Trinity: The Koldun Code (Book 1)

by Sophie Masson

  The three villains had clearly decided to go into business on their own account. Their pay-mistress might be dead, but the secrets of the Koldun file could be theirs now. Maxim was more and more certain that his instinct was right and that the file contained some revelation about a new kind of “psychic enhancer” as Oberlian had called it, which the Trinity partners had started to develop. But the Koldun file was gone for good now, and so he’d never know. There wasn’t even the printout of the first page, as Foma had taken it with him. As to the rest of the material on the card – the bits Ivan Makarov had written about his father, the passage from the dream-book, his Kirlian photos – they had a poignancy now in Maxim’s memory, but they’d be of no use to the crooks.

  Helen had told him about the video she had deleted, the stills of which she’d found in Bayeva’s filing cabinet. He didn’t say it was a pity she and Alexey had not said anything to anyone else about it. She didn’t need to be told. He knew that both she and Volkovsky believed that the clip must have been an early demonstration of Bayeva’s psychokinetic power, which had come into Ivan Makarov’s possession through the Koldun project. Possibly even that she had sent the clip to the Trinity partners herself, as a kind of lure.

  But Maxim wasn’t so sure. A thorough search of Bayeva’s house had revealed no confessional material of any kind. Secretive to the last, she had left no real clue to her plot or the nature of her power – except for the sparrow stills. And that material about Antonov. But surely she would not have wanted any of the Trinity directors to suspect she had that sort of power anyway, or why on earth would Ivan Makarov, after the death of his partners, not be on his guard against her? No, Maxim thought Ivan Makarov had come across the clip in some other way. How, it was likely they’d never know now. Even if they still had the card, the sparrow clip – which must be a copy of the original – had been deleted. There were the stills of course but he doubted they’d get much from them.

  In any case, it didn’t much matter. There were other ways of piecing together what had happened and how Bayeva had carried out her murderous plans. Early contact with the FBI had already yielded the information that Bayeva had definitely traveled from her home state of California to Finland, France and Australia around the dates of the deaths of the three Trinity partners. That Finnish trip hadn’t been the only one she’d made to that country; over the last three and a half years she had traveled at least twice more from LA to Helsinki, and when he checked with Finnish immigration authorities, he discovered that she’d also made the trip across from St Petersburg to Helsinki several times, under the cover of her cross-border bear folklore research. Nothing at all to attract the attention of even the most alert person at the time; but now it provided a pattern that could be linked to one of the Trinity partners – Semyon Galkin, who frequently went to Finland on hunting expeditions.

  Maxim had the dates of Galkin’s Finnish trips checked, and there was no doubt – four or five of them had coincided with Bayeva’s, and what was more, most of them had been within the same area. Mostly they had been in different hotels, but once they had even been in the same one. US records provided another small but suggestive snippet – four years ago, Galkin had visited the US on what appeared to be his first and last trip to that country. He had stayed ten days, holidaying in California. Specifically, in LA. At a time when Bayeva was definitely residing in her home town.

  In Maxim’s mind it went like this: Bayeva and Galkin had first met in LA. Sometime later a relationship had started, instigated most likely by Bayeva. She’d looked old and gaunt in recent times, but Maxim had seen earlier photographs of her which showed a lively, gamine sporty charm. And Galkin, who’d not had much luck with women in the past, who was lonely and sought the services of astrologers to find out if he’d ever be lucky in love – for that too they now knew – would have been an easy target. Of the three Trinity men, he was the weakest link.

  She must have persuaded him to keep it a secret. Perhaps it had been exciting for him to do so. They’d meet in Finland every now and then – perhaps in Russia too. Cold-bloodedly, all along she must have been meditating her revenge, taking her time, spinning poor lonely Galkin into her web. He wasn’t even her real target, just collateral damage in her war against the Makarovs, just like Barsukov, and poor Kirov and drug-addled Grisha. But he was also her entry to the world of Trinity; and unwittingly he must have provided her with useful information. That must have been how she had drawn out Barsukov too. Remembering the email he had found, Barsukov’s brief message to Ivan Makarov about “a possible Koldun leak”, Maxim wondered if it had been something to do with that. It had been sent only a few weeks before Barsukov’s death. Had she anonymously tipped him off there was a leak? Was that why he’d been in France – he’d been steered there by the tip-off? It was a supposition that fitted with what he’d been able to determine of Barsukov’s personality, which was a mix of the reckless and the loyal. He’d be determined to get to the bottom of it. But he might not have told Makarov he was going to. And even if he had, neither of them would suspect that the “leak” was in any way linked to Galkin’s death. Why would they? There’d been no real reason at the time to suppose Galkin’s death was murder. He’d had a weak heart, after all.

  Maxim didn’t know yet for sure, but he thought that was how it had gone with Barsukov. But in his case it must have been harder. Not so much because Barsukov was a more cynical and suspicious type than Galkin, but because he did not have a weak heart. Maxim had come to the reluctant conclusion that somehow Bayeva’s dreadful power had triggered heart attacks in her victims, though in his official report he was going to be careful to present alternative, more palatable theories, such as an injection of potassium chloride or other untraceable poison which could equally stimulate a heart attack. But unofficially he had decided that the feature of the case which had so titillated the media and caused them to dub it the “Rusalka Curse” – the fact all three men had apparently drowned – had not been some kind of flamboyant serial-killer “signature” but a practical way of ensuring that, weak heart or not, the victims would die. Galkin would not have survived a heart attack anyway, water or no water. Bayeva’s power would have been enough on its own to kill him. But the others’ hearts were stronger. They might just have been rendered unconscious, like Alexey had been. But if they fell unconscious into water and were not found in time, then they’d never recover consciousness. To all intents and purposes, they would have drowned.

  Maxim had no real proof yet how Bayeva had got to Ivan Makarov. But as with Barsukov he had a theory. And it wasn’t the Koldun file, though Makarov’s destruction of the papers the night before his death suggested he thought that was what the killer was after. The Koldun project appeared to be the thing he cared most about; that lay at his deepest, most secret core.

  But what if the killer had seen otherwise? What if she had understood that despite his hard, uncompromising exterior, Makarov had been haunted? Haunted by the deaths of his wife and his estranged older son, by dreams of his dead father and the deaths of his two closest friends. Even Kirov’s death had meant something to him. Perhaps deep down he feared he was a death-bringer to every person he’d ever been close to. And if he’d been made to think that Alexey was also going to die, then ...

  It was horrible, to think of it. For it had been exactly how she’d got to poor Alexey as well. Love. The terror not for oneself but for loved ones.

  In Bayeva’s diseased mind, the Makarovs were the fount of all evil. She saw no difference between the Stalinist murderer and the young musician. No difference between a cold KGB interrogator and his haunted businessman son or true-hearted grandson. To her they were not individual people. They were one and the same, an undying, monstrous vampire that must be staked through the heart. But the macabre irony of it was that it was she who had become the monster. And at the very end, when she realized what a dreadful mistake she’d made – when she knew that it had all been for nothing and her vengeance had turned to a
shes – she must have seen that. And it had finally sent her over the edge.

  Though part of him would have liked Bayeva alive to answer questions, in his heart he was fiercely glad she was dead. Because of Alexey and his life so cruelly cut short. Because of the deep love those poor young people had shared, and the dreams that would never be. But also because such a monstrous power must not be allowed to flourish on the earth.

  Chapter 43

  A gray Petersburg day. The streets were slick with the rain that had started as soon as the service was over. “It is a blessing from God,” the priest told them, gently, and added, “for Heaven itself is crying.”

  Heaven might be crying but Helen was not. In church, she stood dry-eyed, holding the mourning candle, while beside her others wept. She stood dry-eyed while the priest chanted the prayers for the dead and swung the incense censor over the open casket where Alexey’s body lay like a beautiful waxwork. Tearless, she bent down to kiss the lifeless forehead as they filed past at the end, before the coffin left the church.

  There was no eulogy. There is none at an Orthodox funeral, only prayers. It is not a commemoration of this life, but a journey to the afterlife. It is a journey in stages. Forty days, the priest told her afterwards, at the cemetery. That’s how long the soul remains on earth before it takes its final leave and departs for the afterlife. Forty days ...

  That was what she was thinking of as, dry-eyed still, she looked unseeingly out through the window at the wet streets and boats going by on the canal. The funeral reception was being held in an apartment belonging to the family of Feodor, the manager of Trinity’s Petersburg office. It was a lovely apartment, in a large nineteenth-century house. There were a lot of people there, for Alexey’s death had touched many. There was a buzz of talk, hushed as befit the occasion, but still talk. Life must go on, after all. People must be people. It was not a bitter thought. There was no feeling in it at all.

  Her mother was looking over at her anxiously. Therese was not dry-eyed. Her eyes were red. Swollen. She’d cried at the funeral. She’d cried at the family graveside, where Alexey was laid beside his mother. Tears had welled up in her eyes just before when Helen asked her if she thought the priest was right and the soul stays forty days on earth.

  “I don’t know, darling,” she’d whispered. “But if it helps to think it ...”

  “Forty days is not long enough. You have to stay longer,” Helen had said, softly. Her mother looked at her and, not realizing it wasn’t she Helen was addressing, said, “Darling, you look exhausted, do you want to go and lie down?”

  “No. Thank you.”

  It was the nights she lived for. In the days, he didn’t come to her. She didn’t know why. She’d tried so hard to see him then too, but she couldn’t. Only in photographs that cannot give him back, no matter how much she stared into them. They were frozen moments that would never return. So the days were just time to be endured. At night, though, he was there. But not just in her dreams. She woke up and saw him standing smiling at her. He held out his arms to her and she got up and ran into them. He was himself just as he was, there was nothing ghostly about him. Only he could not speak. But even that didn’t matter. Together, they walked through the quiet house hand in hand, and she was happy, truly happy, for she knew he had not left. He was still there, with her.

  Forty days. What would the priest know? What would anyone know? I will always be with you while you need me, he’d said. She’d always need him. So he would always be there. She could not tell anyone any of this. They had all been so kind but they wouldn’t understand. But sometimes she wished it would always be night. That the day would never come.

  Outside, a taxi drew up outside the house, and a man got out. He was in a hurry. Helen did not see him. She didn’t hear the buzzer sounding, or the man being let in. Her mother had to call her name twice before she turned around. “This gentleman says he wants to see you, Helen.”

  He was a small man, balding, with gray eyes behind horn-rimmed glasses, and wearing an old suit. He carried a battered briefcase. He blinked owlishly at her and stammered, in English, “I’m so sorry,” he said. “I’m so sorry, Miss Clement.”

  Another mourner she didn’t know. Condolences she wouldn’t take in.

  “I was at the dacha, you see. Family holiday.” He looked earnestly at Helen, at her mother, at Nikolai who had just approached, at the curious crowd beginning to gather. “There’s no phone. No cell phone reception. No TV or radio. And we never get the papers. It’s a rule. Leave the city behind. Leave everything behind ...”

  She stared at him. What was he prattling about?

  “So you see I only found out this morning, on my return. Took the first plane to here.” He seemed to catch her expression for the first time. “Excuse, please, I should say straight away. I am V.P. Isakov, advocate in Moscow.”

  “Advocate?” she faltered.

  “Lawyer. Yes? And last week, Alexey Ivanovich Makarov came to see me.”

  Volkovsky said, sharply, “What the hell are you playing at? You’re not the Makarovs’ lawyer.” His expression was hard, suspicious.

  “No, that is so. I am not,” said Isakov, calmly. “My practice, it is small. Modest. Nevertheless, Alexey Ivanovich came to see me. I do not presume to know why he chose me but ...”

  Helen interrupted him. “When?”

  “When he came? Last Saturday morning, around 9 am. Day before I went away.” He undid the clasps of his briefcase. “He wanted me to draw up this.” He pulled out a folded sheet of paper and handed it to her. “I think you find everything is in order.”

  She unfolded it. Stared at it. She couldn’t understand a word of the body of the text, for it was in Russian. But though it was in Cyrillic script too, she knew the signature down the bottom, written in a firm hand. Alexey Ivanovich Makarov. A strange ache started to beat in her head, a pain in her heart. Her beloved wrote those words. It was his hand, on that paper. She thought of that Saturday morning, 9 am. She was still in bed, asleep, in the Moscow apartment. But he’d gone out. Now, she whispered, “I don’t understand.”

  “It is his will. He left everything to you, Miss Clement. I will read it to you in full but that is in short what it says. He writes that he does this because only you can he trust. Only with you can his dream be realized. And so – all of it – it’s yours. His property. His company. All his assets. Oh – and this ...” He pulled something else out. A small transparent envelope. And in it, just visible, a tiny blue object. A digital camera’s memory card.

  For an instant, the sight of it was more shocking to her than anything else. She couldn’t understand. She remembered Alexey putting the card, in its sealed package, in the vault. She also knew it was stolen the other day. So how could it be here, in the lawyer’s hand? And then – quite clearly, as if she had been there, watching, she saw. The card was never in the package that went into the vault. Because at the last minute, for some reason – premonition? A double precaution? A wish not to put anyone other than himself in danger? – Alexey had changed his mind. And so, without telling anyone, he’d extracted the card. He’d taken an empty package to the bank. And the next morning, he’d gone round to see the lawyer.

  At that very moment, she happened to glance at Nikolai Volkovsky. In that split, unguarded second, the mask dropped, and she saw his true feelings in his eyes. Saw the real man revealed, the cold, ruthless heart behind the mask of the faithful manager, the anxious godfather, the kindly man out of his depth but trying so hard. But it was only a split second; and even as the numbness that had been swaddling her for days suddenly left her and she cried out in shock and warning, he had already pushed his way through the crowd and disappeared.

  *

  Maxim had been to the service but not the reception. Such events made him uneasy and, besides, he had an important appointment. With someone he’d never expected to be speaking to. Boris Repin, back from his Egyptian holiday and ready to talk.

  It was Zaitsev, Maxim’s Pete
rsburg colleague, who’d got the approach. Word was, he told Maxim, Repin had not taken at all kindly to his name being taken in vain, and had launched his own investigation, with his own very direct methods of persuasion, apparently without success. But here’s the weird thing, Zaitsev said. When news had broken that Bayeva was the killer, Repin had gone completely quiet. And then the word had come through that he wanted to meet.

  Now the man sat opposite Maxim and Zaitsev at the cafe table, watchful heavies to one side. Repin was everything you’d expect in an underworld lord who’d come up the hard-scrabble way from a Soviet “anti-social”. Big and imposing, weight-lifter’s shoulders straining under the Italian suit that hid his prison tattoos. He looked at Maxim with a flat blue gaze and, shaking his head, said, “So. What a shocking thing, these Rusalka killings. That foreign bitch must have been completely insane. Well, they do say revenge is a dish best eaten cold – but as to me, I’ve always preferred hot and spicy. How about you?”

  Maxim said, harshly, “Spare me the crap. Tell me what you know. I thought that was why we were here.”

  A faint smile flitted across the gangster’s hard features. “You thought I was here like a vulgar informer, to do your job for you? Then you’re not the man I thought you were, Senior Lieutenant Maxim Antonovich Serebrov. Oh yes, I know all about you now; I have my own friends in our glorious capital’s militsiya.”