‘Wait!’ Maria called. She held up her oval bronze Criminal Police disc. ‘Police …’ She was relying on the young Ukrainian not challenging her and asking to see her police identification card, which would, of course, reveal that she was several hundred kilometres outside her jurisdiction. The young man looked startled. Afraid. ‘It’s okay,’ Maria said, with a tired smile. ‘I’m not interested in your status here. I just need to ask a few questions.’
The Ukrainian nodded tersely. Maria took her large black notebook from her coat pocket.
‘You are … ?’ Maria made a show of searching for his name in the notebook, as if she had it recorded somewhere, which she hadn’t.
‘Slavko Dmytruk …’ said the young Ukrainian, seeming eager to cooperate. He still stole a peek back into the kitchen to make sure no one could see them. He stepped out a little from the doorway and pulled the fire door almost closed. He fumbled in his pocket for his ID card and handed it to Maria. It proved he was illegal: the ID card was not German, his photograph was captioned in Cyrillic writing and the yellow trident on a blue field identified the card as Ukrainian.
‘I have not done anything wrong,’ said Slavko; his German was almost impenetrably accented. ‘I want stay in Germany. I good worker.’
‘I didn’t say that you had done anything wrong. I just want to ask you a few questions,’ said Maria.
‘About what?’
‘About how you got here.’
Slavko’s unease shifted into genuine fear. ‘I don’t know what you talk about.’
‘How you got here from Ukraine,’ said Maria in as soothing a tone as she could manage. She could see that Slavko was becoming more and more agitated. She found herself wishing she had Fabel’s knack of putting people at ease. ‘There’s no need to be alarmed, Slavko. No one will know that it was you I got the information from. I promise. But, if you don’t cooperate, then I will be forced to inform immigration.’ Maria spoke slowly and in simple German, giving him time to take in what she had said. ‘Do you understand, Slavko? I need to know who arranged your transport here, got you the job, somewhere to live …’
‘I don’t know … very dangerous man. Very dangerous people.’ The young Ukrainian glanced back towards the crack in the door.
‘Most of them are, Slavko. But I need to know who got you this job.’
‘I work hard.’ Slavko looked close to tears. ‘I work so hard. I want send money back to family in Ukraine. But I can’t. I work all day and most of night and I have to give half to the man who brought me here. Then he take half of what left for where I sleep. It not fair. Not fair at all.’
Maria noticed Slavko trembling. She began to feel sorry for him. She also began to regret fooling him into believing that she had some official clout. She knew that she was exposing him to danger from which she couldn’t protect him. Or herself.
‘Slavko, all I need is a list of names. A name. You know this isn’t right. This isn’t work, this is slavery. These people will have you working for nothing for ever. And you’re one of the lucky ones. Think of the women and children who have been sold into God knows what.’
Slavko gazed at her intently. He seemed to weigh up his options.
‘I was brought here by container lorry. From Lvyv to Hamburg. Then they took us in middle of the night in van. We were dropped at different places in Cologne. I was brought here, to restaurant. It was middle of night and I was told wait here, at the back, until the morning and someone came to open up. Then I have to work for fifteen hours and after they take me to the apartment. Eight of us. Two bedrooms. We take turns sleeping.’
Maria nodded. So there was still a Hamburg connection. Vitrenko’s empire hadn’t withdrawn from the city, just from visibility.
‘Who arranged it all?’
‘There is man back in Lvyv … all I know him as is Pytor. I don’t know names of any of other people who collected us from the container in Hamburg. Except man who drive minibus … we see him every week. His name Viktor. But at the first stop we made here in Cologne, a big black Mercedes was waiting. Man got out and gave orders to minibus driver. He was tough-looking man. Like a soldier.’
Maria scrabbled in her bag for one of the scaled-down copies of Vitrenko’s photograph.
‘This man … could this man be the soldier?’
Slavko shook his head. ‘No, soldier-type much younger. Thirty. Thirty-five, maybe.’
‘Ukrainian?’
‘Yes. I hear him speaking. Not what he say, but I hear it was Ukrainian.’
At that moment a tall, slim African came out with a pail of scraps, which he put into one of the bins. On his way back in he looked suspiciously at Maria.
‘Boss is looking for you,’ the African said to Slavko.
‘I come right now …’ Slavko was clearly concerned at having been seen talking to Maria. ‘I have to go.’
‘Then I’ll have to come back,’ she said.
‘I told you everything. I don’t know no more.’
‘I can’t believe that. Who takes the money from you for your accommodation?’
Slavko looked confused.
‘Your apartment,’ said Maria. She really did feel sorry for him. But she needed a lead. ‘The man who brought you here in the minibus. Viktor. You said he takes your money.’
‘Oh … him.’ Again Slavko looked anxious. ‘If you talk to him, then they know it me who talk.’
‘I’m not interested in him. It’s his bosses I’m after. He won’t even know I’m onto him.’
‘All I know is his name Viktor. I don’t know last name.’
‘When do you see him? How often?’
‘Friday is when we get paid. Most of us work until late Friday nights and sleep on Saturday because we work again Saturday nights. Viktor comes to collect money Saturday and Sunday. Around lunchtime. Some people working Saturday lunchtime so he makes second call Sunday.’ Slavko shook his head despondently. ‘He leave us nothing. Says we have to pay back all expenses in getting us here. Viktor bad man. Everybody frightened of Viktor.’
‘Do you think Viktor is an ex-soldier, like the other man?’
‘He don’t look like soldier to me. Gangster. One day one of the men in the apartment say it not right Viktor take everything. Viktor hit him with heavy piece of wood. Beat him bad. Next day the man gone. Viktor say he send him back to Ukraine and keep his money.’ The memory of the event seemed to disturb Slavko further; he stole another glance back at the door the African had left wider open. ‘I go now. I don’t know nothing else.’
‘The address …’ Maria ordered. ‘Give me the address of your apartment.’ Seeing Slavko’s alarm she held her hands up in a placatory gesture. ‘Don’t worry, no one will know anything. I’m not going to visit your apartment or send other police or the immigration people. I just want to see what Viktor looks like. That’s all. You’ve got to trust me, Slavko.’
Again Slavko hesitated, then gave Maria an address in the Chorweiler part of the city. She tried to remember where it was from the maps of Cologne she had sought to memorise.
Slavko went back into the kitchen. Two other Slavic types looked up from their work and eyed Maria suspiciously through the open door. As she walked away, Maria could still see the fear in Slavko’s eyes; his timidity and his hungry gaunt look. Most of all she thought about how she had given him assurances; how she had told him to trust her. Just like she had told Nadja, the young prostitute in Hamburg, to trust her. Just before Nadja disappeared.
CHAPTER FOUR
21–25 January
1.
Buslenko had arranged for the team to assemble at the hunting lodge on the Monday afternoon. He himself had arrived in Korostyshev two days early. Buslenko had been born in Korostyshev and, since it was a hundred and ten kilometres west of the capital, it was far enough away from Kiev for him to feel reasonably satisfied that he could carry out a secure pre-mission briefing. The city lay under a blanket of thick crisp snow as if the buildings were dust-sheeted furnitur
e waiting for summer visitors. The sane inhabitants of the city were indoors or traversed Chervona Plosha with definite purpose: dark bustling smudges over the Plaza’s white expanse. But Buslenko did manage to find a pirog vendor who had been enterprising or mad enough to set up his paraffin-heated stall for the occasional passer-by. Pirog was bread baked with meat inside, and Korostyshev pirog was famous throughout Ukraine.
Buslenko wandered down between the naked chestnut trees to the War Memorial. Behind the obelisk stood a row of sculpted granite commemorative stones, each carved with the face of the officer whom it honoured. He had come here as a child and his father had explained that these were the men who had died saving Ukraine from the Germans. Fourteen thousand had lost their lives defending the city. The young Taras Buslenko had been hypnotised by the remarkably detailed faces, by the concept of being a defender of Ukraine, just like Cossack Mamay. He had been much older when his father had gone on to explain that many more had also died in Korostyshev in nineteen-nineteen, unsuccessfully defending Ukraine against the Bolsheviks. There were no memorials for them.
Buslenko sat on a bench and contemplated his pirog for a moment before taking a deep bite into childhood memories. He dabbed his mouth with his handkerchief.
‘You’re late,’ he said, as if talking to the graven likeness of the long-dead Red Army lieutenant facing him.
‘Impressive …’ The voice came from behind Buslenko.
‘Not really.’ Buslenko took another bite. The meat inside was hot and warmed him all the way down. ‘I could hear you coming across the snow from twenty metres away. You stick with your job pushing paper round and snooping on adulterous politicians and I’ll stick with mine.’
‘Killing people?’
‘Defending Ukraine,’ said Buslenko, his mouth full. He nodded to the memorial sculptures. ‘Like them. What did you get, Sasha?’
Sasha Andruzky, a thin young man in a heavy woollen coat and with a fur hat pulled over his ears, sat down next to Buslenko and hugged himself against the cold.
‘Not much. I think it’s genuine. From what you told me there will be absolutely no official sanction for what you’ve been asked to do. But unofficially I think that taking out Vitrenko is a government obsession.’
‘Malarek?’
‘As far as I can see, our friend the Deputy Interior Minister is clean. If he has another agenda, then it’s pretty well hidden. But, of course, that’s exactly what you’d expect if he were involved with Vitrenko. But I don’t follow your logic … Why would Malarek send you on a black mission to assassinate Vitrenko if he’s on Vitrenko’s payroll? It doesn’t make sense.’
‘It doesn’t make sense unless I’m being sent in all packaged up as a present for Vitrenko. Maybe I’m the target and Vitrenko’s the one with his finger on the trigger.’
‘Then don’t go.’ Sasha frowned. The cold had pinched his cheeks and nose red.
‘I have to. I don’t think it’s likely that it’s a set-up. But it’s possible. Anyway, I’m acting out of pure self-interest. There have only been three people who have got close to nailing Vitrenko. Me and two German police officers. We’re three loose ends that Vitrenko will eventually tie up. He’s nothing if not neat. But that’s also his one weakness. Despite all his efficiency, if it’s a target that’s important to him then Vitrenko likes to be close for the kill. Really close. He’s like a cat who plays with his prey before killing them. And that is the only time he’s exposed. Anyway, did you do a check on the three names I gave you?’
‘I did. But again I don’t get it. You hand-picked those three because you know them personally. If you trust them, why get me to check them out?’
‘Because I thought I knew Peotr Samolyuk.’ Buslenko referred to the commander of the assault team who’d been there when they’d missed Vitrenko in Kiev. ‘I would have trusted him. It would seem that every man has his price.’
‘Well, I did check them out.’
‘And no one knows you’ve been through their records?’
‘If you want to know who’s been accessing the Ministry’s records,’ Sasha shivered despite the layers of thick clothing, ‘I’m the one you come to. Don’t worry, I’ve hidden all my tracks. Anyway, all three are clean, as are the three I picked out. No one served with Vitrenko or under an officer who served with Vitrenko and I can find no hint of any other connection.’
‘And have you found me the other three?’
‘I have.’ The cold chilled the brief satisfied smile from Sasha’s face. ‘I’m rather proud of my contributions. All three meet your criteria exactly. I’ve included one woman. Someone you already know … Captain Olga Sarapenko of the Kiev City Militia’s Organised Crime Division.’
Buslenko was surprised at Sasha’s choice. He thought back to Ukrainian Beauty and how well she had handled herself in the Celestia operation. ‘You reckon she’s up to it?’
‘She understands Vitrenko, Molokov and their operations. She’s one of the best organised-crime specialists we’ve got. She’s clean and I believe you’ve seen how handy she can be in a tough situation. Like I say, it’s a good, solid team.’
‘The only thing that concerns me is that we’ve pulled them together from such a wide range of units,’ said Buslenko. ‘Wouldn’t have it been better to pick exclusively from Sokil?’ Buslenko himself was a member of the Sokil – Falcon – Spetsnaz unit. That made him, technically, more of a policeman than a soldier. The Falcons were an elite police Spetsnaz under the direct command of the Interior Ministry’s Organised Crime Directorate. The rest of his team were drawn from other Interior Ministry Spetsnaz units: Titan, Skorpion, Snow Leopard and even one Berkut, the Golden Eagles, in which Vitrenko himself had served. There were also two members from outside the Interior Ministry: they belonged to the SBU Secret Service’s Alpha Spetsnaz.
‘I wanted to put together the best team for the job. Each one of these people has special expertise. The thing that worries me is that maybe Vitrenko has a better team.’ Sasha stood up and stamped his feet on the compressed snow. He handed Buslenko a document folder that he had tucked inside his overcoat. ‘The details are there. Look after yourself, Taras.’
Buslenko watched as Sasha made his way back towards Chervona Plosha, his dark frame hunched as he walked.
‘You too,’ said Buslenko, when Sasha was too far away to hear.
2.
Fabel’s mother was delighted to see her son. She embraced him warmly at the door and steered him into the parlour, taking his raincoat from him first. Fabel’s mother was British, a Scotswoman, and he smiled as he heard her richly accented German, influenced as much by local Frisian as by her native English. It was an odd combination, and Fabel had grown up continually aware of another dimension to his identity. She left him by the tiled Kamin to warm up while she went to make tea. Fabel had seldom drunk coffee while at home. East Frisians are the world’s heaviest consumers of tea, leaving the English and the Irish in their tannin-hued wake.
Fabel had spent so little time in this room during the last twenty-five years, but he could still close his eyes and picture everything exactly where it was: the sofa and chairs were new, but they were in exactly the same positions as their predecessors; the reproduction of The Nightwatch by Rembrandt; the bookcase that was too big for the room and was crammed with books and magazines; the small writing table that his mother still used for all her correspondence, having let the world of e-mails and electronic communication pass her by. As well as its contents, the very fabric of the house was still so familiar to Fabel. The thick walls and heavy wooden doors and window frames always seemed to embrace him. He had a strange relationship with Norddeich: he came back to it only to visit his mother, and he felt no real affinity with the place. Yet this was the only world he had known as a child. It had formed him. Defined him. He had left East Friesland in stages: first studying at the Carl von Ossietzky University in Oldenburg, then at the Universität Hamburg.
When she came back into the parlour with a tr
ay set out with the tea things, he shared the thought with his mother. ‘I never thought I’d end up being a policeman. I mean when I was growing up here.’
She looked surprised and a little confused.
‘It’s funny that now, at my age, I’m giving it up and going to work for someone who grew up right here in Norddeich.’
‘That’s not strictly true,’ said his mother. She poured some tea, added milk and dropped a Kluntje into the cup before handing it to Fabel, despite the fact that he hadn’t taken sugar in his tea for nearly thirty years. ‘You were always such a serious little boy. You always wanted to look after everybody. Even Lex. Goodness knows he got into so many scrapes and it was always you who got him out of them.’
Fabel smiled. His brother’s name was short for ‘Alexander’. Fabel himself only narrowly missed being called ‘Iain’, his Scottish mother finally compromising with his German father and calling him ‘Jan’, which had been ‘close enough’. Lex was the older of the two, but Fabel had always been the wiser, more mature one. Back then, Lex’s carefree attitude to life had annoyed the young Fabel. Now he envied it.
‘And that painting …’ His mother pointed to The Nightwatch. ‘When you were tiny you used to stare at that for hours. You asked me about the men in it, and I explained that they were patrolling the streets at night to protect people from criminals. I remember you said, “That’s what I’m going to be when I grow up. I want to protect people.” So you’re wrong. You did think about being a policeman when you were young.’ She laughed.
Fabel stared at the picture. He had no recollection of expressing any interest in the painting, or in the occupation of the people featured within it. It had become just an unnoticed, taken-for-granted element in his childhood environment.
‘It’s all wrong, anyway,’ he said and sipped his tea without stirring it, letting the sugar dissolve and settle on the bottom of the cup. ‘It’s not even a night scene. It was the varnish that made it too dark. And they’re nothing to do with a nightwatch. They’re civil militiamen under the command of an aristocrat. It was just that the original painting had been stored next to another titled de Nachtwacht and the titles were confused.’
The Carnival Master Page 11