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THEY WERE GIVEN AN office with three desks arranged in a triangle, each with a computer, a phone, a bookshelf, and a reading lamp. A filing cabinet, a trio of plastic chairs and a strip light completed the list of furniture and fittings. They spent ten minutes familiarising themselves with the IT network then went to see Ruby Parker. She was waiting for them. They all sat down and she passed Orlov an A4 folder full of photos of the same man. Swept back hair, wide grey eyes, a pencil moustache and a resolute jaw-line.
“This is Dmitri Vassyli Kramski,” she said. “Born in Vologda, twelfth of September, 1970. Joined the Fortieth Red Army in 1988 and fought in Afghanistan before the withdrawal the following year. Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the Fortieth was reinvented as a Khazakhstani regiment and Kramski joined the GRU. His name doesn’t recur until the Moscow Apartment Bombings of 1999. We have evidence, later corroborated by the dissident, Alexander Levinsky, that he was involved in the Buynaksk explosion in 1999 and the attempted bombing of Ryazan nineteen days later.”
“What was he bombing apartments for?” Bronstein asked. “Sorry, I’m from the NYPD. I don’t necessarily know much about Russian stuff.”
“If you like conspiracy theories,” she replied, “and in this instance I do, it was a false flag operation designed to bring Vladimir Putin to power and create the pretext for another Chechen war.”
“A ‘false flag operation’?” Hartley-Brown said.
“An outrage perpetrated secretly by one group of people for the purpose of indicting another,” Bronstein said.
“He commanded a rapid deployment unit in the North Caucasus during the second Chechen war, and there’s some evidence he may have been involved in atrocities, although nothing conclusive. Two years ago, he converted to Christianity and left the army. Since the death of Patriarch Alexy II in 2008, the Russian Orthodox Church has become much more nationalist and state-friendly, although it’s very difficult to imagine it sanctioning or condoning murder.
“Six weeks ago Kramski entered Britain on a false passport, which strongly suggests he’s collaborating with someone, although we don’t know who or why. He’s going by the name of Ivan Starkov. We don’t know where he’s living, but even if we did we’d probably hold fire for now. He’s part of a bigger picture. Colonel Orlov, how do you like going to parties?”
“I don’t.”
“Unfortunate then, because you’re going to one tonight. A fundraiser to help your friend, Vera Gruchov, run for Mayor in the forthcoming Moscow elections. Host, Valentin Tebloev. Ring any bells?”
“You’d have to have been asleep for the past twenty years not to have heard of Valentin Tebloev,” Orlov said, “but I’d be very surprised if I can penetrate his wall of bodyguards. He’s very sensitive to attempts on his life and if I was thinking of making one, it wouldn’t be the first.”
“I’ve never heard of Valentin Tebloev,” Hartley-Brown said.
Bronstein sighed. “I haven’t been asleep for twenty years but I haven’t heard of Valentin Tebloev either. How can that be?”
“He’s a Russian Oligarch,” Orlov said. “He once owned just about every major business in the country. He fell foul of the authorities, alienated the public with showy behaviour and had his assets seized, or what could be traced of them.”
“A Russian John D Rockefeller,” Bronstein said.
Orlov nodded. “Maybe, although Rockefeller didn’t have to go abroad. Four years ago, Tebloev was sentenced in absentia to ten years for extortion. The British government granted him political asylum in 2004.”
Ruby folded her hands on the table. “He knows your background, Colonel. He knows there’s no love lost between you and the authorities. I think he’s looking forward to meeting you.”
“What’s his connection to Kramski?”
“They were converted by the same man, Bishop Hilarion Sikorski, so they have lots to talk about. And Kramski’s recently become one of his bodyguards. When the evening’s over, we’ve arranged for him to be tailed. You’ll play no part in that. It’s too risky for a single individual and he’ll know you by then.”
“So whose detail is it?”
“We use tag-teams. One of the men who escorted you here – Ronnie – will be first out of the stocks. You’ll see him when you come out of Tebloev’s if you look hard.”
“Blond or brown?”
She smiled. “Blond.”
“Anything else?”
“You’ll be wearing a secret camera. We need to know who’s at that party. You don’t need to be aware of it. We’ll provide you with a dinner jacket at Supplies on the fourth floor. Just make sure you keep it on.”
“What do you want us to do?” Hartley-Brown said.
“Jonathan, I want you to interview the celebrities whose photographs they were chasing. It’s just a hunch but I think they may be more involved than we’ve imagined, although I admit I don’t presently see how. David, I’d like you to continue the interviews with photographers. See if you can access any more hard drives. And look at the post-mortems of those who died of alcohol poisoning. Question the morticians.”
Bronstein grinned. “So Jonathan gets to hang out with Jilly Bestwick from Four Girls on Fire. I get to hang out with a bunch of winos.”
“You can swap roles if you prefer,” Ruby Parker said. “It’s your investigation. After you’ve left my office, you’ll run it yourselves. I expect to be kept informed, of course, and I’ll offer advice on request, but I won’t interfere.”
“How soon can we be expected to know Kramski’s address?” Orlov said.
“Ronnie has instructions to report to you as soon as he’s got a result. It’s for him to choose the precise time and manner. Any further questions?”
“I’ve got a gigantic one,” Bronstein said. “Since we know who Kramski is, why don’t we just tell everyone?”
“Why not get Crimewatch to do a feature about him?” Hartley-Brown said.
Ruby Parker shook her head and smiled. “We’ve got the full cooperation of the Russian embassy on this and they’ve specifically asked us not to go down that route.”
“Their reason being?” Bronstein said.
“That the press would draw unwarranted conclusions about the Kremlin’s involvement from Kramski’s background. Thus providing the pretext for a wave of anti-Russian feeling. Bad for business.”
Orlov nodded. “Perhaps that’s even its purpose. We could be playing into their hands.”
“We have retained the option to make Kramski’s photo public if necessary, just not his name or nom de guerre. Any other questions, gentlemen?”
The three men looked at each other and said no. Ruby Parker stood up.
“I have a strong intuition about this case,” she said. “Most countries are torn, when they’re torn, by liberals and totalitarians. In Russia there’s a third group. It comes and it goes. For want of a better phrase: militant mystics. At their worst they combine the most ruthless realpolitik with the highest idealism.”
Bronstein smiled. “Sounds a bit Dan Brown.”
“Or even al-Qaeda,” Hartley-Brown added.
“I mention it because I don’t want you to waste time looking for the crude hand of the GRU or the SVR in everything you discover. If the pieces don’t fit, as you Americans say ...”
“Understood,” Orlov replied.
“Now, if you need to do any interviews on the premises, we have rooms available at the police station on the embankment by Waterloo Bridge. Don’t bring anyone here. Jonathan, you’re officially Inspector Hartley-Brown again, although of course you’re no longer answerable to your old employer. And if you’ve no further questions, it’s time for you to get to work. Good day.”
Bronstein tracked Garvey Simpson to the Shoulder of Mutton and Cucumbers on Beech Street. It was dark inside and the curtains were closed. The landlady shifted chairs and vacuumed around the scuffed brogues of pensioners with patterned cardigans and glasses of Olde English 800. Bronstein sat down on a stool and leaned on the sticky bar. Simpson pretended not to notice him. The landlord read the signals and went into the back.
“Hey, it’s Garvey Simpson, isn’t it? The photographer?”
Simpson curled his lip and went back to his drink. “What do you want? The police have already pumped me twice. I thought you’d been taken off the case.”
“I have.”
“What you doing here then?”
“I’ve given up police work, period. I’m going to be a manager at Sainsbury’s.”
Simpson smirked. “Yeah? So what are you after me for?”
“Au contraire, I’m here to celebrate. Bartender, could I have a Highball, please?”
The landlord came out from the back of the shop. “We don’t do cocktails.”
“Yeah, but you can mix some orange juice with some vodka, can’t you?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t want to.”
Garvey Simpson started to laugh. “Give him a break, Samuel. He’s celebrating.”
“What are you having, Garv?” Bronstein asked, when the barman changed his mind and started cooperating.
“Triple vodka, since it’s you.”
“I’ll do better than that. Barman, give him a Highball.”
“I don’t want a bloody Highball.”
“With two triple vodkas in,” Bronstein said.
“Okay, maybe yes.”
Two hours later, Bronstein took Simpson home by taxi. He put him to bed in the recovery position and jammed a toaster behind him to stop him rolling onto his back and choking on his own vomit. Then he copied his hard drive.
The foyer of the Grand Hotel in Piccadilly was a self-consciously modern mixture of stainless steel, smoked glass and potted bay trees. Despite the profusion of polishable surfaces and a pot pourri on a coffee table, it smelt of nothing. Hartley-Brown walked up to the receptionist just in time to witness the summit of that day’s activity: an elderly couple on chairs flicked through postcards with pictures of double-decker buses and beefeaters on.
The receptionist finished what she was doing and smiled. “How may I help you, sir?”
“I’m here to see Jilly Bestwick.”
“Could I take your name?”
He showed his imitation police card. “I believe she’s expecting me.”
“I’ll call up. One moment.” She put the phone to one ear and her finger in the other to block out extraneous noise, although there wasn’t any. “Hello? Could I speak to Miss Bestwick? Yes ... Oh. Thank you, that’s fine, I’ll let him know.” She hung up. “I’m terribly sorry, sir. Apparently, she’s at a rehearsal. She’s appearing on the One Show tonight.”
“Where’s she rehearsing?”
“I’m not sure ... I guess wherever it’s being recorded.”
“If you don’t mind my asking, who told you she’d been called out to the One Show?”
“I think that was Robert Vincent, sir.”
“‘Robert Vincent’?”
“From Simply Boyz?”
“Her boyfriend?”
She smiled. “I don’t think I’m giving anything away if I say yes.” She passed him a copy of The Daily Mail. To one side of the headline stood a photograph of a miserable-looking couple walking side by side in sunglasses. She was dressed in a grey T-shirt, grey leggings and pumps; he wore baggy trousers and a hoodie. The banner said, ‘Oh, Jilly, my Jilly, can this really be the end?’
“Could you ask him if it’s all right for me to speak to him?” Hartley-Brown asked.
“I’ll call their room again. Just a second.”
The elderly couple finished counting their postcards and left. A young woman in sunglasses came in and stood behind Hartley-Brown. The start of a queue: probably the second most exciting thing to have happen here today.
The receptionist put the phone down. “He says he’s ‘out of here’. Those were his exact words. You might meet him coming down on the lift.”
The woman behind tapped Hartley-Brown on the shoulder. He turned round to find himself looking at the woman from the front of The Daily Mail in heels and a poncho and sunglasses perched on her hair. She was smiling.
“I’m Jilly Bestwick,” she said, extending her fingertips for a handshake. “It’s two o’clock so I suppose you must be the Inspector.”
The lift doors pinged and a man of about twenty-five stormed out and ploughed to the exit, pointing and re-pointing his index finger in time with his words. “You ain’t gone dumped me, Honey! I dumped you! Y’understand what I’m sayin’, bitch? I ain’t been dumped on, you have!”
The receptionist turned her head impassively, tracking his exit.
“I think you just missed Mr Vincent, sir,” she said.
Jilly Bestwick had the tall healthy look of someone who had narrowly missed a career in pole-vaulting. She had long auburn hair held back from her forehead by a violet band, large eyes beneath neatly plucked brows, thick lips, and a ‘Help For Heroes’ bracelet. She couldn’t face going back to the hotel room so she checked out permanently. She put her sunglasses back on because she’d just exfoliated and didn’t want her public to see, and went for a walk with Hartley-Brown in Green Park.
“Haven’t you any things you’d like to get from your room?” he asked her.
“Let the cleaners have them. I’ve nothing worth keeping.”
“I’m sorry about you and Mr Vincent.”
She laughed hollowly. “Don’t be. It’s not like breaking up with an adult.”
They sat down on a bench. He opened a notebook. It was a sunny afternoon and the grass was strewn with lovers and drink cans and couples with children buzzing between them as if they needed pollinating. They had to speak up to make themselves heard over the traffic beyond the sward.
“Could I ask you about the shooting again?”
“I don’t think there’s anything more to say.”
“I’ve been looking at your statement. And Mr Vincent’s.”
“I don’t know what Rob said.”
“According to him, just before the shooting, you said, ‘I’m not bothered about us. I’m bothered about them.’ Meaning the photographers. Do you remember that?”
“Not really.”
“Has no one asked you about this before?”
“You’re the first.”
He wondered what on earth Sir Colin’s men were doing. “I mean, could you have said it? Does it strike you as the sort of thing you might have said?”
“I sometimes do get ‘feelings’ about things. I can’t explain it. My great grandma was psychic. She used to give readings. But you wouldn’t need to be psychic to be scared. It’s happened in other places. Like to Zane Cruse, for example.”
“Have you ever been stalked?”
“Not that I know of.”
He handed her a picture of Dmitri Kramski. “Have you ever seen this man before?”
“Never. Do you know who he is yet?”
“We’re working on it. Can I ask you if you have any theories?”
“I think he’s probably a stalker, like you say. But he’s very shy, if that’s the right word for a psychopath.”
“Have you ever met any of the other celebrities present at the shootings? Bobby Keynes? Zane Cruse? Mikey Walker? Stallone Laine?”
“No.”
“Sure?”
“I – I might have. I might have met Zane.”
He smiled. “‘Might have’?”
“Look, it’s why Rob and I split up, okay? I get on with Zane, I’m not in love with him or anything. But Rob’s too immature to get that. He thinks we’ve got to be having sex.”
He closed his notebook and put it back in his inside pocket. “Thank you for being so cooperative. Are you going straight home? I’m only asking because if you have got a stalker, I wouldn’t want to leave you alone.”
“Would you like a cup of coffee?” she said. “I’ll buy.”
His mouth popped into a smile. “I - I’d love one. I wonder if you’d mind if I just step aside and call a colleague? Let him know where I’m going.”
She knew more than she was letting on, he could see that. And whatever it was, she probably shared it with Zane Cruse. He’d go and interview Cruse next. But right now, it was Bronstein he needed.
Bronstein picked up on the third ring. “Hi, Jonathan. How’s Jilly?”
“She’s fine. Is there any possibility of you breaking into her house and bugging it?”
Bronstein laughed. “I’ve been drinking highballs since breakfast. I’m up for anything.”
“It’s just - ”
“Tell me later.”
