The place was otherwise as I remembered. It looked as though it had been turned over by someone in a rush. Books and papers were scattered everywhere and everything from clothes to cutlery had been strewn about the apartment. The only noticeable difference since our last visit was dark finger-print dust covering almost every smooth surface from the windowsills to the shelves.
“Why don’t I take the bedroom?” Dinara suggested.
“I’ll search in here,” I replied.
Dinara carefully picked her way through the mess and I watched her go into a dark corridor before I started my search.
We kept the lights off so we wouldn’t draw attention to our presence, and had to rely on ambient light from the city to illuminate the apartment. The gloom made the place seem even more tragic, and as I scoured the living room, I found evidence that Ernie Fisher might have been a big drinker. There were stains and spillages everywhere, and half-empty liquor bottles littered the floor.
We spent an hour carefully picking over the place, but I found nothing to link Ernie Fisher to Karl Parker, Elizabeth Connor or Robert Carlyle. Dinara emerged from the corridor, carrying a small suitcase.
“Anything?” she asked.
I shook my head. “You?”
“This was on the bed. It’s full of clothes and toiletries, like he was packing for a trip,” she replied. “But I can’t find a passport.”
“Maybe it’s at the embassy,” I suggested.
“Possibly.”
“Anything else?” I asked.
“Nothing,” she said. “Just some empty vodka bottles under his bed.”
“Yeah, I think he had a drink problem.”
“A guilty conscience, perhaps,” Dinara suggested.
“Maybe,” I said. “I think we’re done here. Let’s go.”
We started for the door, but as I stepped over a small broken mirror, I caught the fractured reflection of something gold in the shattered pieces. I crouched down and followed the line of sight to discover a brass key strapped inside an armoire. The key was attached to the top of a compartment that would have housed one of three drawers scattered about the room.
“What is it?” Dinara asked.
I reached in and pulled at the tape that held it in place.
“A key,” I said as I stood up and showed her the tiny discovery.
Chapter 54
The key didn’t fit anything in the apartment and we found nothing else of interest, so we left and caught a cab round the corner from Ernie Fisher’s place. Both of us sat in the back, and I watched the city roll by as we headed to the Residence.
“Is it much like America?” Dinara asked.
“You’ve never been, right?” I recalled her mentioning a desire to visit the US at our interview.
She shook her head. “London is my furthest west.”
“Different architecture” — I gestured to the brightly lit bronze dome of an Orthodox church — “but it’s much the same. Fast-food joints everywhere, just like here, fewer European cars on the streets, same freezing weather in the north, heat in the south. Cities full of people just trying to get by. Beneath the surface, I don’t think any country is that different, because people aren’t that different. Most want health, happiness and a good life for their family.”
“And you?” she asked pointedly. “What do you want?” Her eyes shone in the light cast by oncoming cars.
“I want people to have justice.”
“And family?” Dinara pressed. “For yourself?”
“I don’t know,” I replied honestly. “Maybe one day.”
The rest of the journey passed in silence, and when we reached the Residence, I asked Dinara whether she’d help me try to identify the key. A building full of former cops was as good a place as any to start the search.
We went into one of the recreation rooms that lay off the lobby and spoke to half a dozen residents. A couple spoke English, but most needed Dinara’s translation. They didn’t recognize the key and couldn’t help, but when we sat opposite the seventh ex-cop, and showed it to him, his eyes flashed knowingly.
“It’s for a Mauer keylock. They use them on Kaso safes,” the man said in fluent English.
“Are you sure?” I asked.
“Of course,” he replied, almost insulted. “I worked burglary for fifteen years. Valentin Popel,” he said, offering me his hand, which I shook.
Popel must have been in his mid-fifties and had curly gray hair that fell around his ears. He’d been sitting alone, reading a book when we’d approached him, and was wearing slippers, slacks and a cardigan. He looked more like someone’s grandfather than a hardboiled cop.
“How big is one of these safes?” I asked.
“About the size of a small refrigerator. Maybe bigger,” he said.
I glanced at Dinara. There was nowhere in the apartment Ernie Fisher could have concealed something that size.
“Are these things rare?” I asked hopefully.
“Kaso? No. They sell them all over the world. It’s a very good safe.”
“Could it be in the American embassy?” Dinara asked.
Popel shook his head. “American embassies only trust American safes. No, this thing would not be there. Unless it was unofficial.”
“Spying?” Dinara suggested.
“A spy with a four-foot-tall safe,” Popel scoffed. “Not very subtle. This is a big thing to hide. Not something anyone would be able to conceal in an embassy.”
I glanced at Dinara. “Thank you, Mr. Popel,” I said to the man. “Please excuse me. I need to make a call.”
I left him and Dinara and went to my room where I phoned Justine. I brought her up to speed and told her about the key, which I hid in a crack beneath my windowsill.
“We think it’s for a safe,” I explained. “We need to find out where it’s located. Can you ask Mo-bot to go through Ernie Fisher’s personal history and employment records for any possible sites? Also check his bank accounts and credit cards. See if there’s a record of him buying a safe. Also look for anywhere he’s visited regularly.”
“Will do,” she replied.
There was a brief pause.
“How are you coping out there, Jack?”
“Fine,” I replied. “I’m with good people.”
“Dinara?” she asked, her voice strained with jealousy.
“I thought we weren’t going to complicate things,” I said.
My remark was greeted with silence. Then came a knock at the door.
“I’ve got to go,” I said.
“Be safe,” Justine replied, before I hung up.
I opened the door and found Dinara waiting.
“We have to leave,” she said. “It’s time to meet Maxim Yenen.”
Chapter 55
Maxim Yenen’s decision to meet near Red Square surprised Dinara. It was one of the most heavily monitored parts of Moscow, and if the billionaire was trying to downplay his links to Private, the location was an odd choice.
They’d taken a taxi from the Residence to Pyanitskaya Street, where they’d joined the meager groups of tourists who’d braved the late hour and freezing temperatures to see the grandeur of St. Basil’s Cathedral and Red Square. As they reached the Bolshoy Moskvoretskiy Bridge, Dinara could see the distinctive outline of the cathedral, and the spires of the surrounding buildings. The brightly colored structures rose from the snow-covered landscape and were floodlit against the dark sky. The cathedral’s rainbow of domes, pattered like whipped ice creams gave the district a fairy-tale quality, but the charm of this building was dangerously disarming. It was easy to forget the violence and oppression this place had witnessed. Bad things had happened here.