Lime's Photograph (42 page)

We drove at speed, but not irresponsibly, into the city. The road was uneven, making the car vibrate. We drove past the memorial shaped like one of the twisted spikes used to derail tanks. I remembered having seen it before, but the modern, well-lit service station with a McDonald’s attached was new, and all the old hoardings depicting the over-achieving socialist worker had been replaced with adverts for Sony and IBM. The traffic was heavy, but moved steadily until we got near the centre where we slowed to a snail’s pace. The street we were on had once been called Gorky, but I could decipher enough of the
sign to see that it had been renamed. The old Socialist countries had replaced everything from attitudes to street signs with such ease that you feared they might swap back again in the same casual manner. The pavements were packed with pedestrians, their breath like white fog. There were Christmas decorations and imitation fir trees in illuminated shops that hadn’t been there before, but still looked insignificant among the massive buildings. It was both Western and yet still Soviet in its solidity. There were piles of snow along the kerbs, but the traffic lanes had been cleared. A smattering of snowflakes swirled in the headlights. Then the edge of the Kremlin appeared ahead, bathed in light, brooding and elegant at the same time. We pulled up in front of the Hotel Intourist, where I had stayed twice before, on the two occasions I had been in Moscow at the beginning of the 1980s. It’s a large, solid, concrete skyscraper on the edge of Revolution Square. In the past there had been traffic crossing back and forth, but now the Square looked like a park with people out for a stroll.

“It’s a shopping centre, Mr Lime. Eight floors underground,” said the young man, in English with a heavy accent. “My name is Igor.”

“Hello Igor,” I said.

I noticed that an archway had been erected leading in to Red Square.

“Yes, Mr Lime. The old Kremlin Gate has been rebuilt. Stalin pulled it down to make way for his tanks during military parades. Stalin has been buried, the archway has been rebuilt and the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour is back in place. A lot has happened in Moscow since your last visit.”

“I can see that,” I answered.

We got out of the car and entered the lobby. Nothing much had changed. It was teeming with people. A group of tourists were waiting to be checked in. Two of the women behind the desk were having what
was obviously an important private conversation, a third woman was listening, while a fourth was trying to sort out the paperwork for a large group of French people who were waiting for the keys to their rooms. It looked like an operation that could take all evening.

“Your documents, please,” said Igor, and I gave him my passport and visa. He went over to the reception desk and spoke to the two chattering women. They ignored him. He said something else in a sharper tone of voice and they immediately broke off their conversation and one of them took my documents and gave him a security key with an apologetic smile.

We took the lift to the 19th floor and walked down a long corridor. Igor knocked on a door, stepped aside and ushered me in. We entered a large living room with a desk and an oval table. I could see a double bed in the adjoining room. It was an attractive suite, and it looked as though it had been renovated, but it was still decorated in red and brown, which seemed to have been the preferred colour scheme of the Soviet Union. There was a minibar and a television and a notice saying that satellite telephone was available. And Sergej Sjuganov.

He was wearing his immaculate suit. We shook hands.

“Welcome to Moscow, Mr Lime. Have a drink and let’s get down to work. You are undoubtedly just as busy as I am,” he said.

“Without doubt,” I said, and went to get one of the miniature bottles of whisky from the minibar, but Sjuganov shook his head and picked up a bottle of Russian vodka, poured some into a schnapps glass and raised his own.

“To a well-executed operation,” he said, emptying his glass, and I did the same. It had a good, biting and very Russian taste of grain and alcohol.

“We’ve got a job to do,” said Sergej Sjuganov. “Please, come and look!”

Igor, who must also have been Sjuganov’s bodyguard, had taken his
place in a chair by the door. Sjuganov was standing next to the oval table in the middle of the spacious room. Some photos and a map of Moscow and its outskirts were lying on the table.

The photographs showed Oscar and a woman I recognised as Lola, although she had dyed her hair black. There were pictures of Oscar on his own, of Lola on her own and of the two of them together. I could see from the grainy prints that they had been taken with a telephoto lens, some with a 1,000 mm lens, others with a 400 mm. They were at some kind of market where stout women wearing headscarves and shapeless coats were selling vegetables and what looked like pickled cucumbers. There was also a series of photos showing the two of them in front of a large red house in a birch wood, the snow lying thick on the branches and the ground. What looked like surveillance cameras were attached to a wall that seemed to encircle the building, and in one of the pictures I recognised the big Irishman with the cosh from the house in San Sebastián. Oscar and Lola looked as though they were having an argument and the Irishman was watching them, with his coat open revealing the edge of a shoulder holster. Lola looked just as she had on the television pictures I had seen in Copenhagen, but Oscar looked haggard and angry.

Sjuganov let me study the photographs. I don’t know what I felt. I had engaged him to find Oscar, and he had. Now what should I do? I wasn’t surprised that Lola was there, and this didn’t make any difference, but what was my next move to be? I had just arrived in Moscow. I guessed that Oscar had taken refuge in Moscow because Lola was here and he thought he would be safe until it had all blown over. It was a country where money could buy both influence and security.

“Are you ready to hear what we know?” asked Sjuganov in his strange upper-class English.

“Yes,” I said simply.

“OK, Mr Lime. The target is living in a newly built villa outside
Moscow, in an old dacha district. A dacha, if you don’t know, is a Russian holiday cottage, but today it can also mean a large brick villa, built outside the city by very rich people. The Party elite used to stay in that area, but now it has been privatised and developed by – how can I put it – enterprising people who want peace and quiet and maximum security. Do you follow?”

“I do,” I said, and he continued in the same neutral tone of voice.

“The target has problems. Over the last two days the target has tried to cash a cheque, draw money by Visa, Eurocard and American Express, but the cards have been stopped. The target has become furious each time. However, the target does have some cash and he uses it. The target goes out now and then, but mostly stays in the villa. The target drinks too much and argues a lot with the woman. They sleep together, even though they each have their own bedroom in the villa. At least we think so.”

“Do you know who the woman is?” I asked.

Sjuganov put the photographs aside.

“Checking her identity was not part of the assignment, but we know what she is in Moscow at the moment,” he said.

“And that is?”

“She’s rich. It’s her house. She has connections in the Ministry of Culture and I know whom she bought it from. In record time, she has been certified as an art dealer. She is authorised to buy and sell Russian works of art and to export them, including works that are more than 50 years old. This licence has been expensive for her, but she will quickly capitalise on it. My country is selling off its assets, one way and another. One can deplore it, or help oneself to a slice of the cake. This is just a statement of fact. Once, Lenin talked in this city. Now money talks. Each, in their time, have held the keys to power, and if you have access to them, you can do pretty well what you like.”

“What does she call herself these days?” I asked.

“Svetlana Petrovna. She’s good. She’s already been admitted to circles close to the President, thus she is regarded as being untouchable. I have the impression that she is a woman who could sell sand in the Sahara.”

“Or snow in Moscow,” I answered.

I looked at the photograph of the black-haired, but still beautiful Lola, and the scornful way she looked at Oscar, as they stood in the snow outside the villa. Gloria’s tentacles had already reached far. It seemed that Oscar was now financially dependent on good Lola, and their curious relationship had undoubtedly never encountered this before. It wouldn’t be long before Oscar would have to borrow pocket money from her. Oscar hated playing second fiddle.

“It looks like a very new house, Mr Sjuganov. Did she have it built?”

“All of that kind around Moscow are new, Mr Lime,” said Sjuganov, looking at the photograph. “It was built by a director of one of the first private banks. Apparently he had connections with the Mafia, but his business partners became dissatisfied. He was shot outside his bank. The villa was taken over by a boy of 22 who moved in with his two wives and 14 bodyguards. He had the swimming pool built. The boy was one of the most popular producers and studio hosts on the new private television channel, but his two wives disagreed about which of them he loved the most, so they killed him. Got him drunk and high on cocaine and drowned him in his own pool.”

“What a house,” I said.

“It’s Russia,” said Sjuganov, and continued.

“The owner before Madame Petrovna was a well-known Mafioso who controlled the vegetable markets in Moscow. He had problems with his business partners too. One day he vanished. Madame Petrovna bought the house through a front man I know. She got it cheap and other prospective bidders were given the hint that they should stay away.”

“Who was the front man?”

Sjuganov looked at me. I couldn’t read anything in his strangely dead eyes. He poured himself another vodka and one for me.

“I am not obliged to give you that information, but Derek’s a friend from earlier days, from before my business grew, so I’m willing to give you a bit of leeway. The front man was a colleague from the KGB era, Victor Ljubimov. Considering Madame Petrovna’s past history in a sister organisation, I think he was merely repaying an old debt. There is a certain honour between comrades. In some matters money takes a back seat.”

“But this won’t compromise your loyalty to me?” I said.

“You are my client and I have nothing to do with the woman. She is not part of my assignment or of my current or earlier life.”

“OK, Sjuganov. Then where do I find the happy couple?”

Sjuganov permitted himself a little smile and spread the map out on the table. He showed me the Hotel Intourist, on the edge of Red Square, and led me with his finger westwards out of the city, along a wide boulevard called Kutusovsky, and then to the right into what looked like a big forest and an area with lakes and little side roads leading up to a narrow highway. The map showed a multitude of small villages. Sjuganov explained that during the Soviet era it had been a prohibited area, but now it had been opened up and the families with new money were building houses out there on a grand scale. The thought that Oscar was in one of those houses, not quite 40 kilometres from the city centre, made my heart beat faster.

“OK,” I said. “Let’s drive out there tomorrow.”

Sjuganov folded the map and cleared his throat. His bodyguard was still sitting calmly by the door with his hands on his knees, alert and relaxed at the same time.

“The choice is yours, Mr Lime. But the target has protection. There are two Irishmen, possibly ex-IRA, staying at the villa. Lola has
two bodyguards who live in the old wooden dacha in the grounds. There are surveillance cameras, so access is tricky. May I ask how you propose getting in?”

“I intend to ring the door bell,” I said.

He hadn’t been expecting that, and looked taken aback. He straightened his perfectly straight tie.

“I would advise against that,” he said. “I have an alternative suggestion.”

Sjuganov produced some more colour photographs. They had also been taken with a long telephoto lens, but you could see Oscar and Lola quite clearly. They were walking in the snow in what looked like a birch forest. It was a very Russian, attractive scene, like a picturesque postcard, with the sun sparkling in the trees and on the deep, white snow. In one of the photographs they looked like they seemed to be having another furious argument, in another one they were walking side by side. Oscar looked rather strange, in a long, thick coat with a brown fur cap pulled down over his ears. Lola was elegantly dressed in a full-length fur coat and a fur cap covering her dyed black hair. Oscar was carrying something that looked like a golf club. Possibly a long 5-iron.

“Does he think he can play golf in the snow?” I said.

Sjuganov laughed.

“He takes it everywhere. Golf hasn’t yet arrived along with the market economy. The season is too short here in Russia. I think it’s a lucky charm or perhaps he has it for protection. Look at this.”

He placed a new photograph in front of me. The air in the suite was hot and dry and I began to sweat. It was the big Irishman. He was walking a few metres behind the couple, his hands deep in the pockets of his black leather coat. He was wearing a knitted hat. He looked freezing cold and bored.

“The target seldom goes out alone. So I have to ask you again, Mr Lime. What do you want me to do? What are you going to do? My
assignment is finished. I have located the target for you.”

“Does he go for a walk every day?” I asked.

“He usually goes for a walk in the morning. We haven’t had him under surveillance for long enough to be able to establish a fixed routine, but that seems to be the case. He stayed indoors on the day of the snowstorm.”

“What’s the weather forecast for tomorrow?” I asked.

“Fine. Frost and sun, snow later in the afternoon. A winter day of the kind we Russians prefer. A good day to go for a walk in the forest,” said Sjuganov, and looked at me as if to say that the ball was in my court and either we concluded our business now or I should start things moving.