Malcolm looked around. He had, indeed, landed in some sort of pantry. There were hams and dried fish hanging from hooks. The shelves were filled with baskets of fruit ready for jam-making.
Malcolm inched himself off the empty jam jars, trying to make as little noise as possible. There was a knot hole in the pantry door, through which Malcolm peered into a large old-fashioned kitchen. There seemed to be no one around, although a large pan of fruit and sugar was bubbling on the stove. So Malcolm opened the door of the pantry and slipped quickly across the kitchen. He could feel his heart pounding, as he peered through the open kitchen door into a sort of hallway.
He could hear raised voices coming from one of the rooms. Somebody was having an argument, and suddenly the stupidity of what he was doing hit him.
A strong urge to run back to the pantry and hide seized him. What did he think he was doing? He didn’t even have a plan! But running back to the pantry wouldn’t solve anything.
There was what looked like a cupboard under the stairs. That would give him a few moments to think. He dashed across to it and squeezed in, closing the door quietly after him. The voices were louder and sounded angrier from here. They seemed to be coming from the room across the hall.
He tried to calm himself down. OK. Think. Think calmly.
He was in the middle of some Russian gangster’s house, whom he’d vowed to kill. How? He’d strangle him with his bare hands. How do you strangle someone? Wasn’t there some special trick to it? He’d never even thought about strangling anyone, apart from one or two of the historians who got their work published in History Now!
Calm down! Think. Maybe forget about the killing bit. Maybe he’d just come here to reason with the man, but how could you reason with someone who’d shot most of your neighbours and blown up your house, just because you’d objected to their planning application?
Then the silliness of it all hit him. The man he had to deal with was clearly insane.
“I can deal with that!” said Malcolm to himself, and suddenly he became master of the situation.
He opened the cupboard door and strode into the room where the voices were coming from.
“Good morning,” Malcolm said, in Russian.
A man and a woman were standing by the window, clearly in the middle of a row. The woman was holding a bunch of flowers.
“Who is it?” she was saying, as Malcolm walked in.
“I tell you I don’t know!” the man replied.
The couple turned and stared at him in surprise.
“My name is Malcolm Thomas. I am the chairman of the Highgrove Park Residents’ Association. Am I addressing Mr Grigori Koslov?” he asked in his politest Russian.
“What the fuck?!” exclaimed Grigori, in less polite Russian.
“Get lost!” snapped the woman.
“It’s you?!” said the gangster.
Then something happened that Malcolm had not expected. The gangster sprang across the room and seized him by the throat.
Malcolm tumbled back onto the carpet, and the gangster was still on top of him with his fingers round his windpipe.
So that’s the knack of strangling people, Malcolm found himself thinking, but Grigori was shouting at him in Russian. What was he saying?
“Where is he? You bastard! Where is he?” That’s what the gangster was yelling.
“Who?” Malcolm wanted to say, but he couldn’t because of the pressure on his throat.
Suddenly Malcolm found himself flailing out. He was punching Koslov in the face, and then he had his hands round his head, and his thumbs were digging into his eyes, just as he’d found himself doing with Anton.
Grigori tried to get his face away from Malcolm’s fingers. Eventually he had to let go of his windpipe so that he could grab his hands to stop Malcolm poking his eyes out.
He flattened Malcolm’s arms onto the floor and held them there, panting for breath.
“Who is this?” asked the woman.
“This is the bastard who’s got Anton!” replied Grigori. Then he shouted at Malcolm again. “Where is he? If you’ve harmed one hair of his head you’ll be sorry!”
“He’s fine!” Malcolm could only croak his reply. His windpipe was still sore.
“I’ll kill you!” screamed the gangster. “I’ll kill you if you’ve done him any harm!”
And suddenly he was holding a gun. “I’m going to kill you anyway! But first tell me where Anton is!”
Malcolm wanted to point out the lack of logic in this demand but, in the stress of the moment, he couldn’t think of the right words in Russian.
“Ahh! I’ll find out anyway!” said Grigori. “Goodbye, Mr Malcolm Thomas! I’m sorry we didn’t get to know each other!”
“Why?” screamed Malcolm. “Why are you doing this? All over a planning application!”
“I know you work for Zolkin!” said Grigori. “I know he is planning to muscle in on my UK operation. Well, he’ll learn the hard way!” And the gangster stuck the pistol into Malcolm’s mouth.
“What are you talking about?” cried Malcolm, as clearly as he could with a .44 magnum in his mouth.
“You work for Boris Zolkin! Don’t deny it!”
“I’ve never heard of him!”
“Don’t lie to me!” For a moment Grigori took the gun out of Malcolm’s mouth, allowing him to say, “I represent the residents of Highgrove Park. We’re simply objecting to your plans to build a monstrous house in our road and block the view of the Heath! That’s all!”
Grigori stopped in his tracks. For just the slightest fraction of a second he found himself believing what this man was telling him, but it was impossible! Of course Zolkin was behind it all! Probably that creep Ivan Morozov as well! He might as well shoot the bastard at once.
He jammed the gun back into Malcolm’s mouth.
When he heard the shot, the guard was drinking his thirteenth cup of tea of the day. He leapt so fast out of his seat that he spilt the drink over the table and stained his trousers.
He ran as fast as he could towards the house. The other two guards were doing the same. They all arrived in the living room at the same time.
A complete stranger was lying stretched out on the floor. His face and shoulders were a bloody mess. Sitting astride him was their boss, Grigori Koslov. His wife was standing by the open window. A curtain flapped in the breeze coming in from the garden. In the distance one of the American pit bulls was barking.
The clock on the wall ticked loudly and, it seemed, with deliberate slowness. In the centre of the dial was written “Bristol Temple Meads”. Eva Petrova Koslova had bought the clock as a birthday present for her husband last year. She knew he loved anything English – even though he didn’t speak the language.
At this moment, Grigori slowly toppled forward onto the stranger, who pulled himself from under him at the same time. Grigori fell with a crash onto the hard floor.
The guards turned to stare at Eva. In her hand was the gun with which she had just shot her husband’s brains out. They had landed all over the stranger.
“He didn’t love me!” she said. “He only loved that oaf! That idiot! Anton Molotov!”
The guards looked at each other. It had never been their policy to interfere in a domestic argument.
Chapter Eighteen
So that’s really the end of the story.
Eva Petrova Koslova seemed to take a shine to Malcolm, possibly because he’d kidnapped Anton. She made him promise to keep Anton in England. That was no problem because Anton had fallen in love with Malcolm’s sister, Glenys, and Glenys seemed to be happy, too. Anton and Glenys went on to have two children, one of whom became a concert pianist.