“Oleg’s people sent me,” Giles volunteered. This was followed by a long pause before the buzzer finally sounded and the outer door was released.
Through the door inside emerged a grotesquely overweight figure wearing a grey tracksuit. He had lank greasy hair, spots and a beard that seemed to exist mainly on his neck despite obviously being in his thirties. “You don’t look like Oleg sent you,” the man mountain challenged.
“I am his lawyer,” Giles replied, sticking out his hand. “John Smith.”
The man laughed at this but shook his hand with a clammy paw and ushered him inside. “Jackie Chan. Best not to use our real names I suppose.”
The hall stank of damp and unwashed clothes. It was dimly lit and there was stuff everywhere; old computers, boxes of electrical items, seemingly unopened parcels from Amazon and in one corner a massive pile of train tickets. As they moved through to the living area which consisted of a kitchenette that had been at its height of design currency sometime around 1978 and more stuff surrounding a couch, there was at least some light provided by a bank of screens. On one screen there seemed to be various transactions in operation on another a spreadsheet with what looked like card details. A bigger screen ran rolling news bulletins and another showed a PlayStation game paused mid action. There were various printers and blank cards.
Jackie Chan saw him looking. “You’re not a cop are you?”
“No,” Giles replied, a little too quickly for his liking.
“Then what exactly are you?” Chan demanded, “Because I know you weren’t sent here by Oleg.”
“And how do you know that?” Giles replied, injecting as much indignation as he felt he could properly pull off.
“Well I suppose my main reasoning would be based around the fact that he bought the farm yesterday morning.”
“Really?”
“Really, although it’s not common knowledge of course. But I would expect you cops to know that.”
“Listen,” Giles began shakily. “I’m not a cop or anything like that. I work for a man called…”
“Victor Andreyevich,” Chan interrupted.
“Yes,” Giles replied, relief flooding into his vocal chords and everywhere else.
“I knew that,” Chan said. “I just wondered if you did.”
“Pardon?”
“Well, everything’s so subdivided, partitioned off, it’s hard to know who knows what.”
“I see.”
“You might, but not as much as those of us who know how to get in the back door do.”
“Eh?”
Chan motioned to his technological pile. “With this you can know it all, not to mention have it all.” He waved his arm round the room at all his ill-gotten gains. “Your boss however, allows me access to certain systems so that in return I provide him with a certain level of income and the odd favour now and again.”
“Of course,” Giles confirmed. It was news to him as right now he was on the Everest of learning curves, but no need to let the geek know what his precise security clearance was.
“Then you’ll know why I’m anxious to protect my investment.”
“Indeed.”
“What do you need?” the giant asked.
Giles did his best to explain and when he was finished Chan shook his head and laughed. “Childs play,” was all he said, which Giles was quite glad about as anything more would have been beyond his comprehension.
“I would offer you a cup of tea,” Chan said, gesturing towards the kitchenette where a sink overflowed with festering dishes blending almost seamlessly with used takeaway receptacles, “But we’re all out.”
Giles found himself wondering who the ‘we’ was and if it possibly included the bacteria who were clearly a permanent fixture in the property. There was a distinct possibility Chan’s clothes could actually walk him round the flat and a similar likelihood that the morbidly obese boffin would quite like that.
“I think I’ll leave you to it. Not like I’d be much use to be honest,” Giles admitted. “If I can ehm….” He stumbled.
“Ah yes. The filthy lucre,” Chan confirmed. “I wouldn’t be embarrassed about that Mr Smith. It is the stuff that keeps everything flowing.”
“It is.”
Chan handed him a greasy looking brown paper bag which at some point had played host to doughnuts or something similar. Giles accepted it awkwardly. Chan looked at him expectedly. “Well?”
“Well?”
“Aren’t you going to count it?” He demanded.
“Well, I…” Giles stumbled again. This wasn’t his forte.
“I certainly would.”
“OK,” he said, without actually explaining that he didn’t know how much he was supposed to check for. His fingers shook as he fumbled with the worn notes. He looked up to see Chan regarding at him with a look of bemusement.
“I take it he didn’t tell you how much to expect then?”
“Nevertheless, I have confirmed the amount for my records Mr Chan,” he replied curtly, in an attempt to reassert some control over the situation.
Chan dipped his head in confirmation and snapped a set of giant Bose cans over his ears before turning his back. “You’ll hear from me when I know everything.”
“How will you know how to get in touch?”
“Because you’re about to write your number down. Or do I have to spend an extra two minutes getting that from Lothian and Borders Police’s server as well?”
********************
Burke was not having a good day all told. First of all, it had not been the most productive of interviews, but Edwards was not one to give up at the mere silence of the suspect.
He had attacked it from several angles before the brief even arrived. When the brief did arrive he appeared a little nervous, but to give him his due, he did have a good go at putting a brave face on it, attempting to counterbalance the nerves with an air of smugness that didn't quite ring true. He was young and, maybe late 20s, wearing a suit that might just as easily have been worn by a man 20 years his senior and accessorising it with an accent to match, probably a corporate lawyer drafted in for effect, young, inexperienced and easily shoehorned into whatever Andreyevich wanted.
There was something nagging at Burke's subconscious though; his spidey sense was giving him grief and he couldn't work out why.
Edwards was really going for it, laying it on with a trowel. Andreyevich used only the phrase “no comment”, though most of the time he just shrugged, leading Edwards to repeatedly say “for the benefit of the tape Mr Andreyevich is shrugging his shoulders.”
After a while Burke was ready to confess to anything himself just to get him to button it.
********************
Daryl couldn't raise Leon on the phone. He left countless voicemail messages for the first day, reasoning that it was more than likely he'd run out of credit and couldn't call back; probably got lucky was the thought that stuck his head. After the first 36 hours the phone didn't ring and went straight to voicemail. He began to wonder if he'd been abducted by a woman. On day three he began to wonder if he hadn't been abducted by someone else.
He wouldn't have done a runner, Daryl felt confident about that. He had faith in Leon. He was the linchpin, although more and more lately the worry was that he was becoming a kingpin. He just seemed to have the answers the other two didn't. Under pressure he always seemed to be the confident one. Not a bad asset for a boy they'd met when he helped them out of a stand-off in a club a year before. Handy type to have around, knew what to do without causing too much unnecessary damage, apart from that night two months ago when he cut that girl without a hint of remorse. Some dark shit going on between his ears.
He tried again. For fuck’s sake. All he had to do was find one of those charging booth things and stick a quid in it. But Leon probably didn't know that. He didn't seem to know his way around tech stuff, like he’d just breezed in from the ice age or something. Come to think of it, with what they were cookin
g up it was more like he was about to breeze into the next ice age; one of his own creation.
Daryl smiled to himself. Optimism; that was what was required here. Soon enough he'd have them all on the pipe, and then to start making some serious cheese.
Gus was asleep as usual. He seemed to like waking up in time for the six o'clock news, like he cared what was going on in the outside world. It wasn't like he was a citizen or anything. None of that shit affected him in anyway. Their business was thankfully tax exempt. Say what you like about the Tories, at least they only taxed honest people, the ones that opted into society, hadn't managed to dodge that particular bullet; the mugs.
He'd give it another hour and then you put some feelers out back in the Brum, see if he’d been spotted or heard of anywhere. Not too loudly of course, it didn’t do to look like you were losing control of things at this end. Word of a screw loose might set off some kind of takeover bid these days, what with all the young ones coming up.
Maybe he’d give it two hours, see what Gus had to say on the matter when he woke up. Just as long as he didn’t recommend shooting him again. Reckless fucker.
21
The plastic surgeon looked decidedly more nervous than last time they’d had the pleasure, like someone living on stimulants. Took one to know one Burke reckoned, but this was a man who hadn’t been spending much time in the land of nod lately.
He seemed to shrink quite a lot outside the confines of his secure domain. No oak panelled solidity here, no comfortable conforming Chesterfields to slouch on, no, just the nasty cheap cleaning product smell of a well-used interview room.
They’d asked that he came to the station this time, for the benefit of the tape as he’d grown so fond of hearing throughout the duration of the morning. He had appeared within the hour. Nipping and tucking was clearly not too popular at the present time. Maybe it was a seasonal thing; no point getting lipo in the run up to Chrimbo on the off chance it just might tear your stitches and leave you with an abdomen like a burst couch.
“Is it true that if you get liposuction on your man boobs and pot-belly that you can suffer from fat knees if you over indulge?” he asked Douglas now, almost unintentionally.
“Ehm, yes. I suppose so,” Douglas replied, wrong-footed slightly by this. “Anywhere you’re likely to store fat other than the area you’ve had the procedure on. Obviously we’re genetically predisposed to store fat in different places and hormones play a significant role, so in men the classic middle aged spread results from the way testosterone makes the body store fat on the abdomen and neck, whereas women are more likely to store it on the hips and of course the gluteus maximus. Doubtful it would be the knees first though. If I were to say remove the fat from your lower abdomen the remainder of the fat cells on your chest would be the most likely area to bear the brunt of the enlargement. Similarly if I were to remove the fat from your chest your neck would be the most likely area and so on. So you might have to do a fair bit of sculpting to get the desired effect on your knees.”
This was the first question Burke asked and he allowed Douglas to continue in this vein. “So if I were to do the right amount of lipo-sculpting and eat the requisite amount of lard, is theoretically possible to have the body of Marilyn Monroe?”
The doctor sighed and shook his head. "I suppose so, but wouldn't that be an expensive way of doing it when you could probably do the same with hormones?"
"Indeed." Burke agreed, before adding "were you actually having an affair with Oleg Karpov, or merely taking advantage of the many rent boys you say he brought round?"
Douglas's head dropped and he began to sob at which point Burke ran out of things to say and looked imploringly at Sam Jones for anything she had. She put some tissues on the desk and handed them to Douglas.
"How did you know?" he asked as he blew his nose loudly.
"Tattoos," Jones replied. Clearly she selected the good cop role for herself and this routine.
Douglas laughed resigned silent laugh. "Of course."
"Did you know what all of them meant?" Burke asked.
"Not one," Douglas answered, laughing again and shaking his head before sniffling some more and dabbing his eyes with the tissue.
"Well one in particular gave away his particular preferences."
"The eyes?" Douglas asked.
"Correct," Burke answered.
"A bit cold. But then my comparison with the other artwork really not so much."
"And you sure you don't know what any of it meant?" Jones asked.
"Not at all. He always refused to discuss it."
"So presumably you were close?" Burke asked
"I suppose so. I mean I don't think he was as close to anyone else, but how close can you really be to someone when you don't divulge anything about their life to anyone. I have no real clue what he did."
"Despite the Russian prison tattoos?"
"Is that what they were? I had an inkling but as I say it was never discussed."
"You sure about that?" Burke asked, "I mean he didn't mention anything about it while you're indulging in your illegal class A drugs or the illegal services provided by possibly very young sex workers?"
Douglas's face was very pale all of a sudden. He had begun to look like a weight had been lifted from the shoulders, but now he was carrying it once more. "I can assure you inspector, they were fully above the age of consent."
Burke felt mildly uncomfortable at this and decided to move it along. "Where were you on the night Mr Karpov was murdered?"
"Ah, well that's the thing. I was trying to tell you and I wish I had inspector but if I'm honest my nerves got the better of me somewhat."
"You were there weren't you?" Jones interrupted in a sympathetic tone.
"I'm rather afraid I was." Douglas confirmed, raising what seemed to be an apologetic smile.
********************
Andy had spent most of the morning, or what he assumed was the morning, drifting in and out of consciousness. The girl had stopped waking him know, obviously deciding that he wasn't going to die from concussion. His head told a different story.
He still felt sick when he tried to move too much. That was yet another doing over he owed the big guy he now knew must be Georgian.
He pretended to be asleep when they came in and dropped food and water for the numerous bodies in the shed. They'd delivered it in what looked like stainless steel dog bowls.
One of the girls said something to the two hulks they clearly understood and didn't agree with, reasoning that the correct response was to quite literally slap her down.
He wanted to do something, felt ashamed that he didn't, couldn't. He wasn't used to feeling so fucking helpless, like a dog with his tail between his legs.
A couple of the other girls tried to soothe her, but this seemed to cause an argument more than anything, which again made his head hurt. Much as he normally enjoyed the idea of girls fighting, it wasn’t the same when you couldn’t understand what was actually going on.
What now? Was he actually going to eat from a bowl, like their dog or something? At what point would his pride give out? And what were the bastards planning on doing with him anyway? He wondered if there was a way he could persuade them to call it quits, let him go on his way in exchange for his silence about whatever fucked up shit was going on here. Like hell. Not after he’d been put in a shed full of the girls they were trafficking. More likely he’d be taking a dirt nap or getting put to work in some kind of sweat shop along with them if he was lucky. He’d seen the documentaries, admittedly while doing other things. They were on in the background because the old man was genuinely interested in what was going on in the outside world, despite never really getting to see any of it for real. Not that he was missing out on much if this was the kind of shit they could pull right under the noses of everyone in even their quiet little corner of the world.
At least they couldn’t put him to work in one of their brothels. He doubted he’d make them much, what with t
he nose that had been broken so many times it was starting to look like it was made of papier mache and the ears that were becoming more cauliflower like by the day. He had a face that had seen the inside of too many scrums.
His eyes had fully acclimatised to the darkness now. Any more and he would probably start to look like a mole. He could see the dust floating in the air in the shafts of light created by the holes in the building’s ageing, once temporary fabric. Movements outside caused a strobing effect. Whenever someone passed by it caused a sense of panic he wouldn’t have thought possible after such a length of time.
One of the girls, she said her name was Ania, tried to feed him and he gathered enough energy to refuse enthusiastically, but eventually gave in as she poured the concoction, soup he thought, down his throat. His head pounded with every miniscule movement, like a bad hangover. He was surprisingly hungry all things considered. He managed to finish the contents of his dog bowl before thanking her.
“So are they Georgian as well?” he asked, motioning to the wall with his head as it was the only thing not tied up. “The guys outside with the big guns and the bad attitude.”
“Georgian, Ukrainian, Lithuanian, I think,” she said softly.
In another time, he thought, he might well have been trying to chat this girl up in the pub. Who was he kidding? In another time he was far more likely to be too nervous to even speak to her at all. But right now all bets were off. Wasn’t that what they said about the spirit of the blitz and all that? It was the great leveller, brought everyone together.
He wanted to ask again what she thought they’d do with him but that would do no good. He wanted it to be over, whatever the outcome, get the worst out of the way.
Ania looked away towards the darkness as if knowing what he was thinking.
“And you?” he asked eventually.
“I don’t know,” she said, “But I’m here. I have some sort of shot of making a life. I think it might not be the life I expected but who can say theirs is?”
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