The Oktober Projekt (17 page)

‘Nice perfume,’ said Nick, ‘noticed it in Devon, thought you
only wore Chanel?’

Pushing herself away, Jane twisted between boxes piled by the
sofa. ‘Thought it was time for a change,’ she said with a sad smile.

‘So do I,’ said Nick with an approving wave. ‘Change is good,
change is better than a rest. Look at me, I used to have a family, wife and
son, now I’ve got jackshit, amazing what change can do for you.’

‘Nick, you’re going to have to get some professional help,’ she
decided, collecting her bag off a coffee table. ‘If you need somewhere to stay
or just want to talk, let me know.’

Stay, he thought, stay tonight and tomorrow will be better. Was
it contempt or pity that he saw in her eyes at that very moment; he never
really knew, but it was enough.

‘Scouts honour,’ promised Nick, though he’d only ever been a
Cub.

A final smile that bore no warmth, a peck on his unshaven cheek
and Jane had gone, nothing more than a dull shadow lost on the street. He
called her name but she never turned.

Roused by Jane’s coldness, Nick decided on action. After a cold
shower and two black coffees, he made his way down to the utility room. Here a
similar scene of wanton destruction as in the rest of house; the tumble dryer
and washing machine hauled out from the wall when Angie’s killers checked the
floor for concealed hiding places; the panels from the suspended ceiling
flicked out, laying bare its aluminium carcass, ducting and cable. Warm, but
not hot, Nick thought, going to a large industrial switch-disconnector box he’d
fitted. Above its chrome handle Nick had placed high-voltage and danger of
death warning stickers. Inside there were no fuses, but two passports and credit
cards taped to the back panel, both bearing different worknames, a necessity
for the sudden need to escape. Back in the kitchen Nick added a bottle of
mineral water to a carrier bag and a box of ibuprofen.

Leaving through the French doors, Nick stayed on the grass to
deaden his steps. At the bottom of the garden he dropped the carrier bag over
the fence and climbed after it. Down Ravenna Road, out onto St. John’s Avenue
he started to run. At a quarter-past ten on a bitter London evening, Nick had started
to organise himself, thinking ahead, refining his strategy, organising his plan
of attack. Adopting his standard fieldcraft and wisdom, Nick became a nomad,
never staying in once place more than he needed, choosing a big corner pub in
Greenwich that advertised economical rates, ‘Contractors Welcome.’ Paying in
advance in the bar, its horseshoe counter decked in fake Victoriana, Nick took
the backstairs to his room with a sunken heart. With every step upwards the
carpet grew dirtier and there was a smell of damp tea cloths drying and stale
cat. On the first landing a receptionist greeted him with a dusty smile, a scab
of a man with bronze teeth and strands of sickly red hair combed flat across a
bald head, his white shirt stained down the front.
 

Nick signed the book with yet another false name and for his
trouble received a room with a shower that produced nothing more tempting than
a slow cold trickle; its tray littered with toenail clippings. A gas fire
levelled on one end by a wedge of damp timber, spat viciously when lit. Next to
the window a kettle clogged with grime from countless contractor’s hands, it
stood with tea bags and pots of dated milk on a tray engraved with kittens.
Down the hall the communal toilet jabbered and sang, conspiring with the
traffic on the fly-over to give him no rest. Breakfast served from seven till
nine could be smelt under his door, but Nick stole out without eating, as tired
as on entering and a few pounds poorer.

Seven

Double Cross and Betrayal

Berkhamsted, November

An
hour in the cold air promising rain and Nick’s head was clear. He wanted time
to think and found it walking to Battersea in that strange unnatural hour
before dawn when an eerie calm stalked the streets, and with it came a pale
unequal light and fresh unleaded air flavoured by all of London’s parks. The
sky had started to divide and a flux of cloud rolled up the Thames along with
the morning grind into work. Nick’s route was chosen at random, a palliative
that did nothing to lessen the Galaxy’s grip on his heels. They had static and
mobile units covering all exits from Ulva Road he realised, and they’d radioed
for support.
 

Coming close to the river he felt its strong pull, though he
could barely see it. A man tired and grey shuffled along as he exercised a
troubled dog, bidding Nick a crisp good morning before dodging into the dips
and hollows of Battersea Park to be stolen by the gloom. The first dabs of rain
hit the pavement; a taxi sailed by its light out as Nick tired, turned the way
he came, facing into the wet breeze by the river, shivering as it met his
skin.
 

He took a train from Battersea to Victoria and the watchers
were sharp, one of them keeping with him at the far end of the carriage. A
different team picked Nick up when he went underground to Euston, a third team
taking over during the journey to Berkhamsted. This last pair also warned of
his coming, with a car despatched to collect Nick outside the station; nothing
said on the drive, a silent twenty minutes only broken by clearance to proceed
at Aspley’s gate lodge. At the main house they were also ready for him,
Strowther, a staff instructor and Motte, Director of Training, forming a hasty
duo beside a burly receptionist, a lone military policeman in drab plain
clothes who knew the best pubs within a mile radius. They both immediately fell
forward with offerings of sympathy. Strowther shook him warmly by the hand.
                     

‘We appreciate this is a bad time, but it’s C’s orders, his law
you see,’ Strowther explained, pained and slightly embarrassed. Gently he
patted Nick’s shoulder before beating a hasty retreat.

Closer now, Motte laid a silky hand on Nick’s elbow, steering
him to the back stairs, charming as ever, a perfect host escorting a tradesman
through his house.

‘We’re all simply devastated, Nick. I mean your wife… that took
the wind out of all our sails. It must be quite a terrible shock. Well
obviously it is, but you know what I mean?’

‘Yes, thanks Motte, I know.’ You mean I have encountered the
murder of someone I loved and changed, he thought. Then who wouldn’t?
 
Another gate of wisdom that I’ve been
unlucky enough to open.

They climbed barely uttering another word, emerging on the top
floor Motte dictating the speed, walking quickly down a passage long and high,
school lampshades pricking out their path. In place of the expected left turn
to a corridor housing the staff offices and meeting rooms, Motte wheeled sharp
right and headed up a cramped flight of linoleum stairs into the mansard roof.

‘Here we go,’ he grinned, all silly and childish, the type worn
on first dates, rapping twice at a commonplace mustard door.

‘Appreciated,’ said Nick, only for Motte to smile sheepishly
and push open the door.

‘So you managed to make it. Brilliant under the circumstances,’
said Hawick inviting Nick in. ‘Gave us all a bit of a worry skipping over the
fence like that. Should have let us know what you were up to, we’d have sent a
car. Right Terry?’

‘Come myself,’ said Motte grinning inanely, backing out,
closing the door with a gentle click.

Looking round Nick saw the attic room hardly altered; as
airless as ever it was when it served as a junior mess, and over the fireplace
he could still make out the holed plaster where the dartboard used to sit. They
never throw anything out, he thought pulling a plastic chair from a dusty
stack, its seat splashed with green paint. Squeezing it between crates of
cardboard binders, he sat heavily down.

‘There are some issues that we need to discuss, agreed?’
Pausing here, Hawick expected a response of some kind, but Nick sat amidst the
memorabilia, unmoved, tightening inside as his anger mounted, an electric
charge steadily increasing.

‘Moscow knew about the collection,’ said Nick. ‘How about
discussing that?’

‘I can only deal with facts,’ conceded Hawick. ‘Wynn was killed
in Hamburg, fact.’ Emphasising ‘killed’ with a severe whisper, Hawick smiled
weakly. ‘You had a Latvian contact, fact. Shall we deal with those facts?’

‘That fact is, Teddy, that I don’t know why Wynn was
terminated,’ said Nick, pitching his weight to the edge of the chair.
‘Something else came along, remember, nothing too serious, just the rape and
murder of Angie.’

‘This Latvian,’ Hawick said slowly, finding an empty file
carousal that he spun slowly, then with increasing force. His gaze however remained
constantly on Nick; level, precise, carefully measured, a marksman sighting up
his prey. ‘A promising lead?’

‘It has potential,’ Nick lied.

Resenting Hawick’s overbearing condescending approach, Nick
said nothing more, but watched Hawick through the debris of so many operations
used as training props, boxed like previous lives waiting for a second chance.

‘You recorded no contact details for this Latvian as required
by protocol,’ Hawick said, his fingers now prowling amongst faded stencils on
top of a Gestetner machine.

‘There’s nothing to report. Can I leave now? Thanks for the
lack of support and inconvenience, by the way,’ he said, suddenly on his feet.

‘Sit down,’ Hawick sternly countered, his gaze soft and dewy.

‘Is that an order?’

‘I’m afraid it is, yes it is,’ he responded after an age.
Drifting to the mantelpiece Hawick accepted the logic at his leisure.

Uncomfortable, restless, Nick had no stomach for Hawick’s
mewing concern. Getting to his feet he went to a tiny casement window long
rotten, yet somehow managed to inch it apart for some air.

‘Perhaps you could give this some attention,’ Hawick said. ‘It
is rather serious all said and done.’

‘What is it you would like to know?’ he asked, his resentment
simmering.

‘Your movements between Sunday night and Thursday morning, what
were they Nick?’ Wondered Hawick casually; taking his time, pulling out his fob
watch, releasing the cover and allowing the details sink in.

Despite the chill playing down his back and arms, Nick still
suffered from the oppressive heat in the room, leaving him no air to breathe.

‘Why?’
             

Slowly Hawick advanced towards the door. ‘This Latvian source
of Wynn’s, care to provide a name?’

The anger welled up inside Nick, too many hours wasted, the
deaths, the needless questions. ‘Why?’

Undaunted Hawick strode off again, searching with his slender
fingers in boxes and trays clogged with dust. ‘Would you like me to tell you,
because the police have just recovered his phone from your house? He’s been
murdered, care to elaborate on that, Mmm?’ Hawick decreed, his gaze flicking to
the door, the time consulted yet again.
 

What Latvian would that be wondered Nick, his mind scrabbling
for a foothold, attempting to retrace his movements though all he could recover
were whisky clouded fragments without knowing which were real, which the
product of his imagination.

 
‘It’s been
planted,’ said Nick, his voice dancing through the rude light. ‘It’s Moscow,’
he said, realising that his explanation even sounded lame to him.

‘I see. I appreciate your concern.’

No you don’t thought Nick, the only recent concern you’ve ever
experienced is when a ticket machine jams on the Tube. Back at the window the
cold calmed him. He glanced into the grounds and thought how far away the trees
looked, the distant section of perimeter wall; beyond that there would be
traffic, the everyday normality he’d shut out for too long.

Hawick came full circle, stopping in front of the fireplace his
arms folded neatly. ‘You’re telling me that you’ve no knowledge of this
Latvian, Ivars Skriveski?’

‘No, I’ve told you.’ Nick reached him in three strides, felling
Hawick with one rapier punch.

Snatching open the door, he saw Strowther and Motte waiting for
him at the bottom of the stairs preparing to detain him. Nick floored Motte
with a rising fast blow, Strowther with a powerful elbow to his nose, followed
by a single closed-fist punch to the nape of his neck. Nick off and running,
avoiding the main stairs. Behind him he could hear Hawick screaming the house
down, but Nick never turned, kicking faster. On a landing, an administrative
officer had the misfortune to get in Nick’s way and he was sent crashing from a
shoulder charge that cracked his collarbone, his files cascading to the floor.

Out into the grounds Nick ran, walked, ran and walked,
zigzagging to a corner of the perimeter wall. Scrambling, digging in his toes
he hauled himself over and landed in a crouch, absorbing the shock to his
ankles. Straightening up, patting his passports and credit cards in his pocket,
he hurried off in the opposite direction to the station, his escape and evasion
training taking over, an enemy in what had become a strange and hostile
land.
 

Outside a pub two miles up the road from Aspley, Nick rang for
a taxi using the name of Deacon, making the final call on his phone before
dumping it. In Hemel Hempstead, Nick used both credit cards at different cash
machines withdrawing three hundred pounds from each. Choosing busy stores where
the assistants would be less likely to remember him, Nick bought a pair of
swimming trunks, towel, leather holdall, and a full change of clothes complete
with a stripped knitted hat.
 

At the sports centre Nick paid four pounds for a swim, spent
five minutes in the pool and left in his new outfit, stuffing two carrier bags
full of his old clothes into a bin. Off two different market stalls
specialising in electronics, Nick bought three second-hand mobile phones, then
bought eight SIM cards from a shop boasting it could unlock any handset. From
the bus station he caught the Arriva 550 service to Watford through Kings
Langley, took a train between Watford Junction and Heathrow, then a coach into
central London. During each leg of his journey from Aspley, Nick began to
reassemble details of his days spent drinking; small snatches of memory he
pieced together, a jigsaw he’d never complete but it would provide part of the
picture.
Slowly, some of his movements in
those wasted hours became
clear.

Slipping in and out of shops and department stores along Oxford
Street, always exiting onto the street through a side door, Nick headed off
into the morning laced with rain colder than snow. Running off his jacket it
soaked his legs, finding its way into his shoes, until Nick was damp from waist
to toes. He was hot, he was cold. Dizzy from hunger or a fever chasing him, the
pavement felt soft, his knees uncertain, unsure. He crossed the river by
Southwark Bridge and the Thames was as dirty as the sky. A tug nursed a string
of barges down stream, their containers packed with rubbish. Brazen gulls
whooped and dived around the barges, lifting and falling, as weightless as
scraps of paper. Somewhere above him an aircraft thundered low towards the
airport, leaving nothing but a whine and a sparkle of light in the dark clouds.
Shivering, his shirt a damp stain round his back, Nick pressed on.
 

Inside the Imperial War Museum Nick wandered through its
bric-a-brac of death, amongst noisy school parties and old soldiers in search
of their youth, roaming its galleries seeking out a final resolution. ‘Feeling
all right sir?’ An attendant enquired, with just enough sneer to discourage
modern lunatics from lingering like ghosts of Bedlam’s past. Perfectly, Nick
assured him, slipping away.

He found his quarry in the domed reading room that had once
been a chapel; Jamie Hayles, the former head of Moscow Station, his neat
manicured hands clasped behind a head of white hair. Jamie Hayles wore the
grace of a country gentleman and the brooding slouch of an academic of which he
had lately become.

‘Hello Jamie,’ Nick said, coming to the side of Jamie’s desk.

‘Good God!’ His tight supple body whipped forward, his arms
coming down like scimitars, trying to cover the documents laid before him all
in the same movement. ‘Nick, my dear boy, wonderful, what a surprise,’ he began,
the words tumbling out, ‘I… I thought you were…’

‘Thought what, Jamie?’

‘Nothing….’ His florid face opened into a robust smile. ‘Take a
pew.’

Nick did as he was bid. ‘But try to keep it low,’ insisted
Hayles, tilting his body to Nick, ‘the nannies here don’t hold with rowdies and
expect total devotion to their blessed works.’

‘We need to talk, Jamie?’

Hayles nodded as though he wouldn’t have expected anything less
from Nicholas Torr. ‘Perhaps we should have this discussion elsewhere,’ he
offered.

‘I think we should,’ Nick assured him. ‘Got somewhere in mind?’

‘My place,’ he proposed.

They arrived by cab wisely choosing not to walk after all, a
thick shower hammered on the roof and the street had a greyness that belonged
to dusk. Arriving at a picture framers off the Old Kent Road caged in by
developer’s boards and supported on the opposite side by a tattered mini-market
sagging on its bricks. Crisp bags and chocolate bar wrappers had blown in the
mesh screens around the windows and fluttered manically; weird butterflies with
no hope of survival.