The Oktober Projekt (14 page)

‘Thank you for your public sense of duty, but as the reviewing
officer in this case, I have to go over the facts and make sure nothing has
been left out. So could you please begin again for my benefit?’

Sitting back Katya Malova folded her arms across her chest and
did just as Nick requested, recounting how Galina worked for the family in
Moscow for seven months before business brought the household to London. Katya
had interviewed Galina personally and although she found no fault with her
qualifications or work as a nanny, Katya sensed Galina would somehow be
trouble.

‘Did this side of her character show itself in London?’ asked
Nick.

‘At first no,’ Katya stated, adding for the record that here in
London her work, if anything was exemplary and as a reward her pay was
increased and she was given extra leisure hours. ‘That is when the problems
started. Galina would be late, too much drink in her little head from the night
before, and,’ Katya lowered her voice to a conspiratorial whisper, ‘Galina was
maybe starting to experiment with drugs.’

‘You confronted her about this?’ Nick asked in his best
strident official tone, writing slowly.

‘I challenged her a few times and she laughed it off, but as
her behaviour and attitude grew worse I,’ and she paused for full effect, ‘with
the backing of the family who were now extremely concerned for Galina and their
babies in her care, told Galina that she would have to undergo random drug
tests. Fine, Galina shouts in my face, fine, you will find nothing and the next
morning she doesn’t report for work.’

‘And she slept on the
premises?’ Nick asked, ‘She had her own room here? I thought looking after
small children would require that?’

Katya ran her fierce gaze over Nick as though she’d just met
her first imbecile of the day. ‘Of course there is provision for the nannies
next to the nursery, but there are three nannies in the household, they work
shifts.’

‘Are they all Russian?’

Her patience pushed to its short limit, Katya unfolded her arms
and swung forward, planting her elbows on her desk. ‘Of course they are
Russian,’ she answered in a high insolent hiss, ‘the family speak Russian and
yes, all their papers are in order also.’

‘So where do the nannies live when they’re not working?’

‘There is a separate house in Bow bought by the family as
provision for the staff,’ she announced proudly.

‘And did Galina leave any of her belongings here, or at the
house in Bow?’

‘What she left behind we keep in a suitcase in the staff
house,’ Katya told him.

‘What about visitors from home?’

‘Her mother, perhaps, yes, her mother came over regularly,’
Katya slowly remembered.

‘Was she friends with other members of staff?’

‘Galina was good friends with Marfa Dobrya, another nanny, they
shared a room in the staff house and of course, Grigori Tesov he is a chef.’

‘Of course,’ said Nick, as though he should have known. ‘I will
have to examine the suitcase and speak to Marfa and Grigori,’ said Nick,
putting his biro and papers away.

Ripping off a sheet from a desk memorandum pad, Katya dashed
off an address and handed it to Nick, a declaration if one were needed that he
had reached, if not surpassed, his quota of questions.

Standing, pushing the clasp closed on his briefcase, Nick said,
‘Could you ensure that they will both be available for interview on Monday
afternoon.’

Irritably, Katya brought up the household staff rota on her
laptop. ‘They are both working.’

Pushing his official act as far as he dared, Nick shook his
head. ‘This is a serious matter, please have them at the staff house between
four and six p.m. on Monday.’

Not waiting to find out if Katya had accepted his terms, Nick
had already stepped out to the base of the steps and closed the door behind
him. Up on the street his phone rang, and checking that Katya hadn’t followed
him to object to his demand, Nick took the call.
 
‘No problem,’ he said, setting off.

Six

Asking Some Delicate Questions

London, November

An
outdoor palm tree had been lovingly wrapped and taped to beat the winter frosts.
Standing proud it dominated the front garden of the house in Priory Avenue,
Crouch End. At some point in its past the house had received a liberal coat of
dark green paint to its exterior boards, guttering, frames and down pipes, but
the recent addition of cream window blinds jarred with the colour scheme,
something not quite balancing thought Nick. A small neat woman answered the
door, almost apologising for being Steve’s mum after Nick had let her take his
ID to slowly read. She guided Nick down the hallway past a mountain bike parked
under cornice shelves holding an ensemble of figurines. Steve Milneshaw was in
the back room and a Met Family Liaison officer asked if she could help. Nick
showed his ID made out in the workname of Jeffries from internal security and
she retreated along with Steve’s mum, who faltered in the doorway.

 
‘Would you like a
cup of tea?’ she asked Nick, ‘because I was just about to make one.’

 
She’s the sort
who always would decided Nick; whatever the triumph or tragedy, and he politely
declined her offer.

‘I’m sorry about Jo,’ said Nick, never any good at offering his
condolences and Milneshaw nodded dumbly, the words not sinking in.

Milneshaw had become a prisoner in his mother’s protective
custody, surrounded by empty cups and newspapers scattered on the carpet around
his feet.
 

‘I’m trying to find out what happened to Jo,’ Nick said, taking
a seat in an armchair across from Milneshaw who could only smile at his
girlfriend’s name.

‘Jo,’ said Milneshaw, his voice broken, flat. Then as though
he’d been waiting for an excuse he was suddenly off, describing how they met,
the times they spent in the staff bar at Vauxhall Cross, before he ended his
narrative embarrassed. ‘She didn’t….’
 

Unable to continue Milneshaw sat back, rubbed his eyes and
sniffed. ‘She didn’t kill herself,’ he said, angry and hurt. A Service software
engineer, Milneshaw reached over six-foot; his ginger hair running to his neck,
a straggly beard around the rim of his chin.

‘That’s what I want to establish,’ Nick told him, deciding that
Milneshaw’s face had never borne too much bad luck, his eyes were immature and
soft; they were the eyes of a child who’d received its first taste of tragedy.

‘She was here… the other night,’ Milneshaw said,
 
‘came round as usual and we’d watched a
DVD,
Gladiator
, it was one of her
favourites and she always cried at the end.’ He patted the chair arm determined
not to cry himself.

‘The night she died, did you know if anyone had called her?’

‘She never said she was meeting anyone, if that’s what you
mean,’ Milneshaw replied.

‘But if someone she trusted had arranged to meet her, she would
have gone?’

Milneshaw nodded, reached over to a coffee table, lifted up a
photograph of Lister and put it straight back down.

‘Did she tell you why she had asked to see one of my colleagues
in internal security?’

‘We’re not allowed to discuss each other’s duties.’

‘That’s the official policy,’ said Nick, ‘but the Service is a
hotbed of gossip, we all know that. And I am here to find out exactly what
happened to Jo.’

Out of Nick’s question, perhaps from its tone, Milneshaw
grasped a measure of hope in place of despair.

‘She was concerned about an operation,’ he said.

‘Which one, did she say?’

‘Sentinel… Sanctuary… I don’t know… I can’t remember,’ Milneshaw
said, agitated, upset.

‘Salvage,’ suggested Nick, ‘Operation Salvage?’

Nodding, Milneshaw gave a weary ‘yes, probably’, followed by
what sounded like a choked sob. And with Nick promising not to reveal his
sources, he went to the very limits of his cover. ‘If Jo was concerned about
any operational issues, why didn’t she take it up with the head of RUS/OPS
instead of coming to us?’ Nick proposed quite gently.

‘She did, don’t you see, that’s why she was coming to internal
security,’ said Milneshaw, his voice rising, his patience, quite
understandably, long gone.

‘Why would the head of RUS/OPS ignore Jo’s concerns?’

‘She
didn’t.’
Milneshaw
sat
back
and
Nick,
needing
more, prompted him.

‘I’m not sure I follow you?’

‘After the operation went sour, Jo was really down, somehow
feeling she shared some of the blame. I know she shouldn’t have discussed it
with me, but she wasn’t sleeping, not herself. I tried everything to bring her
out of it, but she was in a deep rut, so I…’ Milneshaw closed his eyes, shook his
head. ‘So I told her that if she felt so badly, why didn’t she find out what
had gone wrong.’ He broke off to take a gulp from a cup commemorating a royal
wedding or jubilee, Nick couldn’t be sure which from where he sat. ‘You see
it’s my fault.’ He collapsed back into the chair.

‘I know it’s painful,’ Nick assured him, ‘but I need to know
what Jo did next?’

‘She went back through all the operational procedures and
protocols that she knew had been put in place and agreed in advance. But when
she checked, the operational records were corrupt. I remember that because
we’ve had a bagful of problems with different IT systems, nothing traceable, no
viruses, no errors.’

‘And there were no hard copies for the operation that Jo could
consult?’

‘She never told me.’

‘Is this when Jo took her concerns to the head of RUS/OPS?’

Gripping the chair arms Milneshaw forced himself on, his face
utterly pale and wan. ‘Jo came round that evening and said she was going mad,
she’d discussed it with the head of RUS/OPS who went through the records with
her, there and then on her own screen. The records were all there, but there
were anomalies, subtle changes.’

‘Someone must have hacked the electronic files,’ said Nick.

‘No…’ Milneshaw shook his head, not this time in sorrow or grief,
but frustration. ‘The systems are protected by primary and secondary firewalls
preventing internal or external breaches or hacking. I can’t give you details,
but when information is saved, I mean it is really saved, tamper-proof saved.’

‘Did Jo give any examples of what had been altered?’

‘The original operational procedure had been for the agent to
use a digital scanner to be supplied by his handler,’ Milneshaw said, and for
the first time, he gave Nick a questioning glance. ‘The new version was for a
physical collection,’ said Milneshaw, staring at Nick, something troubling him.
‘Jo said the system was lying.’ Milneshaw inched himself forward and Nick saw
how puffy his cheeks and eyes were as his face came into a pool of light from a
table lamp. Rubbing his hands together, he took a deep sigh. ‘And that’s why
she was going to internal security. Do you believe Jo died because of that?’

‘I think it is tied in with it, Steve,’ said Nick, sick and
weary of having to carry another death on his shoulders. ‘It’s a good idea in
the circumstances to forget I called.’
Jo said the system had lied
, Nick thought, also recalling Lubov’s words to
Bensham:
Moscow have not recruited agents to pass on secrets, they
have recruited agents that plant secrets… tell the senior ex-officer I have
discovered three of them, tell him three
.
Nick was suddenly alert with a fresh sense of momentum.

‘I know, but I can’t forget Jo,’ said Milneshaw with a sad
smile.

For some reason he’d never understand, Nick stopped at the
door, his hand half turning the handle.

‘Steve, whatever people say about Jo, you’re the one who knew
her and I think for that you’re a lucky man.’

In the hallway Nick declined a tea from Steve’s mother, mumbled
some inadequate platitude and hurried off for home. He didn’t care if Angie
hated him he just needed to sit and reflect, find some familiar territory to
escape from this madness.

• • •

Nick had been on the road for five
minutes when his mobile rang and he took the call. He heard Jane’s breathless
voice; terse, a register he thought he’d forgotten, giving precise information
without any feeling. Where had he been? She’d been trying to reach him for
ages? He’d had things to do, he told her. He didn’t know she cared that much,
he continued until Jane’s urgency cut him off mid-flow. There’d been an
incident with Angie. Yes, Angela. She’d been attacked. In hospital, the Royal
London. Serious, it sounded bad, intensive care. Late this afternoon. No she
didn’t know. Yes, she was at the hospital, yes she’d keep in touch.

He drove with the same recklessness as he did to be at his
son’s birth, though this had a different sense of urgency and fear. Thirty
minutes to reach the hospital through slow Sunday traffic meandering aimlessly
along. Seeping from the back of Nick’s neck, a deep pain that spread up through
his skull as he parked in a space reserved for consultants only, which he was
in a way, except his speciality was secrets and the application of force. Going
in through casualty he followed overhead signs down corridors quiet and
deserted, with a lingering scent of warm food and fear. Porters wheeling
trolleys of linen to a central store passed him, their own importance brimming
in their eyes. In intensive care a waiting area was set off to his right,
double-glazed, but you could still hear the machines fighting against the odds.
Serious professional faces moving past; technology and quiet, the inconsistency
of life and abrupt endings.

At a nurses’ station Jane was already waiting, a coffee in her
hand as staff passed silently into small wards, their voices conspiratorially
low.

‘Thank God you’re here,’ Jane said.

‘Where is she?’

‘Let’s talk,’ she nodded to a door leading to the family
suites, spilt some of the coffee over her fingers and pulled a face.

‘I need to see her.’

‘Nick, I need to explain,’ said Jane.

‘Explain what?’

‘Angie, it wasn’t just a beating… she was raped… a multiple
rape,’ Jane told him, her voice low, guiding him into one of the temporary
family quarters.

Reserved for relatives who needed to stay close to intensive
care, the suite was a series of interconnecting sterile boxes someone had tried
to make as welcoming as home with green armchairs fighting against a floral
pink paper. Sighted high on one wall, a flat screen TV could be viewed when taking
meals or snacks at a round wooden grain laminate dining table. Under the
window, a small waist high bookcase loaded with an eclectic mix of classics and
paperbacks, a box of tissues placed discreetly on the second shelf. There was a
bathroom and a double bedroom in the same depressing functional style and to
Nick everything seemed too empty, shells waiting for shadows to give them a
taste of life.

‘Raped?’ he repeated.

‘I’m sorry Nick.’

‘How did it… what happened?’

‘She was with someone. A male called Guy?’ Jane began not
looking at Nick.

‘An art dealer…gallery owner,’ said Nick, numb.

‘He was shot in the head when he opened the front door and died
at the scene.’

‘And Angie?’

Jane lifted her head slowly, taking her time. ‘She’s in a bad
way Nick, she put up a determined fight.’ Jane tried to hold him, but he broke
away, took a step backwards.
               

‘Show me….’

‘Look, you can’t blame yourself.’

Gesturing for Nick to follow her, Jane led him into a small
unit and pointed to an end bed. Angie in a coma, a machine making all the
effort as it did the breathing for her; tubes, wires, machines beeping,
counting, measuring out her struggle. Flinching at her sallow face, Nick
stepped forward to her side. Both Angie’s eyes were closed and swollen; her
lips bloated, misshaped, translucent and cracked. On one of her cheeks a deep
bruise caused by a solid ring. Intravenous drips were running into the back of
her hands and nose. Small scabs of eyeliner were dried around her lashes and he
imagined her eyes packed with life before she was attacked. By the tape round
her wrist, more swelling on her pale skin; bruises in a fingertip pattern where
she’d been held down.

He spent ten minutes trying not to listen as a doctor gave
Angie something close to a fifty-fifty chance; stressing how for someone her
age the odds were seriously in her favour. So, it came down to medicine
administered as roulette. Well, wasn’t life a lottery after all, thought Nick,
squeezing her hand, watching as Jane motioned that she’d be outside. Except Nick’s
eyes refused to provide a normal service, blurred, he saw only Jane’s distorted
face. A dimension had slipped allowing particles to scamper and dance into
dozens of objects waiting to be invented. Nothing was normal any longer, and it
never would be, he decided sitting back.

Angie didn’t make it through the night. As her condition
deteriorated, Nick and Angie’s parents made the decision to take her off life
support. Sharing his vigil with her mother and father, Nick had sat tight
stroking her hand, a supplicant gesture that made him feel mute and inadequate.
After he’d watched her fade away as her breathing changed pitch and finally
ceased at three-twenty-two a.m., Nick was gripped by an abject panic pushing
him down the corridor, longing for air untouched by clotted institutional
scent. Jane found him outside, her entreaties to come inside ignored, her
attempts at comfort brutally repelled, stepping away from her arms each time
she tried to hold him tight.

‘Come back to my place, use the spare bed for as long as you
like,’ she offered, nothing else to give.

‘No,’ he yelled, his voice surly, his refusal angry and sour.