by RJ Bailey
‘They’ll appreciate you. And what you can do.’
Anjel reaches out and lets her red hair fall through his fingers, looking into her alabaster face, letting his mood soften enough to allow a little of her pale radiance to touch him. He is standing there, the ugly smell of another man’s blood and piss and singed skin in his nostrils, in front of a rare beauty, and for a few seconds, he almost forgets the horror of what has happened on the pine table. And the terrible thing he has done. Is still doing.
‘Don’t worry. You’re special to all of us, Marie. Neska polita.’
‘Don’t you start talking dirty to me in your secret language, Anjel McManus Garzia.’
‘It means “beautiful girl”. You’d better get used to it. They’ll love you over there.’
‘I don’t know. What do I know about Basques? Look, I still have friends in Boston, in FIL. They’d look after me. You’d visit me there? In America?’
‘Of course.’ A grin flashes in the night. ‘I’m not going to let you go, Marie. You’re the best fuckin’ ride I ever had.’
She laughs despite herself and punches him on the arm and at that moment the cottage windows glow brighter momentarily, and, what seems like minutes later, there comes the flat bark of a handgun. The sequence is repeated two more times.
Anjel snakes an arm around her waist and pulls her close. ‘There,’ he whispers softly into her ear. ‘It’s over.’
But it wasn’t over. It was just the beginning of a cycle of killing that would continue long after peace had been declared and weapons destroyed. That night marked the start of a wave of violence that would eventually sweep me up in its lethal path, depositing me on a lonely mountainside and a meeting with a man intent on committing yet more murder. Including mine.
PART ONE
ONE
Port Hercule, Monaco – present day
The last of the day’s races had finished and with it went the ear-splitting thrum of big-bore exhausts bouncing off tower blocks that had battered the principality for the last few hours. Now the only engine sounds came from members of the public who had paid handsomely to have a few laps of the circuit, racing up Avenue d’Ostende to Casino Square – the strange tearing-linen sound of venerable racing cars, the high-revving shriek of a LaFerrrari or an Audi R8, the throaty growl of a Maserati or Lambo with a heavy-footed owner at the wheel.
The main business of the day – the classic car duels around the street circuit that makes up the Historic Grand Prix of Monaco – was over, the final chequered flag dropped, and the city was coming out to party. The girls were sliding off their ‘Opium Beds’ at Nikki Beach on the seventh floor of the Fairmont, men were checking dress codes and selecting just the right multi-dialled fat-faced watch for the evening. Cocktails were being shaken, cards sorted at the casino, reservations made for Twiga or La Trattoria, invitations to private parties confirmed. And a significant number of the latter were for my boat.
I say ‘my’ boat. I doubt I’m ever going to have the forty million euros or so needed to order a vessel like Kubera from the Benetti dockyards in Viareggio, Italy. And if I ever had forty million euros, I doubt I’d use them to buy a lurid gin palace like Kubera. To me, it looked like a good way to get rid of a few more million euros just in upkeep. There was a lot of chrome and mirrors and wood on Kubera and, therefore, a lot of staff to polish it all on a daily basis. After all, the hoary old joke was that BOAT was really an acronym for Break Out Another Ten grand. Superyachts are really just an obvious way for the super-wealthy to display the size of their bank balance to each other, a floating version of a pissing contest.
Mind you, I preferred the traditional styling of Kubera to some of the other yachts in harbour. The current trend seemed to be not so much boat as destroyer or frigate, more like ocean-going stealth bombers than anything you’d actually have fun with. It was a case of not only Mine’s bigger than yours but also Mine could survive WW3. Or start it. But the rich are different. As my friend Freddie put it: ‘Not everyone who is rich enough to have a superyacht is a cunt. But every cunt who is rich has to have a superyacht.’ She could be quite poetic for an army girl, that Freddie.
The first guests were arriving and I slipped along the deck to take up my position. There were two levels of invites for this after-race party. The regular ones looked like ordinary business cards but were made of metal and so heavy I suspected they were created from some pocket-stretching element at the far reaches of the periodic table. Obscenelyrichium or some such. That little rectangle got the holder onto the middle and upper decks where canapés and champagne circulated and a DJ pumped out a soundtrack of electro-pop and soft Euro-house, the same music that would be played that summer from open-air bars in Ibiza to Stygian clubs in Moscow. The soundtrack to the privileged at play.
The second invite was a gold pin containing a small transmitter that would register the wearer’s details on the smartphone in my hand. The man – and they would all be men, was my guess – would then be allowed to access the door behind me and slip below deck to witness the whole point of this gathering. Everything else was just expensive window dressing.
I watched the first guests arrive, 70 per cent of them women, all looking a little shorter than planned as they had had to shuck their deck-threatening Marc Jacobs cowboy boots, their Aquazzura high-heeled sandals, and their Mulberry Marylebones at the foot of the gangway. There, a bow-tied crewman slipped each pair inside a soft velvet bag embossed with a gold number and handed a matching disc over to the barefoot contessas. There were some scowls of disappointment – most yacht owners with style simply budgeted to have the well-heeled teak-wood decks relaid at the end of the party season, rather than humiliate their guests.
At least the women got to keep their handbags. It was easy to spot this year’s must-have, a mid-size number (after a season of bags so large they could double as suitcases, followed by minuscule clutches that could barely take a lipstick, let alone the detritus in my own bag) called an ‘Ornella’ (as in Muti, the Italian actress). It was present in a Pantone-like palette of colours and a variety of species of hide. As well as their Ornellas, Birkins or Lorens, some of the women were carrying those pocket-sized dogs that seem to have lost the power to walk.
OK, so there was perhaps an undertow of jealousy in my assessments of the incoming guests. Most of them looked pretty damned gorgeous, almost all clad in Chloe and Nikki de Marchi, displaying enviable cleavage and toned stomachs, the skin in a fetching shade of never-worked-a-day-in-my-life tan. I was wrapped in a black suit that made me look like an usher at a funeral costumed by Primark. And it was getting hot in there. I watched one blonde beauty sashay by. Her bum looked like two small but firm watermelons having a head-butting contest. I probably had an arse like that once, I thought, maybe fifteen years ago or so. Although back then my arse was covered in camo and dodging Iraqi bullets. Maybe these women had the right idea after all.
There were fewer of these party girls than there would be in two weeks’ time, when the Formula 1 roadshow strutted into town. Monaco’s Historic GP attracts a different crowd from its glitzier sibling, which is more a media-circus-cum-party with a sometimes-inconvenient grand prix motor race at its core. But some of the Riviera’s gold-gatherers (they’d never do anything as vulgar as dig for it) realised that there was a better calibre of men to snare at the Historique – less flashy, more sophisticated, with deeper pockets, genuinely interested in motorsport and with the odd million or two to drop on the right vehicle. Or woman. At least, that’s what my research notes had told me.
I checked my level of alertness. It had shifted from yellow to orange and I knew someone was behind me before he spoke.
‘You been down to see Eve today, Alison?’
I turned to the voice over my shoulder without any hesitation and was quietly pleased. Alison wasn’t my real name, just my ‘legend’ for this job, but I’d managed to get my reaction times to the point where it might as well have been.
The speake
r was Jean-Claude, one of the team hired by the host – like me – to beef up the security for this event. He was in his forties and had that enviable French elegance that Englishmen try so hard to copy, but fail. This man’s cardigan would never slip from his shoulders, nor his sunglasses slide down off his head, and he would age slowly and gracefully, the lines on his face only serving to make him more Belmondo handsome. He looked as though if you boiled him down to his constituent parts, he would be nine-tenths ego, but during the many pre-event briefings he had slotted in as a part of the team, only speaking when he had something pertinent to say and happy to do his share of mundane duties. I liked him, though he liked himself more.
‘No,’ I said.
‘She looks beautiful.’ His voice was ripe with appreciation and I swear he had a button in his pocket that could turn on the twinkle in his eye. I was grateful I was immune to such charms, at least when I was working.
‘She’d have to be,’ I said, ‘to go to all this trouble.’
A commotion near the rear of the boat interrupted us. A woman screamed, not in fear or pain, but frustration.
‘Lost invite?’ I suggested.
‘Or lost shoes. I’ll go and see,’ he said.
Another DJ started up on the boat to our port, sending over a faster rate of BPMs at a slightly higher volume. Our man on the decks responded with a nudge on the sliders. I wondered if we were about to witness a decibel war more suited to the peacock boats – with the emphasis on the word cock – that usually lined up opposite the GP start line. That was where you docked if you really wanted to get noticed.
Kubera, however, was berthed at the quieter end of things, outside the Club Nautique, part of Norman Foster’s Monaco Yacht Club complex, which looked as if an Art Deco ocean liner had slid along the Avenue President J.F. Kennedy and juddered to a halt just at the exit of the famed tunnel. The imposing Monaco Yacht Club itself was a bastion of formality – its dress code included copious instructions on the correct amount of pocket handkerchief to reveal from the top pocket of the club blazer – but the rowing club was much more egalitarian and relaxed about such things. Again, it was all in my briefing file. This lot, the people paying my wages, were nothing if not thorough.
I shook my head as a proffered tray of champagne flutes slid by. The server obviously didn’t know the no-drinks-for-security rule. The first of the buyers who were on board for business, not pleasure, had detached himself from the growing throng. As he passed our host – my employer, Vijay Jagajeevan Thakri, known as ‘VJ’ – they exchanged knowing nods.
The man looked like a younger Ralph Lauren, with longish grey hair swept back, one of those yacht club blazers on, dental-white trousers and blue deck shoes. The tan was deep and permanent and, judging by the web of lines around his eyes and mouth, as much from wind as sun.
His right hand touched the lapel that held the gold pin and I looked at my phone. It beeped and told me this was Jeff Torelli. A brief biog popped up – Harvard Business School, Redwind Hedge Fund, which successfully bet on the 2008 sub-prime mortgage crisis and had made a killing on dollar–pound speculation during the Brexit referendum, blah, blah – and a photograph. It was him all right, but then I would have guessed that by the force field of invulnerability that he radiated, the sort that money really can buy. He had reached the stage in life where he considered himself bulletproof and probably recession-proof, too.
‘Welcome, Mr Torelli,’ I said as I stood aside, pushing open the door as I did so. A breath of refrigerated air played over my neck and shoulders. It felt good. Even though I was in the shade, the heat of a fine Riviera day hadn’t yet abated and my black suit wasn’t helping. I was glad I’d been liberal with the deodorant.
‘Balraj is waiting below to introduce you to Eve.’ Balraj was VJ’s Sikh BG – bodyguard. I’d expected someone like VJ to have more than one CPO. But then I saw the sheer bulk of Balraj – muscle, not fat – and watched how the big man moved and reckoned the Sikh was worth two or three regular Close Protection Officers.
‘Thank you,’ said Torelli, looking right through me. I knew he’d have trouble picking me out of a line-up in ten minutes’ time. The little people probably didn’t even form an image on his retina.
VJ watched his guest disappear through the doorway. The host was in his thirties, with a handsome face made round by his love of high living. One day gravity would exert its pull and that moon would collapse in jowls, but for now he looked every inch the self-made Indian millionaire. Well, self-made once you factored in the fortune that his parents made from importing basmati rice into Europe. VJ himself had gone into steel using their cash, buying up a number of mothballed plants in the UK and Europe, and it looked as if he had done very well out of a risky move.
VJ stared at the doorway for a few more seconds. I stepped in front of it and pulled the door closed once more. VJ inclined his head to me and dived back into the party, scooping up a tumbler of Amrut Fusion, his favourite whisky, as he went. The volume and the crush were rising now and some of the earliest arrivals moved to the upper deck, where, for those who had come prepared, two large, white hot-tubs waited. The interiors and fittings on Kubera were by a swanky outfit here in Monaco, although to me they seemed to be channelling Peter Stringfellow chic, circa 1990. Maybe it was ironic. There were no books, simply lots of giant TVs and some dubious art. That’s the thing about the rich – they want everything to look super-neat. Books can be messy. And you might have to read one. And reading isn’t high on many oligarchs’ or multimillionaires’ list of recreational activities. People ask me if I envy my wealthy employers. ‘Not when you see them up close,’ is what I say. I know how rich I’d like to be. Just wealthy enough so that I didn’t feel the need to buy a yacht.
Laughter drifted over from the neighbouring boat. It was then that I spotted her. She was standing towards the rear of the upper deck, dressed in a simple white shift dress, her hair piled up, what looked like a Bellini in her hand. A little taller than she’d been when I lost her, somewhat more elegant and poised. I felt a horribly familiar stabbing sensation in my stomach, as if some maniac were sliding a blade in and out, in and out. I looked down, half-expecting to see a spurt of arterial blood.
‘You OK?’
It was Jean-Claude. My mouth was too dry to speak. I was afraid my voice would betray me.
‘What’s up?’ he asked.
I looked at him, then back at the other boat. The young girl had disappeared, my view of her blocked by other partygoers. ‘I thought I saw . . .’
‘What?’
What? Alison Cooke didn’t have a daughter, missing or otherwise. I had slipped out of cover. Unforgivable. I put the shields back into place.
‘An old friend. The daughter of an old friend,’ I improvised. ‘On that boat.’
He frowned at me. ‘Alison, stay sharp. You need to keep your attention on this boat.’
I glanced over again. The girl was in view once more. She had her head thrown back, laughing at something a bronzed young man had said to her. I could see now it wasn’t Jess. Nothing like her, really, apart from very young, very pretty. And that wasn’t so rare around these parts. The pain in my abdomen departed as quickly as it had arrived.
‘Of course.’
‘You do remember why we are here?’ I resented the tone. Jean-Claude was just a hired hand like me. ‘It isn’t to run into old friends or daughters of old friends.’
Don’t fucking lecture me, I wanted to say. Instead I said, ‘I’m on it.’
‘Stay on it.’
I tasted blood when I bit my lip. The irritating thing was, he was right. I’d let my attention wander. PPOs aren’t meant to think of anything except the job. But then, I wasn’t really a PPO any longer, was I? I was counterfeit through and through.
I refocused my energies on the task in hand. It had happened a lot to begin with – I’d see Jess in every bus queue or on every tube train, in the back of a taxi, pushing a supermarket trolley or trying on shoes in
Office. It had tailed off recently – down to once or twice a day – but it was still like a bucket of cold water in the face when I realised I’d been duped yet again.
Behind me the door opened and Jeff Torelli reappeared. He straightened his blazer and headed off, no doubt to find VJ.
‘I’m fine,’ I said to Jean-Claude. ‘Just an unexpected sighting. Threw me a little, that’s all.’
Jean-Claude pulled a face that suggested I was paid to deal with the unexpected and looked at his watch. He stepped aside as another client approached, this one coming up on my phone as Andrei Tass, big in fertilisers. After he had gone below, Jean-Claude leaned in.
‘It’ll happen soon, eh?’
I looked at my wristwatch, a 28mm Omega Seamaster. It was somewhat flashy and overengineered for my taste or requirements – the chances of me finding myself 300 metres under the sea were slim – but it was a gift from a Russian oligarch for services rendered. Although I’d wrecked his home, cars and garage, he’d seemed remarkably grateful, all things considered. Then again, it was his ex-employees who had nearly killed me in a dark, cold basement. So perhaps it was just guilt at work. Whatever the motive, it was a handsome watch, ticking down nicely to the main event of the evening.
‘Yes,’ I agreed. ‘Very soon.’
TWO
Zürich – eight days earlier
Colonel d’Arcy was in unusually philosophical mood as he looked down over the railway tracks from the thirtieth floor of the Prime Tower. ‘What do you English think when you hear the word Zürich?’
Neat, privileged, smug, colonically irrigated, clean (at least physically, if not morally), I thought. But it was a rhetorical question, so I kept my mouth shut.
‘The Gnomes of Zürich, no doubt. An ordered city, with no litter. And lots of banks.’ He turned to face me. ‘But look at those train tracks. As wide as the Mississippi.’
I was sitting in front of his desk, he was standing at the window, so he had a better vantage point than me. All I could see was sky and distant snow-dipped mountains. ‘They speak of a different past. Down there, in District Five, between here and the Limmat River, there were turbine manufacturers, shipbuilders, soap producers, brewers and yoghurt makers. Yes, shipbuilders. The Schiffbau produced paddle steamers for the world, from the Swiss lakes to the Amazon basin. You know what it is now?’ He let his lip curl. ‘A jazz club.’