Swimming with Sharks

by Anna Legat

  ‘You could say that – I paid the price. I gave them what they asked for.’

  ‘I’ll pay you back. I’ve got money.’

  ‘No, it’s not about money. Forget about it.’

  ‘Mishka, thank you,’ she whispers.

  ‘Drink the coffee,’ he says, evasively. She sips the hot black liquid slowly. She would’ve never bought espresso herself, she drinks milky coffee or, preferably, tea, but on this occasion, espresso is what she needs. It works its way down to her stomach and gives her a kick of energy.

  He waits for her to finish the drink, then asks, ‘Were you alone? Was there anyone else … there … with you?’

  She tells him about the cabin, the silky sheets, the police boat, the woman in a stripy dress, and her gaoler. She leaves out what she doesn’t wish to remember. It would only upset Mishka, and he cannot undo what is done. What would be the point?

  He listens attentively, his eyes hanging on her lips, but his face is frozen and inscrutable. He is holding back his smile. Why is he not smiling? Is he not happy to see her?

  ‘Did they treat you with … respect?’ he asks.

  Nicola refuses to complain. She is happy to be free. Most of all, she is happy to be with him. She wants to make him smile. ‘They were all right. They gave me water, food. I had a shower. One shower,’ she chuckles, pushing bad memories – or suspicions – out of her mind. ‘At the end of the day they didn’t kill me. I am alive. I’m with you! That’s a bonus. Let’s forget about everything else.’

  ‘Let’s do. For now.’ There is a pensive note in his tone, but he doesn’t take it any further.

  ‘Mishka, why did they contact you for a ransom? You of all people?’

  He clears his throat, and tells her with obvious discomfort, ‘I’ll take you to your embassy. They’ll get you home safely …’

  She stares at him, round-eyed. This sounds final, again, like a farewell. She cannot bear it. She has been through too much to just submit to this renewed rejection without protest. She has toughened up. She wants to know: ‘Why would you want to go to all this trouble just to send me away? All you’ve been trying to do so far is to get rid of me! Why bother? Why bother in the first place!’ She is hurt, her ego is badly bruised, but it isn’t about her ego. She does not want to be parted from him. The feeling of his closeness is too good and too precious to forsake. Apart from Mishka she has nothing else to hang on to – no one else.

  ‘Look,’ he points out of the window. Outside, on the other side of the road, the two kidnappers are standing on the pavement, shifty and vigilant, smoking their stinking cigarettes and casting furtive glances at the café. ‘They’ll be following us. They aren’t finished with me. Not by far! I need to take you to safety. You’re not safe with me. We must separate.’

  ‘Mishka, I don’t want to be safe, not without you!’ she says hotly. ‘And anyway, they aren’t as bad as they seem. They could’ve killed me – I was totally at their mercy! But they didn’t …’

  He smiles at last. But it isn’t the jovial, whole-hearted Mishka’s smile. It is as if that smile has been wrenched out of his heart. ‘Ah, you silly, silly girl! What a child you are! They would’ve killed you, given half a chance, but you were their only bargaining chip. Now that they’ve got what they wanted, very little will hold them back.’

  ‘What did they want from you? What is it?’

  ‘The less you know the better, trust me. I am not a good man to … to be friends with.’

  She is cross. ‘I thought we were more than friends. Don’t I deserve to know what’s going on?’ Naively, in the typical fashion of a lifelong spinster, she has imagined that the few moments of carnal passion they shared give her insight into his mind and access to his secrets. Bizarrely, he thinks about it. His hands let go of hers, but his eyes arrest her in earnest. He weighs his options, considers whether he can trust her, thinks of the choices he has. He can send her back to England and forget about her. She has been nothing but trouble. But he won’t do that, Nicola would not understand. He sighs, ‘I’ll tell you but you’ll have to promise me you’ll go home. You won’t fight me on this.’

  She nods. She wants to know what he knows. She wants to be part of his world, no matter how dangerous that world is. No such thing as cautious love.

  ‘In Russia, in the Soviet Union days, just before it fell apart, I was an apparatchik, quite high up in the ranks – lots of power, little money. But money didn’t matter in those days – what mattered was who you knew and what you could do. My job was something you would call Companies Registrar, modest station, you’d think, except I was a law unto myself. No one checked what I did. It was one big mess in those days. So there I was: the tsar of share trading. I recorded deals, issued certificates, verified buyers … I controlled stock in the vast post-Soviet industries, purely because I kept the central records. Power got into my head, like shampanskoye! So I made a mistake, a wrong sort of deal with very wrong sort of people. It was my mistake, but my wife paid the price. Too much was at stake for those bastards … They had to show me who was in charge. She was a small fish to fry, is that what you would say?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Nicola is intimidated by the mention of his late wife. ‘I don’t yet understand.’

  ‘Come to think about it, neither do I. Let’s go to the beginning. We led the high life,’ he smiles sadly to the memory, ‘She was a prima ballerina of the very best, Kirov Ballet, me – a high ranking official … Did I tell you Dariushka was a prima ballerina?’

  Nicola nods.

  ‘High life: state functions, drinking, extravagant dinners, gambling. I needed lots of money, we spent lots of money and my job didn’t come with much. Money had to come from different sources. I got mixed up with the wrong crowd. Today they are the crème de la crème of society, but then they were just rough, unscrupulous climbers. Nothing was below them when it came to building their empires. They were busy tearing pieces from the falling Soviet industries, grabbing what they could … Like hyenas … the law of the jungle, it was … We had this scheme going: loans-for-shares. People with their hands on money could lease big industrial plants, oil refineries and so on in exchange for loans to the government. The government needed cash, badly – it was going bankrupt. It was a free-for-all. If later the loans weren’t repaid to the lenders – which they rarely were – the lenders would take over the ownership of the factories. Simple. The money lenders became industrialists. It happened all the time. It was easy, but you had to win the tender first. There was heavy competition – they were all at it: old KGB and the Communist Party barons.

  ‘Sixteen years ago I helped Mrozkov win Irkutskiy Steel, worth billions. He had me under his spell, made me feel like I was invincible, like I too could get a piece of the cake. I was in debt, my gambling had got out of hand. Daria didn’t know the extent of my troubles. I fiddled the books and Mrozkov won the bid. He paid me. Lots of money for me, believe me, I was set for life. It was an audacious scheme. No actual loan was advanced. On paper, yes, but not in reality. As Registrar, I issued share certificates in Mrozkov’s name. No repayments of the loan were made, but then … there had been no loan in the first place … All was good, but then my conscience took the better of me. I couldn’t hand over the certificates, I couldn’t just let him steal the plan and get away with it. I still believed in Russia, the people – Mrozkov was stealing from them! Matushka would say of me: you can be stupid but you’re always fair. It wasn’t fair what Mrozkov was doing – it was daylight robbery. He was robbing Russia. I demanded that he paid – at least paid the amount of the loan! It wasn’t much considering what he was getting out of it! He wouldn’t. His money was tied up in other places. He threatened me. I didn’t take him seriously, responded with my own threat: I was going to report him. There I was – a fool: a man with a conscience! Laughable!

  ‘Mrozkov retaliated. In a big way …’ Mishka pauses, gazes blankly out the window where the two heavies are still on guard. ‘Did I tell you my wife died
in a car accident?’ He does not wait for Nicola to confirm. He does not even look at her when she nods. ‘It was Mrozkov, his men. Not him personally – he doesn’t get his hands dirty. It was meant to be a warning. Her car veered off the road. They pushed her off, her car was driven off the road, into a river … she drowned. I had nothing to lose, and I ran. I took the share certificates, the ledgers and the records of the deal. I took my mother. We went to Finland. My mother’s Finnish, born Finnish … Did she tell you? After the war, the Finns lost part of Karelia to Russia, my father fell in love with her – the usual … She was very young. They were made for each other, despite the age difference. Finland was just a distant memory for her when suddenly I had to find a place to hide. It had to be Finland. Mrozkov knew nothing of my mother’s background – it was something you didn’t advertise in Soviet days. So we went to Finland. We took on Matushka’s maiden name, Lakso. Mrozkov wouldn’t find us and if he did, he wouldn’t dare touch us as long as I had the share certificates safely stashed away.’ He looks deeply into Nicola’s eyes: ‘I have just exchanged the certificates for you. Do you understand what that means?’

  ‘That this whole nightmare is behind you?’ she says hopefully.

  Mishka laughs. The laughter resonates and it is deceptively carefree, his usual. ‘I wish! There is nothing now to hold Mrozkov back. He’ll track me down and he will …’ He does not finish the sentence, not wanting to upset her.

  ‘Let’s go to the police. Please, let’s get protection!’

  ‘I can’t do that, Nicola. I’m too deep in it. The police can’t know. I would be arrested, deported to Russia, thrown in jail … Anyway, Mrozkov has them in his pocket. You may as well forget about it. No way out. They got me. I’ve had a good life: fifteen years of it! But they found me in the end. All good things come to an end …’ He takes her hand, kisses it with his typical chivalry. ‘But don’t worry about me. I still have the ledgers, enough evidence to keep them at bay. Though … Ah, never mind! You – you must be safe! If you stay with me, you will be dead – like everyone else. You understand?’

  ‘No, Mishka, please don’t do this to me, to us … Let’s go to the police. Not all policemen are corrupt. This isn’t Russia. We have laws –’

  He laughs.

  ‘Don’t laugh. Please, don’t,’ she implores. ‘If you don’t do it, I’ve lost you. You’ll have to hide for the rest of your life. You won’t have any life! Going to the police is the only thing to do. That was your first instinct, remember? Doing the right thing?’

  He stops laughing.

  ‘I know you, Mishka, even though it’s only been a moment.’

  ‘You don’t know me …’

  ‘But I do! You are a good man. You will do the right thing – I know. And I will stand by you no matter what! And I won’t lose you. It’s a win-win! We can have a life. Together. That’s the only way …’ She doesn’t know where the tears have come from. She is not a crier, and she believes – she is sure – he doesn’t want to lose her either. So why is she crying?

  ‘You promised.’ His face is hard, expressionless. It is the face of an uncompromising man with a steely resolve and no room for sentiment. Almost a stereotype of what she would once have considered a hardcore Russian. He means what he says and Nicola knows she can’t change his mind. That is why she is crying.

  He tells her: ‘We’ll leave now. I’ll take you to the British Consulate here, in Marseille. You’ll go home. It will be easier for me to get away when I’m on my own. I’ll lose them. I stand a chance. They don’t know where I live. Let’s go.’

  She steals a few backward glances at the two kidnappers. Sometimes she sees them, sometimes they blend into the blob of pedestrian traffic, but each time they re-emerge, like two black ghosts. Mishka doesn’t look back. His arm is wrapped protectively around her back. He is steering her amongst passers-by as if she were blind or made of glass.

  Fifteen years, Nicola marvels, he has managed to evade them for fifteen years! How did they catch up with him now? Now that he has come into her life … It’s so unfair! She wants to lash out at them, run to them and scream in their faces, in front of all these people, to leave her alone, to get their hands off Mishka!

  It is, in a strange, perverse way, flattering to think that they used her as a bargaining tool and he thought she was worth the sacrifice. He took a terrible risk. He came out here, to France, to face them, for Nicola! No one has ever done anything like that for her, and no one ever will … He loves her – something warm and fuzzy envelopes her stomach. She doesn’t regret meeting him and running into his arms. She stops looking back. Her mind wanders back to the sandy beach and the man – Count Karenin – pressing through the waves to the shore, towards her. The strong man who will make everything right … She has that picture, that first picture she took of him and posted on her Facebook page. It wasn’t a dream.

  It hits her then: that is how they found him! Of course, it was all her fault! How stupid! She showed them where to find him. Her silly Facebook! Of course! How else! She is to blame for everything that happened. She – and no one else – put herself in danger. And it isn’t just her own life – she put his life in danger too … Blood drains from her brain and she feels lightheaded. She has to tell him even though he may never forgive her. Then she will crawl back into the shell of her meaningless existence. Because everything will be lost.

  ‘Mishka,’ she says, breathless, as they wade through the crowd.

  ‘Let’s go, let’s go!’ He is not looking at her.

  ‘No, I must tell you this.’

  She stops. He stops. They are facing each other across the pavement, other pedestrians muttering abuse in French as they are forced to slow down and go around them.

  ‘I put your picture on Facebook. That’s how they found you. It’s my –’

  It is most bizarre to hear his laughter. In this precarious situation, with his life turned upside down, his defences down and he is laughing like only he can: a teenage boy with mischief on his mind. ‘Tyi durak! You humpty-dumpty! You’re wrong. It’s not so,’ he says. ‘Popov found me. I know it’s him – Popov. A cunning rat! Don’t fret over it. They found me without your help.’

  ‘Popov?’

  ‘The father of those two boys … His two boys led him to me!’

  ‘Boys …’

  ‘Remember that night when they were teasing you – playing cat and mouse with you? You fell?’

  ‘You told them off …’

  ‘I did. Popov must’ve heard me when I was talking to them in Russian; he must’ve followed me to make sure he had the right man. Popov works for Mrozkov. I wouldn’t have recognised him. He was nothing to me but a pimple on the face of the earth, but he knew me. The day I was leaving Itsouru, I stood face to face with him, and I knew it was over for me. It was too late to run – they would get to me one way or another … I made my mother board the boat and decided I’d lie low on the island overnight. We had to separate, you see? They knew me, Popov recognised me, but they didn’t know my mother. She was safer without me, I thought … I travelled out of Itsouru the next day, sneaked out unnoticed. I was sure I outsmarted them. Durak! But it wasn’t you – it was him, Popov.’

  ‘Are you sure? It wasn’t my silly photograph?’ She is relieved but still needy for his reassurance like a little girl who stopped believing in ghosts but still needs the lights on at night.

  ‘Sure, sure, sure!’ He kisses her. He takes her into his arms, like that big powerful Russian bear, and kisses her full on, on the lips. It feels wonderful. Everything is going to be fine because of that kiss.

  She wishes –

  He urges her on. ‘We must go. The consulate is only a few metres from here. You’re almost safe.’

  Mishka pushes her through the door with some force. She is trying to hang on to him, but stands no chance against his strong arm. He vanishes quickly, without a backward glance. In her black robes, like a disorientated raven, Nicola flies across the marble floor and l
ands on her knees. She is sobbing. She cries out, ‘Help me! Help!’

  A small crowd of people around her, visa applicants and compatriots who’ve lost their passports and have to queue at a small window, gawp apprehensively at a shrilling woman wearing a burqa and looking like she has got nothing to lose. Some run away, hunched down, and hide wherever they can; some fall to the ground and lie still. Alarm is raised. Two armed security guards approach her with great caution. They are shouting at her, telling her to stay calm and move her hands away from her body, to put them above her head where they can be seen.

  Day Twenty-five

  Amy is a pin-up girl. She has a tiny but perfectly formed Ally McBeal body and light, almost weightless, disposition. She is reclining on a sofa, her head resting on Sarah’s shoulder, her eyes focused on DC Webber. They are twinkling with a mixture of intrigue and flirtation. She is playing with a wisp of her hair, curling it round her forefinger. Her big, blue eyes, her childish gestures and a small woman’s vulnerability render her dangerously seductive. Perhaps she is trying to seduce poor Mark; perhaps there is very little trying in it – the pose comes naturally to her. It is little wonder that Sarah struggles with bouts of jealousy. Amy is the type that could seduce any man, or any woman for that matter, and both would have every confidence that she was theirs for life. Amy puts people in touch with their inner sensualities, and Mark has just got in touch with his. She has mesmerised him into submission.

  Sarah’s arm is placed firmly around Amy’s shoulder – where it belongs. Amy needs it, Gillian thinks, Amy needs looking after and she knows it. She has returned into the bosom of her marriage for that reason alone.

  ‘I am so sorry, officer, if I caused any trouble.’ She addresses DC Webber to the exclusion of DS Marsh. That sends a clear message: she has no interest in other women. Perhaps that is what puts Sarah’s mind at ease. ‘I needed time to think. I never thought, not in a million years, you’d be looking for me. It’s insane!’ She chuckles. ‘We’ve had a little misunderstanding,’ she tears her eyes away from Webber and gazes lovingly at her partner, ‘an identity crisis, I guess. My identity crisis. Sarah is my mainstay. We’re inseparable. You knew I’d be back, didn’t you, darling?’