“But inside, it’s like every place Dad ever lived in. He was into modern. Gleaming surfaces. Clean lines. He hated old, cozy and traditional. He only bought this house because it was going cheap. The original builder went bankrupt, you see. It was just a shell – Dad had all the interiors done up. He just never got round to doing anything about the outside.”
At that moment, a man came down the hall toward them, hands extended, smiling. In his mid to late forties, he was of medium height and slim build, with light brown hair receding a little at the sides, and deep-set dark eyes in a creased face. Dressed plainly in a white shirt, gray jumper and trousers of the same color, he could not have been called handsome, but he had a pleasant, kind face.
Alexey said, “Helen, may I present Nikolai Pavlovich Volkovsky, my godfather, the manager of Trinity. Kolya, I’d like you to meet Helen Clement.”
If in appearance Alexey’s godfather had been quite unlike the grim picture in Helen’s imagination, his manner was even more so. “I am most pleased to meet you, Miss Clement,” he said, cheerfully, as they shook hands. His English was excellent, the Russian accent discernible but not all that strong.
“And I you,” she responded, a little shyly. “Please call me Helen, Mr. Volkovsky.”
“A very pretty name indeed. Yelena in our language. But if I am to call you this, then let there be none of this Mr. Volkovsky either. Please call me Nikolai.”
“Thank you. I will.”
“I look forward very much to speaking further with you, Helen, but just now Lyosha and I have to make a conference call to Moscow. Would you mind waiting in the living-room till we finish? We will have Katya bring you coffee, or something stronger if you desire?”
“Oh no. Coffee will be fine.”
“Very well, then, I will arrange for it and set up the call. See you in the study in a few minutes, Lyosha.” He turned on his heel and disappeared down the corridor.
As they entered the living-room, Helen said, “Alexey, if you –”
She never finished her sentence, for he’d kicked the door shut behind them and taken her in his arms. And just like that, they were kissing, again and again, desperately, as if they couldn’t stop, his fingers entwined in her hair, her arms around his neck. The delicious warm masculine scent of him made her dizzy, her limbs were melting, senses reeling – the taste of him on her lips mingled salt and heat, the sea-change eyes had the pull of a tide in which she would happily have drowned. As they emerged breathless from the kiss, he said her name, softly, and she felt a sharp stab of mixed delight and foreboding and cried, “Oh, Alexey, oh Alexey – can we risk this ... oh, we’re from such different worlds, you and I.”
“We have a saying in Russia,” he responded, smiling down at her. “He who never takes risks never gets to taste champagne.”
She laughed a little shakily. “Typical! I suppose you swig champagne in that troika of yours while you go hell for leather down the road scattering passers-by as you go!”
“You’ve got it in one,” he said, exultantly. “It’s all about joy and passion and commitment, about seizing every moment and living it to the full because you never know what’s coming next.” His eyes gleamed. “Do you see, Helen? Do you see?”
“I do,” she whispered, “oh, I do.” She held him tight as they kissed again and her heart swelled almost unbearably with desire and a huge golden heat as powerful as anger. It was what her mother would have called la rage de vivre, the passion for life. Even before Simon had cast his pall, before he’d made her retreat before life, the world had not beat with as furious a pulse as it did now. She gave herself up to it. She was not in control, but so what? The everyday had cracked wide open, revealing the molten core of life itself: joy, passion, commitment – and the unexpected!
She pushed him gently away and said, “You’d better get to that conference call of yours, or your godfather won’t be happy with me,” and he grinned and said, “And we can’t have that, can we?” As he spoke there came a tentative knock on the door, and a young woman came in; a thin, short girl with brown hair whose tips were inexpertly dyed in what Helen privately thought of as the “vanilla-and-chocolate ice-cream look”, layers of blonde and black. She wore an apron over jeans and a flowery top, and carried a tray on which reposed a miniature version of the tea-urn Russians called samovar, a couple of lovely tea-glasses, and a plate of exquisite little pink and white iced gingerbread biscuits.
“Spasiba. Thank you, Katya,” said Alexey, and smiled at her. Helen felt a twist of ridiculous jealousy. “Katya’s our chef,” he went on in English. “She had the morning off though and I didn’t think it was fair to expect her to cook lunch.”
“Oh, right.” She held out a hand to Katya. “Hello,” she said. “Pleased to meet you.”
Katya shook Helen’s hand. “I am pleased to meet you,” she echoed shyly, in hesitant English, and then left the room.
Alexey turned the tap of the samovar and poured out some tea into the glasses. He handed one to Helen, and drained the other one in one gulp.
“She seems pretty young to be a chef,” said Helen.
“She is. But she’s awesome.” He gave her a wry glance. “Oleg’s her boyfriend, by the way.”
She colored a little. “Oh. Right.”
He smiled. “Helen, are you going to be okay? I’ll be quick as I can. And if you get bored, there’s some magazines in that shelf over there – some of them are in English, a bit old, but …”
“Don’t worry about me, I’ll be fine,” Helen said, and impulsively reached up to kiss him on the cheek.
He laughed. “Yes, better keep it cool right now or I won’t know what the hell I’m saying to those officials, will I?” he said, teasingly, and, squeezing her hand, he was gone.
Left alone, Helen sat drinking her coffee, nibbling on the delicious little biscuits, and looking around her at the room she hadn’t really noticed till now. It was all chilly muted colors: clinically white walls, two large pale gray leather sofas, a smoked glass coffee table with steel edges, a TV and entertainment unit hidden behind black glass, a simple gray shelf housing some black leather files with magazines stacked neatly in them, and a large gray-and-green abstract painting on one wall. All very modern and chic but impersonal, like a set-up in a magazine. No family photos or clutter or books. And only one incongruous touch, on a small table in a corner: an icon depicting three angels sitting around a table. Helen remembered seeing a similar one in Moscow, and remembered too her mother reading out a comment from her guidebook: “In the Russian Orthodox religion, the Holy Trinity of Father, Son and Holy Spirit is very important. And it is always depicted as three angels, because of the great medieval artist Andrei Rublev’s famous icon. One of Russia’s most beloved religious images, it is reproduced again and again, and many homes have a copy of it.”
This was a very good copy, Helen thought, looking more closely. It wasn’t simply a foil picture glued onto a wooden backing, as was the case in most of the reproductions she’d seen for sale in churches and souvenir shops. This one had been painted, and very delicately too. And it looked old. Antique, even. She wondered if Alexey’s father had called his company after it, or if he’d bought it because he had a company of that name.
She went to the shelf and started looking through the magazines. There were a few old publications in English – Time, The Economist, and a thick glossy publication called Company Life, a magazine aimed at foreign companies looking to do business in Russia. She was flipping idly through Company Life when she happened on something that made her pause. It was an ad for Trinity, made to look like a typewritten page extracted from a private investigator’s files.
In the colorful world of Russian business, Trinity is a quiet ghost. You won’t see splashy stories about it in the press or on TV. Its directors don’t believe in throwing champagne parties or riding in stretch limousines with blonde bombshells or being seen at grand openings with the élite of Russia. And yet ask around. Listen. On the lips of
everyone who matters will come one word, one whisper: Trinity.
With family backgrounds in the security services, the three young army mates who started the firm in the difficult early 1990s vowed that discretion, attention to detail and efficiency must be their watchwords at all times. But they also vowed to never forget the imaginative leap without which those other qualities are hollow forms. It is an understanding that has taken the firm from humble beginnings at a rickety kitchen table in a cramped communal apartment to large offices in Moscow and St Petersburg; agencies in Helsinki, Copenhagen, Vilnius and Riga; and an enviable network of international links. We can’t sway you with details of Trinity’s highly qualified staff and excellent contacts in business and government. We can’t tell you about Trinity’s impressive list of successes and we can’t reel off the names of their most famous clients.. All we can tell you is this: there are private investigation companies. And then there’s Trinity.
The only illustration was a blurry photograph of three men seen from the back. And under that, a phone number. And that was all.
Cheesy or what, Helen thought, smiling, just as the door opened and Nikolai Volkovsky came in. “Lyosha’s just wrapping up one or two things with the lawyer. He asked me to come and keep you company,” he said, moving to sit by her. “Ah, I see you’ve found the famous blurb.” He glanced at the magazine on her lap. “Ivan Mikhailovich – Alexey’s father – was furious about it at first. He said it trotted out every Western cliché about Russia, and that it would make Trinity a laughing-stock.”
“Didn’t he know it was going in?”
“No. It was Semyon Danilovich’s idea. One of the other partners, Mr. Galkin. He didn’t write it of course.” He grinned. “A rather pretty young English lady at Company Life did that. Semyon Danilovich was partial to pretty young ladies. Curvy brunettes or foreign girls were his preference. She was both.”
Helen smiled. “What happened? Did it work – the ad, I mean?”
“Seems like the brunette knew what she was doing when it came to Westerners and stereotypes. We got quite a bit of foreign business over it. And Ivan Mikhailovich stopped grumbling.” He sighed. “It’s ancient history now. We are on a new path, as I’m sure Lyosha has told you.”
She gave him a swift glance. Was there some reproof for Alexey in his tone? But he seemed quite relaxed. “Yes, he did.”
“It’s not easy to change direction, Helen.”
“I can imagine that. How long have you been working for Trinity, Mr. – er, Nikolai?”
“Oh, almost since it started,” he said. “They were very hard years, the early ’90s, and many people fell by the wayside. But Ivan Makarov was well ahead of the game, he wasn’t the son of a KGB major for nothing. He understood instinctively about the value of information, and in not only finding people with the right skills, but developing their skills and their confidence. For instance, I started as a humble fact-checker and ended where you see me now. “
She gave him another quick glance. He was so much more open than she’d imagined. Much more willing to share than she’d feared. He must be taking his cues from Alexey, she thought. They were obviously very close.
“I think that’s great,” she said, hurriedly, seeing his questioning expression.
“Yes. It is. I don’t know what Lyosha’s told you, exactly, but though Ivan Mikhailovich and the others had their faults, they also had many good qualities. And one of them was respect for us, the staff. We were all, from manager down to the cleaners, treated well; not like buddies, that is not our way, but with respect. Some of us, who were to deal with foreign clients, were also paid to undergo extra training, like intensive language courses.”
Which was why, she thought, he could speak English so well. “Alexey said he and his father weren’t close.”
“That’s so. But he is more like his father than he might care to admit. Though don’t tell him I said so,” he added, cheerfully. “I used to think poor Misha – his late brother Mikhail, that is – did he tell you about him?”
“Only a little.”
“Then I will let him tell you the whole story himself in his own time. But suffice it to say that because Misha looked more like his father than Alexey does, people tended to assume he was more like him in character too. Not so. Poor Misha was a troubled soul. Weak. Easily influenced. But Alexey’s strong, Helen. And his determination – his conviction – is so much like his father’s. But no, they were not close. It is a real shame.”
He looked at her, earnestly, as if expecting a response. She wasn’t sure what to say. She felt a little awkward about talking about Alexey’s family when he wasn’t there. But she also didn’t want to offend his godfather.
“Yes,” she said, “it must have been very difficult.”
“Yes. Trouble was, Ivan closed himself off to everyone after poor Svetlana died. And that impinged on everything. I understand why he felt he had to leave Russia – but it was a pity, for us, for Trinity. We kept expanding, we even opened small offices in Helsinki and Copenhagen, he came often on visits, and Galkin and Barsukov were still around, but it just wasn’t the same. Even when Ivan Mikhailovich was here, it wasn’t like the old days. Our relationship had changed. Business was booming, never better, but it felt empty, somehow.”
Was that the shine of tears in his eyes? Touched yet embarrassed by his obvious emotion, and wishing Alexey would come back, Helen murmured, “Oh. That’s sad.”
“Yes. But it was more than that. I had the uneasy feeling that there were secrets being kept from me and the other Trinity staff. But what could I do? I wasn’t about to endanger my job on the ghost of an uneasy feeling. So I said nothing.” He paused. “Sometimes I lie awake at night thinking – if I had been braver, if I had spoken out, would things have been different? But I will never know the answer to that question.”
The expression in his eyes was both sad and fierce. On an impulse, Helen said, “Do you think Alexey’s father and his partners were –”
“Murdered?” he finished her sentence. “One accident, yes, two even – maybe. But three? It stretches credulity, even if the police seem slow to agree. Yes, I’m sure they were murdered. I don’t know how, but I have a fair suspicion as to who.”
She stared at him. He said, “Let me rephrase that. I do not know the identity of the actual individuals. Just that I can guess the milieu they are likely to come from.”
“Gangsters, you mean?”
He smiled. “They call themselves businessmen, these days. The days of guns blazing in Moscow streets and tattooed vory strutting around are long gone. Everything looks smooth and ordered now. The wolf is still there, but he wears a sheep’s pelt.” He paused. “Did Lyosha tell you about the offers he got for the company?”
She nodded.
“We have suspicion as to who might be behind them, but no proof. On my advice, rather than just refuse them out of hand, he stalled them. Told them he was still weighing up his options. It bought us time. But they’d know by now what he’s decided.”
Her breath fluttered in her throat. “Does that mean that … he could be in danger from them, if they’re – if they’re angry about it?”
“It’s certainly possible.”
She felt a cold hand grip her heart. “Has anything – have they done anything to …”
“There’s been a couple of incidents. Nothing very serious. Yet.”
Helen faltered, “What sort of incidents?”
“Some anonymous phone calls. And an attempted break-in at our Petersburg office. But they didn’t get in.” He looked at her. “As I said, it’s minor, at the moment. Lyosha says there is nothing to worry about. He is brave, Helen. He will not back down. And I’m glad of that. Trinity must go on. But that doesn’t stop me from being concerned about his safety.”
“The police …”
“Will not do anything unless something happens,” he said. “You know how it is. So we deal with things ourselves. Lyosha lives here because we can protect him m
ore easily than in the city. Strangers are more easily spotted, you understand.”
She shivered. “Yes. I do.”
“But Lyosha’s quite headstrong, and it can be the devil’s own job keeping up with him.” He smiled at her. “As I’m sure you’ll find out.”
She was saved from answering by the reappearance of Alexey, looking harassed. Flinging himself down in an armchair, he said, “Bloody bureaucrats! Tie you up in knots over the simplest thing, and so slow about everything.”
“They are annoying, I grant you, but we’re almost there.” He smiled, his obvious affection for his godson lightening his creased face. “You’re doing so well, Lyosha. But that patience of yours still needs a little work.”
“True enough,” said Alexey, laughing.
Chapter 10
Alexey drove Helen home a little later that afternoon. He stayed for a drink, and when he’d gone home, Therese said, in a resigned sort of voice, “Well, I suppose I won’t see much of you for the rest of the holiday,” and Helen laughed and said, “I’m sorry, Mam, do you mind?”
Therese shook her head. “It’s great to see you looking so happy, even though it scares me a little too, for what do we really know about him?”
Helen kissed her mother and said, “Everything that matters and nothing that doesn’t. You mustn’t worry, Mam, you mustn’t worry about me anymore because everything’s going to be all right now.” And just like that she found she was able to finally talk with her mother about what had happened that day back in London.
It wasn’t that her mother didn’t know the basic outline. She knew that punch-drunk from her ignominious departure from Changeling, Helen had come home to the apartment she shared with Simon and walked in on him in bed with Annie, who of all Simon’s circle, was the closest thing to a friend Helen had. The shock of it was so great that at first she couldn’t move. Then she stumbled away down the stairs, but before she reached the front door, Simon came after her. “Listen, Helen, it’s just sex,” he’d said, “she doesn’t mean what you mean to me.” When she’d whispered, “Was that the first time?” he’d shrugged, and she knew it wasn’t. She said, “Do you love her?” And he’d said, impatiently, “Of course not, it’s nothing, I tell you, it’s no big deal. What the fuck’s the matter with you, you turning all suburban on me or something?”
Trinity: The Koldun Code (Book 1) Page 8
