“It all started when that damn Kazakh boy came here,” she said. “Everything was fine before that. He poisoned the fortune of this family.”
Harper’s mind focused. “You mean Seva?”
“Yes, that was his name. Seva. He was a quiet boy and never opened his mouth. I had a bad feeling about him immediately.”
“Did he come here more than once?” said Harper, trying to sound uninterested.
“No, only once. He came with his parents and that professor who stayed in the car.”
“Professor?”
“It was his university teacher or something. I told him to move the car because it was parked on the grass and he refused. He looked at me like I was some peasant.”
Harper heard footsteps coming down the stairs and picked up the flowers. Nastya Katuseva wore a purple designer tracksuit and had her hair tied up inside a towel as she stepped down to meet him.
“Look, Nastya, I know this is a difficult time,” said Harper. “But people at the school wanted to let you know we were thinking about you. I just volunteered to bring these down for you. I won’t stay. I’m sorry for your loss.”
She took the flowers and managed a weak smile. “That’s nice. Please say thank you to everyone for me. I’m going to need my English lessons for when I need to fight for my inheritance in your courts. The vultures will already be circling.”
“Vultures?”
“I have just inherited a $6 billion fortune Ryan. You think that people are going to allow this to simply become mine. In my world, sentiment does not last very long. I can handle his gold digging little wife, but there will be plenty more formidable opponents looking for their share of the spoils, I can guarantee you.”
Harper looked for some sign of grief, but struggled to find it. They both looked towards the door at the sound of raised voices coming from the entrance to the property. A large crowd of men had surrounded the security and were demanding they open the gates. One of the new arrivals suddenly lost patience and grabbed a guard by the neck, kicking his legs from underneath him and pinning him to the ground. The second guard backed off with his hands up.
“Vultures,” cried Nastya Katuseva, hitting a button on the wall to open the gate and marching off down the drive. Harper watched her remonstrating before giving up and allowing them to come up to the house. They ignored Harper as they filed into the house with boxes and headed upstairs.
Nastya marched after them, shouting while holding the towel on the top of her head in place. “How long has he been dead? Tell me? His body isn’t even cold and you FSB bastards already divided up his fortune. If you think I’m going to make this easy for you, believe me, you’re wrong.”
Harper made a quick call for his taxi driver to meet him outside and headed towards the gate with his head down. One of the guards was calling for assistance on his mobile phone, while the other nursed his throat. A line of black FSB BMWs blocked the road. Harper looked for his cab, but it wasn’t in sight. As he set off in the direction of the estate’s exit, a voice called out in Russian from the motorcade.
“You, come here.”
Harper kept walking, but the voice got louder and more forceful. “You. Who do you think you are walking away from?” Harper stopped as he heard the spin of car tyres behind him. One of the vehicles lurched in front of him and skidded to a stop. Major Oleg Nikolaev kept his eyes firmly on Harper as he got out the car. The back window of the BMW rolled down and more eyes bored into him from inside.
“Documents,” Nikolaev barked as he stood toe-to-toe with Harper, leaving just inches between their faces. Harper reached into his inside pocket and handed over his passport.
“Why are you here?” Nikolaev said, flicking through the pages. “Ryan Evans.”
Harper stuck to English, figuring knowing Russian could lead to more complicated questions. “I teach English to Nastya Katuseva. I was just leaving.”
Nikolaev spat on the floor. “English? That’s the problem with these fucking people. They hate being Russian. It humiliates them when they are in fucking London or wherever they go. So they pay people like you, to teach them a new nationality.”
“Ne ponimayu,” said Harper. I don’t understand.
Nikolaev walked back to the car with Harper’s passport and picked up his radio to phone in the details. Harper froze as a rifle barrel emerged from the window and pointed straight at him. He looked around for an escape route, but there was nowhere to go. The man in the back of the car smiled as Harper squirmed and pulled the gun back inside. Nikolaev’s radio finally buzzed to life and he returned to Harper and pushed his passport into his chest.
“Are you here to fuck our women?” asked Nikolaev, stepping forward.
“I’m here to teach English,” said Harper, avoiding Nikoalev’s eyes.
“The only Russian women that sleep with foreigners are whores.”
Harper said nothing and stepped back slightly.
“Dirty fucking whores with fucking diseases.” Harper turned his head to the side to avoid the smell of coffee on Nikolaev’s breath.
“Now leave,” he said finally, shoving Harper backwards. The taxi suddenly pulled round the corner and Nikolaev watched as Harper got in and it drove off into the distance. He walked back to the BMW and sat back down in the front seat. He adjusted the rearview mirror, so he could see his men in the back.
“Check him out properly. Today.”
Danny Garrett sat sipping coffee in the small café below his fifth-floor office. He bobbed his head a little to the Russian pop music filtering through the speakers and turned the page of his newspaper.
“Shame your boys got pumped the other day,” said Harper, sitting down opposite him. “I suppose it was the ref’s fault?”
“Where are you in the league now? Oh yeah, below us.”
“Touchy,” said Harper. “Can I have one of these,” he said, pointing at some biscuits sitting in a small bowl on the table.
“Help yourself.”
“Do you still fancy coming on a little holiday with me?”
“Almaty? I thought you weren’t keen.”
“I think if I go missing, not too many people would be interested. I’d prefer it if you were around to document my downfall.”
“You want me to come as an insurance policy?”
“Yeah, partly, but I reckon we can cover more ground together. You find facts yeah? That’s your job.”
“Last time I looked.”
“So you up for it?”
“What do I get out of it?”
“I think I know where our missing researcher is, or rather, who he is with.”
“Yeah? Who?”
“I’ll tell you when we get there.”
“I see.”
“And if you’re still not convinced, I’ve got a little story for you too.”
“Go on.”
“The FSB raided Andre Katusev’s house yesterday.”
“How do you know that?”
“I was there.”
“You really have got some brass balls you know that.”
“You’re very kind. Are you coming?”
“Of course I’m coming.”
- Chapter 17 -
Warwick Avenue
A paper dragon hung in the window of the Beijing Paradise Chinese restaurant next to a faded menu. A motorbike courier and a well-heeled lawyer sat waiting for their orders on the plastic chairs in the small reception area. Cohen flashed his badge at the man behind the counter while Russell struggled to park the car in a small space across the road.