NO KISS FOR THE DEVIL (Gavin & Palmer 5) (24 page)

‘What about
him?’

‘He’s just been
arrested on charges of dissent against the state.’

‘That’s
serious, isn’t it?’ She recalled a writer who had been imprisoned on similar
charges two years ago for criticising the Turkish administration, and was still
in prison awaiting trial.

‘It is. There
have been calls for him to lose his ministerial job, and his bid for the
shipyard has been disqualified. Interestingly, the contract has now been
awarded to a company based in the Ukraine.’

‘Why does this
concern us?’

‘Because East
European Trade is the only quoted source of the information against him.’

Riley sat back
and stared in dismay at the magazine, the implications hitting home. ‘Another
smear job?’ she said dully. It was what they were planning to do to Al-Bashir.
Given enough credibility, an article about his wife’s lifestyle and a few
carefully highlighted ‘suggestions’ or rumours would be enough to drive away
his backers and sink his chances of ever winning the Batnev bid. Truth would be
the first casualty.

She checked the
name against the article. The piece was attributed to an unnamed staff writer.

‘It’s a clever
technique,’ said Donald. ‘Not as final as a bullet, but just as effective. Be
glad you’re out of it, sweetie. Take care.’ He rang off.

Palmer
arrived thirty minutes later. He looked hot and tired and spoiling for a fight.

‘I spoke to
Donald. He told me what happened.’ He took her by the shoulders and looked her
in the eyes. ‘Are you all right?’

‘I’m fine,’ she
reassured him, and held up her glass, which she’d refilled. ‘High as a kite on
vitamins.’

‘Yeah, I can
see.’ He took the glass from her and drained it. ‘Nice. No gin. How’s the cat
and Mr G?’

‘The cat’s
being treated. They think he’ll be okay, but we’ll have to wait until he begins
to respond. Mr Grobowski’s gone into defence mode downstairs. I had a job
stopping him from setting up camp across my doorway. He feels guilty about what
happened to Lipinski.’ She smiled weakly. ‘Listen to me – he’s got me using the
name now.’

Palmer made her
sit down. ‘Tell me everything. Donald only gave me a potted version.’

Riley did so,
from the time she had arrived at the hotel, through to the moment she had
rushed back and stepped through the front door and seen the cat. As she talked,
she wondered if she was doing an adequate job of describing the demeanour of
the man at the hotel, and the way in which he had so casually and openly made
his threats.

Palmer listened
without a word. Then he stood up and prowled around the room, restless with
energy.

‘I think I know
who he was,’ he said finally. ‘He was at Pantile House. With Varley.’ He shook
his head. ‘I’ve been blind.’

‘How do you
mean?’

‘I looked right
past him. I thought the goons outside were the only potential danger. I was
wrong.’ He paused, then continued, ‘One of the security men from outside the
hotel was missing yesterday evening. I never gave it a thought. I think he may
have been here, checking out the area. Did you see anyone?’

Riley thought
back. She couldn’t recall anyone obvious; no strangers lurking in the bushes or
canvassers with aimless lists of boxes to tick. The last time that had happened
had been weeks-

‘The drunk,’
she said, remembering the fat man leaning against the lamp post. ‘I was
standing at the window, holding the cat. There was a man.’

‘What did he
look like?’

‘Short… fat.
Bulky, anyway. A tight suit. That’s all I could see – the light wasn’t great
and I wasn’t really paying attention. He’d have seen me quite clearly.’ The
idea that the man had been deliberately play-acting while watching her made
Riley’s skin go cold. Then something else came back to her. The photo Al-Bashir
had shown her, of the man who’d followed her into the store.

It was the same
man.

‘His name’s
Pechov,’ she said quietly, appalled. ‘I just didn’t connect it.’

‘Sounds like
the one who was missing from Pantile House,’ Palmer said. ‘They must be getting
desperate for this article to be published. A pity we don’t know why it’s so
important.’

‘Actually, we
do,’ Riley said. It all seemed blindingly obvious now, as if sleep and the
threats and Donald’s call had unleashed a torrent of connecting thoughts. She
told Palmer about the article in East European Trade which had effectively
torpedoed the Turkish minister’s career.

‘If the piece
on Al-Bashir is in the same mould,’ Palmer said, ‘it must have taken some
planning. You don’t just come up with the idea of smearing someone on a whim.
But why?’

‘It probably
goes back to when Al-Bashir first announced he was bidding for the Batnev licence.
Until then, the only ones in the running would have been the big international
operators, and some local syndicates with the money to invest. The
internationals are already being quietly ruled out by the federation David
Johnson told me about, which just leaves the locals. Al-Bashir entering the
fray must have been seen as a serious threat, so they decided to expose a
scandal, hoping his fundamentalist backers would run for the hills rather than
be tainted by association.’

‘Risky
strategy. What if it hadn’t worked? Money often talks louder than principles.’

Riley shrugged.
She wasn’t entirely certain about her interpretation, but what else was there?
‘This could be a first option. They might have a more final one: remove the
bidder altogether.’

Palmer looked
sceptical. ‘Difficult to control the outcome to that. Bumping off prominent
types like Al-Bashir isn’t as simple as it used to be. People talk. Sell out.’

‘But the end
justifies the means, right? The rewards if it all goes to plan are
eye-watering.’

‘You think the
same people are behind this Turkish minister’s downfall?’

‘Why not? You’d
be surprised at the connections that exist across the commercial world. There
are people with fingers in all manner of pies.’

‘But telecoms
and shipping – are they connected?’

‘They are when
it comes to international business. Most of the big fortunes years ago were
founded on shipping. It’s still important, but the emphasis has changed since
then to communications. Money is still the driver.’

‘So where does
the magazine fit in to all of this?’

‘There’s only
one explanation; it’s used to get the information out there.’ She thought back
to her conversation with Natalya. ‘Professor Fisher said EET has been in
business for some years. But they wouldn’t have lasted this long if all they
did was dish the dirt on people they didn’t like. It would look too personal.
But running the occasional exposé might seem like a normal day’s work.’

‘And nobody
obvious to take the blame.’

‘Apart from an
anonymous ‘staff’ writer. Or, in this case, me.’

‘Or you.’
Palmer stared out of the window, his jaw set. His words were vague, as if his
mind was elsewhere. Riley thought she knew where.

‘You’re
thinking of Helen.’

He nodded. ‘And
Annaliese Kellin. It’s beginning to make sense. Single, freelance, with no
family and few close friends. Ideal candidates if things didn’t work out.’

Riley saw where
he was going. ‘They both had the kind of track record which gave the article
the credibility it needed. The Batnev project is a bigger prize than discrediting
a Turkish minister, so don’t take chances with an anonymous writer – get a
named one to front the piece.’

‘But when they
didn’t like what they saw and decided to jump ship…’ Palmer didn’t need to
finish.

Riley
swallowed. What he had also avoided saying was that she might so easily have
gone the same way. She heard the desolation in his voice, saw the stillness in
his face, and felt guilty; guilty at surviving when the others hadn’t; guilty
at believing all the lies and being so easily taken in by Richard Varley’s
charm; guilty at having a friend like Palmer, something the other two girls had
lacked when they had so needed it. She stood up and put her arms around him,
needing as much to help him as to take comfort from his strength. ‘I’m so
sorry, Frank.’

He shook his
head. ‘Don’t be. It’s they who should feel sorry.’

She pulled her
head back. As well as the anger in his eyes, there was an intense light burning
deep inside, like twin lasers. She shivered and thought about the man in the
hotel.

Her phone rang.
She pulled away from Palmer and picked it up. When she replaced it, her eyes
were wide and her face held a ghostly pallor.

‘What’s up?’
Palmer asked.

Things were
going from bad to worse. ‘That was Mark Chase,’ she said, her voice faint. ‘The
supervisor at Pantile House – Goricz? He didn’t clock in for work today. They
asked an employee who lives nearby to check his house. He lived with his wife,
mother-in-law and teenage son.’ She swallowed and shook her head. ‘Goricz is
missing. The others are all dead. Shot in the head.’

*********

Riley’s
mobile was buzzing. She rolled over, kicking aside the bedclothes, disoriented
by finding herself in a strange single bed. After hearing of the murder of
Goricz’s family, they had decamped the previous night, encouraging Mr Grobowski
to do the same. It would only be for a day or two. He had gone to friends,
while they were in a small hotel north of the Edgware Road. Palmer was in a
room just along the corridor.

Riley had been
reluctant to let anyone drive her from her home, but commonsense had prevailed,
reinforced by the shock of the murders and Palmer’s suggestion that the gunman
who’d shot Lipinski – maybe one and the same man - might come back for another
try.

She fumbled for
the phone, expecting it to be the vet. To her surprise, it was Natalya Fisher,
her voice unusually sombre.

‘You were
asking about a man named Richard Varley,’ the former KGB member said without
preamble. In the background, a door slammed, a bell jangled and laughter echoed
in a hollow corridor. School noises. God, she’d slept later than she’d thought.
Her watch told her it was nine-thirty.

‘That’s right.’

‘I happened to
mention him to friends of mine.’

‘People you
used to work with?’

‘Just friends.
They know of him. They say Varley is nothing. A foot-soldier… a doer of deeds,
not a decision maker.’ She coughed, the sound moving abruptly away from the
phone. ‘Sorry – too many cigarettes.’

‘How would your
friends know of him? He’s American.’ Just for a second, Riley held on to the
vague thought that Richard was nothing to do with the man who had threatened
her. She was soon disappointed.

‘No.’

‘But he told me
he was an army brat.’

‘An army brat,
yes, Miss Gavin. But not American army.’ She paused. ‘Russian.’

A ticking on
the line was the only sound for a long time.

‘What?’ Riley
finally managed to drag out a response. She felt something drain out of her.

‘His real
name,’ continued Natalya softly, ‘is Vasiliyev. He comes from Petrograd.’

‘No.’

‘Yes. He was a
good student and worked very hard; he scored top grades in his class. When they
discovered he had a facility for languages, he was recruited into the army
where they placed him in a political section and polished off his rough edges,
preparing for operations against the Americans.’

‘Spying?’

‘Not directly.
At the time, they had plans to use American-sounding officers to become
friendly with their American counterparts. It was all part of a grand plan – a
soft infiltration. Then everything changed and they had no use for men like
him. No money, either. He left the army and went into private work.’

‘What sort of
private work?’

‘Mostly
criminal. He uses other names from time to time. Men in his line of work often
do.’

Riley slumped
against the headboard, waiting for more. She wondered if Natalya’s friends had
got the name wrong. Or maybe there was more than one Varley in publishing.
Richard had seemed so smooth, so in charge, she had a hard time imagining him
as anyone’s gofer, still less someone named Vasiliyev. Then she recalled his manner
when he had come to her flat. For a man normally so in control, he hadn’t been
exactly calm. She’d attributed that to the pressure he was under from the
shareholders of Ercovoy Publishing. Now she knew better. She felt a stab of
something akin to shame at how naïve she must have seemed.

‘You say he
works for someone?’

‘Yes. I am told
a man named Fedorov.’

That name again
- the one Koenig had mentioned. ‘Who is he?’

‘A man you do
not wish to meet,’ Natalya replied bluntly. ‘He is well known in the country I
come from. Fedorov has many friends and contacts across Eastern Europe. He is
not a man to cross.’

‘He’s one of
these oligarchs?’

‘An oligarch? I
don’t know for sure. Rich, certainly. Very rich. For that reason, maybe he
pretends to be something he is not. But he is different. We have our career
criminals, too, you know. They love money, like all crooks.’

‘Is he Russian
mafia?’

‘Perhaps.
Probably. Nobody knows. They are not always easy to identify, these people.
They belong to impenetrable factions, hiding behind various identities, their
loyalties changing all the time. Mafiya is an easy title to put on men like
him, but not always accurate.’

‘What’s his
full name?’ Her instinct for detail asserted itself, dulling the disappointment
of discovering that Richard Varley was not what he seemed.

‘Ah, that I do
know. He is called Pavel Ivanovich Fedorov. But he is not called Pavel by those
who know him well. He uses the name Grigori. He does not care for Pavel,
because it is from Latin, and means small.’