by Dan Latus
If he really was intent on putting the place to rights, though, it was going to be a big and expensive job. At a guess, it would cost him several million in sterling. Double figures, probably, by the time the conservation guardians had had their say.
It would take time, too, a lot of time. Architects and designers would need to be brought in to do their stuff. Then there would be local authority planners and building inspectors to satisfy. English Heritage, too, given the consents needed for anything to do with an historic building, which was what The Chesters very definitely was. And all that was before anybody even spoke to a builder.
Some of the preliminary spadework might already have been done, of course. But had it? I shook my head. No idea.
What about the attendant publicity? It would be impossible to do all this work in secret. This was England, for God’s sake! How did public openness and transparency fit in with Leon’s business and security needs?
My feeling was that the Podolskys were either very brave or hopeless romantics – or very desperate.
Then it occurred to me that if the project was to be undertaken without his involvement becoming widely known, Leon was going to need a frontman. I wondered if he had someone in mind for the role. For a moment, I even wondered if it might be me. Why not? I was reasonably local, and he seemed to trust me.
Forget it! Ridiculous. I wouldn’t do it anyway, even if he asked me.
Perhaps I was being too fanciful about his motivation, I thought. Leon was in the hotel business, after all, as well as in so much else. The Chesters could just be his latest project of that sort, a country house hotel in yet another foreign land. He probably already had some sort of arm’s length company to front projects like this, one that was complete with experts to handle all the technical stuff and the public relations.
I smiled with satisfaction, and with relief, at having worked all that out. Then I got on with thinking about security arrangements. That was the job Leon had actually hired me to do.
I started at the outer edge of the house grounds, disregarding the farmland beyond that might well be part of the estate still. Somewhere like this you didn’t want high security fencing topped with razor wire or a high-tech wall. That wouldn’t be allowed by the planners. But you did need some sort of boundary marker that was both obstacle and deterrent, as well as a line on the ground.
I decided to recommend a heavy duty timber fence. It would have solid timber rails with a six-inch face securely fastened to posts at least as thick and sunk in concrete well below ground. The fence didn’t need to be high and obtrusive. A couple of feet would be quite enough. That would stop conventional vehicles getting up close to the house. It would even slow down an attack by heavy-duty industrial or military vehicles, not that I was considering fantasy scenarios.
Such a fence wouldn’t stop armed men, of course. For that, Leon was going to need an armed response unit on duty 24/7, backed up by a combination of CCTV and sensors. Good communications with people inside the building, too. I would leave it to him to decide how far to go down that road. Maybe he would feel the risks were negligible here compared with Prague or Kotor.
After that, he would be well advised to install bulletproof glass on at least all the ground floor windows. Good locks on the doors and windows were also essential. Then we would need to make sure there was no easy way into the building from the roof, which was a common mode of entry, even to museums and galleries, never mind hotels.
All this was pretty routine stuff for me in my capacity as a security adviser and consultant. Most of my clients wanted to protect business premises, often industrial facilities, but I had also taken on private houses and a few galleries and museums. What made this case different was the nature of the potential threat. I had not had to deal previously with people who were capable of machine-gunning a hotel and blowing up a millionaire’s fancy yacht.
None of this would probably happen here, of course, but you couldn’t rule it out altogether. So, as well as dealing with physical security issues, I also wanted to advise Leon on how best to organize his soft defences and develop contingency plans. All in all, there was plenty for me to think about.
When I felt like I’d done enough thinking for one morning, I decided to go and see what Olga was up to. She might have very different ideas about the potential threat level.
Chapter Twenty
OLGA WAS STILL ENGAGED with Andrei, the architect, when I found her. She looked up and smiled, and with what looked like a reflex defensive gesture, she moved a sheet of paper over a plan they were studying together.
‘It’s all right,’ I told her. ‘I won’t look.’
She laughed, embarrassed. ‘I’ll show you the plans another time, Frank. By the way, Leon is coming back later today.’
‘Oh? Anything else happened over there?’
‘I hope not.’
I smiled and left them to it.
Leon was doing an awful lot of going backwards and forwards, I couldn’t help thinking. He was going to wear himself out. If somebody didn’t shoot him first.
He had a lot on his plate. There was no doubt about that. As well as damage limitation to his business and properties, he would be trying to work out how to stop further Bobrik attacks. I didn’t envy him. The attacks were on such a broad front it was virtually open warfare.
As I wandered back outside, I wondered if Bobrik would ever bring the battle here. It seemed unlikely, but you never knew. You just couldn’t tell. The man appeared to have unlimited resources, and had demonstrated an ability to deploy them effectively. Travelling for people like him and Leon was easy these days, as well. With their super yachts, these oligarchs could take their base with them – unless somebody blew it up, of course.
The more I thought about it, the less likely it seemed that Bobrik would give up after Prague and Montenegro. There was something he wanted very badly indeed from Leon. My feeling, my growing feeling, was that he would follow Leon to the ends of the earth to get it. That wasn’t a comforting thought.
Trying to establish an effective security system for The Chesters wouldn’t make much sense until I knew what we were up against. What could we expect? Burglary or a break-in were one thing, but a major armed assault would be something else altogether. I would do what I could, but I needed to know more about what was going on if I was to be really effective. I would have to press Leon again. What on earth did Bobrik want?
*
The Chesters was located in a small, sheltered valley that itself was an offshoot of the main River Tweed valley. Much of the land before you when you stood at the front entrance was flat farmland, part of the river’s floodplain. Sheep and cattle wandered over it in numbers, but were kept away from the lawn and gardens by a ha-ha, an ancient, sunken trench, like a dry moat, lined with stone walls. I wondered if Leon was a farmer now, as well as everything else he was. It wouldn’t have surprised me.
To one side of the house there was an old copse of woodland, a shelter belt of Scots pine to blunt the power of the wind that would no doubt sweep down the valley for much of the year. A hundred yards behind the house the land rose steeply to open moor. Low down on the slope there were thickets of gorse and bramble, hawthorn and stunted sycamores. Dark cloud, hill fog, swathed the upper slopes. The view would be lovely in May. Now, in November, it was an ugly mess that as Leon’s security adviser I couldn’t ignore.
I headed up the slope, to undertake a recce. I soon decided that if you wanted a good vantage point to monitor the house, you wouldn’t be short of choice up here. Likewise for potential sniper positions. Otherwise, though? Well, given what had happened so far, perhaps not too worrying.
Bobrik seemed to favour the blitzkrieg mode of attack, full-on assault from troops equipped with heavy-duty vehicles and massive firepower. That was very definitely something you couldn’t do from the hillside above the house. If he were to come at all, my guess was that it would be via the road up the valley, all guns blazing.
T
o satisfy myself about local geography, I studied an Ordnance Survey map I had borrowed from the house and pressed on up the hillside until I reached the moor. It was much as I had expected: sodden heather, mounds of dead bracken and patches of reed stretching away into the misty distance. The map suggested it would be much the same for about five miles, until you reached the next valley.
Bobrik wouldn’t come this way – if he ever came at all. I turned to make my way back down. At least I knew now what it was like up here.
Back at the house, Olga offered me coffee and invited me to look at the plans she and the architect had been studying.
‘We will repair the whole building,’ she said, ‘and make it like new again.’
‘That sounds wonderful, Olga,’ I said cautiously. ‘But won’t it be a big job?’
‘Oh, yes! Very big.’
Her enthusiasm made me smile. She was really into this.
‘So how are you going to approach it?’
‘Well, Andrei has found some very old drawings and plans. We will use them to restore everything. First, we will fix the roof and the walls, and the windows, and then the detailed work inside the building can start.’
‘When will this be? Next summer?’
‘No, no! We will start immediately.’
‘In this weather?’
‘In this weather, yes. It is not so bad here, I think. A little wet, perhaps, but not so cold.’
‘Very wet, Olga, and getting wetter – and cold enough.’
She shrugged, undaunted. ‘Andrei says he will start by bringing in the builder to cover the whole house in … in plastic?’
‘Plastic sheets.’
‘Yes,’ she said thoughtfully. ‘A timber frame with plastic sheets. Then the men can be dry while they work, and we won’t need to wait until summer.’
I supposed they could do that. It made sense, if they wanted to get a move on. Working under cover would be more pleasant for the men, and it would allow them to replace the roof without the interior of the house getting any damper than it already was.
Again, though, thought of the cost made me shudder. A scaffolding frame for the entire building, to last many months, could set the Podolskys back half a million quid. Perhaps more. It was a good thing they weren’t short of money.
I looked at the plans and studied the detailing for the windows and the entrance doorway. Fine sandstone carvings. Beautiful decorative work. Graceful stone pillars. It could be done, all right, but it would certainly cost plenty.
The only thing nagging away at me was the thought that these were not the plans Olga had seemed so anxious to hide earlier that morning. Those had been blueprints. These were not.
Over lunch, Olga apologized for not showing me around the property herself, and asked if I had seen everything I needed to see.
‘I think so. I’ve got a good feel for the house now, and I have some ideas to present to Leon about security.’
‘That’s good. He will be pleased.’
‘I need to know how the house is to be used, though. I haven’t been told that yet, and I do need to know. It will affect my security proposals.’
‘Leon,’ she said firmly, nodding. ‘Leon will tell you.’
I took some more of the delicious borscht soup Petr had made, and probed further. ‘It’s not just to be a family home, is it?’
‘What makes you say that, Frank?’
‘It’s too big, for one thing. Even with all your staff, you wouldn’t fill it. My guess is that it will be a country hotel. Am I right?’
For a moment, her face had looked clouded, anxious even. Now it cleared and she smiled. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I think so.’
Well, maybe. But she had agreed so readily that I doubted it. More than ever, I wondered what they had in mind.
Perhaps, I thought, they hadn’t even got that far. I wouldn’t have been too surprised to learn from Leon that it was simply a restoration project – for both Olga and The Chesters.
Leon arrived that evening, looking and sounding cheerful. It was good to see him.
‘Has Lenka stayed in Prague?’ I asked.
‘She has.’ He sighed, shrugged and said, ‘There is much to do there.’
I was sure that was true.
‘Any comeback from Montenegro, or from Bobrik?’
‘No, nothing. All is quiet.’
My guess was that Leon was working flat-out on some way of responding to Bobrik, but he wasn’t ready to tell me about it yet.
‘We should eat,’ Olga interrupted any further conversation. ‘Petr has been cooking all afternoon.’
‘Wonderful!’ Leon cried, his eyes sparkling. ‘What have you got for us, my old friend?’
So that was that. For the moment, once again, business was sidelined.
Later, Leon took me aside to discuss what I had been doing.
‘I’ve done as much as I can for the moment, Leon.’
I briefed him on my thinking, and he agreed readily to all of it.
‘You’ve done well, Frank. So much progress in such a short time.’
‘Well….’ I shrugged. ‘I do this for a living, Leon. It’s not new to me. But I can’t do much more until I know more about the threat level, and for that you need to tell me more about what’s going on with Bobrik.’
‘We have been at this point before,’ he remarked with a mild reproof.
‘You’re right. We have. But my point still stands.’
I was determined not to let him put me off, or avoid the question, again.
‘We need to talk about whether Bobrik is likely to come here, and what force he will bring with him if he does. If you’re not prepared to talk to me about that, Leon, then frankly I’m wasting my time – and yours.’
He sighed. ‘You’re right. I should tell you more. Let’s sit down in a quiet corner.’
We did that. Then Leon looked me straight in the eye and said, ‘It’s a fight to the death, Frank. Bobrik will not leave me alone until he gets what he wants, and I can’t give him what he wants. So I must kill him, or be killed by him.’
He paused, and then added, ‘We hope he will not come here. We hope he will not know about this place. But who knows? There, is that enough for you?’
‘It’s a start,’ I said firmly. ‘But it’s not enough, no. What is it he wants from you?’
‘Everything!’
‘All your businesses?’
‘And more. Otherwise he will lose the support of his biggest backer.’
‘Who is…?’
‘The man in the Kremlin,’ Leon said with one of his engaging smiles.
‘Ah!’ I said after it had sunk in. ‘I should have guessed.’
‘Yes, Frank. Perhaps you should. Tomorrow we will make a journey, and then you will understand even more.’
Chapter Twenty-One
WE WERE AWAY EARLY the next morning. Dag was driving the Range Rover. Olga sat up front with him. I sat in the back with Leon, who was being very mysterious about the whole thing. I asked him once where we were going and got such an enigmatic response that I didn’t bother asking again. This was a story he wanted to tell in his own way. So long as he actually told it, I didn’t mind how he did it. I just wanted it done.
There was frost on the ground that morning. Overnight, the wind had fallen away, the rain had stopped and the sky had cleared. So now the fields and fence posts, like the road itself, all had a coating of glistening rime. Christmas card weather. Even Leon seemed to be pleased by the change.
‘This is better,’ he declared. ‘Is it often like this here?’
‘Our winters won’t be the same as the ones you’re used to, Leon. We don’t have anything for more than a few days at a time. Rain, snow, frost, heat waves, we can get the lot – even in January.’
‘Maybe that is better,’ he said reflectively, as if he was considering borrowing the English weather template and taking it away with him.
‘Bobrik is back in Prague,’ he added. ‘He looks for me once
more.’
‘You need a way of putting a stop to it,’ I said with a grimace. ‘You can’t go on like this. Innocent people could be killed next time.’
‘No. You are right. Once, I thought he would tire and amuse himself some other way, but not now. He is a greedy man, and he is driven.’
I wondered what that meant. The conflict seemed to be about more than accumulating yet more wealth, of which both Bobrik and Leon appeared to have more than enough. If the Kremlin really was behind Bobrik, as Leon had said, then it was in some way political. That made it seem even worse.
I assumed we were heading into Newcastle but as we sped around the Western Bypass and kept going, I realized I’d got that wrong. Where to, though? I was damned if I was going to ask again. It was when we left the A1 and cut across country, past the Nissan factory in Washington, to join the A19 that I became suspicious. Surely he wasn’t taking me home?
Later still, when we topped a rise and industrial Teesside, with the Cleveland Hills as the backdrop, came into view, I gave in and asked.
‘Are we going to Middlesbrough?’
‘Near there,’ he said.
Got that wrong. Where, then?
‘What’s it like?’
‘Where? Middlesbrough?’
He nodded.
It was a good question. What was Middlesbrough like?
On the spur of the moment, without notice of the question, all I could come up with was, ‘An industrial town that’s seen better days. Steel and chemicals built it, and the global economy has brought it down.’
Leon nodded. ‘So I understand. The cost of making steel is lower in India and Brazil, and even in Russia, than here.’
That summed up the economics of it better than I could have done. Now, and for some time past, “the infant Hercules”, as Queen Victoria’s Prime Minister, William Gladstone, once famously called Middlesbrough, was on its knees. It would come back, though. One day. Maybe. You had to hope.