Kathy slid the two Moszynski files aside and reached for Vadim Kuzmin’s. She was rather pleased that both MI5 and MI6 had failed to record Mikhail’s enthusiasm for hedgehogs.
She was wading through the MI6 briefing document on the FSB Sixth Directorate to which Vadim was attached when Bren came in.
‘Any news about Brock?’ he asked.
‘Haven’t heard anything. What’s up?’
‘That mobile phone number that Peebles rang . . .’
‘You’ve got a name?’
He shook his head. ‘No chance, but we’ve got the record of calls it’s made in the past six months.’ He handed Kathy a printout, a look of grim satisfaction on his face.
She scanned it, then frowned. ‘I don’t understand. Only one number?’
‘Right! Apart from Peebles’ call to it, the phone has been used to contact only one other number, which it calls always on a Monday, between two and three in the afternoon.’
‘That’s weird.’
‘Look at the number.’
Kathy stared at it again, shrugged. ‘Should I know it?’
‘It’s Gloria Cummins. The Chelsea madam. It’s her number. This bastard rings Gloria’s knocking shop practically every Monday afternoon.’
‘Hell.’
‘Isn’t that bloody wonderful?’
‘What do we do?’
‘Well, there’s no point confronting Gloria. I spoke to the local boys. They know her well and confirmed what I suspected—she’s tough as nails and won’t give us anything on her clients if she can help it. If we approached her she’d just tip this bloke off, and then we’d be lost.’
‘So?’
‘We tap her phone, listen in.’
Kathy nodded. ‘So we have to wait. He doesn’t ring every Monday though, does he? But he did last week.’ She thought. ‘That was the day Vadim returned from Russia.’
‘That’s true.’
Kathy shook her head in frustration. ‘By Monday we could all be in hospital . . . or worse.’
‘By Monday we might be begging to go to hospital. They’re talking about sending in sleeping bags for us for tonight. I thought my days of kipping on the floor were over.’
‘That’ll be fun. We’d better put an armed guard on Brock’s stock of booze in the basement.’
‘Or drink it all ourselves first. What do you reckon, Kathy? By Monday we’ll have reverted to savagery in here. Lord of the Flies in Queen Anne’s Gate.’
Kathy laughed and he ambled off. She went back to the file she’d been reading, turning to a picture of Vadim Kuzmin, apparently one he was proud of. He was standing among trees, hands on hips, a chilly smile on his lips, and dressed in the black uniform of the Spetsgruppa Vympel special forces which came under the control of the FSB, specialising in counter-terrorism and assassination.
It was nearly eight when Sundeep phoned again. He had some news, he said. The Marburg diagnosis had been confirmed. Brock and the others were reasonably comfortable and receiving the best possible care, and it was now a matter of waiting. The good news was that Kathy’s test results, taken at the same time, had also come through, and she was clear, as was Sundeep himself.
‘This is a good result, Kathy, the best we could have hoped for. We’re very lucky that Brock kept himself pretty much to himself the last few days. You’ve seen more of him than anyone, so the chances are that the others will be okay, but they’ll have to stay in isolation until we know for sure, probably some time tomorrow. But you’re free to leave.’
There was a smell of fish and chips coming from the entrance hall as the evening meals were brought in. A mocking cheer went up as Kathy appeared and relayed the latest from Sundeep, and Bren said something about rats leaving the sinking ship. By way of compensation she promised to visit the off-licence and get them a case of red before she left.
On the way she stopped to buy an evening paper with the headline new shock for shaka, reporting that the model had been put in isolation as a precaution after being in touch with someone infected with a mystery disease. Kathy wondered how long it would be before the full story broke.
At the hospital she found Suzanne sitting at an observation window looking into Brock’s isolation ward. There wasn’t much of him to see and he seemed to be asleep as a nurse, dressed like a mortuary assistant with face mask and double gloves, made notes on his clipboard.
The two women hugged and brought each other up to date. Suzanne said that she’d been told it could take another week before they knew if Brock would pull through. ‘They’re contacting research teams in America and Switzerland that are working on new drugs which might help.’
She looked strained, her face tight with worry, and Kathy thought, with a little tug of regret, that there would have been no one to look like that for her if she’d caught it.
As if she’d read Kathy’s mind, Suzanne reached for her hand and said, ‘I’m just so relieved that you’re in the clear, Kathy. They say you saw him most during the past week.’
Kathy described what had happened and his refusal to let her contact Suzanne.
‘Stubborn as always.’ Suzanne sighed.
‘There’s nothing that we could have done. Someone slipped up when they identified the carrier—they should have warned us then. But even so, it would have been too late for Brock.’
She regretted the choice of words, and began to add, ‘I mean . . .’ but Suzanne squeezed her hand and said, ‘I know.’
They sat together in silence for a long while until Kathy, exhausted by the events of the day, began to nod off. Suzanne roused her gently and told her to go home.
SEVENTEEN
The cool night air revived Kathy and as she went to her car she was suddenly possessed by a sense of energy and relief. Worrying about Brock had blocked out the thought of her own reprieve, but now its full force struck her. She was alive, out of danger, and suddenly very hungry. She hadn’t touched the food that had been delivered to Queen Anne’s Gate and now she felt an urgent need for a hot meal and company. There was a text message on her phone that she hadn’t picked up, from John Greenslade, saying simply, need to talk. Her first instinct was to ignore it, but after a moment’s reflection she keyed in his number.
‘Kathy, hi, thanks for ringing back. I was worried about what you said, about a bug going around. Are you really okay?’
‘Yes, John, I’m fine.’
‘Great. And I’ve had some thoughts on the letter.’
She could hear music and laughter in the background, and imagined him at a conference function, having a good time. ‘You at a party?’ she asked.
‘’Fraid not,’ he laughed. ‘I’m in a pub. I’d invite you to join me, but it’s a dump.’
‘I suppose you’ve eaten?’
‘I had something that claimed to be a Cornish pastie. They must have a special machine that turns pastry into bullet-proof cardboard.’
‘Yes, they do. I haven’t eaten all day. Can I buy you a glass of wine while you watch me eat? As a consultant, of course.’
‘You’re on. Where?’
‘Are you in Chelsea?’
‘Yes, in Brompton Road. There’s a Mexican place just across the street, nothing fancy.’
She took a note of the address and rang off.
He was there when she arrived, waving to her from a corner table. There was a bottle of wine at his elbow, and he poured her a glass as she sat down. ‘Cheers.’
‘Cheers.’ She took a deep breath and sat back. ‘So how did your talk go today?’
‘Fine, I think. Well, most of them stayed awake, I guess. Are you really all right? You look worn out. Hard day?’
‘Oh, you know . . . Well, yes, it has been hard.’
‘Want to talk about it? I have signed the Official Secrets Act.’
So she told him about Brock and the virus.
He looked horrified. ‘I’ve heard of Marburg. It’s really serious, isn’t it?’
‘Yes, but I’ve been cleared, so I�
�m sure you’ve got nothing to worry about. Brock never actually came into the hotel, did he?’
‘But you’re so lucky.’
‘Yes, yes I am.’
‘That’s just terrible about Brock. I can’t believe . . . he could actually die.’
He sounded so appalled, so concerned for someone he’d never even met, that Kathy thought he might just be being melodramatic, but when she looked at him she saw that he’d gone quite pale.
‘All we can do is wait.’
‘Yes. That’s so awful for you. And his wife? Is he married?’
‘He has a partner, but they don’t live together. She’s been away and knew nothing about him being ill until I phoned her today. She’s with him at the hospital now.’
‘What about kids?’
‘No.’ She took a deep breath. ‘Well, come on, let’s eat.’
She signalled to the waiter, who came and took their order.
When he’d gone, John said, ‘You face this sort of thing every day, don’t you? It makes my life seem absurdly sheltered. Sitting here like this, doing this job for you, I feel like a voyeur. If I can help, in any way . . .’ He spread his hands helplessly.
‘Well, actually it does help talking about it to someone on the outside, someone not personally affected.’ She hesitated, then added, ‘Maybe you should tell me something about yourself, apart from the fact that you’re a university lecturer who does jobs for the Montreal police.’
‘What, like a dating site, you mean?’ He put on a sugary voice. ‘I’m twenty-eight, single, an only child, and just adore cross-country skiing, classical opera and French food.’
She smiled. ‘Good enough.’
‘What about you?’
‘Me? Oh, I’m single and an only child too, but I’ve never skied, don’t much care for classical opera and prefer Indian.’
‘Sounds like we’re in trouble. But I like Indian too, and I’m sure we could work on the opera and skis.’
‘Anyway, this is a business meeting, remember? You said you had something to discuss.’
‘Yes, right. I had a good talk on the phone with Moszynski’s secretary. She knew all the letters I mentioned to her except the last one, to The Times, which she hadn’t seen until you showed it to her. The others she typed herself, either from dictation or from handwritten versions that Moszynski gave her. She’s been working for him for eight years, since soon after he came to London. She got the job because she’s fluent in both Russian and English and she said he always took great care with the wording of his letters, as if they might end up as evidence in a court of law—that’s what he told her. At first his English was a bit rough, and she would suggest a lot of changes, but he was a good learner and gradually she came to make fewer and fewer corrections, especially for a formal document, like a business letter or one to the newspapers. She said she was surprised at the political content of The Times letter, but he had been quite preoccupied that Friday it was sent, because of the death of the American lady next door, so maybe that was the explanation. Maybe he thought the Russian government was somehow involved.’
He paused and looked at Kathy carefully. ‘That’s what the secretary was suggesting to me. Does it make sense, do you think?’
‘Possibly. You could take that into account.’
‘Yes. Well, I did that, and I’ve come to a preliminary opinion I thought I might share with you.’
‘You haven’t had long.’
‘No, and I’ll need more time to set out a thorough argument, but I’m fairly positive. I don’t think that letter to The Times was written by Moszynski.’
‘Really?’ Kathy was surprised. She’d gone down this road in order to cover herself, in case the letter’s authenticity was questioned later in court, but she’d never seriously doubted it. ‘Why do you think that?’
‘There are several small departures from colloquial English usage—a couple of missing definite articles, like here . . .’ He took a copy of the letter from his pocket and showed her: ‘. . . elements of Russian secret police, rather than the Russian secret police. The biggest departure I would say is towards the end, here: Let me give good advice to your readers. It sounds like a Russian gangster, doesn’t it?’
‘But he was a Russian gangster, John. Or at least a Russian businessman. And I’ve heard his Russian son-in-law use the same phrase.’
‘Okay, but he was very careful to avoid such mistakes in his other letters. They were correct to the point of being stilted. When I pointed it out to his secretary she said she didn’t think he would have put it like that, though he might have said it in conversation. Judging from the other letters, especially the most recent ones, I would say that it was written by someone who knew how he spoke, and wanted to impersonate his speech in the letter.’
Kathy reread the letter, frowning over the points he’d made. They seemed pretty insubstantial to support such a major conclusion. Also, it occurred to her that he was rather young to be held up as an expert in a field like this. How would he stand up to interrogation by Brock, let alone a barrister?
‘Maybe he was just in a hurry,’ she said, ‘or upset, as his secretary said. Is there any way we can be more definite about this?’
He shrugged. ‘Get more samples of recent letters of his. Or get a second opinion.’
‘It’s just that, as you said before, the implications are pretty serious. If you’re right, it suggests that there was a plot by Moszynski’s killers to implicate the Russian authorities.’
She stopped talking as the waiter approached with their food.
They didn’t discuss the letters further, as if they both wanted to avoid a subject that might lead to disagreement between them. Instead, he told her horror stories of Canadian winters and tales about the city where he lived and which he loved. He was good company, and Kathy was glad to have her mind taken off Brock’s illness for a little while. John didn’t forget though, and at one point, as they were considering the dessert menu, he suddenly asked her if she’d let him know if there was any change. ‘I just feel,’ he said, ‘that I’d like to shake the great detective’s hand, if I get the chance, having come all this way.’ It seemed an odd way of putting it.
She said goodnight to him outside on the street and got a taxi to the tube station for the ride home to her flat in Finchley.
EIGHTEEN
The laboratories were swamped, unable to cope with the flood of tests that were demanded. The offices at Queen Anne’s Gate, the Moszynski mansion in Chelsea and the Tottenham police station remained sealed as quarantine sites, while Kathy felt herself in limbo, suspended between the normality of the past from which she was excluded, and a future that she dreaded entering. Each day she visited the hospital without learning anything new about Brock’s condition. And each day she phoned the crew at Queen Anne’s Gate and sensed a growing listlessness in their voices, despite Bren’s attempts to sound positive. She based herself in a temporary office a few blocks away in the headquarters building of New Scotland Yard, where she took what comfort she could from the routines of paperwork and fulfilling telephone orders from the isolated team for treats—DVDs, pastries, chocolate, an electric wok, grapes, deodorant, Pringles. She imagined them finally emerging, pale and overweight, into the light.
She decided to check the reference in the MI5 file to Freddie Clarke having been investigated by the Fraud Squad, something that wasn’t on the police PNC record. After making a few calls she got through to the inspector, now in Economic and Specialist Crime, who had been involved.
‘It was during the investigation into the collapse of APGT in 2003, remember?’ he said.
‘Vaguely. Remind me.’
‘Big group of construction and materials companies that went bust, very suddenly, after racking up large loans. There was a suspicion of fraud and we investigated. I remember Clarke, very young bloke, working for a group of financiers who’d been involved in raising the loans. It took us a while to realise that he wasn’t the office boy—he
was the brains behind the consortium. Very difficult lad to pin down. Said next to nothing in interview and kept bugger-all accessible records. That’s what brought us up against a brick wall in the end—no records of the crucial transactions that we thought may have been dodgy. The rumour was it was all locked up inside Clarke’s head. He was the consortium’s private Enigma machine. We couldn’t crack it.’
Kathy also paid Vadim Kuzmin a visit.
It was Friday afternoon, a light rain falling, and she had confirmed by phone that he was at home in Esher. When she got there he jerked the front door open with a violence that made her hesitate. He held her eyes for a moment with an icy glare, then waved his hand. ‘Come.’
As soon as she was seated he began to interrogate her. What was this quarantine business? When she began to explain, he slammed his open palm hard on the arm of his chair and cut her off.
‘No, no, no. This is just a ploy, to prevent my access to Mikhail’s office and papers. This is an outrage, a hostile act.’
Kathy waited until he’d finished, then spoke quietly. ‘Mr Kuzmin, my whole police team is in quarantine. My boss is in an isolation ward and may die. This is a very serious emergency, nothing to do with your father-in-law’s papers.’
He curled his lip. ‘Then why are you free to come and go, Detective, eh?’
‘I was the first to be tested, along with DCI Brock. We got the results back quickly, he was positive, me negative. But now the labs are overwhelmed. It will probably be another day or two before they can complete their tests. We just have to be patient.’
His eyes narrowed and he regarded her as if she were a suspect who was more cunning than he’d first thought. ‘Marburg, eh?’
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