Mr Frankenstein

by Richard Freeborn

  Ridiculous. Only a Russian could talk like that. Nonsense, of course, but only a Russian with a Marxist-Leninist training could know the ideological treason of such a plan. As he dressed, Joe reminded himself that the Russian voice had talked about tricks and lies manufactured by agents of the international bourgeoisie. Boris would have known better than anyone what that could mean. It was precisely why he wanted to ‘disappear’.

  Extravagant smartness and almost squalidly casual clothes were the twin orthodoxies of dress at Scythian Gold. Just off Pall Mall and well within London club land, it was accessed up a short drive-in area and consisted of a restaurant with dance floor, ‘smokings’, i.e. meeting rooms, an IT room, a library, a saloon bar and residential accommodation on two floors, some of which were designated as ‘private’. By all outward standards it was a London club with impeccably trained English staff. Beneath the surface, in the ‘smokings’ and other parts, it had a more distinctly Russian character. Here the staff of both sexes were young, beautiful, superior, ballet-trained, skintight in their costumes and extravagantly cool in their manner, as if only royalty were truly worthy of their attention. Money, though, could buy their attention with elegant compliance and Boris had been adept at doing so. He had done it in true proletarian respect for working-class attire, principally in shapeless jeans or chinos, open-necked shirts and shabby raincoats. Joe followed his example as he climbed from the Charing Cross tube station into Trafalgar Square and made his way past the Athenaeum along Pall Mall.

  He was known as Sokol, Mr Falcon. Yes, my name’s Falcon, he would admit. The true identification came the instant he confronted the receptionist. With a sidewards glance at the monitor, the young man peered forward across the desk and smilingly said:

  ‘Mr Falcon, you are expected.’

  He couldn’t deny it. One up to Leo!

  ‘You are expected, Mr Falcon. I will call up Mr Bakhteen.’

  The moment the receiver was lifted Joe’s instinct was to leave at once. Two things kept him standing there. The first was the presence of workmen making alterations to the foyer area. He wondered what was about to happen. The second was the receptionist hiding his words behind a raised hand.

  ‘I wanted to ask if Boris,’ Joe began, ‘Boris Krest…’

  He stopped. Looking straight across the foyer, his eyes were instantly drawn to the sight of a naked boy kissing a naked girl. They were reflected in a mirror behind them and looked so real it took him a moment to realize they were marble statuary quite new to the club.

  The foyer, he realized, had been deliberately enlarged. It resembled a station on the Moscow Metro with the trains replaced by a curved glassed-in tableau showing the candid innocence of these naked figures visible through artificial foliage. He challenged himself not to be a voyeur and looked away. It was noticeable that other passers-by shot surreptitious glances in the direction of the naked couple as they came through the foyer. No sex, please, at Scythian Gold, except the kind that had to be paid for but was never bought openly and never at any time mentioned and, if sought, was always accompanied by smiles of various degrees of knowingness and nods of the head and hand signals and clearings of the throat similar to those that the young receptionist made as he leaned forward to direct Mr Falcon’s attention towards an immaculately suited, dark-haired man approaching from the stairs.

  The hollow of his armpit had a deodorant shaped like a gun. There was no mistaking it despite the Savile Row cut of the jacket. At that point Mr Falcon knew for certain he was there in the foyer of Scythian Gold for one purpose only: to honour his promise to Boris. Yes, he’d translate whatever Boris gave him, he’d promised that. He’d get the laptop back whatever the cost.

  ‘Sergey, Mr Falcon,’ said Bakhteen, right hand outstretched and watery blue eyes raised to Joe’s face like shiny metal coins. ‘Welcome. You are known here, of course. And you are expected.’

  ‘Who expects me?’ He was of course certain it was the man called Goncharov, but he could tell this man was a trusted employee who would not answer questions. Nevertheless, he tried his luck. ‘I’ve come to retrieve what’s mine, that’s why I’m expected, isn’t it?’

  ‘Please address me as Sergey. I will address you as Mr Falcon, yes?’

  ‘A laptop,’ Joe said. ‘My old laptop.’ He knew it was utterly silly being so direct, but he was certain this Sergey was not one of his attackers.

  ‘I cannot answer questions, Mr Falcon. Only my employer can answer all your questions. He expects you.’

  Sergey smiled so enthusiastically his thin lips revealed a small clothesline of off-white teeth and his eyes pinched themselves into tiny crescents. He seized Mr Falcon’s arm in a determined grip and guided him across the foyer with the promise that Mr Goncharov would like to see him urgently. He wished to apologise. All patrons of Scythian Gold deserved to be treated with the utmost courtesy.

  Joe tried to free his arm.

  ‘Please, Mr Falcon. You were here often, were you not?’

  Agreed.

  ‘A good patron, Mr Falcon, that is your reputation. And you worked for us, yes? Our Russian gas?’

  The question sounded odd enough to make it seem that the encounter with The Kiss was presumably being overlooked. His arm was freed. He naturally raised one hand to feel his wrist but the movement was disregarded.

  ‘This way, please.’

  Joe entrusted himself to Bakhteen more out of curiosity than obedience and accompanied him to a lift entrance. The doors opened into a spacious cabin adorned by mirrors on three sides. No word was spoken though both men took the opportunity to note their reflections and slightly adjust their expressions. When the doors opened, they were in the small reception area where half a dozen patrons were seated, waiting to be assigned tables in the restaurant. A beautiful young blond in peasant costume offered drinks from a tray, but Bakhteen muttered something about his employer being busy greeting diners and signalled for his guest to follow him past the restaurant itself where a loud hubbub of talk and laughter vied unsuccessfully with the violins of a gypsy orchestra. A dense miasma of cooking smells embraced them as well as the noise before, to Joe’s astonishment, the panelling in one corner of the area turned out to be a concealed doorway. Two panels slid apart as they approached and closed quietly behind them, so that they were suddenly consumed by the carpeted silence of a short corridor leading to a flight of stairs, at the foot of which was a fire door. This was noisily pushed back to reveal an underground car park. For the first time since reaching Scythian Gold Joe became alarmed.

  ‘Someone will be here in one minute,’ Bakhteen announced. ‘Please.’

  He was shown to a car. Directed into the back of a large Mercedes permeated with the special, once-for-all aroma of something brand new, he fell on to a sofa-like bank of yellow leather seating. Before he could ask any questions the door was closed. He could see little through the tinted windscreen save a diminishing line of neon-strip lights in the car park’s ceiling. The interior itself was shadowy with gleams from such bright-work metal as door handles and the thin struts in what appeared to be a glass panel separating the rear seats from the front seats. Trying the door handle, he recognised it was locked.

  ‘Hey!’

  Pointless. Bakhteen vanished. There was no driver. He was neatly imprisoned in the silence of the interior and probably invisible from outside due to the tinted windows. All he could see were the shapes of one or two other cars parked under the neon lighting. No one was about.

  Naturally his first thought was that he had fallen into a trap. On the other hand, he had to force himself to assume that this amounted to VIP treatment by Scythian Gold standards. He licked his lips, knowing the situation was absurd and rather threatening by any other standard of hospitality.

  Suddenly the vehicle shook slightly. An automatic unlocking process occurred and someone appeared in the driver’s seat. Simultaneously the rear door was opened.

  ‘Mr Falcon,’ said a male voice, un-English, but evid
ently fluent and practised, ‘I am Oleg, but please call me Ollie, Ollie Goncharov. I am so glad you have come.’

  A large hand was extended through the space of the open rear door, followed by a smiling bearded face above a bow tie and the full physical presence of Ollie Goncharov became visible as he quickly took the seat beside Joe on the bank of yellow leather, carrying a bag. They shook hands a little awkwardly.

  The rear seat illumination showed a high, lined forehead encircled by a well-groomed halo of white curly hair. In the chalky light the brows tended to darken the eyes by emphasising the crumpled tissue paper of wrinkles surrounding them and the snowfall of white beard covering the lower half of the oval, plump-cheeked face. The smile drew apart startlingly thick red lips.

  ‘Very, very good to meet you.’ Each word was pronounced slowly and correctly. ‘We will go and I will explain.’ He tapped on the glass panel. ‘It is small private matter.’

  Small private matter!

  Joe faced the man who wanted to be called Ollie and scrutinised first the features and then the clothes. The bow tie, stylish linen jacket and gold links on the silk cuffs extending beyond the sleeves shrieked understated wealth. Yes, of course, the owner of the club, he supposed instantly, and the idea challenged him to ask rather curtly:

  ‘What private matter? You owe me, I think…’

  ‘No, no, please, Mr Falcon. First we drink.’

  Small metal beakers appeared. Stolichnaia was dispensed.

  ‘Please,’ came the invitation. ‘We are friends, yes?’

  A full beaker was extended towards Joe. He knew he could not refuse the hospitality. It would be too much of an affront. He took the proffered beaker and a faint chime sounded as the metal rims met. Ollie tipped his drink into his mouth and Joe followed suit, gasping as the vodka hit the back of his throat.

  ‘So now we cement friendship, yes?’

  A second shot of vodka was poured into his beaker before he could withdraw it or protest. He raised, drank, swallowed virtually according to ritual. The fire of the vodka settled warmly into him. He opened his mouth to say something but the words were dashed from his mouth by the car’s sudden jerk forward as if it were an aircraft on take-off down the length of the dark garage. He was thrust backwards and then straight up to the glass panel. He dropt the beaker as he protected himself against hitting the glass. Doing so, he noticed Bakhteen was in the front passenger seat directly ahead of him.

  The man called Ollie showed no sign of surprise. ‘So now we are friends,’ he remarked quite calmly. ‘Yes, it is private matter. One moment, please.’

  The Mercedes emerged up a ramp into St James’s and was soon embroiled in the slow waltz of London night traffic. Ollie Goncharov took no notice. He concerned himself with pulling out the small foldaway tables from the backs of the front seats.

  ‘You know, Mr Falcon, in our language, in Russian, private is difficult word for us. In your English private is easy. Private house, private property, private soldiers, yes? For us, no.’

  ‘Mr Goncharov, sorry, Ollie,’ Joe said, ‘please. Why am I here? What do you want?’

  It may have sounded bold; it wasn’t. He knew he had to remain unblinking, unflinching and alert. A smart stinging on the in side of his wrist reminded him.

  ‘I will explain. Allow me one moment.’ The other spoke in a slightly dismissive manner as Joe’s laptop appeared out of the bag he had brought with him. It was placed on the foldaway table. ‘Russian people, you know, are naturally poly-phon-ic.’ He pronounced the word with great care, lifting the lid of the laptop as he did so and pointing to the back of Bakhteen’s head. ‘He knows it. Mr Bakhteen, he knows it.’

  Joe began to wonder whether or not this was intentionally funny or merely a kind of in-house banter. But the other continued in his rambling way:

  ‘It means all voices have equal value. So our national ideal is to be like chorus. We want to have one voice in spiritual sense. In fact, in our nature, we like to talk all at once in different voices. Did you know it?’

  Joe said no, he didn’t. Was this Ollie mad?

  ‘Not many know it.’ Ollie pressed his lips together to emphasize the point. ‘But our great dramatist Chekhov knows it. So of course does our great writer Dostoevsky. But not now. Now is private matter. Now we speak each of us, you and I, in private, yes? You understand what I say, yes?’

  Joe disregarded such scholasticism. He was about to protest again at being held captive, not to mention feeling slightly light-headed, when he saw the laptop screen light up with a silvery glitter in the pallid light of the car’s interior.

  ‘Ollie will tell you,’ the other said. ‘This is why you are here, dear friend. Do you understand now?’

  A nod.

  ‘The journey may go on long or short. It will depend on you. If you want it long, it will be long. If short and you co-operate, it will be short.’

  The carefully enunciated and neatly phrased remarks seemed superficially very reasonable. It was the clear note of threat that annoyed and antagonised. Joe unclipped the metal strap of his wristwatch and showed the mark.

  ‘See that! Why?’

  The letter of the Russian alphabet burnt redly into the skin required Ollie to reach into his jacket and extract a spectacles case. He studied the mark closely through rimless spectacles, slowly removed them and snapped them back in the case.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Who did it, you mean?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘People from your club.’

  ‘Very sorry to hear it. People from my club, you say?’

  ‘Yes.’ It seemed far too neat as a closure. ‘Well, this is my laptop,’ Joe pointed out, ‘so I assume you know who stole it.’ He felt quite justified in being irritable. ‘I think I deserve an explanation as well as an apology.’

  ‘Ah.’

  The Mercedes now joined the procession of vehicles going along Piccadilly in the direction of Park Lane. Headlights, brightly lit bus windows, street lighting, neon signs, anonymous human shapes moved almost silently on the other side of the tinted windows in a vague slow-motion confusion of creamy lights and darks.

  ‘So let me guess,’ Joe said. His anger found a controlled outlet in the probability that Ollie had a purpose. It empowered him to continue: ‘You can’t open it, can you? You don’t know the password and code. That’s the small private matter, isn’t it?’

  Ollie’s lips formed a sarcastically amused smile. ‘You are right, my friend.’

  ‘So we have a bargain, do we?’

  ‘Bargain?’

  ‘You tell me why it is so important… so important my flat has to be broken into and I have to be attacked and punched and taped up and have foul-tasting stuff stuck in my mouth? All because they want to get hold of…’

  ‘Mr Falcon, my friend, enough! No!’ The negative was like a pistol shot. ‘No, not my people! Enemies. Enemies of your friend.’

  ‘Enemies of my friend?’

  ‘Boris was your friend, yes?’

  ‘Boris Krestovsky was my friend.’

  ‘And he had enemies!’ It was so obvious as a fact that Ollie Goncharov held his hands out in front of him, palms upwards, in clear demonstration both of the fact itself and of his own manifest innocence. ‘Of course he had enemies! Staroveery, you know what I mean?’

  ‘Yes, I know. They’re also people in your club.’

  ‘Oh, we have many different – old, new, some people who believe, some who not believe. My club is open to all people, you know.’

  ‘But who are these enemies of Boris?’ Joe insisted. ‘Who are these Old Believers?’

  Ollie leaned forward again to ensure the laptop remained safely on the foldaway table in front of him. He ran his tongue round his lips and made a sucking noise suggesting he knew he had a duty to tell all. His chin raised, he spoke slowly straight towards the glass panel.

  ‘Western civilisation has many fears, yes? It fears most of all that free-market capitalism and liberal democracy c
an go like twin towers – poof! Terrorism, Islamic fundamentalism, Islamic jihad, et cetera, et cetera, they are not real fears. But new communism, not our old Soviet communism, new communism, more perfect form of communism, that could change free-market capitalism and liberal democracy forever. Then western civilisation goes poof! You understand me?’

  ‘No, I don’t. It’s nonsense.’

  To his surprise Ollie stretched across and patted Joe’s arm, almost making him flinch from the touch. The gesture was instantly followed by a loud, bellowing, drunken laugh.

  ‘You are like all so-called intelligent people here in West! It is nonsense! Oh, yes, it is nonsense! That is what you say, but perhaps you are wrong, eh? Perhaps Old Believers are right.’

  ‘So?’

  The laughing stopped. Ollie looked round. He said seriously:

  ‘What if Old Believers have true god? Suppose…’ He paused, looked out of the window because a flashing blue light was approaching, then redirected his gaze steadily, dark-eyed and glittering, towards Joe ‘… Suppose we know your friend Boris spent two, three years in private – I emphasise it: private – private work to find connections about period when…’ his voice dropped to a whisper ‘… was living here in London.’

  What the hell was all this about? ‘Who?’

  The wail of a siren from an ambulance broke out immediately behind the Mercedes. Despite its ear-shattering clamour Ollie went on talking, but Joe heard very little save some remarks about his friend Boris being a trainee archivist. ‘At very end of our Soviet history…’

  ‘I’m sorry, I can’t hear.’

  ‘So he knows more…’

  ‘About what?’

  ‘Old Believers… They think he was divine… politically perfect…They attack you. And I am believer, too. I admire them. I admire their belief. I am believer, know what I mean?’