by T. M. Parris
Zoe stood in the lift as it raced upwards. Fool! The last thing she wanted was to come face to face with Yunayev himself. She needed to slope off before getting to the apartment door and make a sharp exit, but this damn lift only went to that floor. There must be some stairs and a service elevator, but where? How would she get out of the building without passing the concierge desk? This game was way more complicated than she thought. You had to plan for everything. Anna would have done that. She’d have had a backup plan, a way out.
The lift arrived and the doors opened with a ding. She stepped out, already looking for a fire door or discreet service exit. But too late. The guy was already standing there, at the door of the apartment, waiting for her to arrive. Tall, well dressed, brown hair, grey eyes, younger than she’d pictured him, he seemed amused at her arrival. She stood and faced him. Well, there was nothing else she could do.
“So,” he said, folding his arms and looking down at her. “You’ve come to measure the curtains, I understand.”
She met his gaze and smiled politely.
“Yes, that’s right.”
There was a long pause.
Chapter 23
Fairchild had only been there a few minutes when the concierge called. New curtains? Pretty unlikely, but he allowed the woman up anyway. He needed to know who else apart from him was sniffing around the place.
They stared at each other. She seemed as curious about him as he was about her. Youngish, under thirty for sure, dark skin, dark eyes, lively. Scared yet fearless at the same time.
“I know full well you’re not here to measure curtains,” he said.
“Do you? Well, I know full well this isn’t your apartment.”
He wasn’t expecting that.
“Really? How so?”
“Well, you just don’t sound like an Igor Yunayev to me.”
They’d been speaking French. She didn’t have an accent and he liked to think he didn’t either. He certainly didn’t have a Russian accent. But where did she get that name from?
“Well, you’re wrong,” he said. “This is my apartment.”
She smiled in surprise. “Oh yes?”
“Yes. Yunayev may be the tenant, but he doesn’t own it.”
“And you do?”
“Yes, I do.”
“Since when?”
“Since yesterday.”
“You bought the place yesterday?”
“Effectively. The sale is in progress. But my company now manages it. I made the owner a very generous offer. My company holds a number of property interests in Monaco.”
“Very nice.” She sounded impressed, but also slightly amused as if she were humouring him. He held up the set of keys he’d collected from the previous agent earlier that day.
“Which is why I know that no one has asked for new curtains. We’d be aware if they had.”
“And does Mr Yunayev know about this sale?”
“He’ll have been notified as a sitting tenant. Nothing changes from his point of view. It doesn’t matter who owns the place as long as he can claim to live here and have use of it.”
“So he wouldn’t have a problem with you coming up here and walking about as if you live here?”
She seemed to be enjoying this.
“You think he wouldn’t have a problem with you coming in here either, on some pretext?”
Her chin came up.
“In actual fact,” she said, “this is my place.”
His turn again to be surprised.
“Is it now? How do you figure that?”
“The tenancy agreement is with a company called Smart Russia Holdings. The company pays the rent. I’m the company secretary. I’m one of the people who authorises the payments. Basically, I’m paying the rent here.”
The penny started to drop. Rose Clarke had been in the process of acquiring Grom’s Monaco identity. This woman must be involved in some way. From the moment he’d picked up the call from the concierge, Fairchild had a suspicion that MI6 had a hand in it somehow. And yet she wasn’t acting like a spook, and didn’t even seem to have a particular reason to be here.
An informant, then. She must be Rose’s informant.
“You work for a bank?”
“I might,” she said. “What’s it to you?”
“Well, this is awkward,” he said. “Given we can both claim to be the hosts, should I be inviting you in? Or should it be the other way round?”
She laughed.
“Well, you were here first,” she said. “After you.”
He led the way, and turned to watch her as she stepped into the main reception room. Her eyes travelled from the dripping diamond chandelier to the vast sofas as wide as they were long and piled with cushions, over the expanse of velvet-soft carpet and out to the wall-to-wall sliding doors to the balcony with its view of the perfect horizon of the sea.
“Wow.” She walked in slowly, staring at everything. “I mean, wow.”
“Take a look around,” said Fairchild. “It’s on two levels. The terrace is very impressive. You appear to be here to sightsee, after all.”
She gave him a playful look but didn’t contradict him.
“Yeah, I will, then.”
He fixed a couple of drinks while she wandered, and took them out to the terrace. He found a table and sun loungers in a chest, and got them out. He was sitting comfortably enjoying the view by the time the woman appeared again. The terrace was suitably private for the shy millionaire; no one could see them from below, but they could see out, over the top of the Casino Monte Carlo, the gardens, a broad sweep of Monaco with its glittering high-rises lining the hills, clusters of white boats in and around the harbour, and the sea beyond. He handed her a drink.
“Gin and tonic. I found ice, too.”
“Thanks.”
Finally, a shadow of doubt crossed her face.
“You don’t think Igor Yunayev would mind us helping himself to his drinks like this?”
“I think he’d mind very much. But I don’t think he’s going to find out.”
Fairchild’s agency was due to come in after him and do a thorough service of the place. They’d put everything right. Besides, Grom wouldn’t show up in Monaco. With the Russian state after him, he’d be crazy to make an appearance in any place where he held significant assets. It worried Fairchild more that the Russians would track this place down.
“I don’t think we’ve introduced ourselves,” he said. “My name’s John Fairchild.”
“Well, I’m Zoe Tapoko,” she said. “Very nice to meet you. Hell of a place, isn’t it?”
She stretched out in the lounger. The sun was warm but a breeze kept the air fresh and cool. Faint sounds of the city rose up from below.
“What a life. Imagine living in a pad like this,” she said. “But I guess you do live in a pad like this.”
“Not exactly. If it’s not a rude question, what are you doing here?”
She looked sideways at him.
“Well, I could ask you the same thing, couldn’t I?”
“You could. I may even tell you. But you go first.”
“Me first? Can’t I just enjoy the sun a little?”
“Aren’t you at all afraid?” asked Fairchild.
“Of what?”
“Of being in a place like this with someone like me, when you’ve no idea who I am?”
“Do you think I should be afraid of someone like you?”
“Yes,” he said. “You should. Not everybody like me is as nice as me.”
She sat up, more serious.
“You mean this guy, don’t you? Yunayev.” She held up her drink to acknowledge him in his absence. “I heard he’s not nice at all. Who is he? You met him?”
Fairchild’s mind went back to a freezing lakeside in Russia, a figure on a bench, a man who twisted words and played on your desires and talked himself out of a bullet through the brain. Then to Dimitri, the former gangster who had helped Fairchild, and his horrific death at Grom�
�s hands. Then to Rose, almost certainly Zoe’s source of information about Grom. But the Rose who suffered at Grom’s hands in Georgia, that was surely a different Rose from the person Zoe would know. That Rose would show only a professional exterior and almost certainly use a false name. Zoe had picked up something from her, though, about Grom and his nature. Something had shown through the mask. Zoe must be perceptive. But she couldn’t know how reckless she was being.
“He’s been many things to many people,” said Fairchild. “He’s tricked and deceived all his life. He manipulates, and when that doesn’t work he tortures and kills.”
A silence.
“You didn’t know that?” Fairchild asked. “That he was a murderer?”
She shook her head. “A criminal. A bad man.”
“And who told you about him?”
Zoe’s face turned neutral. She’d been sworn to silence then, about her involvement with Rose, and was keeping it to herself. Good for her.
“If you’re not afraid of him, you should be,” he said. “You should be glad if he doesn’t know your name and has no idea who you are. That’s the way it should be.”
Her smile disappeared.
“The way it should be? Yeah, I know all about that. The guys with the money and the power, the people who decide how it’s going to be, and then people like me. Invisible. Unimportant. Just there to do a job, measure their curtains, move their money around. Well, what if that isn’t the way it has to be? Who says I’m not one of you? Who says I can’t call the shots? Tell people what to do? Live in a place like this? It’s all pre-determined, is it? People like you and people like me? Well.”
She drank her drink and stared moodily out to sea.
“That’s not exactly what I meant,” said Fairchild. “There’s a lot to be said for not being on the radar of people like Yunayev. Do you want to be constantly looking over your shoulder? You have a good life, don’t you? Okay, no penthouse suite, but you’ve got a job, friends.”
“I work in an office that’s a five-minute walk away from here. I handle the money of the people who live in apartments like this. But I’ve never, in my life, ever, been inside a place like this. Why don’t I get this? I’m not a criminal. I’m not a bad person.”
Something had got to this woman, got her questioning things. Or someone.
“I’m curious. Why did you come here today?” he asked.
“I wanted to see. I wanted to see for myself the lives these people lead. This apartment I’m paying for, apparently, with someone else’s money. My name’s on the lease and I’ve never seen it! What’s with that? It doesn’t make sense.”
She was looking out to sea again, rattling the ice in her drink.
“Are you sure that was all there was to it?”
“Sure, that’s all.” A little too casual.
“Well, I wonder if you were trying something out. Just seeing how far you could get with a little bit of information and some face. And it worked. You talked yourself into a penthouse apartment you had no business being in. But it’s a dangerous game to play.”
“Well, you’re playing it. Others play it.”
“I’ve been playing it a very long time. And I spend a lot of time looking over my shoulder. And I’m not sure I had a lot of choice about it.”
“Really?”
She was interested in that. Could he stand to tell her his story? He’d told plenty of other people, if he trusted them, if his instincts permitted him. He liked this woman, had a good feeling about her. But it wasn’t right to lead her into the forest of intrigue and betrayal and secrecy which he inhabited. She was better off out of it. And besides, was it true? Did he really have no choice? He could have walked away from all this at any time, couldn’t he?
He’d piqued her interest, though.
“So, you’re not a criminal?” she asked. “A bad man?”
“I don’t think I’m bad, but not everything I do is legal.”
“Huh.” That seemed to remind her of something. “So what are you about?” she went on. “What’s your story?”
“What’s yours?”
“You don’t want to share, then?”
“Happy to, but you go first.”
“Okay.” She sipped and looked out. “I’m a simple girl. I like the sea. I love my brother. I’m cleverer than people think. I’m fed up of doing what I’m told by people who don’t deserve what they have. Yeah, I guess that’s me. Your turn.”
“Okay, well, I don’t think I’m very simple, but maybe I overcomplicate things. I don’t have a home. I travel around all the time.”
“That’s sad.”
“It’s not sad. It’s what I want. I’m a wealthy person. I guess I have a lot of freedom, but I haven’t used it well. I can be a little – obsessive.”
A short pause.
“And Yunayev?” she asked. “What’s he to you? He must be important for you to buy this place.”
“Yunayev is none of your business. You don’t want to know anything about that man.”
She sat back, deflated.
“Well, I don’t. I mean, there’s nothing in this whole apartment that says anything about the guy. Except that Japanese thing in the bedroom. Everything else looks like it came from a hotel.”
“What Japanese thing?” Fairchild hadn’t even been into all the bedrooms.
“A picture. Blossom trees, mountains, that kind of thing. Quite nice, kind of out of place. What?”
Fairchild was already on his feet. He found it in one of the smaller guest rooms, hanging in an alcove. Zoe was right that it didn’t fit. But it matched exactly the style and period of Fairchild’s own print.
He lifted it off the wall, but it was framed so he couldn’t see the back of it. He replaced it and stood staring. Zoe came in behind him.
“Does it mean something to you?” she asked.
“Yes. Well – I have one just like it. I – it’s important to me. I didn’t know there were any others so similar.”
“Where’s yours, then?”
“Good question. It was in the Monaco Freeport. Right now, I’m not sure.”
He hadn’t even been told yet whether his print was part of the stolen stash. Awaiting full analysis, was the stock response from the clearing agent. He stepped even closer to the print, eyeing every detail, just as he’d done to his own a few days earlier. Seeing this hanging here made the skin on his neck prickle. It must mean something but he had no idea what.
“You know, you never said what you were doing here,” said Zoe, who was watching him. “I told you, but you never told me.”
“I wanted to check it out,” he said. Before Rose arrived with her troops, he added internally. But he didn’t say that part.
“It’s personal, isn’t it?”
“What is?”
“You. This Russian guy. He did something to you, didn’t he?”
Yes, he did something to me, thought Fairchild. He killed my parents. He took my life. Now he’s on the run and I should have the upper hand. I made a promise to end him and I will. But why do I still feel that he’s a step ahead?
He tore his eyes away from the print to look at Zoe.
“Yes,” he said. “It’s personal.”
Chapter 24
Even teeming with visitors, the courtyard had a serenity to it, a symmetry that calmed the soul. Pippin paced its cloister, looking through the regular archways at the ornamental central garden with its tinkling fountain, visitors posing for photographs in front of stonework painted sienna and white.
Did Vincent wander here too? Was he rendered serene by this neat, pleasing outdoor space? He painted it numerous times during his stay here, those haunted weeks, trying to find solace, coping with blood loss and whatever hideous monsters inside his head turned him inside out. He’d stayed in one of the upstairs rooms. It wasn’t a hospital any more, of course. You could tell where he painted the courtyard from. It wasn’t open to the public, that area. But Pippin could find a way up.
/> For now he stood, taking in the colours, the blue of the water, shades of green – jasper and emerald – lush in the garden beds, darker where the ornamental trees bushed out. A delicate scent of flowers reached him, and the sun warmed his face. He closed his eyes. A moment of peace. Then onward.
He had to meet the woman in a cafe. He would have liked to sit outside. That was what he imagined when he suggested it. They could gaze at passers-by, take in the air, imagine a night sky above them full of stars bursting like fireworks, but the woman was already inside, in a corner. Always in corners, they met. He was tired of it.
“Why Arles?” she said. “There are safe houses, places closer than this. You getting paranoid?”
Pippin shrugged. “Maybe.” He wouldn’t be able to make her understand. It was a homecoming, a resting place. It just felt right. It was the kind of thing Vincent would have done. Though he would probably have walked, wearing out the soles of his shoes, sleeping in hedgerows, energised by the ever-changing countryside around him, the colours, the light, the sky.
“So what the fuck happened?” she asked. He almost flinched. Such ugly words, such harshness, such anger. He didn’t want any more ugliness. He wanted to live within beauty and peace from now on. Maybe that was all he’d ever wanted.
“Well?” The woman demanded an answer.
“Gustave,” said Pippin. “Gustave happened. Gustave had a gun. That’s what happened.”
“Where did the guns come from?”
Pippin sighed. “Clem.”
“Didn’t Clem have a gun?”
“Yes, but Clem isn’t Gustave.”
“I’m aware of that. You’re not explaining yourself very well.”
He looked at his orange juice, wishing it was wine. “Clem got us out of there. Gustave is a menace. He got suspicious and rounded on Henri and me.”