Chelsea Mansions bak-11

by Barry Maitland

  ‘Kathy, hi, thanks for ringing back. I was worried about what you said, about a bug going around. Are you really okay?’

  ‘Yes, John, I’m fine.’

  ‘Great. And I’ve had some thoughts on the letter.’

  She could hear music and laughter in the background, and imagined him at a conference function, having a good time. ‘You at a party?’ she asked.

  ‘’Fraid not,’ he laughed. ‘I’m in a pub. I’d invite you to join me, but it’s a dump.’

  ‘I suppose you’ve eaten?’

  ‘I had something that claimed to be a Cornish pastie. They must have a special machine that turns pastry into bullet-proof cardboard.’

  ‘Yes, they do. I haven’t eaten all day. Can I buy you a glass of wine while you watch me eat? As a consultant, of course.’

  ‘You’re on. Where?’

  ‘Are you in Chelsea?’

  ‘Yes, in Brompton Road. There’s a Mexican place just across the street, nothing fancy.’

  She took a note of the address and rang off.

  He was there when she arrived, waving to her from a corner table. There was a bottle of wine at his elbow, and he poured her a glass as she sat down. ‘Cheers.’

  ‘Cheers.’ She took a deep breath and sat back. ‘So how did your talk go today?’

  ‘Fine, I think. Well, most of them stayed awake, I guess. Are you really all right? You look worn out. Hard day?’

  ‘Oh, you know… Well, yes, it has been hard.’

  ‘Want to talk about it? I have signed the Official Secrets Act.’

  So she told him about Brock and the virus.

  He looked horrified. ‘I’ve heard of Marburg. It’s really serious, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes, but I’ve been cleared, so I’m sure you’ve got nothing to worry about. Brock never actually came into the hotel, did he?’

  ‘But you’re so lucky.’

  ‘Yes, yes I am.’

  ‘That’s just terrible about Brock. I can’t believe… he could actually die.’

  He sounded so appalled, so concerned for someone he’d never even met, that Kathy thought he might just be being melodramatic, but when she looked at him she saw that he’d gone quite pale.

  ‘All we can do is wait.’

  ‘Yes. That’s so awful for you. And his wife? Is he married?’

  ‘He has a partner, but they don’t live together. She’s been away and knew nothing about him being ill until I phoned her today. She’s with him at the hospital now.’

  ‘What about kids?’

  ‘No.’ She took a deep breath. ‘Well, come on, let’s eat.’

  She signalled to the waiter, who came and took their order.

  When he’d gone, John said, ‘You face this sort of thing every day, don’t you? It makes my life seem absurdly sheltered. Sitting here like this, doing this job for you, I feel like a voyeur. If I can help, in any way…’ He spread his hands helplessly.

  ‘Well, actually it does help talking about it to someone on the outside, someone not personally affected.’ She hesitated, then added, ‘Maybe you should tell me something about yourself, apart from the fact that you’re a university lecturer who does jobs for the Montreal police.’

  ‘What, like a dating site, you mean?’ He put on a sugary voice. ‘I’m twenty-eight, single, an only child, and just adore cross-country skiing, classical opera and French food.’

  She smiled. ‘Good enough.’

  ‘What about you?’

  ‘Me? Oh, I’m single and an only child too, but I’ve never skied, don’t much care for classical opera and prefer Indian.’

  ‘Sounds like we’re in trouble. But I like Indian too, and I’m sure we could work on the opera and skis.’

  ‘Anyway, this is a business meeting, remember? You said you had something to discuss.’

  ‘Yes, right. I had a good talk on the phone with Moszynski’s secretary. She knew all the letters I mentioned to her except the last one, to The Times, which she hadn’t seen until you showed it to her. The others she typed herself, either from dictation or from handwritten versions that Moszynski gave her. She’s been working for him for eight years, since soon after he came to London. She got the job because she’s fluent in both Russian and English and she said he always took great care with the wording of his letters, as if they might end up as evidence in a court of law-that’s what he told her. At first his English was a bit rough, and she would suggest a lot of changes, but he was a good learner and gradually she came to make fewer and fewer corrections, especially for a formal document, like a business letter or one to the newspapers. She said she was surprised at the political content of The Times letter, but he had been quite preoccupied that Friday it was sent, because of the death of the American lady next door, so maybe that was the explanation. Maybe he thought the Russian government was somehow involved.’

  He paused and looked at Kathy carefully. ‘That’s what the secretary was suggesting to me. Does it make sense, do you think?’

  ‘Possibly. You could take that into account.’

  ‘Yes. Well, I did that, and I’ve come to a preliminary opinion I thought I might share with you.’

  ‘You haven’t had long.’

  ‘No, and I’ll need more time to set out a thorough argument, but I’m fairly positive. I don’t think that letter to The Times was written by Moszynski.’

  ‘Really?’ Kathy was surprised. She’d gone down this road in order to cover herself, in case the letter’s authenticity was questioned later in court, but she’d never seriously doubted it. ‘Why do you think that?’

  ‘There are several small departures from colloquial English usage-a couple of missing definite articles, like here…’ He took a copy of the letter from his pocket and showed her: ‘… elements of Russian secret police, rather than the Russian secret police. The biggest departure I would say is towards the end, here: Let me give good advice to your readers. It sounds like a Russian gangster, doesn’t it?’

  ‘But he was a Russian gangster, John. Or at least a Russian businessman. And I’ve heard his Russian son-in-law use the same phrase.’

  ‘Okay, but he was very careful to avoid such mistakes in his other letters. They were correct to the point of being stilted. When I pointed it out to his secretary she said she didn’t think he would have put it like that, though he might have said it in conversation. Judging from the other letters, especially the most recent ones, I would say that it was written by someone who knew how he spoke, and wanted to impersonate his speech in the letter.’

  Kathy reread the letter, frowning over the points he’d made. They seemed pretty insubstantial to support such a major conclusion. Also, it occurred to her that he was rather young to be held up as an expert in a field like this. How would he stand up to interrogation by Brock, let alone a barrister?

  ‘Maybe he was just in a hurry,’ she said, ‘or upset, as his secretary said. Is there any way we can be more definite about this?’

  He shrugged. ‘Get more samples of recent letters of his. Or get a second opinion.’

  ‘It’s just that, as you said before, the implications are pretty serious. If you’re right, it suggests that there was a plot by Moszynski’s killers to implicate the Russian authorities.’

  She stopped talking as the waiter approached with their food.

  They didn’t discuss the letters further, as if they both wanted to avoid a subject that might lead to disagreement between them. Instead, he told her horror stories of Canadian winters and tales about the city where he lived and which he loved. He was good company, and Kathy was glad to have her mind taken off Brock’s illness for a little while. John didn’t forget though, and at one point, as they were considering the dessert menu, he suddenly asked her if she’d let him know if there was any change. ‘I just feel,’ he said, ‘that I’d like to shake the great detective’s hand, if I get the chance, having come all this way.’ It seemed an odd way of putting it.

  She said goodnight to him outside
on the street and got a taxi to the tube station for the ride home to her flat in Finchley.

  EIGHTEEN

  T he laboratories were swamped, unable to cope with the flood of tests that were demanded. The offices at Queen Anne’s Gate, the Moszynski mansion in Chelsea and the Tottenham police station remained sealed as quarantine sites, while Kathy felt herself in limbo, suspended between the normality of the past from which she was excluded, and a future that she dreaded entering. Each day she visited the hospital without learning anything new about Brock’s condition. And each day she phoned the crew at Queen Anne’s Gate and sensed a growing listlessness in their voices, despite Bren’s attempts to sound positive. She based herself in a temporary office a few blocks away in the headquarters building of New Scotland Yard, where she took what comfort she could from the routines of paperwork and fulfilling telephone orders from the isolated team for treats-DVDs, pastries, chocolate, an electric wok, grapes, deodorant, Pringles. She imagined them finally emerging, pale and overweight, into the light.

  She decided to check the reference in the MI5 file to Freddie Clarke having been investigated by the Fraud Squad, something that wasn’t on the police PNC record. After making a few calls she got through to the inspector, now in Economic and Specialist Crime, who had been involved.

  ‘It was during the investigation into the collapse of APGT in 2003, remember?’ he said.

  ‘Vaguely. Remind me.’

  ‘Big group of construction and materials companies that went bust, very suddenly, after racking up large loans. There was a suspicion of fraud and we investigated. I remember Clarke, very young bloke, working for a group of financiers who’d been involved in raising the loans. It took us a while to realise that he wasn’t the office boy-he was the brains behind the consortium. Very difficult lad to pin down. Said next to nothing in interview and kept bugger-all accessible records. That’s what brought us up against a brick wall in the end-no records of the crucial transactions that we thought may have been dodgy. The rumour was it was all locked up inside Clarke’s head. He was the consortium’s private Enigma machine. We couldn’t crack it.’

  Kathy also paid Vadim Kuzmin a visit.

  It was Friday afternoon, a light rain falling, and she had confirmed by phone that he was at home in Esher. When she got there he jerked the front door open with a violence that made her hesitate. He held her eyes for a moment with an icy glare, then waved his hand. ‘Come.’

  As soon as she was seated he began to interrogate her. What was this quarantine business? When she began to explain, he slammed his open palm hard on the arm of his chair and cut her off.

  ‘No, no, no. This is just a ploy, to prevent my access to Mikhail’s office and papers. This is an outrage, a hostile act.’

  Kathy waited until he’d finished, then spoke quietly. ‘Mr Kuzmin, my whole police team is in quarantine. My boss is in an isolation ward and may die. This is a very serious emergency, nothing to do with your father-in-law’s papers.’

  He curled his lip. ‘Then why are you free to come and go, Detective, eh?’

  ‘I was the first to be tested, along with DCI Brock. We got the results back quickly, he was positive, me negative. But now the labs are overwhelmed. It will probably be another day or two before they can complete their tests. We just have to be patient.’

  His eyes narrowed and he regarded her as if she were a suspect who was more cunning than he’d first thought. ‘Marburg, eh?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I know this Marburg. We weaponised it in 1990.’

  ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘Soviet Ministry of Defence. I think you knew that.’

  ‘No, I didn’t.’

  ‘Well, your security services do. Is that what this is about? You want this to look like the work of the FSB?’

  ‘Sir, last Thursday week DCI Brock came in contact with a migrant from Uganda who was infected and is now also in hospital isolation. There’s been no suggestion of FSB involvement to my knowledge.’

  ‘Really? Well there soon will be. Do you read the papers? First Litvinenko, now Moszynski, that’s what they’re all saying.’

  ‘Well, that’s not really surprising, is it, in the light of Mr Moszynski’s letter to The Times?’

  ‘If it’s genuine.’

  ‘Do you have any evidence that it isn’t?’

  His eyes slid away, and for the first time he seemed unsure. ‘No.’

  ‘We’ve been told that he was upset the day he sent it, because of the murder of the American woman from the hotel next door.’

  ‘Of course he was upset. We all get upset when crime comes close to home.’

  ‘Is that all it was?’

  ‘What else could it be? Mikhail was a sensitive man. Does that surprise you? Russian oligarchs are just rich thugs, is that what you think? Wrong! Mikhail was a caring man, for his family, for his neighbours, for everyone. You know what he does when he comes here? He counts hedgehogs. That’s right! He’s worried they will be extinct. He cares about hedgehogs!’ He gave a short bark of a laugh. ‘Also, people put crazy ideas in his head.’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘Oh, don’t get me wrong, Mikhail was a brilliant man, brilliant. But he could also be gullible, with people he trusted.’

  ‘Which people?’

  Kuzmin shrugged. ‘Rich men attract parasites, Detective, like dogs attract fleas. It’s only natural.’

  Kathy recalled someone else using the word parasites. It was Shaka, she remembered, on the night of Mikhail’s murder, referring to the two men sitting drinking downstairs. ‘People close to him, do you mean? Like Freddie Clarke?’

  Kuzmin turned away, looking out of the window to the garden, where his wife was crossing the lawn, wearing an old raincoat and hood against the drizzle. ‘Freddie’s all right. He was dedicated to Mikhail’s interests.’

  ‘You’re sure about that, are you? From what I hear, Freddie makes a habit of keeping things inside his head, rather than on paper. That must be a problem for you now. How will you know that he’s telling you everything about your father-in-law’s businesses?’

  ‘If I ever think he’s being less than honest, I’ll let you know. Now you must leave.’

  Kathy stayed sitting. ‘Why don’t you give me some names of these parasites you mentioned, Mr Kuzmin? Maybe Mr Moszynski was planning to expose someone. That could be a motive for his murder, don’t you think?’

  ‘But I thought the FSB did it?’ Kuzmin sneered and walked over to the door. ‘Christina!’

  The maid appeared and he said, ‘Please show this lady out,’ and walked away.

  As Kathy got into her car she noticed Alisa further down the driveway, picking tulips from a bed. She turned at the sound of Kathy’s wheels on the gravel, and Kathy pulled over and got out. ‘Lovely colours.’

  Alisa nodded. ‘They are nearly finished now. My father liked them very much. I hope to have some for Tuesday.’

  ‘Tuesday?’

  ‘His funeral, at the Russian Orthodox Cathedral in Knightsbridge, provided the quarantine is lifted.’

  ‘Ah, I hadn’t heard. What time will that be?’

  ‘Eleven o’clock. You will be there?’

  ‘I’ll make sure I am. You were here at the house with your grandmother on the day he died, weren’t you?’

  ‘Yes, I wish so much I’d been with him.’

  ‘Did you speak to him at all that day, on the phone?’

  Alisa looked away. ‘Yes.’

  ‘How did he sound?’

  ‘All right.’

  There was something evasive about her reply. ‘Someone told us that he was upset that day about the death of the American woman from the hotel next door. Did he say anything to you about that?’

  ‘No.’ She began fiddling with her secateurs. Looking at her, Kathy had the impression of a lost soul, and not just because of the loss of her father. It was as if she were trying very hard to please everyone with her imitation of an English wife, without
really believing in it.

  ‘But? Come on, Alisa. Something troubled you, didn’t it? It’s written all over you.’

  ‘He didn’t mention the woman. But… he did say something strange. He said that if anything should happen to him I wasn’t to worry. I could rely on Freddie to see that I would be all right.’

  Kathy got her to repeat the exact words he had used. ‘You should have mentioned this to me before, Alisa.’

  ‘Vadim said it wasn’t necessary.’

  ‘You think your father knew he was in danger?’

  ‘At the time I didn’t think that, but afterwards… I wondered.’

  ‘Did he say anything else to you that I should know?’

  She shook her head. ‘He asked to speak to Baba-my grandmother. They had an argument, I think. I don’t know what about.’ She checked her watch suddenly. ‘It’s time to feed baby. I must go.’

  Kathy was on the road back to London, mulling over her conversation with Vadim Kuzmin, when a thought struck her. She pulled over into a lay-by and turned it over in her mind, then dialled Sundeep’s number.

  ‘Any news, Sundeep?’ she asked.

  ‘Nothing, Kathy. No change.’

  ‘Listen, do we know for a fact that Peter Namono was the original carrier?’

  ‘What? Who else?’

  ‘Could it have been Danny Yilmaz? I mean, in theory, can you tell which of them caught it first?’

  ‘Well, probably not. They both seem to be at around the same stage in the progress of the virus, more advanced than Brock. But who could Danny have caught it from?’

  ‘Good question.’

  She said goodbye, then rang Sean Ardagh.

  ‘Hi, Kathy. I hear you’re in the clear.’

  ‘Yes. Sean, I’ve just been speaking to Vadim again, and he mentioned that the Russians weaponised the Marburg virus back in the nineties.’

  There was a short hesitation. ‘Yes?’

  ‘You knew that?’