The Moscow Code

by Nick Wilkshire

  Sohie nodded. “So, no possibility of identifying the victim with dental records.”

  St. Jacques shook his head.

  “And fingerprints?” she persisted.

  Coron gave a little smile. “They were sent to the national database, which links to international law-enforcement agencies.”

  “Which prompted the visit from the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs,” she replied with her own smile. “No doubt at the request of the Russian Embassy in Paris.”

  The room fell silent for a moment. Then Coron looked at Sophie and Charlie. “Do you know the identity of the victim?” he asked, his tone detached, though it didn’t conceal his underlying curiosity.

  “We think his name was Mikhail Krasnikov,” Charlie said. “Though why the Russian government was so keen to put a stop to the investigation is interesting.”

  “You have a theory?” Coron raised an eyebrow.

  “I think it just became a bit more than a theory,” Sophie said. “Thank you for your time, Dr. St. Jacques. You’ve been very helpful.”

  “Who is this Krasnikov?” Coron asked when they were back out in the parking lot.

  Charlie didn’t want to go into the details, but he felt they owed Coron something for his efforts. “He was a government official whose death coincides with something Steven Liepa was looking into.”

  Coron seemed about to ask something else, then looked at Sophie. “I hope you find justice for your brother, but there’s little else I can do.”

  “Thanks for your help.” She extended a hand.

  “I wish you well in your search, but I fear you will be disappointed.”

  “There’s still the bartender to talk to,” she said as Coron nodded and turned to shake Charlie’s hand.

  “You don’t really think it was an accident, do you?” Charlie watched Coron for his reaction.

  “Instinct can be deceiving sometimes,” the inspector replied. “But I think there is more to this case than — how do you say? — meets the eye.”

  After he had gone, Charlie looked at his watch. “We’ve got a couple of hours before the restaurant where the bartender works opens. Maybe we should get some lunch.”

  Sophie nodded. “Let’s go back to the hotel. I need to get on the internet.”

  “Something St. Jacques said about the post-mortem?”

  She frowned. “He didn’t do a real post-mortem, although by the sounds of it, there wasn’t much of Krasnikov to examine. And given the cops were presenting it as an accident from the get-go, there wouldn’t necessarily have been a reason to do one.”

  “Over here,” Charlie said, pointing to a row of taxis waiting at the hospital entrance. They rode south through the city, back to the palm-lined promenade and the hotel, stopping at a nearby coffee shop to get some sandwiches and cappuccinos to go. Back in the hotel room, Sophie ate a sandwich as she logged onto the internet with her laptop, while Charlie looked through the selection of Steve Liepa’s paperbacks.

  “Where’s the one on the Asian drug trade?” he said, biting into his sandwich as she clicked away at her laptop.

  “I put it back in the bag.” She pointed to the collapsible duffel that held all of Liepa’s effects.

  Charlie found the book and started flipping through the pages as he ate. His sandwich done, he sipped the cappuccino and perused the book, concentrating on the highlighted areas but making nothing coherent of them. Abandoning the book, he closed his eyes and tried to piece together what they had learned from Coron, but other than a strong impression that Krasnikov’s death was no accident, they were no further ahead. His thoughts turned to Moscow, and a wave of unease gripped him as he thought of what awaited him there. Would he even be allowed to return? And if so, to what?

  Chapter 34

  It was just after nine in the evening when their cab pulled up outside the restaurant in the old fish market on the east side of the city, just a few blocks from the waterfront. The outside of the building looked a bit rundown, but the inside was luxurious, with a soft-lit dining room to one side and a full bar to the other. A maître d’ greeted them immediately and asked if they had a reservation, but Charlie shook his head and pointed to the bar.

  They sat at the near end and waited for the bartender, a fit young man in his twenties, to finish the cocktail he was making for a woman at the other end of the bar.

  “Un verre de vin blanc et une bière, s’il vous plaît,” Charlie said when the bartender was free.

  The man nodded and smiled. “American?”

  “Canadian,” Charlie replied, not the least surprised that he hadn’t been able to pass for a native speaker. “You speak English?”

  “Yes.” The wattage of the bartender’s smile increased as he got a closer look at Sophie. “I had an American girlfriend.”

  “They say necessity is the mother of invention.” Sophie gave him a broad smile and offered her hand. “I’m Sophie and this is Charlie.”

  “Jean-Claude,” he said, shaking her hand, then Charlie’s, before turning to get their drinks. He was back a moment later and set the glasses down on the bar.

  “Are you eating in the restaurant?” he asked.

  “No, we’re just having a drink,” Charlie said, putting an assortment of Euros on the bar that covered the drinks and a very generous tip. “And we were wondering if we could ask you a few questions about that accident that happened up on the Cap de Nice a month ago.” He saw the bartender’s eyes narrow slightly. “We’ve already spoken to the police — Inspecteur Coron,” Charlie said quickly, hoping the reference would put the young man at ease. “He mentioned you had called in with some information in response to the notice in the paper.”

  The bartender looked down the length of the bar. The woman at the other end was a third of the way through her martini and there was another handful of people in the adjacent booths, but it was pretty quiet. He gave a short nod.

  “Yes, I called in, because of the car.”

  “The car?”

  “The car in the accident was a red Porsche. I served a couple who were driving a red Porsche that night. I wondered … well, I wondered if maybe it was them, but I understand it was a single victim. And anyway, the police said the case was … closed.”

  “What did they look like?” Charlie asked.

  He grinned. “He was older. Much older.”

  “Did he have an accent?”

  He frowned with the effort of recall. “Maybe, but she did most of the talking. Her French was very good.”

  “What accent would you say the man had?”

  “Eastern European, maybe Russian.”

  “But not her?”

  “She was a tall blonde — very beautiful. She looked Russian, but she spoke excellent French.”

  “How did you know what car they were driving?” Sophie asked.

  “I served them an aperitif here,” he said, gesturing to the bar. “They had dinner, and then later, I went out back for a cigarette and saw them leave. Their car was parked around back.”

  “What about the man?” Charlie sipped his beer. “What did he look like?”

  “A big man. Grey hair, big stomach. Too big for a girl like that,” he added, with another grin.

  “You think she was a hooker?”

  The bartender looked puzzled.

  “A prostitute.”

  “Ah,” he said, recognition dawning. “Yes, maybe. She certainly was not his daughter,” he added, chuckling. “I have a picture if you like.”

  Charlie looked at Sophie. “A picture?”

  “We have a camera out back, to cover the parking lot,” the bartender said. “We’ve had some thefts. When I saw the notice in the paper, I checked the tape and there were a few images — I printed a couple of the best shots, but the police didn’t need them.”

  “You still have these photos
?”

  “Unless one of the staff threw them out,” he said, rummaging behind the bar. He came up with an envelope, opened it, and pulled out a couple of sheets of paper. The first shot wasn’t great, as the couple were both back-on. In the second, a man that could have been Krasnikov was side-on, but there was a good view of the woman as she stood by the passenger door. She was indeed tall and blond, with the high cheekbones that Charlie had seen in women all over Moscow. What made his stomach clench, though, as he stared at her image, was the fact that he had seen her somewhere recently. Was it in Moscow? Or Berlin?

  “They didn’t say where they were staying or how long they were here for?” Sophie asked, apparently oblivious to Charlie’s shock as he continued to stare at the woman’s image.

  The bartender shook his head. “We had some small talk, but they wanted to be alone.”

  “Do you mind if we keep these?” Charlie said, tapping a finger on the pictures.

  “Please. But why are you so interested? The police told me the case was closed.”

  Charlie nodded. “The police investigation is closed, but let’s just say we have a professional interest in finding out as much as we can about what happened.” The bartender suddenly seemed more interested in responding to the empty martini glass at the other end of the bar than in asking for clarification, so Charlie thought it a good time for an exit. “Thank you for your help.”

  “My pleasure,” the young man said, moving down the bar as Sophie and Charlie made for the door.

  “What’s wrong?” Sophie asked as they hit the sidewalk outside the restaurant.

  “I recognize that blonde from somewhere.”

  “One of your conquests?” she joked, but she could tell from his reaction that Charlie was worried.

  “I’m trying to recall if it was in Moscow or Berlin, but I definitely saw her somewhere recently.”

  “Well, I certainly didn’t recognize her, and we spent most of our time together in Berlin, so it was probably in Moscow.”

  “Probably.”

  Sophie waved at a passing taxi, which slowed to pick them up. “So what now?”

  “Back to Berlin, I guess.” Charlie opened the back door for her to slide in. “For me, anyway.”

  “I guess there’s not much else to be done here,” she said, glancing at the dark sea beyond the lights of the promenade. “I was hoping we were on to something.”

  “Well, we confirmed our suspicions, at least.”

  Charlie tried to be upbeat, but he felt the familiar disappointment at being no further ahead. Yes, it looked as though Krasnikov could have had help in plunging off the cliff and that Steve Liepa had been here in September, asking questions. But the blonde remained a mystery. He pulled out his BlackBerry to check his messages, expecting nothing other than the routine stuff. He was surprised to see a message from Brigitte Martineau. Some “significant progress” had been made on his case during the day, whatever that meant. It concluded with a heads-up to expect an update tomorrow. She didn’t ask where he was at the moment, but the subtext was that he should be back in Berlin by midday tomorrow.

  “What is it?”

  “It’s a note from the head of mission. Seems they might be making progress.”

  “You mean you might be going back to Moscow, after all?”

  “Uh-huh,” Charlie said, tucking the BlackBerry back in his pocket. Two things ran across his mind. The first was the unhappy prospect of having to leave Sophie behind in Berlin if he were ordered back. The second was whether anyone could guarantee that he wouldn’t be tossed into a holding cell at Domodedovo as soon as he stepped off the plane.

  After the short cab ride, they were crossing the hotel lobby when Sophie pointed at the restaurant. “I don’t know about you, but I could use a bite to eat.”

  “Might as well.”

  “I’m just going to run up to the room for a moment” — she gestured to the elevators — “if you want to get us a table.”

  Charlie entered the busy restaurant and was seated at one of the few remaining tables. A sliver of the boardwalk was visible through the window to one side and a view of the lobby on the other. There was a large table of business types behind him. He noticed a mix of American and English accents, but the theme of the conversation was universal — the number of attractive women in the south of France. Charlie listened in amusement for a few minutes as the young men traded war stories, but when the server arrived with a pair of menus and there was still no sign of Sophie, Charlie started to feel uneasy. He was telling the server to come back in a few minutes when the American’s voice drew his attention.

  “… like the blonde on the way in here,” he said in a blustering voice.

  “Which one?” the Brit asked, egging him on.

  “Across the lobby. She was giving me the eye,” the first man replied.

  “She was a dyke,” another Western voice chimed in. “The way she took off after the other —” He stopped, recognizing Charlie as having been with Sophie in the lobby.

  Charlie pushed back his chair and bolted to the elevators, pressing the button frantically and calculating whether it would be faster to take the stairs when the doors finally opened and a startled couple stepped aside to let him on.

  “Sorry,” he muttered, pressing the button for the fourth floor repeatedly until the doors slid shut again. “Come on, come on,” he said, his pulse racing as the car seemed to crawl upward. After what seemed like an eternity, the doors opened onto a deserted fourth-floor landing. He turned right and raced down the hallway and was almost at the door to their room when he heard a muffled crash from inside. He grabbed the door handle, finding the door slightly ajar.

  He swung it wide and saw Sophie on her back on the floor, the blonde from the photo straddling her hips with her hands clenched around Sophie’s neck. The coffee table and chairs were knocked over and a lamp lay broken on the floor. He rushed at the blonde, shoving her onto her side. Sophie rolled over, gasping for air, her face scarlet, but Charlie was too focused on the other woman, who had gained her feet and was already coming at him. She had the heavy base of a lamp in one hand and was swinging it toward his head like a battle-axe. He ducked just in time, felt a whoosh of air graze his ear, and managed to send an elbow sharply upward, hitting her in the midsection and eliciting a guttural gasp.

  “Knife,” Sophie croaked, still gasping for air. She pointed to the floor by the corner of the room, where Charlie caught a glint of metal. He traded glances with the assailant as she lunged toward it, but he cut off her path by launching a vase at her, forcing her to stop and throw up a defensive forearm. Charlie closed the gap to the knife. The woman appeared to make a quick assessment, glancing first at Charlie, then at the now standing Sophie, and bolted for the door.

  “Stop her!” Sophie gasped.

  Charlie tore off out into the hallway just in time to see the blonde running off in the opposite direction from the elevators. He sprinted after her, catching the door to the stairwell before it closed and expecting to see her halfway down to the next floor.

  Instead she was waiting on the landing, her hand striking him in the midsection a few inches north of where it would have landed had Charlie not hunched over in time. He swung out desperately but missed her face and grabbed her ponytail as she delivered another punch, this one shielded by his arm. He tightened his grip on her hair and yanked with all his might, causing her to shriek and jerk away in pain. Straightening up, he threw his body weight into her, slamming her into the wall, but he was unprepared for the blow she landed with her knee, straight into his crotch this time.

  He folded like a lawn chair and his assailant grinned in victory, forgetting that Charlie still had a grip on her ponytail. She shoved him toward the stairs, and as he felt himself come off the first step, he got a second hand around the ponytail and pulled with everything he had, flinging the woman over him as
they both tumbled down the stairs. Charlie covered his head with his arms as they bounced down the concrete steps — a dozen or more before they hit the next landing. He heard the hollow crunch of breaking bone as his hip landed heavily on the back of the woman’s head at the bottom. Scrambling to his feet, he saw that she was immobile, eyes staring vacantly beyond him, her head at an impossible angle. He was standing over her when he heard the sound of the door opening above.

  “Charlie? Jesus!” Sophie came running down the stairs, one hand rubbing her throat.

  “I think she’s dead,” he muttered, collecting himself and grimacing in pain.

  “I would have liked to kill the bitch myself.” Sophie knelt down and checked for a pulse, then went through the woman’s pockets. Other than a package of cigarettes, a disposable lighter, and some cash, there was nothing.

  “She have a phone?”

  Sophie stood up and shook her head, then noticed he was still a bit hunched over. “Are you okay?”

  “I’ll live.”

  “Come on. We need to get out of here now.”

  “Wait.” Charlie stood his ground as she began to pull him down the stairs. “We need to get Steve’s things.”

  She stared at him for a moment and then agreed. “Okay, let’s hurry!”

  They ran back up to the fourth floor and down the hallway to their room. Miraculously no one had been alerted by the fracas. Charlie supposed it was because the floor was sparsely populated.

  “You gather our stuff, and I’ll clean up,” Charlie said, collecting the pieces of the broken vase and lamp off the floor as Sophie stuffed her rolling suitcase with whatever they had left out. Charlie took a pillowcase off one of the pillows and filled it with the broken lamp and vase.

  “Isn’t this Steve’s stuff?” he asked, pointing at the floor by the bed.

  “Yeah, we knocked the duffel off the chair when I was wrestling with her,” Sophie said, avoiding the still-remaining pieces of shattered lamp and retrieving one of Liepa’s books and the rubber Berlin bear. One of its legs had been severed by a shard of broken enamel from the lamp base. “I don’t know why Steve even had this stupid thing,” she said, tossing it into Charlie’s open pillowcase with the rest of the debris. He was about to close it up when something metallic caught his eye. He stood there staring at the inside of the pillowcase as Sophie zipped up her suitcase.