The Outsiders (13 page)

It had been a hell of a risk and likely she’d have faced a bullet if she or one of her boys had shown out.

The story of the football game with the clothes-shop dummy in the lay-by near Pskov was repeated. Stories of killings under orders from ‘special services’ in Kenya, Vienna and the Gulf.

The minders had gone round the corner into a shop doorway. The kid had come from the café-bar, gone down the street and quickened his step. He’d had to pause twice to regain his breath.

I had a brief visual contact at approx 50 metres. No photo opportunity. From my eyeball, he is approx 6ft, approx 14 stones, has close-cut hair (grey) and trimmed moustache, has bearing of control/authority/power
.

Caro had a fine running stride and the risk had paid off in full. A long-lens image would have been Christmas come early. She had her memory.

The only distinguishing feature I noticed was the missing finger of his right hand. Not certain, but the shorter minder, Ruslan, might have had the same injury – war wounds
.

The car door had been open. One had stood guard on the pavement, the other by the door. Inside, on the back seat, the target had a brush of silver grey hair, a crisp moustache and a weathered face. She knew she was looking at Petar Alexander Borsonov who played football with the heads of tailors’ dummies – with any head available.

His next journey – three days’ time – will take him, minders and Gecko, their name for him, to Nouakchott, Mauretania, then into Sahara transit route north. He is developing new links, creating new routes for SAmerican cocaine supplies
.

He was fit and strong. She had sensed the authority. It had made her shiver. The older of her two minders had had a hand on her arm – the grip tightened. She realised he had pulled her back from the street corner.

From Morocco to southern Spain. Meeting re improvement of laundering facilities in Marbella, Costa del Sol.

He was the Major. He had command. He had thrown down a half-smoked cigarette and his right hand had been against the fabric of his jacket. She had seen where a finger was missing.

Contact in Marbella is Pavel Ivanov, Russian citizen, legal resident in Spain, living at Villa del Aguila. Method of travel from NAfrica to Spain, unknown. Date of travel, unknown.

She had sensed the man feared nothing. They had hurried for the car.

Summary: He did it. The Major/Borsonov is the football player.

She’d finished her texting when they reached the airport. They were in Departures when the executive aircraft accelerated down the runway and she wondered how he was, her agent, how soon she would get the call on that mobile for Echo Zulu, and how he would cope with living the lie. She thought Spain offered the opportunity.

A Latvian policeman escorted her.

Dottie had come to Europol. She received an apology: the staff, their gear and their files were about to transfer to a new building beside the International Court and its gaol. There was some confusion so not every officer she might want to meet would be available. She had noted that the liaison man from Thames House, posted to The Hague, would be absent – as if he wanted nothing to do with her or anyone working with Winnie Monks . . . A reputation travelled fast. ‘Fuck him,’ Dottie had murmured, when she was told the colleague was ‘out of town’.

She met a Pole, head of a unit with Organised Crime Networks 08. ‘The Russians are the best. They understand the way commercial enterprise operates. They move drugs and weapons. All along the Balkan chokepoints into Western Europe there are stockpiles of heroin from Afghanistan, stored by Russians as they wait for the market price to improve. They like to live in Spain because it’s physically safe for them. In Moscow, Petersburg or any major city they can be feuding. They have to fight to stay alive – and make gestures to government. Spain is quiet and good as a home. They own bars, brothels, restaurants and apartment blocks, and launder money. They pay a little tax and they look legitimate. They are exceptionally difficult to catch. You have a target? Good luck.’

The Latvian policeman took Dottie to an office occupied by a
carabinieri
officer from Milan, who waved her to a seat. ‘There are the “old” Russians and the “new”. They have different mentalities. The “old” are the ones who have done time in the gulags. They have the tattoos and live by codes. They will not co-operate with any form of government, and they fight with automatic rifles, even anti-tank weapons. The “new” men want money, the good life and access to respectable banks. Spain is the perfect base for them. You must understand that in Russia, the authorities control organised crime, hold it with a steel fist, and the former KGB is top of the heap because they have the skills in surveillance, interrogation, close protection. Russian crime runs like a virus through the Europol area, but the Russian state is not represented here and we get no co-operation. To nail a Russian, a worthy target, requires exceptional skill.’

There was an analyst, a short stocky Danish woman, who worked from a cramped office, and the Latvian policeman said he would leave Dottie with her. She should call him when they had finished.

Dottie gave a name. Fingers flickered on keys, and the screen threw up a photograph. ‘That is Pavel Ivanov. He is forty-four years old and from the city of Perm. He would have been a street fighter, a hard man. He would have made a reputation and was a leader. He earned the name “Tractor”. They used extreme violence in his group. We believe Pavel Ivanov went to Spain because he believed he was condemned, had powerful enemies. His wife and son stayed. They visit him. It should be assumed that his money has been cleaned and that he rarely embarks on criminal enterprise. We have a residence listed in Marbella as Villa del Aguila. He has done well, would imagine himself safe . . . but he will have guards and will have bought the protection of officials who would warn him of law-enforcement interest. Is he bored? I imagine so. To be respectable would be tedious. It should be remembered that he was,
is
, a killer. Be careful.’

She met a German, in charge of another unit of Organised Crime Networks. She asked about Petar Alexander Borsonov. Keys were tapped. ‘Little comes up. All vague. Nothing that is evidence in a court of law. Links to the state, but undefined. Protection at a senior stratum. Former State Security, with the rank of major, an Afghan veteran, wounded. No photograph. There are times when the state requires a message to be sent, which means a killing, and wants an assassin who is deniable and reliable. He does drugs, he does trafficking, but he is discreet. Apperently – cannot confirm it – he is a legend among his peers. We believe that his home is in Pskov, south-west of St Petersburg. As yet there is no international arrest warrant in that name. He is a considerable target. You have information against him?’

She shrugged.

The Latvian policeman escorted her away. Had it been a useful afternoon?

‘I think so,’ Dottie said. ‘But time will tell.’

Kenny felt the cold but did not show it. The wind hacked at him as he stood with the security policeman near the café at the back of the citadel. If he had stood on tiptoe he would have seen the floodlit grotesque shape of the Liberty monument. If he had crouched to look under the trees, he would have seen the lights of Budapest, the black line that was the river and the breaks in it, which were bridges.

‘I ask you again, my friend, why do you come with questions and never with answers? You ask me what evidence has been accumulated in five years against Fenby’s killers. You ask me whether the investigation into the death has centred on the activities of the Russian criminal brotherhood. My friend, you treat me with contempt. You believe we are the same as the security officials before we had regime change, that we are still bedfellows of the Russian special services and will not embarrass them. Probably that is right. Because we are fond of the old KGB? My friend, we will do little to annoy the Russians because it is cold here in November. Our gas for heating comes from Russia. We freeze if they turn off the tap. We will not stage a major investigation into Russian-originating organised-crime groups. My friend, Fenby died five years ago. Who was he? You did not tell us. What was his work in Budapest? You did not tell us. Who employed him? The Security Service or the Intelligence Service? Or was he on vacation? You did not tell us. Why was he on this hill where, after dark, there are only men who bring prostitutes and homosexuals in search of partners? You did not tell us. What was he carrying in a case manacled to his hand that was so valuable his arm was severed to free it? You did not tell us. Why, when there had been no preparatory liaison, did several people from the UK travel to the city to retrieve the body? You did not tell us. But you still expect us to effect an investigation. Now, late in the day, you hint at Russian Mafiya involvement. I remember when we had regime change and we were “welcomed” to the sunlit pastures of Western Europe. Your own people came to teach us how to respond to democracy, how to defer to a man from a great power who was kind enough to help us. You were so patronising. I tell you very frankly that the slim file on the death of your man went on to a shelf within forty-five minutes of you leaving the airport with the body and it has not been opened since. We will stay warm in the winter and you will get no help from us.’

Kenny did not contribute. He understood that none of it was personal. He was offered a cigarette, which was lit for him. Not much he could have disputed. It was said in the canteen at Thames House that the UK was sliding down the scale of those nations with clout, and that help from overseas agencies was ever harder to obtain. Fact of life. He thanked the man for his time and chucked the cigarette away. He thought the statue of the girl and the foal had weathered well. He’d get the last flight back to Heathrow.

‘Is that Penny? It’s Fran – Fran Walsh.’

‘How are you?’

‘I’m fine, dear. I’m at the clinic. Can’t speak for Geoff – it’s being done now. They’ve taken him into theatre – poor old thing.’

‘He’ll come through, then be skipping about like a child. It’s a wonderful operation.’

‘That’s what I tell him. His target is to go through the surgery, get back on his feet and return to Spain. That’s all he wants, to be at home. He says it’s where he belongs. He can’t wait to be home again.’

Penny didn’t say that Jonno had telephoned, that his description of the Villa Paraiso had ranged between ‘dump’, ‘tip’, ‘museum piece’ and ‘health risk’. She didn’t say either that a major clean-up was in progress.’ She did say, ‘It was kind of you, Fran, to allow Jonno to stay there. Much appreciated by him and his friend.’

A pause. ‘Nice boy, is he?’

What did a mother say about her son? ‘Well, average. I don’t think that’s selling him short. I can’t tell you anything about Posie because I’ve never met her. He’s not going to set the world on fire but neither will he waste what God gave him. He won’t stand out in a crowd, but he won’t be anonymous either. He’s good, honest, principled and there are millions like him, but we love him.’

‘As long as he doesn’t find it too quiet. We may not have said quite where we are – at the end of a road under a mountain. We’ve one set of neighbours but we hardly see them, and there’s the language difficulty. They did repair our mower but we wouldn’t want to rely on them.’

‘They’ll cope,’ Penny said decisively. ‘It’s what the young have to do.’

‘That house, if we want him, is the key.’ Winnie Monks held court in St John’s Gardens. Her little group was gathered close to her as she held up the satellite photograph.

Her finger stabbed at the image. There was the blue of the pool, the green of the tennis court, a softer shade of sun-strafed grass and the ochre roof tiles. Dottie was beside her on the bench and Caro Watson was at her right shoulder. Kenny crouched to the side and had his elbow on the slats, while Xavier stood next to her. With them, as he had been all those years ago, was Damian Fenby.

‘It’s Pavel Ivanov’s home. Caro says it’s where old Three Fingers is headed. We’ll get no help from the Budapest crowd, still in the new-look KGB’s pocket – not the end of the world. Spain should do the business for us. We’ll provide the tip-off, there’s a lift and we’re looking at a fast flight back here, no fucking about with too many extradition niceties. I see him in a cell and reckon the key’s been chucked in the Thames. I told the chief it’s no time for procrastination. Caro’s kid’s done us proud. An operation like this is what we exist for. Safe home.’

She pushed herself up from the bench and dropped her dead cigarillo in the waste-bin. They were all in thrall to the emotions she’d roused. No one questioned the remit.

Sparky had hovered in the shadows and let them out, then locked the gates after them. She caught his arm. ‘You’re in on this, Sparky, with us. Too right you are.’

‘I don’t do stress, Miss. What would I go for?’

‘A bit of this, a bit of that. Keep an eye on their backs.’

There were flowers on the pavement, spread wide enough to reach the outer chairs and tables at the front of the bar.

Tommy King walked past. He had covered much of his face with wraparound sunglasses and wore a baseball cap with a discreet Maserati logo that threw shadow over his nose and mouth. He didn’t have a Maserati but, hey, his time was coming. He wanted to see the aftermath, just as it had been important to be across the street when the motorbike had closed on the target. He paused to read some of the messages: the flowers were for a man who would ‘never be forgotten’, who was ‘a good mate’ and ‘always in our prayers’. He thought the Irishman would be remembered as long as the flowers lasted, and as long as the body was held by the authorities before release for repatriation to Dublin. He noted that the paving slabs had been power-hosed, maybe scrubbed with a stiff broom, and that the bloodstains were gone.