Red to Black

by Alex Dryden

  ‘In this closed world, uncertainty or change of any kind is unknown, anathema, disgusting even. They have inherited the progressive empowerment of generations of privilege; a superiority that is by now in their DNA.’

  Adrian is waiting for Finn by the door of the club, as if afraid he might talk to anyone without him, out of his earshot. He takes Finn’s arms in his big red hands and gives him a broad smile from his rubicund face. But Finn sees that his eyes are dead.

  ‘Finn, I’m so glad you got in touch. Where the fuck have you been?’

  But Finn is too full of his own impending victory over Adrian to see the menace behind Adrian’s usual crude bonhomie.

  ‘Can we talk in private?’ he says.

  ‘Don’t you worry about that, old boy. We have a private room. I thought we should. I guessed. What have you brought me in that case? The head of Vladimir Putin?’ Adrian lets out a big, unnatural laugh that makes him sound like a clown who, tired of entertaining children, decides to devour them instead.

  ‘Come on, we’re drinking first. Business later. Over lunch.’

  And once again, just like the last time, Adrian takes Finn by the arm and guides him through this club Finn knows so well, as if he’s making a gentle citizen’s arrest, so as not to alarm the other lunchers, but it will turn into a brutal assault if Finn so much as twitches.

  And there they are, the herd, all leaping over each other’s sentences to trump the last speaker with some dreadful witticism about the awful state of this tennis player’s forehand, or the magnificently revealing skirt length of that one. And Adrian comes in amongst them like a priest leading a sacrificial lamb to the slaughter.

  ‘Finn…Philip, Richard, Andrew, Peregrine…’ On and on, the introductions keep reeling out like some lost fishing line, and Finn feels their disinterested eyes wash over him. ‘You pretty much know everyone, don’t you?’ Adrian says chummily, but with his eyes expressionless, and as cold as a fish on a slab. ‘And you all know Finn. My best boy. My ex-best boy, I should say.’ And now Adrian’s eyes have changed to the narrow, pitiless look that bores into people. ‘Or should I say my best ex-boy?’ he says.

  But Finn doesn’t flinch or look away, because he knows he’s got him this time. He knows he has the goods and Adrian can’t squirm out of it. Not this time.

  And so they all drink and shout and drink again, and the starched-white-jacketed barman, from Romania or Mexico or wherever they got him, keeps pouring the drinks like an automaton.

  And to Finn, this herd is far more menacing than the herds that normally afright the citizens of England: the gangs of immigrants that hang around on street corners in Dover and Ramsgate, or the hooded yobs in the inner cities.

  ‘I wonder…’, Finn is thinking. ‘If I feel as if I’m on another planet in here, what’s it like for him, the barman, Marco or Rudi or Chico or whatever his name is? What’s it like to be utterly ignored, to be treated merely as a drinks dispenser? Or does he just shut down until he gets home from all this money and jazz and glitz and privilege to his wife and kid and his semi-squat in Balham?

  ‘Suddenly I know why I’m doing what I’m doing; for people like him, the guy pouring the drinks. It’s that simple.’

  And then he catches himself in this thought and remembers what his aunt once told him as he came home from some anti-missile march and was railing against some American president when he was still a student at Cambridge.

  ‘Why don’t you become the peace you’re trying to create?’ she had asked him.

  But Finn didn’t listen then and he’s not listening now.

  ‘Moscow Mules, that was it,’ someone barks, and Finn realises they’re looking at him. ‘You were drinking something called a Moscow Mule, weren’t you? Bloody hell.’

  ‘Yes, that’s right,’ Finn replies, and gets a look from Adrian who notes the sneer in his tone of voice.

  ‘We’ll go in now, I think,’ Adrian says, far earlier than usual and with the diplomatic nicety of a scalping hatchet. ‘Drink up. We’ll get something special at the table.’

  So they down their glasses of chilled Chablis and put them back on to the bar and the condensation runs down the sides over the wooden counter.

  They enter the dining room, with its cute aproned Eastern European waitresses and, sure enough, Adrian has a private room on the far side, making sure they can talk openly–or that he can, at any rate. And the last ten years of Finn’s working life, he now realises, have been building to this moment, to wipe the self-satisfied smirk off Adrian’s face. Is that what it’s all been about? Has it all been for this?

  ‘Why don’t you become the peace you’re trying to create?’ Finn says to himself, but it doesn’t seem to be working in here. It’s like trying to say the Lord’s Prayer at a Motorhead concert.

  ‘We’ll have the Corton Charlemagne,’ Adrian says to the non-English-speaking waitress who enters the room as they sit down, and Adrian prods the menu angrily until she can connect it with the wine he’s prodding. ‘We’ll have the potted shrimps and the steak and kidney pud…that’s steak and kidney pudding. Got it? Twice. For both of us, in other words.’

  This inelegant removal of choice in what Finn eats is vintage Adrian. You’re mine, it says. You’re in my club, sitting at my table, drinking my wine, and you can reconfigure the word ‘guest’ any way you like, but to me it means you’re here at my bidding. Got it?

  Maybe, it occurs to Finn, Adrian no longer even likes human beings. Maybe he never did and that’s the problem. They get in the way. Certainly if they’re not part of the herd, of which he’s the bull elephant.

  ‘Give me what you’ve got,’ he snaps at Finn, without any preliminary. There are no first names any more, no ‘Come-down-for-the-weekend-and-Pen-would-love-to-see-you’ preamble.

  Finn withdraws a few sheets of folded A4 from the briefcase and puts them in front of him.

  ‘Read that, Adrian.’

  Adrian puts on his half-moon spectacles and angrily picks up the papers and reads them through fast, as if he’s checking for spelling errors. Without putting the papers down, he looks over the half-moons.

  ‘Well, you have been a busy boy, haven’t you?’

  Finn doesn’t reply.

  ‘What’s it all mean, d’you think?’

  ‘You know damn well what it means, Adrian.’

  For a moment they stare each other out and then Adrian pretends to look back at the papers.

  ‘It’s everything, Adrian,’ Finn says. ‘Names, companies, banks, secret accounts, Roth’s brother and the transportation of laundered money and arms. It’s Reiter’s, or Roth’s, itineraries and where his trucks can be stopped by you and our German friends, and at which borders. It’s a panorama of the corrupt and the corrupted. In Europe, Adrian, the Europe you love to hate. Well, here it is, on a plate for you. It’s the whole scheme. The Plan. It’s what the KGB does these days and what I’ve been saying to you for over five years. This is just a peek behind the curtain. I have a list here…’Finn takes out another piece of paper with dozens of the biggest company names in Europe written on it-‘this demonstrates the sheer scale of what’s going on. You can ignore it, Adrian, but if you do, how will you call yourself a patriot again? How will you be able to say with pride that you work for Her Majesty’s government if you’re prepared to look the other way while it’s being sold down the river?’

  This, as Finn anticipates, almost draws Adrian’s physical wrath across the table, but Finn watches as the redness drains from his face and he keeps himself under control.

  ‘And we haven’t even had the first course yet,’ Adrian murmurs.

  ‘What are you going to do about it, Adrian? Pretend it doesn’t exist? Just like you did with “Mikhail”?’

  The waitress arrives with two pots of shrimps and goes to fetch the wine on Adrian’s orders.

  ‘Those buffoons in there,’ Finn says, waving in the direction of the bar, ‘your friends, Adrian, they seriously believe that the City of London
is on the march to Russia, that the wealth of our old enemy is up for grabs, that Russia is like Africa or something. They can walk all over it, that’s what they think, isn’t it? They’re going to be cut to pieces, Adrian. Surely you can see that with that big brain of yours. There’s nothing in Russia of any importance that isn’t controlled by the Kremlin and all the KGB spooks who inhabit the bloody place. And meanwhile the buffoons are being outflanked by the Russians. There’s enough bent and laundered cash coming round behind them to buy their companies out and to snap up all their houses in the country and all their kids’ places at Eton, I dare say. What are you going to do about it?’

  Adrian gorges half the pot of shrimps in one go and the wine arrives. When he’s swallowed his mouthful of shrimp, wiped his lips, tasted the wine and pronounced it ‘excellent’, he leans with one elbow on the table and gives Finn his special paramilitary murderer’s look.

  ‘You poor fucking fool,’ he says. ‘Drink up. This may be your last meal. How dare you let me invite you here, you little shit.’

  ‘Do nothing. That’s the new policy, is it? You and the Prime Minister. What’s in it for you, Adrian? They going to make you chief?’

  But Adrian is coldly calm now and Finn feels the ground sliding under his feet.

  ‘We’re going to drink this and then we’re leaving,’ Adrian says. ‘I’ve got someone for you to meet. Should be very interesting. Might blow the lid off your fabulous ignorance. I’ll bring forward the meeting.’

  Adrian picks up the bottle and sloshes the wine glasses dangerously full and presses a button for a waitress.

  ‘Get us the bill,’ he says.

  ‘But you haven’t finished—’

  ‘Get us the bloody bill, woman.’

  There’s a human being getting in Adrian’s way again and now he’s just the kind of brute you can find in any backstreet anywhere, but he’s wearing a well-cut suit.

  She begins to clear away the empty plates and Adrian almost shouts, ‘Get it now, for Christ’s sake!’

  She flees from the room and Adrian drains his glass like some medieval monarch in a fifties movie. And then he fills his glass again and holds out the bottle towards Finn, but Finn hasn’t touched his first glass yet.

  ‘You’re in a wasteful mood,’ Adrian says. ‘First you waste your life and then, much more importantly, in my opinion, you waste this very decent wine. Never mind, I’ll be glad to finish it alone.’

  And he does just that.

  They leave Boodles after Adrian has made a long, staccato phone call on his mobile phone from the entrance to the club. It has started to drizzle outside, just in time for Wimbledon, Adrian says cheerily to a passing member.

  A doorman takes them down the steps carrying an umbrella, which Adrian, as the most formidable party, gets most of the benefit from, and they step into Adrian’s car which draws up as soon as the surprised driver sees him waving his arms like a madman from the top of the steps.

  There isn’t far to drive, they could have walked, really; up to Piccadilly and past the Ritz to the entrance to Green Park underground station. The drizzle has set in as Adrian’s driver opens the door for him, umbrella at the ready, and Finn slides across the seat and out on to the pavement.

  The two of them enter Green Park and Finn sees the deckchairs that have been out for summer lunchtimes the day before are now packed and stored away in their wooden boxes.

  There is the mist of light rain up in the summer greenness of the trees’ leaves and Adrian’s umbrella bounces against the umbrella of another who’s travelling with equal purpose and equal lack of care. Adrian makes no attempt to offer Finn any shelter underneath it.

  They take a right fork along another path and walk at a diagonal across the park towards the walls of Buckingham Palace and Adrian’s Queen. Adrian is angry. He’s angry that he ever hired Finn in the first place, angry that he doesn’t control Finn, angry that Finn might even end up damaging his credibility. He’s angry like those Russians, standing on the podium for the great march past of Soviet military might. He’s angry that, no matter how much effort he puts in, how red his face gets, he cannot control everything. Human beings keep getting in the way. He’s angry that he doesn’t have a barren depeopled world to control.

  They head towards the trees in the centre of the park. But as they close on a park bench away from the paths that criss-cross the area, Finn sees there’s a man sitting there, with his back to them. He’s wearing a kind of pork-pie hat and a black shapeless coat and Finn seems to recognise his back.

  They come around to the front of the bench and Finn sees this is where they’re stopping, to meet this man. And then Finn sees it is Lev.

  ‘Hello, Finn,’ Lev says, without moving, and ignoring Adrian.

  ‘Lev,’ Finn says.

  Finn doesn’t know whether to be disappointed that Lev has been talking to Adrian, even though it was inevitable.

  ‘Tell him,’ Adrian says.

  Finn sits down next to Lev and Adrian stands in front, a little too close, and looks angry while the rain drips off the edges of his umbrella on to Finn’s head.

  ‘Are they offering me more money?’ he asks Lev in an attempt at light-heartedness.

  ‘No, I’m afraid not.’

  ‘Ten million not enough?’ Adrian snaps. ‘More than I’ll earn in a bloody lifetime, you wanker.’

  ‘Well, it was only dollars, Adrian,’ Finn says, and sees that Adrian would now really like to have him on his own, in a soundproofed room.

  ‘I can tell you who’s behind the offer, the bribe, the payment-call it what you like,’ Lev says. ‘It’s not the Russians, not anyone from Russia, either.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘The offer comes from a bank,’ Lev says, and he gives Finn the name of the bank and Finn’s lost for a second in confusion. ‘But this bank represents a whole consortium of banks,’ Lev continues. ‘All of them, like this one, are American. You were being offered the money by American banks to stop your investigation, not by the Russians.’

  Finn notices the past tense.

  ‘These all-American banks have deposits of Russian cash, some legal, most not, which amount to hundreds of billions of dollars. If the origins of this cash are brought into doubt, if the cash is shown to be laundered or illegal in some way, there will be big turmoil, Finn. The flies on Wall Street say that, if these deposits are shown to be of questionable legality, it could bring the whole edifice tumbling down. They talk of financial meltdown, the sums are so great. So the legality of this money cannot be questioned.’

  ‘Get it?’ Adrian says to Finn. ‘The financial system of America tumbling down.’

  ‘But what about Europe?’ Finn asks Adrian. ‘Isn’t that where we live?’

  ‘You’re even more of a fucking fool than I thought,’ Adrian says.

  Lev puts his hand on Finn’s knee.

  ‘Listen, Finn. America is the hope, the future, for your country and for mine. It always has been and maybe always will be. Not Europe. Europe is all but lost. You know that from your investigations in Germany. Europe is riddled with collaborators, Europe’s assets are being handed over to the Russians bit by bit. In Europe they’ll be able to hold off the KGB for a while, but not for long. There’s not the will. America is the only power strong enough, and willing enough, to stand up to the Kremlin. That’s why we have to look to the Americans, not Europe. It’s just about money, Finn, that’s all. It’s about the power of money and we can be glad that the Americans have the sense not just to see that, but to act on it. They hold the Russian loot in America, that’s good. It’s got to go somewhere, and we’re better off that it’s there. But if you or anyone tries to tamper with that, the flies are right. It will bring down the system, there’s too much money involved. Your ten-million-dollar offer represents less than petty cash compared to the cash deposits we’re talking about, deposits whose origins, if brought into question, can bring down the whole house. You don’t want that, do you, any more than me or Ad
rian or our countries do?’

  ‘It’s the kind of thinking that makes a lot of sense when there are no human beings in the way,’ Finn answers him. ‘Let the KGB make mincemeat of the European economy and institutions, and in the process build up a richer, more powerful America.

  ‘The Cold War’s back on, that should please Adrian,’ he says, looking at Adrian. ‘But this time the front line is really going to crumble, right? Europe doesn’t matter any longer. Why didn’t you tell me?’ Finn says facetiously to Adrian.

  But Adrian ignores Finn and walks to a nearby tree and makes a phone call. When he comes back, he looks at Finn.

  ‘It only remains for me to decide what’s to be done with you,’ he says, as if he’s the headmaster talking to a prep school boy who’s posted a turd through his letter box. And then he stares back at Finn in his victory. ‘I don’t know if we can afford to have you wandering about any more. Not with all this shit you’ve managed to vomit up. Perhaps you’ll turn out to be insane,’ he says mysteriously, as if insane is a colour he’s considering for his new bathroom. ‘That would keep you quiet.’ And now Adrian’s warming to his happy thoughts of revenge. ‘And then there’s your girl, isn’t there. Your wife, isn’t she? The Russian hooker. I bet she gives good head in uniform. That what you like about her, is it?’

  He looks at Finn, hoping he might lunge at him, so he can chop him down with some specialist move, and then kick him half to death. But Finn remains calm.

  ‘Yes,’ Adrian says nastily. ‘We can always fit her up so it looks like she’s ratted on her own people. They’ll really give her a good time at the Forest, I should think. There won’t be much of her left to fuck, that’s for sure.’