‘You kept dirty money for black ops.’
Maguire smiled. ‘We’re in an age of austerity. The government thinks we do what we do with what they give us.’
‘I don’t do politics, Maguire, but even I know you got extra funding from the Treasury.’
‘It’s never enough.’
‘And what happened when Carter went to Qatar?’
‘We don’t know what he was doing there. Money went missing. The Qatari was killed. Carter became a suspect.’
‘It wasn’t him. I told you that.’
‘There was a leak. Someone told us he was doing a deal on the side.’
‘And you believed this unknown source?’
‘We had to take it seriously. Until the kidnapping. Then we knew it was a set-up.’
‘JD.’
‘Or, as our lovely ice maiden Major Sorokina has said, his friends in the Kremlin. Misinformation strategically placed. The Russians had somehow learnt what Carter was doing. The Qatari was knifed outside a nightclub. It was put down as a robbery.’
‘By?’
Maguire shrugged. He returned Raglan’s enquiring look without answering, seeing if Raglan came to the same conclusion that he had now reached himself.
‘If it was the Russians, why kill him?’ said Raglan. ‘They wanted what he had.’ If indeed JD had had the Qatari killed it was because he was past his sell-by date. He had given everything he had to Carter. It was Carter who had burrowed deeper and linked the information together. ‘If they killed him, it was to put suspicion on Carter because money went missing and the Qatari was the one person who knew who Carter really was,’ Raglan went on. ‘Odds are he went to Qatar because his asset sounded the alarm. Something had gone wrong. The Russians had contractors out there. Guess who.’
Maguire nodded and sipped his drink. ‘And so it looked as though our man was covering his tracks because money was unaccountable.’
Raglan shook his head in disbelief. ‘Slush funds are never accountable. You were conned. Somehow JD put the pieces together that Carter was running his asset, that he had all the information and that’s why they came for him. And when you put Carter under investigation that drove a wedge between you. So JD is after the money and the drug running?’
‘There’s more. The Qatari banker drip-fed us every hidden enemy asset here, in Europe and in the States, and that was what Carter has concealed. Every time someone reached out to the banker for funding then we played them and shut down the threat. If someone else gets their hands on it all they can run it any way they like. They can activate paid terrorists, hold them back, bury them deeper. For God’s sake, if an enemy gets that information then it’s open sports day for international terrorism. And if our slush fund is exposed then it’s bloody curtains and I’ll be growing roses on an enforced early retirement.’
Raglan swallowed the last of his beer. He tapped the bottle on the table to emphasise the 64-million-dollar question. ‘So, this whole disaster isn’t about drugs at all. If it comes down to it, what are you prepared to lose? The money or the hidden assets?’
‘The money. With the hidden terrorist cells known to us I can protect the nation and stop them.’
‘Right answer. Then we need to recover that information.’
‘And Carter. I owe him that much.’
23
Raglan had accepted Maguire’s offer of a safe house flat and let him drop him off outside the entrance. The moment Maguire’s car had gone from view he turned back on to the street and found a hostel two streets away that rented rooms by the day. It was usually used by women of the night plying their trade but it suited Raglan. He paid cash for three nights. Once in the room – small, with its bathroom and toilet added on with stud walling – he stripped, washed, pulled on a zip-neck sweater and unfolded the only half-decent jacket he possessed. He concealed the illegal handgun behind an air vent. By the time he had travelled across town the light rain had stopped and the chill wind from the river had abated.
Raglan waited opposite Sorokina’s hotel. She might have had a busy day but it was far too early in the night for her to excuse herself claiming tiredness. Besides, she didn’t look like the kind of woman who would tire easily. The hotel was in a back street halfway between the main rail station at Paddington and Hyde Park. It was a typical low-end tourist hotel, the kind of place he would have chosen, anonymous and cheap and with a clear view of the arterial road that served as a rat run towards the park and all routes into town. Raglan had phoned the hotel, establishing that she was in her room by hanging up when she answered the call. He waited an hour, keeping a constant eye on her building. He had checked the rear to see if she could leave without being seen, but there were enough fire regulation violations to stop anyone getting out of the back door on to the fire escape. Bags of waste and an old mattress blocked the exit door. If she was going to head out into the night it would be by the front entrance. He studied the street and the cars parked either side. The passing traffic helped obscure his movements as he cut back and forth across the road, double-checking that her hotel was not under observation by anyone. The street was cluttered with empty parked cars and no one loitered in any of the pillared entranceways to the many small hotels that ran the length of the road. Satisfied that he was the only one interested in Elena Sorokina, he took up position again. He was soon rewarded as she emerged from the hotel. She looked up and down the street. He stepped back into shadow, watching as she stepped to the kerb and hailed a cab. It drove past her, a fare already sitting in the back. She waited a minute longer. This time of night cabs were busy ferrying people to and from theatres and restaurants. She tugged her coat collar around her neck and strode towards the nearest Tube station. Raglan followed her. She tried a couple more times to hail a cab, without success, before reaching the Bayswater Road, which ran between her and Hyde Park. She went down into Lancaster Gate Underground Station. He was now less than a hundred paces behind her and as soon as she disappeared from view he quickened his stride. Scanning the passengers who came and went to the station platforms he saw her study the wall map showing all routes. She bought a ticket and headed down towards the Central Line. Raglan followed her and saw her standing on the platform. Within a minute the train arrived and he stepped into the next coach along. After four stops and ten minutes, she got out at Tottenham Court Road Station. He followed her up to the street level. It was obvious she was heading for the bright lights and noisy bars of Soho.
The downstairs club she entered was guarded by two bouncers and by the look of them they were not the usual dark-suited locals who were often ex-armed forces or moonlighting police officers. These guys looked Eastern European. She went past them without being challenged – probably, he thought, because she was an attractive well-dressed woman who might have been a high-end prostitute or who knew someone in the club. Raglan thought his chances were slim, dressed as he was in jeans and jacket. But it was worth a try. He walked to the entrance and one of the men extended his muscled arm, blocking his way. The doorman shook his head. This establishment was not for the likes of Raglan.
‘What?’ said Raglan.
‘Not tonight,’ said the unsmiling bouncer.
‘My wife’s inside already. She left me back there to get the car sorted.’
The two men looked at each other. ‘What does she look like?’ said the bouncer’s opposite number.
Raglan described Sorokina. One bouncer nodded to the other. The arm came down. A curt nod gave Raglan permission. He went down a dimly lit stairwell, the sound of a small jazz band and a woman’s voice getting louder the closer he got to another door at the bottom of the stairs. He noticed the closed-circuit lens following him. Pushing open the door he stepped into a room whose size belied the narrow entrance. It looked as though it extended beneath two or three of the buildings on street level. He adjusted his eyes to the dim lighting. The place was filled with a mix of people. Younger city types with their women, or women with their younger city types. As h
e took it all in he realized that the women were most likely escorts. At least that was the polite way of describing them. They were no doubt run by the club owner. There were some older men huddled in one corner, hair long, a sprinkling of velvet and corduroy jackets: musicians probably. A few tables of couples seemed genuine. Champagne was a common tipple; the waitresses were already collecting empty wine bottles. There was much evidence of hard liquor too, which meant the champagne was at a premium price. You needed some decent folding money to be here and enjoy the music.
The singer finished her set, acknowledged the smattering of applause, stepped down and let the band carry on without her, three men and a long-haired blonde woman on sax. The place felt good. A good old-fashioned boozy dive of a jazz club. All that was missing was the fug of cigarette smoke that would have once engulfed the patrons. Jazz and booze without smoke. Nothing was the same any more. He rested a foot on the brass rail below the bar and leant in to order a bottle of beer. It came in a glass. He sipped and watched. The set was good. Mostly Thelonious Monk. The old standard ‘Ruby My Dear’. The girl on the sax played it sweet and easy.
He looked past her and saw a booth at the end wall where Sorokina sat, her coat shrugged from her shoulders. She wore a simple black dress. Easy to pack but something that could be worn for any occasion. The man she sat with was ugly. Plain ugly. A bulbous nose sat on a pockmarked face. He was old enough to be her father. At least. His silver hair, brushed back across his scalp, touched his shoulders. His pudgy hands cradled a glass with clear liquid. She sipped from a champagne glass. The waiter who stood a few respectful paces away wasn’t just guarding the ice bucket. The ugly man shook his head. Sorokina looked disappointed. Raglan had been watching them for too long. The music came to its gentle end. That meant for near enough six and a half minutes he had been observing her, trying to interpret what was going on. He had barely touched the expensive beer. A man stepped in close and blocked his view. A minder. Another had pressed close to the bar counter behind Raglan. Either had the ability and confidence to hurt him. If the man behind him was as big as the one in front then he was a head taller than Raglan. At least that gave him a fighting chance. Know your enemy. This looked more like an invitation to leave.
‘You should finish your beer. Time to go,’ said the man in front of him in a thick-tongued accent.
‘I like the music,’ said Raglan.
‘They’ve stopped now,’ answered the man behind him. Raglan guessed he said it without a smile because the one in front of him was tight-lipped. Jaw clenched. Eyes narrowed. Signals that he was getting ready for violence. Chest-beating an optional extra.
There was no sense in causing a scene. Raglan raised the glass to his lips. Perhaps the minder was trying to impress his boss because he grasped Raglan’s left arm in a walnut-crushing grip. He was surprised to find the muscle in Raglan’s arm didn’t yield. It was a stupid mistake. Had they let Raglan finish his beer no one would have been any wiser that a threat had been made and he would have left. But not now.
Raglan whipped back his head, catching the man behind him on his lower jaw. His lip split, his teeth cracked, he stumbled back. Before the blood filled his mouth Raglan had pivoted and thrown the beer into the other man’s face, forcing him to rear back his head, release his grip and attempt to raise his arm to protect himself. Raglan didn’t let him. He twisted his left hand, gripped the man’s wrist, pulled him forward, forcing him on to his toes. He was off balance when Raglan’s elbow connected with the bridge of his nose. Raglan spun around and kicked beneath the second man’s chin as he tried to scramble to his feet. Somewhere in the background, hardly acknowledged by Raglan, a woman screamed, men swore, glasses broke, then a flood of noise told him the panic came from the few tables nearby. Perhaps the band was used to the occasional ruckus because they hit a fast number that drowned out the commotion.
Raglan couldn’t recall the title.
24
The stairs down to the club were too narrow for the hefty doormen to descend side by side, but they were halfway down one behind the other as Raglan started up.
A voice behind him called out. ‘Nem. Hadd menjen.’
Hungarian. Raglan half turned as the bouncers stopped in their tracks. A lithe man in an expensive suit, about the same age as Raglan, stood in the doorway behind him. He was no thug. ‘Safe journey. Better you do not come back. Yes?’
Raglan knew Sorokina had spoken for him. He nodded at the well-dressed man and made his way out into the cold night air. He passed the two guardians, who had returned to their posts, and crossed the street to wait for her. She took another half-hour, by which time he knew she was letting him know of her displeasure. When she finally came out she spotted him immediately. Experience had taught him that when Russians get mad it’s best to let their blood cool from boil to simmer.
‘You followed me! You stupid oaf. You fight in a place where I went for information. Information! Do you know how desperate we are to find help? Your police will only do so much. It will take time. Too much time. I have a contact here and you…’ She spewed insults in Russian, some of which he caught. Most of them were a fairly accurate description of who he was and what he had done. Maguire was wrong. She was no ice maiden. She swore at him once more and turned on her heel.
‘I’m not the marrying kind,’ said Raglan calmly.
She turned again. He hadn’t moved, hands in pockets.
‘What?’
‘I thought you’d just asked me to marry you in Russian. The bit about seeing me in my grave or some such thing. In English, they say “until death do us part”.’
She looked confused for all of five seconds. ‘You are a stupid man,’ she said, the cold edge back.
‘Buy me a drink then. And I’ll forgive you.’
Her neatly plucked eyebrows arched.
‘For saying you wished I was dead. I’m the forgiving kind.’
‘I said you are lucky not to have been killed tonight. That is what I said.’
He smiled. ‘My Russian is rustier than I thought. How about that drink?’
*
He ushered her into a nearby bar, giving her little chance to express her anger any further. The place was crowded and noisy and she retreated into silence. He helped her off with her coat, his hands briefly touching her waist where she had worn the pistol in its speed rig. There was no gun there tonight. He settled her coat neatly on the back of her chair and brought her a double chilled vodka because it was going to be difficult to get back to the bar to reorder through the crush. The clamour of raised voices made it impossible for them to converse. He watched her as she surveyed the room. The buzz swirled around them. He thought she liked it. And then she smiled. She bent her head and put her mouth close to his ear.
‘You are clever. There can be no fighting here. No argument, I mean.’
He leant forward too. ‘No need to argue. I didn’t start that fight in front of your friend. They did. I finished it. They gave me no choice.’
To anyone watching them, they seemed like a couple with their faces pressed close together, sharing intimacies.
‘Not my friends. People I knew. We rubbed each other’s back.’
‘You mean scratched each other’s back,’ he corrected her.
‘Yes. They are Hungarians. They are not good people, very violent, but they owe me favours. They have many contacts here, better even than Maguire’s. They run prostitution and drugs, they clean their money through casinos and by buying property. They have heard nothing of Kuznetsov but he would not have used his own name here, so I ask him to look for Delacorte or anyone else leasing old commercial buildings for short-term rental. It is where your friend will be held. I am certain.’
‘If he’s still alive,’ said Raglan. He struggled to dispel the thought of a tortured Carter out there somewhere in the night. There was little comfort in knowing that every agency available was searching for him and now that Sorokina had brought in her underworld contacts there might be
a quicker result. She certainly was not the kind of woman to hang about. She was a huntress. Respect where it was due, he thought. Without a doubt, she was attractive, and the fitted black cocktail dress and her slim frame belied her strength. Her toned arms and legs were surely the result of frequent physical workouts. He had already checked her slender fingers. Russians wear their wedding ring on their right hand but he noticed that she wore no jewellery except for a small crucifix at her neck. Single, divorced or widowed?
The warmth of the room gave her face a gentle flush. Her eyes glistened. She had noticed. ‘I lost my husband,’ she said. ‘Ten years ago. He was an engineer. There was an accident.’ She took his hands in hers. ‘No woman in your life who lies awake worrying if you will return home alive?’
‘No one will have me,’ he said.
She pulled a face. ‘Not ever?’
‘Once.’
‘Ah.’ She let his hand go.
He put his lips close to her cheek and smelt the subtle scent of perfume. Her elbows rested on the table, her bare arms raised, cradling the last of the vodka. ‘I’m hungry,’ he said.
There was no disagreement. She finished the drink. He eased on her coat and turned his shoulder towards the door and the crowd. He extended his arm towards her so she would follow close behind him through the press of people. He felt her fingers curl into his palm as she took his hand.
It was a good sign.
25
They found a hole-in-the-wall Italian eatery. Homely, family-run, the food freshly cooked. Thankfully, there was no piped muzak. Not even Italian opera. People were there to eat, not be entertained. Raglan ordered a bottle of basic red. It was business all the way. Nothing personal. Just the way Raglan liked it. He teased out her background, his questions always sounding like professional interest in her police career but exploring below the tough surface she projected. He learnt enough to know that she had had no easy ride through the ranks. Shot twice, demoted once and promoted again. She was bright. Not your standard plod who read the book and applied the rules. She had a keen mind, having studied law with the intention of following in her father’s footsteps in the judiciary, but the prospect of working even higher up in the corrupt system made her change her mind. At least on the street, she could face down the criminals; if she had gone up the greasy pole and become a lawyer the odds would be more heavily stacked, because more often than not the crooks were in charge. Her father and a handful of judges fought behind the scenes to exercise justice but their hands were tied. Big-brother love convinced her she had made the correct decision to remain a police officer. He had been a brave cop and put many of the really bad guys away but when he and his men raided Yegor Kuznetsov or, as she had heard Raglan refer to him, JD, they were ambushed. Someone higher up the chain had learnt of her brother’s investigation. Maybe he had even been betrayed by his own colleagues. It made no difference who was guilty; they walked right into an ambush and were cut down by intense gunfire. Their bodies were so badly shot up they were only identifiable by their personal documents and DNA.
The Englishman - Raglan Series 01 (2020) Page 14