A Hard Woman to Kill (The DCI Hanlon Series) (20 page)

There were seven items on the agenda, actions from previous meetings, updates on requirements and legal compliance, current status and tasks in progress, project plans, actions required, financial overviews and AOB.

Corrigan found his attention wandering. Project Volga had seemed to him a typical example of departmental time-wasting, but someone had considered it of sufficient importance to have Charlie Taverner killed. He had been killed to stop him attending a meeting rather like this, as dull as this. Just to protect the name of the
vor
, the Russian godfather. Taverner had been planning to produce it like a rabbit out of a hat. He wondered when Demirel would get back to him. He wondered if Demirel had found out anything worth reporting on.

He guessed he might have been naïve in blaming a police informant for Charlie’s death. The leak could easily have come from anyone around this table. Was that what had happened? The criminals had so much money to spend and there had been no pay increase for anyone in the room for several years. Had that affected someone’s morality?

His gaze rested speculatively upon Charlie Taverner’s replacement, Serg Surikov. And what about the Thanatos think tank that both of them had worked for? Thanatos monitored criminal as opposed to ideological threats from around the world. It analysed trends and Charlie Taverner, ex-Foreign Office and ex-Moscow Embassy staff, had been their key Russian adviser. Someone from Thanatos could have tipped the Russians off. Possibly even this man sitting opposite him, Serg Surikov.

Tall, thin, a feline kind of face with eyes that were slightly almond-shaped; maybe he had some Tartar blood in him, thought Corrigan. Maybe Chinese. He had a wispy beard and moustache that belonged on a schoolboy rather than a businessman. Corrigan was old enough to remember Bjorn Borg, the Swedish tennis player that women had swooned over. He too had had similar skimpy facial hair. In Corrigan’s view you shouldn’t have a beard unless it was a proper one.

He rubbed his own sizeable chin. It rasped satisfyingly.

Their eyes met momentarily. Surikov seemed to guess what Corrigan was thinking and stroked his straggly beard with an air of self-mockery. His eyes were bright and amused. He obviously didn’t care remotely what anyone thought.

‘Can we start now, ladies and gentlemen,’ said Lansdale-Brown. There was a general shuffling of papers and clearing of throats. Francine Edwards, from the Home Office, short, dark-haired and buxom, had laid her things out in a neatly aligned pattern. Bright and alert, she looked as if she was ready to sit an important exam. An exam she was confident of passing. The man from the mayor’s office for Policing and Crime, Paul Fredericks, pointed at Surikov.

‘Does he have clearance?’ he asked aggressively, and, ‘Where’s Edward Li?’

Li was the Hong Kong-born head of the Thanatos think tank. A shining example of upward mobility, from the dockyard slums of Kowloon to the boardrooms of London, New York and Berlin in four decades. Rumour had it he had once been an enforcer for the Triads. It was a rumour Li never denied.

‘I said, where’s Li?’ repeated Paul Fredericks.

Corrigan knew Fredericks well. He heartily disliked him. He always had to be difficult, always wanting to make some point.

‘I have been exhaustively and painstakingly vetted by DVA and FCO Vetting Unit,’ said Surikov, his voice silky. It sounded very musical after Fredericks’s estuary English accent. ‘I believe I have, to the
nth
degree, bounded over hurdles put in my way.’

He chose his elaborate phrasing slowly, as though he was picking his way through an interesting maze of vocabulary, thickets of lexis.

‘As to your other point, allow me to elucidate. Mr Li is very unavoidably busy and cannot extricate himself from coils of pressing business.’

‘Well, I think that covers that point, Paul,’ said Lansdale-Brown firmly. Fredericks scowled. Lansdale-Brown scratched her head with the end of the biro she was holding. She had wiry, scrunchy hair that she’d piled up and secured on top of her head, adding to her considerable height.

Surikov smiled sarcastically at the man from the mayor’s office and the meeting proceeded. It covered the areas that Corrigan had outlined to Enver Demirel in the previous week and two things rapidly became very clear to Corrigan.

The first was the extraordinary lack of information held by the Home Office and the Border Agency on the extent of Russian involvement in UK crime, indeed, in UK business in general. Even numbers of Russians in the country appeared to be a matter of conjecture. We’re basing policy on guesswork, thought Corrigan gloomily. I don’t know why I should be surprised.

The second thing was how impressive Surikov was. Most of us have some, possibly exaggerated, knowledge of what we consider to be a weak spot, and for Corrigan it was lack of a formal education. He had left school at sixteen and that was that.

The older he became, the more it rankled. He was slightly in awe of Hanlon for her relentless autodidacticism, the way she would devour history, geography, anything non-fiction. He envied Mawson for his degree, even though he outranked Mawson astronomically, and he was always intimidated by Lansdale-Brown and Francine Edwards with their respective degrees in PPE (Oxon) and Economics (Cantab). He knew it was stupid of him, but it was there, as irrational but as powerful as his dislike of sports jackets, golf and TV presenters.

Edward Li, whose absence Fredericks had bemoaned, was cut from the same cloth as Corrigan, working class made good, but Li, chamaeleon-like, had insinuated himself into the educated, ruling elite. Suave, distinguished-looking, in his well-cut bespoke suits and handmade shoes, you would never have guessed he had quite literally at the beginning fought his way up and into society. Li had managed to acquire a degree and solid academic credentials, but for Corrigan it was too late.

Corrigan, battered face and raw, pitted features, looked like a labourer dressed up for an unexpected day at the office. He had risen high, but he never felt he belonged and he never felt part of the establishment he represented. He was there as an equal of everyone around the table at the meeting but, deep down, he didn’t feel equal and he suspected that privately they were looking down their noses at him. He guessed it was why he got on so well with Hanlon. They were both, in their own ways, outsiders. Both mistrustful.

Surikov, who was an outsider, dominated the small meeting. He effortlessly laid out facts and figures from what was obviously a prodigious memory. He was insightful, informative, even managing to make the thickets of Russian acronyms, MVD (Ministry of Internal Affairs), OBEP (Department for Combating Economic Crime), RUOP (Regional Department for Combating Organized Crime) intelligible and interesting. His ornate English, Corrigan decided, was a significant factor in the weaponry Surikov deployed, of charm, intelligence, lucidity.

All qualities that Fredericks, in Corrigan’s opinion, lacked.

Fredericks’s scowl deepened as Surikov held the interest of the women in the room, the Home Office ladies practically flirting with him. Corrigan was quite pleased. He had been hoping to avoid a series of potentially tricky questions about the Metropolitan Police’s contribution to combating the rise in sex-trafficking in London, but all eyes seemed to be on the Russian end. The Home Office because they were swooning over Surikov, the mayor’s office because Fredericks was busy trying, ineffectually, to score points over the Russian.

The meeting finally broke up, Lansdale-Brown and Francine Edwards handing business cards to Surikov.

Corrigan watched them, amused. He wasn’t the kind of man that women made a beeline for, but he didn’t care. Popularity meant little to him, although he was exceptionally good at personal PR. He had hit upon a winning strategy years ago, to be himself. And as he was fundamentally a decent man, it worked.

Fredericks came up to him.

‘Cocky little bastard, isn’t he?’ he said, jerking his head at Surikov. Corrigan shrugged, disliking Fredericks even more than usual. Fredericks had the kind of mouth that held a perpetual sneer, as if there were some kind of specialist curling tongs that he used on his lips on a nightly basis. It was rumoured he had political ambitions. He would become the kind of politician the people love to hate, thought Corrigan.

‘When you’re that good-looking and that bright you can afford to be, Paul,’ said Corrigan, his tone implying Fredericks was neither. ‘Brains and beauty, Paul, God rarely gives both.’

It had been warm in the office and Surikov had removed his jacket. As he left the room, Corrigan noticed Lansdale-Brown and Edwards frankly appraising his backside. ‘I think they like his ass as well, Paul, particularly Francine,’ said Corrigan helpfully. He knew Fredericks fancied Edwards. ‘She’s almost drooling. Oh, to be that good-looking, eh, Paul?’ he added. Fredericks frowned in annoyance, glared at Corrigan and left the room.

Surikov was still waiting for the lift when Corrigan joined him. Surikov smiled politely. ‘Allow me to say what an honour it is to have met you, Assistant Commissioner Corrigan,’ he said.

Corrigan looked down at the Russian from his great height. It was hard to know if Surikov was being serious or sarcastic. He noticed for the first time that his eyes were a strange greenish-blue colour, like a cat’s.

‘Thank you,’ he said.

‘Serg,’ said Surikov, proffering his hand. Corrigan enfolded it in his own enormous paw and shook it. He made no attempt to give his own forename. The lift arrived and they got in; Surikov pressed the ground-floor button. He toyed with the visitor’s pass hanging around his neck.

‘Edward Li intimated to me that I should jog your memory regarding a DCI Hanlon,’ said Surikov as the lift doors closed. Corrigan looked at him coldly. Not this again, he thought.

‘I was very close to Charlie Taverner,’ said Surikov. ‘I know that the police will be exploring every avenue but I have inferred from several hints dropped by my employer that DCI Hanlon, whilst maybe impetuous, precipitous, even, has in the past produced extremely effective results.’

‘Ground floor,’ announced the lift, in modulated tones. Corrigan thought, Thanatos seems to view Hanlon as some kind of magic solution if a situation seems intractable. God, I’m getting as bad as Fredericks, he thought, intractable.

He was growing heartily sick of Li telling him what to do. He’d already had a couple of private emails from the man, asking that Hanlon be assigned to Taverner’s disappearance. Corrigan was damned if he was going to endanger her life in the pursuit of Russian gangsters. And, he thought, how come Li knew so much about Hanlon?

He felt an almost irresistible urge to lean forward, to morph into an old-school London copper, say something along the lines of,
Word in your shell-like, sunshine, fuck off!
Let Serg ,with his deep knowledge of idiomatic English, try and work out the meaning of the first half of that sentence.

‘I have every faith in the ability of all my officers, Serg,’ said Corrigan. The doors opened and Surikov politely waved him ahead.

Corrigan strode towards reception security without looking back. Thanatos seemed strangely obsessed with Hanlon, he thought.

Serg Surikov stood in the lobby and watched him go. His face was inscrutable. He took his mobile phone from his pocket and saw there was a message from Francine Edwards, the young, sleek brunette from the meeting.

Thanks for the chirps, call me!

Surikov frowned and looked up chirps on the dictionary app.
To make a short high-pitched sound like a bird or an insect.

Obviously another slang expression. It must have a second meaning. A polyseme, a word with multiple meanings. Francine Edwards’s voice was quite low and husky. It certainly wasn’t high-pitched. Most definitely not insect-like. His face brightened and he entered
chirp
into his list of words to learn. He made a note,
idiomatic usage
.

He loved vocabulary.

Maybe Francine Edwards would like to explain it herself. He started to tap her number into his phone.

Arkady Belanov’s mobile rang. It was Dimitri.

‘Mitya has the policeman under control now,’ said Arkady to Myasnikov. ‘What do you want doing with him?’ He knew, but he wanted confirmation.

Myasnikov raised surprised eyebrows. ‘I thought we’d agreed we’d take him to that warehouse in Slough. I certainly don’t want him here and the farm isn’t ready yet. We’re still waiting for the Yusopovs. I want this place to look as innocent as possible just in case his colleagues come looking for him.’

He shook his head at the stupidity of his subordinates.

‘And remind all the girls here of what will happen to them if they speak to the police. You did film cutting off that scum’s head.’ Arkady nodded. Myasnikov said, ‘Show them that. When we kill the policeman, record that too. Let them know no one is above my law.’

Arkady picked up his landline phone and issued the relevant instructions to the Yusopov twins. They’d pick up Dimitri and the girl and drive them and Enver to the trading estate.

‘And the girl, Arkasha?’ asked Dimitri, still on the mobile. Arkady looked at Myasnikov. Myasnikov considered the question; it was a pleasing one. He felt like the emperor in a Roman amphitheatre. He had the power of life or death. Thumbs up or thumbs down. It was a great feeling, known only to a select few.

‘Is she trouble?’ he asked. Arkady relayed the question. Dimitri, a few miles away on the other side of Oxford, looked at the hunched figure of Chantal, sitting on the bed staring bleakly into space, meekly awaiting whatever fate had in store for her.

‘No.’

Thumbs up then, thought Myasnikov. The emperor had exercised his power. In the Circus Maximus the crowds cheered, applauding his magnanimity. Soon, however, they would see his other side. They needed to question Enver before they got rid of him; they’d let her watch. After that there would be no doubt that she would do what she was told, and he could take her to Moscow and sell her. She was near the airport; they might as well make use of it. He’d fly her to Poland and drive her in that way, save messing around with visas. He knew people at a border crossing there; it would be easy.