“More dangerous than the one we play?”
“I prefer not to think of what we do as a game.”
They looked down the pavement to the spot where they had parked. There was nothing but a few battered Ladas and some trucks carrying cement.
“Where’s the car?” said Walker.
“I thought we left it there?”
“We did.”
“Well it’s not here now.”
A slight man with light hair and pockmarks on his face suddenly appeared between them. “Have you lost your car Mr Varndon?” A dark blue 4x4 pulled out of a nearby underground car park and came to a stop in front of them.
“I presume this is where you offer us a lift?” said Walker.
“Well I don’t want to leave you both standing here in the snow. The famous Russian hospitality is a virtue of the FSB too you know.”
- Chapter 9 -
School Number Three
The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge greeted Harper on his arrival at the Westminster School of English. The picture of the royal couple on their wedding day was crudely tacked on to the wall above the school’s front door. A stick thin girl stood smoking a cigarette near the entrance, her hips jutting slightly to the side. She watched Harper as he walked in the door. He smiled, but the gesture wasn’t returned. A sign inside pointed students in the direction of the third floor. As he climbed the stairs, a door opened and an old lady with a shopping trolley walked out. She was looking towards the floor and muttering in Ukrainian: “Using a residential building as a business…makes it too crowded…all these foreigners coming in and out.” Harper walked past her and carried on up to the third floor. He approached a middle-aged woman with a purple rinse manning the front desk and introduced himself.
“Hi, I’m Ryan Evans,” he said. “The new teacher.”
She made a small clicking noise with the side of her mouth and put out her hand. “Documents please.”
Harper handed her his passport and the contract he had signed back in London. There were several students sat waiting patiently on cheap wooden chairs. A low light bathed the room and paint was cracked and peeling off the walls. Voices were coming from an adjoining corridor. The mellow tones of an English nursery rhyme flowed through the building.
“Ok, you live with Anya, correct?”
“That’s right,” replied Harper.
“She will be here in ten minutes when she finishes her class. She is your instructor.”
“Okay, great.”
“Oh and there is a message here for you. The man said you should call this number back at 10am.” Harper looked at his watch. It was 9.57am.
“Is there a spare classroom I can make the call in?”
“Hmm, you should go downstairs to our small office. No one is there. It is room number six. Here is the key.” Harper took the key and walked down to the floor below. Room six was at the far end of the corridor. He went inside, shut the door behind him and pulled out a small metallic case. He opened it and looked over the ten Russian sim cards sitting side-by-side. He picked one at random, placed it into his mobile phone and punched in the number from the message.
“Morton speaking,” said the voice on the other end of the line.
“I got your message,” said Harper. “But I don’t have too long to talk. I saw in this morning’s paper that they are cutting the trip short.”
“Yeah, the bastards are putting Cohen and Russell back on the plane this afternoon. It’s pretty obvious now they were just doing it for the media. They never had any intention of letting us conduct a real investigation. They’ve already started spinning the line that they have done everything they can to help us, but it’s all a load of nonsense.”
“I’ve made contact with the daughter.”
“Already?” said Morton. “That’s excellent. Any results?”
“I’m working on it. She has these private lessons with the guy I’m living with. I’ll need to work out a way of taking those over.”
Harper turned around at the sound of a door closing down the corridor. His breathing quickened and he felt his senses sharpen. He put his hand over the phone and looked through the keyhole. He saw a small boy shuffling along the floor. He stopped outside the toilet and leant his weight onto the door to open it. He whistled the nursery rhyme from the floor above as he walked inside.
“Sorry,” said Harper. “I just heard something outside.”
“You okay?”
“Yeah I’m fine. Just being extra careful.”
“That’s wise. Look, Katusev managed to get a message to us today. He wants to meet in London where there’s less heat. They’re watching him like a hawk over there at the moment, but I get the impression he wants to keep us onside.”
“Sounds good. What do you want me to do?”
“Just sit tight and keep working on getting close to the daughter. You’re over there partly because we suspected something like this would happen. Act like a teacher. Enjoy yourself. And remember, we’ll always contact you through the school.”
“No problem.” The line went dead. Harper took out the sim card and cut it into a few pieces. He pushed a couple of shards into a used apple core in the office bin and threw the rest out of the window onto a thick pile of snow below. He bent down and put his eye to the keyhole. The corridor was empty. He stepped out of the office and walked back upstairs to the main reception.
“Anya is in the teachers’ room,” said the receptionist, without looking up. Harper looked around at the several corridors. Just as he was about to speak, she pointed to a corridor on his left. He walked down it and stopped at a door with an A4 sheet of paper sellotaped onto it. It said TEACHERS in Russian and had a couple of smiley faces either side. Harper walked inside. The room was stuffy and untidy with a couple of old computers on trolleys in the corners. There were several young women and a man sitting round a small table. Anya was seated closest to where he was standing. She was wearing a tight black jumper and jeans. He could smell the watermelon perfume she had on the day before. She noticed him at the door and got to her feet.
“Oh hi Ryan, you made it.”
“Yeah, I hear you are going to be my instructor?”
“That’s right,” she said. “But don’t worry, I am not so strict.”
“Well, that’s good to hear. But you don’t know how lazy I am yet, so maybe you’ll need to be strict.” The man sitting at the table glanced up at them briefly. Harper saw him catch the eye of the girl opposite and raise his eyebrows.
“Everyone, this is Ryan Evans,” said Anya, turning to face the group. “He is our new teacher.” Harper raised a hand to say hello to the girls and they both smiled. “Please meet Genia and Yulia, and this is Pavel, our housemate from England that I told you about.”
“Hi Paul,” said Harper. “So where are you from in Blighty?”
He shook Harper’s hand more firmly than was necessary. “Pavel.”
“I’m sorry?” said Harper.
“Pavel.”
“Okay, sorry Pavel, what part of the UK are you from?”
Pavel suddenly began to talk heavily accented Russian in Harper’s direction. His grammar was noticeably terrible and Harper struggled to make out what he was saying for the most part. The gist was that Russians find it very rude when foreigners come to Russia without first learning Russian. Anya listened politely and translated for Harper, leaving out the insulting tone.
“Ryan doesn’t speak Russian yet, so maybe you can make an exception and speak English with him?” said Anya.
Pavel let out a small grunt. He turned round to the two girls and made a comment about how he couldn’t believe the school is employing people without Russian. Harper smiled and continued to feign ignorance.