‘I’m from the floor above,’ Viktoriya announced. ‘I’ve just moved in. I was having a window frame repaired and the workman managed to knock his bucket of tools off the ledge. It was on a rope. He heard breaking glass; I think it may have been your window.’ It sounded improbably true, she thought.
The old woman looked momentarily confused.
‘Would you mind if I checked; I am very happy to pick up the bill and get a glazier over here straight away? Can I use your phone to call him? Mine’s not working.’
‘I thought it was Mr Ikanov that lived upstairs,’ she said suspiciously, not opening the door further than six inches.
‘He moved out,’ said Viktoriya. She reached into her handbag and handed the woman a business card. Time was running out. This seemed to reassure her.
‘You best come in then,’ she said finally, and opened the door onto the kitchen. The old lady looked through the gaping hole that was once the window.
‘Something seems to have happened,’ she said, pointing outside and at the street below.
‘Let me see,’ said Viktoriya. The old lady pulled back. A small crowd had gathered on the pavement around a motionless body. One or two faces looked upward. Across the street she caught sight of Bazhukov climbing into a car with another man. Bazhukov, why hadn’t she thought of it before – it was his voice. She looked back at the inert crumpled figure and at the familiar dark blue coat that was her father’s. It was all too much to take in. How did Konstantin know about Antyuhin’s passport, if that was indeed what they were looking for? It would only be minutes before the police arrived and worked out from which window her father had fallen. She had to find that ID before they did.
‘I have to be going,’ she announced suddenly, her voice trembling. ‘You have my card. I’m going to send someone round.’
The door to her father’s apartment was closed. She opened it and quickly slipped in. The flat was in even more of a mess than when she had entered only half an hour ago. Bazhukov and his companion had ransacked the place a second time. Maybe he had found what they were after? Where would her father have hid it if it were here? Her eyes darted round the room at the turned-up furniture, broken crockery and ripped-open cushions. Her eyes alighted on an old photo of her mother in a new frame. It struck her as odd, out of keeping. He rarely mentioned her mother. She picked it up and turned it over. The cardboard backing was fixed by three small hinged fasteners. She flipped them sideways and pulled off the cardboard back. The ID card her father had shown her in the café fell to the floor. She picked it up. Why had he not given it to them? But then it was her father she was thinking about, not anybody… maybe he had simply calculated it would end badly either way and decided not to give them the satisfaction – he was bloody-minded enough. Anyway, this was not the time to speculate, she chided herself. She stuffed the card into her pocket and dashed out of the apartment to the lift.
As she stepped out on the ground floor, two stern-faced policemen walked in past her. Viktoriya flagged down a taxi and ordered him to take her to Pravdy. She guessed Kostya would be at his club now.
The taxi driver ogled her in the rear-view mirror.
‘Keep your eyes on the road,’ she snapped.
‘No problem!’ he said gruffly, as though she had misunderstood his prurient attention.
By the time she arrived at his club on Nevsky Prospect it had begun raining. The club doorman rushed towards her with an umbrella and sheltered her inside.
‘Thank you, Erik.’
‘I’ll tell the boss you’re here.’
‘No need.’
The bar was already busy with punters chatting up girls. On a circular stage two girls gyrated to the throb of beat music while men, both single and in small groups, looked on, beer in hand. A third dancer peeled off her top to catcalls from the male audience.
A man stepped in her way. He was a good four inches shorter than her. ‘When are you on?’ he said, raising his voice above the din. A wave of beer breath rolled over her.
‘In your dreams,’ she answered, stepping around him.
Viktoriya headed to the stairwell at the back of the room leading to the basement, brushed the bodyguard aside, and made for Konstantin’s office. Unsure what she was going to say to him, she knew he had to be confronted. He had killed her father… or had his men do it.
She wasn’t sure how she felt… confused… conflicted… guilty… she had told her mother she would handle her father and she hadn’t.
‘You can’t go in, Viktoriya Nikolaevna.’
‘Get out of my way, Boris,’ she said, and bowled past him, seizing the handle of the double door and pushing it wide open.
Konstantin was already standing up, adjusting his shirt. A tall dark-haired girl with crimson lipstick pulled down the hem of her skirt but made no move to raise herself from the sofa. To her surprise, Viktoriya felt no pang of jealousy or sudden rage.
‘Get out her out of here, Kostya,’ she ordered him. The girl stood up, readjusted her skirt and stared insolently at Viktoriya, who turned her back on her.
‘Leave us, Adriana,’ said Konstantin. There was a pause before she heard the door close.
Viktoriya reached into her handbag and threw the ID card on his desk.
‘Is this what you are looking for?’
Konstantin picked it up and opened the passport at the photo page. ‘He got what he deserved,’ he said. She was unsure whether he was referring to her assailant or her father.
‘Why didn’t you discuss it with me? I could have handled it.’
‘But you hadn’t.’
‘I’m sorry that I didn’t tell you,’ she said. ‘That was my mistake, but I didn’t want you taking things into your own hands, not like before, not with my father, as despicable as he was… I had it under control.’
‘He was blackmailing you… threatening to tell everyone… how could you trust him?’
She thought of the young girl in the room a few minutes before.
‘And what about me? Am I to be trusted? Am I a threat too?’
She realised, of course, that that was the reason he never shared anything with her, certainly not his business interests. The girl who had just exited the room was a fool if she thought she meant anything to Kostya. He would have no compunction in getting rid of her or anyone if they became a danger.
‘Look, Kostya, I’m no angel… I certainly don’t want to be judgemental, but I don’t want this either, living life in the shadows…’
‘…but it’s over… is that what you are saying? It’s that small-time hustler,’ Konstantin almost spat at her.
‘If it’s Misha you are referring to, it has nothing to do with him, nothing. I just don’t want to live like this.’
‘Well, it’s a rough world out there,’ he said coldly, ‘and your friend is not up to it.’
‘If killing all the opposition means up to it – no, I don’t think he is.’
Konstantin raised his fist and dropped it back to his side.
‘Boris!’ he barked. ‘See Viktoriya Nikolaevna off the premises.’
APRIL 1988
Chapter 24
LENINGRAD
Across the cobbled square of the Leningrad Freight yard by Pulkovo airport, lorries and delivery vans pulled in and out of cargo bays as armed security guards paced the yard and manned exit and entry points. Viktoriya sheltered from the rain that was falling steadily. In the fifteen minutes she had been standing there, she had witnessed four diesel tankers exit the depot bound for Smolensk and Eastern Europe.