“The Met have closed down their investigation. Deputy Commissioner Bailey has been extremely helpful since her daughter’s little drugs incident.
“And what will they do about Harper?”
“Matt Harper doesn’t officially exist. They don’t have to do anything.”
Part 2
- Chapter 27 -
Past Sins
Harper felt a small pang of guilt as he stood over the unconscious maintenance worker. He quickly stripped the man’s clothes and put them on. He dragged him over towards the radiator and covered him with a nearby blanket before slipping out of the storage room and into the railway station. He winced as he walked across the main hall, the bullet shooting a searing pain up and down one side of his body. A group of policemen stood chatting in the ticket hall. One of them broke off briefly to smash a homeless man with his baton and shoo him towards the exit. Harper arced round them as best he could and bought himself a ticket with money he had just stolen. The departures board indicated his train was leaving in five minutes. He started to jog, but the pain was too much. He bought a small bottle of vodka from the kiosk on the platform and entered one of the back carriages. He walked up the train until he found a toilet, where he locked the door and sat down.
A weak overhead light buzzed as he stripped down to his underpants. A bruise was forming down his thigh where he had shot out of the end of the sewage pipe into a shallow pool. He prodded the bullet wound with his finger and gagged as the pain intensified. He sipped a little of the vodka and poured some over the skin. He took a few sharp breaths and dug his finger into the flesh, resisting the urge to scream as he scraped around inside for the small piece of metal. When he managed to clamp his fingers onto both sides, he yanked it out. The wound wasn’t deep, but a steady flow of blood started to seep out of the hole. He ripped up his vest and tied it around his waist, trying as best he could to stem it. He put his clothes back on and walked down the train. The smell of cabbage and sweat intermingled in the sleeping section, thickening the air. He reached the last carriage from the front as the train pulled out of the platform. The passenger numbers had thinned and he found himself alone. He pulled down the shutter on the window to ward off unwanted visitors and turned the silver handle on the entrance to the mail carriage. The only light inside came from a couple of partially opened grates on the ceiling. The dust danced around in the rays as he stared upwards. Harper stepped over a few packages and sat down on a pile of empty letter sacks. He finished the rest of the vodka and shook the bottle onto his tongue to get the last few drops.
Misha. Little Mishka.
Ashanksy had looked different. He was thinner and his shaved head had caused Harper not to recognise the man whose daughter he had been due to marry. He drifted off into a half-sleep, replaying some of the operation like a highlight reel in his head. He saw the smart Mayfair club where he had first approached Ksenia. She had appreciated the bottle of champagne he had sent over to her table. The police accounts department had appreciated it less, but they had to hold their tongues. She waited a few months before she introduced him to her father. He never pushed. It had to come from her. There was suspicion at first, but gradually he became part of the inner circle. Gershov never trusted him; that much was obvious. But the fonder Ashansky grew of him, the less of a voice Gershov had on the subject. The legitimate side of the business was always out in the open. Harper remembered his first day on the legal side of the trading operation. He worked hard and learnt the ropes fast, showing Ashansky he had promise. But the induction into the shadier side of the business empire only came with the proposal. He knew he had to be family, or soon-to-be family, to get close to what he needed to know. She cried when he asked. I love you Misha. I love you so much… I love you too.
But Gershov’s eyes never left him. Those sunken, dead eyes. They followed him around the room like the eyes of portrait. He waited for his chance to test Harper’s loyalty. The only test where there was no way back.
Kill him Misha. Kill him…
- Chapter 28 -
Anya Valentinovna
Anya took the steps two at a time as she made her way down into the underpass. Neo-Nazi graffiti was scattered along the walls. Messages of Black arses go home and Russia for the Russians were scrawled next to a clutch of swastikas. Metal shutters covered most of the kiosks, but it was still possible to browse in the few that had glass fronts. She stopped at one, casting her eyes over the watches, all bunched together on a plastic stand. The faces showed it was past midnight. A truck rumbled overhead as she continued walking towards the other side. She moved slowly, glancing in the remaining windows. She got a few metres from the end when a stocky man in a black coat sauntered down the stairs and stood still, facing towards her. She slowed a little and instinctively moved to the side, but he mirrored her movement. They stared at each other for a few seconds before Anya turned to walk back the other way. She waited until she was past the watch shop before she looked back over her shoulder. The man was advancing towards her, whistling slowly as he came further into the underpass. His burly frame suddenly slipped into darkness as the overhead lighting dimmed and he disappeared completely. Some make-up fell out of her bag as she sprinted towards the street, but she didn’t dare to turn and pick it up. She looked over her shoulder again, but all she could see was black. She screamed as a second figure appeared in front of her. He grabbed her arms and pulled her towards him before the other man walked up from behind and slapped a piece of cloth over her mouth. She tried desperately not to breath in, but eventually had to relent and took a deep lungful of the substance soaked into the material. Relaxation washed over her body and she stopped struggling, allowing herself to be carried up to the street. She could feel her cheek rubbing against the fur on one of the men’s coats. There was a voice in her head telling her to keep her eyes open, but it gradually faded, until she couldn’t hear it anymore.
The wheels of the plane touched down on the tarmac. Anya tried to work out in her head all the destinations that were roughly four hours from Moscow. She gauged from the air temperature that they hadn’t flown north, but it wasn’t much. The nausea from the plane ride lingered and she concentrated on breathing steadily to stave off any sickness. She kept silent as she was grabbed under her armpits, dragged off the plane and put into a waiting vehicle. The sound of the plane’s engines disappeared as they raced away. She didn’t struggle as they bundled her back out of the car and into a nearby building. She sucked in the clean air as the bag was ripped off her head. A graze on her chin seeped blood where the material had burnt away a piece of her skin. She tried to thrust her shoulders forward, but the handcuffs kept her back rigid to the chair. The sound of footsteps crept up on her and she saw a dark figure out of the corner of her eye. He sat down without looking up, keeping his eyes on a brown file.
“What do you want with me?” she said, her voice shaking.
Nikolaev ignored her and carried on reading. He finally placed it down in front of him and turned his attention towards her.
“You are Anya Valentinovna Naumova. Twenty five years old. A teacher at the Westminster School of English. Not very long ago, a new employee calling himself Ryan Evans came to live with you. Tell me everything you know about this person.”