Lira woke up. She could smell hospital smells and hear the sound of trolleys and voices on the other side of a partition. It was dark. There was something on her face, a cloth, a bandage. She put her hand up to her eyes, afraid of what she might find. With the tips of her fingers she lifted the bandages, one by one. No light came. The bandage was off, and Lira still could see nothing. Her eyelids wouldn’t move. With her right hand she could feel her cheeks, and lumps beneath her eyes. “Mama, mamoyka,” she murmured, calling for her mother like a child. And then she suddenly remembered the burning sensation and her cries. She cried again. The door opened, a voice approached, close to her, speaking gently in English, telling her she must not touch the bandages, that the doctor was just coming. Then he came. A man’s voice, very serious.
“Please stay calm, it’s most important. What is your name?”
“Lira…”
“Lira, you came in yesterday. Do you remember? Two young men found you in the street, do you remember?”
“No, where am I?”
“You’re in University College Hospital, in A & E. You were attacked. You’re going to be all right. But you must keep the bandage on your eyes. I don’t know what happened but it looks as though your eyes have been burnt with acid. It’s too soon for a definite diagnosis, but your corneas have been badly damaged.”
She didn’t understand everything he said, but as he spoke, things began to fall into place in her mind. She remembered the danger, the two men, the blows, their voices, their words, Russians.
“Polina, Polina,” she suddenly murmured. “Call Polina! She’s in danger, she’s coming tomorrow.”
She tried to sit up, asking for her bag, looking for her phone. The nurse looked around the cubicle and went to ask another nurse who was adamant: Lira hadn’t had her bag with her when she had been brought in. She had been found by two young men, she had fainted and they had called an ambulance.
“Polina, Polina,” Lira moaned.
The doctor told the nurse to stay with her. He prescribed a tranquillizer and suggested contacting the Russian embassy.
“No!” Lira cried, suddenly understanding. “No, they’ll kill me.”
The doctor decided to prescribe a stronger tranquillizer. “She’s delirious,” he said. He went out, instructing the nurse to keep him informed and to put on a new bandage.
“Polina… Polina…”
“Who’s Polina?” the nurse asked, leaning over Lira’s face, wrapping it again.
“My daughter, she’s in danger.”
“Is she in England?”
“No.”
“Is there anyone here I can call for you?”
“I don’t know…” She was crying now. “Yes! At the Guardian , the newspaper. Charlotte MacKennedy…”
“Is she a friend?”
“Yes, she’s a journalist, like me. Tell her to come quickly.”
“OK.”
“Call her now, please, I beg you!”
“All right, I will. Just let me finish the bandage.”
Once she had done this, the nurse went out. Fifteen minutes later, she came back.
“I got her office, she’s not there. I left a message, I said it was urgent.”
Lira clutched her hands together on the sheets. She was trembling. Her fingers kept going up to the bandage, and each time the nurse put them back down.
“Keep calm, you’re in shock, you mustn’t worry,” she said as she installed a drip filled with a powerful tranquillizer.
When Lira woke up again a few hours later, Charlotte MacKennedy was there, her hand on hers. They didn’t know each other very well.
“Lira, it’s me, Charlotte, what happened?”
“Have you told Polina?”
“No, who’s Polina?”
“My daughter… she’s supposed to be coming… she mustn’t come. What day is it?”
Lira’s words were muffled and confused. Her mouth was limp. She was sobbing.
“Thursday,” Charlotte murmured.
“She’s supposed to be arriving tomorrow. You must warn her, tell her not to come, she’s in Paris. But don’t tell her what’s happened, or she’ll come anyway. No, she’ll suspect. Call her father, that’s it. He’ll protect her, I’ll give you his name, he’s in St Petersburg. I can call him if you can get his number. I’ve lost my bag, my address book, my telephone…”
The nurse came in and said that a woman from the embassy was there.
“I don’t want to see her!” Lira cried.
Charlotte rang international directory enquiries on her mobile. She got the number, dialled it, and handed the phone to Lira, who sat up, grimacing with pain: “Hallo, Dmitry, it’s me Lira… Listen… Don’t shout at me, it won’t help, we must work quickly. I’ve been attacked. But listen! They were Russians, they knew I was here. Be quiet, I beg you! Polina is supposed to come tomorrow, we were going to go shopping together. You must call her and stop her from coming… It’s nothing, not bad, but be quiet!” Charlotte watched Lira, not understanding what she was saying to her ex-husband. She remembered calling her when she had been doing a story in St Petersburg. Everybody had told her to get in touch with this famously dogged journalist, a real pest they called her – that was a compliment in the profession. Lira had received her in her agreeably untidy office at the magazine, and they had had lunch together and got along well… “You must get hold of her in Paris, you must protect her. You can blow me up later! Go to Paris now! Stay with her! I’ll call you. Yes, I know, it’s all my fault…”
She hung up.
“I’m blind, Charlotte, I can’t see anything.”
“It may just be temporary, you must just wait. This is a very good hospital. Where’s your hotel? I’ll go and get your stuff.”
“12 Bucknall Street.”
The hotel entrance was plastered with the logos of travel agents and guides for tourists on modest budgets. The receptionist informed Charlotte that she was not the first person asking to see Lira’s room.
“310? The embassy people have already been to collect her stuff. They said she had had an accident, what happened?”
“The embassy?” Charlotte asked.
“They were Russian, anyway,” the man said.
She ran up the stairs. The door was ajar, as though someone was still in there, but it was only the chambermaid, who gave an embarrassed smile, indicating that she had nearly finished. The journalist looked around and saw that they had taken everything, the computer, the clothes as well, to make it seem as though they were taking care of her. The chambermaid went, taking the attackers’ fingerprints away on her dusters. On the white bathroom tiles was a small plastic bag, with a few forgotten items of make-up. Charlotte gazed at some deep purple eyeshadow, which must have brought out the colour of Lira’s eyes in the evening. She didn’t take it.
ACID ATTACK ON RUSSIAN JOURNALIST IN LONDON STREET
The Guardian, 17th August.
Lira Kazan, a journalist for the Russian weekly magazine Mir, was the victim of a savage acid attack the day before yesterday as she was returning to her hotel in Bucknall Street. She was taken to A & E at University College Hospital. Doctors confirm that her life is not in danger, but are unable to say as yet whether her sight can be saved after severe burns to her eyes. The attackers’ methods have led the inquiry to suspect a Russian connection. In the last few years London has become the scene for settlements of scores between various interest groups in Moscow. Scotland Yard, however, did comment as follows: “Normally the Russians don’t just threaten, they kill.”
Kazan, 41, has already been subjected to threats in St Petersburg, particularly since she began to take an interest in the growing empire of oligarch Sergei Louchsky. During the last few years the billionaire has been busy distancing himself from earlier underworld connections, and he has recently floated his group on the London Stock Exchange.
The attack on Lira Kazan has only confirmed once again that, for a Russian journalist, it is dangerous, and sometimes deadly, simply to do your job. There is now a long list of similar victims, well known to Lira Kazan, who has recently written an article on the subject. What is new and of particular interest to this newspaper is that they are now being tracked right to the heart of London.
Charlotte MacKennedy