Trouble on the Heath (4 page)

“But he looked so guilty! He just grabbed the spray and drove off as fast as he could.” Angela was finding it hard to persuade Malcolm that she had only narrowly escaped some sort of attack.

“But it's just a planning application, for God's sake!” said Malcolm. “Nobody's going to attack the wife of the Chairman of the Residents' Association in broad daylight.”

“I don't think he was after me,” replied Angela. “I think he was after Freddie. He looked at Freddie in a most odd way.” Angela folded her arms.

“Freddie? No! That's too absurd!”

“But the phone call,” insisted Angela. “The kid gets it!”

Malcolm frowned and fiddled with the salt cellar. “But even if the person behind the application
is
a gangster,” he said, “he wouldn't warn us about what he was going to do. He'd just do it.”

“When he tripped, the man swore in Russian,” said Angela. She had a degree in Russian. That was how she and Malcolm had met. It was on a course in Russian that they'd both attended during one summer vacation.

Malcolm got up and walked to the window and stared out of it. It was raining, and a street light picked out the drops of rain as they burst on the pavement. He heaved a sigh.

“All right,” he said at last. “I'll do a bit of research.”

After all, he told himself, he was a historian. He was used to chasing up clues, checking facts, following leads, finding out why people said what they said and did what they did. There was nothing different about this. It was just happening now, instead of in the past, and it was happening to him, instead of to someone else.

He booted up his computer.

When he came down, a few hours later, he was looking very smug.

“Well?” asked Angela, although she knew she didn't need to say anything. The look on Malcolm's face meant he'd found out something. She'd seen the look before, when he'd come across some letters, written in 1399, between the Chancellor of Florence and the Archbishop of Canterbury. Or when he'd found an unknown 13th-century will or the title deeds to a house that no one had spotted before.

Malcolm sat down at the table and poured himself a glass of wine.

“Right!” he began. “The planning application is in the name of Berners Ltd. OK?”

“I'm following you so far,” said Angela.

“Right!” Malcolm glanced at his notes. It was going to be a lecture. Angela also poured herself a glass of wine.

“Berners Ltd. is owned by Kostroma Investments plc. which is owned by a company called Oprosh Services which is owned by Eva Petrova Koslova. She is married to a man by the name of Grigori Koslov.

“Now, Grigori is an interesting man. In 2003 he was working for the Blackwater Company and ended up in Iraq, doing security work. In 2004 he was involved in the transfer of $1.5 billion by the Coalition Forces in Northern Iraq. The money was in $100 bills, shrink-wrapped on pallets. It filled three Black Hawk helicopters.

“The money came from the UN's Oil for Food Programme, and was entrusted to the Americans to be spent on behalf of the Iraqi people. The courier company to which the money was handed over on the 12th April 2004 had not been properly checked out by the Coalition Forces. The money vanished. Nobody is sure just how much of it was lost, because the Coalition Forces didn't keep proper accounts! Can you believe it?

“In 2005 Grigori Koslov suddenly turns up back in Russia, a rich man. With a partner, Ivan Morozov, he sets up various gambling concerns in Romania and the Ukraine. In 2007 he is accused of trying to murder Morozov, but the police halt the prosecution for unknown reasons. In 2008 two of Koslov's men are involved in a shoot-out with two members of another company, owned by a certain Boris Zolkin, who has many police actions pending against him …”

“In other words,” Angela butted in, “Koslov is a gangster.”

“In other words he is a cold-blooded, ruthless bastard!” replied Malcolm.

“I knew it!” said Angela. “That letter!”

“I don't get it,” muttered Malcolm. “Why would any gangster write threatening letters? Why would he phone us to warn us that he's after Freddie? It doesn't make any sense.”

Angela suddenly rose to her feet. “We've got to get out of here!”

Malcolm had the wine glass at his lips.

“Suppose they know where we live? They might do anything!”

“But it's just a planning application! It's ridiculous!” said Malcolm, and he took a gulp of wine.

Angela had grabbed a bag, and was running up the stairs. “We've got to get Freddie out of here!” She glanced over her shoulder at Malcolm. “At once!”

Some time later, they were bundling the sleepy Freddie into the back of the car. Angela suddenly grabbed Malcolm's arm so hard he dropped the car keys, and they would have fallen down the drain had Malcolm not kicked them aside as they fell.

“He's there!” whispered Angela.

“Who?” asked Malcolm picking up the car keys.

“The man who tried to kidnap Freddie …”

“You've no proof he was trying to kidnap Freddie …”

“But he's over there! In the black Volvo,” whispered Angela.

Malcolm turned to see where she was looking. A Volvo was parked a little way up the street. Behind the wheel a dark thick-set man was pretending to read a newspaper. He looked like a gangster and not at all like a concert pianist.

“All right,” murmured Malcolm. “Just act calmly and like we always go out in the middle of the night to find a hotel.”

“I'm scared,” whispered Angela.

“Just take it slowly.”

They got into the car and as soon as Malcolm started the engine, he put his foot down on the accelerator and swung out of the parking spot, making an immediate U-turn. Luckily there was no traffic at this time of night, because he hadn't checked in his mirror. The only thing he checked was whether the man was following.

He was.

The black Volvo also swung out in a U-turn.

“I don't believe it!” muttered Malcolm. “He's chasing us! Here we are in the middle of the night being chased by a gangster, all because of a planning application!” A surge of anger gripped him. He turned and yelled over his shoulder, “Piss off!”

Freddie started crying.

“There, there!” Angela, who was also in the back of the car, put her arm around their son. “Daddy didn't mean you.”

They sped down Highgate West Hill, and swung left into Swain's Lane. The black Volvo was still some way behind them. At the top of Swain's Lane, where it gets narrow, they lost sight of the Volvo because of the curve in the road. So Malcolm made a sudden right into Bisham Gardens.

“What are we doing?” whined Freddie.

“We're in the middle of an exciting car chase!” said Malcolm through his teeth. “Enjoy!”

As they sped down Bisham Gardens they saw the Volvo speed past up Swain's Lane. They'd lost him! Malcolm couldn't believe it was that simple to lose a car that was chasing you. It always seemed much harder in films.

After half an hour of zig-zagging in and out of roads he had never driven down before, Malcolm headed back to Highgate and swung along Hampstead Lane, driving round the northern edge of the Heath. As they drove past the crossroads at Whitestone Pond, they failed to notice a car parked on the other side of the pond.

The car started its engine as they continued down into Hampstead village. It rolled forward on to the main road several hundred yards behind them. Neither Angela nor Malcolm noticed it.

“Well done!” said Angela, patting Malcolm on the shoulder.

“Was that exciting or was that exciting?” replied Malcolm.

“It was exciting!” said Freddie.

Ten minutes later they turned into the Holiday Inn at Swiss Cottage.

They checked into a family room with three beds. Freddie fell asleep immediately. Angela and Malcolm raided the mini bar, but soon followed their child's example. It had been an exciting night.

The next day, Malcolm phoned the university to say he wouldn't be coming in for the rest of the week. Then he phoned his sister, who – for some reason he never understood – lived in Leicester.

The three of them had a relaxed breakfast, and then set off, heading north.

Neither Angela nor Malcolm, nor even little Freddie, noticed the black Volvo tailing them, six cars behind, all the way up the M1.

Grigori Koslov hadn't believed it when he first found it. It was unheard of! Why on earth would a criminal organisation post a list of all its members on its website, along with their addresses and phone numbers? Why on earth would a criminal organisation have a website in the first place?

For a split second Grigori Koslov thought that maybe he should have one too. Perhaps he also should list all his employees? Maybe it was some new government regulation?

But then he remembered who he was. He was the Evil Emperor, with a vast network of illegal businesses. He did not give a fig for the law! And anyway, the law in Russia had been a feeble, toothless pussy cat since the collapse of Communism. They couldn't force him to put up a website if he didn't want to!

But there it was. He had Googled ‘Highgrove Park Residents' Association' and got their website. Unbelievable.

If it
was
an off-shoot of Boris Zolkin's organisation it must be a scam or a cover-up for some villainy.

He checked the addresses. They all seemed genuine. If he put them into Google Earth he got their exact location. He could even see the houses themselves.

But what was this?! They were all situated around the two houses he had bought! What was going on? Had Boris Zolkin positioned his henchmen to surround Grigori Koslov's property? Property which he had bought with his own hard-fought-for money?

Of course he never intended to live there, but the palace that he was going to erect in that green bit of London would act as a base for his operations in the UK. The vast mansion that he had designed himself would be a signal to Boris Zolkin and Ivan Morozov to MIND THEIR OWN BUSINESS.

It did occur to Grigori that the ‘Residents' Association' might be exactly what it said it was, but such was his hatred for Zolkin and Morozov, that he simply could not believe that this wasn't their work.

In truth, Grigori had become so used to seeing the dark side of everything that he could no longer see the obvious. Suspicion and double-dealing had so deformed his mind that he had become, quite honestly, as mad as a hatter.

Only his wife, Eva, knew this, and she wasn't going to tell anyone.

Another thing Eva knew was how much their lack of a family had weighed on her husband's mind. She, herself, had no desire to have children, but Grigori had always wanted a son. That was why he had adopted that idiot Anton Molotov. Well he hadn't actually officially adopted him, but he had taken the young man under his wing some years ago, when he took him on as a night-watchman.

She could see that her husband liked the boy from the moment he first saw him. Perhaps Anton reminded Grigori of himself as a young man? They had a similar build and a similar outlook on life, except that Anton wanted to be a concert pianist back then, whereas Grigori had always wanted to be a villain. But they both wanted to reach their goals with the least possible effort.

Eva could see her husband becoming more and more fond of the young man. It was so unfair. He didn't love
her
. He never had. But she was convinced he loved Anton.

Couldn't he see that the young man was a fool? Couldn't he see that the young man was incompetent? Anyone else who worked for Grigori would have been out on their ear years ago. If they were lucky. More likely they would have quietly ‘disappeared' by now.

But Grigori overlooked all Anton's defects. He forgave every bungled task. He excused the young man and encouraged him.

Slowly but surely, Grigori was turning Anton into the son he didn't have. Perhaps he didn't realise he was doing this, but Eva still felt the pangs of jealousy. She grew to hate and despise Anton in direct proportion to her husband's fondness for him.

Malcolm normally had very little time for his sister. In fact he disliked her. He disliked her house, her hair-do and her job. She was a pattern-cutter for one of the big fashion houses in London, and in her spare time she was a dress-maker.

He disliked her general attitude. She accepted everything that happened to her with a cheerful shrug.

He disliked the way she lived. She lived amidst clutter. The real problem was that she never threw anything away. That was the thing Malcolm hated most about her. She was a hoarder.

“Glenys! Just get rid of them!” he would say as she hesitated over throwing away tins of sardines that had a sell-by date of around 1,000 years BC.

“But they may come in handy,” Glenys would murmur as she loaded them back into the cupboard.

She never threw away newspapers. There were stacks of them behind the sofa, on every seat, in the coal shed, in the pantry and (for some strange reason) even in the sink!

Glenys had been pleasantly surprised when Malcolm phoned to ask if he and his family could come and stay. She had given up expecting her brother to want to spend time with her.

“Ah, well, it's probably difficult when you've got a family,” she would say to her neighbour. “I'm sure he'd come if he could.”

Glenys herself had no family. She had been married for a short time, but she and her husband had not really got on together. Secretly, Malcolm was in sympathy with the husband, who also could not stand clutter.

Malcolm once told Angela: “He had wanted to throw out the newspapers, so she threw him out instead.”

Glenys made a great fuss of her brother and his wife and son when they arrived. She'd baked a sponge cake, but hadn't been able to read the recipe, because she'd lost her glasses. So the sponge didn't really rise like it should have done. It was more like a large biscuit than a cake. However they ate it for tea, with the result that Glenys found her glasses. They were in the cake.

“Isn't it lucky we ate the cake?” she said. “If I'd just thrown it out I would never have found them!”

Malcolm had warned Angela not to tell Glenys why they needed to stay with her so suddenly, and since Glenys never asked, Angela had no problem staying silent. She did feel a little guilty that they might be exposing Glenys to some danger, but then she told herself that there was really no danger. They had shaken off their pursuer the previous night, and there was no way he could have traced them to this address in Leicester.

That evening Malcolm treated them all to a curry in the local Indian restaurant, rather than face Glenys's cooking again.

When they got back, they put Freddie to bed in Glenys's old work-room, and retired early.

About two o'clock in the morning they were woken by a scream.

“Freddie!” yelled Angela at the top of her voice, and leapt out of bed.

Malcolm could hardly keep up with Angela as she flew downstairs to the work-room. They flung open the door to the work-room and switched on the light.

There they stood.

Anton Molotov had one hand over Freddie's mouth and was using the other to try to restrain him.

Anton had planned to use the mace spray, but he hadn't checked it before setting off, and, when he'd pulled it out, he'd found that it was still in its plastic shrink-wrap.

Anton had cursed in Russian.

That's when Freddie had screamed. Anton had abandoned the mace canister and simply grabbed the child.

The three adults stood there frozen for a few seconds. Only Freddie kept on struggling.

Now, at this moment, something strange happened to Malcolm.

He had spent a lifetime avoiding personal danger and confrontation. He seldom got cross (except when he was reading
History Now!
). He'd always regarded himself as an easy-going sort of chap, but there was something about seeing his son struggling in the arms of a gangster, in the middle of the night, that tapped into a deep well of anger buried inside him. The anger came gushing up like an oil spill.

He flung himself at the stranger, without thinking what he was going to do. He found he had grabbed the man by his head, and his thumbs were going into his eyes. The man screamed, as he staggered back against a tall wardrobe. Freddie leapt free. The door of the wardrobe splintered, such was the violence of the attack. The wardrobe itself tottered back against the wall, upsetting the vast pile of objects that were stacked on top of it.

Amongst these objects was an old-fashioned Singer sewing machine. It dated from the 1920s, when things were still made out of first-class materials. The machine itself was made out of cast iron and it was screwed onto a heavy wooden base. It was a triumph of solid workmanship, and, when it fell, it struck Anton Molotov right on the back of his head.

In his surprise, Malcolm let go of him. Anton gave a sort of grunt and sank to his knees. But Malcolm's deep well of anger had by no means run dry, and he leapt onto the man's chest and, grabbing him round the neck, banged his head on the floor, again and again, until Angela ran forward and pulled her husband off.

They looked at the intruder.

Anton lay on the floor, not moving at all.

“Oh my God!” whispered Angela. “You've killed him!”

Malcolm was coming to his senses. The fury was spent, but he found he was trembling so much that he couldn't move.

Angela knelt over the man's body and felt him.

“He's still breathing,” she said, in a tone of voice halfway between relief and regret.

“Rope!” whispered Malcolm, and he grabbed a length of cord from a pile that had fallen with all the other things that were stacked on top of the wardrobe.

In a few minutes, Anton was trussed up like a joint of meat from the butchers. He was just starting to come to.

Freddie was clinging to his father, too astonished to even cry.

At that moment Glenys appeared.

“What on earth's going on?” she asked.