She’s walking on the sidewalk of a wide riverside road toward Suzy’s apartment when her cell phone alerts her to a new message.
Sayer’s already sent five of them, and now Nancy’s left a voice mail: “Kat, you’ve got to call. Please. Don’t disappear like this.”
But it’s Cage she needs. And as she thinks it, the cell vibrates. She leans on the river wall, head lowered.
“They’ve ramped up Sayer’s instructions,” says Cage. “If he doesn’t deliver you to Washington, they’ll have someone else do it.”
“Whose instructions?”
“Technically State Department, but it doesn’t sound right to me. I’m hoping it’s not connected to Friday night.”
“Me, too.” A tingling runs through Kat. She watches ripples from a wind gust push against the river wall. She tells Cage about her encounter.
“She has an older brother,” Cage says. “Michael. He was raised to be a trapeze artist, which fits in with the family circus, and he did time with the British army in Iraq. That could be who you just met. Also, it turns out Liz works as a film editor at a place called Media Axis.”
“What do they do?”
“Run twenty-four-hour news and sports channels.”
“Okay. And Max Grachev? Anything there?”
“He checks out, but he’s not your usual cop. Maximilian Yury Grachev. Thirty-six, St. Petersburg State University, London School of Economics, where he got a first-class degree in European economic history, then he went on to train as detective in Moscow. It gets better. His mother, Tiina Alekseevna Gracheva, is a Russian oligarch. That’s a double i in Tiina, and Russian female surnames have an a on them. So her husband, Max’s father, is Vadim Andreevich Grachev. Not particularly interesting, a time-serving apparatchik and loyal to his wife. Tiina runs a Russian oil and gas conglomerate called RingSet. They’ve got some business in the United States. She got the job after heading the American desk at the SVR, the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service. When I have more, I’ll let you have it.”
“What does RingSet gain from Project Peace?” says Kat.
“That depends how close Tiina is to the Kremlin.”
“But there’s an interest, isn’t there? And that’s what Suzy was working on. So it makes sense that Grachev’s been brought in. And Media Axis, they’re running promotions about Project Peace. Something’s connected here, Bill.”
A bus followed by two trucks rumble past, making her press the earpiece tighter in.
“Most things connect,” says Cage. “But it doesn’t mean they’re right.”
“Can you get me Max Grachev’s home address?”
Cage says nothing. He doesn’t want to do it.
“Bill, where does he live?”
“I can’t let you break into his place.”
“You don’t have to let me do anything. We’re totally unauthorized here anyway, Bill. A professional assassin took out my sister. You helping me or not?”
TWENTY
Monday, 4:38 p.m., BST
Max Grachev lives in a ground-floor apartment on one of the most expensive streets in London. It is a four-story building with its white gray facade pollution-streaked around floor-to-ceiling windows that face the street.
Through white lace curtains, Kat’s been watching two people move around inside. When she’s certain one is Grachev himself, she steps up to the front door, presses the bell, looks full into the side-wall camera, and speaks loudly. “Kat Polinski.”
A woman opens the door, older than Kat, with wet blond hair hanging loose, wearing a bathrobe and a towel around her neck. She jerks a thumb back behind her and smiles.
“Max, are you in?” she says loudly in a confident, East Coast American accent. “Or are you not receiving visitors this afternoon?”
She turns back. “Hi. You must be here for Max,” she says, smiling.
Kat covers up the inevitable thought racing through her mind. What’s this detective doing in the middle of the afternoon with this woman when he’s supposed to be looking for Suzy’s killer?
“I’m here on business for Detective Inspector Grachev,” Kat says formally.
“She’s here on business, Max,” she says lightly, rubbing her hair with the towel. “Can I let her in?”
Her hair is dyed, dark roots growing out into the blond. Kat hears Grachev’s voice from far inside. The woman steps back and tilts her head. She keeps her eyes steady on Kat all the time.
Kat doesn’t challenge her gaze. This isn’t about Grachev’s private life. “Thanks,” she says.
The woman lets out a friendly laugh, touches Kat’s elbow as she passes. She has a long, graceful neck, swanlike. Just under her eyes are freckles, and a small reddish-purple birthmark runs down her left temple.
“Don’t tell anyone, but it’s not as exciting as it seems,” she whispers. “I’m his sister, Yulya. So you’re not disturbing anything.”
The entrance hall of the apartment is high-ceilinged, with a dark wood floor. Grachev is in a large living room, standing, reading papers on a desk, barefoot and dressed in a white T-shirt and red shorts.
He glances up and goes back to what he’s doing. Yulya walks smartly past Kat and speaks in Russian to Grachev, who replies curtly without looking up.
Yulya tops up a cup from a coffeepot on a table by the fireplace. “He’s telling me to leave you two alone,” she explains. “Max has always been rude and so serious.”
Yulya disappears down a corridor. Grachev picks up a pile of papers, taps them together on the top of the desk.
“My sister,” he says. “I have two. Lara’s a dedicated archeologist. Delightful. And Yulya’s a handful, but also delightful. She arrived this morning.”
He slips the papers into a plastic folder, crouches down, and locks them in a cabinet. “But you haven’t come to see me about that.”
“No,” says Kat, standing, arms folded, in the middle of the room.
“Then, if you don’t mind waiting a minute, I have to get changed.”
“It won’t take a—”
“Just give me a minute,” he interrupts, walking off down the corridor.
The apartment reminds her of the family house on R Street, like a big hotel suite rented for life, comfy red-striped sofas, thick soft materials, a coffee table strewn with magazines, peach-colored walls with pictures of Russia. Kat walks across to them, two prints and three original oils, all of wild, desolate landscapes, snow, a church and farm buildings, and people in the distance, far from any shelter.
Above the desk are a couple of photographs, one of Grachev with a group of cops, in summer shirtsleeves. They have glasses raised in a toast, and there’s no way of telling where they are, except on a riverbank. Another is of him with his arm around a woman outside a chalet in woodland. Grachev’s face is soft, completely at home. The woman’s face is harder, as if she’s doing it for the picture. Her dark hair, streaked with gray, is pinned up off her eyes and ears. She’s in a blue business suit, older than Grachev, difficult to tell for sure, but probably his mother or an aunt.
Between the photographs is a framed newspaper article in English from about a year ago, a lifestyle piece on Grachev after he got to London. It’s pretty much like Cage told her, but with more detail about his time as a homicide detective in Moscow and praising the way he took on organized-crime gangs there.
There’s no mention of a wife, any kids, or a girlfriend. The other people in his life are his two sisters; his father, who is retired; and his mother, Tiina—as Cage said—who heads the Russian energy conglomerate RingSet, making Grachev an heir to billions. There’s no other way a cop, whether British or Russian, could afford an apartment like this.
“Good, eh? My famous brother.”
Yulya is behind her. She’s changed into a dark, pinstriped pantsuit and has a briefcase hanging from her arm, while trying to tie back her hair.
“Don’t worry, I’m going out. It’s all a rush. I’ve got an evening of meetings.”
She has a rubber band between her teeth.
“Turn around, let me fix it for you,” suggests Kat, stepping forward.
She bunches Yulya’s hair, smells jasmine and honeysuckle. “Here, give me the rubber band.”
“Thanks,” says Yulya, handing it back.
“What do you do?” says Kat.
“I’m learning the family business. Our mom got lucky in oil and gas, but wants to retire soon.”
“But Max is a cop?”
“He’s the brainy one. He takes a cut of the family dividends and does what he’s always dreamed of doing. As a kid, he spent all day reading detective novels.”
Yulya runs her fingers down her hair, adjusts strands at the front, puts on a floppy, bright red hat, and gets its position right in the mirror over the fireplace. “How’s that? Knock ’em dead. What do you say?”
“You look great,” says Kat.
Yulya’s face becomes serious. “I know I am not meant to ask. But Max is homicide. He investigates murders. I mean . . . I hope . . .”
“My sister was shot dead on Friday night.”
Yulya steps back, her hand on her mouth, eyes up at the ceiling, dropping back again to look straight at Kat. She holds out both hands, turning the palms upward. “I’m so, so sorry,” she whispers.
Kat finds her throat rigid. She swallows, and deep in the pit of her stomach, she controls the sadness kicking at her. “Thank you,” she says tightly.
She moves back. Grachev’s watching them, zipping up his jacket.
“Take care,” says Yulya, and leaves.
Grachev stays quiet until he’s seen his sister go past the front window and out of sight.
“Let’s take a walk,” he says. “Stay behind me; don’t catch up until I signal.” He goes out the door, leaving it open for Kat.
TWENTY-ONE
Monday, 5:09 p.m., BST
He’s out in the street. He looks straight ahead, not acknowledging her, eyes on trucks and buses trundling past.
She follows.
He’s at the light, about to cross the street.
The light turns green. Grachev crosses and walks right onto a footpath through a lawn decorated with flower beds.
Grachev stops and signals for Kat to catch up with him. He puts his hands on her shoulders, turns her toward him, takes a green cotton scarf out of his pocket, and drapes it around her neck.
“Keep your mouth covered, like this,” he says, pulling it up gently. She now sees he has a scarf for the same purpose. He begins walking again. She falls into step with him.
“Are you wired?” he asks, putting the edge of his hand above his eyes to look at an aircraft in the sky.
“No,” she says, irritated.
“No one sent you?” He brings down his hand and studies her face. The rain’s stopped. The sun’s out, and Grachev’s worked it so she’s looking straight up at it, squinting.
“I sent me.”
He looks away from her and talks in a low voice. “Five days from now, on September second, they’re signing the Coalition for Peace and Security,” he says. “Project Peace, as they’re calling it here. Do you understand what that is?”
“Yeah.” Kat nods. “They moved the date up.”
“Correct, and everyone’s been taken by surprise. The closer it gets to that date, the tighter surveillance is going to be everywhere in London. We can’t talk in my apartment because it’s wired. So is the phone. So is my cell phone. Most times, I’m being followed. The scarves are important. They’ll blow up the surveillance pictures and bring in lip readers, who’ll go through them frame by frame.”
Kat nods again.
“You are clever. You are stubborn. You have the confidence of youth,” he says. “You were able to get around the surveillance on your sister’s apartment because you have a friend in Washington. But make no mistake. They’re good here in Britain. They’ll break your encryption system. They may already have done so.”
He cuts a look across her, part reprimand, part sympathy, meeting her eyes. She wants to mask how she feels, but her nerves make it difficult.
“So, it was you—following me?” she manages.
“I’m investigating your sister’s murder. I told you I was using you to get to Liz Luxton. It’s natural that I should put you under surveillance.”
“But they lost me.”
“Perhaps.”
She smooths a loose end of hair around her ear and says nothing. “You’re working against me with Nate Sayer,” she challenges.
“No one’s working against you, Kat. We’re working with you. If we weren’t, you wouldn’t be let within a mile of your sister’s apartment.” He shrugs. “If you want to play clever, we can all play clever. But then you don’t learn, and I don’t learn.”
“Once I have Suzy’s killer, I’ll be gone,” she whispers loud enough for him to hear through the scarf.
“Walk with me,” he says, taking her arm, leading her across the grass. She glances at him but can’t read his face, which takes on the expression of someone who wants to be rid of her; who has judged her too difficult, but has decided to go on.
“Remember what I told you about Project Peace.”
“Yes. The United States, Russia, and China doing an energy deal.”
“The big opposition is here in Britain. The prime minister backs the United States and wants to sign. But he’s pushing against public sentiment.”
“What exactly has that got to do with Suzy?”
“Suzy was standardizing laws between the three powers. That was her job. From murder to bicycle theft, Suzy was checking that penalties came within internationally accepted guidelines. She was on the team that put together the Project Peace pamphlet you saw last night. Think about it, Kat, for the love of God, think about it.”
She stops walking. The air in the park is cool, smells of flowers and freshly mown grass. “I am thinking about it. There must be hundreds of players like her, so how come they’re not dead?”
“How do we know they aren’t?”
An image comes immediately to mind. Then another, and another.
A man, shot through the head, his blood leaking into the snow on a windswept airfield. Two young women, holding hands in death, their blood thickly streaked down the wall; a young man dead under his desk; an elegant woman, shot, looking as if she were asleep . . .
She looks up at Grachev. “Go on.”
“Suzy was shot on a marshland footpath during the intermission of a classical music concert, Tchaikovsky and Beethoven,” says Grachev. “Why? Who? I don’t know. Is there a bigger picture? Yes, certainly there is. And that’s why I’m telling you this, because when we’re finished, you will leave London. Go to the airport. Go back home.”
He looks at her, and Kat meets his stare. They both hold the silence. Kat doesn’t move.
“You’re not investigating her murder, are you?”
“You’re letting the past eat you,” says Grachev.
“What the hell’s that mean?”
“Like your sister,” he says flatly, giving her nothing.
“You found anything on her computer? No. You haven’t even taken it out of her apartment. You found anything from the audience list yet, from people who traveled through checkpoints to that concert? What the hell are you doing to find out who killed her?”
Grachev looks down at the ground.
“Give me the courtesy of an answer,” says Kat.
He toes his foot into the grass. “To find a killer, you have to find a motive. Who would want Suzy dead? What I’ve learned about your sister is this: One, she was obsessed with how your father died. She believed it was not an accident. She believed the plane was sabotaged. Two, she was living under a false name.”
Kat and Suzy had reacted differently to their father’s death. Kat didn’t want to think about it. She blanked out the reasons, blanked out detail, blanked out the list of John Polinski’s enemies and found solace in Mercedes Vendetta. Suzy immersed herself in it,
wanted to know everything as if she thought it was her job to find out exactly what had happened.
“How obsessed was she?” asks Kat.
“One morning, four years ago, almost to the week,” says Grachev, “your father climbed into his Cessna Skylane at Fairfield County Airport after visiting your grandmother, Kathleen Mary Polinski, at her house in Lancaster, Ohio. The Cessna was only eighteen months old. It had just been through a routine servicing. Flying weather was not good, low cloud, rain to the east, but John Polinski had dealt with far worse. On the climb, at 920 feet per minute, something happened, and the plane crashed. Your dad’s body was unrecognizable.
“John Polinski made a name for himself on class-action employment cases. He took on packers, canners, agricultural corporations, and got his first break on the issue of illegal migrant labor. About a year before he died, he decided to branch out and took on a case against an international energy consortium. Suzy believed that consortium sabotaged the plane and murdered your father.”
Kat’s hands have gone knuckle-white to control the rush of thoughts. “Is that what you believe?”
“I don’t know yet. It’s only three days since Suzy was killed.” Grachev is frowning. “But I do know she kept tearing and tearing at the wound and wouldn’t let it heal.”
“She’s not crazy,” says Kat defensively, using the present tense. “She wouldn’t go chasing ghosts. She must have found something.”
“Perhaps,” he says. “So let’s assume she was right. If your father was murdered, it would have been done by highly professional killers. Now Suzy.”
Suddenly, he turns away.
Two Muslim women, covered in black, walk past, each holding the hand of a little girl.
“Let’s assume, then,” Kat fires back. “Let’s assume it is all connected. You’re suggesting that I forget any of this shit ever happened?”
“Use Nate Sayer’s air tickets.”
“You got a problem with me? I’m too much of an addition to your workload?”
The History Book Page 9