You Will Never Find Me

by Robert Wilson

  ‘Espresso?’ said Papadopoulos.

  ‘With milk for me,’ said Mercy.

  ‘Strong,’ they said in unison.

  ‘Quite a double act,’ said the blonde, assembling the coffees. ‘Apparently Ms. Yankov won’t be coming in today. She left a message last night saying, “Gone to Moscow.”’

  ‘For ever?’

  ‘That would make my life a lot easier,’ said the blonde. ‘Sugar?’

  She handed out the coffees. Papadopoulos poured two full sachets of sugar into his cup and stirred it slowly while he thought up his next question.

  ‘DLT Consultants own a Mercedes CLS registration LG 61 FKR,’ he said.

  ‘Is that you showing me your homework?’ said the blonde, crossing her legs, managing not to split a seam. ‘You get five out of ten for being half right. We’ve also got a BMW 5 series, LG 61 PRK. Fucker and Prick we call them. They’re pool cars. Whoever’s in town can use them. There’s a booking system which nobody bothers with because, as you’ve just realised, they’re hardly ever in town at the same time.’

  ‘Do you know who was using the Mercedes CLS on the morning of Tuesday 20th March . . . early?’

  She turned to the computer, opened up a file.

  ‘Nobody, according to the booking system, but, as I said, that doesn’t mean anything.’

  ‘Can we assume it would either have been Mr. Dudko or Ms. Demidova, or rather Yankov?’ asked Mercy. ‘Or was somebody else in town on Tuesday?’

  ‘I think you can assume that . . . if it was being used, that is,’ said the blonde. ‘What’s with the Demidova business, by the way?’

  ‘It’s her more commonly used name,’ said Mercy. ‘Do you know her son, Valery?’

  ‘Yes, he comes here after school sometimes.’

  ‘Well, his present school and the one he went to before know his mother as Irina Demidova.’

  ‘No shit?’ said the blonde, delighted by this revelation.

  ‘Do the cars have drivers?’ asked Papadopoulos.

  ‘What?’ said the blonde, irritated by the distraction from the scandal. ‘They can come with or without. If we’re picking up a client from the airport we’ll send a driver. If Mr. Dudko is going home for the weekend he’ll drive himself.’

  ‘Who is the driver for the CLS?’

  ‘We’d normally use Big Mal,’ said the blonde. ‘Malcolm Lavender. A surprisingly fragrant name for a man of his size.’

  She gave him a mobile number.

  ‘Where do you keep the cars?’

  ‘What’s with the cars?’

  ‘We need to know, that’s all.’

  ‘The underground car park in Cavendish Square. Bays seventy-four and -five.’

  A dark-haired man in his mid-forties wearing a navy-blue wool coat and carrying a briefcase came in. He spoke Russian to the blonde, whom he called Olga and who replied in kind. He hung up his coat. She talked him through his messages and other business. Olga introduced Mercy and Papadopoulos, using their ranks and full names, which she’d memorised from glancing at their warrant cards. Mr. Dudko shook hands, asked for a few minutes and disappeared into his office.

  ‘Your Russian is pretty good, Olga,’ said Papadopoulos.

  ‘That’s because I am Russian. How many non-Russian Olgas do you know?’

  ‘None,’ said Papadopoulos, looking up into his head. ‘Then your English is excellent.’

  ‘I went to school here,’ she said, ‘and university.’

  ‘I thought you must have married someone English to speak it that well,’ said Papadopoulos.

  ‘I didn’t mean to come across as quite so argumentative,’ said Olga.

  Papadopoulos laughed. Mercy gave him a slow look, eyelids at half-mast. Mr. Dudko called Olga to send them in.

  ‘Try to keep it in your trousers,’ said Mercy in his ear as he opened the door for her.

  Mr. Dudko walked around his sizeable desk on the verge of breaking into a trot. They shook hands. He settled them in some low chairs, jogged back and collapsed into his own jacked-up black leather chair. He looked fit, a careful eater and not much of a vodka socker, if Mercy read him right. She suspected he had a weekly manicure.

  ‘How can I help you?’ he asked in thickly accented English.

  ‘We would have liked to have spoken to the woman we know as Irina Demidova and you know as Zlata Yankov,’ said Mercy, ‘but we understand they’re both in Moscow.’

  Dudko blinked and his mouth fell open as he took in that complicated sentence.

  ‘You say Zlata has another name?’ asked Dudko.

  ‘She calls herself Irina Demidova at the school where her son is currently studying. She is also known by that name at his previous school and by the teacher who taught her son, with whom she is having a relationship.’

  ‘This is all news to me.’

  ‘This teacher is also a rower and had rowing practice early this morning but didn’t show. He was later found dead in his flat, drowned in his bath. We’re waiting for the autopsy and the forensics, but the circumstances indicate that he’d been murdered.’

  ‘So this is a murder investigation?’ asked Dudko, looking shaken.

  ‘Not exactly. We work for a special investigations unit in the Metropolitan Police,’ said Mercy, preferring to keep it vague. ’Where were you early in the morning on Tuesday 20th March?’

  ‘I was driving up from my house in Godalming. I must have left about six and arrived here about seven, seven fifteen.’

  ‘Which car were you using?’

  ‘The BMW. The Mercedes was in use on Friday when I wanted to leave for the country.’

  ‘Who was using it?’

  ‘I imagine it was Zlata as nobody else was in London at the time.’

  ‘And what was she doing with it?’

  ‘I have no idea.’

  ‘How did Zlata Yankov come to be employed by you, Mr. Dudko?’

  ‘She was recommended.’

  ‘By whom?’

  ‘Her name came up in a number of different ways. Somebody on a Russian trade delegation, a couple of our old clients—you know how it is?’

  ‘Not really,’ said Papadopoulos. ‘We’re in the police. We undergo constant assessment before any advancement.’

  ‘Well, here we have very specific requirements. Any employee has to be bilingual in Russian and English. They have to have a good understanding of finance, the raising of finance, Russian business practices and most importantly Russian networking, which includes both the private sector and government. So, you see, with those very specific demands we don’t go into the open market. If we need someone we ask around and candidates are put forward.’

  ‘How many?’ asked Mercy.

  ‘In this case we just saw Zlata. We all liked her and thought her capable. So, rather than waste our time interviewing ten people, we agreed to give her the job.’

  ‘So you all approved her appointment?’

  ‘Not all of us were here at the time,’ said Dudko, ‘which was one of the reasons we needed to employ someone.’

  ‘Does that mean you effectively gave her the job?’ asked Mercy.

  He writhed a little at that, but nodded.

  ‘She moved from an expensive flat in Hampstead to an even more expensive house in Parson’s Green,’ said Mercy.

  ‘We own residential property in London. We let it at very advantageous rates to our employees on the understanding that if we want to sell they have to move out immediately. Olga is currently living in a very nice flat overlooking Regent’s Park, for instance.’

  ‘And was Zlata well remunerated?’

  ‘Her base salary was low at around forty thousand, but with bonuses she’d earn in excess of a hundred and fifty thousand.’

  ‘What was it about Zlata’s profile that you particularl
y liked?’

  Silence while Dudko frowned and steepled his shiny nails.

  ‘The Irina Demidova we know came over here in answer to a Russian-girls-meet-English-guys advertisement and enrolled in a language school. Her business credentials weren’t that clear on the CV I saw,’ said Mercy.

  ‘Olga says she’s a law unto herself,’ said Papadopoulos. ‘She never knew where she was or what she was doing.’

  Dudko launched a flash of annoyance in the direction of the door.

  ‘Clearly you’re having difficulty articulating Zlata’s capabilities,’ said Mercy. ‘Can I ask you whether it was specifically her Russian government contacts that attracted you?’

  ‘Look, I’ll be honest with you,’ said Dudko. ‘She’s not been all we hoped for. We’ve begun to realise that perhaps her greatest talent is for personal PR. She’s done an excellent job of talking herself up.’

  ‘Do you think she could have been employed by the Russian government? Their security forces?’ asked Mercy. ‘The FSB?’

  Dudko stared wide-eyed into his desk.

  ‘Were you approached and “asked” to employ Zlata Yankov by a Russian government official?’

  ‘No,’ he said emphatically, searching his brain, looking for a way out. ‘But there was . . . something.’

  18

  11:00 A.M., THURSDAY 22ND MARCH 2012

  DNA Solutions, Slough, near London

  What have we here?’ asked Dr. Perkins, white coat, white shirt, blue tie, glasses, a man used to resolving paternity cases.

  ‘These slides are tissue samples taken from my daughter by the forensic lab of the Madrid police,’ said Boxer.

  ‘Tissue samples . . . forensic?’ said Perkins, alarmed. ‘Madrid police?’

  ‘She was murdered in Madrid last weekend. The police are unable to process her DNA for another three weeks and we want to repatriate her body, or what’s . . . ’

  ‘I’m very sorry for your loss,’ said Perkins. ‘Does this mean she was unidentifiable?’

  ‘This was taken from a body part found with her clothes and passport.’

  ‘My God,’ said Perkins, looking at the man across the desk from him, stunned by his professional detachment. ‘You must be . . . Are you all right? This is . . . I’ve never come across anything like this before. It’s . . . it’s a tragedy.’

  ‘It is for me,’ said Boxer, suppressing the emotional surge. ‘I want to bring her body back to the UK, and to do that I have to have positive identification. I need you to match my DNA to this tissue sample’s DNA and document it.’

  ‘And what’s on the pen drive?’

  ‘That’s my ex-wife’s DNA. She’s the girl’s mother and a police officer. Her DNA was already on file. That was taken from an email attachement she sent to the Madrid police before we realised they couldn’t complete the task for another three weeks.’

  ‘It would be cheaper and quicker to match your ex-wife’s DNA to the sample’s.’

  ‘I know, but I want you to do both.’

  ‘Does that mean there’s a question mark about paternity?’

  ‘I didn’t think there was,’ said Boxer, recalling Mercy’s outburst yesterday. ‘But there might be.’

  Perkins looked at his watch, made a call down to the lab.

  ‘That’s O.K.,’ he said. ‘We can still get your samples into this morning’s PCR slot, which means we could have the results for you by close of business today. We’re going to have to shift other tests into the following day, but under these tragic circumstances I think it’s the least we can do for you.’

  Papadopoulos was driving Mercy’s car. They were on their way to the Northwest International School in Portland Place. Mercy was on the phone, giving the details of the passports belonging to Irina Demidova aka Zlata Yankov, a photocopy of the latter having been supplied by Olga. They’d already been to the underground car park in Cavendish Square to establish that the Mercedes CLS owned by DLT Consultants had been taken out on Friday and still not been returned.

  ‘Need I ask, but how do you feel about “engaging” with Olga?’ asked Mercy.

  ‘Christ, Mercy, I’m not sure I’m in her league,’ said Papadopoulos. ‘And my girlfriend wouldn’t be too happy about it either. Mind you, the way these cases are going and the four-in-the-morning phone calls . . . that might not last for very much longer.’

  ‘Welcome to Specialist Crime Directorate 7,’ said Mercy. ‘It’s not easy fitting relationships into the little time slots before you both crash out, is it?’

  ‘Tell me about it,’ said George, thinking of last night on the Heath and in the Royal Free Hospital.

  ‘And I didn’t mean get her into bed, George, although I must say you didn’t look as if you’d have minded me giving you that kind of order,’ said Mercy.

  ‘That wasn’t part of my training,’ said Papadopoulos. ‘You?’

  ‘Don’t be cheeky,’ said Mercy. ‘So how about Olga? Fancy giving her a call and . . . I was going to say pumping her for information but I don’t want you to misconstrue the directive.’

  ‘Is this copper to civilian or something else?’

  ‘Bit of both. You seemed to get on, right league or not,’ said Mercy. ‘Let’s call it a friendly between Panathinaikos and CSKA Moscow.’

  ‘Sassy, sophisticated Russian graduate seeks Greek plod with sideburns?’

  ‘You need some talking-up classes from Demidova,’ said Mercy. ‘You’re a detective sergeant in an elite department in the Met. You know a whole load of interesting stuff that she hasn’t got the first idea about. You even have the same alphabet . . . more or less.’

  ‘You’ve just talked me into it,’ said Papadopoulos, perking up as he parked outside the school. ‘What are we doing here?’

  ‘You’re staying in the car and calling the DLT Consultants’ driver, Big Mal, to see if we can find that Mercedes CLS,’ said Mercy. ‘I’m going up to see the headmaster with the cattle prod this time.’

  ‘The old colonoscopy treatment?’ said Papadopoulos, wincing.

  Mercy went up to Piers Campbell’s office, barged her way in.

  ‘Did Valery turn up for school today?’ asked Mercy.

  Campbell slowly put down the file he was reading, weighed something in his head and decided against a demonstration of headmasterly authority. He checked his computer, made a phone call, put the phone down slowly.

  ‘When there’s a no-show you’re supposed to phone the mother. Is that it?’

  ‘Yes, and it went straight to answerphone.’

  ‘Did you call Irina Demidova after my visit here yesterday afternoon?’

  Silence. Campbell went for a hard, direct look, trying to assert himself. Unfortunately for him Mercy was used to a lot worse than that from rapists, kidnappers and murderers.

  ‘Did you?’ she asked, eyebrows raised.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘When I’d expressly asked you not to,’ said Mercy. ‘It was very important for my investigation that she was unaware of my enquiries.’

  ‘I did not talk to her about the activities of her son, Valery,’ said Campbell. ‘I respected that. We did not talk ab—’

  ‘So what did you have to talk about, if it wasn’t Valery?’

  Unable to take any more of the inexorable Mercy, he stood up, went to the window, looked down into Portland Place and wished himself elsewhere.

  ‘Are you married, Mr. Campbell?’

  The headmaster nodded, hands folded behind his back, shoulders braced.

  ‘Were you having an affair with Irina Demidova?’

  He nodded again.

  ‘Did you discuss her intimacy with a young male member of staff at the Hampstead school?’

  Campbell’s gaze fell to the window sill, where it alighted on an innocent ornament, some piece of glass or porcelain. He picked it up and
, with the sudden animation of a cricketer going for a run-out, dashed it against the wall. Fragments showered down onto the floor, snicked against the window glass.

  ‘I’ll take that as a yes,’ said Mercy. ‘Did you find out who she’d been intimate with before you spoke to her?’

  ‘Jeremy Spencer,’ he said icily.

  ‘So when I asked you if there’d been any intimacy between Ms. Demidova and a member of staff you made the assumption of the jealous lover,’ said Mercy. ‘How did you find out it was Mr. Spencer?’

  ‘The caretaker,’ said Campbell. ‘Caretakers always know what’s going on.’

  ‘Is that why Ms. Demidova never came to the school gates here?’

  ‘I’m not a fool,’ said Campbell. ‘Well, not all the time.’

  ‘Jeremy Spencer is dead,’ said Mercy. ‘Drowned in his bath. We think it’s murder.’

  Campbell staggered to his chair, fell into it as if his legs had stopped operating. The chair rolled slowly to the wall, where it stopped.

  ‘Holy fuck,’ he said, as the last element of his professional headmasterly façade collapsed. ‘Holy . . . fuck.’

  ‘Any theories?’

  ‘Hunh!’ said Campbell, wild-eyed, panic-stricken. He drew himself up to his desk, rested his hands on either side of some documents and stared down at his disappearing life: marriage, children, job . . . the lot.

  ‘Any theories apart from the obvious one, which the homicide squad are going to leap on because they love a good strong motive like jealousy.’

  ‘You think I did it?’

  ‘I think you have some responsibility for it,’ said Mercy. ‘They will see you as the only clearly motivated suspect, now that Irina’s gone.’

  ‘Gone?’

  ‘She vamoosed with Valery. The UK Border Agency are on to it now.’

  He formed two fists and dropped his head onto them.

  ‘Any theories before homicide come knocking would be helpful,’ said Mercy.

  ‘You mean, that’s not you?’ he said.

  ‘No. My interest is in Sasha Bobkov’s kidnap, remember?’

  ‘And you think Irina was involved in that?’

  ‘I’m sure she was involved in the set-up. Anything you can tell me would be very helpful,’ said Mercy. ‘I’ve just come from her place of work, where she was known by another name.’