‘That would be helpful,’ said Standing.
‘But it’ll have to be on the QT.’
‘No problem,’ said Standing. ‘My lips are sealed.’
‘They better had be,’ said Shepherd.
14
Standing’s phone rang as he was walking out of Waterloo Station towards the Union Jack Club. The caller was withholding his number but Standing took the call. It was Shepherd again. ‘I’ve had a word with one of the detectives who investigated the attempt on Koshkin,’ said Shepherd. ‘He’s happy to have a chat with you.’
‘You’re a star,’ said Standing.
‘His name’s Matty Stogdale. So you’re both Matts. He’s a DS, a detective sergeant. I’ll text you his phone number. All he knows is that you need a briefing on the case. He won’t ask who you are or why you’re interested, and best you don’t tell him. And everything he tells you is absolutely off the record.’
‘Understood,’ said Standing. ‘Thanks, Spider. I owe you one.’
Shepherd laughed. ‘You don’t owe me anything, Matt,’ he said. ‘We never met and we never had this conversation.’
The line went dead and a few seconds later a text message arrived with the phone number. Standing called it and Stogdale answered almost immediately. Standing told the detective who he was and Stogdale arranged to meet him in a Soho pub at nine o’clock that evening.
Standing caught an Uber to Soho. It was only when he walked into the Coach & Horses that Standing realised he didn’t know what DS Stogdale looked like. The pub was busy, every seat was taken and there were a dozen or so men at the bar. He looked around. There were several gay couples sitting at the tables, young men in fashionable clothes, with expensive haircuts and glowing skin, deep in conversation over glasses of wine, but there were mixed couples, too, and groups of office workers winding down after a hard day in front of their computer terminals.
There were several men drinking at the bar but only two turned to look in his direction. One was in his thirties with a receding hairline and shoulders and arms that looked as if they would have no problems bench-pressing a couple of hundred pounds. The other was taller and thinner with gold-rimmed spectacles and with a leather briefcase at his feet.
The taller man looked away but the weightlifter nodded at Standing. Standing nodded back. The man walked over, carrying a glass of something clear with a slice of lemon and ice in it.
‘Matt?’ said Standing.
‘Back at you,’ said the man. He transferred his glass to his left hand and the two men shook. ‘You a smoker?’ asked Stogdale. He was wearing a dark pin-striped suit and well-worn shoes with laces.
Standing shook his head. ‘No.’
‘Well, I am,’ said the detective. ‘Grab a drink and I’ll see you outside.’
Standing went to the bar. It took him the best part of five minutes to order and receive a pint of lager and by the time he joined the policeman outside he was already three-quarters of the way through his cigarette. There were four other smokers in a group near the door but Stogdale had moved to the other side of the pub. Standing joined him. ‘So, you’re interested in what happened to Mikhail Koshkin?’ said the cop.
Standing nodded.
Stogdale blew smoke at the darkening sky. ‘See the Italian restaurant over there?’
Standing looked across the road at a small restaurant with tables with red and white checked tablecloths and he nodded again.
‘That’s where it happened,’ said Stogdale. ‘Koshkin was eating with a Russian journalist. The journalist got sick, too. While they were in there someone put something in their food, but the boffins still aren’t sure what it was. They’re saying it was some sort of organo-phosphorus compound but they’re having trouble nailing it down. The one thing they know for sure is that it didn’t get into his system accidentally. Somebody was trying to kill him.’
‘If it was an assassination attempt, how come Koshkin didn’t die?’
‘That’s a bloody good question,’ said the detective, flicking ash into the gutter. ‘It could be that they got the dose wrong, could have been because he went straight to hospital.’ He shrugged. ‘Could have just been lucky.’ He nodded over at the restaurant. ‘It was Friday evening so the restaurant was full, and the streets were busy. There’s no CCTV in the restaurant itself and people were coming and going all the time Koshkin was in there. We checked all the staff and they seemed clean.’
‘Checked for the poison, you mean?’
The detective shook his head. ‘Background checks. PNC checks. Police National Computer. By the time we knew he’d been poisoned the staff had all gone home and the place had been cleaned.’
‘In the past these sorts of attacks have been linked to the Russian government, right?’
‘Sure. But those attacks involved nerve agents like Novichok or radioactive poisons like polonium. Stuff like that can only come from a government lab. The poison used on Koshkin could probably be knocked up in your average kitchen. That’s why they’ve had problems nailing it down, it was pretty impure.’
‘But do you think Koshkin was targeted by the Kremlin?’
‘It’s possible,’ said the detective. He threw away what was left of his cigarette. ‘But when the Russians want someone dead they tend to send a message. They use stuff like Novichok so the world knows who was behind it. Fuck with us and we’ll fuck with you. Not exactly a confession, but the method tells everyone what they need to know.’ He shrugged. ‘The fact that they used poison might indicate that it was some sort of false flag operation. Someone wants to make the Russians look bad. I tell you, it makes my head hurt. It’s so much easier when a husband snaps and strangles his wife or she sticks a knife in him. You know where you are with a domestic.’
‘Did you look at Koshkin’s wife?’
‘Of course,’ said Stogdale. He put his glass on the windowsill and lit another cigarette. He blew smoke then picked up his glass again. ‘They were getting divorced. He’d been fooling around and she’d signed up with a big City legal firm.’
‘So there’s a motive.’
Stogdale shrugged. ‘Not really. Lawyers were involved but he’s seriously rich and could afford any settlement. Most of his money is offshore – the Cayman Islands, Panama, Bermuda, Monaco – so if anything, his death would make it harder to get at the cash. They lived in a big house in Notting Hill and he’d already agreed to let her have it, plus their homes in Marbella and Paris.’
‘Kids?’
‘Grown up, so they weren’t an issue. I spoke with Mrs Koshkin and while she was hardly the grieving widow I didn’t have her down as a woman who had hired an assassin.’
‘But it’s possible that she could have paid for him to be killed?’
‘It’s possible, sure. Anything’s possible. But she’s pretty low down our list of suspects.’
‘So who’d be at the top of that list?’
Stogdale flicked ash onto the pavement. ‘I always thought his business partner was the most likely candidate. Guy by the name of Erik Markov. I say business partners, they fell out a year or so back and there was no love lost between them. They both invested in a riverside property development in Battersea. So far as we can tell, Koshkin fucked Markov over on the deal and ended up owning the whole shebang.’
‘How much was the deal worth?’
‘Millions. Worth killing for, that’s for sure. But again, suspecting and proving are two different things and Markov has an army of lawyers. We managed to get an interview with him but his lawyers did all the talking and it was no comment right down the line. Whoever tried to kill Koshkin was a pro, and I doubt the killer would have ever gone near whoever hired him. If it was Markov who paid for the hit, there’d be no paper trail to follow. He’d have used a middleman, probably wouldn’t even know who was doing the job for him.’
‘But if it was about revenge, why go to the trouble of using a poison? Why not just shoot him in the back of his head or put a bomb in his car?’
>
‘To muddy the waters,’ said the detective. ‘The more it looked like a government hit, the less we’d be looking for other motives. But that’s also hypothetical. There’s no evidence, circumstantial or otherwise.’
‘What about the journalist? The one who was also poisoned.’
‘He made a full recovery, too,’ said Stogdale. ‘The doctors reckoned he was exposed to less of the toxin.’
‘Wrong place, wrong time?’
‘Seems that way,’ said Stogdale.
‘What’s his name?’
‘Anton Vasilyev. He works for a Russian website. He was interviewing Koshkin for a feature about Russians living in London.’ He sighed. ‘Anyway, water under the bridge and all that. Now that Koshkin is dead, our case is closed.’
‘The Americans haven’t spoken to you?’
Stogdale shook his head. ‘We made contact and offered our assistance but they said they had a suspect and hoped to have him in custody sooner rather than later.’
‘So they weren’t linking the London attack with what happened in LA?’
‘They didn’t seem interested. Anyway, their murder trumps our attempted murder so, like I said, case closed. Anything else you need?’
Standing flashed him a tight smile. ‘Thanks, I’m good. I appreciate your time.’
‘Not a problem,’ said the detective. ‘Any friend of Spider’s …’
The two men shook hands and Standing walked away as the detective went back into the pub.
15
Mrs Anna Koshkin lived in an imposing stuccofronted house in Notting Hill. It was on three floors with a large garden surrounded by a high wall. The gate was twelve feet tall and solid metal painted black so that only the upper floors were visible from the road. Standing figured that she wouldn’t speak to him if he rang the intercom at the gate, so he ordered an Uber cab to meet him in the street a short distance away. He was wearing a dark suit, white shirt and red tie that he’d bought in an Oxfam shop. In the city, a suit was just as much camouflage as desert-pattern fatigues were in the Middle East. The driver who turned up was called Mohammed and was driving a white Toyota Prius. He had a white woven skullcap and a long beard that was flecked with crumbs from his last meal. Standing offered him a fifty-pound note plus whatever the Uber App priced the journey at and said that he wanted to wait for the owner of the house to leave. Standing told the driver that he was a journalist working on an article, and Mohammed was happy enough with the arrangement. ‘The customer is always right,’ he said as he slipped the fifty-pound note into his pocket. ‘Especially a customer with money.’
An hour passed and the gates remained closed. Standing gave Mohammed another fifty-pound note, which the driver accepted with a grin. They listened to Smooth Radio and Mohammed busied himself on his smartphone.
Fifteen minutes after Standing had handed over the second banknote, the gate rattled open to reveal a BMW 5 Series. The driver was wearing dark glasses, as was the heavily built man in the front passenger seat.
As the car pulled out and turned into the road, Standing caught sight of the woman in the back. She was in her forties, with high cheekbones and blonde hair. There was another heavy sitting next to her, shaven-headed and wearing the ubiquitous dark glasses.
‘That’s them, Mohammed,’ said Standing. ‘Don’t lose them but don’t get too close.’
‘I’m on it, sir,’ said Mohammed.
The white Toyota Prius was one of the most common cars on the streets of London, the make that was favoured by the bulk of Uber drivers, so Standing doubted that he’d be spotted as they followed the BMW east. After driving for a little under twenty minutes, they reached their destination – Selfridges. The BMW pulled up at the rear of the department store. The heavy in the front passenger seat got out first. He walked quickly to the rear and opened the door for Mrs Koshkin. The other heavy was just as quick on his feet and both men walked her to the entrance as the BMW moved away.
Standing thanked Mohammed and got out of the Prius. He hurried over to the department store and rushed inside, just in time to see Mrs Koshkin and her two minders heading for the Chanel store. He slowed and headed after them.
Mrs Koshkin was wearing a long fur coat. He had no idea what animals had died to provide her with the garment but he figured there had been a lot of them. The soles of her shoes were a bright red, which he knew was the signature of some famous designer whose name he couldn’t remember, and the bag hanging off her right shoulder looked expensive. There was a confident swing to her hips as she walked, and she held her head high. She was tall, and in her heels was an inch or so taller than her bodyguards.
She walked into the Chanel store and was immediately attended to by a young black man in a black suit. He began showing her a selection of bags while her two protectors stood guard outside, hands clasped over their groins, eyes watchful behind the dark lenses.
Standing sauntered by, his hands in his pockets, running through what he was going to say to her. He’d only get the one chance, but approaching her in public gave him a greater chance of success, as the bodyguards would be limited in their actions.
He wandered over to the Prada store and watched Mrs Koshkin in the reflection of the main window. She chose a bag, paid for it with a credit card, and waited as the assistant wrapped it and put it in a Chanel carrier bag.
As she left the store flanked by her two heavies, Standing walked towards her, taking his hands from his pockets and opening them so that the heavies could see he wasn’t carrying a weapon.
He smiled, and as their eyes met she also began to smile, perhaps thinking that she knew him from somewhere. ‘Mrs Koshkin, I’m sorry to bother you but I really need to talk to you about your husband,’ he said.
‘Who are you?’ she asked, taking a step back, her hand moving up to her throat as if she feared he was going to grab the diamond necklace there.
A hand seized Standing’s left arm. ‘You need to walk away, now,’ growled the taller of her two bodyguards.
The man gave Standing a cold stare that would probably have scared most people but it just made him smile. ‘Let go of my arm,’ said Standing.
The grip tightened and the man’s fingers dug into his arm. Standing was still smiling when he stamped down on the man’s instep. The bodyguard yelped and Standing pulled his hand free, grabbed the man’s wrist and twisted it up behind his back. He smiled at Mrs Koshkin. ‘Just a quick chat,’ he said. He pushed the man towards the second bodyguard and for a second they were in a lover’s embrace, their faces almost touching.
Mrs Koshkin actually laughed, then hurriedly covered her mouth with her hand.
The two bodyguards untangled themselves and turned to face Standing, their hands clenching.
Standing turned to look at Mrs Koshkin, raising his hands to show that he wasn’t a threat. ‘I just need a few minutes of your time,’ he said, keeping his voice soft and low as if he was soothing a spooked horse. ‘I only want to talk to you.’
‘About what?’
‘Your husband’s death,’ he said. ‘And my condolences, for your loss.’
The two bodyguards moved towards Standing but Mrs Koshkin stopped them with a wave of her hand. She spoke to them in Russian. It wasn’t a language Standing spoke anywhere near fluently, but he got the gist – she was furious at them. She turned to look at him and smiled coldly. ‘Who are you?’ she said.
‘My name is Matt Standing. I’m a friend of the man who is being accused of killing your husband. There’s something you need to know about what happened in LA. I’m sure you only know what you’ve been told, and I have every reason to believe that you haven’t been told the truth.’
She stared at him for several seconds, then she nodded. ‘I need a drink,’ she said.
Standing grinned. ‘You and me both.’
She said something to her bodyguards, then turned and walked off. Standing followed her. The bodyguards trailed behind them. She took the escalator up to the first floor and walke
d to the Champagne Bar, where she was clearly a regular because she was greeted warmly and shown to a table, even though there were several people waiting. She took off her coat, draped it over the back of her chair and sat down. ‘Do you drink champagne, Mr Standing?’ she asked.
‘I’m a beer man, but I can drink bubbly,’ said Standing, sitting down next to her.
Mrs Koshkin ordered two glasses of champagne and fifty grams of Beluga caviar. ‘So you know the man who killed my husband?’ she said as the waitress walked away.
‘He’s alleged to have killed him, but I don’t think he did.’
‘And what possible reason would you have for wanting to talk to me?’
‘Because I think something stinks about the whole business, and I figure you would want to know the truth about what happened.’
‘Will the truth bring Mikhail back? I don’t think so.’ Her two bodyguards were standing at the entrance to the bar. The one Standing had hit was glaring in their direction. ‘How did you do that?’ she asked. ‘They are professionals.’
‘So am I.’
‘They are bigger than you and probably stronger. But the way you handled them … you are a bodyguard, too?’
‘I have done protection work before, but I’m not a bodyguard.’
‘I would hire you, Mr Standing. Based on what I’ve seen, you’d do a better job than the men I have.’
A waitress returned with a bottle of champagne and two glasses. They waited as she opened the bottle and poured.
As the waitress walked away, Standing smiled and raised his glass in salute. ‘Thank you for the compliment,’ he said. ‘But I’m gainfully employed.’
She picked up her own glass and narrowed her eyes. ‘You’re a soldier,’ she said. ‘Special forces.’
‘Why would you think that?’
‘Some of our bodyguards in the past have been former special forces. Spetsnaz. They have a way of carrying themselves. A confidence.’
Standing shrugged. He knew exactly what she meant. It was partly the way special forces men carried themselves, but the eyes were also usually a clue. The two men currently responsible for protecting Mrs Koshkin were tough, there was no question of that, but Standing was sure they had never served in special forces.
Last Man Standing Page 12
