The Moscow Code

by Nick Wilkshire

  “I’m sure the Russian army shipped its fair share of the stuff back to Moscow during the Afghan war in the eighties,” Sophie said. “Maybe Steve was doing a historical piece.”

  “Maybe.” Charlie continued flipping through the rest of the book, finding several sections highlighted in similar fashion, with some scribbled handwriting here and there. The problem was, the highlighted sections seemed to have no logical connection. Heroin trafficking in Afghanistan, counterfeiting and commercial espionage in China, prostitution in Ukraine. The only common theme — the subject of the book — was the role of organized crime in the various illegal enterprises. It was consistent with the general theory they had been developing that Liepa might have been looking into Dmitri Bayzhanov, but it was hardly a smoking gun. That Bayzhanov and his company BayCo were connected in one way or another to the Russian mob was almost a foregone conclusion. Charlie tossed the book onto the bed.

  “Maybe we’ll catch a break tomorrow,” Sophie said, picking up on the negative vibe that Charlie was trying to suppress.

  “Let’s hope so.”

  The main police station was in an ugly part of the city, north of the train station. After the luxury of the Negresco, it gave the impression of being on another planet, despite being less than fifteen minutes away by taxi. Charlie and Sophie had gotten up early and set off in a cab after a quick breakfast in the hotel restaurant. The bright sunlight on the sparkling blue Mediterranean had lifted Charlie’s spirits when he had looked out the window of the hotel room, but the interior of the police station was starting to drag him down.

  They had been sitting and waiting there for almost thirty minutes. Their request to talk to someone about Krasknikov’s accident had been taken by a gruff desk officer in his late fifties — the kind who didn’t like to be rushed. Charlie was debating asking him for an update when another man — a younger, fitter man in a light cotton jacket over a white polo shirt — appeared in front of them.

  “Monsieur Hillier?”

  “Oui, et Mademoiselle Durant,” Charlie began, hoping his high school French, slightly enhanced by the few weeks of language training he had managed to squeeze out of a reluctant manager a few years back, wouldn’t fail him.

  “Inspecteur Sebastien Coron,” the man said, his smile coming to life when he turned to Sophie. “You were asking about an accident that occurred some weeks ago on the Cap?” Coron continued, in lightly accented English. His expression conveyed a mixture of caution and curiosity.

  “Yes, a car that went off a cliff, driven by a Russian national.”

  Coron frowned and shook his head. “What makes you say he was Russian?”

  Charlie sensed that Coron was concealing something, but decided to play dumb. “Well, we understand the body wasn’t identified, but that’s partly why we’re here. We were wondering whether you could tell us what happened, maybe let us see the scene, or the wrecked car?”

  Coron’s reaction was immediate. “This is not Disney World, Monsieur, and I am not a guide touristique.”

  “We’re not here to waste your time,” Charlie said quickly as Coron turned to head back to the door that separated the precinct from the waiting area. “In fact, we may have information that you will find useful.”

  “Perhaps in America this is how you conduct investigations, but not in France,” Coron said with an arrogant sniff.

  “We’re Canadian,” Sophie said, stepping forward. At first, Charlie thought it was the plaintive look in her eyes that stopped Coron in his tracks, but soon realized there was something else going on.

  “More Canadians?” the inspector said.

  “What do you mean?” Charlie thought he knew the answer.

  “A month ago, another Canadian, a young man, was asking me questions about this accident.”

  Sophie rummaged in her jacket pocket and pulled out a wallet-sized photo and showed it to him. “Was this the man who was asking questions?” Despite his obvious reluctance to confirm anything, the look in Coron’s eyes said it all. “That’s my brother, Steve,” Sophie said, putting the picture back in her pocket. “He died a few weeks ago, in Moscow, not long after returning from France.” They stood in silence for a moment while Coron seemed to process the information. “I just want to know what happened to him, that’s all. If you could spare us a few minutes.”

  Coron seemed to consider the request for a moment, then made up his mind.

  “Venez,” he said, motioning to the secure door and punching in his access code. They followed him in silence to a desk in the far corner of a bustling room. The sight of the palm branches gently swaying outside the grimy window was in stark contrast to the disarray of Coron’s desk. He motioned to a tattered pair of mismatched chairs and took a seat in his own, its creak announcing that it, too, was approaching the end of its useful life.

  “Attendez, attendez,” he said, tossing one pile of paper onto another and shuffling through a disorderly collection of files until he found what he was looking for. “Voilà,” he declared, pushing the loose papers off his blotter to make room. “This is my file. I’m afraid I haven’t learned much since I met with your brother.”

  Charlie glanced at Sophie, sensing that Coron was assuming that Liepa had told his sister all about what he had learned on his visit a month ago.

  “You still have no suspects?” she said, playing along.

  “Why would I be looking for a suspect? It was an accidental death.”

  “But there was an article in the Journal de Nice,” Charlie said. “Asking for witnesses to come forward.”

  Coron nodded. “Yes, to provide information about the accident. Not to launch a murder investigation, Mr. Hill —”

  “Call me Charlie, please. Do you mind?” he said, pointing at the file.

  Just then someone across the room called out to him. “Eh, Caron, une minute!”

  Coron replied, then slid the file toward them. “Please have a look for yourselves. I’ll be back in a few minutes.” He got to his feet and strode to the other cop, then started what looked to be a lengthy conversation. Charlie opened the file and spread its contents onto the desktop.

  “My God,” Sophie said, looking at the photo of a mangled red sports car, half in the water and half embedded in an outcrop of rock at the base of a cliff. The next photo was of the same scene, but taken from the road above.

  “Here’s the medical examiner’s report,” Charlie said, plucking the two-page form from the file folder and scanning the executive summary while Sophie flipped through the photos.

  “Body was burned beyond recognition,” Charlie said, translating as he read. “Identification impossible due to … the state of the remains.”

  “What about dental records for identification? Does it say anything about that?” Sophie looked up from one of the photos. “Is that the body?” she said, pointing to a close-up of what looked vaguely like a skeleton, minus a skull.

  Charlie continued to translate the medical report on the fly. “The head was … missing.”

  “What do you mean missing?”

  “Hang on,” Charlie said, reading ahead. “It was likely severed on impact, and then lost in the sea.”

  “That’s impossible, surely.”

  “That’s what it says here. There’s not much else of interest. Oh — what’s this?” Charlie found another form in the folder and saw Coron’s signature at the bottom. “This looks like some kind of summary of the findings. Let’s see. Accident occurred at some point between midnight and 6:00 a.m. There was a … storm that night with high winds. A chaloupe … fishing boat noticed the wreckage in the morning. The body was badly … disfigured and … burned. The head had been remov — no, severed, and was not found despite … despite the efforts of police divers. No identification, no sign of foul play … preliminary finding of an accident.”

  “I’m still not convinced it was an accident,�
� Sophie said, unaware that Coron had returned from across the room. He looked at her, glanced at his watch, and then smiled.

  “Venez. I will show you.”

  They drove through the centre of town, then south along the Rue de Rivoli, past their hotel and onto the Promenade des Anglais. They went past the old port and fish market, taking the road west along the coast toward the Cap de Nice, gradually climbing as they left the city behind. The Mediterranean sparkled below, and Charlie noticed that the seaside road was bordered only by a low stone wall maybe a couple of feet high. As they navigated one twisting section of the road to another, he began to imagine a very different experience at two in the morning during a storm.

  Coron was chatting as he drove and soon pulled over onto the narrow shoulder, just ahead of a break in the rock wall, marked by a pair of orange pylons. The three of them climbed out of the car.

  “You see?” the policeman said, pointing to the cracked rock wall. Charlie noticed that the lower portion of the wall was largely intact, and the break point was edged with flakes of red. He realized on closer inspection that the red was probably paint from the car that had burst through the barrier.

  “It was a red car?”

  “Yes, a Porsche Carrera,” Coron said, with a sombre nod, though whether it was out of respect for the victim of the deadly crash or the loss of a fine piece of automotive engin­eering, Charlie wasn’t sure. He stepped up to the edge and looked down over the virtually sheer drop to an outcropping of sun-bleached rock below, a few square metres of which was still blackened.

  “The car was travelling at a very high speed,” Coron continued, pointing to the stone wall and the low curb that preceded it. “It was already — how do you say it? — airborne by the time it hit the wall, you see?” He pointed to the paint marks where the wall had been sheared off, then to the outcropping of rock below. “It landed there — probably exploding on impact, or soon after.”

  “And you say there were no witnesses?” Sophie glanced at the smattering of residences on the slope above the road.

  “Non, Madame, it was a bad storm that night. Very noisy.”

  “And no skid marks?” Charlie asked, glancing at the road approaching from the east.

  “The road was very wet.” Coron shrugged and looked out over the water.

  Charlie considered challenging the remark, but decided against it for now.

  “And you were able to identify the victim through the registration of the car?” he asked instead, prompting a frown from Coron.

  “Non. It was owned by a société — a company that rents to tourists. Rich tourists. They rent villas and cars.”

  “But surely the company is required by law to give you that information in a case like this,” Sophie said, incredulous.

  Coron gave a little snort. “Yes, and they were about to, when we received word from the Ministère des affaires étrangères telling us this identification would not be forthcoming.”

  Sophie and Charlie looked at each other. “The French Foreign Ministry?”

  Coron nodded. “Oui.”

  “You mean, at the request of a foreign embassy?” Sophie asked, prompting another nod from Coron.

  “Was it the Russian Embassy?”

  The inspector shrugged. “They did not say, only that our inquiries into the victim’s identity were at an end.”

  “And you were satisfied that it was an accident, so you didn’t pursue it?”

  Coron looked out over the Mediterranean and took a deep breath of the sea air. “We had no reason to believe otherwise, and even if we did, my power to pursue an investigation was …” He hesitated.

  “Non-existent?” Charlie suggested.

  “I have my orders to follow.”

  “So why bother to help us, show us the reports and the scene?” Sophie said.

  “Maybe you have information I don’t have.” Coron walked back to the car and opened the door. “Or maybe not.”

  “Or maybe you don’t think it was an accident any more than we do,” Charlie said as the policeman got behind the wheel. Charlie held the door as Sophie got in the back seat, then followed her in. Their visit was apparently over. “Tell me this, then,” Charlie persisted. “What did you do with the responses to your request for witnesses to come forward before your visit from the French Foreign Ministry? You must have had some, even if they were only a few cranks.”

  “Cranks?”

  “Crazies … des fous … with nothing else to do.”

  Coron laughed, then started the car, his smile fading. “Nothing. We did nothing. There were not many, in any case.”

  “But there were some.”

  Coron put the car back in neutral and picked up the file folder from the passenger seat, then pulled out a sheet of paper. “A colleague spoke to this man — he was not a … crank,” Coron said, passing the sheet of paper to Charlie. “Perhaps you can try him again, since I cannot.” Coron put the car in gear and made a U-turn to point them back toward Nice. “He’s a bartender at a restaurant in the vieille ville.”

  “What about the medical examiner — can we meet him?” Sophie leaned forward from the back seat.

  Coron shook his head. “He is a very busy man, and very … by the book.”

  “You mean he’s not going to answer unofficial questions from a couple of Canadians,” Charlie said.

  “Exactement.”

  “But if you came with us …?”

  Coron sighed and looked in the rear-view before making a sudden right. “I will introduce you, but I promise nothing.”

  Chapter 33

  Charlie and Sophie waited in the basement hallway of the hospital, located in the northern part of the city, beyond the police station. Charlie tried to ignore the wave of nausea he felt at the smell of antiseptic and whatever else was up his nose. He hated to think what, given they were at the morgue. Sophie seemed perfectly at ease, which didn’t surprise him since she probably spent a significant amount of time in hospitals.

  “Entrez,” Coron said, emerging from a doorway and waving them into an anteroom, then stepping into the office beyond. A tall, thin man in his sixties stood on the other side of a cluttered desk. The windows behind him were stained with soot and covered by thick metal grates. Dust motes floated in the thin ray of natural light that filtered through. Sophie stepped up to the older man and extended her hand.

  “Dr. Sophie Durant,” she said, which seemed to relax him a little.

  “Dr. Felix St. Jacques,” he replied with a thin smile. “Coron tells me you are Canadian?”

  “That’s right,” she said, introducing Charlie.

  “I spent six months in Montreal several years ago, on an exchange in the pathology department at McGill.”

  “Your English is excellent,” Sophie said, eliciting a slightly wider smile.

  “I did some of my medical training in England, but that was many years ago.”

  They chatted for a couple of minutes more before St. Jacques got to the point. “Coron says you would like to ask me some questions about the victim of a car accident?”

  “Yes, we read your report, and —”

  “And your interest in this is?”

  “We believe the accident could be connected to the death of my brother,” Sophie said.

  St. Jacques frowned as he listened, then appeared to soften his position.

  “I’m sorry to hear about your brother. Your questions are … unofficial?”

  She nodded and St. Jacques looked at Coron, who gave his own barely perceptible nod before the pathologist pointed to the chairs on the other side of his desk. He took a seat himself in a creaking wooden chair.

  “Very well. What do you want to know?”

  “I was wondering about the cause of death,” she said, as she and Charlie sat. Coron remained standing off to one side.

 
“Massive trauma,” St. Jacques said with a shrug. “The car the victim was driving fell approximately thirty metres onto solid rock. On examination, we found the body severely damaged, as well as burned, the vehicle having exploded on impact.”

  “I assume you didn’t inspect the body at the scene?” Sophie asked, prompting a rapid shake of the head.

  “No, the examination was conducted here. A member of the police forensic services team did inspect the body on-site, and I was able to review his notes prior to my own examination.”

  “Did those notes give any indication of the location of the body?” Charlie asked. He heard a sharp inhalation of air from Coron.

  “The location?” St. Jacques seemed puzzled.

  “I mean, was the body in the driver’s seat, wearing a seat belt, that sort of thing?”

  “Ah.” St. Jacques nodded. “The seat belt was not in use. As for the location of the body within the vehicle, it would have been difficult to determine, given the state of the car.”

  “Was a blood sample taken?”

  “Of course. Alcohol was present in the victim’s blood, enough that it had to be considered a factor in the crash, but it was just over the legal limit.”

  Sophie nodded and looked at Charlie before asking about some of the technical findings she had seen in the report. Charlie kept an eye on Coron, who was now leaning against the wall, rubbing a forefinger over his upper lip. He watched the cop stand straighter at Sophie’s next line of questions.

  “What happened to the victim’s head?”

  The pathologist paused, glancing quickly at Coron before answering. “As I said, the force of impact was very damaging — a drop onto solid rock from that height. The head was severed from the body likely on impact. Police divers dredged the water but were unable to locate the head. There are strong currents around the Cap.”