Chelsea Mansions

by Barry Maitland

‘The American lady who was staying next door to Mikhail Moszynski—the one who was murdered last Thursday.’

  ‘What’s that?’ Freddie Clarke had reappeared at the door.

  Kathy repeated the question.

  ‘Hell, no. Why would she? She certainly wasn’t a client of ours. Why, are you trying to make some connection?’

  ‘This is her photograph,’ Kathy said, showing it to both of them. ‘Have you ever seen her?’

  They both said no, and Renee left.

  ‘As you see, Inspector,’ Clarke went on, ‘I’m up to my ears at the moment. Was there anything in particular you were after?’

  ‘I just wanted an overview of Mr Moszynski’s business affairs. I’m probably not asking the right questions. Maybe I should get our financial specialists to come and talk to you.’

  He frowned and tugged at the bears. ‘I’m sure that won’t be necessary. I could give you a list of his principal companies and trusts, if you like. The most significant is RKF SA.’

  ‘Thank you.’ She thought a moment. ‘RKF as in Rosskomflot?’

  He looked at her sharply. ‘That’s right. You do know something of his affairs, then?’

  ‘A little. Do you have company prospectuses, annual statements?’

  He smirked. ‘These are private companies, almost all registered overseas. RKF is registered in Luxembourg, for example.’

  ‘Ah yes, of course. So what would Mikhail be worth, all up?’

  ‘Oh . . .’ Clarke shook his head with a frown. ‘Very hard to say.’

  ‘Roughly. Take a guess.’

  ‘Roughly . . .’ He spread his hands. ‘Five hundred million? Six?’

  ‘Sterling?’

  ‘Dollars.’

  ‘And who will control that now?’

  ‘I haven’t seen his will . . .’

  ‘But he must have discussed it with you.’

  ‘Various family members will inherit, but taken with her present holding in RKF, his daughter Alisa—Mrs Kuzmin—will have a controlling interest, I believe.’

  ‘Not his wife?’

  ‘Not under the terms of their pre-nuptial agreement. She will be generously provided for, but won’t play an active part in the companies.’

  ‘And what role does Alisa’s husband Vadim play?’

  ‘He acts as Mikhail’s business representative in Russia. Vadim has extensive contacts with government and business over there. Mikhail hasn’t been back to Russia since his mother joined him over here.’

  ‘Was he afraid?’

  ‘I’ve read the letter and editorial in The Times this morning, and I was a little surprised. Mikhail hadn’t expressed those opinions so forcibly to me, but he was certainly uncomfortable about returning to Russia. He felt unwelcome there. Now look, if you don’t mind . . .’

  Kathy got to her feet. ‘Could I have your mobile number, Mr Clarke? Just in case I have any more queries.’

  He looked reluctant, but wrote a number on the back of a card and gave it to her.

  ‘Did you make any calls from Mr Moszynski’s house last Sunday?’

  Clarke frowned. ‘Not that I can remember.’

  ‘What about anyone else? Did you see or hear anyone making or taking calls that afternoon and evening?’

  ‘I don’t believe so.’

  ‘Sir Nigel Hadden-Vane, for instance?’

  ‘Em . . . actually, I think he did call his wife at one stage.’

  ‘Anyone else?’

  ‘No. Now I really must get on.’

  Kathy drove across the river and picked up the A30, heading south into Surrey. Beyond Esher she turned off the main road, following the satnav prompts. The traffic faded away and the houses, glimpsed through dense banks of foliage, became larger.

  She turned onto a gravel drive towards an orange-brick, half-timbered Tudorbethan country house outside which a red Ferrari Spider was parked. A maid showed her into a living room overlooking a broad lawn at the back of the house. Two people were sitting on a sofa, Shaka and Vadim, just like the last time Kathy had seen them at Chelsea Mansions, almost like two people plotting. When they saw Kathy their faces shut down. Shaka’s took on the distant, haughty look of a model on a catwalk, while Vadim’s set into a hostile frown.

  ‘Sorry to bother you again. I just need to check a few things with you. We need to establish a complete picture of where everyone was during the past week.’ Kathy went through her routine, recording their recollections of people’s movements. Vadim had little to say, and looked increasingly impatient.

  When they were finished, Kathy said, ‘Can you tell me who are the executors of Mr Moszynski’s estate?’

  ‘We are,’ Shaka said. ‘The two of us.’ Had she sounded just a little too offhand?

  ‘You and Mr Kuzmin.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘When was that arranged?’

  She shrugged. ‘Soon after Mikhail and I got married, wasn’t it, Vadim?’

  He didn’t reply, staring balefully at Kathy. She wondered if he’d learned that stare in the KGB.

  ‘You’ll have your hands full trying to sort out your husband’s finances, won’t you, Mrs Moszynski? I gather they’re complicated.’

  ‘He’s not even in the ground yet,’ Shaka said coolly. ‘We’re grieving. We haven’t thought about it.’

  Kathy doubted that.

  They heard Alisa’s voice somewhere outside and Vadim seemed to rouse himself. He said, ‘We haven’t shown Alisa the newspaper reports today. She is still very upset. Please be tactful.’

  When Alisa came in Kathy went through her questions, and as Moszynski’s daughter spoke Kathy was struck by the contrast between Alisa and the other two. At thirty she was actually a couple of years older than Shaka, but seemed much more vulnerable. From time to time she wiped tears from her eyes, recalling something her father had said or done, while Shaka showed no emotion at all. Alisa’s husband was fifteen years older than her, and Kathy thought that if she had known nothing about the three of them she might have supposed that Shaka and Vadim were the older generation, more worldly and hardened, and Alisa young enough to be their daughter.

  When Kathy was finished she got to her feet and Alisa came over to her, head bowed, and said, ‘I don’t know what I will do without Papa.’

  Vadim, whose impassive frown had hardly altered throughout the interview, showed Kathy out. At the front door she said, ‘Do you trust Freddie Clarke, Mr Kuzmin?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘You’ll be relying on him to access Mr Moszynski’s fortune.’

  He eyed her coldly. ‘Let me give good advice, Detective. Let the experts come up with the theories.’ He swung the door open and stepped back into the shadows, watching her go.

  Let me give good advice, Kathy thought as she got into her car. It was a phrase from the letter to The Times.

  TWELVE

  Kathy was in two minds about phoning Sean Ardagh, expecting a cool response, but he sounded brisk and helpful.

  ‘A chat? Sure. Now?’

  ‘If you can spare the time. Thanks.’

  ‘No problem. Let’s meet in Victoria Tower Gardens across the road from my office. Give me an excuse to get out.’

  The gardens formed a long thin strip along the Thames Embankment close by Thames House, the MI5 building. Kathy spotted him straight away, on a timber bench, reading the Evening Standard.

  They shook hands and he said, ‘So, how can I help you?’

  ‘I think you know more about some of the people I’m looking at than I’m finding on the files.’

  ‘Could be. Who are you thinking of ?’

  ‘How about starting with Freddie Clarke.’

  Ardagh smiled. ‘The boy genius? Oh, they don’t come any smarter than young Freddie.’

  ‘What’s his background?’

  ‘Classic East End barrowboy who turned out to be a financial wizard. Supposed to have a photographic memory, maybe high-function autism. He got a job as a messenger boy in the City an
d by the time he was twenty he was a star of the trading room, making money big-time. Then something happened, I’m not sure what exactly, probably upset somebody important. Anyway, he headed off to Luxembourg and joined Clearstream, the clearing house. You’ll have heard of them.’

  ‘Vaguely.’

  ‘Look them up. At Clearstream he got to manage some of the big accounts of the Russian oligarchs. He did very well, but his mum got cancer and he wanted to come back to London. Mikhail Moszynski got to hear and offered him an exclusive deal to handle his affairs. He bought Truscott Orr for Freddie, who is now, what, thirty, thirty-one?’

  Kathy scribbled in her notebook. The late afternoon was balmy, two children further down the park playing tag around their motionless parents. ‘So where will Mikhail’s death leave Freddie?’

  ‘Whoever inherits will be utterly dependent on Freddie to tell them what’s going on.’

  ‘Really? Surely there’ll be documents, contracts?’

  ‘They say it’s all inside Freddie’s head. So if you’re thinking of going after Mikhail’s financial records, forget it. It’s been tried.’

  ‘By you lot?’

  Ardagh said nothing, face expressionless.

  ‘Well, let’s hope Freddie doesn’t have an accident.’

  ‘Indeed. It’s all immensely complicated, deliberately so. Mikhail was paranoid that the Russian government would try to take his money away from him. That’s what Freddie was for, to build an impenetrable financial castle complete with false rooms, dead-end corridors, hidden passages and secret chambers.’

  ‘RKF?’

  ‘That’s just the gatehouse at the front that everyone can see. Behind it there’s a maze stretching from Luxembourg to Bermuda to Labuan to Belize, and on and on.’

  ‘Freddie says Alisa will inherit the controlling share.’

  ‘Makes sense. Keep it in the blood line. Mikhail would have wanted that.’

  ‘He says Shaka will be taken care of. But will she be content with that?’

  ‘From what I’ve seen of her, I’d say she’ll be sensible. She’s like Freddie, another tower block kid. Her old mum still sells T-shirts at the East Street Market down in Walworth. And like Freddie, it’s the game that drives Shaka, not the money. She wants to be the best, the most famous, the most glamorous.’

  ‘It sounds as if you’ve done quite a bit of work on these people.’

  ‘Not really. These are just my impressions.’ He gave a careless shrug, which Kathy didn’t quite believe.

  ‘How about Vadim?’

  ‘Okay,’ Ardagh said, ‘your turn. What do you make of Vadim?’

  ‘Cold, guarded, hostile. My guess was that he’d be quite controlling with Alisa.’

  ‘So you’re thinking that he’ll take effective charge of Mikhail’s fortune, and therefore has a motive for killing him?’

  ‘You must have had the same thought, surely?’

  He nodded. ‘And the letter to The Times would point the same way, what with Vadim’s links to the FSB.’

  ‘So you agree he could have been a party to the killing?’

  ‘In theory. But you’d have a hell of a time trying to prove it.’ He thought for a moment. ‘And to be honest, it doesn’t feel like the FSB to me. They’re highly professional, using sophisticated encrypted phones, stuff like that. I can’t see them having anything to do with a small-time crook like Danny Yilmaz.’

  ‘Maybe to put us off the scent?’

  ‘Well . . . I could speak to Six for you if you like. I know someone who would tell me what they’ve got on Vadim.’

  ‘Thanks.’ Kathy thought he’d get more from MI6 than she would. ‘I’d appreciate that.’

  ‘Anything else? What about Mikhail’s friend down the road?’ He nodded along the length of the park to the tall Gothic edifice of the Victoria Tower.

  ‘Parliament? You mean Hadden-Vane? He’s been hard to contact today.’

  ‘He’s got other things on his mind.’ He opened his newspaper and pointed to an article headed mp denies cash for citizenship claim.

  ‘That’s him?’

  ‘Here.’ Ardagh handed her the paper. ‘I’d better go. I’ll call you if I get anything useful.’

  Kathy thanked him and remained on the seat, reading.

  Sir Nigel Hadden-Vane has denied a report that he accepted a substantial sum of money from the murdered Russian businessman Mikhail Moszynski to facilitate his daughter Alisa Kuzmin’s application for British citizenship, which was approved last year. He said that the claim, first made on westminsterwhistleblower.com, was completely without foundation. Sir Nigel was known to be a personal friend of Mr Moszynski, and was a guest at the lavish wedding of Alisa Kuzmin in 2006 on Mr Moszynski’s private Caribbean island, Little Ruby Cay, in the Bahamas.

  As she walked back through the park towards her car, Kathy passed Rodin’s monumental sculpture The Burghers of Calais, with its six haggard figures standing in chains on the pedestal, and imagined Hadden-Vane up there, plump and sleek, among them.

  ‘Who’s behind westminsterwhistleblower.com?’ Bren asked.

  ‘I think we’d better find out,’ Kathy said. ‘Zack?’

  ‘I’ll have a go,’ he said, without much enthusiasm.

  Kathy had just described what she’d been doing, and one by one they’d made their reports. There wasn’t much to be enthusiastic about. Information had been pouring into the HOLMES computer from interviews, records of phone calls made from the area around Cunningham Place, CCTV cameras, witness statements and calls from the public, but little of significance had so far emerged. Frustratingly, the camera over Moszynski’s front door had been disconnected for several spells during the previous ten days while a new system was being installed, including the period on Monday when Dr Stewart had claimed to see Nancy visit. About the only solid fact to emerge was that Moszynski’s letter to The Times had passed forensic scrutiny and was considered genuine.

  ‘The thing is,’ Zack said, ‘there didn’t need to be anybody in the square to see him come out for a smoke.’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘Well, the killer could have had a camera hidden somewhere, watching the front door, and removed it once he was finished.’

  ‘He didn’t have much time,’ Bren said. ‘My bet would still be on one of the people inside the house tipping him off.’

  ‘Not necessarily,’ Zack insisted. ‘Could be anybody. Could be Vadim.’

  ‘No it couldn’t. He was in Moscow.’

  ‘So what? He could have arranged for the house security cameras to be relayed to his laptop, in Moscow or anywhere else. He could have watched Mikhail open the front door and phoned the killer as easy as if he’d been there on the spot.’

  Bren gave a groan. Kathy sympathised. She’d had the same sense of helplessness when she’d been talking to Sean Ardagh, who’d been so much better informed than she was. She wondered how Brock would have moved forward.

  As if thinking the same thing, their action manager, Phil, who hadn’t been told that Brock wasn’t really in Scotland, said, ‘When’s the chief getting back, anyway? Should be here I reckon.’

  ‘We need much better profiles of all the main characters,’ Kathy said forcefully. ‘Bren, get on to your friends in Fraud and Financial Investigations, see if they’ve done work on any of them—the Russians, Shaka, Freddie Clarke, Hadden-Vane. The money has got to be a big part of this.’

  She was late getting to the Red Lion, telling herself that she was stupid to come at all and should have phoned to cancel. John was standing by the bar, looking subdued. He glanced up and his face brightened as he caught sight of her, and she felt a little better. He showed her to a small table in the corner.

  ‘What can I get you?’

  ‘Just mineral water, thanks. I’ve got some driving to do.’

  She watched him blink away disappointment and say, ‘Certainly. Ice? Lemon?’

  ‘Please.’

  ‘You didn’t mean a sandwich here lit
erally, did you?’

  ‘Yes, I did. Sorry, I’m short of time.’

  ‘Of course.’ He looked chastened and hurried away.

  He returned with her water and a pint of beer for himself. ‘Sorry, no sandwiches.’

  ‘Oh.’ She shrugged.

  ‘Look, you’ve got to eat. Can’t I buy you a decent, quick dinner?’

  ‘Another time.’ She took a sip of water and sat back against the wall with a sigh, thankful to be off her feet. ‘So, how was your day?’

  ‘Not as exciting as yours, I dare say. I went to the Summer Exhibition at the Royal Academy. Big crowds, but I enjoyed it.’

  ‘Good.’ Kathy looked around the room, checking. On reflection it wasn’t a good idea meeting there, so close to Queen Anne’s Gate. ‘What did you want to tell me?’

  ‘Did you ring that Montreal number I gave you?’

  ‘Sorry, didn’t have time.’

  ‘Oh.’ He frowned down at his beer. ‘This was a mistake, wasn’t it? I’m imposing on you when you’re so busy.’

  She looked over and felt a little sorry for him, aware of the brusqueness in her manner. ‘Why don’t you tell me about Chelsea Mansions? Is it a dump?’

  ‘Well, it isn’t the Savoy, that’s for sure. I’ve no idea how it stays solvent with so few guests. But I like the people, Toby, Deb and the others. They’re real characters and would do anything for you. They met in Saudi during the first Gulf War, he was in the army and she in the Foreign Office.’

  ‘Yes, they told me.’

  ‘And did they tell you that’s where he lost his son?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Toby doesn’t talk about it, but Deb told me today. Apparently he was with special forces. He disappeared somewhere out in the Iraqi desert. What made it especially tragic was that Toby was on the team at headquarters that planned the operation. He was keen for his son to go, to have a chance to see action.’

  ‘Oh dear.’

  ‘Yes. Deb thinks that’s why he gave me a room. I’m the same age as his son was apparently, twenty-eight, and Deb says I look a bit like him.’

  ‘He has to like you to give you a room at his hotel?’

  ‘Absolutely!’ John laughed. ‘And what he charges depends on how much he likes you. My room’s ridiculously cheap. That’s what I mean about wondering how they stay in business. And that’s why he feels so guilty about Nancy Haynes. He thinks that if he’d turned her down and she’d gone somewhere else she might still be alive. But according to Deb she wrote him this really charming letter about how she didn’t want to stay anywhere else in London, and he said okay.’