by Joanna Rees
Rodokov’s cool composure collapsed entirely now. He gave up all pretence of being in control. He looked suddenly so much younger, Emma couldn’t help thinking, as if the clothes he was wearing belonged to somebody else. As if he really didn’t belong here at all.
‘We?’ he asked, unable to keep the astonishment from his face. ‘Are you the police? Government? What?’ He glanced furtively over her shoulder towards the security gates, as if he expected at any second to hear the whoop of a siren and see a police van come bursting through.
‘Neither, but I can’t tell you any more.’ She’d already said way too much. And she’d done what she came here to do. She’d lit a flame of curiosity in Alex Rodokov. A flame that she hoped his self-doubt and instinct for survival would soon fan into an all-consuming fire. ‘Not now. Not here.’
‘When?’
‘Go to LA. This weekend.’
‘Los Angeles? You want me to go to Los Angeles? Just because you tell me to?’
Emma opened her handbag and handed him a card. ‘There’ll be a suite for you at Boulevard 19. When you get there, call this number and someone will tell you where to go. But you have to come alone. It’s absolutely essential.’
Alexei Rodokov held the card in his hand. ‘Why should I trust you?’ he asked, his look dark.
‘Because, I’m afraid, you really can’t afford not to.’
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
From the front, the Clover Hill mansion in Bel-Air looked just like it normally did these days: empty whilst being refurbished. Its windows were blacked out; its front lawns with their famous date palm trees were unlit. The sprinklers watered the lawns in the dark. Perhaps it would be possible for a passer-by – in the unlikely event that there would be one – to detect a faint thudding of muffled music, but it would be hard to pinpoint where it was coming from, let alone suspect it was coming from inside the historic mansion itself.
But now, way past midnight, the private road at the back was jammed with a queue of limousines and sports cars. All the headlights were off.
The entrance used by the building contractors had been skilfully disguised so that a black tunnel led from the darkened car pool into the back of the building and then into a lobby where guests’ invitations were carefully checked, before each guest was escorted into individual red velvet booths for a series of coded questions.
Once they’d passed all the checks, their coats were taken, their phones, cameras and watches stored and logged, and they were given a moment to adjust their costumes in the giant, flatteringly lit mirrors and don the regulation masks that the invitation had stipulated. Then, escorted by one of the sensationally semi-naked and sequin-covered girls in feather masks, the guests were invited through another black curtain, past a wall of temporary sound-proofing, before finally being ushered through the doorway beyond.
And then, only then, did the full impact of Peaches Gold’s Depravity Night party hit home.
The party was in full swing. In every sense. The scene was insane, like a wild Warhol fantasy. Sexy ambient music mixed with a club beat thumped out from the giant sound system, with synched lights illuminating the crowd below. Twenty naked female dancers were doing their most lavish hip-grinding sliding on the poles. Two leather-clad S&M models, suspended above the crowd in a cage, were nonchalantly fucking. At the room’s centre, inside a ten-metre-high transparent Perspex cube, a cluster of professional porn stars were hard at it, putting on a live show. A set of double doors led through to the dining room, which had been kitted out with a padded drum in which guests slithered in scented massage oil, a mass of naked bodies.
Upstairs, Peaches leant over the balcony surveying her kingdom, smiling. She pushed aside the skirt of her dramatically high-cut feather skirt and opened the door to the master suite. She felt confident the security was tight enough. She’d taken every precaution. No press. No journos. And, most importantly of all, none of Khordinsky’s thugs.
‘Going OK?’ she asked Melanie. Like all her girls tonight, Melanie was wearing the feathered mask and a sequin harness which exposed her pert breasts and looped around a thong to feather plumage at the back. Christoph Zerelli had designed them especially. They were hot as hell.
‘Sure is,’ Melanie replied. ‘It’s a great party, Peaches. It’s all action back there.’
Peaches peeked inside the long red curtain that had been set up across the master suite. She could see immediately what Melanie meant. Inside, black-and-white 1930s porn movies were being projected on to the walls and ceiling. In the centre of the room was a colossal bed. Next to it was a mirrored table, racked up with lines. Two jeroboams of champagne already lay empty beside it on the thick carpet. On the bed were twenty naked people making out. Others stood. Watching. Stroking. Waiting to be invited in. The air was heavy with scented candles and delirious moans, just audible over the louche French funk.
Peaches had to raise an eyebrow. She could only speculate how many tens of thousands a top paparazzi photographer would throw at her to see what she was seeing right now.
There were at least three Hollywood A-listers on that bed, and Peaches could see that it hadn’t taken a certain über-famous newly-wed couple long to break their vow of monogamy. Peaches silently whistled as she watched one of Todd’s more notorious female co-stars straddle her husband as he lay on the bed, another girl astride his face. She watched as the actress held open her famous buttocks, inviting in another A-list masked guest. Not so Mrs Humanitarian Charity Worker now, Peaches thought.
Peaches walked back down the main staircase, before stopping for a moment on the half-landing, looking out of the giant square window on to the terrace and pool below. Everyone was having a great time, swimming naked. She could see Eddie Roland in the hot tub with four girls. He was smoking a fat cigar and laughing as he fondled Monica DuCane’s breasts.
There must be at least three hundred people here, Peaches thought. Nearly everyone on the guest list. Except one.
Again, she scanned the crowd.
‘The chicks with dicks are ready,’ Angela said, hurrying over.
Peaches smiled at her and squeezed her shoulder, grateful to her for having helped so much with the organization. And how supportive she’d been in the wake of Irena’s murder, organizing a visa for Yana and wiring her money.
Peaches knew that Angela felt extra confident tonight, with her mask covering her face. She was wearing a long sheath dress that showed off her slinky curves. Peaches hoped that she was going to relax a bit and let her hair down. She might even get some action. It would be hard not to in this place.
‘Right, OK, I’m on it,’ Peaches said, walking down the rest of the stairs, past a girl dressed in a black horse’s costume, complete with a mane and a saddle on her back. She was being chased up the stairs by a man with a riding crop. A personal friend of the Queen, so Peaches had been reliably informed.
On the wall behind Peaches, she saw the giant screen projecting the action in the dungeon room downstairs. Betsy, one of Peaches’ more curvaceous girls, was clearly enjoying stirring up some crazy S&M shit with those big boy studio execs. Peaches hoped that, with a queue like that, the hot wax didn’t run out. She smiled. Good God, that was old Murray Seagram-Cohen, if she wasn’t mistaken. Stretched out on the rack. Bet he never expected that to happen in his kitchen!
Peaches swept on through the crowd dancing in the main lobby to the drawing room, which she’d kitted out with a hall of mirrors. In every direction, she could see the threesome on the central sofa reflected a thousand times.
Through the drawing room, she went into the small room set up as a dressing room behind the stage area in the hallway. Peaches was virtually unshockable, but she still raised an eyebrow at Loretta, Lily and Livinia, who had all had genital reassignment plastic surgery. In every respect but one, they looked like women. Hot women. Faces, hair, tits, legs – all great. But they still had their dicks. Three great big hard dicks, to be precise. Tits and tackle. Twice the fun, their business c
ard had proudly proclaimed. Peaches had no doubt that with the fetishists here tonight, their floorshow would be a hit.
‘You girls ready?’ Peaches asked. ‘The lighting will be just how we discussed. The guys are moving your set on to the stage right now.’
Peaches peeked around the corner of the door into the hall. And then she saw him. She’d had his invitation and mask couriered around to his hotel. But even in his Zorro-like mask, she recognized Alexei Rodokov because of the mole just above his lip and the commanding way he stood, somehow seeming to create space around him without having to try. And because Peaches doubted that you ever could forget the face of someone you once thought was about to shoot you dead.
He stood in the doorway, taking in the cage dancers and the masked party revellers, but there was no sense of enjoyment on what she could see of his face, no sign of a titillated smile. In fact, if anything, he looked as if he was about to turn to go.
‘Good luck,’ Peaches told the Ladyboys. ‘There’s a special guest who just arrived. You carry on, I’ll catch up with you later. Enjoy.’
She quickly walked towards Rodokov, glancing up to the landing and nodding to Paul, who was standing guard outside a bedroom door. He hurried down the central stairway. He’d agreed to be her personal security guard for the night. And of all the myriad potential flashpoints Peaches had anticipated, this was by far and away the worst.
‘I’m glad you could make it,’ Peaches said, walking straight up to Alexei Rodokov. She wondered whether he recognized her at all. She saw his dark eyes beneath his mask, but she couldn’t read his expression. ‘You came alone?’ Peaches remembered Alexei Rodokov’s bodyguard all too well.
‘Of course I did. How else would I have got in? But what’s going on? What’s all this about?’ His voice was guarded. ‘I came for information, not . . . this . . .’
But he’d still come, Peaches thought, smiling to herself. He was here. And now that they’d got him, they were one step closer to achieving their goal. But she couldn’t count her chickens yet, she cautioned herself. There was still a long way to go.
‘Come with me,’ Peaches said. She led him through the party and up the stairs. Paul shadowed them step for step. She watched Alex out of the corner of her eye, feeling suspicion and caution radiating out of him. He glanced out of the window.
‘Jesus,’ he muttered.
With every step he took, he looked more and more out of place. Probably no bad thing, Peaches thought to herself. Men like Rodokov were used to being in control of their environment and of everyone in it. Throwing him out of his depth like this could only make him weaker and more malleable. Which in turn could only improve their chances of success.
‘In here,’ Peaches said, stopping by the bedroom door. ‘Paul will wait outside the door,’ she said. ‘If there’s any trouble . . .’
‘Don’t worry,’ Paul said to Peaches, whilst eyeballing Rodokov. ‘I know what to do if this punk steps out of line.’
Peaches appreciated Paul’s support, but she somehow doubted that Alex would do anything to merit his intervention. No, she already knew that Alexei Rodokov may be many things, but a murderer wasn’t one of them.
And now it was time to find out what he was. Or what he wasn’t. And what he might become.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
Frankie could hear that the party was really hotting up down there. She was surrounded on the other side of all these walls by naked, horny, carefree pleasure-seekers. And yet here she was in a dimly lit bedroom, fully clothed, her heart racing with nerves.
She was sitting on a small sofa with Tommy Liebermann, behind an antique two-metre-high dressing screen, which kept them both concealed from the rest of the room. Their nervous tension was such that they both flinched when the bedroom door finally opened. Frankie felt her toes tingle, as if she’d just climbed up on a roof and was dangling her toes over the edge.
The music was loud for a moment. Then muffled again, as the door closed. Frankie held her breath.
‘Hello?’
Alex. He was here! His voice was unmistakable. The plan had worked. Whatever Emma had said had been enough to get him to LA. And Peaches’ intriguing note with his mask had then been enough to bring him the rest of the way tonight.
Now it was Frankie’s turn.
‘Hello?’ he called again. ‘Is there anyone here?’
Frankie took a deep breath. It took every ounce of her willpower not to rush out from behind the silk screen to him. But Tommy Liebermann held her back. He stared steadily at her, forcing her to remember the plan. He stepped out from behind the screen and flicked on a switch of the small bedside lamp.
‘Who the hell are you?’ she heard Alex say to him.
‘Actually, I’m someone who’s going to save your life,’ Tommy said. ‘You’d better sit down, son.’
Son? Frankie could only stare at the screen aghast, dreading how Alex might react. Tommy probably thought he was sounding avuncular, but Frankie knew damn well that Alex might equally read it as patronizing and walk straight back out. Or worse.
But Alex said nothing. There was silence – two seconds, three, four – until Frankie couldn’t bear it any longer. She crept forward and peered through the hinged gap in the screen into one of the bedroom’s wall mirrors, which showed Alex in profile.
Her stomach involuntarily twitched with desire. God, he was gorgeous, Frankie thought, even staring fixedly at Tommy Liebermann as he was doing now, his mask already off, gripped in his hand like a gun.
She clasped her hands in front of her. Alex. Her Alex. Her lover. He was here. Just footsteps away.
For a second, she forgot the seriousness of the situation and all the hard work and planning that had allowed it to come about. All context seemed to disappear. Instead she saw the man of her dreams, standing at the foot of a huge wooden bed, and her whole body ached to rush into his arms. To fall back on the bed. To be naked. To have him holding her close and tight, whispering words of love in her ear.
But then she remembered the reality. He might be physically only a metre away, but they were still emotionally worlds apart. They were estranged. No longer an item. They’d been smashed by Khordinsky. And that’s why she had to keep her cool. To wait, to watch, to see if they could ever be together again.
Alex wasn’t her lover. Not any more and maybe never again. The truth was she didn’t even know whether he was her friend or enemy any more.
Tommy, Peaches and Frankie had decided that it would be best if Tommy confronted Alex first. Alex would be more likely to believe the devastating financial news Tommy had to deliver if it came from a lawyer.
As Tommy started to talk, Frankie saw Alex slowly sit in the low armchair at the foot of the bed. He looked more tense than she’d ever seen him. His eyebrows drew together in a frown as he heard Tommy out.
Frankie stayed still and silent, watching him, as they’d all agreed she should. Only by watching him in secret would she know, and she had to see it for herself. She had to see his reaction. She had to know for sure whether he was working for Khordinsky, or whether, as she suspected, he knew nothing about Khordinsky’s plan to double-cross him.
As Tommy started handing him the documents that she and Danny had found, she quickly had her answer. Alex’s expression changed from suspicion to bafflement, then to outrage and shame as he compared the two sets of accounts for Forest Holdings. He put his hand over his mouth and Frankie could see the dawning comprehension of what Khordinsky had done. Alex clearly had no idea that he’d stripped all the assets.
‘In Tortola, Vincent Detroy—’ Tommy said.
‘I went there to shut down some dormant companies.’
‘Matryoshka-Enterprises? That’s what he told you? Bob Veris? Your finance guy? He’s in Khordinsky’s pocket, along with Detroy. There’re emails between them all.’ Tommy shuffled through the printed emails and handed some to Alex. ‘Those companies weren’t dormant at all.’
‘But the papers I signed showed
they hadn’t been used for years.’
‘That’s what they wanted you to think. But those companies were used for money-laundering for years, including all the money that belonged to Platinum Holdings. And when you signed those papers, your name proves your responsibility for it all. Which means when the fraud squad come calling, it’s your name they’ll be shouting the loudest.’
And Frankie saw in that moment that the penny had dropped. She could see it in his eyes. In the incredulity on his face.
‘I knew nothing. I never suspected . . .’ Alex said. He scanned over another email. ‘Jesus Christ. That woman – Emma Harvey – she was telling the truth. Yuri did set up her husband . . . and me . . .’
‘I’m afraid so,’ Tommy said. His voice was gentler now. He knew he no longer needed to convince Alex he was telling the truth. ‘And you’d better take a look at these.’ He handed Alex Khordinsky’s emails.
‘ “My . . . my fall guy”,’ Alex said, quoting from the page. His voice was a whisper. The colour had drained from his cheeks.
‘I’ll leave you now,’ Tommy said as Alex read on in silence. ‘I’m sure you’ll want some time to think about what I’ve told you.’
‘Wait,’ Alex said, suddenly registering that Tommy was leaving. He quickly rose. ‘Wait, don’t go.’
But it was too late. Tommy Liebermann had already slipped out of the bedroom door, which now swung shut with a click.
Alex gripped his forehead and asked aloud, ‘Why? Why are you telling me this?’
‘Because I want to save you,’ Frankie answered.
Alex froze at the sound of her voice and slowly turned to face her as she stepped out from behind the screen into the pool of light.
When their eyes met, she felt her stomach lift; her heart was airborne suddenly, just as it had been when she’d first seen him stepping off the helicopter on Pushkin.
But there was to be no embrace, no hoped-for instant reconciliation. Instead, he stared at her in dismay. He looked haunted, disorientated, as if he’d discovered he was stuck in a dream which no longer made any sense. As if he no longer knew what, or who, to believe.