The Oktober Projekt

by R. J. Dillon

  ‘I must firmly remind you, that you still have to go through the formalities of a formal inquiry regarding your actions in Moscow. Just because you didn’t turn up on Monday doesn’t mean the issues will be overlooked. You are required to be at Aspley by eleven in the morning,’ Hawick said, heading for the door. ‘Sober,’ he snapped and was gone, followed by Denise who made a comment on psychological assessment on her way down the stairs.

  Grabbing the bottle of Laphroaig Nick hurled it after them, though his aim was a touch off; a little too high, and the bottle exploded against the wall above the door. Crunching through glass shards Nick went out onto the landing, gripping the banister he yelled: ‘Out, everyone out. This is still my house.’ All the way down the stairs he repeated his command at the top of his voice, even obligingly holding open his front door as Angie’s mother strutted out.

  Unsteady on his feet, he rested his head on the doorframe its coolness sinking into his temple, his mind pawing for something to say. Angie’s father touched Nick’s shoulder on the way past but neither of them spoke. Armed with his second watered down bottle of whisky, Nick took refuge in the room facing the street, dragging a slashed chair to the window, giving him a view of his path and front door. Having forgotten to bring a glass, he drank out of the bottle and at some point he’d fallen asleep; for Nick woke suddenly with a jerk when he heard his name being called, sweat covering his face, a thin film, cold and sticky.

  ‘I’d heard you were back in town. I was just passing and thought I’d drop in.’

  Helpless and hating himself, Nick stared at Jane crouched by his side. From the street a heavy infectious laugh streaked into the room, reaching his brain like a sharp pain. His mind would not settle and a steady cramp pulled at his belly. He wanted to be alone, he wanted peace, he wanted noise and he wanted company. It is forgiveness and absolution what I need more than anything, he thought. And his good friend Laphroaig of course, who could always be relied upon to dull his appetite, to push another aspect of normality far, far away.

  ‘Help yourself,’ Nick said, offering the bottle; a stiffening inside his head, a weakness in his arms shaking the muscles in his hand. Careful he thought, seeing Jane flinch.

  ‘What you need is a tea or a coffee,’ Jane said, taking the whisky from him.

  But Nick shook the suggestion away, bitter and weary.

  ‘Have one yourself, have it on the house,’ he said faking a smile. ‘In fact you can have the house.’

  ‘Come and stay with me. It’s not going to do you any good sat here all by yourself.’

  ‘I’m all right,’ he answered, feeling for the bottle unable to comprehend where it had gone. ‘I’ve some things to sort out.’

  Jane shook her head, pouring the whisky into a potted fig tree reposing firm and tall in the corner. ‘You’ll kill it,’ he warned her, ‘But one more death in this house isn’t going to matter.’

  ‘Is this how you’re going to make things right?’ Jane asked, standing the drained bottle on the mantelpiece, coming back to his side, sitting on the chair arm.

  ‘Nice perfume,’ said Nick, ‘noticed it in Devon, thought you only wore Chanel?’

  Pushing herself away, Jane twisted between boxes piled by the sofa. ‘Thought it was time for a change,’ she said with a sad smile.

  ‘So do I,’ said Nick with an approving wave. ‘Change is good, change is better than a rest. Look at me, I used to have a family, wife and son, now I’ve got jackshit, amazing what change can do for you.’

  ‘Nick, you’re going to have to get some professional help,’ she decided, collecting her bag off a coffee table. ‘If you need somewhere to stay or just want to talk, let me know.’

  Stay, he thought, stay tonight and tomorrow will be better. Was it contempt or pity that he saw in her eyes at that very moment; he never really knew, but it was enough.

  ‘Scouts honour,’ promised Nick, though he’d only ever been a Cub.

  A final smile that bore no warmth, a peck on his unshaven cheek and Jane had gone, nothing more than a dull shadow lost on the street. He called her name but she never turned.

  Roused by Jane’s coldness, Nick decided on action. After a cold shower and two black coffees, he made his way down to the utility room. Here a similar scene of wanton destruction as in the rest of house; the tumble dryer and washing machine hauled out from the wall when Angie’s killers checked the floor for concealed hiding places; the panels from the suspended ceiling flicked out, laying bare its aluminium carcass, ducting and cable. Warm, but not hot, Nick thought, going to a large industrial switch-disconnector box he’d fitted. Above its chrome handle Nick had placed high-voltage and danger of death warning stickers. Inside there were no fuses, but two passports and credit cards taped to the back panel, both bearing different worknames, a necessity for the sudden need to escape. Back in the kitchen Nick added a bottle of mineral water to a carrier bag and a box of ibuprofen.

  Leaving through the French doors, Nick stayed on the grass to deaden his steps. At the bottom of the garden he dropped the carrier bag over the fence and climbed after it. Down Ravenna Road, out onto St. John’s Avenue he started to run. At a quarter-past ten on a bitter London evening, Nick had started to organise himself, thinking ahead, refining his strategy, organising his plan of attack. Adopting his standard fieldcraft and wisdom, Nick became a nomad, never staying in once place more than he needed, choosing a big corner pub in Greenwich that advertised economical rates, ‘Contractors Welcome.’ Paying in advance in the bar, its horseshoe counter decked in fake Victoriana, Nick took the backstairs to his room with a sunken heart. With every step upwards the carpet grew dirtier and there was a smell of damp tea cloths drying and stale cat. On the first landing a receptionist greeted him with a dusty smile, a scab of a man with bronze teeth and strands of sickly red hair combed flat across a bald head, his white shirt stained down the front.

  Nick signed the book with yet another false name and for his trouble received a room with a shower that produced nothing more tempting than a slow cold trickle; its tray littered with toenail clippings. A gas fire levelled on one end by a wedge of damp timber, spat viciously when lit. Next to the window a kettle clogged with grime from countless contractor’s hands, it stood with tea bags and pots of dated milk on a tray engraved with kittens. Down the hall the communal toilet jabbered and sang, conspiring with the traffic on the fly-over to give him no rest. Breakfast served from seven till nine could be smelt under his door, but Nick stole out without eating, as tired as on entering and a few pounds poorer.

  Seven

  Double Cross and Betrayal

  Berkhamsted, November

  An hour in the cold air promising rain and Nick’s head was clear. He wanted time to think and found it walking to Battersea in that strange unnatural hour before dawn when an eerie calm stalked the streets, and with it came a pale unequal light and fresh unleaded air flavoured by all of London’s parks. The sky had started to divide and a flux of cloud rolled up the Thames along with the morning grind into work. Nick’s route was chosen at random, a palliative that did nothing to lessen the Galaxy’s grip on his heels. They had static and mobile units covering all exits from Ulva Road he realised, and they’d radioed for support.

  Coming close to the river he felt its strong pull, though he could barely see it. A man tired and grey shuffled along as he exercised a troubled dog, bidding Nick a crisp good morning before dodging into the dips and hollows of Battersea Park to be stolen by the gloom. The first dabs of rain hit the pavement; a taxi sailed by its light out as Nick tired, turned the way he came, facing into the wet breeze by the river, shivering as it met his skin.

  He took a train from Battersea to Victoria and the watchers were sharp, one of them keeping with him at the far end of the carriage. A different team picked Nick up when he went underground to Euston, a third team taking over during the journey to Berkhamsted. This last pair also warned of his coming, with a car despatched to collect Nick outside the station; nothi
ng said on the drive, a silent twenty minutes only broken by clearance to proceed at Aspley’s gate lodge. At the main house they were also ready for him, Strowther, a staff instructor and Motte, Director of Training, forming a hasty duo beside a burly receptionist, a lone military policeman in drab plain clothes who knew the best pubs within a mile radius. They both immediately fell forward with offerings of sympathy. Strowther shook him warmly by the hand.

  ‘We appreciate this is a bad time, but it’s C’s orders, his law you see,’ Strowther explained, pained and slightly embarrassed. Gently he patted Nick’s shoulder before beating a hasty retreat.

  Closer now, Motte laid a silky hand on Nick’s elbow, steering him to the back stairs, charming as ever, a perfect host escorting a tradesman through his house.

  ‘We’re all simply devastated, Nick. I mean your wife… that took the wind out of all our sails. It must be quite a terrible shock. Well obviously it is, but you know what I mean?’

  ‘Yes, thanks Motte, I know.’ You mean I have encountered the murder of someone I loved and changed, he thought. Then who wouldn’t? Another gate of wisdom that I’ve been unlucky enough to open.

  They climbed barely uttering another word, emerging on the top floor Motte dictating the speed, walking quickly down a passage long and high, school lampshades pricking out their path. In place of the expected left turn to a corridor housing the staff offices and meeting rooms, Motte wheeled sharp right and headed up a cramped flight of linoleum stairs into the mansard roof.

  ‘Here we go,’ he grinned, all silly and childish, the type worn on first dates, rapping twice at a commonplace mustard door.

  ‘Appreciated,’ said Nick, only for Motte to smile sheepishly and push open the door.

  ‘So you managed to make it. Brilliant under the circumstances,’ said Hawick inviting Nick in. ‘Gave us all a bit of a worry skipping over the fence like that. Should have let us know what you were up to, we’d have sent a car. Right Terry?’

  ‘Come myself,’ said Motte grinning inanely, backing out, closing the door with a gentle click.

  Looking round Nick saw the attic room hardly altered; as airless as ever it was when it served as a junior mess, and over the fireplace he could still make out the holed plaster where the dartboard used to sit. They never throw anything out, he thought pulling a plastic chair from a dusty stack, its seat splashed with green paint. Squeezing it between crates of cardboard binders, he sat heavily down.

  ‘There are some issues that we need to discuss, agreed?’ Pausing here, Hawick expected a response of some kind, but Nick sat amidst the memorabilia, unmoved, tightening inside as his anger mounted, an electric charge steadily increasing.

  ‘Moscow knew about the collection,’ said Nick. ‘How about discussing that?’

  ‘I can only deal with facts,’ conceded Hawick. ‘Wynn was killed in Hamburg, fact.’ Emphasising ‘killed’ with a severe whisper, Hawick smiled weakly. ‘You had a Latvian contact, fact. Shall we deal with those facts?’

  ‘That fact is, Teddy, that I don’t know why Wynn was terminated,’ said Nick, pitching his weight to the edge of the chair. ‘Something else came along, remember, nothing too serious, just the rape and murder of Angie.’

  ‘This Latvian,’ Hawick said slowly, finding an empty file carousal that he spun slowly, then with increasing force. His gaze however remained constantly on Nick; level, precise, carefully measured, a marksman sighting up his prey. ‘A promising lead?’

  ‘It has potential,’ Nick lied.

  Resenting Hawick’s overbearing condescending approach, Nick said nothing more, but watched Hawick through the debris of so many operations used as training props, boxed like previous lives waiting for a second chance.

  ‘You recorded no contact details for this Latvian as required by protocol,’ Hawick said, his fingers now prowling amongst faded stencils on top of a Gestetner machine.

  ‘There’s nothing to report. Can I leave now? Thanks for the lack of support and inconvenience, by the way,’ he said, suddenly on his feet.

  ‘Sit down,’ Hawick sternly countered, his gaze soft and dewy.

  ‘Is that an order?’

  ‘I’m afraid it is, yes it is,’ he responded after an age. Drifting to the mantelpiece Hawick accepted the logic at his leisure.

  Uncomfortable, restless, Nick had no stomach for Hawick’s mewing concern. Getting to his feet he went to a tiny casement window long rotten, yet somehow managed to inch it apart for some air.

  ‘Perhaps you could give this some attention,’ Hawick said. ‘It is rather serious all said and done.’

  ‘What is it you would like to know?’ he asked, his resentment simmering.

  ‘Your movements between Sunday night and Thursday morning, what were they Nick?’ Wondered Hawick casually; taking his time, pulling out his fob watch, releasing the cover and allowing the details sink in.

  Despite the chill playing down his back and arms, Nick still suffered from the oppressive heat in the room, leaving him no air to breathe.

  ‘Why?’

  Slowly Hawick advanced towards the door. ‘This Latvian source of Wynn’s, care to provide a name?’

  The anger welled up inside Nick, too many hours wasted, the deaths, the needless questions. ‘Why?’

  Undaunted Hawick strode off again, searching with his slender fingers in boxes and trays clogged with dust. ‘Would you like me to tell you, because the police have just recovered his phone from your house? He’s been murdered, care to elaborate on that, Mmm?’ Hawick decreed, his gaze flicking to the door, the time consulted yet again.

  What Latvian would that be wondered Nick, his mind scrabbling for a foothold, attempting to retrace his movements though all he could recover were whisky clouded fragments without knowing which were real, which the product of his imagination.

  ‘It’s been planted,’ said Nick, his voice dancing through the rude light. ‘It’s Moscow,’ he said, realising that his explanation even sounded lame to him.

  ‘I see. I appreciate your concern.’

  No you don’t thought Nick, the only recent concern you’ve ever experienced is when a ticket machine jams on the Tube. Back at the window the cold calmed him. He glanced into the grounds and thought how far away the trees looked, the distant section of perimeter wall; beyond that there would be traffic, the everyday normality he’d shut out for too long.

  Hawick came full circle, stopping in front of the fireplace his arms folded neatly. ‘You’re telling me that you’ve no knowledge of this Latvian, Ivars Skriveski?’

  ‘No, I’ve told you.’ Nick reached him in three strides, felling Hawick with one rapier punch.

  Snatching open the door, he saw Strowther and Motte waiting for him at the bottom of the stairs preparing to detain him. Nick floored Motte with a rising fast blow, Strowther with a powerful elbow to his nose, followed by a single closed-fist punch to the nape of his neck. Nick off and running, avoiding the main stairs. Behind him he could hear Hawick screaming the house down, but Nick never turned, kicking faster. On a landing, an administrative officer had the misfortune to get in Nick’s way and he was sent crashing from a shoulder charge that cracked his collarbone, his files cascading to the floor.

  Out into the grounds Nick ran, walked, ran and walked, zigzagging to a corner of the perimeter wall. Scrambling, digging in his toes he hauled himself over and landed in a crouch, absorbing the shock to his ankles. Straightening up, patting his passports and credit cards in his pocket, he hurried off in the opposite direction to the station, his escape and evasion training taking over, an enemy in what had become a strange and hostile land.

  Outside a pub two miles up the road from Aspley, Nick rang for a taxi using the name of Deacon, making the final call on his phone before dumping it. In Hemel Hempstead, Nick used both credit cards at different cash machines withdrawing three hundred pounds from each. Choosing busy stores where the assistants would be less likely to remember him, Nick bought a pair of swimming trunks, towel, leather hol
dall, and a full change of clothes complete with a stripped knitted hat.

  At the sports centre Nick paid four pounds for a swim, spent five minutes in the pool and left in his new outfit, stuffing two carrier bags full of his old clothes into a bin. Off two different market stalls specialising in electronics, Nick bought three second-hand mobile phones, then bought eight SIM cards from a shop boasting it could unlock any handset. From the bus station he caught the Arriva 550 service to Watford through Kings Langley, took a train between Watford Junction and Heathrow, then a coach into central London. During each leg of his journey from Aspley, Nick began to reassemble details of his days spent drinking; small snatches of memory he pieced together, a jigsaw he’d never complete but it would provide part of the picture. Slowly, some of his movements in those wasted hours became clear.

  Slipping in and out of shops and department stores along Oxford Street, always exiting onto the street through a side door, Nick headed off into the morning laced with rain colder than snow. Running off his jacket it soaked his legs, finding its way into his shoes, until Nick was damp from waist to toes. He was hot, he was cold. Dizzy from hunger or a fever chasing him, the pavement felt soft, his knees uncertain, unsure. He crossed the river by Southwark Bridge and the Thames was as dirty as the sky. A tug nursed a string of barges down stream, their containers packed with rubbish. Brazen gulls whooped and dived around the barges, lifting and falling, as weightless as scraps of paper. Somewhere above him an aircraft thundered low towards the airport, leaving nothing but a whine and a sparkle of light in the dark clouds. Shivering, his shirt a damp stain round his back, Nick pressed on.

  Inside the Imperial War Museum Nick wandered through its bric-a-brac of death, amongst noisy school parties and old soldiers in search of their youth, roaming its galleries seeking out a final resolution. ‘Feeling all right sir?’ An attendant enquired, with just enough sneer to discourage modern lunatics from lingering like ghosts of Bedlam’s past. Perfectly, Nick assured him, slipping away.