personal experience?’
Romescu gazed at him for a long moment, making Janusz wonder if he’d gone too far. Then he returned his hand to his shoulder. ‘It’s a long story, Lukas, and right now I’ve got to do my little speech, but maybe I’ll bore you with it later on.’
As Romescu made his way to a raised area beside the bar, Janusz slipped to the very back of the crowd. The underling who had shown him in chimed softly on a glass with a spoon. ‘The founder and chief executive of Triangle Investments, Barbu Romescu, asks his guests for a few moments of their time.’
‘Gentlemen, ladies,’ he began, his intent gaze raking the faces before him. ‘I’m not a fan of long speeches, but I want to thank you all for coming this evening and to say just a few words about Triangle. Some of you became investors when I started the company six months ago, and I hope you approve of the returns we have delivered so far.’ There was an approving murmur from parts of the crowd and one guy, clearly already well-oiled, raised his glass and cried ‘Na zdrowie!’, causing a ripple of laughter.
‘What a coincidence, seeing you here.’ A low-pitched voice speaking Polish in Janusz’s ear sent a tingle up his neck. Varenka.
He turned and looked into her eyes, which held a look of satirical enquiry.
‘Hello,’ he said. ‘I was rather hoping I’d run into you.’ It was true, he realised, even if, having seen his real name on his business card, there was a risk she might betray him to Romescu.
She arched an eyebrow. ‘Really? I thought you were here to make a million euros.’
Her dark blonde hair was captured in a loose knot to one side of her head tonight, Janusz noticed. ‘Well, a million euros is always nice.’ He tipped his head, never taking his eyes off hers. ‘Although, man cannot live by bread alone.’
‘… but by every word that issues from the mouth of God?’ she said, completing the quotation.
Janusz noted her amused yet deadpan expression. Was she saying she might be a whore, but she still knew her Bible?
Falling silent, they turned to watch Romescu speak.
‘… from Poland all the way to the Balkans, we’re getting in at the ground floor, buying into the rapid growth of the post-Soviet economies with an investment portfolio that includes commercial property, leisure and fitness, agriculture …’
Yeah … and trading women like livestock, thought Janusz.
He studied Varenka out of the corner of his eye. She stood with one hand to her throat, above a small, neat bust. Her expression was ambiguous, seeming to combine the vigilance of a caged wild animal watching its captor, with a sort of wary tolerance – affection, even. In profile, a tiny kink was visible just below the bridge of her nose – the result of a childhood accident? Or a blow from Romescu’s fist? Whatever the cause, it added character to her otherwise flawless face.
‘Do you think you will you invest?’ she asked, under her breath.
‘Would you advise me to?’
She held her bottom lip between her teeth momentarily, appearing to give it serious thought. ‘Yes. Why not? Barbu always makes money, whatever business he goes into.’
‘And what about you? Do you play a role in his business?’
‘I would like to say that was true.’ In her look he glimpsed the ghost of that youthful optimism which had shone out of her driving licence mugshot. ‘I studied economics in night school at Kiev University – for a while.’
‘I’m impressed. Why did you give it up?’
‘Maybe I couldn’t decide whether I was a Friedmanite or a Keynesian,’ she joked. Holding her long hands out in front of her, she studied them dispassionately for a moment before going on. ‘Truthfully? I could never really afford it. There were no government grants for students and I had … family responsibilities. I had to work.’
Janusz was too much of a gentleman to press her on the form that work took.
‘And you?’ she asked. ‘No doubt you went to university?’
‘Yes, in Krakow.’
‘Jagiellonski?’ Her eyes widened.
He nodded. ‘I read physics and chemistry. But I dropped out without finishing my degree.’ He lifted one shoulder. ‘It was the eighties, and I decided my duty lay out on the streets with my fellow Poles fighting the Commies.’ His tone was self-deprecating, half-mocking the idealism of youth.
‘You were a fool!’ The vehemence of her words took him aback, but the next moment she touched his forearm in a gesture of apology. ‘Please excuse my bad manners. But to throw away such an opportunity, to me that is like … squandering water in the desert.’
Janusz hesitated, feeling the urge to fight his corner, to explain to her how his country’s fight for freedom had come above all else – before deciding against it. She was too young truly to understand how communism had blighted lives, extinguished hope. Anyway, he was here to investigate Romescu’s activities, not to debate political philosophy with a twenty-six-year-old.
‘Would you like the opportunity to become more involved in Barbu’s business?’ he asked, playing the innocent, trying to get a handle on their relationship.
She sent him a look of mild reproach. ‘I don’t think that’s very likely. I am here as his “plus one”, and to improve the scenery for his guests – not for my proficiency in economics.’ This was said in her usual tone of dry amusement and without apparent resentment. ‘So far, I’ve spoken to two dentists, two Polish supermarket magnates, and a man who believes in UFOs. What about you? What do you do?’
‘Oh, nothing exciting. Import and export, mostly,’ he said. ‘I’m here because I have money to invest from the sale of my mother’s estate in Krakow and those sharks at the bank are only paying a couple of per cent.’
She turned to him, eyebrows arched in distress. ‘I’m so sorry! Has your mama passed?’
‘Yes, but it was a long time ago.’
‘It doesn’t matter how long ago,’ Varenka’s husky voice became passionate. ‘Losing someone you love, it stays with you, here’ – she pressed a fist to her breastbone – ‘forever.’
The look on her face spoke of an inconsolable grief. Had she been carer to a parent who’d become sick and later died? Janusz wondered. Was that why she’d had to give up her studies? Or perhaps it was the older brother from the seaside photo who had died young? Whoever she had lost, it was apparent that she had never got over it. Sensing that he’d begun to win her confidence, Janusz was calculating how to press home his advantage when he heard the sound of clapping. Romescu had finished his speech.
Spreading his arms to acknowledge the applause, his searchlight gaze swept the room.
Janusz sensed Varenka freeze beside him and without turning her head she murmured, ‘I have to go.’ Before he could even reply, her half-naked back was gliding away from him through the crowd. Had Romescu registered the two of them? If so, he’d given no sign of it.
It was an hour or more before Romescu came looking for Janusz. He was outside, leaning on the parapet of the viewing deck, nursing his third tonic water of the evening and trying to pretend it was a cold Tyskie.
‘Are you having a good evening, Lukas?’ asked the Romanian.
‘Most enjoyable,’ said Janusz. ‘And that’s quite a view.’
They looked out over the rectilinear expanse of the old Millwall Dock far below, a once-mighty hub of world commerce trading timber and grain, its black waters empty now, reflecting the constellation of lights in the office and apartment blocks fringing it
s shores. Beyond it, the loop of Thames that curled around the Millennium Dome flowed steadily east, silver blue in the deepening winter dusk.
‘I have an apartment not far from here,’ said Romescu, pointing out the finger of glass where Janusz had done a little breaking and entering only yesterday.
He whistled appreciatively. ‘Nice location. Did you buy it recently?’
‘Two or three years back. Cost me a couple of million.’
Janusz always liked the bracing honesty with which immigrants talked about money: had Romescu been an Englishman he’d still have managed to get across what he paid for his place, but the information would have been conveyed with heavy hints and hedged about with false modesty.
Romescu gestured down at the dock. ‘Maybe I’m sentimental, but I like to think I’m carrying on the tradition of international trade. Buying and selling real things, not spread betting against numbers on a computer screen.’
Janusz nodded. ‘I couldn’t agree more.’ He swirled the ice in his tonic. ‘So Barbu, I’ve got a pile of euros earning peanuts in a Polish bank account, which I could invest in a fancy Docklands apartment or two …’ As Romescu’s gaze flickered towards him, he sensed his promotion up the league table of potential investors. ‘On the other hand, who knows what will happen to the financial sector once the politicians stop handing the banks sackfuls of taxpayers’ money. Maybe the UK isn’t such a good bet any more.’ Although he didn’t believe the sentiment, he felt a stab of disloyalty at thus dismissing his adoptive home.
‘And Germany, France, they’re no better. Old economies, grinding away in the slow lane – like a granny on the motorway,’ chuckled Romescu, mimicking an old codger hunched over a wheel. ‘Young countries like Estonia, Lithuania, Poland, Ukraine … that’s where the new opportunities are.’
‘I hear good things about Turkey as well,’ said Janusz, remembering the spicy smell of fruit tobacco in the Pasha Café, venue for Romescu’s mysterious meetings.
‘Maybe, but it’s too far east for me,’ Romescu declared with a shrug.
Confirmation, as if it were needed, that the guy’s dealings with the owner of the Pasha Café were the kind that had to be kept under wraps. Janusz was reaching the conclusion that this little soirée, the sales pitch, Triangle Investments, it was all just a front, a fiction designed to raise funds from unquestioning investors looking to make a quick buck. And he’d make a confident bet that their cash was destined for investment in the back room of the Pasha Café.
He leaned a little closer to his host. ‘I hope you won’t think me nosy, Barbu, but before I invest, I always like to know the man behind the business.’
Romescu hesitated for a microsecond, then threw his arms open. ‘Go ahead! I have no secrets.’
‘What did you do as a young man, back in Romania?’
‘I trained as an aircraft engineer,’ he said. ‘That’s how I got this,’ he tapped the puckered scar that ran down the side of his face. ‘I was testing a crappy old Tupelov when the turbine exploded. I call it my present from Brezhnev.’
Janusz laughed. ‘And after you escaped? I think Marek said you ended up in Poland?’
‘Yeah. Those union people of yours had just thrown out the Commies, and since my mother was Polish, I knew I’d get a passport.’
‘And did you carry on working as an engineer?’
Romescu eyed him. ‘For a while yes, but then I went to work for Zaleski Corporation – back when our head office was a portakabin on a derelict parking lot.’
‘Really?’ In Poland, Zaleski was a household name, an international conglomerate that had sprung up amid the ruins of the country’s Soviet state industries. ‘They’re a pretty big player now, aren’t they?’
‘Yes,’ said Romescu. ‘I was a director there until … very recently.’ He hesitated, apparently torn between bigging himself up and an instinct for discretion. Vanity won. ‘It’s no exaggeration to say that it was me who got Orzelair off the ground. My knowledge of aircraft came in pretty useful.’
As Eastern Europe’s first budget airline, Orzelair had been the motor that had powered Zaleski’s expansion, and now boasted the region’s most extensive network of routes.
‘Impressive,’ said Janusz, shooting him a look that conveyed the appropriate cocktail of admiration and envy. ‘Your Zaleski shares must be worth a fortune by now.’
Romescu’s lips sketched a tight smile – but it was a poor effort.
Twenty-odd years with the company and no share options? thought Janusz. You got shafted, kolego.
But Romescu had clearly tired of the twenty questions routine. Reaching inside his jacket, he extracted a business card bearing the Triangle logo and handed it to Janusz. ‘If there’s anything more you need to know before you make your decision, feel free to contact me – that’s my personal mobile number and email.’
He put his arm around Janusz’s shoulder and leant towards him, conspiratorial. ‘Now we’ve got the business part over, it’s time for my guests to have some fun.’
Janusz allowed himself to be led off the viewing deck back into the bar. Many of the men who’d been standing chatting in groups had now retreated to dimly-lit seating ranged around the walls, accompanied by one or more of the gorgeous girls. The drunk who’d made a fool of himself during Romescu’s speech was sprawled on a low leather sofa. A girl perched on the arm was leaning over the drunken dupek, her long ash-blonde hair brushing his chest.
‘See anyone you like the look of?’ asked Romescu in a low suggestive voice. ‘It’s all on the house.’ His head was so close that Janusz could smell the apple juice he’d been drinking. ‘Or am I barking up the wrong tree?’ He nodded towards one of the waiters, a tall, curly-haired youth who was leaning against the wall, bouncing an empty tray off his thigh. Romescu’s warm sweet breath, the heat of his arm across Janusz’s shoulders … Janusz had to fight down an overwhelming urge to grab him by both lapels and smash him against the plate glass window.
‘I’d love to,’ he said with a regretful grin, shooting the cuff of his jacket to check his watch. ‘But I’m afraid I have to get back. I’ve got a call scheduled with a client on the West Coast.’
‘Are you sure? “All work and no play …” as the English say.’
Seeing Janusz wasn’t to be dissuaded, Romescu released him with a final comradely pat. ‘But before you go, I’d like you to meet someone.’ This was accompanied by an imperious, beckoning gesture over Janusz’s shoulder.
Varenka appeared alongside Romescu, standing almost half a head taller than him.
‘Lukas, may I introduce Varenka.’
Betraying no sign of recognition – nor surprise at the unfamiliar name – Varenka offered Janusz the tips of her fingers and a polite smile.
‘Pleased to meet you, Lukas.’
He made a tiny bow and, straightening, allowed his eyes to meet her amused gaze. Although the look they exchanged lasted less than a second, it was long enough to seal a pact: Janusz’s real name, and the fact that they had already met on a kerbside in Walthamstow, would remain their secret.
‘Enchanté,’ he said.
The Romanian’s stubby fingers encircled Varenka’s slender wrist like a manacle. ‘Not too enchanted, I hope,’ he told Janusz. The tone was humorous enough but the message in those fierce blue eyes was clear as wodka.
Keep off the grass, it said.
Fourteen
It took all Janusz’s reserves of self-control not to light up the moment he left the building’s front entrance, but he thought it wise to continue playing the health freak until he’d put a bit of distance between himself and Romescu.
Reaching the end of the dockside walkway, he pulled out his tin of cigars, then threw a precautionary glance over his shoulder … and saw the outline of a man in a leather jacket strolling some fifty metres behind him, looking out over the dock. Was there something a bit too casual about the guy’s walk? Or was he just being paranoid? He cursed softly and pocketed his cigar tin. Checki
ng his watch – it was just past ten – he quickened his pace as though there was somewhere he had to be. His intention wasn’t so much to shake the guy off, but to discover whether he really was tailing him. He decided to head, not for the nearest tube, Canary Wharf, but to Mudchute, a little-used Docklands Light Railway stop further south on the Isle of Dogs. If the guy were still behind him then, he’d take it as confirmation he was being followed.
In the event, no such confirmation was needed. His phone, set to vibrate, buzzed in his pocket, signalling the arrival of a text message. It read: ‘You have company – Varenka.’
Nosz, kurwa! She must have overheard Romescu sending leather jacket after him.
Ten minutes fast walking later, Janusz saw the turquoise DLR sign for Mudchute station. He reached the steelwork stairway up to the platform but instead of climbing it, ducked into the shadowy void behind the stairs, pressing himself back against the brickwork. Twenty seconds later, through the stairs’ steel grating, he saw the man in the leather jacket ascending, taking the steps two at a time with an easy athleticism. Janusz couldn’t see his face but his impression was one of a young man, thirty tops. As he heard him reach the top of the second flight, Janusz considered his options. Stay hidden and risk discovery? Or make a swift exit while he had the chance?
Deciding that an encounter with the guy could ruin an otherwise civilised evening, he slipped out of his hiding place and headed down East Ferry Road, towards the river. He was starting to regret the route he’d taken. After the bustle of nightlife around Canary Wharf, the outer reaches of the Isle of Dogs felt like another country. On his left lay the silent, darkened greenery of Millwall Park, to his right a council estate, now part-sold to city types judging by the mixed messages sent by the balconies: tubs of bay trees on some, discarded TV sets and drying clothes strung across others. The streets were abandoned: he’d only seen one person since leaving the dockside, an old lady walking her dog with an air of defiance.