NO KISS FOR THE DEVIL (Gavin & Palmer 5) (13 page)

‘Lucky you. I
took a look at the number you gave me. It looks no more than a crummy flat,
like all the others around it. There was nobody in.’ He paused, then added,
‘Someone’s got an interest, though.’

Donald sat up.
This could be Nemeth adding some spice to make it look as if he’d come up with
something good. ‘Like what?’

‘None of the
locals would say much. But I’d only been there half an hour when a car arrived
and couple of men went inside. They came out with a pile of envelopes and stuff
and took off.’

‘You think
somebody warned them?’

‘I don’t think
so. One old guy I spoke to said it was a regular thing. They come and go at odd
hours, he said. He also said none of the local kids go anywhere near the place
ever since one of them tried to break in. He disappeared the next day.’

‘We could do
with some of that round here. What else?’

‘ He called it
a party car. Then he spat on the ground.’

 ‘Maybe he’s
asthmatic.’ Donald was only half joking. He had a growing feeling that Nemeth
wasn’t the sort to push for a story where there wasn’t one. ‘What else?’

‘He clammed up
after that. I hinted at cash, but he looked at me like I’d offered to buy his
sister.’

‘What did he
mean by a party car? A stretch limo?’ Donald tried to picture one of the
monster vehicles used by hen-night organisers to carry clutches of drunken
women on tours of their favourite pubs. Somehow, it didn’t quite gel. Nemeth
confirmed it.

‘No. He was
referring to the old Communist Party – the Interior Ministry. They used to
drive around in big, black saloons with blacked-out windows. The only
difference was, this was a black BMW X5 instead. Easy to follow,’ he added
cheerfully. ‘I got a kid on a motorbike to tail them.’

‘That was
bloody brave of you.’

‘They drove
from the flat to a freight forwarding depot. When the passenger got out, he was
carrying a box, all taped up and labelled. I think he’d parcelled up the stuff
he’d collected from the apartment along the way.’

‘Anthony,’
Donald almost crooned down the line, ‘if you got the address where that parcel
was going, I swear I’ll get you so much work, you’ll think your feet are on
fire.’

Nemeth’s smile
as he read out the address - one of the PO Box numbers Riley had provided - was
evident in his voice and seemed to beam all the way into the room.

Donald had a
sudden, chilling thought. ‘Wait. You said Interior Ministry. You mean it was a
government car?’

‘The way they
drove around the place, it had to be,’ the reporter replied. ‘I’m guessing the
old guy spat because he was referring to the Russians. They’re currently called
the Federalnaya Sluzhba Bezopasnosti.’

‘What the hell
does that mean?’

‘It’s the FSB
to you. They used to be called the KGB.’

*********

‘You
should kick this job into the long grass.’ Palmer was looking grim.

After picking
up Riley, they had decided to go to Donald Brask’s Finchley base for a
conference. Palmer had just finished relaying Pell’s revelation about the
murder of Annaliese Kellin. It had left a charged atmosphere in the room.

‘Why?’ Although
shocked by the news, Riley instinctively challenged the notion of backing off
from a job. Any job. ‘Are you going to let Helen’s murder go?’

‘That’s
different.’

‘Crap,’ she
replied with mild bluntness. ‘Pell’s jumping to conclusions. There might be no
connection between the two murders. It could be random. Annaliese Kellin may
have simply picked the wrong car for a lift.’

It was Palmer’s
turn to look cynical. ‘She was tied up. That doesn’t sound very random to me.’

Riley shook her
head obstinately and glared at him, daring further argument. She’d had the same
thought herself. She switched her attention to Brask, who had remained quiet
while Palmer was speaking.

The agent held
up both hands. ‘Sweetie, I’m on your side. But Frank’s so right.’

‘I disagree. If
there’s a connection here, it would be better if I was on the inside.’

Donald opened
his mouth then shut it again. Instead, he changed the subject. ‘There’s
something you should both know. The publisher’s address you sent me is a post
box in a run-down residential block. Most of the flats are empty or used by
illegals.’

Riley stared at
him. ‘How did you find that out?’

He looked
pleased with himself. ‘Contacts, sweetie. As always, contacts.’

‘How reliable
are they?’ Even as she asked, Riley knew that it was a pointless question. The
credentials of Donald’s various sources of information were impeccable.

Donald,
however, seemed unmoved. ‘Totally. His name is Tony Nemeth. He discovered that
at various times of the month, a parcel is collected along with any other mail,
bundled and forwarded to London.’ He studied his fingernails, playing the part
of the all-seeing puppeteer to the full. ‘The package is sent to a PO Box in
London, which is the same as the editorial office listed in the magazine. That
turns out to be a mailing facility in north London.’ He slid a piece of paper
across his desk to Frank Palmer. ‘I don’t know what you can do with this, but I
understand the packages arrive courtesy of an Aeroflot flight into the Heathrow
cargo terminal. They’re delivered to the mailing facility and presumably split
up there. I haven’t had time to check yet, but I suspect the Madrid and
Brussels PO Boxes feed into London. They’re probably no more than a bit of
gloss for impressionable readers.’

Riley glanced
at Frank, who was staring intently at the ceiling.

‘You’ve lost
me,’ she said. ‘If this magazine is a hole-in-the-wall affair, how can it pay
the kind of money Varley is offering? And who reads it?’

Donald cleared
his throat. ‘Well, to answer your first question, every magazine throughout
history which continued against all the odds was usually bankrolled by someone
with plenty of money. There’s no way round it. As to the readers of this one,
by all accounts, there are some very influential people.’

‘Like?’

‘People in the
White House…some Whitehall mandarins, and I gather a few copies are read avidly
in the halls of the Elysée Palace and some of the darker corridors in Bonn, Rome
and Brussels. It’s available on annual subscription, and only then at a high
price. It would have to be, because the subscriber base is probably restricted
and exclusive.’

Riley nodded.
‘That’s what Varley implied. I’ve never heard of it.’

‘Perhaps you
weren’t meant to.’

Riley looked
puzzled. ‘I still don’t get it.’

‘I think it’s
designed,’ said Donald, ‘to disseminate information from the East for
consumption by eager little eyes in the West.’

‘The purpose
being?’ Palmer had returned to earth.

‘Entente.
Understanding. Hands across frontiers, call it what you will. It’s not the
first one ever published. Storm was one, allegedly with links to Soviet
Intelligence, but never proved. That was during the sixties, put out via India.
Soviet Time was another. They served a noble purpose - on the surface.’

‘Which was?’

‘To help spread
understanding. To make us feel comfortable in our beds at night.’

‘And
otherwise?’

‘Cynics would
say they were used to tell us simpletons in the West only what the Kremlin
wanted us to know.’ He shrugged. ‘The old guard may have gone, but the game
hasn’t changed. Publications just like it are still around, telling us things
the current powers would like us to know without appearing to. They don’t have
to turn a profit, at least, not in the usual sense, because that’s not the
aim.’

‘Especially,’
murmured Palmer, ‘if they’re run by wealthy individuals with the quiet
connivance of the state. Nice arrangement.’

Donald nodded.
‘Smoke and mirrors.’

‘God, you two
are cynical,’ Riley said darkly.

‘True, sweetie.
But we’re also right.’ Donald reached across to his desk and picked up another
piece of paper, which he passed across to her. ‘I’ve done some digging. This
lady is a lecturer in Russian and Post-Soviet studies at the London School of
Economics. Worth a visit, I think. She agreed tomorrow at two.’

Riley read the
name off the paper. ‘Natalya Fisher? Sounds like a ballet dancer.’

‘She was
probably that, too, in her time,’ he said enigmatically. ‘She came to the west
twenty years ago and married a British scientist. She’ll tell you more about
the Russian mindset in fewer words than anyone else I know. There’s a chance
she might point you somewhere useful.’

‘You make her
sound as if she has some special knowledge in this area,’ said Palmer.

‘Well, I
suppose she has.’ Donald beamed, before dropping his bombshell. ‘In a former
life, Natalya Fisher was a KGB officer.’

********

Natalya
Fisher was a short, plump academic in her sixties with a soft, generous mouth.
Dressed in various shades of grey, even her eyes had the quality of wood smoke,
settling lightly on Palmer and Riley as the two investigators entered her
cluttered office. But her smile was genuine and warm, and sharp with interest.

She indicated
two chairs and bade them sit, then surprised them by leaping up and opening a
window, before firing up a cigarette. ‘You have to excuse me,’ she continued
uncompromisingly, waving away a cloud of noxious smoke. ‘But I have lived with
worse things than smoking bans, and I need my nicotine. Please, join me if you
wish. Nobody will disturb us here.’ Her accent was soft, overlaid with a
mixture of influences, but echoing her origins a long way east of this dusty,
paper-strewn hideaway. She took a huge drag of the cigarette, the tip glowing
like molten steel, and sat down with a sigh of pleasure, lifting her legs and
waggling her feet as if she had just walked a long way. ‘Now,’ she continued,
‘Donald Brask said you were interested in whatever I can tell you about certain
Russians, yes?’

‘That’s right,’
said Riley. ‘Specifically, oligarchs.’

‘Oligarchs?’
Natalya queried flatly, ‘or mafiya?’ Her eyes flicked between the two of them,
the hint of a smile tugging at her mouth. Donald must have given her an idea of
what they wanted to discuss, but she sounded sceptical.

Riley said,
‘Aren’t they the same thing?’

‘No. Not
really. But there’s an old Russian saying which says that one snowflake never
settles far from the other.’ She inhaled deeply and blew smoke towards the
window, where it billowed with startling clarity into the outside air like
smoke over the Vatican. ‘Put another way, if you discover cow shit in your
living room, why go looking for sheep?’

Palmer grunted.
‘Another old, Russian saying?’

‘No,’ she
admitted, and gave him a coy grin. ‘I just made that up. What I mean is, you
shouldn’t be too surprised if you find that oligarchs – what you in the west
used to call moguls, I think - are viewed elsewhere as not so very different
from the mafiya.’ She tapped the side of her head. ‘Same heads, different
hats.’ She shuffled her feet and seemed to go into deep thought for a moment,
before stirring. ‘You have to understand, such men are still relatively new to
Russia. They came to prominence under Gorbachev and Yeltsin, many with friends
– even family – in the old Party.’

‘The Communist
Party?’ interjected Palmer.

‘Yes. That
surprises you?’

‘A little.
They’re hardly soul-mates, I’d have thought.’

Natalya raised
an eyebrow. ‘Where money and power are concerned, Mr Palmer, all men are
soul-mates. The first oligarchs made their money because they were allowed to,
not necessarily because they were clever. It suited everyone to have the
appearance of a free market. There were many crooks, of course, and corrupt
officials, and they are drawn together like maggots to fresh meat. Then, with
new investment from outside, came the others – the modern businessmen. Smarter,
politically and financially, they soon realised that without connections, even
their money and power could be taken away very easily. Some of them stayed,
working with the new administration, others moved abroad, taking their fortunes
with them.’

‘Buying
football clubs and big yachts,’ said Riley dryly.

‘As you say,
buying their big toys. Many of the early oligarchs were not sophisticated and
lost everything. But there are many others who survived.’ She studied the tip
of her cigarette. ‘In my experience, there are three levels of these people you
call oligarchs. Level Three is the lowest. They are rich, with many interests,
but not influential enough to be really important. The reason for this is, they
don’t have the right… mmm… resources.’

‘Resources?’

‘Friends.
Contacts. Nothing is accomplished in Russia without knowing people. People with
power… people who can provide assistance.’ She tapped ash from her cigarette
into the palm of her hand without apparent discomfort. ‘Level Two,’ she
continued, fluttering her hand over a waste bin, ‘are those with lots of money
and influential friends. In my opinion, these are the ones who always want
more. They work to make more contacts who can help them become richer and more
powerful.’

‘But isn’t that
how you said most of them got there in the first place?’ said Riley. ‘Through
patronage?’

‘Most. But not
all.’ Natalya’s eyes squinted through the smoke. ‘With all these things, there
are changes; people are moved, contacts are lost… some fall out of favour,
which in my country is often fatal. Then there are those I call Level One. They
operate in what mountaineers would call rarefied air. They are very few in number,
extremely rich, extremely powerful with many friends in high places. They have
everything, but they still need to protect what they have. Some are in the
east, others have come to the west to live and run their empires in exile… but
even these men are missing something that not even their money can buy.’