Delicate Indecencies

by Sandy Mccutcheon

  ‘Jane’s father, Sydney Morris, came over to us years ago. Not for money, not for notoriety. I think he genuinely believed that Communism was the only way forward.’

  ‘He wasn’t alone in that,’ Teschmaker said, thinking of his father’s friends who had marched and agitated with the closing of every mine, the lock-outs in the factories and the seemingly endless disputes on the docks. They had all died disappointed but unrepentant, and since then nothing much had changed. Capital had triumphed, there was no God but the dollar and the new puritans, the economic rationalists, would happily sell advertising space on their mothers’ coffins. ‘At least they believed in something other than profit.’

  ‘Foolish dreams.’ Laverov smiled. ‘But I agree with you. And Sydney Morris had a dream, even though both he and his dream were corrupted in the end.’

  ‘It must have seemed less than foolish to him at the time. He left his wife and child behind —’

  ‘In order to do what?’ Laverov ground out the butt of his cigarette and pushed his glasses back up his nose. ‘He was young and bright, at the top of his field. Sydney Morris could have picked up research work at any lab he wanted. A couple of years and he would have been old enough to have been considered for a chair at a university. He was so far ahead of his colleagues. The tragedy is that he thought to use his science to bring peace and yet ended up working on Soviet armaments. The type of —’

  ‘Doing what?’ Teschmaker immediately regretted the interruption. He should have let Laverov continue, but it was too late, he had stemmed the flow. Laverov looked at him with narrowed eyes for the second time, reassessing just how much he should say. What is it, Teschmaker wondered, that he is afraid to tell me? Afraid? No, that was probably the wrong word. Laverov was simply being cautious.

  ‘What about you, Laverov? Who are you? Military Intelligence? KGB, or whatever they call themselves these days?’

  ‘The FSB? Nothing so grand, I’m afraid. Just a humble policeman.’

  Teschmaker didn’t believe him for a minute, but he knew there was nothing to gain from pursuing it. ‘So why is everybody getting so excited about Sydney Morris?’

  ‘For a long time I had never heard of the man. Nobody had. He was kept out of the limelight, locked away in one of the closed research cities, the science gulags. A couple of years ago I was working in an archive repository, trying to analyse the contribution made by foreign scientists to the Soviet era. I had Sydney Morris’s name and little else. But then I discovered that almost everyone who had worked with him had passed away.’

  He paused for a moment and concentrated on lighting another cigarette.

  ‘I thought Morris was dead too. But, as I later found out, he had quietly slipped out of the country during the confusion of the Gorbachev era. It was probably what saved his life.’

  ‘He came back here?’

  ‘No. Not at all. I don’t think he ever had any intention of coming home.’

  ‘Then what happened?’

  ‘He had been preparing a retreat, a bolt hole if you like, in the Czech Republic. He must have considered himself tucked out of harm’s way in the countryside outside a quiet little spa town called Mariánské Lázně —’

  ‘Marienbad?’ A long time ago Teschmaker remembered having sat through Alain Resnais’s murky and perplexing film, Last Year at Marienbad.

  ‘Yes, just over the border from Germany. From what I have managed to piece together, it seems that Rusak or his men flushed him out and brought him here, or he ran and they followed.’

  Teschmaker shook his head. ‘No. Slow down, I’m not with you. What the hell has your Mafia man got to do with Sydney Morris?’

  But Laverov appeared not to hear him. He was lost in the maze of his own thoughts, fitting some imaginary jigsaw together — a jigsaw in which the pieces did not match.

  ‘All the old-timers were gone and, by some crazy twist of fate, only Morris remained. The Professor. He knew them all. He trained them.’ Laverov paused and looked at Teschmaker, suddenly comprehending what he had said. ‘You don’t understand? Of course not. There is no way you could. Don’t you see, even I don’t know.’ He sighed and his shoulders slumped as though he had run out of energy. He lowered his voice. ‘See those two?’ He nodded in the direction of the two old women. ‘They would understand better than either of us. What we are talking about is secrets from beyond the grave. Rusak must think he can dig whatever he’s after out of Sydney Morris.’

  ‘Fat chance,’ Teschmaker snorted. ‘The old man is completely gaga.’

  ‘You have talked to him?’ Laverov demanded, suddenly energised again.

  ‘Yes, but he’s lost it —’

  ‘Where? You must tell me where he is.’

  ‘Hang on!’ Teschmaker protested. ‘I’m just as interested to know about this. What is it this Rusak wants to find out?’

  ‘I can’t tell you.’ Laverov’s eyes burned into him. ‘You have to tell me where Sydney Morris is,’ he repeated vehemently. ‘Look, we have a man in Rusak’s inner circle —’

  ‘Then ask him.’

  ‘I would, but we have lost contact. I don’t even know if he is still alive. That’s why you must help me.’

  Stick to your guns, Teschmaker told himself. ‘No deal. This isn’t a one-way street.’

  There was a long silence, then Laverov shrugged. ‘With you or without you, I’ll find out. If you change your mind, you have obviously worked out where to contact me.’

  He stood up and wrapped his coat tightly around himself. ‘Goodbye, Mr Teschmaker.’

  ‘Wait a moment.’ Teschmaker reached out and held the sleeve of his coat.

  ‘What?’

  Teschmaker released the man’s coat, took the pistol from his pocket and handed it to Laverov. ‘Here, you might need this. Just in case you still need to kill me.’

  ‘Thank you.’ He took the gun and slipped it into his pocket. ‘Just walk away, Mr Teschmaker. There is nothing in this for you.’

  What about Jane, he was going to ask, but decided against it. He watched as the Russian walked out into the morning sunshine and over to his black Ford — the black Ford he had failed to recognise when he drove up. After Laverov had driven off he turned his attention to the cup of coffee that sat untouched in front of him. It was cold and bitter.

  After a while he realised he was sitting there thinking nothing. His mind seemed to have gone into hibernation, retreating from the mass of contradictions that surrounded him. Concentrate, he told himself. Do what you do best. Work with what you know. Start with something small and nail it down.

  It was good advice. Having resolved to treat the whole messy business like an insurance investigation, he shoved Laverov from his mind and drove back into town.

  It took him less than an hour to check on the ownership of the yellow Volvo and the small rural property in the Landsbury Valley. Gormenghast belonged to someone by the name of Francis Abelard Grice; so did the Volvo. A further check turned up another interesting fact. It seemed that Mr Grice was a small-time property developer who owned several blocks of apartments in Hitchon and a property in Nikolayevsky Street.

  Teschmaker always enjoyed the tingling sensation in his spine when his instincts started to respond. And in this instance he knew his instincts were right. He drove along Nikolayevsky and stopped opposite Grice’s piece of real estate. It was the Mlad Fashions building.

  ‘Get that little snivelling creep away from me.’

  Gerard Edwards was not a happy man. He had been waiting for Teschmaker when he returned, sitting on the front doorstep, chain-smoking.

  ‘You and Norman had a falling out?’ Teschmaker tried to sound solicitous.

  It obviously failed. Edwards rolled his eyes heavenward and, getting to his feet, stumped off down the drive. Then he turned and snarled at Teschmaker in desperation. ‘No, Mr Teschmaker.’ It was amazing that he could make Teschmaker sound like an expletive. ‘No, it’s not fucking Norman. It’s that slimy little Viola. I swear, if
he calls me “sir” one more time, I’ll clock the cunt.’

  ‘Pity. Respect is in short supply these days.’ ‘Respect?’ Edwards snorted. ‘Don’t give me respect.

  Respect, I understand. It’s grovelling that gets up my nose.’

  ‘Live and let live.’

  ‘Yeah? Well, I don’t call that living.’

  Edwards came back to the front step. ‘Listen, all I’m asking is that you don’t leave him alone with me. I can’t be held responsible . . .’

  ‘Sure, Gerard. I think I get the picture.’ Whatever buttons Viola was pushing in Gerard Edwards, they were certainly getting a response. ‘I’ll have a word to him.’

  That stopped Edwards in his tracks. ‘No. I don’t mean . . . What I’m trying to say is . . .’

  ‘Yes?’ Teschmaker smiled cruelly. ‘What is it you’re saying?’

  ‘Nothing.’ Edwards scowled and handed over a piece of paper. ‘The car registrations you wanted.’

  ‘Thanks.’ Teschmaker decided it was not the right moment to reveal that he had checked the only one that really seemed to matter — the yellow Volvo. He moved towards the door but Edwards, obviously flustered, took his arm.

  ‘Look, don’t go telling Viola I was complaining. It would make things even worse. Just don’t put me in charge of looking after him.’

  Teschmaker was about to observe that one should confront one’s fears, but before he could decide on how that might be received Norman came to the door. He had white powder, chalk or something, all over his hands.

  ‘Phone for you, Mr Teschmaker.’

  It was Oliver Sinclair.

  ‘Any progress?’

  ‘A little.’ Teschmaker still had the feeling that Sinclair was playing a game with him. He decided to put him on a slow drip-feed. ‘I think I’ve found the place where the photographs were taken.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘Do you know the Mlad Fashions building in Nikolayevsky Street?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Jane went there to some sort of club. She went with a man named Francis Grice.’

  There was silence for a moment then a forced laugh. ‘You don’t muck around, do you! Well done, Teschmaker. Well done.’

  ‘I can’t really do much more, so I’ll send you an invoice for my time.’

  ‘Now hang on,’ Sinclair growled. ‘I want a good deal more than that —’

  ‘Sorry, that’s it. I said I would find out what was going on and it seems pretty clear that I’ve delivered. Oh, and one other thing. Your personal assistant . . .’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Her name is Irene, right?’

  ‘Yes, but I don’t understand what the hell that has got to do with anything.’

  ‘Just don’t talk to me on this phone. I think it’s probably been tapped. Mine as well, most likely. I’ll send the invoice.’ He hung up before Oliver could protest.

  Teschmaker realised he was very hungry and that the smell coming from the kitchen had a lot to do with it. He walked through to find Norman and Viola serving up a batch of muffins while a sour-looking Gerard Edwards was making a pot of tea. Happy families.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Ambassador Panyukov took a lot of convincing. ‘You want to phone who?’

  ‘The President,’ Laverov insisted tiredly. He had waited until late in the evening before driving up to the Ambassador’s residence, uninvited, unexpected and, so it appeared, unwelcome. The security detail had failed to convince him to leave and in the end had reluctantly woken the Ambassador.

  ‘Come to the embassy tomorrow and one of my staff will put your request to the people at Moscow Centre.’ Panyukov glanced out the window at the rain. There was no way he was going out on a night like this to deal with some spook with delusions of contacts in high places.

  But Laverov stood his ground. ‘I want access to the Dome and I want to phone the President now, not tomorrow. Now.’

  ‘I’m sorry, but I don’t know of any Dome.’

  The look on Panyukov’s face betrayed him. He was clearly shaken. The Dome did not officially exist. Nobody was supposed to know about it, certainly not some complete stranger turning up in the middle of the night. Nobody was allowed inside the Dome except the chief communications officer, the head of station intelligence and the Ambassador. In practice, the Ambassador — a man with a distinct distrust of even his own spooks — rarely used the secure facility. He thought of himself as a cultured man, a new Russian, and as far as he was concerned Moscow Centre was akin to Leonardo da Vinci’s golden mean — decidedly off-centre. On top of that was the worrying report he had received the day before that Vladimir Putin was intending to merge his security bodies into one organisation with powers that appeared, on the face of it, identical with those of the old KGB. Yeltsin had gone a long way towards breaking up the agency but this initiative came amid signs that Putin — who spent sixteen years in the security service, including five years as a spy in the former East Germany — was on track to give his former KGB colleagues more influence. Not only was it planned that the internal security agency, the FSB, the SVR, the foreign intelligence agency and FAPSI, the electronic surveillance body responsible for bugging operations, would be merged, but of just as much concern was the suggestion that leading the new organisation would be FSB head Nikolai Patrushev, and Sergei Ivanov who ran the powerful security council. They were both veteran KGB men, both friends of Putin. Maybe, the Ambassador thought, it was time to consider a quiet retirement.

  Laverov handed Panyukov a piece of paper. ‘Ring this number at the Centre and ask if Lynx has authorisation to ring the Chief.’

  ‘Lynx?’

  ‘A code name; the President’s little joke.’

  Twenty minutes later Laverov was being chauffeured to the embassy; the Ambassador a changed man.

  ‘I must say, I didn’t realise you chaps were still so involved.’

  He’s trying to claw back a bit of credibility, Laverov thought, save a bit of face. Poor sod. He decided to be generous. ‘Mostly trade stuff these days. Run of the mill. We keep an eye on what the multinationals are up to. Try and sniff the wind for the opportunity to steer trade in our direction. That sort of thing.’

  ‘Important work,’ Panyukov said gravely. ‘Damn difficult times.’

  ‘And we keep an eye on loyalty,’ Laverov added mischievously.

  ‘Yes, there’s a few back home who could benefit from a dose of that,’ the Ambassador deflected obliquely, wondering if he could organise a move to Canada.

  The station chief obviously kept tabs on the Ambassador because he was waiting for them at the embassy.

  ‘You’re working late,’ Panyukov remarked glibly.

  ‘I thought you might need me . . .’ He turned to Laverov and extended his hand. ‘I’m sorry, I don’t believe we’ve been introduced.’

  ‘We haven’t.’ Laverov ignored the hand.

  The Ambassador, who was having difficulty suppressing a smile, patted the station chief on the back. ‘Very commendable turning up like this, but we’ll be fine. I’m just taking our guest through to the Dome.’

  ‘But, Excellency, I must protest —’

  ‘And I insist you run along,’ Panyukov snapped. ‘This is important and can’t wait.’

  ‘It is highly irregular.’ The station chief looked angry and flustered at this incursion into his territory.

  ‘Your comments are noted.’ The Ambassador turned to Laverov. ‘Please, follow me.’

  Laverov waited until the Ambassador had left the room before dialling the number. It was answered immediately.

  ‘What is it, Laverov?’ the President asked tersely.

  ‘Clarification, Mr President.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘It seems that I may be close to one of the devices.’

  ‘Excellent.’

  ‘The two major players are present.’

  ‘Very good.’

  ‘But . . .’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I take
it that the destruction of the device is acceptable as a last resort?’

  ‘Yes. If it can be salvaged all the better, but it must be destroyed rather than allow possession by any other players. Clear?’

  ‘Yes, Mr President. There is also the question of several peripheral players —’

  ‘In the endgame there are no peripheral players. I hope you understand that.’ The President allowed a second’s silence then added softly, ‘You, of course, are an exception, Konstantin Ivanovich.’

  ‘Thank you, Mr President.’

  ‘I trust the President is well?’

  Laverov repressed a smile. He had seen similar expressions on the faces of dogs waiting at the foot of a table for scraps. ‘He sends his warmest greetings,’ he lied.

  ‘And . . .’ the Ambassador’s fishing expedition continued, ‘everything is satisfactory?’

  Satisfactory? A mission that started with the opening of a few boxes in a locked room in Moscow would end with the deaths of several people who probably had no idea why they should die. This was satisfactory? ‘Completely.’

  ‘Excellent!’ Panyukov beamed. ‘Well done!’

  No, he thought as he picked up his car from the Ambassador’s residence and drove off, it was far from satisfactory. The endgame, as the President had succinctly put it, was still far from clear. He didn’t know the exact whereabouts of the device, there had been no contact from the so-called ‘man on the inside’ and the major players seemed to be going in circles. His instincts told him he was missing something. His body told him it was sleep.

  He had only been out of bed a matter of minutes when the phone rang and Sinclair’s voice barked at him.

  ‘Saturday, Teschmaker.’

  ‘What? What time is it?’

  ‘Listen. Jane’s babysitter just rang me to say Jane is going out again on Saturday.’

  ‘The babysitter is on your payroll?’

  ‘Just a backup . . .’

  ‘Oliver, the answer is no.’

  ‘It’s not no at all, damn you. Now listen to me —’

  ‘No! Oliver, I am not following Jane around just to give you some lurid description of how she gets her kicks.’