The Ice House (18 page)

29

Viktor’s place was on an inlet in Gumbacka, to the west of Helsinki and south of Espoo, so Carl took a bike from the garage – a scruffy twelve-year-old Honda CB500 with a big top box mounted on the end of the saddle. Viktor thought it might belong to the guy he retained to maintain the house, who still hadn’t appeared, but the keys were there, so Carl took it anyway. He got into central Helsinki in just under thirty minutes. Compared to London, Helsinki was a village – on a bike you could get from one end to the other in about forty minutes.

He drove straight through the downtown area, over the Pitkasilta Bridge and up into the area to the north of the city known as Kallio. There was a square there with a large, ugly stone church at one end and high stone apartment blocks enclosing the remaining sides. He squeezed the bike between two parked cars, clipped the helmet to the top box and walked slowly over to a grill kiosk at the eastern edge of the square. Behind it drunks were sleeping on nearly every bench in the square.

The kiosk had a short queue and he waited in line, taking his time to methodically check around the square and the area of park the drunks had taken over. He didn’t really know what he was looking for, what his fears were. How would anyone know that two hours ago he had made an arrangement to meet someone in one of these blocks? To know they would have to have access to the phone he had used, a brand-new, unused model given to him by Viktor. Or the guy he was going to meet might be either dirty or compromised. He had got the guy’s details from someone he knew well enough to trust a little, but didn’t know the guy himself – and anyway, all these face-to-face arrange­ments were filled with gaps you couldn’t cover. Would he be able to spot undercover police vehicles parked in this square? He doubted it. But he searched anyway.

When his turn came he ordered a takeaway mess of industrial chips and chopped sausage, dosed with mustard, ketchup and relishes, something of a Finnish ‘speciality’ – it was a long time since he had ever tried it though. It came in a polystyrene container with a plastic fork. He thought the sausage had probably never been near an animal. He sat on one of the few unoccupied benches and picked at it, letting his eyes scan around the square.

The buildings were of a depressing dark stone, rust-coloured, cut in huge blocks, the sky above still grey and low, the trees round the outside of the park area long bare of foliage. Winter came early here. He had on a leather jacket he had selected from Viktor’s wardrobe. It was new – he had to cut off the labels. With a fleece beneath he was warm enough, but the air was freezing, like it wouldn’t be long before the real winter started. He had read that there was already deep snow further north and east, at least a month earlier than usual – it was being put down to climate change.

The block he was going to meet the guy in was directly oppos­ite him. It looked like something Soviet, he thought. So much of Helsinki looked eastern, though the impression was less ­dramatic than in the small town where he had grown up, less than thirty kilometres from the actual Russian border. There all the churches had Orthodox domes and spires, all the houses were wooden. There were no garden walls or hedges, and chickens and livestock wandered through their patch of land to the rear of his mother’s house. There was a lake where the men went every winter to fish through holes carved in half-metre thick ice.

That place, that village, that was his home, where he was meant to
belong
. It had looked exactly like the peasant villages across the other side of the border, like all of rural Russia, in fact. The way of life was the same too. He had spent enough time there to know. He had plenty of family on the Russian side. The occupation of Eastern Karelia during the Second World War meant families had been forced to choose sides. Not many Finnish speakers had remained in Russia, but part of his mother’s family had weathered it and survived – the part that had subsequently flourished with the breakdown of the Soviet state. His mother always said they had a petty, dirt-poor, village mentality, a belief in grudges and vendettas. If they couldn’t be farmers then they had to be criminals – there was nothing else they were mentally equipped for. Carl had taken that message in, from an early age. It was in his head now – because Zaikov was from that background too.

He stood after a few minutes and walked to a rubbish bin, full to the brim with polystyrene detritus from the kiosk, buzzing with flies. He placed his own rubbish on top and wiped his hands on his trousers, then crossed the square, past the snoring drunks, huddled together for warmth on the benches.

He searched the list of names next to the buzzers at the entrance to the flats. Lassi Kinnunen – that was the name he had been given. He pressed the buzzer for a third-floor flat, spoke his name, then pushed the heavy plate-glass door open and went in to a vestibule smelling of boiled cabbage and bleach. He took a creaky, tiny lift up to the third floor and in a dingy, poorly lit corridor knocked on the door with Kinnunen’s name on it. He thought he could hear an accordion playing from the other side. The noise got louder, then stopped, the door was pulled open and he was greeted curtly in Finnish by a thin man with a massive box accordion slung across his chest. No explanation for that was offered.

Carl followed him into a flat that smelled of dust. The man pulled the accordion off, placed it on the floor and said, ‘Wait here.’ He disappeared into another room.

Carl stood in the middle of the floor and looked at some empty bookshelves, then gazed out of the window, back down onto the square he had just come from.

Kinnunen reappeared carrying a small holdall. He put it on the floor in front of Carl then walked over to a desk with a laptop. He used a mouse, typed something, looked at the screen. One hand stroked a beard, cut in the ‘Lemmy’ style, with the chin shaved clean, except this one was short-clipped and very neat. He wore a thin-rimmed pair of glasses. ‘Your money is in,’ he said. ‘You can take it.’

Carl nodded, bent down, unzipped the bag. ‘I’ll check it first,’ he said.

The man turned and watched as he delved into the holdall, but said nothing. Carl took out various pieces of gun and set them on the floor beside the bag. Viktor had decided they could deal with Sergei Zaikov, but Carl wanted an insurance plan. He would try Viktor’s way, he would trust his assurances, go to Zaikov, make his apologies. Because at the end of the day Viktor was right – this was Viktor’s world and he knew what he was doing. If he said it was all about money then it probably was. But if Viktor was wrong – if Zaikov refused to cancel the contract – Carl still had to get what he wanted.

There was a magazine, slightly curved, the gun itself, a ­silencer, a buttstock. It was a retractable stock but he didn’t want the weight. ‘I don’t need the stock,’ he said. The man nodded.

Carl checked the magazine, slid out all thirty rounds and inspected them, then slotted them back in. He screwed on the suppressor, took it off, fixed the magazine in place. He glanced up at Kinnunen, who was leaning back against the desk now, watching. He didn’t look wary.

Carl took the magazine off, worked the bolt twice, checked the breech, slid the bolt again, pulled the trigger, heard the pin snap forward. He squinted down the barrel, looking for obvious obstructions. One crude way to render guns useless was to plug the barrel with a molten alloy. This one looked good. It looked almost new, in fact. There was no obvious signs of packing grease, but Carl could still smell the traces of it.

The gun was an MP5, a type of sub-machine gun made by Heckler and Koch, this one a special forces variant used by the Finnish army. He assumed that was where it had come from, but didn’t ask. He didn’t even ask if it was clean, since that had already been done in the exchange that had led him here, led to his transferring funds to this man. He would have liked to have tested it with live rounds, of course, but that was out of the question.

He dismantled it and put it in the holdall, except the stock, stood up, picked up the bag, nodded at Kinnunen.

‘Let yourself out,’ Kinnunen said.

Carl walked back to the door and went out, closed it and headed back to the lift. As he pulled open the lift door he heard the accordion starting up again, a haunting Finnish love song his mother had sung – ‘Romanci’ – but played in a peculiar way, with a German-type oompah rhythm, as if the guy were mocking his memories.

30

Drake looked worried – the first time she had seen him not totally assured. They were on the Uxbridge Road, in Ealing, afternoon traffic behind them and beyond the road a wide area of open grass and trees – Ealing Common.

She had never been to Ealing before. Her part of London, Woodford, was an hour and a half away on the Tube, a different world. At least, that’s how she would have thought of it as a kid, though now she realised these outlying areas of the capital all looked much the same. For such a huge place, London’s suburbs were disappointingly uniform. Rows of identical semis or terraces.

She had grown up in a house like that. The houses here, by comparison, bordering the road on one side with the common across the other, beautiful plane and chestnut trees lining the pavement, were all Victorian detached mansions. They even had a bit of garden in front. The tube station for Ealing Common – they had passed it driving in – was only a couple of hundred metres away, along with a stretch of road with decent-looking shops and bars. She could see one or two people sauntering around the common, dogs on leashes. Everything looked very neat and comfortable. ‘Good place to have a safe house,’ Drake had said. But she was sure Ealing would have its estates, tucked away behind the posh bits.

They were standing where the garden had once been – it was converted to a concrete parking stand – at the door. Drake had pulled his own car up alongside another already parked there. Then he had rung the bell and waited, tried again, knocked, been round the side, down a service alley, come back, rung the bell again, decided there was no one in, got on the phone. From his face, she assumed there should have been someone in – the person he was meant to hand her over to. He spoke quickly into the phone and waited. She didn’t recognise the language.

Julia hung a few steps back and felt bewildered. This was London. It was meant to be home. It was the place where she had been born, went to school, where she had met Alex and started out on the life that had shunted her into a kind of exile for nearly ten years. Her brother still lived here, in Uxbridge. There was even a cousin that Rebecca had struck up a kind of friendship with. Yet Julia had never wanted to return here, and felt nothing returning now, no sense of familiarity or relief.

Her mother had died a year before she met Alex, her father six years before that. She had never liked her brother and suffered Rebecca’s contact with his children only because Rebecca was keen. The contact – it had only started two years ago, when she had felt sufficiently relaxed about the dangers – hadn’t led to any closer feelings between her brother and herself. So there was nothing here she really cared about. Yet Spain wasn’t home either, very definitely not. The truth was there was nowhere that was home for her. That had been a significant point in common with Alex, something they had talked about.

After a few moments Drake put the phone in his pocket and looked at her. ‘You’re shivering,’ he said, frowning.

She looked down at herself and saw her hands trembling. It was in her face too; she was keeping her jaw clamped shut but could still feel her facial muscles twitching. ‘I feel mad,’ she said. ‘Fucking insane. I’m not calm. You understand? My husband was killed yesterday. A policeman tried to kill me. But all of that’ – she waved a hand at it – ‘all of that is manageable if I have Rebecca. I need to see my daughter. I need to get her back.’ A tear ran out of one eye, but she felt no emotion she recognised. She had tried calling Rebecca four or five times between the airport and here but the number was always ‘unavailable’. Something had happened to her phone, or it was switched off. But she couldn’t give up trying. It was the only strand of hope she had. It might be lying in a ditch somewhere, but she couldn’t let herself think that. ‘I need Michael to fucking tell me what’s going on,’ she said. ‘You said she was flying here. So what’s happened? Is she here? Has she landed?’

He looked unsure. ‘I need an update as much as you,’ he said. The door behind him had an ordinary lock, but a keypad too. He keyed in a number, the door clicked and he pushed it open. ‘There’s been a slight hitch,’ he said. ‘A man called Rudy was meant to be here, to take care of you until Mr Rugojev arrives. He would have all the information you need. This is where he lives – Rudy, I mean – but he’s not here and we can’t locate him.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘I have to go out and find him. It won’t take long.’

‘You know where he is?’

‘I know his other address. They just gave me it.’ He turned to her and his smile was back. ‘Come in. You will have to wait in here for a while. You will have to try to relax a little.’

They walked through a hallway, Drake looking in two rooms coming off it, then came into a kitchen. He left her there and searched the rest of the house ‘just in case’, then spent ten minutes talking on his mobile. After that he came back into the kitchen and opened a briefcase on the kitchen counter, not the one he had brought with him. ‘He’s definitely not here,’ he said. ‘But everything is cool. I’ve spoken to them. I just have to give you this before I go.’ She stood by the sinks while he got something out of the briefcase.

The kitchen smelled of glue and paint, as if it had just been put in. There was no trace of mess or food, no signs that any meal had ever been prepared there. She opened a cupboard at random and saw neat stacks of crockery. The fridge was standing with the door half open, the light off. She saw Drake take out a handgun and place it on the counter he was leaning on.

‘That’s for me?’ she asked. ‘Why?’

‘Just in case. Always best to be sure. I’m following Mr Rugojev’s instructions.’ He didn’t smile. ‘You know how to use a gun?’

She told him she hadn’t a clue and didn’t intend to learn. Nevertheless, he brought it over to her, showed her the safety catch, the magazine in the handle, how to hold it, aim, pull the trigger. He spoke quietly, hefted it easily. She nodded, not wanting to even look at the thing. It looked heavy, brutal, dangerous, though she knew it was probably only a compact model, one suitable for a silly little girl with tears running out of her eyes. ‘Where’s Rebecca?’ she interrupted. ‘Was she on the plane, like you said? Has she landed? Is she with Bowman? Why aren’t we looking for Bowman? Why are we here?’

‘Mr Rugojev is handling it all,’ he said, putting the gun on the counter and facing her. ‘You mentioned a man called Sergei Zaikov. Well, Mr Rugojev’s people are talking to Zaikov’s ­people. It’s delicate. But Mr Rugojev is confident of success.’

‘So Bowman works for Zaikov?’

‘That’s not certain – but probably.’

‘You couldn’t stop her when the plane landed? What happened?’

‘The plane didn’t land in London. It was diverted. We don’t know the new destination. Not yet.’

‘Jesus Christ. She could be anywhere, then.’ She put her head in her hands, felt a kind of vertigo starting. ‘You told me she was coming here,’ she muttered. ‘Do you have any idea where she is?’ She stared at him. What if she
was
in Seville? What if they had totally fucked it up?

He shrugged, like the question was hard to answer. ‘Probably the plane landed at a regional airport,’ he said. He sounded too calm. None of it meant enough to him. ‘There are various possibilities.’

‘So tell me about them,’ she demanded. ‘You’re meant to help me, so help me. I have to know what’s happening. I’m her mother. Michael is doing this
for me
–
remember? So you either tell me exactly where she might be or get Michael on the phone, or I’m out of here right now. I need to know what’s going on.’

He smiled tolerantly at her. ‘That’s no problem,’ he said. ‘No one is keeping anything from you, believe me. I can pass on what I know. But it’s not everything.’

From his own briefcase he took out a tablet and messed around on the screen for a few moments, then handed it over to her. It was a page from Google maps. She read the address he had highlighted, on the Hammersmith Road, near Brook Green. She knew that area because there had been a couple of clubs there she’d frequented when she was a teenager. ‘That’s Bowman’s house?’

‘It’s an apartment, in a block.’

‘And she’s being held there?’

‘It’s possible, though she hasn’t been seen there. There are other possibilities too.’ He got up four more addresses in succession, all belonging to people connected to Zaikov. One was in Docklands, one in Highgate, two outside London, in Surrey. She tried to memorise the addresses.

‘They’re still looking for her,’ Drake said. ‘Still trying to ­locate Bowman. It’s probable they’re in the UK, but not certain. But finding them isn’t crucial. They don’t need to know where she is to get a resolution. So there is no need to panic. Certainly no need to involve the police or contemplate the use of force to enter these places. That would only lead to errors. It’s not the way to handle it. At the end of the day all these Russian matters come down to business.’ He smiled wryly. ‘They will find a suitable price. They will agree it between themselves. Everything has a price for them, and that’s a good thing, because that way problems can be resolved peacefully. Without deaths.’ He closed the laptop. ‘Now you know what I know. Now you just need to be patient and trust Mr Rugojev. Whatever the price, be assured that he can pay it.’ He took out his phone, checked the time. There was a clock on the kitchen wall, but it was stopped. ‘I have to go,’ he said. He rummaged in the briefcase again and took out a smart phone, handed it to her. ‘This has one number in the memory – mine. Call me if anything happens.’

‘Like what?’

‘Anything you think I should know about. I should be back in an hour, with Rudy. He will know more about what’s happening – the detail.’ He pointed to the car keys, on the draining board by the sink. ‘I’ll leave you that car, also just in case, but don’t go out without telling me. Mr Rugojev strongly advises you wait here. OK?’

She nodded. ‘OK.’

‘We are doing everything we can to resolve things as quickly as possible, to get Rebecca back to you.’

She watched him leave, walking through to the front room and parting the net curtains there. He got into the car that had already been there when they arrived, drove off in the direction they had come from.

He had told her Rebecca was on a plane bound for here, but that had been wrong. She felt a wave of terrifying desperation sweep through her. For a moment it all seemed utterly hopeless. The world was vast, swamped with people. Billions of hectares, billions of people. Cities with too many buildings to count, to many places to hide a child.

She turned away from the window and took deep breaths. She couldn’t wait here. She would go crazy. She scrutinised the room. He hadn’t told her the code for the front door, she realised, so if she left she wouldn’t be able to get back in without him. She was meant to stay, of course, he had made that clear. But she couldn’t just trust others to handle it and sit back doing nothing. She had tried that already – let them bring her here, instead of going to Seville. At the very least she would need to check the addresses he had showed her, know for sure that Rebecca wasn’t there. Then she could decide what to do next.

She held the mobile he’d given her and checked the time, then walked through to the kitchen, picked up the car keys, tried Rebecca again, using his phone. She resisted the temptation to fling it at the wall when she got the same useless service message in her ear. Instead, she walked through to the hallway and up to the front door. She didn’t even consider bringing the gun. She opened the door and looked at the road outside. No sign of him. She stepped out, closed the door and walked over to the car.