Happy Days (16 page)

Half an hour later, after a fast run down a valley back towards the coast, the road climbed again, and around the shoulder of the next mountain Winter found himself looking down at Budva. In the literature he’d consulted on the plane this was the go-go engine at the heart of Montenegro’s economic revival, and looking down at the sprawl of hotels he could well believe it. The town filled the bowl of a broad valley, suburbs spilling up the foothills of the mountains behind, and wherever you looked the view was spiked by cranes. A grey-looking beach marked the long curve of the bay, and the promontory on the far side had morphed into a gigantic construction site.

According to Bazza, this stretch of coast had become a magnet for Russian money, most of it dodgy, and already Winter had lost count of the bulky new-looking 4 × 4s that permanently hogged the outside lane. Budva chic obviously called for wrap-round shades to go with the darkened windows, and it was rare to spot a driver who didn’t look like he spent most of his life in the gym. Already Winter sensed these were serious people. They took no prisoners at traffic intersections. They liked to ride with sensational-looking women. They didn’t smile much.

The Hotel Neptun was tucked into a compound behind the
beach. Winter paid the driver and made his way to reception. The girl took a cursory look at his passport and told him that payment for the room had been taken care of. When he asked whether anyone had left a message she reached under the counter and gave him an envelope. The scribbled note inside was from Arkady. He apologised for not being around in person, but just now his schedule was impossible. A car would be calling for Winter at half past seven, and Nikki was looking forward to meeting him in Kotor. In the meantime he might like to take a look at Budva’s wonderful waterfront. The letter ended with a big fat exclamation mark:
Enjoy!

Winter wondered whether Kokh’s lieutenant, who had a well-developed sense of humour, was being ironic. He was. After dumping his bag in the room, Winter left the hotel and made his way towards the sea. The shadows were beginning to lengthen beneath the scrawny palm trees but there was still warmth in the air. Fat women lay sprawled on the beach among pockets of litter and driftwood, enjoying the last of the sunshine, while a lone drinker at an otherwise empty café sat staring out to sea.

Winter paused for a moment, trying to picture the scene at the height of the summer. Even then, swamped with tourists, it wouldn’t have been pretty. Everything seemed abandoned or half finished. A beachside amusement park had succumbed to fly-tippers. Peasant women squatted in the shadows guarding piles of bulky knitware which might – or might not – have been for sale. Even the tribes of feral cats, foraging listlessly for scraps, seemed to have lost the plot.

Strolling on, Winter began to wonder whether this was what happened when you threw a lot of money at a pretty coastline and didn’t bother too much about the consequences. He was closer to the development across the bay now, and from this perspective it was even bigger than it had seemed from the cab. Maybe this was the answer, he thought. Maybe the serious investors ring-fenced the best sites, turned their backs on all
the other rubbish and created a little fantasy world of their own. That way you’d be selling exclusivity, privileged access, round-the-clock security, plus a bunch of like-minded punters who wouldn’t get in your face.

He walked back to the main road and hailed a cab. Yet another Mercedes. The phrase Kubla Khan drew a nod from the driver. They rode out past the big development and into the next bay.

Winter leaned forward. ‘This is Bicici?’

‘
Da
.’

Bicici, on first impressions, was Budva without the charm. The speed of development was no less intense but there were still large tracts of land – overgrown, litter-strewn – advertised for sale. In the middle of the bay the cabby slowed and indicated a sizeable white complex with a nod of his head.

‘Kubla Khan,’ he muttered.

Winter got out and paid. A huge roadside hoarding advertised the benefits of making a down payment on one of the beachside apartments attached to the hotel. A sleek, bronzed twenty-something in a red bikini was mugging for the camera beside an enormous pool. Her mates, equally gorgeous, were tastefully arranged in the background. A waiter with a tray was lurking on the edge of the shot. This could have been a scene from any of a hundred resort destinations. On offer was limitless sunshine, world-class cossetting, and – if you were lucky enough to score – quality sex. In essence, thought Winter, these guys were selling everybody’s wet dream.
Why Wait?
went the strapline.

Why wait, indeed. At the bottom of the hoarding was an email address and the name of the developers. Melorcorp was the vehicle Nikki Kokh used in Montenegro. Winter walked down towards the beach along the flank of the site. The skin and bones of the complex were in place, but glaziers were still fitting windows on the seaward side and an enormous lorry was offloading what looked like interior panels.

As far as Winter could judge, the bulk of the development consisted of an artfully cantilevered building which served as the hotel, while a matching block beside it housed the apartments. On closer inspection, some of the units on the upper floors seemed not only complete but occupied. Shading his eyes against the low slant of sunshine, Winter could see Venetian blinds at some of the windows, pot plants on balconies, even a beach towel draped over a smoked-glass retaining screen.

Winter stepped back, wondering how the sums stacked up. He had no way of telling whether this construction site would deliver all the promotional boasts he’d checked out on the Internet, but he liked what he saw and assumed it would play well with the clientele Nikki Kokh had in mind. Given full occupancy at the hotel plus speedy take-up on the apartments, Melorcorp might be looking at a nice little earner. Maybe he should be pitching for more than
£
1.5 million tonight. Maybe he could squeeze a little more from Bazza’s favourite Russian.

Back at the hotel he treated himself to a bath and a kip. When he awoke, the room was in semi-darkness. He fumbled for his watch. Five past seven. He had a shave and stepped back into his suit. By the time he got to the lobby, his transport to Kotor was already parked outside, a big Audi 4 × 4, regulation black. Expecting Arkady, Winter bent to the front window. Only one of the two guys spoke English. Both had the look of bodyguards, presumably part of Kokh’s entourage. They wore designer jeans and white T-shirts. Heavily muscled, they had the blank-faced fuck-off arrogance that goes with decent wages and a place in the fast lane. These guys owned the world. Neither had much interest in conversation.

They sped through the town, heading north towards Kotor. Bruce Springsteen played softly on the music system. From time to time Winter caught a murmur of conversation and once, with a glance in the rear-view mirror, a low chuckle. On the road north, along the valley, Winter glimpsed more construction sites, fenced-off enclosures stacked with sewer pipes and huge
piles of aggregate. The whole of Montenegro, it seemed, was on the rise. Then came a tunnel Winter remembered from the earlier trip and suddenly they were back in Kotor. The dockside cruise ship was bathed in light. Flocks of elderly tourists were waiting for gaps in the traffic before they wandered into town.

The Audi slowed and then slipped into a side road that led to the marina. Kokh’s motor yacht was one of the biggest, a sleek confection in gleaming white.

A boarding ramp offered access to the fantail from the dockside, and Winter made his way aboard, stopping briefly to gaze down at the name emblazoned on the stern.
Starburst
. Gibraltar.

Nikki Kokh was waiting for him, a small slight figure in jeans and a rumpled denim shirt. He wore his hair long, tied in a ponytail, and the wire-rimmed glasses gave him the look of a student. Bazza had already mentioned Kokh’s taste in clothes, the way he liked to present himself, and only yesterday he’d warned Winter not to jump to conclusions. The guy dresses like a hippie, he said. But don’t be fooled for a moment.

Kokh extended a hand, the lightest touch, barely a handshake at all.

‘Welcome,’ he said. ‘You’ve come a long way.’

They moved into the saloon. If wealth has a smell, thought Winter, it was surely this: new leather, wax polish and the faintest hint of perfume in the air. The lighting was soft after the harshness of the marina neon outside. An extremely pretty girl stepped out of the shadows and asked what Winter would like to drink. Like Kokh, her English was flawless. Winter opted for a lager.

‘Not champagne?’ Kokh was smiling. ‘We have Krug.’

Champagne, to Winter, suggested some kind of celebration. Under the circumstances it seemed churlish to say no.

Kokh led him to a huge crescent of sofa. Like everything else on board, the white leather looked showroom-new. The girl, who said her name was Olenka, popped the bottle of Krug and
poured two glasses. Kokh, it turned out, was drinking fruit juice. He raised his glass.

‘Kubla Khan,’ he murmured.

‘Happy days.’

‘You went to Bicici this afternoon? Had a look round?’

‘Of course.’

‘And you like what you see?’

‘Very much.’

‘Good. Very good.’ He glanced across at the girl and said something in Russian. She nodded, checked her watch and slipped out through a glass door at the far end of the saloon. Kokh turned back to Winter. It was best, he said, if they talked business first. Afterwards they could enjoy a meal together. Olenka was a fine cook. She’d given the resident chef the night off and insisted on preparing the meal herself. Kokh hoped Winter liked wild boar.

Winter, who’d never tasted wild boar in his life, said he loved it. But where was his friend Arkady?

‘Arkady has a date in Podgorica. He’s sorry not to be here.’

‘Is he back tomorrow?’

‘I think yes.’

‘At the hotel?’

‘At the Georgi, yes. You must get together. He talks about you often.’

Winter smiled and said nothing. Towards the end of their evening in Pompey Arkady had confided that Montenegran women were extremely hot. Maybe that’s what had taken him away for the evening.

Kokh fetched the bottle from the ice bucket and topped up Winter’s glass. Then he settled on the sofa again. He said they needed to be frank with one another. The project was coming along fine at last, and they were nearly back on schedule, but the last nine months had been a nightmare.

‘How come?’

‘For people like us life here can be complicated. You know what I mean?’

‘No.’

‘The Montenegrans, they love money. They’ll sell you anything. Land. Water. Drugs. Women. Anything. And when there’s nothing left to sell, they sell you yourself.’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘They make things hard for you. They give you big problems. And then one day they come along to your office and they knock on the door and they’re very polite and they tell you they can make all the problems go away. For money, of course.’

‘You’re telling me you pay protection?’

‘Of course. They call it business. These are mountain people, my friend. Life is tough in the mountains. They don’t like strangers. The only stranger they find room for is the stranger with money. And if he doesn’t share his money they chase him away.’

‘We’re talking serious money?’

‘Enough. More than enough.’

‘And this came as some kind of surprise?’

‘Of course not.’

‘So why invest in the first place?’

‘Because we can make the sums work. Because we’re good at what we do. Because this is a beautiful place and we believe in the project. But everything in life is relative, my friend, and these are greedy people.’

‘So what are you telling me?’ Winter knew exactly what was coming.

‘I’m telling you that the project has been in trouble. And I’m telling you that there may be more trouble to come.’ Kokh put his glass to one side. He had delicate hands, perfectly buffed nails, and he used them to develop and shape the case he was trying to make. ‘There are two kinds of Montenegrans. The ones in the government, the ones who run the country, the ones
with the rubber stamps, they make it very tough for you to do anything and they rob you blind in the process. The other sort don’t bother with the paperwork. You either pay what they demand or your life becomes very difficult.’

‘How?’

‘They cause trouble at the construction site, they intimidate your workers, they take your chief engineer for a ride one night and scare the shit out of him. Next morning you wake up and he’s gone. This is a cowboy town, my friend. On a bad day it reminds me of Chechnya. On a very bad day it can be worse.’

Earlier, back at the hotel, Winter had prepared a little speech about his own boss’s problems. How much damage the credit crunch had done Bazza. How most of the business sector was suffering. How the time had come to turn one or two investments back into cash. Not because the original decisions had been wrong or the prospects going forward looked dodgy, but because they had no choice.

‘You want to leave the project?’ Kokh was watching him carefully.

‘I’m afraid we have to.’

‘You mean liquidate the entire holding?’

‘Yes.’

‘And do you have a buyer?’

‘No. That’s why I’m here.’

Kokh looked briefly pained, as if this news had come as some kind of shock.

‘You want
us
to buy back your stake? The full 10 per cent?’

‘Yes.’

‘And do you have a price in mind?’

‘Of course.’

‘How much?’

Mackenzie had told him to start at two and a half million. Winter doubled it.

‘Five million?’ Kokh was laughing. ‘Is this some kind of joke?’

‘Not at all. We think the project’s fabulous. We know you’re selling apartments already. The design, the setting, the promotional stuff, it’s all spot on. Five million is a compliment. Five mil means you guys have done brilliantly. I’m surprised the locals are such a pain in the arse, but I’m sure you can see them off.’ Winter shrugged. ‘This kind of bollocks you’ll find everywhere. It’s what happens when you do business in the Third World.’