She watched the cat sprawl inelegantly across the carpet as if it had been tossed from a great height, and envied it the lack of stress. What she would have given for a complete reversal of circumstances, for none of the awful news she had been given, and the ability to choose only nice subjects with pleasant endings to work on. Then she told herself that she was daydreaming. If she had wanted nice, she’d have taken up patchwork.
She got up and made some tea. The cat stopped sprawling, its radar on ‘scan’, then followed her, eyeing the fridge with an intensity which had Riley automatically reaching for a fork.
While it ate, she thought about what she had accomplished so far. With all the reading and the paperwork, she had ended up with little more than fairly strong rumour and a whole host of speculation about Al-Bashir’s intentions, and the so-called lifestyle of his young wife. She was going to have to do some more digging.
She picked up the copy of East European Trade Varley had given her, which had migrated out to the kitchen on one of her earlier coffee runs. She flicked through it, still undecided about what to do. She either went with the assignment and got her name in this magazine, or she returned Varley’s cheque in spite of his assurances that it was non-returnable, and got on with helping Palmer solve his problem. Given the choice, she knew which she’d have opted for.
Then she stopped. She was staring at the inside title page of the magazine, her face suddenly as pale as the paper she was holding.
I don’t believe it, she muttered softly, and snatched up the phone. She dialled Palmer’s number. He answered on the second ring.
‘I need you to confirm something,’ she told him. ‘Have you still got the postcard from the stuff Helen’s friend sent you?’
‘Sure.’ She heard his chair creak. ‘Okay, what about it?’
‘What’s the place name on the back?’
He read it out. ‘Sokhumi, Georgia. Unusual place for a holiday, unless you’re Russian.’ He paused. ‘Hang on, there’s something written alongside.’
‘I know,’ said Riley. She could almost picture the words; they hadn’t impacted on her when she’d first seen them. ‘Helen wrote Ercovoy, then Atcheveli 3-24.’
‘I don’t get it.’ Palmer’s voice was sharp with interest. She heard the chair creak as he got to his feet. ‘How did you know?’
‘The magazine I got for my new assignment,’ she told him, ‘is published by a company called Ercovoy. Their production office is at Atcheveli 3-24, Sokhumi, Republic of Georgia. It’s on the Black Sea.’
She ran out of words, trying to make sense of the information. How the hell could there be a connection between Helen and her own new assignment? It was crazy.
‘She must have gone out there for some reason.’ Palmer spoke softly. ‘But why — and why send the postcard?’
‘Maybe it was a genuine coincidence. She went out there for a break after getting the assignment and stumbled on the office. Stranger things have happened.’
‘Yeah.’ Palmer didn’t sound convinced.
‘There’s something else I found.’ Riley hesitated, then plunged in. ‘Some of the research notes for this job I’m looking at.’
‘What about them?’
‘A lot of the notes have been put together at random — as if someone went through a bunch of files and dragged out anything of interest. But some of it has been collated and written up by someone who knew what they were doing. A professional.’
The line hissed between them, then Palmer said, ‘A journalist?’
‘It feels like it. There was discussion about Al-Bashir’s bid for the telecoms licence in Eastern Europe, most of it very general. But one small entry, like a note to be added later, said his main opposition might come from wealthy Russian emigres.’
There was a longer silence, and Riley wondered if she’d done the wrong thing telling him. It was mere speculation on her part; an attempt to join up dots which might not be connected.
‘For emigres,’ he said finally, ‘read oligarchs.’
‘That word was in the file. It’s thin, but… ‘ She sighed, struggling to argue convincingly against her own thoughts and suspicions, and not liking what she was thinking.
‘I still don’t get it,’ said Palmer. ‘If she was worried about something, why didn’t she contact me?’ He sounded frustrated.
‘Maybe she was going to but never got round to it.’ Riley wanted to drag the words back as soon as she uttered them. Palmer was already feeling bad enough about Helen’s death; he didn’t need the additional burden of knowing she had been scared enough to consider asking an old boyfriend for help, but had been prevented at the last minute. He appeared not to have noticed, so she continued, ‘There’s something about Helen that struck me.’ She told him about her earlier research into Helen’s publishing history via the Internet. ‘Helen had a steady work rate, with regular jobs going back three or more years, here and overseas. That’s good going for a freelance. Some were fillers, where she was probably asked to stand in for staff writers. Others were normal, freelance assignments, which was her bread and butter.’
‘Like the jobs she did for Johnson.’
‘That’s right. There were probably a few I didn’t find, but there were no huge gaps.’
‘Go on.’
‘Suddenly, for the last six weeks, nothing. It was like she’d dropped off the map. It was unusual.’
The silence lengthened, then Palmer said, ‘Are you at home?’
‘Yes.’
‘Okay, stay there and I’ll come to you. Oh, one more thing,’ he added sombrely. ‘I just had a visit from Pell.’
‘What did he say?’
‘He said Helen wasn’t the first female freelance found dead recently.’
In his Finchley base, one of Donald Brask’s phones purred softly. He reached out to switch it to loudspeaker. The display told him it was Tony Nemeth, a reporter based in Ankara, Turkey. Donald had tracked him down the previous day with an urgent task, on the promise of further work if he came up with anything useful.
‘Anthony, dear boy,’ he breathed softly. ‘What have you got for me?’ He had been disturbed by Riley’s information about the magazine East European Trade. He had never come across it before, and one thing Brask prided himself on was knowing about all the potential paying markets out there waiting for him and his clients. The other source of disturbance was that he had a bad feeling about it which wouldn’t go away.
‘It’s difficult to say, Mr Brask,’ Nemeth’s voice sounded furred, probably by too many cigarettes and strong brandy. Now it held a tone of regret, even puzzlement. ‘I went to the address you told me. I had to hire a sea-plane taxi to save some time — I hope you’re okay for the fare? I got a good deal, though, from my cousin, Mehmet.’
‘Of course I’m good. What did you find?’
‘It’s a big apartment block. But not a nice place, you know? Shit plumbing, rotting concrete, lousy Soviet design — I’m surprised it didn’t come down in the last earthquake.’
‘The devil looks after his own. What else?’
‘If there’s a publishing company there, nobody knows about it,’ Nemeth replied succinctly. ‘It’s residential only — and I’m not saying high class, you know? Half the tenants are illegals, the electricity and water don’t work every day, the sewers are more often blocked than not… you know the kind of place I mean.’
‘Actually, dear boy, I’m relieved to say I don’t.’ Donald stared at the ceiling. He’d had a feeling about this from the moment Riley had first mentioned it. Publishing companies weren’t in the habit of splashing money around on spec, least of all those in Eastern Europe. Not, at least, the legitimate ones with nothing to hide. He’d decided to check out the place after receiving Riley’s text message.
‘Lucky you. I took a look at the number you gave me. It looks no more than a crummy flat, like all the others around it. There was nobody in.’ He paused, then added, ‘Someone’s got an interest, though.’