Scared to Live (31 page)

Ben found his eyes focusing straight ahead. And there was Sergeant Joe Cooper, gazing out from his place in the second row, among all those other solemn-faced police officers lined up in their best uniforms to have their photograph taken. It was odd, really. He'd spent so much time thinking that his life had been dictated and overshadowed by the legacy of Joe Cooper. Everyone who'd known his father said how alike they were. Here he was doing a similar job, in the same place, and often dealing with the same individuals that Joe Cooper had encountered. Sometimes it had made Ben feel as if he was a clone, a walking carrier of his father's gene pattern. He hadn't seriously considered what he might have inherited from his mother's side, or which of her chromosomes he'd been allocated during conception. Her hair colouring, yes. The eyes, maybe. But what else was lurking in his DNA that he'd never been aware of? What genetic predispositions might he be carrying, that he risked passing on to future generations? Both of his parents were part of his nature. And he didn't regret it. But the feelings stirred up by that thought had become equivocal. He switched his attention away from the photograph to the Richard Martin print of Win Hill on the adjacent wall. The landscape normally brought him back to earth when he got too preoccupied. Literally back to earth. Then Ben laughed to himself. All of this anxiety presumed he would ever get married or find a permanent partner. He didn't have any such intentions at the moment, and maybe that was for the best. He'd really hate to be in Matt's position, discovering the awful possibilities when it was already too late.

'This is pretty, but I still prefer cities,' said Kotsev as they walked by the river after dinner. 'At ten o'clock at night in Sofia, the streets would be full, even though it's a Thursday. People would be selling sunflower seeds or salted sweetcorn.

They would be buying books from fold-up tables. There would be loud music from stalls dealing in pirated CDs. A few counterfeit Rolex watches or Levi jeans, perhaps. Beggars and street artists, and pickpockets and prostitutes. It would be like a party. Here, there is nothing.' Fry studied him, wandering whether he was joking. It was difficult to tell sometimes. She could only get a clue by watching his eyes. Then, when he saw her staring, Kotsev laughed. 'You like living in Sofia?' she said. 'In some ways.' 'It isn't all one big party, then?' 'Let me tell you something, Diane. In a suburb of Sofia where I used to live as a young police officer, we were in an old apartment block from the Soviet era. Very grey, very ugly. We had a two-bedroom apartment for the family. But we were lucky. Some of our neighbours had many more children - they had to put mattresses in the kitchen, in the sitting room, on the balcony. Every shop in the neighbourhood had brightly coloured stickers on the door, to show which Mafia protection agency they were insured with. This was normal. It was the way everyone lived, and we understood it.' 'I don't think I would understand it, Georgi. A situation like that wouldn't be tolerated here, even in our worst neighbourhoods.' 'Some people say the power of the Mafia is a necessary phase in the progress towards a capitalist economy,' said Kotsev, with a questioning tilt of his head. 'I think that's rubbish.' He stopped, teetering on the stone ledge bordering the river. It occurred to Fry that she might be considered foolhardy to be alone at night in a quiet spot with a man she'd met only a few hours ago. But she didn't feel uneasy at all. Big as he was, she could probably disable Kotsev easily. She hadn't lost her skills completely. 'You ought to know how the KGB operated in the old

days,' he said, peering into the dark water. 'They used the secret service organizations of East European countries as their tools. In Bulgaria, the Darzavna Sigurnost specialized in "wet" operations - contract killings. Do you remember the Markov case? It took place some years ago, at the height of the Cold War. Before your time, perhaps.' 'Thank you, Georgi. But I've heard of the case. A Bulgarian defector, wasn't he?' 'Yes. And after he defected, he was assassinated. In daylight, in a London street. They say he was injected with the poison ricin from the tip of an umbrella. They also say it was the Bulgarian secret service who carried out the assassination. No one in Bulgaria would contradict that report.' 'Yes, but even so ' 'Another dissident was shot in the back with a poisoned bullet near the Arc de Triomphe in Paris. Ricin was used in that incident, too.' 'But ' Kotsev held up a hand. 'Wait. There was the attempted assassination of Pope John Paul II in 1981. You remember? It was alleged that Darzavna Sigurnost recruited the hit men who carried out the shooting - two Turks. When one of them was captured by the Italians, he made allegations against our secret service. But he retracted them after a spell in the Rebibbia jail in Rome, where he was allegedly threatened by Bulgarian agents. Afterwards, he blamed the plot on the Vatican itself.' 'Even so, Georgi ' Kotsev laughed. 'Yes, you're right. Even so. Like you, Sergeant, I do not believe our beloved secret service was involved in the killing of Dimitar Iliev.' 'Who was it, then? Simcho Nikolov?' 'Well, these killings were probably carried out by a local person, a paid assassin. Someone like Simcho Nikolov, perhaps. But it's possible they were ordered by a major

Bulgarian crime boss, one of the remaining Mafia. A very powerful man, particularly now that some of his leading rivals have been . . . eliminated. A man with friends in high places.' Fry fought a brief internal battle between her own ambition and what she knew to be the proper protocol. Finally, she sighed. 'This is really a matter for Special Branch or MI5 - they're our lead bodies for organized crime. You're scheduled to meet with them tomorrow in Chesterfield for a briefing on the Zhivko brothers.' 'The Zhivkos are not a loss,' said Kotsev, with a faint air of disappointment. They had arrived at the point where water poured over a weir and the river formed little wooded islands populated by sleeping birds. Even at this time of the evening there were people by the river, enjoying an oasis of peace under the shadow of St Mark's Church. Kotsev paused again. 'We have our tourist attractions in Pleven, also,' he said, admiring the reflection of the illuminated church spire in the water. 'Really?' 'Oh, yes. If you ever visit our city, you must see our famous Pleven Panorama - the largest structure of its kind in the world. Larger, even, than the Borodino Panorama in Moscow.' 'Wonderful.' Fry wasn't sure she knew what a panorama was. She'd always thought it was one of those views of the countryside from the top of a hill that Ben Cooper loved so much. But that didn't sound like what Georgi was talking about. 'The Pleven Panorama tells a great story. The tragic destiny of our people, their dramatic fight, the compassion in the hearts of our Russian brothers. Within the Panorama, the spectator sees a charge of the Turkish cavalry, smoking shells, burning fires in the city, the Russian General Skobelev attacking a Turkish

fortification. This attraction causes a great deal of interest in our city.' 'As you said yourself, we don't know much about Bulgarian history here.' 'No, of course.' Kotsev smiled. 'But its construction might be of interest to you.' He looked at her, as if expecting a reaction. But she still didn't know quite what he was telling her. 'I don't think so,' she said. 'Ah, well.' He began to walk on again, but Fry stopped him. 'Georgi, who should we be looking for? If the Zhivkos and Simcho Nikolov came, then who else is here?' 'Here?' He laughed. 'Here in the United Kingdom? You could start with seven thousand Bulgarian entrepreneurs. Including, perhaps, a one-legged roofer.' The breeze was turning cool down by the river. Fry shivered a little, wishing she'd brought something warmer to put on. Apart from when she was at the office, she always seemed to make the wrong decisions about what to wear. 'You've lost me,' she said. 'It was all making sense, right up until the bit about the one-legged roofer.' Kotsev easily kept pace with her as she headed along the river towards the bridge. A few minutes' brisk walking, and she could be back in her car with the heater turned up. 'You don't recall?' he said. 'A few years ago, your government introduced a so-called visa fast-track system. The purpose was to encourage entrepreneurs from Eastern Europe to come to the UK and set up business. Sadly, this system went badly wrong. Applications were not checked efficiently - many were not checked at all. Seven thousand unskilled Bulgarians and Romanians were allowed into your country on visas meant for entrepreneurs.' 'Yes, I remember now. But the one-legged roofer?' 'Ah, I bent the truth a little. He was actually a Romanian.

But, you see, at that time there was an organized fraud in operation. One person submitted seventy identical business plans to support visa applications from Bulgarian individuals. They made a mockery of your entry control procedures, Diane.' 'So you're saying that pretty much anybody could have come into this country?' Kotsev shrugged. 'If they could afford it. Yes, it was easy to beat British immigration controls. But this was expensive for a Bulgarian worker. Fraudulent papers might cost up to three thousand pounds. It's funny, you know - that was about the same amount of money that many British people were spending at that time on buying up cheap homes in my country, to spend a summer month by the Black Sea. Would you consider that irony, Diane?' 'Yes, that's irony, Georgi.' Their feet echoed on the bridge. Fry had been thinking that she'd welcome the lights and the sight of people in the street. But instead she felt suddenly reluctant to leave the darkness and the quietness of the river. She stopped halfway across the bridge and leaned on the parapet. Kotsev came to stand next to her, sharing that mysterious attraction to water. 'You understand, the process for applying for a visa as a self employed person became a very nice loophole,' he said. 'But there always had to be an invitation of some kind. There were plenty of people who wanted to bend the rules, but they needed a partner in Britain. An individual in your country could set up a company, offer a Bulgarian worker a job, and then look the other way when he slipped off - in exchange for cash, of course. You see, the corruption and greed is not all in Bulgaria.' 'There must have been risks, though.' 'Any risks were worth taking. You try to get a hundred individuals into the country and succeed only with forty? You've still made a hundred thousand pounds. That's a great many stotinki for a Bulgarian.' 'This all blew up into a scandal a couple of years ago,

didn't it? I remember the immigration minister having to resign, and visa applications from Bulgaria were suspended. But it was too late by then, I suppose?' 'Indeed. Too late.' 'The words "horse", "stable door" and "bolted" come to mind.' 'Now you're making as much sense as my one-legged roofer.' 'I'm sorry.' Kotsev smiled at her, his eyes crinkling again. 'You appreciate, there is a lot of information I do not have myself. But I'm sharing with you what I know - because I think we understand each other.' Any answer would have felt awkward, so a moment of silence developed. For a few seconds, it was just the two of them, surrounded by darkness and silence, gazing into the water. Fry looked down at their hands, hers and Georgi's. They were so close on the rail that they were almost touching. She felt as if she was an inch away from something unexpected, a contact she could so easily reach out for, and hold on to. Then a young couple appeared on the opposite bank and began to walk slowly across the bridge. Kotsev moved back from the parapet when he heard the footsteps. He brushed against her as he turned, and Fry caught a whiff of his scent when he touched her. She inhaled instinctively, trying to read some elusive meaning in a smell. 'Kalina Tet-a-tet,' he said quietly. 'It's Russian.' Fry met his gaze for a moment, wondering how he'd known what she was thinking.

Cooper retrieved his beer and switched on the TV. But the film had already started, and it didn't look quite so interesting after all. In fact, he thought he'd probably seen it before, and just forgotten the title. So he disentangled himself from

the cat and picked up his phone again. He dialled a number from his phone book. 'Hi, it's me. What are you doing?' And immediately it was as if he'd been sucked into some kind of time slip. Time went by without him being aware of it, because he was in a world when time didn't really exist. When he next looked at his watch, the call seemed to have lasted for nearly an hour. He'd finished his beer, walked into the kitchen, opened the fridge, and come back with another bottle, all without breaking concentration. It was a miracle the way the mind could focus on the important things. 'Better go. Are you on duty tomorrow . . . ? I'll see you, then.' Finishing the call, he decided to go to bed early. But he lay awake for a while with the cat lying on his duvet, purring like a mobile generator. He always thought a feline in the bedroom was appropriate, in a way. A cat was the Celtic equivalent to the dog Cerberus - the guardian at the entrance to the Underworld. Randy could watch over him as he slipped across the vulnerable threshold between waking and sleep. Tonight, his brain was already wandering out of his control, following its own path. He was remembering random incidents from his past when reality might have been different from what he'd perceived. There had been moments, of course. There'd been times when he thought he saw things that didn't exist, when he'd woken to a voice in the night and realized it was only a dream. There had been entire periods of his life when everything had been dark and twisted, and out of proportion. As a teenager, his whole world had seemed out of kilter. But you could only recognize that later, couldn't you? Reality was a matter of perspective. Finally, he drifted to sleep recalling how many times his mother had spoken to him when he knew she wasn't there. He could hear her voice plainly, even now. It was a reality he couldn't deny, a truth that defied logic. It was a sound snatched from the past, and trapped inside his head.

Four hours later, Cooper woke in a panic. He felt as though he couldn't move. A great weight was pressing on his chest, pinning him to the bed. He knew he was in that indefinable place between sleeping and waking, and he wanted to cry out, but he couldn't make his lungs work. Somewhere nearby a voice was speaking to him, but it was mumbling too indistinctly for him to hear the message. And then suddenly he broke through a barrier, and shot upright in bed with a wordless shout. Randy flew off his chest, a resentful yowl filling the bedroom. Cooper found he was sweating, and his heart was thumping. There was a burning pain in his arm, too. Was this what it was like when you had a heart attack? Should he phone for an ambulance, or wait and see what happened? He was only thirty, too young to die of heart failure. It took him a few minutes to calm down. When he was breathing more slowly, he put on the light and checked his arm. He discovered it was covered with little claw marks, where the cat had been mauling him during the night. If the skin was broken, the scratches would get infected. A cat's claws were never entirely clean. The mumbling he'd heard might have been the cat, too. Or it might have been the rain he could hear hitting the roof of the conservatory. It must have started while he was asleep. Half an hour later, the rain eased off, and finally stopped. By then, Cooper was sitting in his kitchen with a cup of coffee on the table, waiting for the light to seep through the windows.