by Alex Howard
Myasnikov put his hands up.
‘Face down on the ground,’ ordered Hanlon. ‘Hands on the top of your head, do it now.’
She cursed herself mentally. She should have just shot him, for Whiteside’s sake, for humanity’s sake. But Hanlon was not a born killer. She knew then that she did not have it in her to execute someone cold-bloodedly, no matter how terrible their actions. Damn, she thought. I didn’t think I’d be this weak. But even as she thought that, she refuted it. I’m not weak, she thought, I’m moral. And there’s nothing I can do about it.
Myasnikov obeyed. He lay on his stomach, staring at Hanlon’s scuffed army boots and olive-green combat trousers. There was a smirk on his face. He would have had no compunction in pulling the trigger. Hanlon was feeble and he had won. He knew that lying down he’d be utterly safe. There was no way she would stand over him and put a bullet through the back of his head, which was exactly what he would have done.
You stupid, weak woman, he thought.
In his hiding place in the ditch, Joad put his hand inside his jacket and touched his envelope. The lovely money was still there. Arkady was dead. Dimitri was dead. They were the only two people who knew about the envelope, and they were dead. He smiled to himself. He looked at the Mercedes, miraculously unscathed. Nearly there, he thought to himself, nearly home and dry.
Hanlon looked up at Huss. ‘Melinda.’ Huss didn’t move. Hanlon spoke louder, but gently. ‘Melinda, Enver’s inside. We have to get him out. He needs to get to a doctor.’
The mention of Enver’s name seemed to wake Huss from her trance. She slowly climbed down from the cab of the tractor.
She kneeled down beside Danny. Hanlon joined her. The wind ruffled his short blond hair. Huss stroked it sadly. There was no need to check his pulse now. He lay in a huge puddle of blood. Huss stood up and bleakly surveyed the farmyard.
Hanlon, still kneeling by Danny’s body, frowned to herself and looked sharply at the wound on his back, just below the left shoulder blade. Not an exit wound, a carefully placed entry wound, designed to put the bullet straight through the heart. But it was on the wrong side of Danny’s body. Very gently she lifted him up slightly so she could see his chest. Just as she suspected, an unholy mess of gore and splintered bone. Delicately she let him lie down again.
‘Put the gun down and step away from the body, that’s right,’ said a voice from the darkness. ‘Don’t do anything silly, you know I won’t miss. You too, DI Huss. Both of you into the light where I can see you clearly.’
They did as they were told. Myasnikov stood up and dusted himself down. He picked up the handgun he had been going for earlier. He was a cautious man.
‘Well, Kitayets, you took your time coming.’
Danny’s killer stepped into the light. ‘Hello again, DCI Hanlon,’ he said.
42
Well, Kitayets, you took your time,’ said Myasnikov. The Chinaman shrugged.
‘The situation was always under control. But now, well, now we’re all happy, aren’t we? Except for you two ladies, of course. Perhaps you should introduce me to your friend, DCI Hanlon.’ His voice was low, mellow and reasonable, as always. Compassionate and caring.
Hanlon said to Melinda Huss, ‘DI Huss, meet Detective Superintendent Harry Mawson. He’s also known as the Chinaman for some reason.’
Mawson smiled. ‘It’s because I’ve got a degree in Chinese Studies from SOAS,’ he said. ‘The Russians like nicknames. I’ve got quite fond of it myself, even if I am from Kent.’
She felt physically sick. At least Myasnikov had the grace not to pretend to be anything he wasn’t. He was the miasnik, the Butcher, he was the vor of vors and he lived up to his name. Mawson had hidden behind this facade of niceness.
Myasnikov laughed. ‘You know what is so funny, Kitayets, I was thinking to myself earlier back in Oxford, no one would have the balls to stand up to me in this shithole country. And you know what, I was right. The men here, they have to use women to try and kill me, and, of course, they have no balls at all!’
He laughed again, delighted with his joke. ‘Do you get it, Kitayets, no balls. Hanlon is woman, and—’
Mawson rolled his eyes, interrupting. ‘Yes, very witty. Well, Konstantin,’ he said acidly, ‘I think we had better crack on with things. We’ve got, let’s see, the Yusopovs, Dimitri, I suppose that Belanov’s inside – you did kill him, I take it?’ he asked Hanlon. She didn’t reply, just stared at him with unwavering hatred. ‘I’ll take that as a yes, that’s four. If you could go inside, Konstantin Alexandrovich, finish off Enver Demirel, that’ll make five, and these two, seven; oh, silly me, and him, eight.’ He pointed at Danny. ‘Can you get whoever you’ve got left working for you out here, please. We’ll need at least two men and a refrigerated van. I want this lot done and dusted by five a.m.’
‘I give orders around here, Mawson,’ said Myasnikov. But his voice had lost a little of its old certainty. The past hour had been a frightening time. He was used to delegating death, to arranging it, not being caught up in it. Momentarily he wondered if he was doing the right thing in trusting Mawson. But Belanov and Dimitri were dead. He had to trust Mawson. He was the krysha, the roof under whose protection Myasnikov sheltered, and now Mawson was close to getting his hands on the obschak, the trough or the fund.
Well, first things first. He cocked the Makarov so he wouldn’t have to apply any pressure to the trigger when he blew Enver Demirel’s brains out.
‘Turn round, ladies, please,’ said Mawson politely. ‘This will be very quick, I promise.’
Hanlon and Huss looked at one another for the last time. Grey eyes on blue. ‘I’m sorry,’ said Hanlon. Her face was grave. Huss nodded. She didn’t trust herself to speak. She put her hand out and briefly touched Hanlon’s arm. It was a final gesture of goodbye.
The two women turned their backs on Mawson. Both of them closed their eyes. They waited. Seconds later, two shots sounded.
43
Huss stood stock still, her eyes screwed shut. She felt her chest rise and fall. She felt no pain. She opened her eyes. Everything looked the same, the smouldering van, the Harley, the farm buildings. And then she looked at Hanlon, who seemed equally surprised.
They both turned round. Mawson and Myasnikov lay on the cobbles of the yard. Or Hanlon assumed it had to be them. Very little was recognizable of their faces, or indeed their heads. Huss saw, walking slowly towards them, silhouetted in the lights of the Mercedes, a tall man in a peaked forage cap and old military fatigues. He was carrying a heavy rifle with a bipod attached and a heavy-duty scope. As he got closer she thought, My God, he’s gorgeous. To Huss, he looked like an actor, an actor from the romantic section of leading men, playing an action role for a change.
Walking behind Serg was a far less impressive figure, managing to look furtive and yet arrogant at the same time. Joad. With all that had happened, she had completely forgotten that it was Joad who had driven Myasnikov to the farm.
‘Hello, Hanlon,’ Serg said.
‘Saved by an angel,’ she replied. You can say that again, thought Huss. Hanlon smiled. Huss thought, that’s the first time I’ve ever seen her do that. It transformed Hanlon’s face. Huss thought she looked beautiful.
The Angel surveyed the farmyard, the Yusopovs, Danny, Mawson and Myasnikov.
‘Where is Belanov and where is Kuzubov?’
‘If you mean Dimitri,’ said Huss, ‘he’s under that silage bale.’ She pointed at the solitary bale. It seemed perfectly level with the ground. She thought, Dimitri must have been squashed virtually flat. Good.
‘Did you do that?’ Serg asked Huss. She nodded. Serg raised his shapely eyebrows.
‘Congratulations,’ said Serg.
‘Arkady Belanov got away,’ said Hanlon. Serg nodded thoughtfully.
‘Oh, well.’ He didn’t seem particularly concerned.
‘Now,’ Hanlon said, ‘Serg, can you help me with an injured man? He’s in the farmhouse there.’
; Huss, Hanlon and Serg carried the unconscious Enver outside. They laid him gently down on the cobbles of the farmyard. The fires that had burned so brightly were nearly out. Huss crouched down beside him and stroked his hair. Enver’s eyes were swollen as were his hands and face, and there were burn marks on his chest visible through his unbuttoned shirt. He was covered in bruises but he seemed intact.
In Chechnya and Dagestan, Serg had served in Group Alpha, the feared A Department, the FSB equivalent of the US Delta Force. He had seen a lot of violence, a lot of death. To Serg’s experienced eyes – he had seen quite a few survivors of torture – he looked in not-too-bad shape. Serg felt his pulse. It seemed strong.
‘If you can get him back to London, I know a doctor who is FSB recommended. He worked in Afghanistan for us, then in Chechnya. He’s very good, and discreet.’
Hanlon looked at Huss. ‘It’s up to you,’ she said. She paused. ‘We can take him to the John Radcliffe if you want.’
It wasn’t just an invitation for expert medical treatment at the best hospital in Oxfordshire; it was an open invitation to go public with the whole thing. At the moment, all of what had happened could be covered up.
Hanlon was leaving it up to Huss.
Huss appreciated the gesture. She looked around at the farmyard. She thought of the media circus that would ensue and quailed. ‘I’m not sure Enver’s job would survive this,’ she said. Or my own, come to that, she thought. ‘He’s had one career ruined with that business with his eye. Now he’s got one foot on the promotion ladder, I don’t want to mess it up for him. So, we’ll compromise. Let’s take him up on his offer.’
‘OK,’ said Hanlon. She was undeniably relieved.
‘Who’s going to clear this lot up?’ asked Huss. Her gaze travelled around the farmyard. It was like a battlefield.
Hanlon looked at her. ‘Dave Anderson will,’ she said. ‘He’s good at that kind of thing. He’ll be delighted to see what’s happened to Myasnikov and,’ she said sadly, ‘he’ll give Danny some respect. The kid deserves that at least.’
Huss nodded. ‘Come on, then,’ said Hanlon. ‘Let’s put Enver in the back of the Merc. Joad’ll drive you two to Slater’s. I’ll text you the address when we get a signal. I’ll go back with Serg.’
Gently, watched by Joad who stood there smiling his insufferable smirk, they loaded Enver on to the back seat and secured him as best they could with the seat belts. Hanlon wondered what on earth Joad had in the inside breast pocket of his jacket. He kept touching something in there almost continually, like it was a good-luck charm or some religious artefact that needed continual propitiation.
‘Can’t we put some sheeting underneath him, in case he bleeds on the upholstery?’ complained Joad. ‘That’s expensive leather.’ He resisted the temptation to touch the envelope again. It contained far more money than he had dreamed possible, more money than he’d ever seen, well in excess of six figures. Tax-free, thought Joad, misty-eyed with emotion.
Hanlon rolled her eyes. ‘No,’ she said.
They closed the rear doors gently. Huss opened her passenger door, and then seemed to remember something. She walked round to where Joad was standing by the open driver’s door, lost in thought, smiling his annoying smile.
Huss nodded. ‘Oh, before we go, Joad?’ She spoke as if she had suddenly remembered something that she’d previously forgotten. Something important.
DI Ian Joad looked at her, slightly startled to hear her call his name. ‘Yes?’
‘Just one thing I’d like to make clear.’ Huss balled her fist and slammed it into Ian Joad’s stomach, driving the wind out of him. He doubled up in pain. It was an upper-cut and the force of it nearly lifted Joad off his feet. Good punch, thought Hanlon admiringly. He straightened up, using the bonnet of the car for support, taking shallow gasps of painful air.
‘Don’t call me fatso,’ she said.
Huss walked back to her side of the car and got in. She slammed the door shut. Joad straightened up, wincing, barely able to breathe.
Hanlon smiled and watched as the Mercedes reversed away and headed off round the farmhouse to the track that led to the main road.
‘Shall we go?’ she said to Serg.
44
Traffic was light on the M40 heading back to London. Hanlon had pulled over at a car park as they had been leaving Oxford, and called Anderson to tell him about the Russians and to ask him to clean up the resultant mess. She also told him to return Serg’s car to his hotel and Huss’s car to the park-and-ride car park at Headington. And she’d texted Slater’s address to Huss.
Then she sent one last text. The most important one she had ever sent in her life.
‘So it was Myasnikov that brought you over here to Britain?’ asked Hanlon. The engine sounded good to her ears; she was aware of the compelling shape of Serg next to her in the small cockpit of the powerful car. For once she was obeying the speed limit. At seventy in the Audi TT, it felt as if she was deliberately dawdling, which in a sense she was. She felt an almost medicated sense of relief. To be alive, that was amazing. Everything felt wonderful, every breath, the comforting feel of the hard steering wheel between her fingers, the lights of the dashboard, the car seat under her thighs. She was alive. She could be lying face down with Melinda Huss, like poor Danny, but she wasn’t.
And Enver was OK, and Huss, and for once, none of this mess was her responsibility. She felt a blessed freedom from guilt. Beside her, Serg nodded.
‘Technically, yes. As you know, I am FSB, the Federal Security Service, a full colonel, in fact.’ She could see a bitter smile on his face when she glanced at him quickly as she overtook a slow-moving lorry.
‘But, really, it was just an excuse. Myasnikov, he was one of the novye vory v zakone, the new-style vors, and he was, as you know, a nasty piece of work – I think that is the correct expression?’
‘It’ll do,’ said Hanlon. ‘Understated, but it will do. What about Mawson?’
‘Belanov was Myasnikov’s UK bagman,’ said Serg. ‘The money that he controlled would have fallen under Mawson’s control. He’d have become what we call derzhatel obshchaka, the controller of the money fund.’ He remained silent for a moment and continued, ‘Everyone, Russians included, thought of Miasnik as a great criminal brain. But he wasn’t. Mawson would have bided his time, then killed him, or a Russian gangster would.’
‘Or the state,’ said Hanlon.
‘But of course,’ he agreed. ‘The state is just a bigger and more powerful mafia than the mafia,’ said Serg dismissively.
Hanlon thought of the trail of dead back at Tragoes Farm. She also thought in particular of Danny. So young.
‘And you serve it?’ she said to Serg, disbelief in her voice. ‘This mafia state?’
‘Nyet, Hanlon. I serve Russia,’ said Serg proudly. ‘Governments come and go, political systems come and go, presidents come and go. My duty is to Russia. That is who I serve. That is where my loyalty lies.’
First and foremost, my country is my love, thought Serg. As it was my father’s. There was silence for a while as the Audi law-abidingly ate up the miles down the motorway through the black night. Then Serg resumed their conversation.
‘I told my boss that Myasnikov was part of some unspecified plan to assassinate the Mayor of Moscow, that there was a skhodka, a special thieves’ meeting, with disaffected Chechens and rogue police here in London, and I would go as a guest of Edward Li and Thanatos and investigate.’
‘They believed that?’ said Hanlon.
Serg shrugged. ‘Who knows, who cares? It could well be true. Belanov was connected with all sorts of criminals. My boss let me come, that’s the main thing. For all I know he works for some rival of Myasnikov. The Surikov family are like FSB royalty. We’re part of the siloviki, the power guys. We run Russia.’ He gave a mirthless bark of laughter. ‘It’s true in, oh, so many ways.’ Serg’s great-grandfather had been with the CheKa, forerunners of the NKVD where his grandfather had served, who had later
become the KGB, who became the FSB. It was a distinguished lineage.
‘That was my excuse anyway,’ continued Serg. ‘And it was good enough to get me here, and soon I shall write a report that I have neutralized the threat of Myasnikov and the Chechen-supporting policeman, and my superiors will be happy and Myasnikov’s vor rivals who bribe them will be happy. Everybody will be happy.’
Hanlon could hear the bitterness in his voice.
‘And what will make you happy, Serg?’ Hanlon asked gently.
He turned his head and looked at her proud face in profile, fitfully illuminated by the lights of oncoming traffic. You could make me happy, DCI Hanlon, he thought. But here is what would satisfy me.
‘My father was killed by Arkady Belanov. He had been sent to investigate something even bigger than the usual corruption in the 58th Army at their staff headquarters. That’s in a place called Vladikavkaz near the Chechnya–Ingoushetia border. The middle of nowhere. He was murdered. The army said Chechens, but I found out it was a Group Vympel elimination group. That’s four men.’ Another bark of laughter. ‘They’re FSB. My own kind. One talked to me, before I threw him off that roof.’
‘That’s why they call you the Angel?’ asked Hanlon.
Serg nodded. ‘They say when you see me coming for you, you will fly with the angels. Belanov was in the elimination group. He will lead me to the man who organized it. Belanov is nothing by himself, just a weapon, just a tool.’
They were now entering the outskirts of London.
‘So I’m glad you didn’t kill him. I need him to talk to me, then he will die.’
They drove in silence through the deserted streets of central London – orderly, quiet, well lit, beautiful in Hanlon’s eyes – each lost in thought. Then up through Camden, past Little Venice where so many of Serg’s countrymen were buying properties.