by Nick Louth
‘I cannot solve this case without you. Do you not want justice for Maxim?’
‘Of course I do.’
‘Then please tell me what you saw.’
‘Look, I only had a glimpse of him, it was nothing really. Just a reflection of muzzle flash, coming from the window side.’
‘And who was he?’
‘A masked man, dressed in black, with a handgun.’
‘Tall, short, stocky, slim?’
‘Average height at a guess, but definitely slim and athletic. He disappeared in a second or two. And below the mask, I saw signs of a beard.’
Now we’re finally getting somewhere, Gillard thought. ‘Why didn’t you tell me before?’
She hesitated, then said: ‘I can’t be identified as a witness. I need to protect my children.’
‘Ms Yalinsky, if the shooter saw you, you’re a witness whether you say anything or not. If you need protection, it can be provided. However, if you just got the glimpse that you described, the assailant would hardly be worried.’ Gillard’s gut told him strongly that she had seen more than she was letting on.
For a few long seconds all he heard was the drone of traffic in the Geneva streets. ‘Have you mentioned this to the Home Office interviewers?’ He was reluctant to identify them precisely as British spies.
‘No. They were more interested in my former husband’s business deals. I think they may have been trying to work out if he was a spy.’
‘I see. When are you next back in Britain?’
‘For New Year. I’m due to attend David and Natasha Fein’s New Year’s Eve party. However, I’d be grateful if you’d keep that to yourself, I don’t want my movements being too widely known, given what’s happened.’
‘Okay. We’ll need to speak to you again, I’m afraid.’
She let out a heavy sigh. ‘I’ll co-operate, of course.’
* * *
It was midnight. DC Carl Hoskins sat in the Khazi monitoring the flow of evidence onto the HOLMES computer system used for large and complex inquiries. The other detectives had left half an hour ago. Dribs and drabs of ballistic evidence had been emerging all evening, though nothing that appeared to be of great significance until the final email from ballistics, which had been copied into the inquiry’s collective email address. This identified the bullets which had been extracted from the victims. The big news was that whoever had wielded the missing weapon was responsible for all three deaths. In some ways that was no surprise, but it did disprove one theory that had done the rounds: that Talin had shot Volkov. The three bullets missing from the Glock’s clip had been found in neither Volkov nor in Bryn Howell. Talin was either a poor shot or had been aiming at someone else.
Hoskins rubbed his chin. It was a blow to his original open-and-shut love triangle theory. While it wasn’t impossible that the love triangle was the motivation for the slaying, there would have to be a more complex explanation. The arrival of Gillard’s email, mentioning Yelena seeing a ‘dark figure’, further undercut the love triangle idea.
He wasn’t sure that he would trust anything Yelena said.
There was a tapping at the door. Hoskins, who had been forewarned by Claire about the possibility of intruders, opened the squeaky plywood fixture and stared out at a bulky figure silhouetted in the drizzle against a newly rigged-up arc light.
‘Mr Hosky?’ Wolf asked, in his tortured English. ‘You call me?’
‘Yeah, can I come to the control room? Someone attempted to break in to our mobile incident room,’ Hoskins said. ‘Mind if I take a look on your CCTV?’
‘Help yourself,’ Wolf said. He led Hoskins back into the main hall and along the labyrinthine route to the control room. Wolf’s iris scan and thumbprint got them in. Hoskins sat himself at the main console, went back to the start of the day, and set the analysis program for movement detection to take him to the first object that tripped the sensor.
There was a surprisingly large number of movements, almost all of them uniformed police or detectives. Wolf himself figured on the record a few times, as did a few of the kitchen staff ferrying food, and Jason, Anastasia’s ponytailed bodyguard. Hoskins couldn’t see anyone who appeared to be carrying a crowbar or similar object. Wolf identified the few people that Hoskins didn’t recognise. ‘I think he is reporter,’ Wolf said, pointing to a young man in a puffa jacket with a small rucksack. ‘We try to keep by the gate, but with public footpaths and so many rural access, is impossible hundred percent.’
‘Yeah, tell me about it,’ Hoskins replied. ‘What will happen to the place now the boss is dead?’
Wolf shrugged. ‘Is very good question. Someone must untangle finances, not me thank God. There’s the will. All that stuff. From past occurrences…’
‘Past occurrences?’ Hoskins asked.
Wolf gestured expansively with his hands. ‘You know, the other dead oligarchs. Berezovsky, and so on. Judging by them, everyone will get fired by the family and all assets sold. The more money at stake, the more family will fight.’ He imitated a boxing match with his large hairy fists.
Hoskins realised he wouldn’t like to fight this man, whose big shoulders moved easily under his jacket.
‘It’s always the family, isn’t it?’ Hoskins said. ‘Fighting like ferrets in a sack.’
‘What is ferrets?’ Wolf asked.
‘Big weasels with nasty teeth.’
‘Ah, ferrets, yes.’ He stroked his chin. ‘I will use that saying. Very good.’
‘People in Yorkshire put them down their trousers.’
‘Eh?’ Wolf pointed to his groin, his eyes wide. ‘You make big joke out of me?’
‘No, it’s true. I’ll send you a couple of YouTube links.’
‘Yorkshires are very tough people, yes? Britain’s Chechens perhaps.’ He put an arm around Hoskins’ shoulder and gripped him affectionately. ‘Are you a Yorkshire?’
‘No. South London. Croydon boy, me.’
‘You know Only Fool and Horse? We see it in my country. Very funny. Plonker and lovely bubbly.’
Hoskins chuckled. ‘It’s lovely jubbly. The programme is about Peckham, which is way north of my manor.’
‘Come, let us go to library. Something I show for you.’
Wolf led the way out of the control room, up one flight of stairs and out through the main entrance of the hall. Hoskins couldn’t help noticing that most of the lights were still on, even though the state rooms were apparently unoccupied. Volkov had constructed an organisation that never had to worry about paying a bill, indifferent even to the concept of economy. They emerged into heavy rain, blown on a stiff breeze. Wolf helped himself to three golfing-sized umbrellas from a stand by the door and gave one to Hoskins. Unfurled, the umbrellas showed a coat of arms, which Hoskins took to be Volkov’s. They braced against the wind and made their way across towards the library. The Georgian was still chuckling away about his favourite British comedies as he led the detective across the bridge towards the door. The uniformed officer standing there was wearing a police-issue cape, but still appeared to be cold and wet. Wolf passed across the third umbrella to him. ‘Sorry. Shutting stable door after horse buggered off, yes?’
‘Thank you anyway,’ he replied. ‘And thank you for the tea earlier, that was most welcome.’
‘You are guest. We have to look after. Is important.’
After further thanks, the officer undid the padlock securing the library, and let them in.
Wolf led him into the ground floor in the shadow of the immense suspended rock, then switched into full tourist guide mode, describing the laborious process of getting the fossil from where it was carved out of the earth in Central Asia to here in England’s Home Counties.
‘Forever now this place associate with murder,’ Wolf said. ‘The fossil, she will be forgotten.’
Wolf made his way to the scissor lift and clambered onto the platform. ‘Come with me,’ he said.
‘I don’t think we should be wandering about on the balcony,’
Hoskins said. ‘That’s still a crime scene.’
‘No walk on balcony. But you want to see clue, yes?’ Wolf set the console and withdrew the anchors which stabilised the platform on the floor. He then drove it across to the window side of the library and turned to take it halfway along the southern walkway. He gestured for Hoskins to join him, and the detective did so, clambering onto the platform. Wolf pressed a button, and the scissors expanded, lifting the platform so it was almost level with the balcony. The rock was at its widest at this point, and there was very little clearance between it and the guardrail. He then threw out an empty rubbish bag onto the walkway and made his way gingerly over the guardrail until he was standing on the bag. At this point they were opposite a ten-foot-wide section of wall, the only break between the windows on this side. There were two narrow bookcases filled with leather-backed volumes, and between them a gilt-framed painting, four-foot-by-three, on an otherwise blank slab of stone wall. Hoskins was no expert on art, and this mountain scene, all dark shades and roiling clouds, did nothing for him.
‘Where’s the clue then, Wolf?’
Wolf was groping about amongst the books, his hand pressed on the underside of one of the shelves. An individual spotlight came on from high on the ceiling, highlighting the painting. There followed a whirring sound, and the painting within the frame slid upwards. At first glance, all Hoskins could see revealed was some uneven stone on the wall.
‘What is this?’ he said, looking more closely. There were filigree marks all around it, and at the centre what looked like the bones of a squashed chicken, stuck in cement.
Wolf grinned at him his eyes wide. ‘This is best-preserved archaeopteryx in the world. The world’s first feathered flying creature,’ he said, indicating the delicate fan-shaped impressions.
‘Did he dig that up in Central Asia too?’ Hoskins asked.
‘No. Bought from a museum in Germany. For Sophie as wedding gift. Unique.’
‘You are saying this is why Volkov was killed?’
‘No, no. I think he asked Sophie to leave so that he could show it to Talin and Yalinsky in secret. Mr Volkov, he like to boast.’
‘And that’s why he ordered the CCTV turned off?’
‘That is what I think.’
‘How come you knew about this new fossil?’ Hoskins pointed at the wall.
Wolf gave a big shrug. ‘I have to be involved in most things. This had to have specially constructed recess.’
Hoskins nodded. ‘So how much is this worth?’
‘It’s priceless, of course. I don’t know what he paid. Millions, for sure. Everything he buys costs millions. Except me. Loyal Wolf, he come cheap.’ He shrugged. ‘Now Wolf, maybe no job, yes?’
* * *
Wolf led Hoskins back into the main Westgrave Hall building and out again, down into the kitchens where Tatiana was busy at the old-fashioned range. ‘So, you have come for late-night snacks I suppose?’ she asked them.
‘I am inbred Georgian peasant and always hungry,’ Wolf said, rubbing his stomach.
‘I wouldn’t mind a bite if you’ve got something,’ Hoskins said.
She shrugged and spread her large arms. ‘This place you treat like Kentucky fried drive-in. Open twenty-four hours.’ She turned away and started busying herself. ‘Ten years ago, I study computing at night school, thinking I can get good job, but now here doing exact same career as my poor dead grandma.’
‘Was she a chef?’ Hoskins asked.
‘No, she fed pigs.’ Angrily, she flung a ladle across the room where it clanged against a saucepan. ‘Sometimes, you two are as bad as Oleg.’
Both men proffered apologies.
‘She no like Oleg,’ Wolf whispered to Hoskins. ‘He treat her like dirt. “Come bring food to bedroom, on hurry-up,” he say, which long walk up the apples and pears, and then when she get there, he having shag with two girls.’ He whispered even closer in Hoskins’ ear. ‘One girl she laugh and say “come join us, babushka”. Poor Tatiana very upset. She get drunk then lug very heavy French eighteenth-century dinner service up five flights apples and pears to belfry and chuck off roof, one plate at a time.’
‘Whoa!’ Hoskins muttered, turning his eyes back to the cook in a mixture of fear and admiration.
‘Very strict Mrs Bell, housekeeper, want to fire Tatiana for that, but Mr Volkov, he say no, it Oleg fault not her,’ Wolf said.
‘Another thing,’ Tatiana said, gesturing with her now recovered ladle. ‘Oleg asked me to take traffic speed ticket for him, twice!’ she said. ‘But when it was raining, he wouldn’t give me a lift to Southampton. So I had to catch a bus. He’s as bad as his mother,’ Tatiana muttered, her back to the men as she ladled some food from a bubbling pot onto two plates.
Wolf conspiratorially rolled his eyes, with a finger pressed to his lips.
Tatiana was just getting into her stride. ‘For six months I worked for her in Paris as sous chef. When the main chef was on holiday I looked after her alone. I was keen to make an impression so I researched favourite Kazakh food for her, no expense spared, ingredients flown in. Sorpa, which is horsemeat sausage, and shubat, sour camel milk. I also made very difficult ulpershek which is from the aorta and fat of a steppe pony. Took two days preparation, and when I served it to her she fed it to her dogs, right in front of me. “This is peasant food,” she said. “You think I am a serf from the steppes, do you? You will never cook for me again.” She called me the daughter of a whore and fired me and my assistant Ibrahim on the spot. Her guards threw us both out on the street. We slept in a park for two days, until my uncle in Kiev sent me some cash. Poor Ibrahim was picked up by the police and deported.’
Tatiana set two big plates of meatballs with dumplings in front of them.
‘You poor thing,’ Hoskins said, as he reached for his spoon.
She smiled at him and caressed the side of his head. ‘When Sasha heard how his ex-wife had treated me, he hired me for Westgrave Hall, on double the salary just to annoy her, I think. So a happy ending for me.’ She looked affectionately at Carl. ‘Ahh, I like a man who knows how to eat. But that woman eats only hatred, and drinks bitterness. One day she will vanish, like smoke – poof! – up her own zad. On that day I will be happy.’
Hoskins turned to Wolf, who was grinning at him.
‘So, tomorrow we have grilled perch, yes?’ Tatiana said. ‘From Westgrave Lake.’
‘Sounds fantastic,’ Hoskins said.
* * *
Daniel Levin had become the lightest of sleepers and when his eyelids flicked open the VW’s digital clock showed 4:14 a.m. He had parked the camper van in the Wilmington Woods car park, not far from Worthing. The woods, famed for summer visits by nightingales, were owned by the Sussex Wildlife Trust and were reached along a muddy gravel track. There was only room for six vehicles on the hardstanding and in the depths of a still and clear midwinter night Levin was not surprised he had it to himself.
Until those soft footsteps.
There was no light, but the sound was coming closer. He lay rigid in his sleeping bag, his woolly hat pulled down close around his ears. The curtains were tight across all the windows, so he was confident he couldn’t be seen.
The footsteps approached, still not a hint of any light. Levin held his breath, praying that whoever it was would move on. At the outer reaches of his hearing, he was sure he could detect breathing. It certainly wasn’t his own.
‘Daniel, I know you’re in there.’ The voice came soft as a whisper, but with an edge of steel.
Levin could feel the drumbeat of his own heart and fought to restrain a whimper of fear. He knew that voice.
The Ghost.
* * *
The Geneva flight was late into Gatwick, and it was gone eleven by the time Gillard was sitting in the back of the airport bus and was really able to give his full attention to the post-mortem findings on the three murder victims. Squinting at his phone, he could see Delahaye had already summarised the causes of death in an earlier em
ail, and there was little extra to add beyond the fact that significant alcohol had been found in Volkov, not surprising given he was at his own Christmas party. Maxim Talin hadn’t been drinking but tested positive for cocaine. Bodyguard Bryn Howell was given a clean bill of health, apart from being ventilated with several bullet holes. His body had been released to his widow, but the two oligarchs were being retained for toxicology tests. The only real surprise was actually nothing to do with the dead bodies at all. Delahaye referred to being copied in on a ballistics report, and a subsequent commercial lab test.
Gillard didn’t recall seeing this, so he flicked back through his email inbox until he found the relevant message. One particular bullet, embedded within a bookshelf, had been recovered with what looked like animal fibres. The Birmingham ballistics centre, qualified to examine only bullets, had sent off the sample for analysis, and it had just come back.
Weasel.
The detective scratched his head. Although the bullet’s forensic item number, nineteen, was given on the email he didn’t have the bullet map to be able to establish its location. That would have to wait. He rang Claire Mulholland at home. She hadn’t quite gone to bed.
‘Sorry to disturb you at this hour, Claire. Could you crank up your laptop and pull open the bullet map for me?’
She sighed. ‘Of course.’ Gillard listened to her talking to husband Baz, and the sound of footsteps. It was a couple of minutes before she was able to respond.
‘Bullet nineteen, you say.’ She paused. ‘That’s about halfway along the north edge of the balcony, much closer to the body of Maxim Talin than to Volkov’s.’
‘That’s very interesting,’ Gillard said, and then mentioned the discovery of weasel fibres.
‘Weasel! Are you kidding me?’
‘I had two thoughts,’ he said. ‘My first was gloves. Whoever reloaded the weapon had picked up some fibres and transferred them to the bullets. Maybe it was a hunter, something like that. But then I realised these fibres would have been burnt up when the weapon was fired.’
