Chelsea Mansions

by Barry Maitland

  ‘It means . . .’ Sundeep began, then shook his head and turned away to the phone on the wall. He consulted the hospital directory hanging beside it and made a call while the rest of them—Brock, Kathy and what could be seen of Sundeep’s assistant beneath her plastic helmet and thick rubber gloves and apron—stood motionless, waiting.

  ‘All right.’ Sundeep hung up. ‘It means that you’re going upstairs to the fourth floor to see a friend of mine.’

  ‘No,’ Brock said. ‘This is . . .’ He stopped, gave a grunt and slumped to the floor.

  It was almost an hour before Dr Mehta emerged from the isolation ward. He looked worried and preoccupied.

  ‘What is it, Sundeep?’ Kathy demanded. ‘What’s the matter with him?’

  ‘Well, it’s not swine flu, Kathy.’

  ‘So?’

  Sundeep looked at her and his face formed an encouraging smile, which Kathy didn’t find very convincing. ‘We aren’t sure yet. There are many causes of maculopapular rash.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Oh, measles, rubella, typhoid . . .’

  ‘Typhoid?’

  ‘Has he been abroad lately?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘In contact with foreigners?’

  Kathy thought. ‘This started on Sunday night. We attended the murder scene of that Russian, Mikhail Moszynski, and Brock suddenly felt faint.’

  ‘Did he touch the body?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Wait a minute.’ Sundeep disappeared abruptly back into the ward, and Kathy watched him through the glass panel, gesticulating to the doctor who was at Brock’s bedside. As she watched them, Kathy guessed what they were discussing, and a chill formed inside her. After a few minutes Sundeep returned.

  ‘You’re thinking about Litvinenko,’ Kathy said.

  He nodded. ‘Four years ago, Alexander Litvinenko fell suddenly ill in a sushi restaurant in London. It took a little while to establish that he had been poisoned with a radioactive isotope, polonium-210, in his tea. Polonium is invisible to normal radiation detectors, because it doesn’t emit gamma rays, only alpha rays. It is highly toxic if swallowed—or inhaled.’

  ‘But . . . Moszynski was stabbed to death. You did the autopsy yourself.’

  ‘Yes.’ Sundeep was shaking his head.

  ‘You think the stabbing was to disguise the real cause of death?’

  ‘I don’t know, Kathy. They’re doing lots of tests. They want us both to give samples. When you’ve done that, go back to work and don’t worry.’

  Easier said than done. When Kathy got into her car she rang the number of the antiques shop down in Sussex owned by Brock’s partner, Suzanne Chambers. Suzanne’s assistant, Ginny, said that she was still on her tour of the West Country, attending auctions and sales, and gave Kathy the number of her mobile. Suzanne was devastated when Kathy told her what had happened.

  ‘In hospital? He was feeling rotten when I phoned him on Saturday, before I left, but of course he said it was nothing.’

  ‘Saturday?’

  ‘Yes. He thought it was just a cold.’

  Suzanne said she’d come straight back to London. She took down the address of the hospital and asked Kathy to ring again if there was further news.

  Bren and his team had returned from a further search of the Hackney house when Kathy got back to Queen Anne’s Gate and told them what had happened. She was still feeling stunned. ‘They can’t say what’s wrong with him, but it’s not flu. They’re doing tests.’

  ‘Like what? His heart?’

  ‘I don’t think so. They’ve put him in isolation, as if he’s picked up something infectious. I had to give them a blood sample, and so did Sundeep.’

  Mickey Schaeffer gave a frown. ‘Do you think it could have something to do with the Ugandan kid in Danny Yilmaz’s flat? He covered Brock with his nose bleed.’

  ‘I forgot about him. Where is he now?’

  ‘They handed him over to Immigration.’

  ‘Get on to them, Mickey. Find out what happened to him. See if he’s sick.’

  It was hard to concentrate on anything else, but while they waited Kathy asked Bren about Ferncroft Close.

  ‘Neighbours can’t remember seeing any visitors to number thirteen apart from Peebles. His are the only prints on the syringe and the foil of heroin. No indication where he got it from. Only his prints on the cash. Variety of prints elsewhere in the house, some probably the owner’s, Angela Storey. We’ll have to interview her in Holloway and get names of visitors we can eliminate.’

  ‘Nothing then?’

  ‘Wouldn’t say that.’ Bren gave his quiet smile, keeping the best for last. ‘The mobile phone. It’s a prepaid job, again only his prints on it. It’s made and received calls from just two numbers.’

  Bren handed her a note of the numbers. ‘One is another anonymous prepaid mobile. The other is a landline belonging to one Gloria Cummins with a Chelsea address. We know her.’ He handed Kathy a printout from the PNC.

  ‘A prostitute?’ Kathy skimmed down a string of aliases, cautions, arrests, charges and convictions.

  ‘She’s a madam now, and moved upmarket, running an escort service with a posh address and a stable of classy girls.’

  ‘Do we speak to her?’

  ‘I don’t know. I think there’s something funny about this. Gloria seems an odd choice for a rough bastard like Peebles. You should check out her website, appealing to a better class of punters, and expensive. And she’s in Chelsea.’

  ‘What are you thinking?’

  ‘Maybe she’s just an intermediary, a point of contact between Peebles and his client, maybe to hand over payments. And I imagine she’ll be very reluctant to tell us anything. Her business depends on confidentiality. No, I think we should sniff around a bit first. And then there’s the other number. Look at the timing of the calls—the day Peebles arrived in London, the evening of the day that Nancy died, and the night of Moszynski’s death.’

  Kathy stared at the mobile number and felt a surge of adrenaline. ‘It’s him, isn’t it? The client, the one who ordered the hits. Peebles is telling him he’s done the job.’

  ‘Looks like it.’

  ‘You don’t think we can trace it?’

  ‘That’s priority number one. Leave it with me.’

  ‘Boss?’ Mickey was standing at the door, looking worried.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Immigration are holding Peter Namono in a secure medical facility at the Gravesend detention centre. They say he’s sick, but they’re still running tests to find out what it is.’

  ‘Right, thanks, Mickey. I’ll let Brock’s doctors know.’

  ‘Something else. I had to speak to Tottenham to find out where Namono was, and they told me that Danny Yilmaz had collapsed and been rushed to hospital too.’

  ‘Blimey.’ Bren was staring at Kathy.

  Kathy got on the phone. Sundeep answered his mobile with a clipped, ‘Mehta,’ and listened in silence as Kathy told him. He got her to run through the sequence of events, then said, ‘Well, if it’s the same thing, that would rule out the Russian as the source, wouldn’t it?’

  ‘You think the African might have typhoid or something?’

  ‘We’ll find out, Kathy.’

  Kathy hung up. They were all staring at her. They had heard her say typhoid, and were waiting for enlightenment, reassurance. She shrugged. ‘They’re on to it. We just have to wait. So back to work.’

  She sat down with Bren and set about planning the next steps in the investigation, then left a message with Sharpe’s office about Brock’s illness, and finally returned to her desk and the new pile of reports that had arrived.

  Kathy was in the main computer suite when Sundeep finally rang back. ‘We have a diagnosis, Kathy.’ His tone was neutral, Kathy thought, like someone giving the time or a weather forecast.

  ‘Typhoid?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Thank goodness.’ She smiled at the others who were on
their feet, listening.

  ‘It appears to be something called MHF—Marburg Haemorrhagic Fever.’

  ‘Marburg? I’ve never heard of it. Is it serious?’

  ‘I’m afraid it is. Very serious. If it is MHF—and there seems to be little doubt—we will all have to be isolated. You must make a list of everyone who has been in contact with Brock since that day. Also Yilmaz and Namono.’

  Kathy sat down slowly, fist tight on the phone cord.

  ‘The Marburg virus comes from East Africa, Kathy. It was first identified in a German laboratory where they were working with African monkeys. Since then there have been a number of outbreaks in Africa. It’s related to the Ebola virus.’

  ‘Ebola . . .’ Kathy stared at the others clustered around. Someone whispered, ‘Oh fuck!’

  Zack was tapping away on his computer, and when Kathy put the phone down he said, ‘Hell’s bells.’

  They looked at him as he read from the screen in front of him, ‘Marburg is a biosafety level-four agent. Transmission through bodily fluids . . . Early symptoms non-specific, including fever, headache, myalgia. After five days a maculopapular rash often present on trunk . . . Later-stage infection is acute and can include pancreatitis, delirium, haemorrhaging, liver failure . . . Symptoms usually last one to three weeks until the disease either resolves or kills the infected host . . . There is no specific antiviral therapy currently available. Fatality rate from twenty-three to ninety per cent.’

  Kathy felt dizzy. She took a deep breath and tried to pull herself together.

  ‘Pip, Mickey,’ she said, ‘inform front desk that no one is to enter or leave, then contact everyone in the building and tell them what’s happened. Tell them to tell their families to go home and put themselves in quarantine until we know more. Phil, I want a list of everyone who’s been in physical contact with Brock, Yilmaz and Namono since last Friday. You’ll have to contact Tottenham. I’ll speak to Commander Sharpe.’

  She hesitated, then said, ‘Has anyone got any symptoms?’

  There was a moment’s paralysed silence, then she said, ‘Okay. Get on with it,’ and the room erupted, people running for the door and the phones.

  Kathy put the call through to Sharpe’s office, insisting on speaking to him immediately. As she waited to be connected, she remembered the rather awkward handshake that Sharpe had given Brock the previous evening. When he came on he listened to her report with little grunts of exclamation.

  ‘You’ll have to go into isolation, sir, and the Moszynski household, and probably most of our people at Tottenham.’

  ‘Good grief,’ he said finally.

  SIXTEEN

  There was a confused interval in which people tried to behave as if everything was completely normal, while they secretly observed themselves and each other for symptoms—a gleam of sweat, the pulse of a headache, a twinge of nausea. Locked inside the Queen Anne’s Gate offices, they were obliquely aware of the turmoil going on outside as messages flew in from Personnel, the Press Bureau and senior management. Towards evening a team from the Hospital of Tropical Diseases arrived to take temperatures and blood. Their appearance, in face shields, impermeable tunics, leg and shoe coverings and double gloves, gave rise to black, self-conscious jokes from the police and some jittery looks between the civilian staff. Soon after the medics left with their samples, shrink-wrapped platters of sandwiches and cartons of soft drinks were deposited on the front doorstep of the building, as if the occupants were plague carriers, which of course they were.

  Kathy and Bren, as senior officers on the premises, went around the offices trying to exude confidence and encouraging people to concentrate on the work they’d been doing. They met up at Dot’s office, where Bren was having a smile with Dot about some trait of the old man that had always irritated her. Kathy watched them through the open door, Dot wiping a tear from her eye with a tissue and Bren, like a younger version of his boss, big and gentle, putting an arm around her and giving her a hug. Though Kathy and he were of the same rank, Bren had been an inspector for much longer and was senior to her, and it suddenly struck her that she shouldn’t have taken over the way she had earlier. When he emerged from Dot’s office Kathy apologised.

  ‘Don’t be daft,’ he growled. ‘You did well. We’re a team, right?’

  ‘Yes.’ She hesitated and then said, ‘You’re worried about Deanne and the girls.’

  He nodded.

  ‘I suppose I’m lucky,’ Kathy said. ‘I haven’t got anyone close I could have given it to.’

  He gave her a look and said, ‘No, Kathy, I don’t think that’s lucky.’

  Later, Kathy rang John Greenslade’s mobile. She explained quickly that she wouldn’t be able to go with him to speak to Moszynski’s secretary. She gave him the name and contact phone number and said he could speak to her on the phone. He said he would, sounding eager, and began telling her enthusiastically about his first impressions of the letters, but she cut him off and said she had to go. Then she added, ‘Are you feeling all right, John?’

  ‘What? Yes, sure, why?’

  ‘Um, there’s a bug going around the office. I just hoped I hadn’t passed it on. How about the other people in the hotel?’

  ‘No, everyone’s fine. But are you unwell?’

  ‘No, I’m okay.’

  ‘What kind of bug is it? Swine flu?’

  ‘Something like that. Let me know if you hear of anyone getting sick, will you?’

  When she hung up she realised she hadn’t asked him how his paper had gone that morning.

  Feeling suddenly low, she forced herself to think about the next task. In the drawer of her desk were the four files, two from MI5 and two from MI6, that had been delivered that morning, for her eyes only, and reluctantly she unlocked the drawer and pulled them out.

  She had never seen security service files on individual subjects before, and was impressed by their orderliness and terse insights. They followed a common format that she guessed had been developed over thousands of other such studies, with a physical and psychological profile followed by an ongoing biographical summary of the subject’s career, backed up by sheafs of supporting material—agents’ reports, photographs, transcripts of phone taps and conversations, photocopies of official documents, press cuttings, ticket stubs. She imagined that Mikhail Moszynski and Vadim Kuzmin were not really that important in the hierarchy of surveillance subjects, and that others would have much larger files, running to many volumes, but all the same, the scope was impressive.

  She began with the MI6 file on Moszynski. It filled out the summary of his life in Russia that Sean Ardagh had given them, including his family background. There was a reference to a file on his father, Gennady, and to a KGB investigation into the family which had identified both Gennady and his wife Marta as Jewish. There was a rather detailed medical history of Mikhail which looked as if it had been taken from hospital records, noting a severe allergy to a number of common foods, particularly peanuts. His school record referred to his unremarkable academic performance and lack of interest in sports. The only distinguishing feature was a modest competence on the violin, which was apparently abandoned when he left school. Translations of other official documents also included his record of compulsory army service in the North Caucasus Military District and his academic record at St Petersburg Technical University, where he met his first wife, with whom he had a son who died at birth, followed by his sole surviving child, Alisa.

  Kathy had an impression of a rather grey and featureless youth until he joined the Young Communist League, in which he seemed to find a role as a back-room organiser and initiator of a number of money-making schemes. Then suddenly, in the early 1990s, the record seemed to come to life. There were pictures of him at the wheel of his first Mercedes, in a fur-collared coat at the gates of a factory surrounded by smiling men in overalls, and seated among men and women in evening dress at a banquet at which his wife wasn’t visible. He had put on weight and become a kind of looming presence
in these pictures, and had begun to indulge his taste for strikingly beautiful women and Cuban cigars (Romeo y Julieta or Montecristo for preference, the file noted pedantically). It was at this time that he began to appear in newspaper and magazine articles as one of the new breed of people of wealth and influence. After he left Russia in 2001 the reports thinned out to a few references from the Russian News Agency ARI until 2008, when his marriage to Shaka Gibbons produced a flurry of interest in Russian gossip magazines—Maxim, Profil and Grazia—with pictures of the two of them at movie premieres, Ascot and Wimbledon. No doubt new articles were appearing in Moscow and St Petersburg on his murder and grieving widow, Kathy thought, just as they were in London in the pages of Now, Hello! and OK!.

  To Kathy, however, the most interesting thing in the file was an assessment by an unnamed MI6 operative of Mikhail’s relations with the Russian government. Despite his flirtation with the lifestyle of an oligarch, he had taken a lot of trouble to avoid giving offence or aggravation to the political hierarchy, and unlike some of the other Russian expats, like Berezovsky and Deripaska, had never been threatened with financial or criminal penalties. The report referred to a warm letter of appreciation from President Putin following a gift by Moszynski of money for new buildings for School No. 193 in St Petersburg, where both had been students. It also speculated that the marriage between his daughter and the well-regarded FSB officer Vadim Kuzmin had been engineered by Moszynski to maintain a favourable impression in Moscow.

  MI5’s file on Mikhail Moszynski was much briefer and seemed to be a matter of routine, given his nationality and wealth. It dealt with his applications for UK residency and then citizenship for himself and his family, his lack of political affiliations, his membership of various charitable, cultural and social organisations, and listed his movements in and out of the UK since 2000. It also tried to grapple with his financial affairs, without, Kathy thought, much success. It listed the properties in Chelsea and the Bahamas as well as recent negotiations for a large country estate in Wiltshire. It also quoted a couple of estimates from the Financial Times of his net worth, of five hundred and fifty million US dollars in 2007 and four hundred and thirty million in 2009, but didn’t attempt to unravel the structure of RKF SA or his other companies and trusts. Under the heading Criminal history was the entry None, with a footnote that his current accountant, Frederick Clarke, had been investigated by the Fraud Squad in 2003 without charges being laid.