Cold

by John Sweeney

  Moonglade got to people. Power and isolation do not mix sweetly. Reikhman had been to the Kremlin often enough. There, power had been seeping through the wide corridors under the onion domes, its wretches weeping in the sunless dungeons, for centuries. There, at the dread centre of the old imperial city, it made a kind of sense. But up here in this snowed-out nothingness, with only wolves for company? You could feel the intensity of it: the orders given; the petitions for mercy or money, for forgiveness, ignored. With the back of his palm he wiped his lips. Bone dry. Altitude? Or fear?

  One of the aircrew opened the perspex door, and Reikhman was out and running towards the main entrance while the rotors still clattered above his head and their downwash created a small snowstorm.

  A security apparatchik called Bekhterev – taller than him, blond, arrogant, whom Reikhman had hated on first sight – met him at the front door and led the way in silence. There could be little doubt that Moonglade was home to a twenty-first-century tsar: gold fittings; paintings of nabobs from the old times, trouncing the French, the Poles, whomsoever; the sound of telephones ringing in the distance, never to be answered.

  Bekhterev led Reikhman to a suite of offices below ground, ignoring two technicians at their computer screens. He took Reikhman into a conference room and gestured for him to sit down on the other side of a smooth black granite table shaped like a coffin. Bekhterev stared at Reikhman; Reikhman stared back. Minutes passed, an hour. This was how it was with power. You hurried like a mad thing for them, and then you waited your turn. And waited and waited.

  Two hours after he had landed, the door to the conference room clicked open and Reikhman smelt the lavender before he saw him.

  ‘So?’ asked Grozhov. Fatter than Reikhman had ever seen him before, beautiful Savile Row suit, hooded eyes, pale face – as if his skin never felt the grace of sunlight – extraordinarily intelligent and yet dark beyond imagination.

  Grozhov was the gatekeeper for Zoba’s spy networks – official, unofficial, money-raising, life-terminating – and so, perhaps, the second most powerful man in the whole country.

  ‘I’m not reporting in the presence of this fashion mannequin,’ said Reikhman, nodding towards Bekhterev. Grozhov smiled and gestured for Bekhterev to leave, which he did, silently and resentfully.

  ‘Well?’ asked Grozhov.

  ‘All three neutralised.’

  ‘Video?’ His voice was peculiar, high-pitched, almost like a eunuch’s.

  ‘The whole thing shot on one card, not copied.’ Reikhman produced an envelope containing the film card and offered it to the gatekeeper.

  Grozhov studied the envelope, but did not accept it.

  ‘Not copied, you say?’

  ‘No.’

  The lids of Grozhov’s eyes drooped down so the pupils were all but hidden, and his voice softened to a whisper: ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Don’t take me for an idiot, Grozhov. If you wanted such a person, you should have hired him.’

  ‘It would be an insurance policy, would it not?’

  Reikhman felt a slight tension high up on the left side of his chest. Palpitations? Or was he letting Grozhov get to him?

  ‘Not an insurance policy, a suicide note. Enough of these games, Grozhov. Watch what’s on the card. If you’re happy, then I can get on with my life. If you don’t like it, then all I ask for is nine grams of lead in the back of the head, the way Josef Vissarionovich did things, back in 1937.’

  He pushed the envelope towards Grozhov with the flat of his hand. Grozhov, ever the subtle adversary, bowed gracefully and pocketed the envelope.

  ‘Let me have a look. In the meantime, I’ll take you to a suite where you can be comfortable. But please, stay where I put you. Zoba doesn’t like people poking their noses into his private business.’

  ‘Of course.’

  Grozhov led him slowly through a series of doors, occasionally stopping to dab his face with a white silk handkerchief. They arrived at a suite of white and gold. The door closed behind Reikhman and he lay on the bed, wide awake. Once, he heard a door open and through that a few bars of ABBA’s ‘Knowing Me, Knowing You’, causing him, despite the strain, to smile to himself. Zoba might be running rings around the Americans, telling them tales about the poison gas supplied to the Syrians, playing games in Ukraine, but his taste in music was, well, terrible.

  The video was two and a half hours in all and Reikhman knew Grozhov well enough that he would watch every single frame. So he had time to explore, provided he was careful and didn’t bump into that prick Bekhterev.

  Reikhman tried the door handle: unlocked. He opened it and walked down the corridor, ears straining for the slightest sound. No CCTV inside, or none that he could see. He knew the reason for that. Out here, no visitor could come and go without the knowledge of security. But there might be things that happened here for which a recording would be most unsuitable.

  Five doors along, Reikhman found what he was looking for. Through the door he could hear the soundtrack to a film. He squeezed open the door and the two packages turned from the vast screen they were gazing at to look at the source of the disturbance. They were watching Toy Story 3. He bowed an apology, put his finger to his lips – shh! – and closed the door. They didn’t know it, but he’d captured them on film.

  He returned to his room, took his pen from his shirt pocket and wrote something, then tucked it into his inside jacket pocket. He would download the film later. He lay down on a sofa and reflected on what Grozhov would do to him if he ever found out what Reikhman had just done, then closed his mind to it.

  Grozhov returned three and a half hours later. Why had he taken so long? To make his own personal copy of the film, Reikhman realised.

  The gatekeeper studied him, judging.

  ‘So?’ Reikhman said.

  ‘Good work.’

  The silence indicated this wasn’t the end of the matter. Grozhov couldn’t possibly know what the pilot had told him, couldn’t know that he knew about the packages or their taste in Hollywood movies.

  ‘Pity about the general’s daughter,’ said Grozhov.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Iryna Dozhd.’

  Reikhman extemporised: ‘A tragic car accident.’

  ‘Yes, that’s what the police say.’

  So Iryna had been connected. Not just a rising star in the department, the Special Directorate of the Tax Inspectorate, but also a general’s daughter. Pity.

  Grozhov’s lizard eyes held Reikhman’s gaze, unblinking.

  ‘Operational necessity,’ Reikhman said. ‘She knew too much, as did the driver, and they could not be trusted to keep quiet.’

  ‘Zoba doesn’t know,’ said Grozhov.

  ‘Good.’

  ‘But the general was one of the Afgantsy. Fought his way into the presidential palace in 1979, held back the dukhi in Jalalabad. A Hero of the Soviet Union. If he makes heat for us, it could be difficult for you. I came across him in Kabul a number of times.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘The general can be overly sentimental.’

  From the way Grozhov’s jowls quivered, Reikhman knew that he hated him.

  ‘I had no choice,’ he insisted. ‘The driver was a nobody, but she was no fool. She was beginning to connect the dots.’

  Grozhov fell silent, lowered his head. At this angle, to Reikhman, he suggested one of those ancient tortoises from the Galapagos: old, reptilian, prehuman. The silence grew longer and more oppressive. Eventually, one word fell from Grozhov’s lips: ‘Dots?’

  ‘Dots.’

  ‘Dots, you say.’

  ‘Yes, dots.’

  ‘What dots?’

  ‘The people who ended up dead. The bully, the pig man, the teacher. The dots.’

  ‘Hold your tongue, Anatoly Mikhailovich.’

  Stung, Reikhman did his best to defend himself. ‘You cannot expect such a difficult operation to have one hundred per cent success without some fallout.’

  ‘Hold your tongue
or you may lose it. Do not utter that thought. Bury it. Understand, Anatoly?’

  Reikhman had killed five people the day before, but there was a quality to Grozhov that turned his bowels to ice. He fell silent.

  ‘We admire your work, Reikhman, but no one is invincible. It was a mistake to rub out the general’s daughter. It was a second mistake to do it in the way you did. That was messy.’

  Reikhman was about to correct Grozhov, but the gatekeeper brushed him away with a sweep of his hand. ‘Don’t quote what the police say in their official report. They spout gibberish, that’s their function. We know the true facts. Here, at this level, you’re allowed one mistake. You’ve known that, ever since I found you in the orphanage. Two is a problem. Three is retirement.’

  The last word came out almost as a whisper. He didn’t say ‘nine grams of lead’. He didn’t have to. Of all things, Reikhman hated being reminded of where he had come from. Once Grozhov raised the orphanage, he knew he was in far deeper trouble than he had imagined. He did his best to claw his way back into his master’s warmth, knowing he was far too old to comfort him in the way Grozhov liked best.

  ‘It won’t happen again.’

  A pause, then: ‘If necessary I will make a visit, to ensure the trash have paid full attention to the clean-up. Be straight with me, Anatoly. Were there any witnesses?’

  Reikhman nodded. He had no choice but to appear acquiescent. ‘Perhaps three. At the block of flats where the old teacher lived. There it became necessary to deal with the female operative. I was seen by a young mother and a small boy, dark hair, about five. He’s old enough to be a witness.’

  Grozhov shrugged. ‘The mother sounds socially irresponsible. We shall consider taking the boy into our special protection.’

  ‘Don’t,’ snapped Reikhman.

  ‘Don’t?’

  ‘It would not be necessary. I was overstating the difficulty. The main witness is a concern, a soldier with a shock of white hair.’

  ‘Name?’

  ‘I didn’t get his name.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘He ran like a rabbit.’

  ‘I will attend to the White Rabbit. Now, on the positive side of the balance, Zoba liked the video. I showed him only the school bully, but he liked it very much.’

  ‘What did he say?’

  ‘Nothing. But I can tell from the way he watched it, unsmiling. He found it . . . satisfactory.’ Grozhov paused to pat his forehead and cheeks with a handkerchief. ‘Zoba indicated that we should show you some appreciation for your work.’

  ‘That would be most gracious.’

  ‘You are to be awarded the Best Investigator prize for the whole of the Tax Inspectorate. Zoba himself will present the award. Congratulations.’

  Reikhman’s lips pressed into a thin smile. A prize was fine. But he had been hoping for something more substantial.

  ‘Thank you. This is a great honour.’

  ‘But?’ asked Grozhov, his eyebrows hovering, quizzical.

  ‘A great honour.’

  ‘Tssh, your uncle is playing with you. There is something else, potentially of material benefit to you. We have been irritated by the activities of an American investment fund based in Moscow. While lecturing our government about morality and the rule of law, it is, effectively, stealing the birthright of the Russian people. The owner is an American citizen and, regrettably, cannot be touched. We want you to hollow it out.’

  ‘Consider it done.’

  ‘The proceeds are to be split in the following way. We’ – Reikhman’s black eyes opened a fraction wider – ‘that is, the Tax Inspectorate gets seven-tenths. One-tenth for a German politician who is being most useful, one-tenth for an Italian quack who has been sculpting Zoba’s face, and one-tenth for you. No trace leads back towards the Tax Inspectorate or the other beneficiaries.’

  ‘Of course not.’

  ‘Methodology?’

  ‘The fund is housed in an unsafe building, posing a potential danger to Russian citizens. The fire-safety commission carries out an emergency inspection, removing flammable materials and electronic devices that may ignite. These may include the seals of the company, necessary for any corporate changes, and computer hard drives. The fire-safety commission shares this evidence with the appropriate tax inspector, who is not, of course, me.’

  ‘Of course not.’

  ‘The company undergoes restructuring. Concerned about corporate governance, a new board is configured and meets . . .’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Anywhere.’

  ‘Where is anywhere?’ Grozhov’s intellectual curiosity was like a deformed gland that never stopped pumping.

  ‘Papua New Guinea, Gibraltar, Sark, wherever.’

  ‘Where is Sark?’

  ‘Somewhere near France, an island where cars are banned. The new board moves the assets of the fund to a shell in Cyprus, which moves them to a trust in Guernsey, which shifts them to a totally different company registered in the Cayman Islands.’

  ‘Why so many different places?’

  ‘Each jump in jurisdiction makes it harder and harder for the perpetrators of the economic crimes against us’ – Reikhman meant the original owners – ‘to track where the money’s gone.’

  Grozhov nodded and seemed satisfied. He scrutinised some paperwork in front of him, tilting his head so that Reikhman could see the heft of fat on the back of his neck rippling.

  ‘For you, where to now?’ Grozhov asked.

  Reikhman sighed inwardly. With Grozhov, the inquisition was never quite over.

  ‘London.’

  ‘London?’

  ‘Yes, that’s where I’m based. Moscow-by-the-Thames.’

  ‘You shall have to return for the award ceremony.’

  ‘No problem.’

  ‘Is London a sensible base? Maybe it would be smarter to go somewhere more controllable, less open. Samarkand? Almaty?’

  ‘No, London. It’s far safer than you think. The English like to make fun of us, but they want our money. I have acquired a member of the House of Lords for protection, for krysha. He’s been on my yacht, in my banya. In London, so long as you are discreet, you can buy everything you want. Besides, I miss my dog.’

  Grozhov smiled his lizard’s smile and said, ‘From a dog, you get unconditional love.’

  The way he said that last word, it sounded like an obscenity.

  Grozhov looked at his watch. ‘Happy New Year,’ he said, joylessly.

  LONDON

  The screw cap on the fizzy water was stuck. Alison’s face soured, as if she had sucked on a wasp. She gave it one more twist; it gave, and she poured the water into a glass and put the bottle down. Her nose wriggled slightly as she sifted through the file in front of her. Only then did she look up and consider Joe sitting at morose attention.

  Joe apologised for his vanishing act from the previous session and explained that his dog had gone missing, then described finding his dog in Green Park, then losing consciousness in the Isle of Dogs, and losing the dog all over again.

  Alison coughed. The other two assessors on either side of her busied themselves in their own paperwork as she began speaking in a low mumble, almost lost in the sound of the traffic going by outside the window.

  ‘Mr Tiplady, we hear what you say. We’ve noted your apology. But this tribunal does face a serious caseload and your non-attendance added to our burden. I must point out that this inconvenience in no way affects our judgement of your case, which, of course, wholly turns on our appreciation of the facts of the matter.’

  He knew what the result was going to be. He just wished they would get on with it. It had been two weeks since Reilly had been stolen from him a second time, a fortnight of unremitting misery. His landlord had raised the rent for his flat so high he had no choice but to move out in the next week or so. He was finding it impossible to get a new place without a solid reference from work. He hadn’t got that many possessions: some books, a few albums of photos of him and
Vanessa messing about in Ireland, some bottles of sticky alcohol they’d brought back from Italy. Leaving the flat? Well, that would be it, a complete full stop to their love affair. It had been over four months now, he knew that, but he kept on hoping against hope that she would come back.

  He missed Vanessa; he missed his foolish dog. Back when they were together, Reilly used to sleep at the foot of their bed, occasionally giving their toes a lick with his tongue. Once, on holiday in Wales, when Joe was a boy, his mother had taken him brass rubbing in an old church. There lay the medieval knight and his lady, and at their feet lay their thin little dog. Vanessa and Joe – well, somehow they had ended up re-enacting that strangely sweet old remembrance of things past. And now he had nothing, not even his job to fall back on.

  ‘Having considered all the parameters and read the many positive comments by some of the students about you, we take no pleasure in coming to the following conclusion, that in aggressively and forcefully disciplining one of the students you committed a serious failing . . .’

  A red spot hovered over her right eyebrow, then jiggled towards the dead centre of her forehead, forming a perfect isosceles triangle with her pupils.

  ‘Ah!’ gasped Joe.

  ‘Please don’t interrupt. You had full opportunity to make points at the fact-finder. Therefore, in light of the serious failing, we determine that you can no longer—’

  Zssst.

  The bullet punched through her skull at Mach 2. Decelerating rapidly, it shunted bone, blood and grey matter out through the back of her head and onto the wall of glass behind, atomising it. The red spot danced around the room. Then, again:

  Zssst.

  Mr Brooks was poleaxed onto the carpet, the second bullet punching a hole in the side of his neck, puncturing his carotid artery. Thick red blood spurted from the wound, puddling on the carpet and forming a fine pink mist in the air above the gooey mess that had been his head. The third member of the tribunal slowly stood up and started to move, tortoise-slow. The red spot followed him lazily, inch by inch. He’d moved a foot, if that, away from the two corpses when, once more:

  Zssst.

  It blew the back of his head off, Jackson Pollocking the wall behind. Rendered stupid by shock, Joe had sensed everything in treacle time: the slow, incoming tide of blood staining the carpet underfoot; the shards of glass shattering like fat summer raindrops; the walls splattering with bone and brain matter; the shrieks and screams from along the corridor coming to him thickly as low, abstract moans; the ultra-high-speed zssst, zssst of the bullets flying past him like the buzzing of a bee. Only the nothingness of death got through to him, that these living creatures so much part of his world a few microseconds before were now irredeemably dead. And, through it all, the horror and the terror, came a dread understanding: had the sniper wanted to, he could have killed Joe in an instant.