The Ice House (23 page)

40

He drove back to Gumbacka in a panic, passing the road back to the hotel without seeing the Mercs, wondering how much of it had been there for him to see before he had even set foot on Zaikov’s boat.

There were lights on in the house that he could see from two kilometres back, on the forest road. Viktor’s was the only house on that part of the inlet in Gumbacka. The lights gave him a brief hope that they would both still be there, that somehow he was wrong.

He screeched the bike to a halt in front of the twin garages and ran panting to the front door. He shouted for Rebecca at the top of his voice and pushed on the door. It was shut, but not locked – he had only to turn the big handle to swing it back on the huge, deserted hallway, ablaze with light.

He knew the moment he put a foot inside that the entire place was empty. It was like something you could smell. He shouted again, shouted her name, shouted for Viktor. And all the time could feel his heart racing, skipping, pausing, feel the anger welling inside.

There was a huge nineteenth-century factory clock mounted on the wall directly opposite the doorway. According to that, it was just after eight o’clock. He had been gone over six hours.

He ran through the whole house, then down to the dock. The boats were all there. They had not left by boat.

Back in the garages both cars were there, so he took the steps up through the wooded darkness behind the house, to the big concrete helipad, illuminated by powerful floodlights. He had seen it from the circular tower earlier in the day, seen it covered in a carpet of fallen birch leaves. But now he stood in the ­middle of it and saw the big white H clearly. The leaves had been blown aside, not just off the helipad, but from the skirting and the lawns surrounding it. Viktor had left in a helicopter and had taken Rebecca with him. But how long ago?

He staggered back to the house, his heart doing something again. He had to know where they had gone.

He went through all the drawers in the room Viktor called his office, flinging the contents on the floor, searching for a phone that might have Viktor’s numbers in it. He had none of them in his head, having relied for too long on his phone’s memory. There was a blinking light on the answerphone for the landline and he pressed it and listened to a message from a cleaning company, trying to get through to the caretaker.

He went up the stairs to Viktor’s room and started turning out all his clothes, his drawers of papers, not even sure now what he was looking for or trying to do. He felt a terrible tightness pressing into his ribs, sweat on his forehead.

There were computers lying all over – laptops, desktops, tablets – but they all needed passwords he didn’t have. He leaned against the window, staring out into the darkness, and tried frantically to clarify what he
did
know.

Zaikov had never heard of Rebecca.

Viktor must have told them he had killed Uri.

He gasped as he thought about it. But there was no other way to interpret it. Viktor had set him up, betrayed him, got him onto that boat
knowing
that they would try to kill him. It made him flinch, curl up inside and cry out with shock. He couldn’t grasp it properly, couldn’t understand why. That it might
just
be about money, that Viktor would try to kill his own brother, kill
him
, for money, as part of a massive deal with the Zaikov clan … That he
couldn’t
believe.

But there was no other explanation.
We would never do this to our own.

There
must
be something else, something that had forced Viktor into it, that gave him no choice. Because Viktor was his brother, the one person who had always looked out for him, looked after him, cared for him. Was it something to do with the girl, with Rebecca? Viktor had left
with
her. Neither of them were here. That meant he was running with her. But Zaikov had never heard of Rebecca so he couldn’t be running from Zaikov on account of her. Was Rebecca just an untimely coincidence? Did she have nothing to do with it at all?

But if Viktor was running now then he
must
be running from Zaikov. There was no one else who could pose a big enough threat. Which meant Zaikov was trying to kill them both, and in desperation Viktor had tried to buy him off with Carl’s life. But it hadn’t worked, so Viktor had fled, taking Rebecca with him.

But why take Rebecca with him?
He screwed his eyes shut and tried to weigh it, put the bare facts together, work out what they meant. But his brain was still too sluggish, his thoughts sifting slowly like a grey mud, everything knocked out of line by the voltage. He couldn’t hack his way through the questions. There was too much that didn’t make sense. Especially Rebecca. What did she have to do with it all?

He stumbled coming back down the stairs and fell into the hallway, skidding onto his back. He was breathing like he had run a marathon. He sat up and tried to control the things he was feeling, the fear gripping at him. It was going to happen again, he thought – the heart thing. He should do something about it or he would never find out where they had gone.

He pushed himself to his feet and walked very slowly towards the kitchen, thinking that at least a glass of water would help. But he didn’t get as far as the door before he felt the waves of dizziness again. This time he was breathing so noisily he couldn’t hear his heart. This time he didn’t manage to get down to ground level before the blackout hit and the floor rushed up to meet him.

41

Almost one in the morning. Julia stood in the darkness and tried to control the flood of emotion. She had seen him from the edge of the forest, through cheap, low-powered binoculars bought in a petrol station. She had rested them on a stone, lay down, made sure her hands were steady, focused them carefully, forced herself to take her time, to make sure it really was him.

He was in what looked like a kitchen, standing over a sink, splashing water onto his face. She wasn’t sure until he straightened up and turned from the sinks, walked over to the window and leaned against the sill – then she could see his face quite clearly. It was him. No doubt about it. Not who she had been expecting at all.

When she got past the initial shock she started to scan the place again, trying to hold down the feelings, keep her breath under control. It was almost impossible.

This was the only house for miles around, a blaze of light against the surrounding woods. From where she had lain – at the edge of the forest on the slightly higher land above the inlet – she could see straight over what she thought might be the helicopter pad, across the lawns and down to the water. The surface was alive with reflected light, a shifting pattern of flickering orange and yellow against the black forested land beyond.

Despite that, at first she had thought no one was home. She had searched every window she could see, very carefully. There were no curtains or blinds, no attempt at privacy. There was a three-metre-high security fence that she remembered well, with cameras and floodlights every twenty metres, razor wire coiled along the top, the trees cleared either side of it so it looked like a prison camp boundary, but the gates were wide open, with no one on guard. No dogs, no security personnel patrolling the perimeter. All these things had been standard when she had been here ten years before. Now it looked like you could just walk straight through the gates.

Which was exactly what she had done. She was standing about fifty metres past the gateposts now, watching his figure move from room to room. From where she was to the door was less than thirty metres. If he looked out he would see her.

The car she had hired was back in the trees, at a bend in the road. She had left it to walk through the forest and get near enough undetected to be able to work out what she should do. She had hoped that she would actually see them – see Viktor, see Rebecca. There had been a strong feeling in her heart that Rebecca
would
be here, that she would find her. But her premon­itions and precautions had been off target. There was no security. No sign of Viktor. No Rebecca. Instead,
he
was here.

At the airport, she had not been able to remember the exact address – the car she had hired had a satnav though. She had paid for it – and the binoculars – using one of the cards Drake had given her, even though she knew that meant Michael Rugojev would be able to trace the usage. Some credit cards were set up to send a text message to a nominated phone number, notifying each transaction as it happened, to prevent fraud. If it was like that then he would know already that she was in Helsinki, but she had no other source of funds and so no option.

She had put ‘Gumbacka’ into the satnav – that was as much as she could recall – but had easily found her way once she got near.

A year ago, when Michael Rugojev had tracked her down, she had sat in a restaurant with him and asked where his nephew was. Viktor Rugojev’s wealth had apparently grown since she had last met him: he now had properties in America, London, Dubai, Moscow, Brazil. There was some kind of rift between Michael and he, though, a source of pain to the uncle. He had sat with his hands open at the table and said, ‘Like all of us, he moves around a lot. I’m never really sure where he is based these days.’ Then he’d smiled, and added, ‘He still has the place in Helsinki.’ He remembered their visit there, wanted to talk about it, as though the memory were happy. ‘I think it’s the only place he still has in Finland,’ he said. ‘They tell me he keeps it because he remembers you, remembers your plans together.’

His
plans, not hers. But that was why she was here, because Michael had said that.

They had been here only once, all three of them – Michael, Viktor and herself. Plus the staff and security, of course. Nearly thirty security guys at that point, because it was all still fresh – the attempt on Michael’s life – the fallout still with them. But that hadn’t stopped Viktor. He had proposed to her here, on that night. He had done it in front of Michael, as if Michael was some kind of king or high priest who would bless the whole thing.
Mikhael Ivanovich.
That was what they called Michael, in Russian. It was like a scene out of a movie. The Godfather – Michael as family and gang boss, giving his permission to bring her into the fold. In the beginning she had thought they were all just businessmen, legitimate – she had been very young, of course – but by then she had known better.

Michael had been smiling that smile, watching Viktor’s clumsiness as he asked her. Michael still had the collar on his neck, the bruising all over his chest. But he was alive. Sixty-two and alive to tell the tale. Death torn from around his neck, thanks to her. She had saved his life on that nightmare day – the fifteenth of July. Hence his new-found belief in her. She could do nothing wrong now. Four weeks before he would not have permitted his nephew to even consider marrying her – she had been a mere kitchen assistant. But now he was excited about it, wanted to give money away to do it properly, spoke about feeling like a father to them both.

That night Viktor had talked about getting some celebrity artist to create a ‘celebration’ of her, as an engagement gift. It was to be a huge sculpture that they would put in the garden – a statue of her, nine metres high. She would have to pose for it. He had costed it already. Michael was in on it, nodding with approval, a stupid twinkle in his grey eyes. A sculpture in honour of her. She had never heard of anything so crass, so kitsch. She had tried to keep a straight face, tried to give nothing away.

She was expected to say yes to the proposal, and had, because by then she was already too terrified of Viktor Rugojev to risk crossing him. At that point – when he proposed – her escape plans were almost complete. A week later she was gone.

That had been in August, the first week of August, just three weeks after they had all been up at The Ice House and men had come to kill Michael. She had known Michael only as Mr Rugojev then, and had barely spoken to him. Everything had been different. But that day had opened her eyes.

It had just been announced that Mikhael Ivanovich had bought a ‘palace’. That was what Viktor had called it. The Ice House – that was a rough translation of the Russian name. An enormous, sprawling, Czarist mansion in northern Karelia. When she had first set eyes on it she had thought it looked like the palace in the sixties film
Dr Zhivago
. But without the snow. It had been warm then, a beautiful summer. Viktor told her the name was a reference to the decorative, arched windows, the thousands of panes of glass, which shone like ice in the sun. Most of them were smashed at the time Michael acquired it. The place needed a lot of work, a complete restoration. There was only one inhabitable wing where someone had been living previously.

They had travelled from this house, in Gumbacka, to visit it – Michael, Viktor, Alex and her, plus two security guys. A small contingent, for those days. Alex was meant to be security too. That was why he was there. Viktor was Michael’s favourite. That was why he was there. Michael had no sons of his own. The occasion was to show Viktor the new place, talk about family succession plans. She went along because Viktor brought her, though Viktor had said nothing to Michael about them being ‘together’. And Viktor had known nothing of Alex and her – she was sure of that. She was there to do the cooking. Officially, that was why she was there.

The thing with Alex had been huge at that point, all she could think of. They had made a decision that Viktor would have to be told, that they would have to take the consequences. If they didn’t break the thing Viktor thought he had going with her then they weren’t going to be able to stay together. But so far they had done nothing about that decision.

They travelled by helicopter and cars. It took half a day to get there from Gumbacka. They crossed the border at a checkpoint deep in the northern forests. The house was on the Russian side, though only just. It was in the middle of nowhere. Forests and low hills all around. No towns, no people. Hardly any of Michael’s staff informed where he was. For those reasons, perhaps, he had thought it safe to go with limited security. But he’d been wrong.

They were there a week before it happened. One of the most memorable weeks of her life. Viktor had been with Michael the whole time, talking business. She had been left with Alex. The weather had been hot, the skies clear, the wild, forest landscapes breathtaking. They had wandered far and wide through the woods, finding lakes, viewpoints, rivers, never seeing another person, utterly absorbed in the intensity of the connection that had grown between them. She had never had anything like it before, nor since.

Then, on the seventh day, Uri Zaikov and his men had come.

Michael had shown her the hole under the floor, not because he had been concerned about her but because she happened to have been there when he came looking for it. It was in the kitchen, under the boards. She had walked over it many times without thinking.

He had stooped and pulled on the edge of a board that looked chipped – a gap just wide enough to get your fingers in – and it had sprung open on some kind of mechanism. She had paused from what she was doing and watched. He had been laughing, pointing at it. He started saying something about it in Russian, then remembered that she didn’t speak it. Was it the first time he had actually said anything to her? Probably not. There must have been other, practical things, but she couldn’t remember them. ‘Just in case,’ he had joked, in English, standing staring into it. She had come round from behind the big work surface and looked. It was like a coffin under the floor. She had asked him what it was. ‘Somewhere to hide,’ he’d said. ‘It’s from the Revolution, when the red guards came hunting, you would get under there.’ He laughed again, then shut it and walked out. It hadn’t been his intention, but the exchange was to save her life. And his.