The Silent Oligarch: A Novel (22 page)

“What is it? Has something happened?”

He took a moment to respond, as if trying to frame everything right.

“Outside,” he said, gesturing to the window with his glass, “are two ugly Russians in a Volvo. They go everywhere with me. I’ve just been to Cayman with them, and they’ll be going back to Moscow with me tomorrow. They’re a new feature. They daren’t leave me alone. I should be flattered.”

Marina looked at him with serious eyes. “I don’t understand.”

“They’re here to stop me making good my escape. They’re Malin’s. When I went back to Moscow after Paris they were waiting for me. I think they’re here to make sure I don’t fall off a hotel roof. Or that I do. I can’t work it out.”

“You look terrible.”

“I’m tired. Some of it’s jet lag. Some of it’s thinking about Dmitry.” He drank again, a gulp this time. “And I’m sure that . . . when we went for dinner—with Vika, before Paris. God, Paris. That’s another story. But that night, when I walked you back here I’m sure I was being followed. Sure of it. There was a car outside the restaurant and as we turned into your road it pulled past us and into the next street.” He put his glass down and ran his hand through his hair. “My phone squawks all the time. I think they’re listening to it. And Ivan and bloody Igor at my side all day. I can’t stand it. It’s driving me nuts. And meanwhile, Christ . . . That’s just the Russians, but meanwhile I’ve got the FBI, the FB fucking I—sorry, I’m sorry. I’ve got the FBI wanting to know who I am and what I’ve been doing for that vicious fat crook for the last fifteen years, and investigators turning up in my bloody hotel room. I can’t stand it, Marina.”

Marina pushed her chair back, stood up and moved around to sit next to him. He looked at her with his head resting on one hand and she put her hand on his forearm.

“Come here,” she said.

Lock turned in his chair so that they were facing each other and close. He put his head on her shoulder, his hands on her back, and for a minute they sat like that, a little awkward, Lock gently jolting with sobs. When he sat up to look at her his eyes were bloodshot and full of tears.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to come here and collapse.” He dried his eyes on the sleeve of his sweater. “It’s just . . .”

“Tell me everything,” said Marina, and stood up. She came back to the table with a glass, and poured more vodka for Lock and some for herself. “I want to know.”

So Lock did. He told her about Paris. He told her what he had learned about Gerstman’s death. He told her about the reception waiting for him on his return to Moscow, about his failed attempt to steal himself some insurance, about Cayman, and the FBI, and Webster. And about Webster’s card. He talked fluently and forcefully, and in explaining it to Marina some things began to make sense to him. He steadily drank the vodka. Marina listened gravely, sipping at hers, alive to every word.

“I can’t go back to Moscow,” he said when he was done. “You’re right. It sucks me dry. There’s nothing there anymore. Do you know what I feel like? I feel like an informer, and everyone knows, and it’s just a matter of time before they come to lynch me. And I haven’t said anything.” He gave an abrupt, sarcastic laugh. “I haven’t said anything to anyone.”

“Maybe it’s time you did.”

Lock sighed. “The problem is, I don’t have much to tell. That’s the hell of it.”

“So what will you do?”

“I don’t know. Stay here forever?” He looked at her steadily. She was still pale. Still beautiful. She didn’t respond. “Can I stay tonight, at least? I’d like to. I miss you.”

Holding his gaze Marina took his hand in hers. “Richard, no,” she said. “I hate what you’re going through. But we are the same, for now. You and I. That hasn’t changed.”

“Even after the letter?”

“That’s not what the letter meant. You have to get out. Otherwise nothing can happen.”

Lock nodded, the slightest movement of his head. “Thank you, though. For writing. I read it sometimes. It’s about the only company I have.”

For a second Marina looked at him and in the deep green of her eyes—still clear, still intense—he saw some trace of her love for him, not yet extinguished, communicated to him so sharply in that instant that even he, his instincts withered almost to nothing, could not mistake it.

He broke the silence. “Can I sleep on the sofa? I’ve had enough of hotels.” He smiled. “Not something you’ve heard me say before.”

“No, Richard. It’s not good. Not for Vika. One day, but not now.” This time he didn’t nod; he just looked at the flowers on the table. Marina watched him. “Maybe you should talk to Webster.”

He lifted his head and looked at her.

“Maybe he does mean what he says,” she said.

“For the last three months he’s made my life a misery. Now it suits him to finish me off. No.”

Marina thought for a while. “He’s the only person who wants what you want. Something that will hurt Konstantin.”

Lock shook his head. “No. I don’t want to hurt Konstantin. I just want him to go away. I want to be left alone. I want a new life. I want my family back.” He paused to see her reaction; she took his hand and held it in hers. “I do. I really do. I can’t believe how blind I was to this. To you. You cannot imagine how much I want to wake up here with you next to me tomorrow morning. With Vika in our bed. That’s punishment enough. I shouldn’t be going through this.”

Marina got up from her chair and stood over him, her hand on his shoulder. “Richard, I think you should go. Go and sleep. Maybe stay a day or two in London. Come and see us. After school tomorrow.”

Lock sat with his head in his hands and his elbows on the table. That sounded good. But it was just a delay. The last freedoms of a dying man.

“How do you get into your garden?” he said at last.

Marina looked puzzled.

“Do you have access to your garden?” he said.

“Yes, it’s shared. Why?”

“How do you get to it?”

“There’s a door at the back. In the basement. Why? What do you mean?”

“I’ve had enough. I need a night of freedom. A few days. I can’t think with those two thugs in my lap.” He got up to leave.

“That’s crazy. Where will you go?”

“I don’t know. Anywhere. I am not walking back into that prison of a city. Come on. Show me.”

Slightly wary of him now, Marina told him to follow her. Together they descended the stairs by the light from the street lamps outside; Lock told her not to switch the landing lights on. A minute later they were in the garden, a large open space of lawn lined with narrow planted beds. Marina stood in the doorway and Lock turned to say good-bye.

“Richard, this is crazy. How are you going to get over the wall?”

“Over the shed. It’s made for it.” At the far end of the garden, a shed, painted white and looking ghostly in the orange night of the city, sat next to a brick wall, perhaps twelve feet high, that separated this row of houses from Holland Park beyond. Above the wall spindly branches poked up like twig brooms.

“How will you get down?”

“I’ll jump. I’ll be fine. It’s the first thing I’ve done for myself in fifteen years.”

He kissed her, and as he turned to walk away she took his hand in hers and held it for a moment; at her touch his bravado faded and he fought the urge to stay.

“I’ll be fine,” he said at last.

No one had raked the grass and wet leaves squelched under his feet. In a moment he was on the sloped roof of the shed, and the top of the wall was level with his chest; he pulled himself up and sat, feeling damp seep through the seat of his trousers. Marina was still watching him. He waved to her, let himself down the other side so that he was hanging from his fingertips, and let himself drop.

He landed in a bush, scratching a calf in the process and falling backward onto his back. He raised himself up on his elbows and lay there for a moment in the muddy earth with rain falling on his face. Sweet London rain. He stood up, brushed himself off and in no great hurry walked toward Kensington High Street. He took inventory. He had the clothes he was in, damp around the backside from his fall but otherwise serviceable; his passport; his wallet, with around four hundred pounds in various currencies; the letter from Marina; and three mobile phones, which he should now turn off. He had read that you could be traced through your phone whether or not it was switched on—even listened to. He stopped and took the batteries out of each, keeping the bits separate in his pockets.

He couldn’t remember the last time he had been in an empty park at night. It made him feel like a teenager. His overcoat gave little protection and the trees had now lost nearly all their leaves, but he didn’t mind being wet and walked across the huge expanse of grass with his face turned up to the sky. His trousers flapped coldly around his calves in the steady wind. Around the edges of the park lay London like a thin border.

As Holland Park narrowed toward the street he began to wonder how he was going to scale the fence at the end. What if it was huge? He couldn’t remember what was there. Through the trees he could see a stretch of wall and a fence behind some thick bushes. It looked high enough to be a struggle, but not worse. As he got closer, though, he saw open arches set into the wall, and in the end he just walked out into Kensington, feeling as light as a cloud.

N
EWLY FREE,
Lock was surprised that he seemed to know what to do. It was half past twelve. No flights, no trains to Paris, probably no trains anywhere. Tonight he would hide in London. He walked up Kensington High Street until he found a bank and drew as much money as he could from its ATM machine. Then he walked down a side street away from the park, south toward Earls Court. Here he saw no one. There were few lights showing in the mansion blocks that lined the streets; London had gone to bed. Occasionally a car passed and he controlled the urge to turn and look at it. On the Cromwell Road he stood for a minute or two and then hailed a taxi, telling it to take him to Victoria.

He asked the driver to stop by the train station, paid him, tipping him well, and set off in search of a hotel. On the main streets he passed large business hotels, bland and anonymous enough, but they weren’t what he wanted. Eventually he turned down a narrow side road where every house was a guesthouse: en suite bathrooms as standard, TV in every room. Through their glass doors he could see striped wallpaper and dirty brown carpets, beech veneer furniture and bright strip lights, but no guests or staff, no people at all. Signs hanging in front windows told him which had vacancies. He wondered who stayed in these places, and realized he had no idea. Salesmen? Refugees of one kind or another? Money-launderers on the run?

He walked back down the row and found one that looked neater than the others. The Hotel Carlisle. There were geraniums, a little tatty, growing in pots on the windowsills and its entrance hall was warmly lit by a standard lamp.

At his ring a brisk, unsmiling woman came to the door. It took her under a minute to take his money and tell him where to find room 28. He told her he was Mr. Alan Norman, a name that as he said it sounded so strikingly unconvincing that he felt sure that she would question it, but she showed no interest and to his relief didn’t ask to see his passport. No one would find him here.

Room 28, at the rear of the house, looked out over the backs of other Georgian houses and a mess of light industrial units and warehouses. It was small: there was enough room for two single beds, a bedside table in between them, and a pine wardrobe so close to a bed that its door only opened a foot. The walls were covered in woodchip paper painted over in a sickly fluorescent green, and in a corner a heavily shaded ceiling light spotlit the navy covers of one of the beds, leaving everything else in gloom. The advertised en suite contained a shower with a worn plastic concertina screen and a tiny basin that overhung the toilet. There was no television after all.

Lock took it all in and was pleased. It was clean enough, and it was his. He took off his coat, hung it on the back of the door and lay down on the bed. He was happy with this newly basic existence but there were things he wanted. He would have liked a bottle of whisky, and some pajamas. Maybe he would ask the woman downstairs if there was anything to drink. Still, it was just one night. Tomorrow he would catch a train to Newhaven and from there a boat to Dieppe. Then he would hire a car, drive to Switzerland, withdraw all his money and disappear somewhere for a good long time. Go and see Onder in Istanbul and see about a new passport. Onder must know someone; he was the sort of man that would. And then on, somewhere unexpected and a little chaotic. Indonesia, perhaps, one of the remoter islands. Or Vanuatu. The end of the earth.

What would happen then? Malin would look for him. Maybe the FBI would look for him. Perhaps the Swiss. He had forgotten the Swiss. What had Rast said, so unflappably? “I shouldn’t be telling you this, Richard, but maybe you can make use of it. The Swiss prosecutor thinks you have an interesting business and is becoming very curious.” That was part of it. What if the Swiss detained him at the border? What if they already had enough on him? They could alert the Russians and ship me back home. God. If he had been clever he would have asked Bashaev to find out what the Swiss were doing.

There were other problems with his plan. Could you take that much money out of a Swiss bank? Yes, he was sure you could. He had read stories about people leaving Switzerland with far more than the eight or nine million that he had in there. But what was that money, if they stopped him at the border? Where did it come from? How did he explain it? And how was he planning to carry it around: in a suitcase? To Istanbul? And then, and then: let’s say all this worked and he reached Sulawesi, how long would it be before Malin tracked him down? Horkov would know about his disappearance soon—by the morning, he guessed, when Ivan and Arkady finally realized that he wasn’t in Marina’s flat. Even having Horkov on your side was terrifying; Horkov and his people tracking you for all time was paralyzing.

His head was aching now as the vodka faded. He could feel the muscles in his shoulders tight against his neck and his back hurt. Who was he to escape? In Russia he had grown fat and timid and no longer had instincts he could trust. It was like releasing a pet dog into the wild. And if he made it, what then? A lifetime of the fear he was feeling now.