The Kill Fee

by Fiona Veitch Smith

  Nogovski gestured to a sofa, playing the genial host. She sat and smoothed down her skirt.

  “Well, you have been busy, Mr Nogovski. But wasn’t it rather silly of you to return to the scene of your crime?”

  “And which crime is that, Miss Denby?”

  “The murder of Arthur Watts, of course. The reason you went through the tunnel in the first place.”

  Nogovski laughed. Poppy was surprised at how full of genuine humour it appeared to be. She had expected something colder, more sinister, from a calculated killer like Nogovski.

  “Oh Miss Denby, you are way off the mark. I thought more of you. I did not kill Arthur Watts. But I did go through the tunnel to see if there was something the police had overlooked.”

  “A Fabergé egg, for instance?”

  “Exactly. I did not trust the police to do a thorough enough job. They were too busy trying to nail the killing on that poor fool Oscar Reynolds and the theft on Victor Marconi. They could have missed something.” He sat down on an armchair, crossing his long legs as if he were about to have a brandy and cigar in a gentlemen’s club.

  “The police may yet surprise you. DCI Jasper Martin is a thorough investigator. He has an excellent closure record. I believe it’s just a matter of time until he cuts through the fluff and finds out what’s what.” And discovers that I’ve been abducted. And launches a rescue, thought Poppy ruefully.

  Nogovski smiled, but this time it did not reach his dark eyes. “You may be right, Miss Denby, which makes it even more imperative that you do not help them in any way.”

  “How could I help the police?” she asked.

  “You have been piecing this whole thing together and it won’t be long before it gets splashed all over the morning papers. Let’s just say that it is essential that certain information is not made public. And I’m afraid, as a newspaperwoman, I cannot trust you to do the right thing.”

  “The right thing? You cannot trust me to do the right thing? That’s rich coming from someone like you.”

  There was that laugh again. Oh, she wanted to slap him!

  “My dear Miss Denby, I think you might have the wrong end of the stick at the moment.” His fingers tapped the handle of his cane. She hadn’t noticed it before. But now it was all she could see. She swallowed hard and brought her breathing – and her temper – under control. Despite what he says, this man is still the most likely suspect in the murder of two people. Two people who were killed with a rapier. A rapier that might very well be secreted in that cane.

  He stood up suddenly and loomed over her. She pushed herself back as far as she could on the sofa. He reached out his hand. “Give me your satchel.”

  Above the sound of the party next door she thought she heard a motor-car engine. Could that be Rollo? Could he actually save her? If she could somehow alert him that she was in danger…

  Nogovski slapped her. It was not a hard blow, but it shocked her. Her eyes bored into his, her anger kindled again.

  He bent down and leaned both hands on the arm of the sofa. His voice had lost all warmth. “Stop thinking about trying to escape. We don’t have much time. Now, give me your satchel.”

  She swallowed again, her throat tight, and unslung the shoulder strap from across her chest. He took it and sat down with it on his lap.

  If he expects to find the egg in there he’s going to be disappointed, she thought. And if she weren’t so scared she would have laughed at the absurdity of it. Did he really think she’d been carrying a Fabergé egg around on her person?

  But that wasn’t what he was looking for. He took out the files, quickly discarding his own without opening it, and then placed Adam Lane’s on the table. He flicked through it quickly until he came to the coloured pencil sketch of the emerald and ruby necklace. The one stolen from Selena in Paris. He took out a lighter from his pocket and burned the picture, tossing it into an ashtray to smoulder away.

  “Now if you and your friend Delilah want to live, you must forget you ever saw that necklace.”

  Poppy nodded, trying to hide her bemusement. “Have you got what you need now? Can you tell me where Delilah is?”

  He flicked some stray ash from his trousers and then stood up. “Better than that, I can take you. He reached out his hand to help her up, but as he did he brushed against the small stack of files on the coffee table, knocking his own file to the ground. It lay open on the floor, the picture of him, Selena and Lenin topmost – and next to it the picture of the Victorian baby.

  Nogovski inhaled sharply and snatched at the baby picture. He pushed it towards Poppy’s face. “Where did you get this?” he hissed.

  “In – in – it was in Selena’s room. And there’s another picture on the back.”

  He flicked the picture over and glanced at the old woman and child. He grunted – was that in recognition? – then flicked it over again. After a few moments of studying the infant he picked up the photograph from Paris, looked at it for a moment, then put all the pictures in his inside jacket pocket.

  He then turned to her, his face inscrutable, and said: “We are running out of time.”

  CHAPTER 36

  Outside Delilah’s apartment building, with the sound of Giles’s party spilling onto the street, was the maroon Chrysler, the same motor that had brought Nogovski and Safin to the theatre after Selena’s murder. Poppy wracked her brain again, trying to place it in the vicinity of the Old Vic when she first arrived, but she couldn’t. Unlike Adam’s old Model T Ford the Chrysler started without the aid of a crank. A man in a chauffeur’s hat sat in the driving seat. He nodded to Nogovski as the Russian security agent ushered Poppy into the back seat and sat beside her. Without receiving instruction, the chauffeur started the engine and drove off. As he did, another motor pulled up – a cream Jaguar driven by Marjorie Reynolds, with Rollo Rolandson in the passenger seat beside her and the hulking frame of Ivan Molanov in the back. Marjorie’s eyes widened as she spotted Poppy being bundled into the Chrysler.

  Poppy tried to gesture to her, but Nogovski pinned her arms down and barked something at the chauffeur in Russian. By the way the vehicle lurched forward, Poppy assumed a rough translation to be: “Step on it!”

  “Why don’t we just stop?” asked Poppy. “If you’re really innocent of the murders and haven’t hurt Delilah, then Marjorie Reynolds will be able to help us. She can call on the Home Office; she can –”

  “If you value your life, Miss Denby, you will shut up,” he hissed into her ear.

  Poppy opened her mouth to retort, but then closed it again. Was he serious? Would he really kill her? Andrei Nogovski is a very dangerous man… she heard the voices of Marjorie Reynolds, Ivan Molanov and Constantin Stanislavski repeat in chorus. Yes, he was serious.

  So, with Marjorie’s top-of-the range Jaguar in hot pursuit, the Chrysler roared its way down King’s Road, then turned north. The streets of Chelsea and then South Kensington sped past in a blur, with the Chrysler whipping left and right – but the Jaguar remained close to its tail. It was nearing midnight on a Tuesday and the streets of West London were relatively clear. It was only when they passed the Royal Albert Hall and a late-night concert was coming out that they encountered any traffic. A quick exchange in Russian redirected the chauffeur to a series of back streets – but still the Jaguar stayed with them. Good old Marjorie, thought Poppy. Who would have thought she was such a demon driver?

  The motor lurched to left and right, throwing Poppy onto Andrei Nogovski. He helped steady her, but she doubted the firm arm around her shoulder was purely for her safety.

  Poppy looked up and saw they were driving parallel to the wall surrounding Kensington Palace Gardens. “Where are we going?”

  “The embassy,” said Nogovski. “And here it is.”

  Poppy had no need to ask which embassy as the gates of the Russian diplomatic residence on Kensington Palace Garden Road loomed before them. They slowed down enough for the guards to see who it was and open the gates. As they did, the Jag
uar pulled up behind them. Ivan Molanov leapt out and ran at full pelt towards them, screaming something in Russian. But he was blocked by two guards. Ivan fought like a bull and soon other guards piled in to assist their comrades. Through the now-closed gates she saw the archivist being thrown to the ground as Marjorie and Rollo stood by. Marjorie screamed: “Unhand him! In the name of the British government, unhand him!” But it was to no avail. Rollo caught Poppy’s eye – he looked distraught. She reached out her hand to him from behind the Chrysler back window as the vehicle continued up the drive.

  “If you’re wondering, Miss Denby, your friends – and the police, if they call them – will be unable to get in. This is sovereign Russian territory. And as long as your government recognizes our provisional government – which so far it has – diplomatic rules declare that on this property we are not subject to the law of the land.”

  “In other words,” said Poppy, “you can do whatever you like to me without recrimination.”

  “As long as we stay in these grounds, yes. But don’t worry. I told you I would not hurt you, and I will keep my word. First though, we must find Miss Marconi.”

  “Find her?” asked Poppy. “I thought you knew where she was.”

  Nogovski smiled at her, as if indulging a child. “Well, that was a little fib. I guessed as to her whereabouts when I saw the state of her flat. Someone had been there and I have a strong suspicion as to who.”

  “Oh?” asked Poppy. “And who is that?”

  The motor pulled up at the front door. Guards came to escort them. “I shall introduce you to him now. But please, Miss Denby, for your own safety, do not try to question him. I will do my best to get you and your friend out of this alive. But you must trust me.”

  He got out of the vehicle and offered his hand to assist her. Trust him? How could she trust him? Why should she? He had hardly given her reason, other than his word, that he would not hurt her – or Delilah. And though he had denied involvement in the murders or the theft, without evidence she was none the wiser.

  Then she saw a distinctive, top-of-the-range blue Aston Martin parked under a bay window. Suddenly, everything fell into place. She’d seen that car driving up Waterloo Road from the theatre – not a maroon Chrysler, but a blue Aston Martin. She knew exactly who she was going to meet inside: the man who had killed Princess Selena.

  Dear God, she prayed, give me wisdom – and buckets of it. Then, without any other options available to her, she put her hand – and her life – into Andrei Nogovski’s as he led her into the embassy.

  Adam jimmied open the window on the first floor at the back of the three-storey embassy. The architecture offered lots of options for an experienced cat burglar, and Adam was certainly that. Daniel followed his lead, scaling the wall, a man confident in his physicality.

  They had arrived at the embassy soon after Rollo, Marjorie and another man whom Adam had never met but Daniel had told him was Ivan Molanov, archivist at The Globe. The hullabaloo at the front gate confirmed what Adam had already decided: they would not be entering the embassy by the conventional route. Ivan’s herculean effort to fight off the embassy guards was a perfect cover for the two men to park the motor in a side street and then scale the outer wall of the embassy behind a line of oak trees. Once in the grounds Adam expertly assessed the façade in front of him and pinpointed its weakest point.

  The window opened and Adam silently slipped in. He held back the curtain for Daniel to follow. The room they were in was used as an office, and, at just after midnight, was unsurprisingly vacant.

  “Where do you think she’s being held?” whispered Daniel.

  “Well, I doubt she’s here as an official guest,” muttered Adam, “so my guess is it will be the basement. It’s a good place to start, anyway, then we can work our way up.”

  Daniel nodded his agreement and the two men slunk out of the room.

  Nogovski and Poppy entered the embassy through the front door. He said something to the man who came to greet them, then ushered her into a small waiting room-cum-cloakroom with a hat and coat stand just inside the door. Poppy had passed the room en route to the main hall where the press briefing had been held the previous week. It seemed like a long time since she had first heard the name Andrei Nogovski, and yet it had been barely seven days. He indicated that she should sit.

  “I would offer you tea, Miss Denby, but we do not have much time until Comrade Safin arrives, and I must prepare you for that as quickly as I can. I could not speak in the automobile, as I’m not sure where the chauffeur’s loyalties lie. So please, listen carefully. I will answer any questions you may have later – if I can – but for now, do not speak.”

  Poppy nodded her agreement. She had a hundred and one questions, but they would have to wait.

  “As you know, Comrade Safin is the Commissar of Trade and also the interim ambassador. The former imperial ambassador vacated the premises in 1917; then we had a temporary one linked to the provisional government. However, as the war back home appears to be swinging towards the Reds, he, a White, has resigned and claimed asylum.”

  Yes, yes, I know all that; tell me something new, thought Poppy.

  “Safin has been appointed by the Reds, but as the Soviet government has not yet been formally recognized by your government – they are still foolishly holding out for a White counter-revolution – he is here in an interim capacity. His position – and legal standing – is tenuous, and he realizes he could be turfed out at any time. So that has made him reckless.”

  Reckless? So my suspicions were correct… Poppy’s eyes flicked to the door behind Nogovski, expecting Safin to appear at any moment. But for now it remained closed.

  “Safin has been trying to get hold of the eggs. I think by now Marjorie Reynolds has told you their content. The one in Moscow held a key; the one in London, a map to a secret location, and at that location – apart from vast treasure – is information that could bring down every royal house in Europe.”

  Poppy nodded. Yes, she knew.

  “Safin wants to get his hands on that information. He wants to overthrow the old world of ruling dynasties once and for all. He is not patient to wait for the worldwide people’s revolution that Comrade Marx and Comrade Lenin have predicted; he wants to bring it on from the top down in one fell swoop.”

  “But isn’t that what you want too?” Whoops, she’d spoken. Poppy bit her lip, but her eyes dared him to chastise her.

  He raised an eyebrow and said, “Not at any cost, no. Millions have died in the recent war – and in my country, This is not the way it should happen. I want to stop Safin getting that information and using it for his own ends.”

  So, he’s been acting as a sort of double agent, thought Poppy. At least that’s what he claims. Not for the first time that night Poppy wondered if she could – or should – trust him. From everything she’d seen so far in this investigation, Safin and Nogovski were in cahoots, working together. Now here he was pinning everything on Safin. Really? Poppy wasn’t so sure. Again she looked at the door. It was closed, but not for long.

  “So, very quickly,” Nogovski continued, “when Safin arrives, I am going to tell him that you have information that will cause the British government to withdraw their support for the provisional government and shut the embassy down. With no diplomatic protection, his crimes can be exposed.”

  Poppy looked at him quizzically.

  “A host of murders, two of them in London, committed outside the embassy, for which he can be tried and convicted when he is forced to leave here. I am going to tell him that unless you and Miss Marconi leave the embassy safely, your newspaper will splash all of this over your front page first thing in the morning.”

  “But we haven’t –”

  He raised his hand. “I know that and you know that, but Safin does not.”

  What do you really know about what I know? thought Poppy. But what did she actually know? She had no firm evidence, as yet, to prove Nogovski was in on it. For now, all
she could do was play along. “All right,” agreed Poppy out loud and glared at him, daring him to object. All this don’t-speak-unless-spoken-to poppycock was becoming tiresome. “Then what?”

  “Then we continue with Safin’s own plan of using Miss Marconi as bait to get the egg. But unlike Safin, we will not allow the contents of the egg to be exposed. Are we agreed?”

  Bait? Delilah? This did not sound like a very good plan at all. But before she could say anything to the contrary, the door to the sitting room opened and the goateed figure of Vasili Safin entered the room.

  As Adam and Daniel slipped down the stairs from the first floor, they heard talking in the entrance hall near the front door and made sure they stayed as far away from it as possible. At the back of the house they entered the kitchen and from there found their way to the basement. Outside a closed door was a man dozing in a chair – a strange place to have a nap. Was Delilah behind that door?

  Vasili Safin walked into the room and kissed Nogovski on both cheeks. They spoke for a few moments in Russian. Then he turned to Poppy and said in English: “Good evening, Miss Denby. This is a surprise. Comrade Nogovski here has told me you demanded he bring you here lest you print some scurrilous lies about our embassy’s involvement in these recent killings. Is that correct?”

  Poppy cleared her throat. “That is correct, yes. I believe you have my friend Delilah Marconi here, and unless she and I are allowed to leave, unmolested, then the article will run first thing in the morning.” So far to script.

  “And what gives you the impression that I have your friend?” asked Safin.

  Hmmm, good question.

  “You know what these journalist types are like, Vasili. They have snitches and sources everywhere. We inherited half the staff from the old ambassador; who knows where their loyalties lie?”

  Safin barked something at him in Russian.