Twenty minutes later, they got out of the ramshackle cab. Tatjana shoved a couple of rouble notes towards the elderly driver while Holger shot a glance up and down the street. The large grey concrete apartment blocks were amongst Moscow’s more excellent residential complexes. However, he found it striking that the Soviet Union – created by workers for workers – had turned its back on aesthetics and instead opted for endless rows of depressing concrete housing complexes. The workers’ environs was meant to keep them trapped in hard work: a desolate state of affairs. It’s a wonder more people hadn’t questioned whether these were indeed the fruits of the revolution, Holger thought as the Lada pulled away from the curb and sped, huffing and puffing along the busy street.
Holger sprawled on the oversized leather couch as he gulped in the decor of the flat. By Russian standards, the apartment was beautifully decorated with ornamental plaster ceilings that would have made any Hellerup villa proud. Tatjana had tastefully furnished it with dark wooden furniture and a couple of Wassily Kandinsky prints. Kandinsky was inspired by Russian constructivism, I believe, Holger thought and tried to recall other painters who were part of the art movement that had blossomed in the wake of the Russian revolution. It had been started by sculptors wanting to reflect the advancing industrial age; they had created abstract 295sculptures from glass, wood, plastic and metal. As far as he remembered, constructivism had enjoyed only a short lifespan, but its principles had later been adopted by painters across Europe. Was Danish-German Emil Nolde not one of them? He broke the train of thought and noted the fresh flowers on the coffee table, a testimony to Tatjana’s effort to create a homely feel.
Shortly after, Tatjana appeared with a couple of glasses and a bottle of vodka she poured in traditional Russian fashion. Holger smiled at the sight of the large drinking glasses, half-filled. She handed him one of them and put a tape in the VCR by the television. Holger did as he was told and switched on the machine as he sat beside her.
‘As agreed, I picked it up at your embassy, so I could prepare myself,’ she said as the bizarre footage of Kaare Strand flickered across the screen.
‘Stop! Just there!’
Surprised, Holger pressed stop as she continued:
‘Now let me show you another video. Please pay attention to the details,’ Tatjana said, ejecting the first cassette and feeding another swiftly into the VCR.
Shortly after, scenes from a porn movie appeared. Holger was surprised by the change of style and turned towards Tatjana with a quizzical look, but she was totally immersed in the images on the TV.
‘Blimey, you Russian girls really are straight to the point; you could just have asked for a kiss first,’ Holger grinned.
‘You wish…’ Tatjana snapped and rolled her eyes. ‘You have no idea what my research has entailed.’
Holger saw her blush slightly. He became fascinated by the 296voluptuous bosom of the woman on the TV and was drawn into the S&M scene playing out. A muscular man in a leather mask beat a full-bosomed blonde woman chained to a wall.
‘You do see it, don’t you? And no, it’s not for your enjoyment that I show you this clip. I’ve watched numerous porn movies as part of my efforts to map the Russian political underworld,’ continued Tatjana, prising the remote from his hand, and pressing pause.
‘Do you see what I mean?’ she said, gesturing at the face with the leather mask frozen on the screen.
Seeing Holger’s blank expression, Tatjana reinserted the video of Kaare and pressed ‘play’.
‘Bloody hell! When did you discover this?’ Holger blurted and shifted to the edge of the couch to see the image more closely.
‘Last night,’ she replied proudly.
Holger leaned back on the couch and considered the full ramifications of her discovery. The man with the leather mask was the same in both videos. Now, we have something that can lead us to the perpetrators, maybe even to Kaare, if he is still alive. The sound of the telephone cut through his thoughts as Tatjana grabbed the receiver.
‘Da… Da,’ she said quietly, hanging up and turning to face him.
‘My Documentation Group has traced the studio behind this porn flick to a location in St Petersburg. It’s one of Mother Russia’s investments, as I had suspected. We can leave for St Petersburg tomorrow morning, but first, I’ll introduce you to one of Andrej Nitchenko’s employees. Aren’t you just thrilled?’ she said with glowing eyes.297
Holger was still silent. Thoughts darted around in his head, and images of the past weeks of training flashed past his inner eye as possible scenarios presented themselves.
‘Why don’t you freshen up with some water and soap? We’re going to a disco tonight, so you’d better smell like roses,’ Tatjana said, cutting in on his ruminations as she bounced into the kitchen.
Holger followed, poured water into the basin, and removed his shirt. Tatjana withdrew to her bedroom to change, and Holger caught himself stealing looks at her through the half-open door as she pulled off her top. Tatjana had a beautiful body, and the sight of her gave a pleasant tingling sensation in his stomach. She was an attractive woman. A different Tatjana to the one he remembered. Not only because it had been a long while since he saw her last: it had been a long time since he’d looked at any woman this way. Maybe, it’s just the porn movie? He looked at his reflection in the mirror, and naked desire radiated from his eyes. This isn’t why I’m here, he thought, submerging his face in the cold water.