by A P Bateman
“I haven’t made you do anything. You wanted to. You just didn’t know it until last night.”
Marnie sighed and nodded. “Neil said half an hour,” she said. “And I’ve already bought three tickets to Tbilisi.”
Rashid wrapped his hands around her and guided her to the bed. He gave her a firm shove and she fell backwards and giggled. “More than enough time,” he smiled. “For me, that is.”
“Great, just what every girl wants to hear…”
53
With no time difference between Sweden and France King arrived in Bordeaux International airport at a little after midnight. He cleared passport control quickly, and with just a carry-on leather overnight bag, he was through the airport and at the Hertz car hire desk within twenty-minutes of touching down.
He hadn’t slept on the flight, couldn’t remember the last time he had. He was tired but was comfortable driving the two-and-a-half-hour drive, stopping at a service station and truck stop for a pot of tea and some pastries just outside of Bayonne. Fuelled and quenched, he drove the Renault hire car to the furthest and quietest part of the car park, switched off, reclined the seat and fell asleep almost instantly.
He hadn’t slept well, waking each time a large articulated lorry activated its airbrakes manoeuvring at slow speeds at the fuel stop. But he had been tired, dropping back off to sleep almost as quickly as he had awoken. At seven he drove back to the service station and washed quickly in the filthy toilets, grabbing a cup of tea to go on his way out. He stopped at the tobacco kiosk and bought a gas lighter and a medium-sized flick-knife. He pocketed both. They were useful tools to have, although he hoped he wouldn’t need them. He only had around five miles to travel and figured that he would be early enough to catch her, but not too early as to descend upon her at an unsociable hour and risk finding her uncooperative at the intrusion. That was if she was still around, hadn’t been found or disappeared.
King parked the car just down from the chalet. He watched, waited for a sign she was there. The BMW was parked on the driveway, but it was in a different position to when he had left it. Anna Sergeyev had used the vehicle, even if she had moved elsewhere. She had said she had funds, enough to live on, and King had told her the chalet was hers for up to two-weeks. That seemed so long ago now, but it had only been just over a week. He glanced at himself in the rear-view mirror. He was gaunt and drawn, his eye sockets dark. He had not taken care of himself after Caroline had been taken. He imagined he’d lost a stone or more from not eating properly. He was a big man, but still hadn’t carried enough flesh to take such dramatic weight loss. It was more than that though, weeks of poor sleep had taken its toll too. He looked hollowed out, and his dark close-cropped hair now carried more salt than pepper at the sides.
King stepped out of the car. He checked the flick-knife in his pocket, relaxed a little. A good blade was as good as a small pistol up close. In many cases, he thought he could do more damage with a knife than a small calibre pistol ever would. He hoped he wouldn’t need to put the theory to the test.
The house stood in its own grounds of about half an acre. There was a pool to the rear and the grounds were largely turned to lawn with shrubs and rockeries and a bank of four-foot-high bushes along the rear of the property separating it from farmland in the form of meadows. To the front of the property, a narrow road cut through the fields and a low wire fence with rustic wooden posts served as a barrier but had seen better days. From what King could make out, the grass was now far too long for grazing and would most likely be turned to hay or silage before long. Which meant that this area would not have been looked in on by the landowners for weeks. The house was about as private as it could get.
King hovered around the entrance and checked over the gardens. There were no signs of anyone. As he looked at the house, scanned over the windows, he saw nothing. He slipped over the stone garden wall and walked along the side of the house. He saw the pool, noticed swimwear hanging on the line. He thought about testing them to see if they were wet or dry, but it was early and there was dew on the grass and it would tell him nothing. If they had been used this morning, then they would be wet. If they had been left out all night, he imagined they would be in the same state. He continued but paused after a few steps as his senses caught both smell and sound at once. He could smell the aroma of coffee, hear the faintest clink of china. He knew that there was an alcove with a firepit-come-barbeque in the lee of the building, the perfect place to catch the morning sun. As he rounded the corner, he saw Anna Sergeyev sipping coffee, clad only in the skimpiest of beach wraps. He could see her body, the outline of her nipples against the damp cotton. He averted his eyes as he glimpsed lower, catching everything she had to bare. Anna looked up, stunned for a moment, but visibly relaxed. She did nothing to cover herself, adjust the position she was seated in. King was sure she made a point of it.
“I didn’t think I would see you again,” she said. “My husband’s murderer, my saviour…”
“I needed to talk.”
“Talk, talk, talk,” she said. “And there was I thinking you were a man of action.”
King pulled out a chair and sat down. It changed his view, as well as the dynamic. “I need to ask you some questions about…”
“Helena!” she interrupted. “Always about Helena.”
“Why do you say it like that?”
“It was always about her,” she said. “The most popular, the most sought after. I was a whore. I am not ashamed, because I was both popular and good at it, and in turn, that kept me alive. It kept me in better places, with less grimy men. Men who tipped and treated me and after they did what they did, cared enough to call again. If I was not so good at it, then I would have spent my life in a hovel chained to a bed and thrown scraps. Worse than a dog.”
“I’m sorry,” King said awkwardly.
“Don’t be. I met my husband doing such work. He gave me a wonderful daughter, and he was kind to me. He was an evil man, a beast and a killer. He could be cruel. But not with me, nor our daughter. He kept me a prisoner, this is true, but it was an incarceration of luxury and privilege.” Anna sipped some coffee, placed the cup down thoughtfully and looked at King. “Helena was the one every man wanted, my husband included. But she was too spirited to control. She brought many problems to my husband, to the men he worked with.”
“Nikolai? Romanovitch?”
“Oh, you’ve done your homework,” she said sardonically. “And don’t forget Russia’s esteemed leader! Do you know about him?”
King nodded. “I do. Or at least, I have been told.”
“But do you believe it?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Well, be damned sure. Only in Russia can a murderer and rapist, a former Bratva piece of scum become president. He is seen as a man of the people because he came from a poor background, served in the military for three years, just a foot soldier but he did his service. And then he held roles in construction, was instrumental in large developments and connecting Russia through its road networks. He was behind the trans-continental road development, theoretically connecting Europe to America via Siberia and an ice road across the Bering Sea in winter.”
King had heard of the project, even thought it would be a fantastic thing to do when he finally left playing cowboys and Indians behind. “And nothing ever comes up of his past, working in the Bratva?”
“He has paid off, bribed or killed all those who would do him harm.”
“Except Helena.”
“I think he thought she was a woman who would never tell of her past. Married to one of the wealthiest men in the world, making Britain her home, a changed woman. A professional business woman with her own clothing line, a woman who courted the press and frequently went to openings and official engagements. She was hardly going to start talking about working as a whore in her homeland.”
King nodded. In a way, it made sense. Secrets relied upon staying that way only by two people’s silence. The Russian pr
esident obviously felt that there was a status quo between them, but what he wouldn’t have counted on was Helena’s fall from grace. She had resumed her affair with her former lover, used his exceptionally specialised military skills as a way of getting out of her relationship with her billionaire husband, and keep what assets she would have been entitled to. She had deceived, connived and conspired with others to make her husband’s death look like a murder, but as part of a terrorist organization’s bigger plan. But she had been caught, by chance, as King had investigated the Home Secretary, a silent partner in her husband’s company. Misappropriation of government funds, an undeclared conflict of interest had sparked King’s investigation, but had crossed paths along the way. Helena had been found out by dumb luck. Now, she was discredited, a wanted criminal and her assets had been seized. She would have known this at once, severed all links with her current life and looked at how to come out on top. She knew all about the Bratva, knew the world they lived in. And at the same time as she built an empire, she sought revenge for what they had done.
“Please, if it’s not too painful for you?” King ventured. “Tell me about that night.”
Anna scoffed. “It was nothing,” she said. “Or it was everything.”
“I don’t understand.”
“You are a man,” she sneered. She felt her breasts, squeezed them and lifted them upwards. “You see these?” She slid her hand lower, pulled the swim robe apart revealing herself fully. “That?” She stared at King as he did his best not to look either interested or too uncomfortable. “That is for me to give someone or to deny them. There is no in between. Some people don’t think it is possible to rape a whore. But let me tell you; it is. I could sleep with a dozen men in a day. But if someone did not stop when I wanted them to, then it is rape. As much as it would be if I were a nun.”
King nodded. “I get that.”
“Do you? Because few men do,” she sneered. “Those Bratva bastards, my husband included, they took what they wanted. That night was wild and crazy and changed my life. Pyotr decided he wanted me for himself, swore off the others. It was madness. Too much champagne and vodka, too many drugs. Line upon line of coke. They were snorting it out of the girl’s parts, off their boobs… madness. There was Viagra too. As if they needed it with all the cocaine and ecstasy. Helena had cost them a lot of time and money. She had whisked her sister out of there, took some money to do so. They were mad. Pretty soon I was just laying down on a sofa and they were just concentrating on Helena. There was nothing they didn’t put that woman through. Nothing.” She drank the remnants of coffee and looked thoughtfully past King and out across the meadowland. “I hooked up with Pyotr after that night. I did it for survival. I figured if I had to fuck, I would rather it was just one man. Whether I liked him or not. He was on the cusp of making it big, so I took my chance.”
King said nothing. He had shot the man in the head, a simple sorry wasn’t going to sit well with her. It was another world. He had seen most of the evil in it, but it never ceased to amaze him how life could be.
Anna looked back at King and smiled. “I suppose I should thank you,” she said. “It’s weird, you know? I feel numb to it. I will not see him again, but I don’t feel happy about that. I have money, plenty stashed away here and there. I need to be able to get to it. I went down to Bayonne and bought clothes yesterday. A prepaid phone. And you said I could keep the car, right?”
“Sure,” he said. “I mean, put some false plates on it when you can, but yeah, keep it.”
She nodded. “I can’t thank you enough for letting us use this place,” she said. She smiled, smoothed her hands over her breasts and stomach. “Or I could thank you in another way?”
“You don’t owe me anything.”
“Perhaps I want to?”
King smiled. “Those days are behind you.”
“I still have needs,” she said sharply.
“Then find someone who loves you, love them back and forget the past.”
She laughed. “You are a kind man,” she said. She stood up, showing King everything he had passed up on. “I will get us some coffee,” she said.
King didn’t stop her. He didn’t drink coffee as a rule, but he doubted she had tea. He hadn’t come for breakfast anyway. He leaned back in the chair, watched the glow of the sunrise across the hills of grass and orchards. It was a beautiful place, and he wished he could have been there with Caroline. The thought made him anxious again, and he fought hard to control his emotions. He looked up as Anna returned with a pot of coffee and another cup. She poured him a cup with no offer of sugar or cream, then topped up her own cup.
“Tell me about Catherine.”
Anna nodded. “Helena’s little sister. I suppose by now she’d be twenty-four or twenty-five, so not that little,” she paused. “She looked a lot like Helena, so beautiful, beguiling even. Helena knew that she would end up in the same situation, knew she would be sought after. That is why she got her out. The money she stole from the Bratva was given to her to give her a start someplace.”
“Do you know where she is?”
Anna hesitated, then said, “No.”
King stared at her but said nothing. He tapped his fingers on the table, watched her grow uncomfortable and look away from him. “I think you do,” he said.
She sighed, and King noticed her hand was shaking. She caught him looking, moved it to her thigh and rested it there. “And what will you do?”
King shrugged. “My fiancé is being held. I don’t know where, I don’t even know if she’s still alive,” he said, his voice wobbling a little. He took a breath, steadied himself. “I want a bargaining chip. I want like for like. I want to find Catherine Milankovitch and trade her for the woman I love.”
Anna smirked. “And for this woman, you have killed my husband, and who else?”
“The man called Sergeyev. He is dead too.”
“And Romanovitch?”
“No. Not yet.”
Anna looked at him. “I know where he is,” she said.
King nodded. “And you’ll tell me?”
“Perhaps,” she said. “But I know more than this. I know where Catherine Milankovitch is.”
“But you have a price,” King stated flatly.
“There is a price for everything,” she said.
“I thought you had money.”
“I do.”
“So how about giving me the information for free?”
She laughed. “Oh, my dear, nothing is free.”
“I doubt I can afford it then.”
“You are a government man,” she said. “I know the type.”
“Okay…”
“Anonymity. That is my price. For my daughter and myself,” she paused. “A new name, social security details, British identity… that is all. I do not need money, I just want to disappear.”
King had tried to disappear once, and it hadn’t worked. A man had found him, brought him back into the fold. A new role, but life felt very much the same right now.
He nodded. “Go on,” he said.
“You can do this for me? For my daughter?”
“Yes.” He knew that Amherst would be able to swing it. What was a name, a national insurance number and a passport? What price was that for getting their MI5 agent back? “But time is sensitive,” he said. “I don’t break my word, but I need you to tell me. I need you to trust me, and I will make arrangements for both you and your daughter.”
She considered this for a moment, then stood up and nodded. “Okay. We will go inside, and I will write it down.”
King followed her, the swim robe covering little of her backside as she took the three stone steps up into the house. The room was a large, open-plan living area where a lounge, dining room and kitchen merged into one. Anna found a pad and started to write down an address. King could see she was drawing a map as well. “My husband spoke with Romanovitch the day before you killed him,” she said neutrally. “He always goaded Pyotr, delighted in
emasculating him whenever he could. Dick measuring, I suppose. Romanovitch had wised up to Helena being on the scene. She had made some moves, paying mercenary types to build a platform from which to operate. He suspected what she was going to do, or at least that she could be after revenge. He took out certain insurances and goaded my husband. Pyotr said he would never hide or cower from her like some damned dog. I suppose that was Pyotr trying to out-dick Romanovitch.”
“What insurances?” King asked, taking the note off her and studying it before folding it and placing it in his pocket.
“Romanovitch found Catherine and took her.”
“Took her?”
“Yes,” she paused. “I don’t know where he took her, or even if she is still alive. But all I know is that Romanovitch is a merciless bastard and he will use her in any way he can to protect himself.”
“And this address, it is his main home?”
“Yes.”
“Why help me?”
The question seemed to stun her for a moment, she shrugged and said, “Maybe Helena needs to end this, maybe things will be better for me if she does. She will not like the fact that I got together with Pyotr. She will have seen that as me siding with him, gaining from that night.”
“And if Romanovitch dies, well that’s one less person to come after you for the secrets you know about your husband’s business affairs.”
Again, she shrugged like it meant nothing. “Win, win.”
King nodded, was about to thank her for her cooperation, but something outside caught his eye. He moved to the edge of the window, keeping far enough back to remain unseen. A large black Mercedes and a black Range Rover Sport had pulled up and parked on the road opposite the house. “Your husband’s men… would you recognise them all?”
“Most of them,” she said. She walked up to King and stood at his shoulder. “Those cars are his, I’m certain of it.”
King stepped back and looked at her. “You said you bought things yesterday,” he paused. “How did you purchase them?”
