The Keeper of Secrets (21 page)

Chapter 38

Cornwall

Summer 2002

Y
uri Slatkin was just finishing his lunch dishes when his doorbell rang. It was a glorious summer’s day and he’d decided to go for a walk. His farm was about half an hour’s walk from the village of Boscastle on the north Cornish coast. Perched up on the cliffs, with a stunning view out to sea, he farmed the land, owned by the National Trust, in much the same way that generations of Englishmen had for a thousand years. It was a good life, quiet and simple and hidden from view. If he chose, he could drop into the Cobweb Inn for a pint of ale and a cheese-and-onion pasty with chips; otherwise he was happy with his own company and the radio.

For ten years he’d made this little corner of England his home, ever since that day when he’d boarded an Aeroflot jet at Sheremetyevo International Airport bound for Heathrow, and never once had he regretted the decision. It wasn’t his first trip to the United Kingdom; in fact he’d spent the whole of the 1960s in London attached to the Russian Embassy. He was a captain in the army and his responsibility had been security, but unofficially he’d aided the KGB officers when they had less-than-pleasant tasks to do and had gained a reputation as something of a “fix it” man. Consequently he didn’t sleep as well as he might’ve wished. When the nightmares plagued him, he liked to sit up and watch the moonlight reflected on the Atlantic Ocean. After years of State-reinforced atheism, he’d decided to read the Bible and been so fascinated by the concepts inside, he’d availed himself of repentance and forgiveness, just to be on the safe side.

He opened the door to an average-looking man in a suit, slightly on the short side, not heavy but not thin, anywhere from thirty-five to fifty, wearing sunglasses and carrying a briefcase.

“Yuri Slatkin?” he asked in Russian.

Yuri paused.

“Captain Yuri Slatkin?” the man repeated.

“Yes. What do you want?” It felt strange to be speaking Russian after all these years.

“To talk to you. It won’t take long.”

“I’m on my way to the village. Could you come back later?”

“Five minutes and I’ll be out of your way.”

Reluctantly Yuri stood aside and let the man in.

“Thank you.”

The man sat down at his kitchen table and glanced at the kettle.

“Would you like a cup of tea, sir?” Yuri was careful not to let the irritation show in his voice. He could be a Party man, wouldn’t be a good idea to upset him.

“Thank you.”

“Have you come from Russia?”

“I travel, wherever my services are required.”

Something in his voice made Yuri look at him; the man was taking off his sunglasses and putting them in his jacket pocket. His movements were very precise, clinical, and they made Yuri nervous.

“What would you like to talk to me about?”

“I have some questions to ask you, for a book.”

Yuri put the teacups on the table and sat down opposite him.

“A book? On what?”

“Thank you. The Russian Embassy.”

Yuri relaxed and took a sip of tea.

“I worked there, you know, when it was the Soviet Embassy, keeping the staff safe.”

The man put his briefcase on the table and opened it. The lid was toward Yuri so he couldn’t see what the man was doing.

“Safe from what, Captain Slatkin?”

“I’m not a captain anymore, I’m a farmer now.”

“My mistake. Safe from what? What were the threats to the Party in 1965?”

As he spoke the man rose to his feet and with lightning speed he moved around the table. Before Yuri knew what was happening, his arms were behind his back and he heard the loud click of handcuffs closing. Instinctively he tried to rise, but the man had already attached another pair around the wooden chair and locked them into the pair on his wrists, holding him in a sitting position. The metal bit into his flesh.

“What the he—” he cried out, but the man pushed him back on the chair.

“Sit still. I have some questions and I will get answers. I always do.”

There was an expression in the cold eyes that Yuri recognized instantly. The man took a square of paper out of the briefcase.

“Do you know this woman?”

Yuri looked at the black-and-white picture. He said nothing but knew he was betrayed by his reaction. His mouth was dry.

“This is Yulena Valentina,” the man said coldly as he laid the picture down on the table.

“In 1965 she died, in London, and you”—he swung the briefcase around so that Yuri could see the tools inside—“are going to tell me what happened to her.”

If Yuri hadn’t been seventy-seven years old and out of practice with the techniques he’d learned in the army, he might have lasted longer. As it was he agreed to talk before the man got to his third fingernail. The man told him he was disappointed; he was hoping he’d pull at least one tooth. He watched as the man pulled a cell phone from a suit pocket and dialed a number.

“He’ll talk now.” The man put the phone on the table and hit the speaker button. There was no sound coming from it, but he could tell someone was listening, breathing heavily.

“The KGB brought her in. They said she was going to defect and they wanted to send her back to Moscow, but someone had other plans. I don’t know who, I swear. One of the operatives said that she was a lesbian and they were going to jail her, or send her to a gulag. She was beautiful and he taunted her. She got angry and he slapped her. It got out of hand.”

“What happened then?” The man in the room asked; the other stayed silent.

“She was raped.”

“Did you?”

Yuri raised his head; this man was an idiot.

“Did I what?”

“Rape her.”

His head sagged down again.

“We all did. It happened sometimes, not often, but sometimes; the men called it a perk of the job. When it was over, we killed her.”

“How?”

“They had a dozen ways, untraceable poison, injecting an air bubble, pressure to the carotid artery, a nick to the jugular vein—”

“Who killed her?”

Yuri didn’t answer. The man leaned forward and picked up the bloodied pliers with his free hand.

“You have two choices, Captain Slatkin. You can tell me or I will string you from that beam and pull your testicles out of your scrotum, cut off your dick, and leave you to bleed to death.”

“Romans chapter twelve, verse nineteen,” Yuri said softly. “Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath: for it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord.”

He looked up at the man and was met by a dry, humorless laugh.

“
You’re
quoting scripture?” There was an obvious note of incredulity in the voice.

“You’re going to kill me anyway, so I might as well tell you the truth. I did.”

The man picked up the phone and held it to his ear.

“Yes, sir.”

Yuri watched as he clicked the phone shut and put it in his pocket.

“And now it’s time to pay for that, Captain.”

Half an hour later the man stuffed Yuri’s mutilated body into the trunk of the farm car, doused the vehicle with gasoline, and set it alight. It exploded and burned fiercely. He put his sunglasses back on, picked up his briefcase, and walked up the drive to his car.

Chapter 39

Moscow

Summer 2006

S
ergei stood outside the bar and looked at the flashing neon sign. It wasn’t one of his usual haunts, and his well-honed internal radar told him it was owned by the Russian mafia. He kept his distance from them, at least in public, but it was very late and he was thirsty and, besides, he felt like some company. He didn’t come back to Moscow often, only when business compelled him, and with every trip he was amazed at the changes.

Oh well, a quick Campari and soda and then back to the apartment to catch the news on CNN, unless something else took his fancy.

Inside, the decor was surprisingly modern and luxurious, with thick carpet, comfortable leather booths around silver-colored metal tables, dominated by a massive granite bar top. Halfway through his second Campari and soda a familiar sound cut across the babble of voices and clinking of glasses. It came from the room next door and it was a violin. The music was Sibelius, the Violin Concerto in D Minor, and it was being played by someone who really knew how to play.

He got up and followed the sound, through a beaded curtain and across a room where four men sat playing poker at a table, to an open doorway, and into a lounge area. Three men sat on a banquette against the far wall, and an older man sat in a large leather chair. In the center of the room a young woman played a violin. Several things registered with Sergei simultaneously. She was tall and slender, with auburn-colored hair and golden eyes like a lion; she had some Slavic blood and she was absolutely stunning; she was playing a genuine antique violin; and she looked remarkably like Yulena would have looked at that age. He stood and stared while she finished the piece. The four men clapped, then the older man spoke.

“Very good, my sweet, go get a drink.”

She put the violin and bow into a case and walked toward Sergei, then past him and out the door without looking at him. He could see bruises on her arms, and her eyes looked dead and lifeless.

“Can we help you?” one of the men asked.

“No, thank you. It was the music.”

Sergei turned on his heel and followed her.

T
he first time he tried to talk to her she ignored him, and then she got angry and told him to leave her alone. He could see she was frightened, so he changed tack and approached the owner of the bar, offering a cash incentive to let her drink with him. To his surprise, she was intelligent and articulate and knowledgeable about music. It took three visits before she told him her name was Tatiana and she’d grown up in an orphanage in Archangel. When she was thirteen, she’d been thrown out to earn her living on the street so she’d boarded a train to Moscow. She was now seventeen, and Sergei could see she was far from a naive virgin. When he asked her where she’d learned to play like that, she went silent and the fear returned to her eyes so he changed the subject.

Within a week he’d persuaded her to come back to London with him. He promised her he’d replace the clothes she left behind and give her an even better violin to play and no one would ever hit her again. There were many things he didn’t know about her, but the one thing that mattered was that when she played, she made his heart stop.

On their first day in London he took her shopping and bought her armloads of clothes, some fine pieces of jewelry, and many pairs of very high-heeled shoes.

Then he brought out the violin and showed it to her. She was quiet and somber and examined it thoroughly before she began to tune it at the piano. He watched her from across the room.

“No one has played this violin for forty-one years,” he said suddenly. She stopped what she was doing and looked at him.

“Why not?”

“It belonged to my aunt and she . . . died. I’ve kept it ever since, and no one has been good enough.”

She smiled at him shyly. “Thank you. What would you like me to play?”

“Can you play ‘Liebesleid’?”

She nodded.

“That was my aunt’s favorite piece.”

“Then I would be honored to play it for you.”

She tightened the screw on the bow and put the violin to her shoulder.

“How does it feel?”

There was a hint of anxiety in his voice he couldn’t hide.

“Right.”

He smiled at her and wondered if she had any idea of the mixture of emotions he was feeling.

“I know it sounds weak, but I love to hold it and feel the wood, so smooth and cool, so many secrets locked inside.”

“It doesn’t sound weak at all; you love fine instruments, and this is the most beautiful violin I’ve ever seen.”

She started to play. She was assured and confident, the bow sweeping over the strings and her fingering precise and accurate. The music took hold of her lithe body, which was turning and dipping in time with the lilting melody. Sergei stood very still, his arms folded across his colossal chest, watching, his expression betraying nothing. He didn’t move when she finished.

“I’ll play a little Paganini and maybe some Mozart,” she said and then began to play again. Her fingers flew through the Paganini Caprice no. 5 and then some of Mozart’s Violin Concerto no. 5. Finally she lowered the violin and he stirred.

“Thank you.”

“Did it please you?”

“Very much. Tatiana, would you like to have lessons? From a maestro?”

Her eyes widened. “On this violin?”

“I know she’s difficult to master, but she rewards diligence. I would like to see you perform in public and there’s someone I want you to meet; he’s a friend of mine, Rafael Santamaria Gomez. He’ll know the right career path for you.”

In every house Sergei owned, the Guarneri had its own keypad-controlled glass case and beside it sat a framed photo of Yulena. He smiled at the photo as he put the violin back. Tatiana’s resemblance tugged at his heart. Long ago he’d accepted that he didn’t have the capacity for a monogamous intimate relationship and that wasn’t what he had in mind—the thought of Tatiana rejecting him was just too painful to contemplate. She would become his muse, his past, his present, his piece of perfection, if he could only keep her in a glass case with the violin.

“All good things come to those who wait,” he murmured to Yulena.

B
y October 2008, Tatiana had fulfilled that initial promise and was performing at Sergei’s private parties and concerts. He could deny her nothing, and she wore haute couture gowns and shopped at the most expensive stores in the world. He encouraged her to read about all the composers and discuss their work with him and with Maestro Carlo Montenagro, her teacher, and Natalia Petrova, a gifted Russian violinist who lived in London. Tatiana was a sponge, thirsty for knowledge, and she knew it delighted Sergei when she found joy in a new composer.

She was also aware that everyone else speculated on the nature of their relationship— she was nineteen and he was sixty-one—but she never commented on it to anyone. The truth was he hadn’t laid a finger on her, and she knew now that he never would. He used women when he needed them, but she didn’t see them and didn’t ask about them. There were aspects of him that frightened her. Like Rafael, she’d seen his temper directed at others, and at times she felt like a possession, but she knew he’d never hurt her. She dreamed of living and working in the United States, playing with a major orchestra and being a soloist. But, no matter what, there was always the violin and that drew her toward him more magnetically than anything else. She didn’t love him, but she was in awe of him, and when he was away, she missed him.

On a warm early fall evening, Tatiana stood in front of the full-length mirror in her suite at the Hay-Adams Hotel in Washington, D.C., and surveyed the results of an afternoon of pampering. Her gown was Gucci and her sandals Manolo Blahnik. Her hair was in a simple French roll, and her makeup was subtle. Sergei came into the room from the balcony.

“I’ve been watching the White House, across the road. He’s doing what we’re doing, getting ready for the opera.”

She gave a small laugh.

“And he will go by limousine too?”

“With a few extra cars. You look wonderful, my dear.”

“Thank you.”

He picked up the diamond necklace and examined it.

“South African blue whites,” he said as he put it around her neck and fastened the clasp. She was putting large diamond earrings into her ears.

“Very sparkly”—she smiled at him in the mirror—“no matter where they’re from.”

He held out his hand to her.

“Come, it’s time to see what these artists do with my money.”