Corruption!

by Elizabeth Ducie

  Francine Matheson was the other side of the barrier, next to a young woman with the familiar features of Down syndrome. They were both smiling broadly and waving enthusiastically. Charlie walked towards them, pulling her case behind her, and found herself engulfed in a tight hug.

  “It’s wonderful to see you again,” said Francine. “I’m so glad you’re here.”

  “Erm, not wishing to sound ungrateful for the welcome,” said Charlie, “but it’s only been two weeks since you were in the UK. It’s not as though we’ve been separated for years.”

  Her friend pulled a rueful face and then grinned at her.

  “I know, but I was worried you’d change your mind and not come.” At this point the other woman tugged at Francine’s sleeve and she turned towards her with a smile. “Charlie, let me introduce Lydia Vladimirovna Dimitriov. She’s Anton’s sister and was so excited to hear about your visit, she insisted on coming to meet you.”

  Lydia suddenly seemed to go all shy and hung her head, so that her long curly hair fell forward to hide her eyes. But she shoved forward a single rose wrapped in cellophane.

  “Dobre din,” she whispered.

  “Dobre din,” responded Charlie, taking the rose and feeling herself start to flush bright red. Francine saw her confusion and laughed.

  “Look around you, Charlie,” she said. “It’s the classic way of welcoming a guest arriving in Russia.” And when Charlie glanced at the crowds surrounding them she saw, sure enough, people were giving and receiving roses all over the place. She relaxed and grinned at her friend. Lydia looked up at her and started saying something in Russian. Charlie shook her head.

  “I’m afraid we’ve more or less exhausted my knowledge of the Russian language at dobre din,” she said apologetically.

  Francine put her hand on Lydia’s arm.

  “En français, ma petite,” she said. Then looking at Charlie, said, “I seem to remember your French is pretty good?” Charlie nodded and felt relieved as Lydia switched effortlessly into fluent, unaccented French. “Anton is a real Francophile,” Francine explained, “and the whole family is fluent. You’ll be able to communicate with all of them.”

  The three women headed towards the car park, with Lydia keeping up a flow of questions: about Charlie’s flight from England; about where she lived; did she know the Queen; and was it foggy in London today? Charlie was particularly confused by the last question, but Francine told her the standard textbooks in all Russian primary schools talked about foggy London, even though it was a situation that hadn’t existed since the 1950s.

  The journey from the airport to the apartment was less than fifteen kilometres but due to the heavy traffic, took the best part of an hour, and for the most part was along a wide highway through the countryside. Reading the road signs, Charlie could see that they were driving on the A118, a major dual carriageway that traversed the outskirts of the city to the west, before crossing the River Neva and following the course of a series of canals towards the city centre.

  “You can see why they call St Petersburg the Venice of the North,” said Francine. “If we get the chance while you’re here, we’ll take one of the boat trips around the canals and out onto the river. It really is the best way to see the city.”

  Finally, they turned onto a main thoroughfare lined with magnificent churches and other buildings.

  “Nevsky Prospekt,” said Lydia with pride in her voice. Francine pointed out the ornate colonnaded façade of the Grand Hotel Europe. Then they turned off into a narrow side street and pulled up in front of a discreet-looking building.

  The seventh-floor apartment, which Francine had explained was two smaller ones knocked into one, occupied the whole of the top floor of the building. Anton and his mother were sitting chatting in the lounge, where large windows overlooked the suburbs, with a glimpse of green countryside on the horizon.

  Mama D said she was delighted to meet Charlie.

  “I sometimes worry Francine will be bored with no-one but Lydia and me to talk to during the day,” she said. “It will be lovely for her to have someone from her own country here for a while.”

  Anton was pleasant if a little distant. He shook Charlie’s hand and asked about her journey.

  “I understand this is your first visit to Russia,” he asked after they’d exhausted the topic of airports and flight delays.

  “Yes, that’s right,” she said. “I want to get to know a bit about the place, the culture and the people. I’m hoping to do a much longer trip next year, so this is something of a research visit really.” Mama D and Lydia accepted her story without question, and Charlie felt the familiar momentary stab of guilt at deceiving such nice people who were outside of her investigation. As always, she then acknowledged to herself that this was her job, some deception was inevitable—and moved on.

  But Anton was a different matter. He seemed wary of her, and Charlie got the distinct impression he didn’t fully believe her cover story. She would have to be very careful what she said in his hearing, especially about Suzanne, their projects and the Jones Technical Partnership. Although she was used to undercover assignments, it wouldn’t take a genius to figure out she wasn’t there just for a holiday.

  Chapter 15

  The following day, Lydia offered to miss her regular painting class, in order to help Francine ‘show her friend the sights of St Petersburg’ but it was a half-hearted offer. She confided she had a picture she particularly wanted to finish in time for Mama D’s birthday the following month. Francine and Charlie assured her she should go to the class, and she left home happily with her sketchbook under her arm.

  Mama D declared she was ‘too old for sightseeing’ and Anton had left for the office before the rest of them had breakfast. Francine and Charlie set off on their own and headed for the familiar green and white Winter Palace, home of the world-famous Hermitage Museum.

  “After all,” Francine said, as they passed through the turnstile into the magnificently gilded entrance hall and gazed at the ceiling painting of the gods at Olympus, “you are supposed to be a tourist, and you can’t possibly come all this way without seeing some of the beauties of this city.”

  “Who knows,” grinned Charlie, “I may even buy a matryoshka doll to take back to Annie. Assuming,” she went on with a bit of a grimace, “she’s talking to me when I get home.”

  They followed the rest of the tourists up the Jordan Staircase, keeping to the red carpet laid to protect the polished marble from the feet of the myriad visitors. Francine told Charlie what she’d found in the office while Anton was away the previous week. A government contract Anton’s company had recently won, to supply codeine phosphate tablets to a company in Africa.

  “But there was something not right about the whole thing,” she concluded. “It’s not a product that’s a major part of the company’s portfolio. In fact, they don’t even make it themselves; they import it from a company in Kharkiv, just over the border in Ukraine.”

  At that moment, they reached the aptly named Malachite Room in the eastern corner of the first floor of the palace and the sight that greeted them pushed all thought of pharmaceuticals temporarily out of their minds.

  “Wow,” said Charlie.

  “Beautiful, isn’t it?” said Francine, seeing the look on her friend’s face as she stared at the pillars, monumental fireplace, desktops and artefacts that gave the room its name. The sun streamed through the ceiling-high windows overlooking the Neva River, reflecting on the heavy gilding of the doors, walls and ceiling, and lighting up the banded green mineral. “This was the drawing room built for Alexandra Fyodorovna, wife of Nicholas I.”

  After they’d finished their tour, they headed for the coffee shop on the ground floor, and Francine continued with her story.

  “When I saw the details of that government tender, I really found it hard to understand. The quantities being traded are huge. But it’s not one of their standard products, so I can’t understand how Anton managed to win the contrac
t. And the money involved is significant too.”

  “And Anton’s importing the drugs from Ukraine and then re-exporting them out to Africa?” Charlie asked, trying to get the logistics straight in her head. “Why would they do it like that? Why not export from Ukraine direct to Africa?”

  “My question precisely,” said Francine. “It might be because it’s a government contract, so Russian money is paying for it, but even so, it seems a little convoluted.”

  Charlie then brought Francine up to date on what she’d learned about Boris Lechkov.

  “There’s nothing on him directly. But he’s got some very questionable contacts and he’s certainly a person of interest for several different organisations. Even my old bosses at MI6 have heard of him.” She paused and then asked, “What do you think’s going on, then? With your political background, you must have seen things like this before?”

  “Oh yes, I have. And from my experience, it usually means there’s something more than a little illegal about the whole thing.” She stared at Charlie in silence for a minute, before slowly shaking her head. “Much as I hate to say this about anything Anton’s involved in, I suspect there may be some kind of scam going on. I just can’t work out yet what it is.”

  Chapter 16

  “Any chance I can have a look around your factory while I’m here, Anton?” said Charlie. “I’ve worked in quite a few manufacturing facilities over the years, but usually for food or engineering items. I’ve never seen a pharmaceutical one.”

  After supper that evening, the five of them were sitting out on the balcony finishing off an excellent bottle of Georgian red and watching the sun go down over the city. Whatever reservations Anton had harboured about Charlie’s reason for being in Russia, they seemed to have dissipated. He was quite animated when he returned from work that afternoon and asked to hear all about their day. His knowledge of Russian history was extensive, and he’d added quite a lot of additional details to what they’d learned during their visit to the Hermitage. And he was so relaxed, Charlie thought it was worth having a go at getting into the company, even though she wasn’t sure exactly what she would gain from it. Francine hadn’t been aware she was going to try this approach and shot Charlie a look of alarm. But to Charlie’s surprise and Francine’s evident relief, Anton agreed.

  “Although I’m not sure we’ve got anything much to offer in the way of sightseeing, and certainly nothing to compare with the Malachite Room,” he said. “But if you’re willing to make an early start on Monday morning, you can travel in with me—and then Francine can pick you up when we’ve finished.” He looked across at his long-term guest and smiled. “Unless you want to come in first thing and have a look around too?” he said.

  But Francine shook her head emphatically.

  “No thanks. I’ve already seen the factory; and I’m going to my Pilates class at nine; I’ll pick you up after that, Charlie, if that’s okay?”

  “We’ve not seen anything of your friend Boris for a while, Anton,” said his mother a few minutes later. “Is he away?”

  Anton nodded.

  “Yes, I heard today. He’s visiting his family in Kharkiv. He won’t be around for at least the next couple of weeks.”

  “Good,” muttered Lydia from the corner of the balcony where she was sketching the skyline in her notebook. She looked across at Charlie and wrinkled her nose. “I don’t like him!”

  If Anton heard Lydia’s comments, he chose to ignore them. But Charlie wondered if it was the absence of the mysterious Boris that had improved Anton’s temper and made him so agreeable to her visit.

  The visit to Petrovpharm was interesting in that it was the first time Charlie had visited a pharmaceutical factory anywhere in Eastern Europe. It was located in a built-up residential area quite near the centre. Anton agreed with her when she suggested if they were building it today, they probably wouldn’t get permission for such an industrial enterprise right in the middle of the city.

  “And as it is, the environmental people and the safety people are very hot on the types of activities we carry out on this site,” he went on.

  The façade was starting to show its age quite drastically.

  “I’m trying to find a team of specialist builders who can do some subtle repairs for me, but it’s proving rather difficult,” he said. “I may have to bring them in from outside Russia.”

  “And that’s not going to be easy, what with the visa requirements and the like,” said Charlie. “I would think that sort of building company would struggle to deal with the Russian systems.”

  “Quite.”

  However, once through the ornate gates, it was a very different story. The site was quite deep, going right through to a parallel street a block across from the frontage. The buildings were arranged around a central courtyard where, Anton told her, lorries came to deliver raw materials and collect finished product for distribution.

  Charlie climbed out of the car and looked around her. To the left of the main gate and extending along the left-hand side of the site was the warehouse, a huge L-shaped building several storeys high. Francine had explained that Anton’s company not only manufactured drugs, but also bought them from other factories for onward sale.

  “In fact, the wholesale side of the business is becoming much larger volume than the manufacturing,” she’d added.

  To the right of the main gate was the laboratory block.

  “Although,” said Anton, “it should more correctly be called the quality department these days.” He shook his head. “When I bought this place back in the early 1990s, life was very different. There was no quality assurance; not even any quality control as a function. The laboratory carried out tests at the behest of manufacturing and it was the factory manager who looked at the results and decided whether the drugs were okay to sell or not.”

  “That must have been a bit of a conflict of interest,” said Charlie.

  “Well, yes and no, really. There were so many rules and regulations, different specifications set by the government, it was quite difficult for them to get away with anything. But of course, it’s all changed now. We’re very much into the twentieth century, with quality assurance ruling the roost.”

  “Don’t you mean twenty-first century?” asked Charlie, but Anton raised an eyebrow at her and smile wryly.

  “Let’s not get too carried away,” he said.

  On the side wall to the right of the site was the administration building where Anton had his office. And along the whole of the back wall was the factory itself. Like the rest of the buildings, it had been rebuilt in the past twenty years and looked to be in good condition. It was a two-storey building with a bank of massive machinery ranged across the roof.

  “You’ve got some impressive air conditioning plant up there,” said Charlie. “Is it local, or did you have to bring in one of the big boys from Western Europe?”

  Anton looked surprised.

  “Are you interested in the engineering side?” he asked. “I thought you’d be more interested in seeing the factory and the conditions for the workers.”

  “Well yes, that’s my main interest, obviously, but I’ve learned quite a bit of the engineering side of things over the years. And I’ve always been interested in what goes on in the background; what makes a factory tick, as it were.”

  “Well in that case, I’ll get my engineer to give you a tour before you go. He’ll be delighted to show off his pride and joy to a visitor.”

  The visit took a couple of hours. They started in the warehouse and Charlie tried hard to remember the names on some of the boxes. Many of them contained standard products like paracetamol and antibiotics.

  “Although we don’t make those ourselves,” said Anton, “that would contaminate our plant and stop us making anything else. So, we buy them in.”

  But at one end of the warehouse, near the packing area, was a collection of drums labelled codeine phosphate, the painkiller Francine had told Charlie about on her first day. She
tried not to show too much interest in these but noticed a destination sticker bearing the name of a port in East Africa.

  From the warehouse, they moved on to the factory itself. It manufactured both tablets and liquids and Charlie had seen enough factories to know Anton had installed the most modern of facilities with state-of-the-art protection both for the product and for the workers.

  “The regulations over here aren’t as stringent yet as they are in Europe or in the States,” he told her, “but I reckon it’s only a matter of time before we catch up with the rest of the world and at that point, it’ll be the companies which have made the investment who will survive.” They were standing on an enclosed walkway at the end of the building, high up near the roof. It gave them a great view of the factory without having to get changed or enter the clean rooms.

  They popped in to the laboratory, once again filled with modern equipment. Although, to Charlie, they were just so many metal boxes where samples went in one end and results spewed out the other. And they finished with the promised visit to the engineering department where a grinning young man in the cleanest overall Charlie had ever seen took great delight in leading her up a narrow staircase to the roof, where he proceeded to explain the workings of the air conditioning units. Such detail did he go into that Charlie was quite relieved when from their lofty position atop the building she saw the main gate open and Francine drive in. Thanking the young engineer for his time, she headed back down the staircase and out into the yard.

  After calling into the office to thank Anton for his hospitality and agreeing to see him at dinner time that evening, the two women climbed into the car and drove out of the site. At the end of the street, a lorry was drawn up outside a shop, making a delivery. The street was narrow and there was a delay in getting past. As they sat waiting, Charlie glanced out of the window. What she saw made her clutch Francine’s arm.

  “Stop, Francine, we need to stop. Can you get Viktor to pull up over there and park?”