The Russian Doll (Ben Sign Book 3)

by Matthew Dunn

  Below them there were three other flats in the building. Sometimes they were temporarily occupied by students and city workers. Right now they were being refurbished by the landlord and were empty. Sign and Knutsen were glad of that. They liked being left alone. And their apartment was a treasure trove. The bedrooms, bathroom, and kitchen were modest in size, though Sign had transformed the kitchen into a chef’s paradise. There were meat hooks attached to the ceiling, holding pans, ladles, clusters of garlic, vines of tomatoes, and, on occasion and when the season dictated, pheasants and other game - bought in nearby Borough Market - that needed hanging for up to a month before cooking. On the kitchen windowsill were pots of growing chillies, basil, tangerines, and lemons. A magnetic strip was attached to the wall and held knives that were old yet razor sharp, one of them having been used as a murder weapon in Jaipur in nineteen fifty six, another that had been used by an unfortunate adventurer to cut open a dead bear in Canada so that the man could sleep inside the animal rather than freeze to death, and the rest a collection of blades that had been used by a Chinese knife thrower within a circus in Hong Kong. Upon moving in to the flat, Sign had ripped out the useless electric cooker that the landlord had installed. He’d ordered a top-notch gas cooker. A reformed strangler who called himself Hip Hop had helped him fit the new cooker and dispose of the old one. Hip Hop owed Sign a few favours. It was the least he could do. But, it was the much larger lounge that was the centrepiece of the property. It was stunning; least ways for two bachelors. Women would probably say it needed a female touch. Sign and Knutsen didn’t care. They currently had no women in their lives. They were blokes and they could live how they damn well liked. The room had antiquities sourced from Burma, Mongolia, France, Patagonia, and Japan. Three armchairs were in the centre of the room – two facing each other next to a fireplace; the third on the other side of the room. On the walls were paintings, framed military maps of various parts of the world, bookshelves containing academic journals, leather-bound out-of-print works of fiction, poetry, non-fiction, and a diary written by a British naval officer during his voyage to America in 1812. Persian rugs were on the floor. The curtains adjacent to the double window were heavy and crimson. The mantelpiece above the fireplace had candles, oil lamps, a revolver that had belonged to a Boer soldier, and an Arabian dagger that had its tip embedded in the mantelpiece’s wood and was vertical. There was a tiny dining table, about the size of an average table in a Michelin Star restaurant, that was in one corner of the room.

  It was six forty five PM. Sign and Knutsen were in suits, shirts, ties, their shoes polished. They were expecting a female guest for dinner and had to look the part. Sign was roasting and steaming shark, boiling potatoes and vegetables, and making a gravy consisting of sweated onions, fresh herbs, red wine, a homemade vegetable stock reduction, and a stick of aniseed. Satisfied that the meal was underway, he turned his attention to the dining table. With precision, he laid out a starched white table cloth, used a hot iron to flatten it, added pristine silver cutlery and two sets of polished wine glasses per person, set mats, and placed a bottle of white wine and a bottle of still mineral water in the centre – both in ice buckets. He went to the drinks cabinet – a Victorian piece of furniture he’d purchased in Kenya – and withdrew a bottle of French Cognac. He poured some of it into two brandy glasses.

  He said, “Mr. Knutsen. Our guest arrives in less than ten minutes. Before she arrives we shall have a sharpener while sitting in our armchairs.”

  Knutsen took his drink and sat in his chair, facing Sign. “Why the VIP treatment?” He pointed at the third armchair in the room. “Normally you sit clients on that, and then tell them to bugger off after they’ve told us their sob story.”

  Sign sipped his drink. “I don’t recall ever telling a client to bugger off or variants of that vulgar phrase.”

  “What about that bloke who thought his wife was possessed by the devil?”

  “Oh, yes. He was wasting our time. I admit to being a tad curt with him.” Sign swirled his drink in his brandy glass. “Why the VIP treatment on this occasion? Our guest is Jayne Archer. She’s fifty years old, British, and single, no children.”

  Knutsen smiled. “So, the fancy meal and dining table placements are because you might just have the hots for her?”

  “Hardly. I want to show her respect. She’s a very senior MI6 officer who’s just been promoted to head up the service’s Russia Department. It’s a plum posting. She knows me, and I know her, but not that well. Our paths rarely crossed due to the different nature of our work in MI6. And just to clarify – I do not have the hots for her and nor does she have the hots for me. Romance is not an emotion that features in her prevue, nor mine for that matter. All that matters to Archer is her work. Be careful of her. She’s sharp.”

  “As sharp as you?”

  Sign waved his hand dismissively. “I’m just a buffoon who gave up the opportunity to have the best job in Britain in favour of working a poorly paid business in partnership with an out-of-work cop.”

  Knutsen laughed. “We all make mistakes. But, I came out alright from your faux pas. I got a place to stay and a bit of cash in my pocket.”

  Sign smiled. “You’ve never made mistakes in your life?”

  “Not really.”

  “You executed your fiancée’s murderer in cold blood, could have been imprisoned for life, but instead got sacked from the police.”

  “Oh yes, there is that.” Knutsen stated, “Any minute now a government servant is going to knock on our door, hoping to engage us on a case. I imagine she’s on a good salary, but how’s she going to be able to afford to pay us? With our running costs and personal draw-downs from our company, we’re operating at a twenty K per month overhead.”

  “She has family money. She can afford our fees.”

  The downstairs intercom buzzed.

  Sign said, “Mr. Knutsen. Would you be so kind to let Miss Archer into our humble abode?”

  One minute later Jayne Archer was in the lounge. She was medium height, slightly plump, had blonde hair that was cut into a functional bob, was wearing the smart brown skirt and matching jacket that she’d worn to work in the day, and wore black shoes that had a centimetre high heel. From distance she looked plain. But up close there was no mistaking there was something special about the woman. Her eyes glistened and flickered as they took in everything around her. She radiated a weird aura – it felt like a kinetic energy. Her expression looked benign; but if one examined her with greater perception it was one of a person who knew she could outwit everything around her. Knutsen thought she reminded him of a crocodile, waiting partially submerged in water, its fake grin visible to prey, immobile, letting the quarry come to the reptile, and then striking with deadly speed. Sign was right. Be careful.

  Sign sauntered up to her, his arms outstretched. “Hello gorgeous. I hope you like our digs. It’s an oasis of calm amid a sea of madness.” He embraced her and kissed her on both cheeks. “Will you have wine or something stronger? Dinner will be about ten minutes.”

  In a well-spoken voice she replied, “I’ll have a whiskey with a dash of water.”

  “Quite right.”

  She looked at Knutsen. “Who is this handsome man?”

  Sign placed his hand on Knutsen’s shoulder. “Tom Knutsen; my business partner; former cop; undercover mostly; preferred conforming to criminal gang culture rather than the gang culture of the Met; left the police after a rather unfortunate lapse of judgement; joined the business a year ago; single; messed up in the head; loyal to me, and only me; university educated but can play the part of a bruiser; very useful with a gun; kills people for me.” He looked at Knutsen. “Have I missed anything?”

  With sarcasm, Knutsen replied, “Cheers. You’ve summed up my life in a nutshell.”

  “Excellent, dear chap. I’ll let you two get acquainted while I serve up dinner. I do hope, Miss Archer, that you’re not averse to fish. You haven’t gone all mid-life crisis vegan or some
such nonsense?”

  “Fish is fine”, she replied.

  When Sign was in the kitchen, she sat opposite Knutsen, her drink in her hand. “I heard that you and Ben broke two very big cases within the last year.”

  Knutsen nodded. “I just did the donkey work. It was Ben who solved the problems.”

  “Does that rile you?”

  “Nope. I know my strengths and weaknesses.”

  “Why did you join the police?”

  “Would you like me to reel off a bunch of clichés? Stuff like, I wanted to protect and serve; get an adrenalin buzz; see parts of London that most people don’t know; risk my life for others; that kind of shit. Truth is I wanted a job. And I wasn’t dumb. When I joined there weren’t many graduates entering the police. They thought I was a wonder-boy, even before I started my training. I thought it was a load of bullshit. But, I needed the cash.”

  Archer’s eyes were locked on Knutsen. “And yet you eschewed more cash by gaining fast track promotion in favour of staying a lowly undercover cop. That says something about you.”

  Knutsen shrugged. “Undercover work gets extra pay and is all expenses paid. I don’t need much beyond a room, bed, and a bit of grub in my belly. I had no need to become a superintendent or chief constable. Like Ben, I’ve never been power-hungry. We’re not like you. ”

  “I don’t seek power. I seek answers. You, however, seek solitude. You are like a monk. But one day you’ll pine for more.” She looked over her shoulder and called out, “Ben – would you like some assistance?”

  Sign entered the room, two plates of food in his hands, the third nestled in the crook of his arm. “Nonsense! Since when do guests help their hosts?” He placed the plates on the dining table. “Dinner is served. I will pour the wine. It’s a lovely 2016 Canapi Pinot Grigio. I selected it from my vintners in High Holborn. If one examines one’s palate when sipping the wine one can detect tropical fruits and citrus. It is the perfect accompaniment to a solitary shark which has lost his way off the Dorset coast and yearns for warmer climes. Please be seated. We must have rules – no business talk while we eat. We can discuss why the three of us are in the same room when we have our post-dinner coffee and brandy.”

  After tasting the first mouthful of food, Jayne said, “This is delicious, Ben. You were always a good chef. Do you remember when you cooked us camel in a sand pit in the Yemeni desert? You, me and twenty eight other recruits. We were so naive back then. Well, all of us except you. I remember you unearthing the camel after it had been slow cooking for three days in charcoal. Goodness knows how you sourced the camel. I guess it was road kill. You carved it and served the meat alongside rosemary potatoes, juniper sorrel, chick peas infused with star anise, and dreadful wine you’d stolen from the nearby police station. You’d built a bonfire out of the trunks of sun-baked trees. And before we ate you sang us an old Yemeni song about a pauper’s feast. You were always designed to be unusual.”

  Knutsen asked, “You both trained together?”

  Sign tucked in to his food. “For six months, when we joined MI6. Then poof! We were sent our separate ways, like dandelions blown into a wind of multiple directions and agendas. We were carried across all parts of the world. Most of us never saw each other again.”

  Archer looked at Knutsen. “We were all superb. But Ben was different. He was top of our class. He saw the world and its possibilities in a light that even other brilliant MI6 officers couldn’t fathom. Still, you had your flaws, didn’t you Ben?”

  Sign smiled as he ate. “The head of the training program felt he was an expert in all matters espionage. I told him that I’d pay for him to have a two week holiday in Hawaii if he could stop me sleeping with his wife. If he lost, he had to do me the honour of making me the top student of his batch. He accepted the bet. He said I didn’t know where he and his wife lived. His wife had been faithful to him for nineteen years. He thought he was on to a winner. That was until he found me in his house, asleep alongside his wife on their double bed. Of course, I never touched his wife. But, I did sleep with her. He lost the bet.” Sign sipped his wine and giggled. “Poor old William. I don’t think he recovered from that. Part of me wishes I’d had the opportunity to apologise; part of me thinks he was a fool to take on the wager. Still, I regret that he passed away last year.”

  Archer addressed Knutsen. “In MI6 we are encouraged to take on the impossible and make it our mistress.” She looked at Sign. “How have you been since you left the service?”

  Sign munched on his potatoes. “It depends on what day of the week you wish to analyse me. Over the last year I’ve been broke, solvent, sad, lonely, happy, brimming with energy, slothful, intellectually stimulated, bored, charming, irascible, and happy. How have I been? I’ve lost a few strands of hair since I left the service. Apparently, in men, it’s either due to too much testosterone or too little. My barber estimates I’ve lost two percent of my hair, compared to a year ago. I know for a fact I’ve lost nine thousand and eighty three hairs – not enough for anyone to notice. The average head has at least one hundred thousand hairs, more if you’re blonde or a red head.” He looked at Knutsen. “How have I been since I left the esteemed MI6?”

  Knutsen looked at Archer. “I didn’t know him when he was in your organisation. All I can say is that ninety percent of what Ben says is utter bollocks; ten percent is so precise it hits you like a sidewinder missile.”

  Jayne smiled. “The ninety percent is the chaff to deflect attention away from the ten percent.” She looked at Sign. “Isn’t that correct, Ben?”

  Sign tucked into his shark. “I am like anyone else. I lie up until the moment I tell the truth. How have you been Jayne?” Sign didn’t look at her.

  Archer smiled. “You always were the brightest boy. I’ve been better, but I don’t want your pity.”

  “You won’t get any from us.” Sign poured more wine for Archer and Knutsen. “We’re candles, Jayne. We burn with ferocity, we shed wax, we extinguish. Are you extinguishing?”

  I’m…” For the first time Archer looked unsettled. “I don’t know.” She composed herself, her poker face back on. She said to Knutsen, “Anything I say to Ben must be treated in the strictest confidence. Your police security clearance isn’t high enough to be privy to matters pertaining to British Intelligence. Still, if Ben trusts you then I have no problem talking in front of you, providing you stick to the rules.”

  Knutsen shrugged. “When I had to pretend to be someone else while I spent quality time with a bunch of psychos who would have cut my head off if they found out who I really was, I got used to keeping my mouth shut. Security clearance or not, I wonder if you’ve spent chunks of your life living in fear.”

  “I have.” Archer carried on eating. “As you both are aware, I’ve recently been promoted to head up the service’s Russia Department. Even though I was born in Russia and speak the language fluently, I’d never served in the department before. I suspect the service wanted an outsider to run the show. MI6 has a long track record of being contrarian.”

  “Congratulations on the appointment.” Sign slashed his knife into the shark’s flesh. “Any fellas in your life?”

  Archer laughed. “I have plenty of fellas in my life – male colleagues, my hairdresser, doctor, the chap who serves me wine at my local brasserie, my bodyguards when I’m overseas, and others. But, I certainly don’t have a lover. What about you, Ben?”

  Sign carried on eating. It seemed to Knutsen that he was deliberately being cavalier. “Two women dead. Two chaps left standing. Mr. Knutsen and I are not yet in the mood to start courting pretty ladies. That may or may not change.” He finished his food and placed his cutlery on his plate. “So here we all are – loveless entities.” He smiled. “I bought the camel off of a Bedouin. It was riddled with disease and parasites, and was dying. I purchased the unfortunate creature with a carton of cigarettes. Did you notice that I didn’t eat the animal? I hoped I’d poison the rest of the recruits. I reasoned some of them wo
uld die; others would be hospitalised for a sufficient duration to render them unable to continue their training. I had everything to gain, because I’d be the last man standing.”

  Archer looked at Knutsen. “He may be lying; or he may be telling the truth. You and I will never know.”

  Knutsen nodded. “I’m getting used to it.” He stood. “I’ll clear the plates and put the coffee on.”

  “Excellent idea,” exclaimed Sign. “Let’s retire to our sumptuous armchairs. I have a smashing Lemorton 1972 Calvados. It won’t conflict with the coffee. The calvados will be our Le Trou Normand – our means to obtain a hole in our stomachs after a hefty meal, though traditionally Le Trou Normand refers to a spirit that is served in France midway through a meal, not at the end. But we shall defy convention.”