~32~

JACK LAY ON THE CARPET AND THEN ROLLED onto his back. Stared at the ceiling. Reached up and delicately felt the side of his head where Rhonda’s gun had kissed it. A smooth bump pulsed with pain. There were two bumps now. He decided to stay where he was for the moment and hoped everyone else would just go home.

Viktor Kablunak walked in. His hands were in his pockets: casual, relaxed. He looked around, nodded a couple of times, then angled his head down and stared at Jack on the floor. He grinned. ‘You have done well, Mr Susko,’ he said. ‘Only one dead body.’

‘Not enough for you?’

Kablunak cleared his throat. ‘Plenty.’

Jack closed his eyes. ‘You took your time, Viktor. What the hell were you waiting for? A phone call?’

‘Our friend Max is a tenacious little man.’

Pascal made a noise in his throat. ‘I’d rather stick a ferret down my pants.’

‘Yes. But he is secure now. And besides, I never interfere in domestic disputes, Mr Susko. They are … private affairs. This is one of the main problems in the world today, I believe.’ He looked up, squinted into the middle distance and sucked at his teeth. ‘I have many thoughts on this subject.’

‘Boss,’ said Pascal, holding Rhonda’s arm. ‘We’ve got to get out of here.’

Kablunak nodded vaguely, then stared down at his shoes and took a few meandering steps. The windows of the gallery were thick with the fug of sweat and gun smoke and death.

‘The line between the private and the public domain has been … eroded,’ continued the Russian. ‘Political correctness has instilled a false morality in us, Mr Susko. But really, it is for small minds and the self-righteous, this P-C, as they call it. An excuse to stick their noses everywhere they should not. They cannot admit that what they find impossible to fathom is that their lives are not grand statements or world-changing examples of what is right or what should be. No no no …’ He wagged a finger. ‘They are … stupid people. Deep down they know that they are nothing, and will do nothing, and will die nothing. Better the old ways, Mr Susko. When one had a private life. The home, the family. Where a man could be king and a woman queen. Where no other laws could reign.’ The Russian smiled. He turned to Rhonda de Groot, standing defiantly beside Pascal. ‘Isn’t that right, Rhonnie?’

Richard de Groot’s widow scoffed, amused. ‘Still full of shit, Viktor,’ she said, her voice clipped and precise and all settled down now after the drama. ‘Why doesn’t that surprise me?’

Kablunak’s face darkened. He paused, held what he was about to say in his mouth for a moment. He walked over to a painting on the wall to his right, clasped his hands behind his back and inspected the picture. Then he said: ‘Shooting your brother dead, Rhonda. Why doesn’t that surprise me?’

‘And her husband.’ Jack had got up off the floor. Thunder cracked, hard and loud, like a mountain splitting in two. Lightning flashed in the fogged-up gallery window, blurred by the flooding sky. Outside, the world was black and pale grey, glimmering like an old movie reel that had been played a few too many times. Nothing was clear: inside or out.

‘So it was you,’ said Kablunak.

Rhonda reached up and brushed at her hair. ‘Go to hell, Viktor.’

The Russian gave her a sad look. ‘Dear Rhonda. What has become of you? And what will become of you now?’

‘All alone,’ added Larissa.

‘You little slut!’ she yelled suddenly, lunging towards Larissa. Her expression was set to if-looks-could-kill. Pascal held her back. ‘She made me kill my brother!’

Larissa dabbed at her ear with a bunch of tissues. ‘Lewis hated your guts,’ she said.

‘I raised him from the age of four!’

‘Well done. You should write a guide.’

Jack watched Rhonda’s face turn deep red: then, just as quickly, she reined in her anger and visibly calmed down. She stretched herself taller. ‘I know about you and Richard,’ she said, her tone full of pomp and something like pride.

‘What?’ replied Larissa, and grimaced, as though she had bitten something sour. ‘You’re delusional. Fucking men to get what you want, that’s your generation, Rhonda, not mine. We hardly need ’em at all these days.’

‘You’re lying.’

‘Oh, come on!’ Larissa looked at Kablunak. ‘She needs her medication.’

‘Mr Kablunak?’ said Pascal with some urgency. He nodded towards the door.

Viktor checked his watch. ‘Yes. We really must go.’ He looked up at Jack and gestured towards the hallway door. ‘Shall we?’

‘What do you want to do with these guys?’ Pascal sounded concerned.

‘Leave them. This is a family affair. Nothing to do with me.’ Kablunak narrowed his eyes at Larissa and pointed at the suitcases in the corner. ‘Is that Richard’s money?’

Larissa closed her eyes and nodded.

‘Good,’ said the Russian as he turned away. ‘Pascal. Bring the suitcases.’

‘You just going to let everybody go?’

‘I can be a sporting man at times, Pascal. The police will find everything they need to make their arrests.’ He grinned. ‘Or maybe Miss Tate and Mrs de Groot could team up for their escape? Give the police something to do?’

Larissa reached for the champagne bottle on the desk. She picked it up and took a swig. ‘Can I borrow some of the cash, Viktor?’

‘No.’

Jack was watching Larissa: there was something about the way she and Kablunak had spoken to one another. ‘Can I ask a question?’ he said.

‘Make it brief, Mr Susko.’

‘When your boys busted in last Friday. How’d you know the Sergius was here? In the safe?’

Viktor Kablunak raised his eyebrows a fraction. As though he was pleased. ‘Very good, Mr Susko.’

‘Same way you knew somebody would be here this morning, huh?’

The Russian smiled, amused now.

Rhonda de Groot leaned forward in Pascal’s grip. She was thinking, intently, not sure where to look. Then she knew, and scowled at Larissa Tate. ‘You,’ said the widow de Groot. ‘You did it!’

Larissa tossed her hair and then pushed out her bottom lip and sent a quick breath up into her fringe, which waved for a second and then fell down again, perfectly in place, straight and silken. ‘It’s a bitch-eat-bitch world, Rhonda,’ she said. ‘Haven’t you heard?’

Pascal’s confusion turned into an itch in his underarm. He scratched, absently using the gun, looking from Larissa to Kablunak and then back again, like he was following a tennis match. But he had no idea what the score was.

Jack said: ‘You know she’s been planning to take the Sergius herself, don’t you, Viktor?’

‘Yes, Mr Susko. I have never been under any illusions when it comes to Miss Tate. That is why I am here.’ His tone hardened a little. ‘Enduring more fools. And all before my morning coffee.’

‘Shall I order you one, Viktor?’ asked Larissa. ‘I think Zigolini’s might be open across the road.’

‘Thank you, but no. I would hate for you to have to go out in the rain.’

She held out the bottle to him. ‘Champagne then?’

‘Please. I would prefer you enjoy it. While you can.’

Jack touched the side of his head, winced. ‘What did you do to de Groot to make him come after you in the first place?’ asked Jack, eyeing the Russian through his growing headache. He could not help but be intrigued by the man. And … what else? Impressed?

‘Didn’t you know, Jack?’ said Larissa. ‘He sold him to the police back in South Africa.’

‘We were left with nothing,’ said Rhonda de Groot, bitterly.

Kablunak scoffed. ‘You left with more than enough.’

‘But with much less than they had,’ said Larissa, as though she understood what Rhonda might have gone through, as though it was something worthy of a little sympathy.

‘Business is business,’ replied Kablunak. ‘I was in a unique … situation. And I needed to make a deal with the authorities.’

‘About what?’ asked Jack.

‘Diamonds,’ said Larissa, answering for the Russian. ‘Mr Kay here and the now deceased Richard used to run rocks together.’

‘He was never very good at it,’ said Kablunak.

‘So, eventually, Mr Kay sold him to the cops.’

‘A simple case of survival of the fittest. They needed a criminal and I provided them with one. Hardly a problem. He only had to bribe his way out.’

‘There was nothing left,’ said Rhonda, softly and sadly. ‘We came here with nothing.’

The Russian gave her a look of contempt. ‘And for your sins, now you will have even less.’

‘So de Groot wanted to get back at you by stealing the Sergius?’

Kablunak sighed. ‘Revenge is an expensive, emotional, and ultimately unprofitable exercise. Look what it has cost him.’

‘Much better spending your cash on insider trading,’ said Larissa. Her tone was almost playful. ‘Eh, Viktor?’

‘Well, it is a calculated risk. But by the looks of things, I have got here just in time to protect my interests. No?’

Larissa smiled, shook her head with disappointment and then pointed at Jack. ‘You know it’s at the post office? He’s had a pick-up slip for the thing the whole time. It’s been sitting at the fucking post office for days.’

The Russian looked at Jack. Viktor Kablunak did not resemble Josef Stalin in the slightest, but his aura took on some of the menace and threat of the former dictator. ‘This I did not know.’

Pascal frowned. ‘He’s had the fucking Sergius the whole fucking time?’

‘The whole time,’ said Larissa, with a mild version of glee.

‘It is funny, Mr Susko,’ said Kablunak. ‘Out of everybody, I think it was you that I trusted the most.’

Jack shrugged. ‘I just wanted my book back, Viktor. Making the best of a bad situation.’

‘I understand. In fact, you show admirable qualities, Mr Susko.’

‘So, a nice exchange, Viktor? As we had originally planned?’ Jack was nervous but held it in as best he could. There was ten thousand dollars in his pocket. And if he could get his first edition back from the Russian, he might — even after all that had gone down — actually be up. Considering there were two bodies in the equation so far, that sounded pretty good to him. ‘The Bible for the Bond,’ he said.

‘How the world turns,’ said Kablunak. He spread his arms and looked around the gallery. ‘There we were. And now here we are.’

‘Crazy, isn’t it?’ said Larissa. She dropped the bloodied tissues onto the desk and reached into her handbag again. She rummaged around and then pulled something out. It was not a packet of fresh tissues. It was not a polka-dot handkerchief, either. Jack wondered how the hell she expected to blow her nose on it.