Illegal Action (6 page)

13

A
s he approached the house in Belgravia, a beautiful white stuccoed mansion just off Eaton Square, Jerry Simmons kept his eyes peeled, which was what he was paid to do. But there was nothing unusual on the street.

A month before there’d been a man sitting in an electric blue Audi saloon car, two days in a row, within view of the house. Each day he’d disappeared by mid-morning, though once Jerry thought he’d spotted the car, further down the street, at dusk.

Jerry reckoned that the man had been there on Rykov’s orders, probably to confirm where Jerry worked. Certainly since then there’d been nothing unusual, although Tamara, the PA, had been jittery lately. But then she’d always struck Jerry as highly strung, neurotic even. One day she’d grilled him after a substitute postman had made the delivery. Had he seen him? Did he look genuine?

Jerry’s daily routine was straightforward. He’d come out from the Underground in his standard blue chauffeur’s suit, do up his tie and walk across the park in time to reach the house by eight o’clock. There he’d collect a mug of tea from Mrs. Grimby in the vast basement kitchen, then retreat to the Bentley Arnage, and wait, reading the
Mirror
he’d brought along with him on the Tube. By eight-thirty the Russian would come out and get into the back seat, and Jerry would drive him to the gym, an expensive place with a pool down near Chelsea Harbour. Then on to any appointments, and perhaps a restaurant for lunch, after which the Russian liked to be in his house.

On those mornings when Brunovsky stayed in, Jerry might go out and top the car up with petrol, get it washed or take it for its quarterly service; otherwise, he killed time by waxing and polishing the car until it gleamed, by making himself useful around the house (he was good at DIY) or just by reading.

It could be a long day sometimes, especially when there was an evening engagement, but his weekends were usually free, since Brunovsky liked to spend them in the country where he kept a Range Rover which he drove himself. And the money was good enough, so he wasn’t complaining, especially now that he had the generous top-up from Rykov.

He had had two more meetings with Rykov, though they had been brief. He’d given accounts of his employer’s comings and goings, and supplied what little information he had about where the man might be going next. It had seemed skimpy even to Simmons, but Rykov had not complained. And he’d paid him well.

Still, it violated what Simmons knew should be his professional code: a man had one employer, and therefore one loyalty; less clearly, it also stirred some unease, since Jerry was well disposed to the Russian and it seemed obvious that Rykov’s close interest in him was a threat of some sort.

Not that he knew his employer very well. He was small and wiry, but seemed a cheerful bloke. His English was excellent, and he always said hello to Jerry in the morning and asked how he was. He would apologise if his schedule changed unexpectedly, or if he had to go out suddenly in the evening. But they didn’t have much other conversation, and when he was on his mobile, which seemed most of the time, or Tamara was with him, he spoke in Russian.

Tamara was not so friendly. Frosty, fortyish, dyed blonde hair, she spoke English with an accent that got on his nerves, though that was nothing compared to her manners, which were high-handed and officious. She wasn’t Russian herself, but from some country Jerry could not identify. Macedonia? Montenegro? Something like that, though you would think she had been born on Park Lane the way she behaved. Her demeanour suggested that although she too worked for the Russian, she was not a mere employee—which someone like Jerry, who was a mere employee, should not forget.

Yet she was the only unpleasant note in the household, which had a sizeable retinue—Mrs. Grimby the cook, a housekeeper named Warburton who didn’t say much but was friendly enough, a series of temps who helped Tamara when she found typing beneath her, a young maid, two gardeners and Monica, Brunovsky’s girlfriend. She was nice, Monica—a looker of course, but not stuck up. He was sometimes asked to chauffeur her on shopping expeditions, though most of the time she seemed happy to drive herself. Who wouldn’t, given an Audi 6 coupé and licence to knock up as many parking fines as they wanted?

This morning he was collecting his tea from Mrs. Grimby when he heard voices in the corridor upstairs, speaking in Russian. He was used to the voices of Tamara and the boss, and today there was a strain to their exchanges, which Jerry could detect without understanding a word.

“Is he going to the gym today?” he whispered to Mrs. Grimby. Stout and white-haired, she wore an apron around her ample waist and was opening a canister of flour.

“I don’t know,” she said equably, “though he’s here for lunch. But I think something’s upset him.” She raised her eyes; upstairs, voices continued in an agitated staccato of Russian. Suddenly he heard the noise of clacking heels come down the stairs, and Tamara swept into the kitchen.

“Jerry,” she said shortly, “when did you get here?”

“Just a minute ago,” he said. She looked even tenser than usual. “Is something wrong?”

Tamara ignored his question and turned on her heel. Leaving the kitchen to go upstairs, she called back over her shoulder, “Sir will be down shortly.”

Sir, thought Jerry sarcastically, who was happy enough to address his employer that way, but was buggered if he’d use the expression when the man wasn’t even there. He looked at Mrs. Grimby. She and her late husband had run a pub in South London, then a boarding house in Poole; Jerry couldn’t believe she hadn’t seen a thing or two. “What’s got into her?” he asked.

“Takes all sorts,” said Mrs. Grimby philosophically, starting to sift some flour.

Jerry picked up his mug, then went outside, where the car sat in a narrow cul-de-sac, next to the small garden between the back of the house and a mews house which the Russian also owned. It was going to be a fine day, he thought, watching as the sun began to eat up the early-morning haze, and the dew on the close-cropped lawn began to dry.

Ten minutes later, he had worked his way to the sports page when Brunovsky came out. Jerry put the paper down, got out and opened the back door. “Morning,” said his boss. Usually he was openly cheerful, even expansive if the day was fine. But this morning he looked preoccupied, and got into the car quickly.

Jerry had just backed up the car to turn around and leave, when there was a sudden exclamation from the back seat. “
Bozhe moi!
”

“Sir?” said Jerry tentatively, stopping the car.

The Russian had his computer open on his lap and had opened a copy of the
FT
. He raised both hands to his head in a parody of despair. “I’ve left my folder.”

“Shall I run in and get it, sir?”

“Please do.” Brunovsky gestured to his lap and made a gesture of helplessness. “It’s right on the desk in my study.”

Jerry turned off the engine and got out. In the kitchen Mrs. Grimby was rolling out pastry on a butcher’s block. Jerry went straight through and climbed the stairs to the ground floor, two at a time. In the front hall, two storeys high and boasting a splendid curved staircase to the upstairs bedrooms, he turned and strode down a thin corridor lined with watercolours of Russian landscapes.

At the back of the house he found the door of Tamara’s office open. He walked through it into the study where his boss worked, a cosy room with vivid scarlet wallpaper, two floor-to-ceiling bookshelves at one end and a small sofa and TV at the other. Between the bookshelves hung a large oil painting of a Cossack bestride a horse—normally, that is, for now the Cossack picture was on the floor, leaning upright against the wall. In its space was a square wall safe, its door wide open.

Jerry stared at the safe for a moment, then, overcome with curiosity, took two steps closer and peered inside. He saw a couple of large envelopes and a leather jewellery case. Not unexpected, nor was the existence of the safe—a man as rich as Brunovsky must have plenty of valuables he’d want to protect. What did take Jerry aback though was the sight of a small handgun, lying flat on the safe floor.

He turned quickly and went towards the large partner’s desk in front of the window overlooking the back garden, where he saw the file and picked it up. He was about to turn to leave when Tamara suddenly came into the room. “What are you doing here?” she demanded, almost shouting. Her eyes shifted towards the safe, then moved back, blazing, to Jerry.

He calmly waved the file, deliberately keeping his gaze on her, well away from the open safe door. “Mr. Brunovsky left this behind. He asked me to fetch it for him.”

There was nothing she could object to in this. “Go on then,” she ordered, and Jerry nodded and left the room. Christ, he thought, as he made his way downstairs and returned to the car. What sort of bloke am I working for? He could understand Brunovsky’s having a gun, but it was the type of gun that shook him. The Izhmekh MP 451 packed the punch of a .38, and was the weapon of choice for Russian detectives and intelligence officers wanting a compact weapon with maximum firepower. So lethal was this gun that private citizens there were not allowed to own them.

Damn, thought Jerry, for he had grown to like his peaceful chauffeur’s routine, and had almost forgotten that he was also being paid to protect his boss. Not peaceful any more, he thought, suddenly alert, recognising that if Brunovsky felt he needed an MP 451, then there must be something to protect him from.

14

C
ouldn’t we just show the photograph to the people at reception?” complained Michael Fane, drawing up a chair next to Peggy Kinsolving in the open-plan office. He held a sheet of paper in his hand, and flapped it irritably. “This is like searching for a needle in a haystack, when we could easily blow all the hay away.
Whoosh!
” He blew air like a mechanical leaf-blower.

Peggy shook her head. Michael must be my age, she thought, yet sometimes he acted like an undergraduate. He certainly looked like a student, with a boy’s thin build and unruly hair. There was no doubting his cleverness—not with a Double First from Cambridge—but he was also impatient and quick to criticise, even when what he took for stupidity was actually something he didn’t fully understand.

Peggy said, “Come on, get real. If we start asking around, somebody in the building will talk. We’ve got to try it this way.” She pointed to her laptop, where the most recent Google search showed thirty-seven hits.

“Safer maybe,” grumbled Michael, “but pretty slow.”

So far, Peggy had to concede, Michael had a point. She looked at her list of the tenants in the building in Berkeley Square. She’d trawled through the register from Companies House and found three-quarters of the tenants; now she hoped Google would further illuminate the nature of their businesses.

But how could one tell whether the man A4 had followed had entered the offices of Stringer Fund Management or Piccolo Mundi, importers of fine Italian foodstuffs? Or gone into McBain, Sweeney and White, an up-and-coming ad agency, or Shostas and Newton, lawyers specialising in intellectual property law?

She looked at the next name on the list and typed “The Cartwright Agency” into the Google query box, then sighed. Doubtless another advertising firm, or a casting agency for films.

Almost a minute later, Michael Fane finally broke the silence. “What’s the matter, Peggy?” he asked, noticing she was staring at the screen.

He leant over and read:

The Cartwright Agency is a new consultancy but with veteran credentials, specialising in providing advice and other forms of assistance on matters of corporate and individual security.

“Where are you going?” he said, for Peggy was on her feet and already moving fast.

“I’m going to see Liz,” she called back over her shoulder. “I think we may have found our mystery man.”

Her appointment was at noon, and when Liz Carlyle emerged from the Underground at Green Park she had half an hour to spare. After a week of steady drizzle, the sky had suddenly brightened and the temperature was in the mid-sixties.

Mayfair must be one of the nicest places in the world to kill time, she decided as she strolled along New Bond Street looking in the shop windows. It was interesting to have the occasional glimpse into a world of people where money seemed to mean nothing (or was it everything?), but Liz had neither the time nor the inclination to follow fashion or to know who was who among the famous designer names in the shop windows. It was not that she had a puritan’s aversion to a life where what was fashionable mattered; she simply didn’t have the time—or the money.

Maybe, she thought, this was her chance to find something for a wedding she was going to in May, but a quick foray into Burberry on the corner of Conduit Street unearthed nothing under £500. So she decided she would do as she usually did and look in the little dress shop in Stockbridge, which she passed on her way down to her mother’s Wiltshire house. Cutting down towards Berkeley Square, her thoughts turned to her impending appointment.

Liz was using her operational cover name of Jane Falconer. She had her hair tied back and she wore a conservative grey suit, for from his CV, the man she was going to meet, Brigadier Walter Cartwright, was unmistakably traditional: Wellington, Sandhurst, four tours in Northern Ireland, active duty during the Falklands campaign, followed by command of a tank regiment during Operation Desert Storm in the first Iraq War.

He had resigned from the army soon after the Gulf campaign and begun a second career in a risk analysis/security firm of international repute. After five years he had struck out on his own, forming his eponymous consultancy. Such companies tended to divide between the cerebral, specialising in “risk analysis,” and those at the sharper end, who provided protection—for multinational corporations worried about the kidnapping of their chief executives and sometimes for people rich enough to pay someone to create an illusion of risk.

From Peggy’s briefing to Liz, it was clear the Cartwright consultancy was in the heavy category, with most of its staff ex-military. Yet it managed to mask the muscular aspects of its business by having peers of the realm among its nonexecutive directors and by situating its headquarters in the smartest part of London.

On the sixth floor of the modern block at the south end of Berkeley Square, Walter Cartwright greeted Liz with a firm handshake and a slow smile. He looked younger than his fifty or so years. He was on the near side of six feet, and wore a suit of rumpled gabardine. Only the erect way he held himself gave any indication of his military past; that, and the square outline to his shoulders.

His office overlooked Berkeley Square, though at this height the view was obscured by the early leaves on the square’s perimeter trees. The sound of the traffic was dulled and the noise of birdsong came through the window, melodious and clear. “Lovely, isn’t it?” said Cartwright. “That’s a blackbird. Not many nightingales in Berkeley Square nowadays.”

Liz pointed to a pair of watercolours on the wall, each depicting a black Labrador retrieving pheasants at a shoot. “They’re rather fine,” she said.

Cartwright chuckled. “You’re either being very polite or you’ve been well briefed. I painted them myself.”

They sat down and Cartwright looked at her with friendly curiosity. “Miss Falconer, you said you’re from the Home Office?”

“I’m actually from the Security Service.”

“Ah. MI5. I thought so. I had some contact with you chaps when I was in Ireland. Is Michael Binding still around?”

“Absolutely,” she said, hoping the brigadier didn’t share Michael Binding’s opinion of women’s professional abilities.

“And there was another man.” The brigadier scratched an eyebrow thoughtfully. “Ricky something. Nice fellow.”

“Ricky Perrins. I’m afraid he was killed in a car accident.”

“Oh I’m sorry,” said the brigadier with genuine regret, and Liz found herself warming to him. “I’d better not go on about Ireland,” he said, “or we’ll be here all day. You said you wanted to speak with me about one of our employees. Which one?”

Liz didn’t have the faintest idea of her quarry’s name, so she extracted a 10x8 black-and-white photograph from her briefcase, and handed it across the desk to the brigadier. It had been taken by A4 with a telephoto lens, enlarged and cropped to show only the mystery man on the bench.

Cartwright studied it carefully, while Liz wondered what she would do if he said he’d never seen the man before.

“Simmons,” said the brigadier, to Liz’s relief. “Jerry Simmons.”

“He works here?”

“Yes. Is this work-related?” His tone was slightly sharper.

“We don’t know yet,” admitted Liz. “That’s why I wanted to talk to you.”

“Has he done something wrong?”

“We’re not sure. We had a surveillance operation on a foreign national and saw what looked like a covert meeting with Simmons.” She pointed to the photograph. “That was taken in a remote part of Hampstead Heath.”

“Is this a hostile foreign national?”

Liz spoke carefully. “Let’s just say his country used to be hostile; its present status is unclear. We’re concerned enough to be following this man, and curious as to why he’s meeting with your employee. Can you tell me something about Simmons?”

“Of course. I’ll get his file.” Cartwright walked over to a filing cabinet in the corner of the room and pulled out a folder. “He’s from Lancashire. He left school and signed up—he was in the Paras for six years, then the SAS. Left five years ago. He seems to have made the transition to civilian life without any problems—and believe me, not all of them do. He used to be in security at the Dorchester Hotel. The people there weren’t very pleased when we lured him away, but they gave him a good reference. As far as we’re concerned, he’s worked out very well. He’s reliable, very competent.” He added, without malice, “If not precisely a mastermind.”

“What does he do for you?”

“He’s a driver and bodyguard.”

“For many different clients?”

“No,” said Cartwright with a quick shake of the head. “Our contracts are strictly long term. He’s working for a Russian named Nikita Brunovsky.”

“Why does Mr. Brunovsky need a bodyguard?”

Cartwright shrugged. “He’s one of the oligarchs. Having protection is part of their way of life. Brunovsky is comparatively restrained. Some of them have teams of people, but he relies mainly on Jerry Simmons. He doubles as chauffeur and protection.”

“Is there anything about Simmons that particularly stands out? Anything unusual?”

Cartwright reflected for a moment. “One’s always tempted to find
something
. Simmons has been married three times, but is that remarkable these days? I’m sure one of the reasons he left the Dorchester to come here was the money—it’s a lot better, and I had the feeling he needed it. But other than that, I can’t think of anything out of the ordinary about him.”

Then why, thought Liz, was he meeting a Russian diplomat in a remote corner of Hampstead Heath? It must have something to do with Brunovsky. “We’ll need to talk to him.”

Cartwright nodded and said, “During the day, of course, he’s usually with Brunovsky. There’s a house in Belgravia, and an estate in Sussex. But I’d rather you didn’t bother him on the job. I’ll give you Jerry’s home address and telephone. Perhaps you can take it from there.”

“Actually, I was wondering if it would be possible to meet him here. I don’t want to cause alarm before we speak to him. Or upset his family.”

“Not sure if he’s still got one,” said Cartwright, then looked again at Liz. “Would it help if I found a pretext to get him in here?”

“That would be ideal.”

“Right. Personnel can say there’s been a mix-up with his National Insurance. Something like that. Just tell me when.”

“It should be in the next few days.” Liz stood up to leave. “It will be one of my colleagues who talks to him. I’d be grateful if you wouldn’t mention my visit to anyone, especially Simmons.”

“Of course,” he said simply, and then as if to emphasise that her presence would be wiped from memory, exclaimed, “Listen to that!” Now there were two blackbirds singing, high up in the trees, creating a rich brocade of alternating song.

Let’s hope Simmons sings as well, thought Liz. She felt a sense of measured optimism, like someone starting out on an enormous jigsaw puzzle who makes unexpected progress early on, though it was only corner pieces of the puzzle that had come her way. She had no idea what the larger picture would look like when it emerged. If it ever did.