by Keith Short
‘Imbeciles! The bodyguards had no right to take matters into their own hands like that. Now I can’t extract any useful information using skilled interrogators of my own.’
He was dealing with the real Chekhov here, the man who made on-the-spot decisions that affected people’s lives. There’d be no altruism today, no father figure other than one who was seeking revenge. ‘They panicked once your security officers handed them over, sir. They assumed you’d hold them responsible and they feared for their lives. I promise you, I gave no instruction for them to do what they did.’
‘I’ll deal with them later. How many more perpetrators are there?’
‘We have the names of four current staff – all of them missing. Some of those we laid off may also be involved – we have warriors looking for them. We don’t yet know who organised it at the top. We extracted nothing from the three we’ve interrogated so far. I’m convinced they don’t know.’
Chekhov was calmer now. ‘From this moment, all brigadiers, all security staff, everyone in the London organisation, will have a reporting line through you. This debacle must never be repeated in my absence. From now on, you are to take over my role as pakhan whenever I’m not here.’
That could be most of the time. Amid the building tension in the incident centre, Malkin was thrilled by what Chekhov was telling him but at the same time astonished that he wasn’t laying any of the blame on his shoulders. And I thought I was in serious trouble.
‘You will be responsible for directing my day-to-day operations,’ Chekhov continued, ‘and I will tell you how I want this doing. Anyone acting on his own initiative must have your explicit approval. Anyone who makes a serious error of judgement outside the scope of my instructions will be severely dealt with. I will not have an incident like this again.’
‘Pakhan,’ a young computer science officer said with excitement, ‘we’ve located the nanny. I have her on my monitor.’
Chekhov abandoned his motivational talk and bolted across the hall. Feeling delighted with his elevated status, Malkin followed him to the CSO’s desk. On his monitor screen, the CSO pointed them to the small red disc flashing on and off as it moved northwards up the map of Yorkshire.
‘She’s on a train heading north for Newcastle,’ the young officer explained. ‘The tracker whose code you provided is giving a weak signal but we’ve managed to lock into it.’
The clever bastard. How did he manage to plant a tracker on the nanny?
Chekhov turned to Malkin. ‘You are in charge, Malkin. Make a start on mobilising our security resources, while I start to call in my favours. Don’t let me down.’
Clearly puzzled by his pakhan’s delegation, the CSO looked at them both in turn, then spoke to Malkin. ‘Can you see what’s happening? The train has stopped at Sheffield.’
‘Shall we contact the Yorkshire police forces, sir?’ Malkin asked of Chekhov.
‘We have no choice. We can’t get our own men up there in time to cover every station. That’s why I need to call my contacts in high places, get them to instruct the authorities to mobilise their resources in the north. You must coordinate our internal activities. Come on, man, get on with it. Use my helicopters – they are yours to direct. Intercept her before the police find her, if you can.’ The voice of the hitherto calm and collected Chekhov was breaking. ‘Make sure no harm comes to my son. And take the nanny alive.’
Malkin’s nerves were rattling, but he managed to quell his thoughts on the potential consequences of failure. He felt an excitement like never before. This was his first serious operational task for the bratva. The resources he now controlled were considerable, not only as a response team but as a potential source of huge income in the future. It was everything he wanted.
CHAPTER 9
At each station, Jean took careful note of everyone who entered her carriage. As the train left Nottingham, the vacated seats around her filled with babbling youths. That was good; it would draw any would-be snooper’s attention. Two middle-aged men boarded the train at Sheffield; she looked out of the window to avoid their scrutiny as they passed down the carriage. At Leeds, the youths left the train and a man in his thirties took up the adjacent seat across the aisle. He opened his newspaper and her heart rose into her mouth. The front page of the Yorkshire Evening Post featured an overblown old passport photograph of her that she’d supplied with her CV at the time of her job interview. She’d changed a lot since the photograph was taken, so why would anyone want to link the newspaper article with her and the baby girl she was travelling with? She may look a bit old to be travelling with such a young baby but was there anything unusual about a grandmother travelling alone with a grandchild? Close your eyes, relax. With the help of breathing exercises, she convinced herself that she’d successfully merged into the daily commuter ranks.
Sudden loud beats from helicopter blades stimulated keen interest inside the carriage. Several passengers strained against the windows to get a view of the helicopter’s underside, describing every detail to those in the carriage who couldn’t see. The pilot was flying parallel with the train and at close range. ‘What’s he doing?’ the woman in the seat in front remarked. ‘Why’s he flying so bloody close? It’s not the police, you know.’
The chopper moved forward a couple of carriages but Jean could still hear its throbbing blades. The ticket inspector arrived in the carriage. She fumbled in her handbag for her ticket and recoiled in horror as she realised what was happening. Chekhov’s bloody mobile phone. She should have left it hidden back at the mansion. She’d been lucky to get this far undetected; Chekhov must have only just discovered what was going on. The voice over the tannoy announced that the train was approaching Darlington. Would they be waiting on the platform ready to board the train? Would it be the police? Chekhov’s men? Surely not her collaborators – they wouldn’t risk showing their faces. She showed the inspector her ticket and, once the sliding door at the rear of the carriage closed behind him, she picked up Abram and the rucksack containing their belongings and left the carriage by the front door. As the train commenced its deceleration, she checked that no one was watching and slipped into the lavatory, locking the door behind her. She placed Abram on the toilet seat lid. He smiled up at her, a trusting smile like a baby would give to his mother. She blew out her breath in resignation. ‘Sorry about this, little man. So sorry.’
This guy is perfect – long hair, headband, he’s even got a rucksack like mine. Glad I put the bandana on. If I walk out next to him, they’ll think we’re together. Smile at him. Great, he’s smiling back. Get closer to him. Done it, we’re out.
Jean studied the helicopter from the far end of the street. It hovered menacingly over the old Victorian clock tower. A loud noise, more beating blades, a second helicopter flew high overhead without stopping. Here comes another one. What were they doing? From a distance, she heard a whistle and the sound from the engine as the power was revved up. Another whistle was the signal for the original helicopter to take off vertically. A third helicopter turned and flew towards the rear end of the train. A squirming movement against her spine caused her to shiver. The train’s aerial escort moved off.
She watched the first of the police officers leave the station, mount his motorbike and ride off. He was followed by a horde of plain-clothed and uniformed personnel. They piled into cars and screeched away. Give it half an hour before going back into the station, it has to be clear by then. Buy a ticket to somewhere on the coast.
The Anchor was a rough-looking, down-at-heel establishment close to the gates of Hartlepool’s Fish Quay. Jean knew little about this town but from a casual conversation on the branch line train, she discovered it still had a working fishing port that would offer her the chance to escape England. It was early evening and a cackle of bar chat and laughter was drifting out through the open window of the tap room; she studied the handwritten Vacancies sign sellotaped to the back of the entrance
door’s glazed panel – it looked recent enough to be meaningful. She took a deep breath, entered the pub and marched confidently across the bare floorboards to the ancient wooden bar. The room was full of scruffy characters conversing in strong northern accents; would they think she was a new prostitute on the patch? Thankfully, they paid her scant attention.
‘Hello. What can I do for you, pet?’
The middle-aged woman behind the bar was exactly what Jean expected for the landlady of such a pub – dyed black curly hair, thick make-up, heavy gypsy-like jewellery and an authority beyond that of a barmaid. The way Mary was going, this could be her in twenty years’ time.
‘You have a room?’ she asked, praying that Abram wouldn’t wake up and hoping that the background clatter in the room would be enough to drown his crying if he did.
‘Well, a matter of fact we do, pet. But you’re dead lucky, you know, I’ve just had a cancellation. The room’s yours for twenty quid a night if you want it. Do you want to see it?’
‘No. That’s fine, I’ll take it. I’m only staying for one night.’ She felt Abram move against her back. Once again, she willed him not to start screaming at this awkward moment.
‘Do you want a drink before you go up?’
‘I’m really tired. I’ve travelled a long way down from Scotland,’ she lied, mentally urging the landlady to get on with it.
‘All right, pet. I’ll show you up to your room. It’ll be cash in advance. OK?’ Turning around, she shouted across to a middle-aged man, ‘Jim, can you look after the bar for a couple of minutes, son?’
The room was spartan with its floral wallpaper worn in places. The floor was covered in old brown canvas and sloped at one edge. If the bedding was clean, this would do. She handed the landlady twenty pounds and her babble finally stopped. When she could no longer hear her footsteps on the stairs, she removed Abram from the rucksack; he was rubbing his closed eyes, going to wake up any minute. She boiled the kettle and made up a bottle of his powdered milk; hopefully, he’d take his feed and go back to sleep for a while. She’d have to risk leaving him in bed for an hour or so while she located the red-light district. It had to be somewhere close.
It was a balmy evening but the anxiety in Jean’s stomach made her shiver. Ten o’clock. Most of the punters would be drunk by now and easy prey for the ladies of the night. She was a lone wolf in a forest full of wild and hungry wolves; they would come for her first. Here we go. The scrawny young girl emerged from the shadows and slowly approached her. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘I need to talk to you.’
The scantily clad creature challenged her again. ‘You’re a cop, aren’t you? You can always smell rozzers, even above the stink of the fish.’
‘I’m not a police officer.’
‘Well, if you’re not a cop, you’re going to have to be one of us then, aren’t you? And we don’t take kindly to competition. If we find you’re working for a fuckin pimp, we’ll cut your tits off, right. We work for ourselves here.’
‘Aye, and we look after each other, don’t we, hun?’ said a voice from the shadows.
Jean was taken aback at the sight of the older woman as she stepped out into the street light. She had to be in her sixties – her gaunt, worn face no doubt the result of many years on the game.
‘We always stick together if there’s any trouble. Safety in numbers, they say. And it’s two on to one now, isn’t it?’ The old pro put her arm around the shoulder of her younger colleague. ‘You having trouble, pet?’
‘Dunno yet,’ the younger girl replied, ‘she’s just turned up from nowhere. I still think she’s a rozzer, though. Let’s have a look in her bag.’
Before the young girl could grab her shoulder bag, Jean took a step back and raised both hands in protest. ‘Look, I can promise you, I’m not a cop and I don’t do your line of work. I just need your help with something really important and I’m willing to pay.’ She’d stuck her head above the parapet, she realised; how would these girls react to a strange woman on their streets, especially one with money. They were both shameless, lacking in decorum, and the younger one reminded her a bit of Mary, a madam in every sense and not yet turned twenty.
‘Hark at this posh hussy,’ the young girl said with a sneer, seeking her colleague’s support with a sideways glance. ‘Why aren’t you going to the cops for your help, then?’
‘Because I wouldn’t want the police involved. Look, I need to know where I can find a foreign fisherman who’d be willing to take me to Belgium or Holland, anywhere over there. I’m trying to get away from someone who’s going to hurt me if I stay in this country.’
The older woman was taking the bait; looking for a chance to make an easy bob or two, no doubt. ‘There’s a pub at the other end of Northgate, where the Dutchies drink,’ the old pro said. ‘Leave it with me and I’ll see you back here in an hour. But it’s fifty quid each for something like this, isn’t it, pet?’ she said, prompting her colleague.
The younger girl affirmed the bid. ‘Aye, at least that. I don’t suppose you’ve got any tabs, have you?’
Jean accepted their offer but told them she didn’t smoke. ‘Back in an hour. Bring him with you.’ She needed to lighten the mood, get them on her side. ‘And no rozzers or the deal’s off.’
The prostitutes laughed at her joke. ‘She can’t be such a bad lass, after all,’ Jean heard the younger girl say, as they disappeared into the night.
Six o’clock in the morning and still dark. Jean left the sleeping pub. Abram was already weighing heavy on shoulders still sore from yesterday. She crossed the empty street and slipped through the Fish Quay’s old wrought-iron gates, open in readiness for the morning’s fish market. The first of the fishermen were transferring their catch; they paid her little attention as they slid their trays of fresh-smelling cod from the quayside into the covered market. She felt as if she’d been lugging Abram around like that since yesterday afternoon.
She soon located the trawler that was to provide their passage to freedom. She’d been told that the boat would be moored close to the ice house and how she could find that by following the smell of ammonia. There was only one boat at the quayside next to the ice house. The rusting old tub bobbed gently on the oily water; it hardly looked seaworthy but what did she know? ‘Here we go, Abram,’ she said as she attempted her next step into their future.
‘Hoy, what’s this then?’ The Dutch skipper stopped her with his calloused hand as she tried to climb aboard his trawler. ‘You say nothing last night about bringing a kid.’
Abram was awake in the rucksack, evidently enjoying his latest adventure. The sack’s flap was folded back and the wispy strands of hair on his exposed little head were fluttering in the mild breeze. ‘Look, she’s my daughter. And if her father finds us, he’ll kill us both. She has to come with me.’ There was no way she could have mentioned Abram the previous evening. If the prostitutes watched TV when they weren’t working, there was always a chance they’d recognise what was going on and try for the ransom that Chekhov would no doubt be offering.
The skipper sucked on his pipe and rubbed his bristled chin. ‘I do this for you,’ he eventually said, ‘but I have to charge an extra thousand pounds.’
‘I’ve already paid you two thousand. Surely that’s enough?’
The skipper dolefully shook his head.
‘OK, but there’s no more,’ Jean said as she handed over the additional fee and let him see he was taking almost everything she had left in her handbag. There was no way he was going to search her underwear, where the rest of her money was hidden.
Taking her by one hand and tickling Abram under the chin with the other, the skipper helped them down to the trawler’s deck. ‘Welcome aboard my boat, madam.’ He winked at her as he said to Abram, ‘And you also, young lady.’
Jean shook her head and smiled inwardly. They hadn’t fooled him.
After devouring a breakfast of tinned sausages and baked beans, her first hot meal for two days, Jean went up to the deck and walked to the stern where the wheeling gulls were following the boat. Exhausted, she leaned on the deck rail breathing in the smells of fresh sea air and stale fish and reflected on the past thirty-six hours. At Darlington station she’d spotted them with ease. Chekhov no doubt had men boarding the train further up the line at York and Durham. With luck, they’d have tracked her all the way to Newcastle before they found the abandoned buggy with the mobile phone in its pouch. Only then would they have realised she’d given them the slip.
The gentle breeze invigorated her and cleared her mind. What was she was leaving behind in England and what would life hold for her in another country? Vladimir Chekhov had picked her from the gutter and set her on her feet; how was she repaying him? Chekhov may be a mobster, but he’d done nothing to deserve the father’s anxiety he must be suffering at this moment. And what about Abram? That innocent little boy had a birthright beyond anyone’s wildest dreams, yet he would never know his real father. She tried to convince herself that she’d rescued him from a life of crime. From her encounters in the lift and Lidia confirming the nature of the organisation’s business, her actions were justified, weren’t they? But would Chekhov pine forever for his son? It was that final thought that disturbed her most as she turned away from the strengthening wind and went below to check on Abram.
