The Eyes of Lira Kazan (9 page)

It was five in the morning. Félix had slept in his clothes. He stood in front of the sitting-room window. He would have liked to see the sea but the view was obscured by the darkened block of flats opposite. They were all sleeping well, but he had never been able to manage eight hours of unconsciousness. Even when Mark had been there, even when they had been happy. But had they really been happy? After all, he had left. Even then he would often wake up with cramps in his legs, his eyes wide open, full of dark thoughts. He wanted the day to start, to change his shirt and go to the office. There at least things were happening.

“Can we search Louchsky's house?” he had asked the judge the previous day.

“Risky. The prosecutor won't sign.”

“You could try getting an emergency warrant from his deputy, order the car for nine o'clock and be off by nine fifteen, you've done it before.”

“Well, you might consider shaving, Félix, just in case I do decide to do that…”

He went into the kitchen, made some coffee, turned the radio on, and then off again immediately when all he found was the stock-market report, a series of incomprehensible figures. He sat down in front of his computer, where his email offered him fifty-per-cent reductions on hotels all over the world, loans at criminally high rates of interest, old books, Viagra, but nothing from Mark. He Googled Sergei Louchsky: hundreds of references appeared in French and English. Félix went through them. The man was famous. You could see him already in the winter of 1993, during the great post-Communism car-boot sale of bargain privatizations, shivering at the gates of a factory in Siberia.
He was only twenty-five and he was buying shares from the workers, who had no idea that in two years' time he would be their boss.

The rest was the story of an oligarch surviving purges and battles, always close to those in power, trailing behind him billions of dollars in oil and financial structures all over the world, as well as persistent rumours of corruption and money-laundering. Félix lingered over some of the articles that had been translated from the Russian press. He was particularly interested in a report concerning a bauxite mine acquired by Louchsky. The journalist had repeatedly tried to gain entry to a sinister mining complex. He wanted to find out what had happened to those who had dared to go on strike after the deaths a year earlier of two of their number down the mine. They had refused to come up to the surface, had told of how they were paid according to output, with all production limits and safety rules ignored. “We are serfs,” they had said at the time. The article described the silence and the fear that reigned a year later. Voices from behind doors said: “It's better not to talk now.” Only one trade unionist would speak, but anonymously. He had holes in his boots despite the cold, and he said that the revolt had cost him dear. He advised the journalist to take care. Félix looked at the byline, that of a woman, Lira Kazan. Her name cropped up frequently. She had written a great deal about Louchsky, his billions, his financial empire, his political contacts and his miserable workers.

 

Félix arrived at the law courts at five past nine, shaved. The judge informed him that the deputy, barely awake, had signed for the transport. The prosecutor was on holiday. They set off at once, as the order might be countermanded at any moment. They drove towards Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat, an area that seemed outside the law, and was certainly unfamiliar to the police services. The most expensive real estate in France, villas were bought and sold through shell
companies whose shareholders remained concealed in tax havens. Money could be laundered with total impunity.

This villa was invisible from the road, nestling behind a bank of trees and an iron gate mounted with a moving camera. Through the intercom, a servant informed them that the proprietors were absent. The judge announced himself and said that they had to open up. The gate slowly and reluctantly swung open, controlled from within. There were noises from the pool, and a visibly embarrassed butler advanced towards them, explaining that Mr Louchsky was not there, that his sisters had come with their children. Then a man in a dressing gown appeared, a brother-in-law he said, bald except for two thick, bushy eyebrows. He lost his temper, clenching his fist and grinding his teeth when asked to surrender his telephone. Beside the pool, a row of dazed and dripping blondes in ill-fitting bikinis sat silent and embarrassed.

 

The judge ordered his team to work fast and to remain totally calm. They were all aware of how unusual it was to be conducting a search in this neighbourhood. Félix searched for a plug, as the police took up their positions and began opening cupboards. Later, at home, round the table with their families, they would laugh about the little lacquer cabinet full of imperial porcelain behind bulletproof glass, the cupboard with 250 pairs of shoes, the dressing room with 120 white shirts and the bathrooms! Madame's had a bathtub in the middle in the shape of a high-heeled shoe covered in pink mosaic, with a giant pair of glass lips on the wall. Monsieur's bath was carved from a single block of marble with, on the wall, a huge man's face in black-and-white pâte de verre.

“That's Louchsky,” Félix sighed, stunned by the giant portrait. He recognized him from his Internet searches the night before. And then he thought of the miners in their stricken town. He remembered how Mark had complained
about his Russian clients: “It's always the same, they want too much, and all the things they buy just clash with one another! They don't respect anything. They spend a fortune on a whole lot of mother-of-pearl doors at the salerooms and then insist on putting modern dimmer-switches right next to them.”

The brother-in-law followed them, the top of his head gleaming more and more brightly. He was no longer protesting but his eyes widened when he saw the judge going into Louchsky's office, sitting down on his chair and trying to open some of the drawers. He went and stood in front of him, stared at him, and ostentatiously put his hand on his neck. The message was clear. It meant you're a dead man, or at any rate a dead judge. The photos in the room conveyed a similar message: Louchsky had had himself framed posing beside all the most powerful men in Russia, here, in Sochi, Moscow or Paris, all in casual or social settings.

Félix knew the judge well enough to notice his expression clouding over. He drew his attention to a painting leaning against the wall.

“Monet. The same one as on the yacht.”

“One genuine and one fake?”

“The experts can tell us. One thing is certain, she was doing business with him just before she died.”

The judge, Félix and the policemen set off with two automatic pistols, the painting and folders full of documents. They hadn't gone five miles before the judge's mobile rang. It was the prosecutor spitting with rage, demanding an explanation as soon as they got back to the law courts. The judge hung up, not saying anything.

Félix tried to lighten the atmosphere by trying an imitation of the prosecutor. “My deeear friend, you know perfectly well that ninety-eight per cent of cases can be dealt with by the law, two per cent have to remain outside it, and of those two per cent nought point five per cent can be deadly…”

But the judge didn't smile.

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.