Vladimir’s head turned towards him.
‘Who are you?’
‘Sheremetev. I’ve been looking after you for six years.’
Vladimir snorted. ‘That’s ridiculous.’
‘How did you get the watches?’
Vladimir smiled. ‘My mother gave me a watch when I was only ten, but I kept it and I looked after it, just like I promised her.’
‘What about the others?’
‘What others?’
‘The other watches.’
‘You only need one watch in life, if it’s a good one and if you look after it. That’s what my grandfather said.’
There was a knock on the door. The house attendant stood outside carrying a tray with two sandwiches and a plate of fruit salad, together with a bottle of water. Sheremetev took the tray from him and closed the door.
He looked at the sandwiches. One was smoked salmon and dill, the other ham and mustard.
‘Are you hungry, Vladimir Vladimirovich?’
Vladimir shook his head.
Sheremetev tucked a napkin under Vladimir’s chin, put the plate of sandwiches on a table next to his armchair, and brought over a chair to sit beside him. He picked up half of the ham sandwich and put it to Vladimir’s lips.
‘Come on, Vladimir Vladimirovich. This is good. Eat.’
Vladimir’s lips parted and mechanically he took a bite.
Sheremetev waited until Vladimir swallowed, then put the sandwich to Vladimir’s mouth again. He was conscious of feeling a kind of unreal detachment as he watched Vladimir eat – not empathy, but not antagonism, either. Almost a kind of numbness.
Again, he wondered, how could he stay in this place – but how could he leave? He had begun to think that he hated this man, and yet he couldn’t bear the thought of the confused, fearful look that Vladimir got in his eyes and the trauma he would inflict on him by leaving.
Vladimir ate only half a sandwich. Eventually, Sheremetev took the food to his room and finished the other pieces himself. Then he took the tray downstairs. The atmosphere in the house was tense. The guard in the hall watched him come down without a word. Three more security guards sat in the staff dining room having a conversation in low voices. They stopped as soon as Sheremetev came in.
‘How’s Artyusha?’ he asked.
The guards glanced at each other.
‘Alive,’ growled Lyosha, Artur’s shaven-headed deputy.
‘Is he going to be alright?’
Lyosha looked at Sheremetev suspiciously and then shrugged.
Sheremetev found Stepanin brooding in the staff sitting room, smoking and nervously tapping the ash of his cigarette into a saucer.
‘What’s going on, Vitya?’ asked Sheremetev.
‘You heard about Artyusha?’
Sheremetev nodded.
‘What fuckery!’ Stepanin drew deeply on his cigarette and the smoke billowed from his nose. ‘I got a note today from Barkovskaya saying she has suppliers for everything, and I should tell my guys to stay away. All of them! She’s gone mad, Kolya. Shooting Artyusha? What the fuck is that about?’
Sheremetev refrained from pointing out that it was Stepanin himself who had described this as a war and had remarked sanguinely that in a war, people get hurt.
‘Does she know who he is? Does she know what’s going to happen now? What a piece of fucking fucked-up fuckery! Fuckery with a cock on top! This is going to be bad, Kolya. I’m telling you, this is going to be bad.’
Stepanin took a final drag on his cigarette, then ground out the butt on the saucer, pushing down hard with a snarl on his face.
‘Vitya,’ said Sheremetev, ‘it’s enough, don’t you think?’
‘What’s enough?’ retorted the cook.
‘With Barkovskaya.’
‘Enough? It’s enough, alright! This is it, Kolya. She wants everything. The whole lot! What am I going to do? Walk away?’
‘Maybe you should.’ It occurred to Sheremetev that there was no alternative for Stepanin now, and at least if he walked away, no one would get killed.
‘Sure, and let her win, huh? Is that what you want? I’ve only got half of what I need, Kolya. What am I going to do? Open half a restaurant? Serve my diners half a dish?’
Sheremetev thought of the watches. In that one cabinet upstairs was enough to satisfy everyone. Enough to get Pasha out, enough for Stepanin to have his restaurant, and enough, surely, even for Barkovskaya.
‘What is it?’ growled Stepanin. ‘I’m not walking away, so don’t say that again. Have you got any other ideas?’
Sheremetev shook his head.
The cook poured himself a vodka and threw it down.
‘Vitya, what are you going to do?’
‘It’s me or her, Kolya. Isn’t that clear? It’s not my fault. I didn’t start this thing. Everything was fine until she arrived. This is it, Kolya! The finish, the finale, the end game.’
‘Vitya, don’t do anything rash.’
Stepanin laughed, almost choking on his hatred.
It seemed to Sheremetev that the cook was like a hog on a spit, roasting and blackening in his own caustic juices. Sadly, he remembered the jovial, garrulous cook of days gone by. He stayed for another couple of minutes, then got up, leaving Stepanin throwing down another drink.
Upstairs, Vladimir was sniffing suspiciously and muttering dark imprecations about the Chechen.
‘There’s no Chechen,’ said Sheremetev, trying to get him into his pyjamas. ‘There’s only me, Sheremetev.’
Vladimir looked probingly at the short, balding man who was standing in front of him with a pyjama top in his hands. Suddenly the Chechen’s head poked out from behind him – then it was gone.
‘Vladimir Vladimirovich, let’s get your shirt off.’
There! He saw it again for an instant before it disappeared, the huge slimy black slug of a tongue lolling from the mouth, the lips stretched in a teeth-baring grin.
Vladimir let Sheremetev unbutton his shirt, glancing surreptitiously around the room, trying to spot the Chechen while he was off his guard. He put one arm after the other through the sleeves.
‘Now the trousers.’
Again! There it was! Vladimir snapped into a judo pose and launched his attack. Tai Otoshi!
The blow swept Sheremetev off his feet and sent him sprawling on his back. ‘Vladimir Vladimirovich!’ he cried.
Vladimir looked down at him in confusion. What was that man doing on the floor? But he couldn’t afford to be distracted. He peered carefully around the room. The Chechen was so cunning and so quick. He’d do anything to get his death tongue onto his face.
Sheremetev hauled himself up and hurried off to get Vladimir’s tablets. If he got them into him quickly enough, he thought, he might be able to avoid using an injection. He caught sight of himself in a mirror – the laceration on his cheek, which had been healing well, was bleeding. He took a closer look. The scar had opened between a couple of the sutures when Vladimir had thrown him. Sheremetev pressed on the cut to staunch the blood, remembering what Dr Rospov had said about making sure the wound stayed closed to prevent it scarring. Eventually he went back and warily handed Vladimir a glass of water, then his pills, standing as far back from him as he could.
‘Take them please, Vladimir Vladimirovich. They’re good for you.’
Vladimir swallowed a couple.
‘Also the others… Good.’ After what he had just seen, Sheremetev had added an extra sedative.
He took Vladimir to the bathroom. Vladimir looked suspiciously around the room as he led him back to bed and helped him in. He left Vladimir staring up, as he always did, and prayed that the sedatives would soon kick in and do their job.
Sheremetev didn’t go back downstairs that night. The atmosphere in the dacha was poisonous. He had a pain at the base of his spine, where he had landed after Vladimir’s judo attack, and his cheek was throbbing where the scar had been opened.