The Eyes of Lira Kazan (4 page)

She dialled her daughter's number.

“Polina? It's me.”

“Mum! How are you?”

“Good – what about you? Are you relaxing a bit?”

“Yes I've finished revising. I'm catching my breath, it's lovely here, I've been going for walks. I meant to tell you, by the way, I might not come back this summer.”

“I thought you might not, don't worry. In fact I've got an idea. I've got to go to London in a few days, we could meet, maybe do some shopping, or even go to the sea…”

“Brilliant! What are you doing there?”

“Some interviews…”

“I see. I had an email from Dad the other day, he says you're still messing up your life.”

“Well if he's picking on me at least that means he'll leave you alone. Did you tell him you weren't coming for the summer?”

Tanya was back. Lira could hear her busying herself in the kitchen, turning on the radio and the gas. She shouted to Lira, asking how many eggs she wanted.

“Don't worry about me!” Lira shouted back from the sitting room.

Then, to her daughter:

“I'll send you some money and as soon as I get there I'll let you know and all you need to do is get a ticket. The only thing is it'll be a very last-minute decision. Is that OK? It'll be great to be together again. Now I must go, this isn't on my bill.”

“OK. Goodnight Mum.”

“Goodnight, my darling.”

“Supper's ready, Lira!”

 

They ate together, a few eggs, some bread, cheese and wine. They sat on the floor, leaning against the sofa, because the table was covered with magazines and crumpled laundry. They talked for a long time. It was always difficult to sleep on karate evenings, the body took time to relax; the adrenalin was still coursing around. They talked about everything and nothing, about the old lady slowly dying downstairs, about a pair of too-expensive shoes they'd seen in a shop, about Putin following them, about old love affairs. “Archives, they'll keep their value,” Lira said. She had had a bit too much to drink. Tanya told her about her Web encounters.

“And you accuse me of living dangerously! Think of all the nutters out there on the Internet.”

“Still, there aren't as many murderers as in your film.”

“What film?”

“The one with you as a fearless heroine!”

“I'm just doing my job, that's all.”

“Rubbish! You're building up your legend!”

“And you're looking for Prince Charming! The first to get there wins!”

“Neither of us will get there, Lira.”

 

UNITED STATES EMBASSY, MOSCOW

 

CONFIDENTIAL. REF 01.001537

 

JULY 15

 

SUBJECT: FRANCO-RUSSIAN NAVAL COOPERATION

 

BUSINESSMAN SERGEI LOUCHSKY, A CLOSE FRIEND OF THE KREMLIN, HAS BEEN OBSERVED FREQUENTLY TRAVELLING TO FRANCE AND ESTABLISHING HIGH-LEVEL CONTACTS WITHIN THE FRENCH GOVERNMENT ON THE SUBJECT OF A JOINT VENTURE BETWEEN HIS RUSSIAN NAVAL CONSTRUCTION COMPANY (KUT) AND A FRENCH NAVAL AND MILITARY CONSTRUCTION COMPANY (DVTS) FOR THE CONSTRUCTION OF FOURTH-GENERATION LASSEN-CLASS NUCLEAR SSN SUBMARINES. ACCORDING TO OUR SOURCES A CONSORTIUM IS IN THE PROCESS OF BEING PUT TOGETHER BUT THERE ARE STILL DISAGREEMENTS OVER THE ASSIGNMENT OF MANAGEMENT CONTROL. LOUCHSKY WILL NOT SIGN UNTIL THIS IS SETTLED. WE HAVE SPOKEN TO ALEXANDER DILDTOV, A HIGHLY RESPECTED DEFENCE ANALYST HERE, AND HE CONFIRMS THAT IF THE DEAL GOES THROUGH IT WILL BE A FIRST. WE MUST TAKE ACTION. THERE HAS NEVER BEEN ANY SIMILAR KIND OF MILITARY COOPERATION BETWEEN RUSSIA AND A NATO COUNTRY.

Usually by this time Félix had already fetched two coffees from the machine, been through the newspaper with a fine-tooth comb and pored over incoming police reports and dossiers concerning the secret lives of local celebrities. But today he was still buried behind the pages of
Nice-Matin
, in which the lead stories were of an ex-mafioso hit by two bullets and a little girl who had fallen from the tenth floor of a building. The old man had survived, the little girl had not.

“It's always the good who cop it,” Félix sighed.

The judge looked up, pleased that his clerk had at last opened his mouth.

“And did you see the bit about Coudry's funeral?”

“Yep. Catholics really deserve their share of the market… All through your life they wipe the slate clean and give you extra chances. And then when it's all over you get a big Mass and you're on your way to heaven!”

It was at times like this that the judge would wonder if he shouldn't just swap desks with Félix. The clerk had a violent temper. At first he had found this tiresome, and had been irritated by this sharp, clever, too-relaxed thirty-year-old, who took the initiative so often and introduced you to his boyfriend without worrying about what anyone might think. Then after a few cases, a few sleepless nights, and days in which they had been subjected to threats – he had once even had a knife held to his throat for a few minutes – he realized that they worked well together and that he felt less alone with Félix at his side. And so he had begun to ignore the difference in rank between them and a sort of tandem had emerged, a partnership between a slightly disenchanted judge and a clerk too clever to be a mere stenographer. Of course scandal-mongers had been quick
to take note of Félix's self-confessed homosexuality. Others had asked questions about correct procedure. The Courts were a small place, but the duo had survived by ensuring that everything was always done according to the penal code. The two agreed about everything, but not usually at the same time or with the same enthusiasm. Félix finally folded the paper.

“There's nothing about the banker's wife,” he said.

“No, we withheld the information until we could get hold of the husband. He's in the Faroe Islands. And then the results of the autopsy have just come in.”

“What do they show?”

“‘Death consistent with accidental drowning.'”

“In an evening dress?”

“Yes, hence ‘consistent'. Lungs full of water and no sign of violence.”

“Alcohol level?”

“1.8 grams.”

“Well! When are we going onto the boat?”

“Any minute now, as soon as we get transport. Something wrong?”

“Mark's gone away.”

“That was expected, right? Didn't he have a project in London?”

“Yes, but I think we're separating, although nobody actually said so.”

“Why do you think that?”

“He took the cat.”

 

Half an hour later the judge, the clerk and the policemen were at the port, stepping onto pontoon number eight. Félix came last, carrying a case containing the computer, the printer, the hole-puncher and the sealing tape. It was already hot outside. He cursed the tourists who wandered around choosing the boat of their dreams; as long as the common man's fantasies were linked to
the caprices of billionaires as closely as the minimum wage was to inflation, he and his colleagues would always just seem like heroic toy soldiers. He didn't come from round there, and he didn't like this town. It managed to be both provincial and excessive, its glittering coastline thrust to the fore like a whore's breasts. Nice had always been for sale, money was the dominant attraction; the town had voted against immigrants and had built palaces as winter refuges for foreign kings; it only catered for the rich and powerful.

Félix was forced to stop when the whole procession paused, bumping into each other, to look at the latest arrival in the port, a three-hundred-foot state-of-the-art vessel with a big-bosomed siren on its prow.

“Apparently the owner had his daughter's body moulded to make that…” one of the policemen said.

“That'll give the others ideas! Believe me the next thing we'll see is a big-breast competition!” said the judge.

Félix thought the judge was being surprisingly frisky this morning – he was normally a discreet man who referred to “my spouse” and would have liked framed photos of the children they had never had on his desk and actually blushed when Félix referred to “us gays”. The policemen laughed loudly. They were in front of the
Fugloy
, the Stephensens' yacht. The boat was quiet, there was nobody on board. All two hundred feet of it bobbed up and down in the rippling water. There was nothing to be seen on deck. Inside, a teak-lined saloon with cream-coloured upholstery, exactly like that of all the neighbours. There was a sparkling jacuzzi ready for action, polished champagne buckets piled beneath the sideboard. They all climbed on board. Finally a man appeared from behind the glass door, tucking his T-shirt into his trousers and smoothing his hair. He had clearly just woken up. He slid open the door and relaxed when he saw the police. “I'm the captain here,” he said in an Australian accent.

But he looked horrified when they all stepped through the door, took possession of the eight staterooms and began opening drawers. Félix settled down on the circular white-leather sofa beneath a glass-flowered Murano chandelier; he got out his computer, printer and tapes and placed them all on the low marble table that rested on two crystal balls. The judge explained to the captain that this was an official search. The Australian protested and reached for his telephone. A policeman stopped him:

“No calls from now on. Please empty your pockets. And do not touch anything on the boat.”

The captain obeyed. He watched to see that no one overstepped the mark, while Félix, settled on the white-leather sofa, wrote his formulaic notes: “We presented ourselves at ten o'clock on the thirtieth of July 2010 at the
Fugloy
on pontoon number eight…” He suddenly stopped and roughly pushed aside the cushions behind him with a grimace. The captain grabbed them.

“Watch out, that's coral, mate!” he protested.

Félix gave him a withering look as if to say “Who on earth puts coral on cushions?” Then he got up and followed the judge. There were five bedrooms, each with an elaborate studded and quilted headboard upholstered in fur, linen and leopard skin, with matching paw-shaped lamps. The bathrooms were as you might expect – top of the range, expensive bad taste, with huge tropical-rain shower heads, mirrors with lights set into them and taps made of semiprecious metals. A painting that looked very like a Monet was leaning against the wall in one of the rooms.

“That's worth a few million euros if it's genuine,” Félix whispered to the judge.

He saw his own reflection in the huge mirrors on the cupboards. He hated that insomniac stare. A few more nights like that and he would begin to understand why Mark had left him. Even the judge, who was twenty years older, looked in better shape than him. The mirror was enormous, at least
six feet high. Mark used to imitate brilliantly the high-pitched voices of the ladies talking to him about the plans for their villas: “Don't forget my long dresses!”

“Was she alone?” the judge asked.

“Yes,” said the captain.

“Show me the logbook, please.”

The captain brought a blue cloth-covered book with gold writing. In it was a record of each day's outings, weather and position, and a list of guests, far more numerous than trips at sea. The judge stopped on the last page.

“So there was a small party here on Tuesday evening?”

“Yes, Mrs Stephensen had invited a few friends.”

“Were you there?”

“At first, yes. But Mrs Stephensen decided not to go out to sea, so I left quite early.”

“What was she wearing?”

“Er… a black sparkly dress, I think…”

“The one they found her in?”

“I don't know.”

The judge asked Félix for a photo of the torn dress and showed it to the captain who confirmed it with a slight start backwards. “The usual crowd,” commented the judge as he leafed through the log, while Félix pulled some bills and insurance policies out of the drawer of a Louis Quinze commode. “Nothing surprising here. Bath towels: 45,000 euros. Saloon curtains. Eighteen yards silk at 1,800 euros a yard, including VAT. Twenty cases of Louis Roederer Cristal. Let's seize that.” The judge agreed. And Félix returned to the coral-embroidered white sofa to complete his inventory. “In the Louis Quinze commode in the second bedroom we found on the left-hand side of the third drawer, the…”

“Who pays you?” the judge asked the captain.

“A company called Swordfish.”

“Have you met them?”

“No. Only Mr and Mrs Stephensen.”

The judge and his clerk exchanged a look as though to say “You can't fool us”. It was the usual millionaire's trick – pretending to be charterers instead of owners.

Back at the office, Félix leafed through the logbook. The names listed were more or less the same as those you found in
Nice-Matin
: the old singer, Sergio, the MP Haudy, in his fourth term, a smooth talker who could go anywhere, a few easy women. Bertaud, king of the heated swimming pool, who was now head of the Chamber of Commerce. Stephanie Douchet, second wife of the ex-president of the region, now the Minister of Defence. There were also people from farther afield: Guy Fielden, a famous gallery owner, and Sergei Louchsky, a Russian nabob with a villa that stood invisible behind the pines on Cap Ferrat. And journalists, former film stars and unknowns – and then wives, first ones, second ones and even current ones.

“They must all have bank accounts, we should go and have a look…”

“Don't start that, Félix, we can't alert the fraud squad every time a rich person drowns,” the judge grumbled.