He had met her soon after graduating from Balashikha in 1973. She had been one of the dancers in a dreadful cabaret show in a sleazy Casablanca nightclub where the liquor was cheap and the food inedible. They were married a month later. He had initially thought the man who arrived minutes after the ceremony was over to be a friend of hers but the truth had been like a slap in the face when he announced he was her pimp. He had beaten the pimp senseless in the registry office but despite her tearful pleas that she was off the game he had left Casablanca the same day. He had never seen her again.
He tore out the centrespread and ripped it into pieces then flung the magazine angrily against the wall. Enough time had now elapsed, so he made his way to the adjoining coach.
The conductor was down on one knee attending to one of the ventilator shafts. He glanced at Hendrique and nodded before replacing the grille. Hendrique removed the ‘Out of Order’ sign from the toilet door and locked himself inside.
The door had barely closed when the first wisps of smoke seeped out through the grille, and within seconds it had become a dense, hazy fog that quickly permeated the corridor. The conductor, who had been standing tentatively at one end of the corridor, rushed into the smoke and rapped loudly on the compartment doors, requesting that passengers make their way to the next coach until the fault could be located. He assured them there was no danger – it was just a mechanical failure somewhere in the ventilation shaft – and promised to attend to it personally so they could return to their compartments as quickly as possible. Within thirty seconds the coach was deserted. The conductor knocked four times on the toilet door and Hendrique emerged. He followed the conductor through the billowing smoke until they reached the locked compartment previously occupied by Sabrina. Hendrique peered into the adjoining compartment. It was deserted. The conductor held the bunch of keys close to his face as he struggled to distinguish the various keys but finally selected one and unlocked the door. They entered the compartment and he locked it again.
‘What did you want to look for, Signore?
‘Nothing,’ Hendrique replied and dipped his hands into his jacket pocket.
The conductor’s look of bewilderment became one of terror when he saw the black-handled survival knife in Hendrique’s hand, its five-inch blade glinting under the overhead light.
Hendrique drove the knife into the conductor’s soft, bloated stomach then twisted it upwards, forcing the blade up through the ribcage. A sadistic smile touched the corners of his mouth as he watched the conductor’s body shudder in the final seconds before death. The conductor sagged against the cupboard then slid lifelessly to the floor. Hendrique pulled the knife from the body then reclaimed his money before entering the adjoining compartment to plant the incriminating evidence. He then disappeared back out into the thick, clinging smoke.
A few feet away in the next coach something had been nagging at the back of Graham’s mind ever since he had left the compartment but he just couldn’t put his finger on it. As he stared at the smoke swirling against the glass on the other side of the door he suddenly realized what had been bothering him.
He grabbed Kolchinsky’s arm. ‘I told you something was bugging me; now I know what it was. If that smoke was caused by a mechanical fault in the ventilator shaft then surely there should be a smell of burning as well.’
Kolchinsky opened the door fractionally and sniffed the air. ‘There’s no smell.’
‘Precisely.’
‘A decoy?’ Kolchinsky said suspiciously.
‘And no points for guessing who’s behind it. Are you armed?’
‘No. My gun’s in my bag,’ Kolchinsky said guiltily.
‘No matter, I’ll go first.’
Graham slipped out into the smoke-filled corridor with Kolchinsky tucked in closely behind him.
‘He could have wired the door,’ Kolchinsky said once they reached their compartment.
‘Not in such a short time. Hendrique’s a methodical son-of-a-bitch.’
Graham still took no chances and pressed his back against the strip of panelling between the two compartments, easing the door open an inch with the tips of his fingers. He felt for the frame then ran his finger down it for any traces of wires.
‘Where are you?’ he called out when he had finished.
‘Behind you,’ came the reply.
‘It’s clean.’
Graham pushed open the door and dropped to one knee, fanning the compartment with his extended Beretta. Kolchinsky appeared out of the smoke and closed the door behind him. He bent down and dabbed a spot on the carpet with his finger.
‘What is it?’ Graham asked.
‘Blood,’ Kolchinsky replied, then took his Tokarev pistol from his bag.
Graham found another spot on the couchette and noticed a smear on the wall below the overhead rack. Only then did he notice his partially open holdall. He never left his holdalls open. He lifted it down and after checking for wires he unzipped it and peered inside. He retrieved the bloodied knife. They both turned to the communicating door. Kolchinsky slid it back and Graham lowered his Beretta on seeing the conductor. Kolchinsky checked for any sign of a pulse then looked up and shook his head. They both knew what had to be done.
‘The window,’ Graham said.
‘Even if he did fit through it, which I very much doubt, don’t you think someone in the coach behind us might be a little suspicious if they saw a body landing by the side of the track? Forget the window.’
‘The wardrobe?’
‘Far too small.’
‘We’ve just run out of options and once this smoke clears Hendrique or one of his cronies is going to be back with some member of staff looking for the conductor. I don’t relish the idea of explaining away the body and how the murder weapon just happened to find its way into my holdall.’
‘There is a possible hiding place. You’ve got bandages in your holdall, bring them. You’ll find a Swiss Army knife in my bag, bring that as well.’
‘Bandages?’
‘Just do as I say, Michael!’
Graham returned with a roll of bandage and the Swiss Army knife. He squatted down beside Kolchinsky who was busy unbuttoning the dead man’s tunic. ‘What do you want with the bandages? He’s dead for Christ’s sake.’
‘Hopefully I can stem the flow of blood, at least temporarily. We don’t want it seeping out from under there.’ Kolchinsky pointed to a strip of plywood covering the area from the bottom of the couchette to the carpet. ‘I don’t know what’s behind there but it’s our only chance. Use the knife to pry it open.’
The plywood board was held in place by a dozen small nails and Graham was careful not to bend them unduly as he prised them loose. It seemed to take forever but in reality it took him barely ninety seconds to remove the board from its wooden frame with the loss of two nails, both bent beyond repair. He squinted into the aperture. It was empty. He looked at the dead man. Would he fit? He scrambled to his feet and peeped through the drawn curtains. The smoke was thinning.
‘Well, that will have to do,’ Kolchinsky said, securing the bandage with a tight knot. ‘Let’s see if we can get him in there.’
They tried to push the body into the aperture but it was too small.
‘Tuck his legs underneath him, that should do it,’ Kolchinsky said and eased the body into the opening head first.
Graham did as he was instructed but although the legs fitted with a little room to spare the feet still protruded out on to the carpet. He tried to push them against the dead man’s legs but they sprang out again. Kolchinsky forced the board over the aperture and, using the heel of his shoe as a hammer, banged the nails back into place.
‘The weight of his legs will push the board open again. It’s only made of flimsy plywood.’