by Clive Hindle
Despite the fact that the city was in the heart of Asia, nearly six thousand miles from Moscow, it felt like a western city. Diana said that and he replied, “It’s closer in fact, by the sea route, to San Francisco than it is to Moscow.”
“You’re kidding me!”
“I’m not. In fact the Russians had a settlement in America before this place was founded.” She gave him the eye as if she didn’t accept a word of it and he added, “No word of a lie. The Russians were in California competing with the Spanish in 1812. This place was established as a naval city in 1859. It was closed to Soviet citizens as well as to foreigners from the mid-fifties this century until the collapse of the Union but it’s always been an international port and it was the centre of the Russian black market during the Cold War years because the sailors who set sail from here would return from the west with contraband consumer goods.”
“How do you know all this?”
“Oh, I’m an old Siberia hand.”
“No, you’re not. Stop taking the piss!”
“Oh, back at home I just got talking to someone.”
“Oh yeah! Russians on the Tyne, is it?”
They stared out of the windows. The streets of the city were mainly twentieth century in development terms and there was a funicular railway up to a peak known as The Eagle’s Nest, one of a range of steep hills on which the city was built. The tentacles of water which creep into the valleys of these hills form the most natural of harbours which provides all-weather protection for all vessels whether it was the smattering of elderly destroyers and cruisers which formed the remnants of the Russian Pacific Fleet or the fishing boats and pleasure craft, frequenting the port, from the lowliest smack to the great cruise liners.
In the quest to find his old friend, Jack decided to break the habit of a lifetime and trust the local law but his heart sank when he was shown into the office and his first instinct was to flee. The Vladivostok City Police Chief was a dark brooding man of swarthy complexion and with a moustache which drooped almost as much as his eyelids. The latter threatened to close sleepily over his dark brown, troubled eyes. He did not look the slightest bit interested until Diana walked in a good few paces behind Jack. The eyebrows shot up suddenly like cockroaches surprised by the light. He practically ignored Jack as he puffed away on a short, fat cigar so it seemed sensible to let her do the talking, particularly as she could communicate well enough in Russian. His greedy eyes did not fail to take in her face and figure as he stared at her without speaking. He made it obvious enough for Jack to feel uncomfortable in his presence. "So what do you say is the name of this foreigner?" he asked in Russian, after listening patiently to her tale of the reason for their presence there.
"Montrose," she replied.
Jack detected the faintest flicker of an eyebrow as the Police Chief started to flick through a number of files, leaning on his elbow as he turned the pages. He looked at Diana. "I mean it's a yes or no," he said, “either he recognises the name or he doesn't, so why the charade?"
"He must have dozens of enquiries to deal with every day," she replied, "you're too impatient, give him the benefit of the doubt!"
Jack grimaced. Something about the policeman's deliberation didn’t ring true. Okay, Vladivostok was a big and dangerous city; strangers came and went all the time; a lot of them did dodgy deals, but in one respect nothing had changed here since Czarist days: no foreigners came or went in a Russian city without the authorities knowing precisely who they were and what their business was.
"No," the policeman said at length, "I'm afraid I can't find any trace of him." He closed the book and smiled. Diana translated.
"What, no trace at all?" Jack said. "Ask him if he's checked everywhere?"
The Police Chief shook his head in response to Diana’s request. Jack felt he was getting the run-around and it was beginning to show in his demeanour.
"I'm sorry to trouble you further," Diana continued politely, "but is there anyone else we could ask?"
The Chief stroked his stubble, giving the pretence of thinking about it.
"I can tell he fancies you," Jack said. "If he spent less time thinking about what he’d like to do to you and more about the question, maybe we'd get somewhere."
"All foreigners in the City have to check in with us," Diana translated.
"Don't let him piss you about, he's just a lazy slob, he doesn't want anything to interfere with his routine. Tell him I'll report him to his superiors."
"He is the superior," she said. "Excuse me again, sir, but is it possible that he has come into the City without you knowing of him?"
"If he ever came!"
Jack froze. The Chief had answered in English. He gulped. The Policeman opened up his hands in a gesture of resignation and then shook his head. "You tourists,” he continued in English, “you sometimes think we know everything. Ah, what it would be to know everything, what a fortune that would be worth. But unfortunately the truth is always a little strange. There are so many things happening in the city. It is not easy now, there is no curfew and there are all sorts of mad people on the loose, crazy Russians, crazy Chinamen, crazy Koreans." He tapped his head meaningfully. "Crazy Englishmen!" He smiled a sinister, oily smile, a smile of disdain, "What is one more crazy person? It is hard to keep track of them all."
"I'm not asking you to keep track of madmen," Jack reminded him frostily. "I'm telling you an Australian national came here a few weeks ago. He came to see a woman, a woman he'd met in Macao. You know Macao? On the edge of China?"
"Oh yes, Mister," he replied suavely, the cigar now suspending a long train of ash about to derail, "we know Macao. Macao is the source of much trouble, much rouble!" He rubbed his thumb and forefinger together in the international sign of corruption. "If only we did not know of Macao," he repeated it, shouting across to someone, "if only we did not know of Macao, eh?" There was ribald laughter from a couple of his aides and then the same thing was repeated across the common room. It circumnavigated the workplace like an echo, accompanied by raucous laughter and obscene gestures. "Crazy lovesick westerner coming here in search of some girl he had a one night stand with in Macao?" he shouted again and was answered with snorts of derision. "No, I don't know this crazy guy you're talking about as a Mr. Montrose, but there's a slight possibility I might know him by some other name. You think he might use a false passport eh?" Jack’s silence spoke volumes because he went on sarcastically, "Hey, you go back to your nice hotel, take your beautiful woman and be careful to guard her closely." He smiled through tobacco-stained teeth. "When I know something I will contact you. Be sure to expect me to contact you. Maybe you should quit while you're ahead, see a few sights, go home. Bet you got a nice little home. Vladivostok, it's okay, but it's not home, eh? Anyway you go to your nice hotel now, have a good time. If you're there when I want to speak, okay I speak to you. If not, no problem, good luck with the rest of your life."
"Well, when?" Jack said, but one of the Chief’s aides suddenly had him gently by the arm, one hand touching the butt of the gun in his waistband. The interview was over. If there was anything to tell Jack would hear it in the Police Chief's own good time. It had been a simple enough question, he protested. Nothing to get uptight about. Okay, Diana was right to criticise his motor-mouth, but the Chief could see he was anxious. He’d explained the trouble he’d had since setting out to find Gerry but it had cut no ice with this copper. It wasn’t his problem.
Diana said, “Jack! Do as the Russians do.” They left quietly. Jack didn’t give a v sign until he’d walked to the next block.
Then they had the bad luck to get in the cab of a surly taxi driver who looked like a fugitive from a Mafia movie. Every time he took a tortuous turn and disappeared down a maze of dingy streets Jack wondered what they’d let themselves in for. “You want to know what happened to Gerry?” Diana said through gritted teeth, “he got into a Vladivostok taxi.”
They drove through just about every lowlife area in the whole of P
acific Russia before the vehicle finally pulled up. It wheezed to a halt, like a horse in the knacker’s yard, outside the hotel, which had been just down the street from the Police Station, unless it had moved while they’d been out. Jack ended up haggling over the fare, using Diana as an interpreter, while the driver tried to hold the door shut. They obviously had three tiers of fares, one for the locals, one for the Russians, and a totally exorbitant one for tourists. "What!" Jack said, "how many roubles, you can't be serious!"
The driver got cross, gesticulating with his free arm and pointing at Jack aggressively. "You pay now, you pay now," he shouted, but through the interpreter it sounded like an invitation to a tea-party. Eventually he lost his rag completely and pulled a knife. He was waving it around in front of him.
"Listen pal," Jack carried on, "we walked to the cop shop from the hotel. It took ten minutes. On Shank’s pony, comprende? I'm very good at switching between languages, don’t you think?” he added for Diana’s benefit. She was looking at him in disgust as he argued the toss. "I know exactly how long it takes to get there and exactly what it costs. Now I don't mind paying a reasonable fare, but twenty times the going rate is scandalous, no it’s not, it’s taking the piss!”
"Do I have to tell him that?" Diana asked. She was keeping one wary eye on the knife as it cut serpentine shapes out of thin air.
"Give it to the dickhead straight between the eyes, tell him I'm not afraid of wankers."
"Ahhh!" After the translation the driver looked a bit like a sabre-toothed tiger.
“What did you tell him?” Jack asked as the driver tried to make short work of the gap between the seats. They were rescued from the flashing blade in the nick of time. Snicker-snack, it was circling the air like the vorpal sword as the door opened and the rather large and euphemistically named Hotel Security Guard looked in. He pointed his finger at the driver and swore an oath, which had the man trembling.
"Okay, sir," the guard said in English, "you okay now, this one on the house."
"Oh nonsense," Jack said, "I think the man ought to be paid his due." The guard shrugged, washing his hands of it. He took one step back and looked at Jack incredulously as he took out his cash.
"I don't believe it," Diana said, banging her head with the heel of her hand as if to emphasise her disbelief. "This guy nearly gets us locked up in the dingiest cell in the city jail by telling the Chief of Police he's a prat, then he nearly gets us killed by this moron who he now he wants to pay!"
“Whom,” Jack said, “whom he now wants to pay.”
The security guard was nodding his head furiously. He seemed equally bemused. Diana said in Russian, “It’s okay, he’s one kopeck short of a rouble.” Jack wondered what the security guard found so funny.
"Magnanimity in victory," Jack said determinedly, "does no one any harm. There’s no point in prolonging enmities. In any case this man has children to feed. There's no reason why they and his wife should suffer because he's a moron. It must be bad enough for them anyway having to live in the same house as him."
Diana was making silly expressions at the guard and trying to screw her forefinger into her temple and he was shaking his head as Jack counted out the notes. The taxi driver stared at him goggle-eyed. The vicious looking guard had just told him that he'd lost his supper and now here was the mad Englishman offering him current coin of the realm.
“You couldn’t make it American dollars, could you, mate?” he asked in language Jack of course did not understand but, when the question was translated by the interpreter, the look of disgust on her face was aimed at Jack rather than the driver.
Jack started to pat his pockets wondering if he’d brought any of the funny money with him when Diana said something sharp to the driver, which made him hang his head in shame. She told Jack later it was something along the lines of, “don’t push your luck, chum!”
The driver was nodding his head in gratitude as Jack counted out the roubles and when he gave him a couple of extra for his pain he just shook it like the other three - the guard and Diana had been joined on the hotel steps by a worried looking manager and he listened as the guard recounted the tale.
"Hey, English," the driver said in a thick accent, "you okay, I get you wrong, I think you cheat, but you good guy!" He flashed a Mafioso grin at Jack.
"I'll know who to come to when I need a reference," Jack retorted.
The manager was bowing and scraping. "Ah, Mr. Jack," it was amazing how many people thought his Christian name was his surname, "that was very dangerous, you must not do something like that again. I will have that man's licence, I will have him arrested by the authorities."
"No need," Jack said, "he's learned his lesson."
Diana sneered, "Sure he has, he'll come back with his mates next time."
In the meantime the manager couldn't do enough for them. He invited them into his office for a drink. "Brandy?" he said, pouring one from the decanter for Diana. "Best Napoleon!"
"I'll have a malt," Jack replied.
"Malt?" he said looking momentarily bewildered because his English didn't go that far.
"Whisky," Jack prompted.
"Ah whisky, yes, whisky." He had a bottle or two. Sheep’s Dip, Pig's nose.
"Either would be appropriate," Diana said.
Jack had the impression the manager was probing, trying to find out their business. For some reason he couldn't quite fathom, and it couldn't have been the alcohol, because she could drink a battalion of Cossacks under the table, Diana seemed to be in loquacious mood and she was soon telling the manager everything about their expedition. Jack nudged her with his knee to tell her to shut up but she swatted him like a fly and he had to smile and make out to the bewildered manager that this mild exhibition of domestic violence was something they got up to all the time.
"You'll never make a spy," Jack told her crossly when they were upstairs in the privacy of their room. Then he remembered and started to look inside the lamp stand, behind the painting on the wall, he even unscrewed the mouthpiece on the phone.
"What on earth are you doing?" Diana asked.
Jack beckoned to her to follow him into the bathroom where he ran the bathwater. "I know what it's like in Russia, that’s where they always hide the microphones. Anyway, why did you tell him all that?"
"I did it for a reason. He already knew."
"What?" Jack looked surprised. "What did he know?"
"He obviously didn't appreciate that I can read Russian.” She went on to explain she'd read a note on the manager’s desk. He’d received a call about them from the Police Chief, possibly just enquiring, but there had been a mention of Gerry's name there as well.
"What's the point of that? Would it have any significance to him?"
"Hmm!" she said because she was rather deliciously warming him up as they were speaking. If the Russians had their hidden microphones and video cameras in here, they were going to get more than they bargained for. "The point is," she replied a trifle huskily, "that this is the hotel where Gerry stayed."
"Oh brilliant, and how did you deduce that?"
"Easy," she said, "the manager had his credit card vouchers on the desk."
“What?” Jack replied. He was wounded because he’d missed all that, and he’d been convinced that she was the one who’d taken her eye off the ball. “What kind of woman are you anyway, reading someone’s private papers? Anyway, why didn’t you let on sooner?”
"What, are we married or something? Are we supposed to share everything? Oh, stop pouting. You're just like a little boy who's got the wrong Christmas present. Just because you didn't find it first!"
"It's not that at all," he protested. "You know how important this is to me. He's my friend. He's got...."
"He's got what?"
"Nothing."
"Go on, say it. You were going to say he's got your money, weren't you?"
"No I wasn't."
"Yes you were. You're lapsing back into your mean little frame of mind."
"Yes you are, that's all you're worried about, your money."
"Well, it's quite a large sum. I'm not a zulti-millionaire you know." He sported a wounded, misunderstood tone.
"I knew it. I knew that's what it was."
"Oh, so aren't you just so perfect? Never get your knickers in a twist, do you? Not bloody likely! Oh sorry I forgot. What about that wazzock you were with, bloody Australian diamond dealer, my Aunt Fanny!"
She prodded him in the chest and pushed him all the way back to the bed where she used the frame against his calves to shove him on his back. She held him down. He tried to rise, astonished at the strength of her forearm across his chest. He could scarcely breathe. Her teeth were bared. She had so many moods. In this one she was prehistoric. "Jack, you ever mention that again and I'm out of here, all right?" Her eyes were holding his steadfastly. As he looked at them they seemed to change colour - blue to green to gold. A trick of the light?
