The Art of Deception

by The Art of Deception (retail) (epub)

  ‘Would you like to start by telling me why we’re being held here like this?’ I said.

  ‘It’s too complex to go into,’ he said shortly. ‘You got involved because you just happened to be there. Sorry about that.’

  ‘I came to see you about Julian…’

  ‘Julian… yes, you said. Well, there may be more to it then. If you’re connected with Julian, perhaps it wasn’t coincidence.’

  This seemed to me to be a leap too far, a paranoid belief in conspiracy. ‘I can’t see how she had anything to do with what’s happened.’

  ‘No, you wouldn’t,’ he said impatiently. ‘So what’s the problem with Julian?’

  ‘She was concerned that something like this might happen, or worse.’

  ‘Oh, yes?’ He was not concentrating on Julian. He had other matters to think about.

  ‘Julian has been attacked twice in London and her flat has been completely destroyed. She’s convinced that these things were done by someone who hoped to put pressure on you through her, someone who didn’t know that you were no longer together.’

  My rapid summary had at last caught his attention. ‘She was attacked,’ he repeated slowly. ‘What happened to her?’ I noticed that he did not ask if she was all right. Perhaps he didn’t care.

  ‘The first attack was a mugging. She was knifed. I wondered whether they meant to kill her then, but I suppose not. She says that if they had, she would be dead, that these people don’t make mistakes. The other two incidents weren’t life-threatening: they were simply meant to terrify.’

  Seeing things freshly, from Anatoli’s point of view, I realised there were certain peculiarities in the sequence of attacks. In theory, one would expect a series of threats to begin with the lesser and to culminate in the greater; instead the worst incident had been the first.

  ‘When did they happen, these attacks?’

  ‘The mugging was last year in September. The wrecking of her flat was in November. The last incident was a couple of months ago.’

  ‘What happened to the flat?’

  I described the destruction that had been created with artistic flair in Julian’s, his, beautiful apartment. ‘So you see, she felt right from the start that there had to be a connexion with you. She tried to get in touch with you, with no result. Did you ever get any of her letters or messages?’

  ‘No.’

  I didn’t believe him. I could imagine him refusing to take a call, tearing up faxes and letters unread. I heard him move restlessly and stretch himself out.

  ‘So they thought to get at me by attacking Julian,’ he said ruminatively when he was settled.

  ‘Who are “they”?’ I asked. ‘The Uzbek?’

  ‘What do you know about the Uzbek?’

  ‘Not much. What Julian has told me.’

  ‘Nothing then. She’ll only have told you what she wants you to know. Women never tell everything; they always keep something back. They believe knowledge is power because they don’t have any other kind. And Julian is very imaginative in her stories about herself and her past. She didn’t tell me about you, for example.’

  ‘There was nothing to tell. She didn’t know me then.’

  ‘So who are you? What did you say your name was?’

  ‘Nicholas Ochterlonie.’

  ‘And what’s your status? Husband, lover, legal adviser? You must be my successor. It’s impossible to imagine her without a man.’

  ‘I was coming to Russia for a conference and I agreed to carry her message to you, as I thought it would be a way of ending the danger to her. If you no longer care about what happens to her, it’s in no one’s interest to threaten her.’

  The ironies of bearing warnings to my predecessor and rival were vivid to me. Now I had done all I could to carry out Julian’s commission, I wanted to know who had kidnapped us and what were we to do about it. However, Anatoli now seemed content to talk about her.

  ‘I suppose she’s right; it must have been Dyadya. He hasn’t been able to get a visa for Europe for so long he has no reason to know that she was out of the picture. Poor kid, it’s hard on her getting involved with someone like me.’ His tone contradicted his words. He really felt that Julian was fortunate to have known him. ‘She’s lucky to be alive. Dyadya doesn’t usually go halfway on something like this.’

  ‘And I assume he’s responsible for imprisoning us today.’

  ‘Yes.’ He was prepared to talk now that he realised that he did not have explain everything. ‘I’ve just spent the last three hours with him, having the mother and father of rows. And we are his guests, until I do as he wants.’

  ‘What does that mean? Indefinitely? Are you going to submit to it?’

  ‘No, no, never.’

  ‘And why hasn’t he just shot you? Isn’t that what usually happens here?’

  ‘He needs me,’ Anatoli said confidently. ‘He won’t kill me yet.’

  I hoped he was right, because he would certainly shoot me at the same time.

  ‘What’s the quarrel about?’

  ‘Dyadya’s an old-fashioned boss, Russian style, which means an autocrat. The idea of a partner, an equal partner, is not easy for him to deal with. He suspects me of cheating him all the time and we disagree about some of the deals he’s made. I’m a Russian and he’s an Uzbek and there are certain things I think we shouldn’t do.’ I could hear anger in his voice. ‘He wanted to sell arms to certain groups inside the former Soviet Union, and it wasn’t difficult to see who they were going to use the weapons against. Us, the Russians, I mean. I told him at the time that it was wrong. But he used all the old arguments. If we don’t sell to them, someone else will, and why should we see the profits going into our rivals’ pockets.’

  ‘And where does Igor fit into all this? Does he support one side or the other. Does he hold the balance?’

  ‘He’s irrelevant. We need him for the technical stuff. He’s a financial genius, but he’s basically an accountant. As long as we can get him the capital and the political cover at home and abroad to go on creating money-making schemes, he’s happy. He’s not involved in all this.’

  ‘And why not leave now when the going is good?’

  ‘It’s too good. You can’t believe the money you can make here, if you know your way around. And I don’t like to give way to the Uzbek. Even if I took most of what we had abroad, I would be leaving him more than his share here.’

  ‘But you’d still be alive. Better to live in London with a few millions less, surely.’

  ‘Not in London, Julian makes my life complicated there. Let’s say Paris.’ He laughed. ‘She’s a demon, you know, Julian. You should be warned. One of the ways she tried to get me back was to siphon off a huge sum of money that was passing through an account to which she had access. It was stupid of me to have used that route, but I didn’t think she was watching the numbers on every account every day, which is the only way she could have caught it. God knows what she’s done with the money. But it was one reason why things got particularly bad between Dyadya and me. He regarded it as incontrovertible evidence that I was cheating him. I put it right, but the damage was done.’

  Much later, I was to remember this conversation, to wonder how I managed to ignore the information about Julian that I didn’t want to know.

  ‘And has he resorted to force before? Is kidnapping you and beating you up part of his normal negotiating technique?’

  ‘No, it’s not. He’s under particular pressure just now. The Chechens are demanding delivery of arms that he’s promised them. A hell of a stupid contract. He’s having trouble delivering because he also has commitments to the Russian Army. He’s their agent and they are demanding a huge increase in supplies. They’re not paying for it, but they’re taking it. In theory, Dyadya’s onto a winner, paid by both sides, double the profit; but when there are problems, you double the trouble.’

  Anatoli spoke with admiration for his partner, even in the throes of their disagreement.

  ‘Whe
n I was a boy, if we were entertaining someone at my father’s dacha and we needed food, caviar, smoked sturgeon, veal, strawberries, melons, we would turn to Dyadya. I remember once he told me about an operation he was particularly proud of, in which the same trainload of construction materials was accounted for in four ways, three of which were making him money: export from Riga, a KGB-owned hotel in Frunze, a Politburo dacha near Pskov and a Ukrainian building site in the Crimea. They all thought they had had the materials and they all paid up. From the KGB he got gold, from the Politburo, dollars, from Ukrainian authorities he had permission to build his own tourist development in Odessa and from Riga all he got was gratitude for fulfilling their norms. But he will have cashed that in later.’ He laughed.

  ‘When I came home from a posting in Washington, my wife wanted to do up our flat. She’d lived with an American kitchen, marble surfaces, gadgets everywhere, and when she saw our Moscow apartment again she had a fit. I’ve always made it my policy to please my wife and in any case we had a stash of dollars she had earned in America as a translator, so we could pay. I went out looking for someone who could give her what she wanted and I met the Uzbek again. It was the time of the coup in August ’91 and Dyadya wanted to do more than fiddle the transport system and supply the Politburo with caviar and single malt whisky. He wanted an outlet to the west and he saw me as a means to it. I must say, that for someone who began his business life in the camps Dyadya has vision.’

  I saw that the question that was exercising me, of how we were to get out of our prison, was one that Anatoli could put off indefinitely, while he talked over the difficulties of his situation vis a vis the Uzbek.

  ‘In the meantime, wouldn’t it help your negotiating position if we got out of here? I’ve already explored the room. There’s no window, but there is a telephone…’

  ‘Then we can call for some food. I’m starving. It must be one in the morning and I’ve had nothing to eat for twelve hours. Where is it?’

  This was not the reaction I had hoped for. He stumbled up from his bench and located the phone. There was a prolonged interchange in Russian and I could sense that by engaging whoever it was on the other end, Anatoli had broken through a psychological door, even if the real one remained locked. Eventually, he put the phone down. ‘I think they’d forgotten about you,’ he remarked.

  I was reflecting on the timing of the kidnapping. ‘Who knew you were in that bar?’ I asked.

  ‘The Uzbek. I was there to meet him.’

  ‘And I was there to meet you.’ Sent there by Igor. I recalled Julian saying that Igor had a meeting with Anatoli, which was how he knew he would be in that place at that time. What was going on between Igor and the Uzbek was something for Anatoli to worry about.

  Voices sounded outside our door. Lights snapped on and a few minutes later a guard entered, carrying a tray. Behind him another heavy could be seen covering the doorway. At first my eyes were dazzled; then I saw Anatoli. He was a terrible sight. He must have wiped away some of the dirt and blood with the water on my handkerchief, but much of it remained on his face which was ashily pale, swollen and distorted. There was a cut below his right eye which had severed the lid. The main force of the blow had been taken on the cheek-bone itself. The skin had been split open by a blunt rather than a sharp instrument and the surrounding flesh was heavily contused. It needed cleaning and X-raying. He obviously had the constitution of an ox.

  He spoke in authoritative tones as the first guard put down our meal. Neither man responded with either a word or a smile; they retreated, relocking the door. Within seconds the light had been switched off. We were again in darkness.

  33

  ‘Will Julian be looking for you?’ Anatoli asked. He was lying on the bench again. ‘Did she know where you were going? Unfortunately, my wife is trained never to expect me. An unwise habit for a banker these days, when you might disappear at any time, but she learned it years ago.’

  We had just finished eating the herring and sour cream and black bread. The food had done us both good; my mood had improved and Anatoli had become positively cheerful. When the light had been turned off he had been already leaning over the tray with an expression of greedy anticipation on his face. There was a clash of china as he made for the door in the darkness, hammering and yelling. The door had reopened and Anatoli continued to rage. It closed once again without any reply from the guard, but the light had returned.

  Anatoli had sat down again. ‘Idiot, gorilla,’ he shouted in English for my benefit, and applied himself to his meal.

  I looked round the room, my prison for the last six hours. ‘Do you know where we are?’ I asked.

  He leaned forward to allow drips of sour cream to fall back on his plate. ‘Ach, I can’t open my jaw properly. Yes. It’s a place about twenty kilometres from Moscow which the Uzbek bought a few years ago from the local kolkhoz. It’s a stud farm. The collective farm chairman was connected to him in some way. Perhaps he was in camp with him in the old days; perhaps he simply bribed him. I don’t know. I don’t ask. One way or another Dyadya got the stud farm and the old house. Pre-Revolution, you can see. He was always telling Julian about it and his schemes for decorating it. He’s done it now, though not quite in her style, I would say.’

  It was a dacha with pretensions. Even in the odd room in which we were confined the furniture was gilt and ornate. Anatoli was leaning back now, poking pieces of black bread laden with fish into his mouth. ‘I’ve been here a few times for the hunting. The Uzbek keeps his Turkoman horses here. He’s very proud of them, trying to revive some of the old bloodlines. Come, you must be hungry. Before I eat it all. They haven’t given us so much.’

  I followed Anatoli’s example and took some bread and herring with my fingers. Taking no risks, the guards had not put cutlery on the tray.

  ‘It was a good idea to get food,’ I said. ‘But how are we going to get out of here?’

  ‘Don’t complain. We’ve got light, food, drink. We’re much better off than when you were here alone in the dark. We’ve got to let time pass. The Uzbek functions at night and never sleeps until about four in the morning.’

  ‘And then what do we do?’ I was thinking aloud. ‘If we call the guard, two will come, and in your current condition, I don’t think we stand much chance against two professionals, armed as well. We need cunning, not force. Do you know the lay-out of the house?’ ‘Not well, but I recognise this room. It’s part of the sauna, for sitting and drinking tea, resting between sessions. That door,’ he pointed to the one that had not been used, ‘leads

  to the hot rooms and then to the cold plunge. You know what that is? The snow and the river. There is another door at the end of the corridor which opens onto a sort of veranda with steps down into the garden, so you can roll in the snow, and a long ramp, like a jetty which goes all the way to the river. You get someone to make a hole in the ice and then you can plunge straight in. I’ve done it many times.’

  That’ll be our way out. But I’m not sure how we’ll cope with the door. It looks very solid.’

  So now we were lying on our respective benches waiting for the household to sleep. I would gladly have slept myself, but Anatoli was ready to talk. I wondered what Julian was doing as she waited for me to return from my mission. I could imagine her lying on the bed wearing her horn-rimmed spectacles, calmly watching CNN.

  ‘It’s really impossible to live with all that intensity concentrated on you,’ Anatoli was saying. ‘In the end a wife’s indifference is more, what shall I say, restful, don’t you find?’ He sighed. ‘Poor Julian. We have a saying in Russian. When a woman has given you her heart, you can’t stop her giving you the rest of her body. And when you don’t want her heart, or anything else either, there’s all hell to pay.’ I felt an uneasy disloyalty, listening to his views on Julian, but fascination, nonetheless. I couldn’t help liking him. He had an engaging character that overrode judgement of his behaviour to his lover, his wife or his partners. He was a lighter, more
humorous character than the portentousness of Julian’s account had led me to believe. He had luck, that essential attribute for a happy life. He was an opportunist: if a beautiful girl presented herself, he took up her offer without thought of the complications of the future. At the same time, I felt protective of Julian whose powerful character appeared helpless in the face of his egocentricity.

  ‘And in the end she demanded too much, you know. She wants to take over the controls.’

  I raised my left arm above my head to consult my watch. ‘Do you ride?’ I asked. An idea had started to form in my mind, for which I needed his local knowledge.

  He was taken aback by this sudden switch of subject. He would have preferred to talk about Julian indefinitely. ‘A bicycle? A horse?’

  ‘Horseback riding. Do you ride? This is a stud farm, you said. We’ve got to get away from here somehow.’

  ‘Yes, I ride.’ I could imagine him on a horse with the air of a slightly bombastic cavalier. We had had similar privileged backgrounds within our different societies, which had given us similar childhood activities.

  ‘Me too, after a fashion.’ I had indeed learned to ride as a child, but had hardly practised it since. I did not like riding, but if it was the only way to get out, I was willing to try it.

  ‘And sex with Julian,’ Anatoli was saying, folding his arms behind his head, ‘I don’t know what you find, but it can’t be said to be that great. She’s wonderful to be with. I mean, she’s beautiful. To walk into a room with her was fantastic. Everyone would look at her and she appears unconscious of the effect she has on men. Amazing. But…’

  Poor, poor Julian, who had given her heart and got what in return? A wrecked apartment and some Mafia money.

  I rose from the bench and walked over to the door to the sauna. I turned the handle softly and patted the woodwork, feeling the construction of the door. I was hoping we could take it off its hinges, but a glance at them told me that, although they were on the room- side of the door, only a tool kit, and a well-equipped one, would do the job. I turned my attention to the lock. I had already felt it in my reconnaissance in the dark. My fingers had told me that each door had a modern lock. With my fingertips I had felt the little cleft of the keyhole set in the door handle. It had held firmly against the pressure of my wrist as I twisted it back and forth.