Blood Red City

by Rod Reynolds

  He gestured to the chair opposite, frowning as he finished reading something on his screen.

  She dropped the Post-it note in front of him and sat down.

  ‘What’s this?’

  ‘Someone left it for me.’

  ‘What?’ He lifted it up by one corner. ‘Seriously?’

  ‘Guess we should’ve expected it. Amount of time I spend in here.’

  He stared at her, his eyes alive as he processed it. Then he crumpled it into a tight ball. ‘Fuck’s sake. They’re like children.’

  She watched him drop it into the bin. ‘I thought you’d be more worried.’

  He clasped his hands together and lifted them up to his chin. ‘It’s idle gossip. No one knows.’

  She brought her thumbnail to her mouth and chewed the corner. ‘So? What’s up?’

  ‘Is it raining?’

  ‘What?’ She followed his gaze to her wet hair. ‘Oh. I came straight from the gym.’ She crossed her legs. ‘And look, I know I was a bit late tonight, but—’

  ‘I didn’t get you in here for a bollocking.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘So Sasha was due to fly to LA tomorrow to cover the MTV Awards. She’s had to drop out.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Schedule conflict.’

  The words were loaded, inviting questions, but she couldn’t read where this was going, so she waited for him to carry on.

  He picked up a pen and twirled it. ‘I want you to go in her place. You’ll be gone for five days.’

  She sat back slowly in her chair. ‘I’m not exactly MTV’s audience.’

  ‘And Sasha is?’

  ‘No, but, she’s willing to play that game.’

  He took a sharp breath. ‘It’s basically a jolly. The work off the back of it is only a couple of pieces; it’s all pictures and video. You go to the parties, you hang out … The company covers all of it.’

  ‘I know, but…’

  ‘But?’

  She thought about where she’d been two hours before, tailing a man who may have saved her life to a council estate because she couldn’t trust him. Mirror trades. Andriy Suslov. Paulina. Tammy. ‘It’s a bit sudden.’

  He tossed the pen onto his pad. ‘I picked you because I trust you and I thought you’d be able to go on short notice. Do you know how many of that lot out there would jump at a chance like this?’ He tipped his head towards the newsroom.

  ‘Yeah and I don’t want to sound ungrateful. It’s just with everything…’

  ‘I told you, the lawyers said you’ve got to leave it alone.’

  ‘You knew I wouldn’t just walk away.’

  He leaned forward over his desk. ‘That’s exactly what I expected you to do. And I told you why, and the wider implications. Two days ago you were in here, in tears, because someone tried to kill you. I’m bending over backward to take you out of harm’s way.’

  She uncrossed her legs to plant her feet on the floor. ‘That’s why you’re sending me? To get me out of the way?’

  ‘Would it be the worst thing in the world to be somewhere else while things blow over?’

  ‘Is that what we do now? Just wait for things to blow over?’

  ‘Are you fucking kidding me?’

  ‘Are you?’

  He got up and went around behind his chair, gripping the back of it, his head bowed. ‘I’m doing this for you, and I make no apologies for it. I care about you, and I don’t want to see you get hurt.’

  She was halfway to her feet, but the sincerity in his voice stopped her dead.

  ‘When did you last go home, Lydia?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘There’s a roomful of journos out there, did you think no one would notice?’

  ‘Are you talking about me or us?’ She pointed to the crumpled Post-it.

  His cheeks hollowed.

  ‘Why has anyone else got a right to my fucking business?’ she said.

  ‘Something’s gone very wrong when one of my team is afraid to go home. I’m not just going to stand by and watch.’

  ‘Would you be treating me like this if I was a man?’

  ‘If the danger was the same, absolutely.’

  She looked at the windows and the lights beyond, breathing, letting his words sink in. ‘Can I have some time to think about it at least?’

  He bent down and opened his drawer, then pulled out a small plastic folder and tossed it across the desk to her. ‘Sure. Flight leaves at half-two this afternoon.’

  The street leading from Tottenham Court Road to Simon Shelby’s office stank of piss. The Grange Hotel backed onto it, and its recessed back doors and fire exits were apparently a magnet for the caught-short.

  Stringer waited a little way along from where it met Bloomsbury Square. It was just past seven in the morning and he’d been there thirty minutes already. The Tottenham Court Road Tube was the closest station to Shelby’s offices, so chances were he’d come from that direction, but he had one eye on the far side of the square, in case he made the longer walk from Holborn.

  His phone rang. Milos’s number.

  ‘You got my message?’

  ‘Yeah, bro, you keep some funny hours.’

  ‘One more job for you.’

  ‘I’m listening.’

  ‘I need records for a mobile number – specifically a list of calls made and received. Can you do it?’

  He sniffed. ‘Same answer as always: lemme put it out there and see what comes back. Who you after?’

  He read out the number he had for Dalton, praying it was his only phone. ‘I only need the last week.’ In truth, he only needed the last few days – but it was cleaner to ask for a week. ‘How much?’

  ‘Dunno, never had this one before. Leave with.’

  ‘Thanks. Call me soon as.’

  ‘Yeah, look, there’s something else.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘We done some biz together, so I ain’t gonna front you on this.’

  ‘On what?’

  ‘Your name been pinging around.’

  ‘My name?’

  ‘Yeah, your real name.’

  He thought back to the pub, Milos’s verbal wink when he’d called him Rob, the alias he’d always used with him. ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘Don’t take it personal, but I ain’t get dirty with mans without knowing who I’m dealing with, feel me?’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘It’s just a thing, you know? Precaution.’

  ‘Make your point.’

  ‘Someone’s looking for info on Michael Stringer. Financials, emails, phones, personal, everything that’s going.’

  He pressed the phone to his ear, turning to speak into the wall. ‘Who?’

  ‘Come on, man, it’s all anonymous. Some username. And even that’s probably someone playing middleman, same as I do for you.’

  It was a stupid question, Suslov the only answer. ‘How long’s this been out there?’

  ‘Day or two, but I only seen it last night.’

  ‘Why didn’t you fucking tell me?’

  ‘Easy, bro, I just did. This shit supposed to be on the down low – but I figure you put a decent amount of green my way.’

  ‘Can you shut it down?’

  He sucked in a breath. ‘Nope. Anyway, job might’ve been done already.’

  His emails. Exchanges with Lydia Wright – times and places. Her no-show the night before… ‘Speak to them. Take the job, then sit on it.’

  ‘I can’t do that, bruv, people know it ain’t what I do.’

  ‘Then subcontract it to someone who can.’

  ‘Would you take a job if you knew you had to screw it up, your line of work? Ain’t no one wants to have their rep busted that way.’

  He turned around, checking the other approach. ‘So there’s nothing I can do?’

  ‘Change your passwords, man. Your pin numbers. Guessing you ain’t a social-media cat, but if I’m wrong, delete your accounts. Don’t know what to tell you outside of
that. Someone’s coming for you in a big way.’

  He planted his hand on the wall, steadying himself. ‘Alright. Let me know about that other thing, yeah? And thanks.’

  He cut the call and Googled the switchboard number for Lydia’s office. He tapped it into his phone and listened to the dial tone. ‘Come on, come on…’

  Someone answered and put him through. Another dial tone. A glance along the street.

  ‘Examiner.’

  ‘It’s me. Are you alright?’

  Silence on the line. Then: ‘What do you mean?’

  He swallowed. ‘After last night. When you didn’t show, I thought…’

  Another pause. ‘What?’

  ‘Listen, someone’s trying to hack me. My emails and everything else. I just got a tip-off.’

  ‘Who?’

  He almost said Suslov without thinking. ‘I don’t know. I’ve got to go, I just wanted to warn you because of how they did Brent Cross. Take my number, if you get an email from me, call me to confirm it’s genuine.’

  She didn’t say anything, and he knew then it was falling apart. He read out his number anyway. ‘I’ll be in touch.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘Be safe.’ He went to end the call but she spoke again, faint.

  ‘Michael?’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘You too.’

  Lydia put the phone down and stared at the screen again, his voice ringing in her ears: ‘Be safe.’ All the doubt crowding her; her trust as a rope, frayed to the final threads – but still she couldn’t bring herself to cut them.

  She had a dozen tabs open, each one linked to the previous, none of them read through to the end. The type blurred when she looked at it.

  No answers. No clarity. The travel papers Stephen gave her were on the side of her desk. She was due at the airport in less than six hours. Five days away didn’t sound like much, but it was more than just the time; it was final acceptance she’d drop the story. Call it what it was: an ultimatum from the business. Bundling it with flight tickets and VIP passes didn’t change that truth.

  She shut her browser down, leaving just her inbox on the screen. Half an hour until she finished for the night, ordinarily a cause for minor celebration, now a prompt to remind her she couldn’t go home even if she wanted to.

  Dietmar Stettler’s old email was open on the screen. Her eyes moved over it without thinking, but then something started resonating.

  The words he’d used. She reread the message, but it was just the one telling her to email him with a good time to call. Something else…

  ‘Financier’. The word he’d used to describe Andriy Suslov when they spoke. The scales falling away from her eyes at last. ‘Secretive American financier’ – a phrase from her notes on another story. She double-clicked to open her Goddard file, sitting in the documents folder just one step removed from its former location, dead centre on her desktop. It contained hundreds of files; she ran a search for ‘Andriy Suslov’ and watched the bar inch across the screen. It finished and threw up one result – an email chain from the mayor’s office from a few years before, as innocuous an exchange as could exist: Goddard swapping emails with go-betweens at an American bank, arranging a meeting with their client who was flying in from New York – Mr Andriy Suslov. She sent the document to the printer, but the gist of it was already coming back to her. Dietmar had called Suslov Ukrainian, and that was what’d thrown her off the scent; in fact he held dual nationality and was based in the States.

  Suslov meeting with Goddard three years prior. She ran to the stuffy alcove where the printers were stashed, four big machines that made the windowless room reek of toner. She snatched the papers off the tray and stood, not knowing which way to turn. Screaming to tell the one person left who might care. Feeling as alone as she ever had in her life.

  Shelby came from the other direction after all. Stringer spotted him on the far side of the square and set off towards him at pace.

  He intercepted him a few doors short of his office. Shelby didn’t notice him until he was almost in his face, looking startled when Stringer stopped hard in front of him.

  ‘Hello, Simon.’

  The shock showed in his eyes, along with signs of recognition.

  ‘Yesterday. I was with the journalist.’

  Shelby concentrated on putting his phone away, as if success might mean he could crawl into his own pocket next to it. ‘Yes?’

  ‘Simon Felix Shelby. Age fifty-three, home address, twenty-seven Park Road, Twickenham. Divorced, lives alone, in a house that’s way too big for one. Two grown-up children, Megan and David. Attended the London Oratory School, then UCL. Avid cricket and rugby fan, tends to holiday with the Barmy Army on organised tours to watch England overseas.’

  ‘Who are—?’

  ‘Specialist in tax law, particularly in regard to incorporation services for offshore entities. A respected professional in his field, informally known as Andriy Suslov’s money wizard. Reputed ties to pan-global money-laundering schemes, including the Azerbaijani Laundromat and, now it turns out, the mirror-trading scandal. Get the point yet?’

  ‘No. Who—?’

  ‘I’d never heard of you until this time yesterday. Now I know what you had for breakfast. By the end of the day, I’ll know shit you don’t know about yourself.’

  ‘You’re a journalist, like the other one?’

  ‘No, Simon. I work for Suslov, same as you.’

  Shelby put his head down and stepped around him to go. Stringer put his arm out to stop him. ‘I said I work for Suslov, Simon. You’re not walking away from that.’

  Shelby looked sideways at him, eyes jumping from place to place. ‘What is this about?’

  ‘Jamie Tan.’

  Shelby’s mouth curled downward before he could stop it.

  ‘You admit knowing him, then? Good.’

  ‘I never said—’

  ‘The people that killed him used a car registered to Withshaw. Suslov to you to Tan – make the connections for me.’

  ‘I’m leaving now. If you touch me again I’m calling the police.’

  ‘You move and I’ll torch your house. Look at me and think about whether I mean it.’

  Shelby stared at Stringer’s chest, paralysed. Trying to summon the will to move, the simple action of putting one foot in front of the other now a gamble he couldn’t bring himself to take. He rubbed his forehead with his palm. ‘I’m aware of that name but nothing more.’

  ‘You’re a director of Withshaw.’

  Shelby looked incredulous, rocking on stilt legs. ‘I’m a paper-director for numerous companies, it’s the nature of what I do.’

  Stringer shook his head. ‘Suslov hired me to compromise Jamie Tan. Tan was moving money out of Russia wholesale – that puts him firmly in your sandbox. What’s Suslov’s interest in him?’

  ‘I have no idea.’

  ‘Where is Suslov now?’

  ‘I wouldn’t know. New York, Paris, Dubai…’

  ‘Then you get him here for a meeting.’

  ‘Impossible. Andriy doesn’t come to you, you go to Andriy. He’s dragged me halfway around the world for a five-minute meeting before.’

  Stringer looked at the man’s face, the sun reflecting white off his glasses.

  He grabbed him by the back of the neck and rammed his head into the black railings next to them.

  Shelby let out a cry like a dying animal. Stringer kept hold of his collar and wheeled him back around to face him, checking the street as he did so; still empty. Shelby’s glasses had fallen to the pavement and there was a line of blood trickling into his right eye.

  ‘Would he come to London if he heard you’d been killed, Simon?’

  Shelby tried to blink the blood away, his face bleached of any colour, making the crimson rivulets on his forehead all the more vivid.

  ‘Find a way to get him here. Do not mention my name. You have until the end of the day.’ He stuffed a piece of paper with a phone number on it in hi
s suit pocket. ‘Text me on this number with the details.’

  Lydia worked through every combination of Goddard and Suslov’s names she could think of, Google bringing up nothing to confirm they’d ever met.

  The email chain between their people stopped with the offer of a time and place and no confirmation from the other side, leaving open the possibility the meet had never happened. Even if it did, what did it mean? A three-year-old meeting that opened up another front in the Goddard investigation did nothing to help her understand why Jamie Tan was murdered. And even with everything Goddard symbolised to her – corruption, graft, unchecked power – murder was a whole different universe.

  She called Dietmar again, the second time she’d tried him, wanting him to flesh out the relationship between Suslov and Shelby. Everything she’d learned about Suslov marked him out as ruthless, but even the Russian link provided no hint of a motive, and there was still nothing to directly connect him to Withshaw or Jamie Tan.

  Unless the connection was Michael.

  She checked the time on her screen, noticing the noise level in the office had crept up as people started arriving for the day. She had to get out of there, cabin fever and the threat of prying eyes driving her towards the door. She squared off the travel pack Stephen had given her, suddenly realising she hadn’t noticed whether he’d left or not. Strange he wouldn’t have checked in on her.

  A printout of the Suslov-Goddard emails was spread across her desk and she gathered it up into a neat pile. She stood it in front of her, ready to fold it away but stopped. It was out of sequence and the sheet on top was one of the earlier mails in the chain. Right there, staring at her…

  A name that meant nothing, but maybe everything.

  CHAPTER 48

  The phone buzzed in his hand and Stringer brought it up to read. The message was succinct:

  Andriy will meet you at 10.00 p.m. in Docklands. Exact location to be supplied thirty minutes before.

  He slipped off the edge of the bed and walked to the window. His castle in the sky. The room in the Helipad Crowne Plaza was executive bland – neutral carpets and off-white walls, a glass coffee table with high-end London guides scattered across it, a mid-century modern desk with headed notepaper in the drawer. The bed was large and comfortable, the hotel catering to a clientele far enough up its own arse that a pillow menu was provided on the bedside table. It was the kind of anonymous hideout that he normally relished because it enabled him to sleep like the dead. So he took no pleasure in the irony of having spent three hours staring at the ceiling, exhaustion a companion that shadowed but never seized him.