by T. M. Parris
“We don’t like games,” it said. “We serious people. We have business with Yunayev. Yunayev thief. Traitor. We don’t like. You help us. Where he come tomorrow?”
She opened her eyes. “I don’t know.”
The tattooed guy punched her in the stomach. She thought she was going to puke. Her legs gave way. If she weren’t being held up she’d have fallen to the floor.
“How you not know? You don’t mess with us.” The voice was louder, harder. “We know about you. Where you work. Where you live. We have information. About everybody. You think you have secret, you think you can run away, we find you. We find your friends, your family. If we want, we kill them. We kill you. If we want. Understand?”
His voice echoed up the stairwell. Where was everybody? Couldn’t anyone help her? Okay then, she was on her own. She had to say something and the truth wasn’t going to satisfy them. What would Anna do?
“All right, he’s coming here,” she said. “But not tomorrow. His plans changed. It’s the day after tomorrow.”
The grip hardened on her chin, forcing her to look straight into the tall man’s eyes.
“After tomorrow when? Where?”
“At the heliport. Coming from Nice airport.”
“What time?”
No hesitation, Zoe. Just keep it rolling. “Late morning. Eleven, twelve, something like that. I’ve got it written down.”
A pause, then: “Where he flying from?”
“Cayman Islands.” The first shady-sounding place to come into her head. “Via Paris.” There were loads of flights every day from Paris to Nice. The two men conferred briefly in Russian, then turned back to her. The tall man came in close and raised his knee. He pressed it against her groin, hard. She squirmed but could go nowhere.
“Yunayev not there, heliport, day after tomorrow,” he said, “we kill you. We kill friends. We kill family.”
He stepped back. The tattooed guy let go and she sank to her knees. They gave her one last baleful glare before leaving her crumpled in the stairwell.
The only sound was her own breathing, great heaving gasps of air. She was trembling all over. Christ, what kind of a mess was she in? Never in her life before had she been threatened like that. It didn’t even sound like a big deal to them. She thought she was so clever, mooching around playing at being a millionaire, but she had no idea the circles these people moved in, who they really were. And she had no excuse for that. Anna said as much at their very first meeting. So did John Fairchild. But it was too late now. She was trapped.
Her phone rang. She shuffled in her bag, hands still trembling. It was Stella.
“Hey,” she said.
“Hi babe, you okay?”
“Sure.” Zoe managed to sound casual.
“Listen, right, this may be nothing, but a guy just came to the door looking for you. Big guy, leather jacket, short hair. An accent, Russian or something. Anyway, I said you were on your way back from work but he didn’t seem very happy. Just hung about outside. Have you pissed someone off or something?”
Shit. Shit, shit, shit. “Is he there now?” Still trying to sound light.
“Yeah, he’s still there. I can see him. He keeps looking up at the window. I don’t like it, Zo. Do you know what’s going on?”
Zoe didn’t answer. A swell of dread was washing over her. We kill your friends. We kill your family. Noah!
Stella was still talking. “Zoe? You still there? Listen, is there something wrong? I’ve barely seen you lately, you just seem to be out all the time. What’s up?”
But Zoe’s mind was elsewhere.
“I’ve got to go, Stella.”
“What?”
“I’ll call you straight back, Stell, promise. It’s just – I’ve got to make another call.”
“You sure you’re all right?”
“Yes, sure! I’ll call you back.”
Zoe hung up. She found Noah’s number but hesitated. She didn’t trust herself not to alarm her little brother. But she needed to know if they were onto him as well.
She sent a text. Hey, bro! Everything okay with you?
He usually replied pretty quickly. He might wonder what it was about, but it wasn’t too alarming. And now for the call she really didn’t want to make. Now she realised what an idiot she’d been, this wasn’t going to be fun at all.
She called Anna.
Chapter 36
Rose sat on the balcony trying to clear her head. The low afternoon sun was glaring in her face. She just couldn’t grasp what had bothered her in Pippin’s room. Yvonne and Ollie were inside, checking out options for a new HQ. This apartment had come through Paris Station, but they needed to sort out a new place themselves. It was the only way to be sure they were clean. Where to go? Being closer to Monaco made sense, but if there were anything in Fairchild’s theory, they would be even further from Marseille. There were too many unknowns, and one of them was lurking in the depths of her own mind.
She called Fairchild. He picked up straight away.
“Where are you?” she asked.
“In Marseille, like I said.” The background chatter sounded like a bar.
“What do you recall about Pippin’s ID card?” She never got a good look at it.
“I have a photo of it.”
“Oh.” Something she should have done.
“Shall I send it to you?”
“Please.”
“Any chance of any of you joining me here? Some help might speed things up.”
“It’s still a very tentative lead, Fairchild. If you turn up something concrete, let me know and we can take it from there.”
“Okay, then. You’ve seen the news, I take it.”
“Yes, the Kremlin announcement. Puts us under extra time pressure.”
“Indeed.”
A stilted conversation full of unasked questions. Fairchild would have liked to know what her team was working on right now. But she wasn’t going to tell him about moped riders and people in red shirts. As she said to the others, she didn’t know who to trust.
Her phone pinged. The photo had arrived. Rose noted with irritation that it dated from the previous evening, Fairchild’s preview visit to Pippin’s room. It was under-exposed and a little blurred. She read all the details on the ID card and enlarged Pippin’s mugshot. And then she saw it.
She ran through it all again in her head: the wine, the Van Gogh letters, the neatness of everything. My God. How could she have missed that?
Her phone rang, her other phone, the one she used for her informants that she answered as Anna. It was Zoe.
“What’s up?”
“Hi Anna. Listen. Something just happened. You’re going to be angry, I know you are.”
Rose didn’t like the sound of this at all.
“Go on.”
“Just now, I was coming out of work and two great big Russian guys grabbed me and pulled me off the street.”
“Christ, Zoe. Did they hurt you?”
“Yeah, a bit, but I’m okay.”
“What did they want?”
“They wanted to know about the guy. Yunayev. Where is he, when is he coming?”
This was mystifying. “Why do they think he’s coming here? And how did they associate you with him?”
Alarm bells were ringing. Did the Russians know about their operation? What else did they know, if they knew about Zoe?
“The thing is…” Zoe hesitated.
“What is it, Zoe?”
“I’ve been foolish. I realise now, but it’s too late!” She was close to tears.
“Tell me, Zoe. I’m sure I can help.”
“They’ve been following me. I didn’t realise. They must have been watching me.”
“But how did they know to watch you, Zoe? How did they you know you had anything to do with it?”
“I went to his flat.”
Rose wasn’t sure she’d heard properly. “Whose flat? Yunayev’s?”
“Yes.”
“What t
he hell for?”
“I wanted to see it. I wanted to see how these people live. I was curious.”
“But how did you get in?”
“I said I needed to measure up for some new curtains and upholstery that he’d ordered.”
“You said that?”
“Yeah. To the concierge.”
“And they just let you in?”
“Kind of.”
Through the shock Rose couldn’t help but be impressed. The woman was obviously a natural blagger.
“It was really the guy who was already there,” Zoe added. “He said it was his place.”
Rose frowned. “What guy?”
“The guy John. He was claiming that he was Yunayev, to start with.”
“John Fairchild?” How could Fairchild not have mentioned this? It sounded like he’d been encouraging the woman, with terrible consequences.
“Did he put you up to this, Zoe?”
“No, no! He was just nice, that’s all. I couldn’t see the harm, Anna! You said yourself, these people hardly ever show up in person.”
“No, Zoe, but other people could. We’re not the only ones after Yunayev. I could have told you that but I thought you were out of it. A one-off, we said!”
“I know, but I got thinking about it all, these people who are criminals, how they make their money. And I went and looked at how much money they have. It’s insane, Anna! Millions of Euros! Billions! It’s madness!”
“Yes, it is, but it’s also dangerous, Zoe. Wait.” Rose was thinking. “If they saw you go into Yunayev’s apartment building, how did they know which apartment you were going to?”
“I went to his yacht as well. His super-yacht. Oh, you should see it, Anna! The size of it!”
Rose’s heart sank. “And they were watching the yacht, weren’t they? How did you talk yourself onto that one, if I might ask?”
“I told them I was his secretary and that he was coming tomorrow and he wanted me to check that everything was okay.”
“And they know this? The Russians? That you claimed to be his secretary?”
Rose could hear Zoe crying. It answered her question.
“Zoe, listen. I’ll bring you in. We’ll arrange to meet and I’ll take you to a safe place, okay? But first, just tell me what you said to them. These guys. What did you tell them?”
She was tearful but somehow pulled herself together. “I said it was the day after tomorrow.”
“The day after tomorrow? What was?”
“That Yunayev is coming to Monaco. They wouldn’t have believed the truth. So I said something that would buy a bit more time.”
Good girl. She was a natural. What a way to discover it, though.
“What exactly did you tell them?”
“That he’d be arriving at the heliport in the morning, from Nice airport. Off a flight from Paris.”
“Okay. Okay.” That wasn’t so bad. Quite useful, in fact. They could pinpoint exactly where these Russians would be at a specific time. Her team might be able to tail them.
“And they let you go then?”
“Yes. But – they said if he isn’t there they’ll kill me!”
“Well, they won’t, because you’ll have disappeared by then. You’ll be gone.”
Rose was thinking furiously. They must be watching Zoe all the time. Bringing her in would be tricky.
“And then they said they’d kill my friends and family!” Now Zoe’s voice was rising. “And then Stella phoned and said there’s someone outside our flat! And I’ve texted Noah but he hasn’t texted back! Oh, God, Anna! What have I done?”
Her voice dissolved into sobs. This was serious.
“We can fix this, Zoe,” she said. “Listen to me. I’m going to send you some instructions. You follow them exactly. They’re to make sure you’re not being followed. I will come and meet you and I will take you somewhere safe. We’ll look out for Noah. Don’t go home. Tell Stella to stay indoors. If she keeps out of their way she should be fine. Follow the instructions, Zoe. Just do that.”
Zoe’s voice sounded tight. “But why hasn’t he texted? He always replies straight away.”
“Did these Russians mention him by name?”
A pause. “No.”
“Or say something specifically about your brother?”
“No, I guess not.”
“So they might not even know about him. Maybe Noah just forgot his phone or ran out of battery or something. My people will go over there to check up on him. You need to do what’s necessary to get yourself to safety. You hear me?”
Silence.
“Zoe?”
Silence, then: “Yeah, I hear you.”
“Okay, then. Look out for my text.”
Rose updated Ollie and Yvonne then hastily compiled a crash meet plan for Zoe, who was now their top priority. What had come over her? People had no idea who they were dealing with. What troubled her the most was Fairchild’s involvement. Zoe was naïve and too bright for her own good, stuck in a job she could do with her eyes closed. She had an excuse for getting curious, and maybe some of the things Rose said tempted her too much. That was a risk of the job – open someone’s eyes to the world of secrecy and they could get caught up in the possibilities it offered. But Fairchild? If he’d encouraged this young woman to make a target of herself, with people like Grom and the muscle men of the Kremlin hanging around, there was no forgiving that at all.
Chapter 37
Zoe was following the instructions. She was sitting in a coffee shop waiting. Anna’s text was clear and detailed: stay in Monaco, don’t go home. Zoe rarely stayed in Monaco into the evening. It was still light but it all seemed unfamiliar to her. At a certain time, about half an hour from now, she should go for a walk. The route, in and out of various places, took her into the Japanese Garden. Zoe should see Anna at some point there but she shouldn’t react. Look at what Anna’s doing. If she has her phone up to her right ear, carry on to the meet point, a bar near the casino, and arrive fifteen minutes later. If no phone, go back to the coffee shop and await further instructions. Easy. But she had to wait. Anna had to get here, see, from whatever place she was in. So Zoe had time to kill. She’d ordered a tea; it took longer to drink than coffee. She thought about something stronger but decided against it.
She needed to think. Written instructions were fine, but what did it all mean? This Yunayev was wanted by the Russian government. They were prepared to kill to get to him. The way those men handled her in that stairwell, they were more than capable. They were goons, those guys, street mafia, like Epée and his gang but way more serious. And they were acting for the Russian government, so they said. Yunayev was a thief and a traitor. That was no surprise, though the people who were after him seemed just as ruthless.
Russia was an influential country, right? They have mafia across the world. They have money, lots of it. Now Zoe started to comprehend what she’d done. She’d associated herself closely with a Russian undesirable. She’d claimed to be his secretary. As long as the Russians wanted Yunayev, they’d be on her back. And she had no real idea who Yunayev was, where he was, what he was going to do. He could be on the run from these people for years, for all she knew. And they’d be onto Stella and Noah, everyone in her life. What would happen to them? Fool, Zoe! If your little game only affected you, it would serve you right. But she’d endangered other people too.
At least Noah had texted her back now. He sounded fine as far as she could tell. He was at training as usual. She’d phoned Stella back earlier, just after speaking to Anna, but now she called her again.
“Is the guy still there?”
“Yeah, right outside.”
“Listen, I’m not coming home tonight, Stell.”
“So where are you going?”
“Not sure yet. But not home.”
“What’s going on, Zoe? What’s up with you?”
“Listen, I don’t know yet. There’s stuff happening, but it’ll be fine. That guy, he hasn’t come to the
door again, has he?”
“No, he’s just out there, hanging around. He looks like a bouncer, Zoe. Massive. What should I do?”
“Nothing. Don’t do anything. Just stay in, make sure everything’s locked. If he comes to the door or does anything weird, call the police. But he probably won’t. It’s me they’re after. That’s why they’re out there.”
“Who’s they, Zoe? Why is anyone after you?”
“Hon, I can’t explain now. But I’ll be okay. Just keep an eye on him and stay tight. I’ll explain when I next see you.”
But the thought in her head as she hung up was, But I might never see you again.
She looked at the phone in her hand. Russians were hackers, weren’t they? Could they be listening to her calls? What did they know about her? The two heavies had just followed her, hadn’t they? They saw her at the apartment building and then again at the yacht. It sounded like they’d spoken to Freddy. She hoped he was okay. But somehow they had her home address. How would they know that? This was a whole world Zoe knew nothing about. Anna knew this world. Anna had texted instructions to this phone. If Anna thought the phone was okay, maybe it was.
Zoe let her gaze move around the coffee shop. Someone here was probably watching her. That was why Anna sent instructions – to throw them off before Zoe and Anna actually met. Most people were chatting away or tapping on a device or something. Apart from two guys in leather jackets sitting opposite each other at a corner table. A backpack was on the table between them. They both had coffees but nothing much to say to each other. Maybe it was them. But what did she know? What was in the bag? A listening device? Or was that paranoia? Come on, Zoe, everything you know about this stuff is from films. You’re out of your depth, girl. You’ve lost control here.
She checked the time. She should start walking in fifteen minutes. Those guys could follow her. How was she going to prevent it?
Shit. She texted Noah again, asking him to call her before he left the club that night to go home. Got something to tell you, bro. She left it at that. He’d do it. Then she called Anna.
“Where are you?” Anna sounded breathless. She was walking.