From Belorusskaya, he took the metro to Arbatskaya station and came up into the Moscow evening as dusk fell. He walked quickly down the Arbat towards the alley where Rostkhenkovskaya had her shop.
He rang the bell. The door clicked and he pushed it open. Rostkhenkovskaya greeted him with a smile. Sheremetev was struck, again, by her youth, so unexpected in this mausoleum of trinkets and watches.
‘Good evening, Nikolai Ilyich. I wondered if I would see you again.’
‘Good evening, Anna Mikhailovna,’ he murmured.
‘So what have you brought me? Something interesting?’
Sheremetev reached into one of his jacket pockets and extracted two hankerchief-wrapped watches, which he laid down on the counter. He took a third out of another pocket.
Rostkhenkovskaya tried to still the slight, expectant tremble that suddenly shook her hands. ‘May I?’
Sheremetev nodded.
It wasn’t logical for Sheremetev to have brought only three watches from Vladimir’s cabinet, because he knew that three would not be enough to get Pasha out of jail, but if someone did have an inventory, perhaps they wouldn’t look too hard if only a few watches were missing. He lacked the courage to take more, and despised himself for it.
Rostkhenkovskaya unwrapped the first watch and set it on the glass of the counter. She unwrapped the second. As the third came out of its handkerchief, her heart gave a thump.
The first one that she had unwrapped was a Hublot, although not the one that Dr Rospov had seen. As Rostkhenkovskaya looked at it lying on the glass of the counter in front of her, she estimated that it was worth around seventy thousand dollars. Another, the one with the emerald face that had so mesmerised Sheremetev, was the least valuable of the three, a Bruguet worth around forty thousand. But he had hit the jackpot with the third one, a Patek Philippe by Tiffany in mint condition. It was one of the more valuable in Vladimir’s collection, given to him during his later years in office when those who could still get access to him knew – and if they didn’t, Zhenya Monarov soon made sure they did – that if they were going to give him a watch, it had to be something truly extraordinary. Rostkhenkovskaya knew of Patek Philippes by Tiffany, but had never actually held one. She couldn’t price it at a glance, but it would be no less than half a million dollars, and possibly more.
‘These were given to you by your uncle?’ she asked.
‘Yes,’ said Sheremetev, or thought he did – somehow the word didn’t come out. He cleared his throat. ‘Yes.’
‘Do you have more?’
‘Possibly.’
Rostkhenkovskaya didn’t point out the absurdity of such an answer. Either he had more or he didn’t, and surely he would have known what his uncle had given him – assuming there was such an uncle, or that an act of giving had actually taken place, both of which, by now, Rostkhenkovskaya doubted.
‘And if there were any more,’ asked Rostkhenkovskaya, ‘would you want to sell them too?’
‘That depends,’ said Sheremetev.
‘On what?’
‘On how much I get for these.’
‘Okay.’ Rostkhenkovskaya drew a deep breath. ‘These two,’ she said, pointing to the Hublot and the Bruguet, ‘ten thousand dollars for the pair.’ She paused for a moment. ‘This one…’
Rostkhenkovskaya picked up the Patek Philippe again, as if examining it once more and trying to determine a price for it. She stole a surreptitious glance at Sheremetev. Could this funny little man – could anyone – really come into possession of a Patek Philippe by Tiffany – by whatever means – and have no idea of its worth? If so, she could offer him a few thousand, as for the others, and end up with a profit in her pocket in the many hundreds of thousands. If not, and she made such an offer, he might walk away and it would be out of her hands forever – this watch and the others that he might ‘possibly’ have.
From the minute he had appeared in her shop two days earlier, Rostkhenkovskaya had believed that he knew nothing about watches. Now she doubted herself. What if he really had a collection that he – or his uncle – wanted to get rid of, very quietly, for reasons of his own, and without public notice? What if he – or the uncle – was testing her? Perhaps he could afford to give away the Rolex at the ridiculous price she had paid him. Bring her a couple more – nice watches, but not extraordinary watches – and then throw in a real prize, to see what she would do.
She picked up a loupe and examined the watch through the lens, trying to decide. No, she thought. He couldn’t be so naïve, not if he had a watch like this.
In her mind she heard what he had said when she asked if he would want to sell any more watches: it would depend on the price for these ones.
She took the loupe away from her eye.
‘You say there could be more, Nikolai Ilyich?’
He shrugged, almost casually, thought Rostkhenkovskaya. His apparent naivete now seemed subtly calculated.
She heard the words in her mind again. It would depend on the price. Suddenly, their meaning for her changed.
‘Quarter of a million,’ she said.
Sheremetev stared.
‘Alright, three hundred thousand.’
‘How much did you say?’
‘Three hundred thousand.’
‘Dollars?’
She laughed. ‘What do you think? Rubles? But I need to do some checking on this one first, to verify. And obviously, I don’t have that kind of money in the back of the shop. Leave it with me and come back tomorrow.’
‘I can’t leave it with you,’ said Sheremetev.
‘Then I’ll take a picture.’
‘No pictures.’
‘Okay. Let me look at it again carefully.’ Rostkhenkovskaya took out a notebook. She examined the Patek Philippe with the eyeglass, front and back, making notes. Then she wrapped the watch up carefully in the handkerchief in which it had arrived and handed it back to Sheremetev. ‘Do you want the money for the other two now?’
‘No, I’ll—’
‘Yes, I know. The price was low. I was just… Forget what I said. Twenty thousand.’
Sheremetev’s eyebrows rose.
‘Twenty-five thousand?’ Rostkhenkovskaya was prepared to go to thirty, forty, even fifty, if that was what it took to get him to come back with the rest of his watches.
He nodded.
‘Twenty-five? Okay. I’ll get it for you now.’
Rostkhenkovskaya left the shop, and the old woman who had been there on the previous occasion came out to watch him. Sheremetev smiled at her and she stared stonily back.
‘Are you the widow of the late Rostkhenkovsky?’ he asked.
The woman nodded.
‘My condolences.’
The woman nodded again.
Her daughter reappeared with a thick wad of notes and the old woman retreated. Rostkhenkovskaya counted the money in front of Sheremetev. He distributed it in his pockets, as he had done the last time, on this occasion without having to be told. The Patek Philippe went in as well.
He felt as if the money was bursting out of his jacket all over. He put on his coat and zipped it up, hoping it was bulky enough to cover the bulges.
‘Your uncle must have been quite a collector,’ said the young woman, thinking of the other watches that would hopefully follow these ones.
‘Uncle?’ For an instant, the story about the supposed uncle having given him the watches had gone out of Sheremetev’s mind. ‘Oh, yes, of course! Yes, a very big collector.’
Anna Rostkhenkovskaya smiled her most winning smile. ‘I don’t suppose you want to give me his name?’
Sheremetev shook his head.
‘Not even for me?’ Rostkhenkovskaya smiled sweetly a moment longer. ‘Okay. So, I need to do some checking, but if this Patek Philippe is what I think it is, three hundred thousand is the price. Agreed? If it’s all okay, I’ll get the money tomorrow. And you know, I meant to tell you, I’ve done a bit of research, and the price I paid you for the Rolex the other day was somewhat low. I’ll add another fifty thousand for that one when you come back. And let’s add another twenty-five for the ones you’ve sold me tonight. I assume you’ll want it all in cash?’