A Morbid Habit

by Annie Hauxwell

  She went outside.

  Nikki turned and looked at her with an expression that she could have sworn was dismay.

  A policeman was standing beside his car with his weapon drawn.

  ‘Get in the car,’ she said gently.

  Nikki did as he was told.

  The policeman marched up to her and, without saying a word, knocked her tea out of her hand. Then he dragged her to the Range Rover, opened the door and thrust her into the passenger seat. He held out his hand.

  Berlin gave him the key and fob.

  He walked around the car, got in and drove them to the back of the garage. When he got out he took the key with him, but left the electrical system on.

  There were no lights at the rear of the building. It was pitch black, with visibility even more limited by the snow. The dashboard bathed the interior in an eerie green glow. It matched the awful silence.

  84

  By the time Yuri arrived the locals were unhappy. He thought it unwise to deal with his problem in their presence. They might see an opportunity to put him in their debt. He expressed his sincere thanks for their splendid work and cooperation, and demonstrated his gratitude with a significant donation to the local police football team.

  The traffic cop handed over the key and fob.

  Yuri sent them on their way, then drove around the back, pulled up in front of the Range Rover and took his gun from its holster.

  He pressed the fob.

  Berlin heard the soft clunk of the doors unlocking. She brought her fist down hard on the central locking button.

  Outside in the snow, Yuri pressed the fob.

  The locks popped open.

  Even over the howling wind she could hear him laughing.

  ‘Get down and stay down,’ she said.

  Nikki obliged by sliding to the floor, taking Yorkie with him.

  Berlin experienced a heightening of the senses. Possibly the kind that preceded death. She found herself able to move with lightning speed, anticipating the movement made by Yuri as he pressed the fob. She turned on the headlights.

  She could see his eyes. He was tiring of the game.

  She kept one hand on the central locking button and with the other she took Yuri’s gun, a heavy old thing, with a worn red star on the handgrip, out of her pocket.

  She couldn’t use it in the car for fear of a ricochet. It was pointless trying to shoot through the windscreen.

  Yuri would open the door and when he did one of them would go down first. She had a fifty-fifty chance.

  Berlin released the button. The locks popped.

  Yuri didn’t move from his position between the two cars. Instead, he turned to the boot of his vehicle and opened it. He gestured with his gun.

  Berlin flicked the headlights to high beam.

  Anna lay in the boot, gagged and bound.

  Yuri put the gun to her head.

  He had anticipated Berlin’s armed resistance.

  She opened the door and tossed out his gun. It was a gesture, that’s all. Even if she had a machine gun, she wouldn’t have used it. And Yuri knew it.

  Connections create vulnerabilities: it was a rule Berlin had forgotten.

  He motioned for her to get out.

  Berlin climbed down, closing the door behind her.

  She could see Anna’s thin body quaking with fear or cold or both. But the light had gone out of her eyes, dulled by resignation.

  ‘Walk,’ commanded Yuri. He pointed towards the forest.

  ‘Let the girl go,’ said Berlin.

  His weapon didn’t have a silencer. He looked around and gritted his teeth. He was apparently anxious to avoid attracting attention. ‘Move,’ he said.

  Berlin stood her ground.

  Yuri hesitated. He left the boot open and stepped out from between the vehicles, but before he could advance any further towards her, a car appeared from one side of the building, catching the little scene in its headlights.

  Yuri froze.

  85

  Utkin could see the boot of Yuri’s car was open, but he couldn’t see what was in it. He saw Berlin, but couldn’t see the interior of the Range Rover, which was dark.

  He got out of his car and raised a hand in a friendly gesture, addressing Yuri. ‘What have you been up to?’

  ‘Don’t come any closer,’ said Yuri.

  Utkin stomped through the snow. He didn’t look at Berlin. She couldn’t understand what they were saying anyway.

  ‘Why would you fear me, Yuri?’ he said. ‘I am an old man. Your junior in rank. You have relationships I can only imagine.’

  ‘The only relationship that meant anything to me is over,’ said Yuri.

  His sweaty pallor was that of a man at the end of his rope – liable to be impulsive, to make mistakes.

  Utkin softened his tone.

  ‘What about your daughters?’ he said. ‘You love them, don’t you?’

  Yuri rubbed his sleeve across his eyes.

  ‘Why did you do it, Yuri?’ he said. ‘Was it for the motherland?’

  ‘It was for Maryna,’ shouted Yuri, waving the gun about.

  Utkin took a backward step.

  ‘She was the one with pure motives,’ said Yuri. He was ranting now. ‘I was always weak, weak, weak. But still, it would have been all right. Then she interfered.’ He pointed the gun at Berlin.

  ‘Yuri,’ said Utkin. ‘I must ask you to bring her in for questioning.’

  ‘She’s an enemy agent,’ said Yuri.

  ‘All the more reason to keep her alive,’ said Utkin. ‘She may have valuable information.’

  Yuri growled. ‘A quick death is too good for her,’ he said.

  His eyes were glassy. He was listening only to an inner voice. Utkin moved forwards a little. He had to keep Yuri talking.

  ‘What happened to Mikhail Gerasimov?’ he asked.

  ‘He was a traitor,’ said Yuri.

  ‘And your mistress’s husband,’ said Utkin.

  ‘He was exploiting his knowledge of Maryna’s work,’ insisted Yuri. ‘He deserved to die.’

  ‘Why didn’t you kill him yourself?’

  Utkin took another step forwards.

  ‘I’m warning you,’ said Yuri. ‘Stay out of this.’

  He cocked the gun.

  Utkin sighed, shrugged, kicked at the snow.

  ‘Very well,’ he said. ‘Have it your way. I’m not risking my neck for her.’

  Berlin had no idea what had transpired between the two men, but as she watched Utkin trudge back to his car, she knew it wasn’t good.

  ‘Okay,’ said Yuri. ‘We go.’

  He levelled the gun at her and pointed. He wanted her further away from the garage.

  Berlin wondered if he would just shoot her in the back if she made a run for it. But she could barely walk in the deep snow, let alone run. She moved forwards slowly.

  She couldn’t hear Yuri behind her because of the wind and the deep, cold carpet that lay beneath their feet.

  She became aware of light playing on the snowflakes. Shadows tumbled as beams swept across the snow.

  She glanced over her shoulder and saw Yuri turn.

  There was a roar, a dull thud, and he was gone.

  Yuri rolled from the bonnet as the Ford slithered to a halt. The bloody windscreen stayed intact for a moment, then shattered and fell in on Utkin. An icy blast engulfed him.

  He had had to stop Yuri. He knew that, but he was sick to the stomach. It was an accident. An awful car accident. It happens and no-one would think to take it further.

  Now he had to pull himself together. Despite the fact that he had killed the man he had once called friend.

  Even before Utkin’s car had come to a complete stop, Berlin began running back through the snow to the spot where Yuri had stood seconds ago. His weapon, the key and the fob lay where he had dropped them. She snatched them up.

  Peering into the darkness, she could see the trees illuminated by the headlights of Utkin’s car.

/>   Berlin stumbled to the Range Rover and clambered in, glancing into the back seat as she turned on the motor.

  Nikki had found a travel rug and was crouched beneath it with Yorkie. She engaged the gears. Her foot hit the accelerator and the Range Rover surged forwards.

  She braked again.

  Anna was still lying in Yuri’s boot. If she tried to rescue her now, it would mean giving up Nikki. He was the killer Utkin sought.

  The policeman would know an asthmatic woman of Charlie’s age was physically incapable of killing a man alone, so someone else was involved.

  He must have had Charlie under surveillance, which was how he had come to be hanging around outside her place that first night, when the Range Rover was ‘stolen’.

  Charlie had kept Nikki well hidden, but the minute Utkin saw him, it would be over.

  Utkin gently lifted Yuri’s cap. It was a bad move. Yuri groaned and opened his eyes.

  ‘Forgive me, Sasha,’ he said.

  Utkin put his face close to Yuri’s, offering him a final moment of warmth. Poor Yuri. He wasn’t evil, just a frightened fool. Like all men with power he was afraid even of those who served him. Fear had made him contemptible.

  A motor roared. Startled, he looked up to see two bright beams bearing down on him. He dived into the snow.

  The Range Rover swerved at the last minute and spattered him with freezing spray.

  ‘Stop!’ he shouted. He snatched the pistol from his holster as it sped away.

  Berlin smacked the steering wheel and cursed herself. She just didn’t have the guts. She hoped to Christ Utkin would simply let Anna go. He had no use for her.

  As they bounced back onto the highway, she heard a car backfire. It sounded a lot like a gun.

  The lights of the garage in the rear-view mirror soon shrank to a point and disappeared. There was no sign of any emergency vehicles on the road, no sirens or flashing lights coming in either direction.

  It was possible that no-one had even heard anything. Berlin flexed her fingers and eased her grip on the steering wheel.

  Utkin’s car probably wouldn’t be in any shape to follow them. But he might use Yuri’s.

  Easing off the accelerator, she slowed to a safe speed. It would take them about three hours to get to the border. The tank was full; they had chocolate.

  A laugh erupted from her mouth, which became a sob.

  At the edge of the pool of light that rushed along ahead of them there was an endless white plain.

  She hummed ‘Lara’s Theme’. Zayde had taken her to see Doctor Zhivago when she was very little. He had cried, she remembered.

  He’d patted her hand and told her tears were a sign of strength, not weakness. She didn’t believe it then, and she didn’t believe it now.

  But there was nothing she could do to staunch her own.

  86

  A lemon haze in the distance: floodlights. The border crossing. Berlin slowed right down.

  There was more commercial traffic here than she’d seen on the entire trip. Lorries and vans trundled along, rocking side to side as they negotiated the icy ridges of frozen slush. The Range Rover seemed to be the only domestic vehicle.

  Nikki sat beside her. The chocolate had long gone. They were both tired and hungry. The line of traffic closed up. Enormous rigs boxed them in ahead and behind. They crawled forwards. She couldn’t believe they had got this far. She found it difficult to believe they would get any further.

  There were garages on both sides of the road, a couple of restaurants and some nondescript buildings whose roofs were crowded with masts and satellite dishes.

  The border control post came into view. There was a car park behind it and Berlin could see men walking back and forth between the building, clutching documents.

  The traffic came to a standstill.

  Two uniformed men were approaching, peering into the lorry cabs as they advanced. One had an enormous German shepherd on a tight leash.

  They were checking passports and papers.

  Passports and papers that they didn’t have. Berlin and Nikki wouldn’t even get as far as the border control building. Their descriptions would have been circulated. They would be detained, then disappear into the system.

  ‘This looks like the end of the line,’ said Berlin.

  She turned the wheel and steered the Range Rover out from between the two lorries. Easing onto the hard shoulder, she drove along it at a leisurely pace, approaching the car park behind the border control post.

  At the last moment, but still moving slowly, she spun the wheel hard, drove around the car park and into the empty space behind it. There was no fence.

  She put her foot down. The tyres spun, then found traction. The Range Rover shot forwards.

  They were heading into no-man’s-land.

  It had always been her destination.

  A siren wailed. Border guards ran in all directions. Lorry drivers emerged from their vehicles and the restaurant to gawp.

  Berlin kept glancing in the rear-view mirror as the car jolted across the frozen ruts. The sheer audacity of the move had apparently paralysed everyone for a moment.

  But now the chaos was unfolding.

  She drove to the middle of the field and stopped. She had what she wanted. Witnesses. Dozens of them. On both sides of the border. Shooting them was not an option. Latvia and Russia were uneasy neighbours. Who would claim jurisdiction?

  It began to snow.

  The guards scrambled to set up a perimeter about two hundred yards away. Berlin knew it was standard operating procedure. They had to stay out of range in case she was a suicide bomber. Binoculars would be trained on them from every angle.

  The frantic activity gradually died away.

  Now what? They would just wait.

  There would be telephone calls, discussions, meetings, arguments, orders sought, issued and ignored. The two sets of border guards, Latvian and Russian, would keep their distance from the Range Rover and each other until someone, somewhere, decided what to do.

  No-one wanted an international incident. The buck would be passed up the line.

  87

  The snow had drifted deep around the Range Rover. Night and day had lost all meaning in the blizzard. Drifts were obscuring the vehicles that encircled them.

  Berlin kept to a strict routine: switching on the motor and running the heater for a short time at defined intervals; eventually the tank would run dry. It didn’t matter. She’d forgotten what the intervals were supposed to be.

  The fog of stale breath, damp wool and dog pee was becoming unbearable. Nikki and Yorkie were subdued, restless, dozing intermittently, their lassitude due to hunger and thirst. Dehydration was a real possibility, despite the frozen water all around them. Berlin daren’t let them get out of the car.

  If hunger didn’t drive them out, the cold would.

  Who would come forward to arrest them?

  Men struggled against the wind to set up portable floodlights, the kind used at crime scenes. They blinked into life, one by one. Berlin couldn’t see beyond the halo of light. She could hardly keep her eyes open anyway.

  The negotiations, the diplomatic process, was taking much, much longer than she had expected.

  It suddenly occurred to her that perhaps there weren’t any negotiations. Everyone had simply agreed, by default, to leave them in the field until they disappeared beneath the ice and snow. Frozen, suffocated, silent.

  88

  It took Berlin a moment to realise that the figure trudging towards them was real. She had begun to slip in and out of a sort of fugue state, aware that she would be heading for the big sleep if she didn’t stay awake.

  She got out of the car. Nikki, who had slept soundly for hours, did the same, cradling Yorkie beneath his coat. He came and stood beside her.

  Berlin could see the advancing figure was carrying a weapon. She raised her arms. No-one would shoot a woman surrendering in these circumstances, surely. Too many bystanders.

&n
bsp; Yorkie peeked out and sniffed. His ears went up. He yapped once, then sprang from Nikki’s arms and ran. He bounced up and down, then leapt at the man as he came to a halt ten feet away.

  Utkin caught the little dog in his arms.

  The snow swirled around them. Was she dreaming?

  Yorkie yelped and snuffled manically.

  Nikki took a step forwards. Berlin reached out to stop him, but she was too late. He kept walking towards Utkin.

  ‘Papa,’ he said.

  89

  The family reunion resolved into a snowy tableau before Berlin’s eyes. Yorkie lay cradled in Utkin’s arms. Nikki had simply left Berlin’s side and gone to stand beside his father. They hadn’t embraced. The automatic weapon Utkin carried jarred a bit, but otherwise it was somehow seasonal: Happy New Year from Our Family to Yours.

  ‘You have caused me much trouble, Katarina Berlinskaya,’ said Utkin.

  ‘I could say the same thing about you,’ retorted Berlin.

  ‘Look at this,’ said Utkin. He tossed his mobile phone and it fell at her feet. The small screen displayed an unflattering portrait of a corpse. The little commodore.

  ‘Gerasimov’s stand-in,’ she said.

  ‘I guessed as much,’ said Utkin.

  ‘Another of your son’s victims,’ said Berlin.

  ‘A good child protecting his mother,’ said Utkin.

  Berlin put her hand in her pocket.

  Utkin brought his weapon to his shoulder.

  Berlin held up the sweet wrapper from the scene of the murder. She offered it to him.

  Utkin relaxed and stepped forwards to take it.

  ‘The first was when Nikki was still teenager,’ he said. ‘Some poor plumber at our apartment who made mistake of arguing with Charlotte. Something trivial. She slapped. He slapped back. Then it happened.’

  Utkin touched Nikki’s face.

  ‘You blame Charlie,’ said Berlin.

  ‘No,’ said Utkin. ‘I blame myself. But perhaps, as you say, the apple doesn’t fall far from tree. Charlotte called me at work. Yuri was my junior partner.’

  ‘You covered up a murder,’ said Berlin.

  ‘He was my son,’ said Utkin. ‘Yuri kept it quiet.’