And what right did he have to sit in judgement, after what he had just done and with two thick wads of cash hidden under his mattress? And whose money was the cook taking, after all? If it was Vladimir’s, it had been obtained through theft, and the cook, like Goroviev, was simply taking it from him in turn. Siphoning it off seemed far less of a crime than the stealing of a watch out of a defenceless man’s cabinet – and not just any man, but a patient who was in his care – in which he, Sheremetev, had just indulged, and which he was thinking of repeating.
‘Vitya,’ he said, suddenly feeling sympathetic towards the cook. ‘Don’t be rash. Talk to Barkovskaya. See what she’ll do. She’s probably more reasonable than you think.’
Stepanin shook his head grimly. ‘There’s only one language that woman understands.’
THAT NIGHT, THE PREMISES of Bolkovskaya’s meat supplier were firebombed. Sheremetev guessed something like that must have happened when veal cutlets, lamb plov, boeuf à la Tversk, pork chops, stewed liver, fried brains, braised tongue and ham terrine all turned up on the sideboard at lunch, an extravaganza of meat that seemed to have exploded out of Stepanin like the triumphant crowing of a cock over its dead foe.
Even the vegetable dishes had meat. Barkovskaya took one look and walked out of the dining room.
Meanwhile, Sheremetev ruminated about what he should do, conscious that every day that passed was another day for Pasha in jail. The money he had under his bed was a bigger sum than he had ever physically held before, but it wasn’t enough. A drop in the ocean.
Heavy rain had fallen through the morning. In the afternoon, the clouds cleared and Sheremetev took Vladimir out for his walk. The plastic of the greenhouses, normally so drab and ugly, sparkled with sunlight refracting through the raindrops. Vladimir headed for them enthusiastically.
Sheremetev followed. He had no desire to run into Goroviev again. Sheremetev still couldn’t work out what had happened the night Vladimir disappeared from his room. How was it that he had ended up sitting with Goroviev on the exact same bench where they had sat before? He had begun to wonder whether the gardener had taken Vladimir from his suite, although how he would have got up there and then smuggled Vladimir out past the guard in the lobby, Sheremetev didn’t know. Unless the guard was asleep. That wasn’t unlikely, to judge from the length of time it took him to answer the phone, but would the gardener still have been able to get the ex-president up and out without being detected, not least by Sheremetev himself, who would surely have been woken by noise from the baby monitor? And why would he take him? To talk? Something worse? Had Sheremetev, by finding them, interrupted some long-planned act of revenge? Or had the gardener really just happened to find him, calm him, warm him with his coat, wait with him until he was found? This same gardener who had confessed that there was a time when, if he could have got his hands on Vladimir, he would have strangled him.
They went into a greenhouse full of tomatoes and strawberries. There was no sign of Goroviev, but half a dozen labourers were at work. Vladimir smiled at them approvingly and encouraged them to keep at it. They stared back at him solemnly.
The next greenhouse, full of cucumbers just beginning to swell below yellow flowers, was deserted. Vladimir moved slowly along the beds, occasionally putting out a hand to brush at the blooms.
Sheremetev’s mind went back to his dilemma. Was there an inventory of the watches? If he took more, would he be caught?
There was no one else here, just him, the flowers and Vladimir, and Vladimir was no more likely than the flowers to remember anything he said.
They walked on, past plant after plant.
‘Vladimir Vladimirovich,’ Sheremetev blurted out, ‘who knows about your watches?’
Vladimir said nothing.
‘Your watches!’
‘My mother gave me a watch when I was ten,’ murmured Vladimir. ‘Not a bad watch. Sometimes I still wear it when I see her. Mother likes to see it on me. Do you know my mother?’
‘No, Vladimir Vladimirovich.’
‘That’s a shame. Next time she comes, I’ll make sure you meet her.’
‘What about your other watches? The ones you have in the cabinet?’
‘A man only needs one watch, you know. One watch is enough for a man for his whole life, if it’s a good one, and if he looks after it.’
Sheremetev raised an eyebrow. Could there be a more incongruous philosophy, coming from a man who had a cabinet such as the one in Vladimir’s dressing room. ‘I mean the other watches, Vladimir Vladimirovich. The Rolexes, the Hublots…’
Vladimir laughed. ‘Just by looking at a watch, I can have it. Have I ever told you about the time Dima Kolyakov came to get my permission for the new ring road? That was the best one! In he comes and he’s sitting there with a Vacheron Tour de l’Ile, and he’s playing with it smugly – it’s obvious he just got it – and I just look at it, and a minute later, he’s trying to get it off his wrist!’ Vladimir chortled. ‘He’s shitting himself to get it off his wrist, so I say, don’t worry, Dima, I’ve got two already. You should have seen his face! Anyway, the next day, he sends it to me, with a note that says: Why have two when you can have three? Huh? What do you think of that?’
‘What is that worth, such a watch?’
‘Which watch?’
‘The one you just talked about.’
Vladimir looked at him blankly.
‘Vladimir Vladimirovich, you mentioned a Vacheron something.’
‘A Vacheron something? What Vacheron something?’
‘You gave it a name.’
‘Did I?’ Vladimir peered at him suspiciously. ‘A name? What name are you talking about?’
Sheremetev wondered if this was mischief or dementia. Sometimes it was hard to tell. ‘A Vacheron watch, Vladimir Vladimirovich.’
‘What about it?’
‘Dima Kolyakov gave it to you.’
‘How do you know? Were you there? That’s a slander, do you understand me! No one ever gave me anything!’
Sheremetev clenched his fists in exasperation. ‘Vladimir Vladimirovich, who knows about the watches?’
‘Now, it’s true my mother gave me a watch. Did I ever tell you about that? I was ten, and I came home and—’
‘The watches!’ yelled Sheremetev, his frustration bursting out of him. He grabbed the old man by the shoulders. ‘Who knows about the watches? Is there a register? Is there an inventory? Does anyone have it? Barkovskaya?’
Vladimir looked at him in confusion.
‘Does she? Does Barkovskaya have it?’
Vladimir kept staring at him with the same fearful look.
Sheremetev let his hands drop. He gazed down at them for a moment, appalled at what he was doing. ‘Come on,’ he said quietly. ‘Let’s go back, Vladimir Vladimirovich.’
THAT NIGHT, AFTER VLADIMIR was asleep, Sheremetev stood in front of the open doors of the watch cabinet. He felt clammy and nauseated, unable to move, as if in the presence of some sacred altar or relic imbued with a majestic, ineffable power. Eventually he reached forward and pulled out one of the trays. Three rows of faces stared back at him, mostly white or silver. Amongst them was one green one. Sheremetev stared at it, mesmerised.
He had no idea of the value of any of these watches. The only one about which he had even the slightest sense was the one Dr Rospov had seen on Vladimir’s wrist, but Sheremetev didn’t dare take that one to the shop off the Arbat, for fear that, if anyone suspected that he had stolen the watches, Rospov would be able to testify that that one, at least, had still been in Vladimir’s possession as recently as this last week. Sheremetev certainly had no awareness of the true difference in the price of the watches in the cabinet, the fact that some, from the early days of Vladimir’s rule, were worth mere tens of thousands of dollars, and others a million. In his mind they all fell into the same category, objects that had fallen into his path out of an alien realm of barely imaginable wealth.