A. Zander: Moscow City

“Sure,” said Varndon, shaking the man’s hand. “We can handle it from here.”

Varndon felt the shaking again as their hands slid apart.

“Damn cold always gives me the shakes,” he said, stuffing his hands into his pockets and looking down at the floor.

“Quite,” said Varndon, turning to walk away.

“Oh, and Varndon,” said the man. “Don’t underestimate Katusev. He’s a bit of an enigma and that normally means there’s plenty to hide.”

Harper opened his bedroom door slightly and looked out into the hall. He peered around for the dog that had flattened him a few hours previously, but it was nowhere to be seen. He walked across to the bathroom, keeping an eye on the other doorways as he went. He had slept for around an hour. The dark marks under his eyes protruded slightly. He ran some cold water onto his finger and dabbed the skin a little in the hope they might go down. He looked at himself in the mirror. He was still in reasonable shape, he thought. The trips to his 24-hour gym in the middle of the night were the only positive thing to come from a forced lack of sleep. He showered and stepped back out onto the cold floor. The small room was thick with steam, so he opened a small rectangular window to clear the air, dried himself and walked back across the hall.

He didn’t notice the black shape sitting at the foot of the bed until he was well into the middle of the room. He stood fixed to the spot. The side of the dog’s mouth twitched as it contemplated a growl. It had a small cut above its left eye, presumably from when he had kicked it off him into the wall. He edged back a little and gave the animal a clear path into the hall. The dog’s ears pricked up as it heard a key turn in the front door and it dived off the bed and ran past him.

“Rasputin, you are a beautiful boy, come here to me,” a woman’s voice said in Russian.

Harper chucked on some shorts and a t-shirt walked out into the corridor. The girl standing in front of him rubbed the dog’s ears and patted its side. She was wrapped up in a tartan winter coat and her scarf covered the lower half of her face. She jolted a little as she looked up and noticed the stranger standing in front of her.

“I’m the new teacher,” said Harper. “I just arrived from London”

The girl pulled the scarf off her face and he could see she was smiling. “Oh yes, we were expecting you,” she said, switching to English. “I just thought that maybe you wouldn’t be here yet, you gave me a bit of a fright.” She had high Slavic cheekbones and smattering of very light freckles stretched across her nose. “Welcome to our apartment, is the room okay for you? I tidied it and put on some new sheets.”

“It’s fine,” said Harper. “It’s really great actually. They dropped some of the other new arrivals off at some really dodgy places.”

She placed her coat onto a hook and smiled again. She briefly left her gaze on him and he allowed her to look into his eyes for a few moments. “Dodgy, you English love this word, dodgy.”

“Yeah?” said Harper. “Do you know a lot of English people over here?”

“A lot of our teachers are from England,” she said. “The owner of the school is American, but he prefers his overseas teachers to be English.”

“Why’s that?”

“Russians will pay more for a teacher from England. So what is your name?”

“Ryan Evans,” said Harper.

“Ryan, it’s a nice name, but it’s Irish no?”

“I think so,” said Harper. “I’m not sure. And what should I call you?”

“Anya, pleased to meet you.” She stamped a few bits of snow from her boots and kicked it onto the entrance mat. “Shall we have some tea?”

“Sure.”

They walked into the kitchen and Harper sat down on a blue sofa. There was an assortment of dried fruits sitting in a bowl in the middle of a small table. She stood making the tea with her back to him. Her grey jumper stopped just above her jeans and revealed a slim line of flesh. Harper noticed a newspaper sticking out of the top of her bag.

“Can I have a look at this?”

“Of course.”

The front cover jumped out at him. ‘London cops arrive in Moscow’ was splashed over the front page. There was a picture of Cohen and Russell surrounded by Russian police at the airport. His skin prickled a little and his throat tightened as his mind flicked back to thoughts of the job.

“You read Russian,” she said, turning around and looking at him.

“Just a few words,” replied Harper. “I’ll need to take some lessons.”

“Well, we can practice if you like. I teach Pavel sometimes.”

“Pavel? I thought the other guy was English.”

“Oh he is English, he is Paul, from Sussex or Surrey or somewhere like this, but he is a very big fanatic of Russia, so likes Pavel instead.”

“Ok,” said Harper. “I see. And where is Pavel now?”

“There was a big party last night in the school’s dacha just outside Moscow. Most of the staff are still there, but I have an appointment, so needed to get back. I am not much of a drinker, so I think my hangover is okay compared to some of them.”

Anya handed Harper the cup of tea. A light smell of her perfume drifted over to him and caressed the back of his throat. He took a spoon of sugar and mixed it into the cup.

“So you have to go back out again soon?” he asked, taking a sip of his tea and putting the cup down onto the table.

“No, my appointment is here,” she said. “I have a student coming over for a private lesson. She is Pavel’s, but he was not in a fit state, so I am filling in. I hope you don’t mind, but I will use the kitchen for this. It will only take an hour.”

“Look, I don’t want to get in the way. I’ll sit in my room for a while.”

The sound of the doorbell caused the dog to bound towards the door, barking and scratching at the metal. Anya stood up and looked at her watch.

“Oh shoot, she is early,” she said. “Could you please answer the door while I put Rasputin in my room.” Harper walked to the front door and pulled open several locks while Anya bundled the dog into the room and gave it a few treats to eat. The handle jammed a little and needed a strong shove before it opened.

“Nastya, please come in and sit down,” Anya shouted from the bedroom.

The woman standing in the hall was dressed all in white, apart from black high-heeled boots. She was smoking a thin cigarette with a lavender filter. Her elaborate white fur hat looked like snow fox or possibly some kind of Arctic wolf. Her huge sunglasses covered half her face. She finished tapping away on her mobile phone and turned towards him. She took off one of her gloves and offered him her hand, palm facing downwards, with a strong air of regency. Harper suppressed the urge to smile and shook it lightly, not knowing whether she had expected him to kiss it or not. She took a last pull on her cigarette and threw it into a nearby bucket of sand.

“Anastasia Katuseva,” she said. “And you are?”

The gleaming towers of Moscow City jutted up into a grey sky. Cohen wiped the condensation from the front windscreen to get a better look at this latest testament to Russian modernity. The towers clustered together like a forest of metal and glass. The structures loomed larger as the convoy swept along the highway towards its destination. Cohen looked back at the three cars behind them. One contained a trio of Russian detectives and the other was for the small group of uniforms that had been shadowing them from the airport and around the hotel. But the third group of men remained a mystery. They wore plain clothes and always hung back to observe. Russell’s earlier attempt to ask them for a lighter elicited little more than grunts. Whoever they were, they clearly weren’t in the market for an informal chat.