Christopher Jones - The Silent Oligarch

It still made sense to him, though, a little to his surprise. He might be about to be questioned by a policeman for the first time in his life, he might be silently terrified, but he was pleased to be here. He liked his room, with its high bed, its radio alarm clock, the top layers of bedding that were magically removed every night before he went to sleep. He liked going down to breakfast and filling his bowl with yogurt and orange segments before going to the chef for fried eggs. He liked changing the settings on the showerhead so that the water in a hard jet buffeted the back of his neck. He liked hanging up his suits and his shirts, rolling his ties, arranging his razor and his toothbrush in the bathroom and making a compact, temporary world for himself where Russians, even the one stationed outside his door, didn’t exist. He liked the heat, and the calmness of the sea. Most of all, though, he liked remembering Marina, and a time when he was still fresh enough to want to impress her.

The police were not terrifying, in the end. They were both Englishmen, in their fifties, polite but firm. They asked him many of the same questions that Greene had asked two weeks earlier in Paris, but fewer of them, and without the same sneer. And Griffin was there to prevent him from digging any holes. It wasn’t comfortable, but nor was it bloody. Lock got the impression that they were being as thorough as their resources allowed. He attended two sessions, one the afternoon he arrived and one the following morning, and toward the end, when it was clear that loose ends were now being tied up, he began to think about what he would do with his day of freedom in paradise. Later he would see that as the moment he must have irritated fate.

One of the detectives, until now the quieter of the two, began to ask Lock detailed questions about the banks that his Cayman companies used. Lock named them: two in Cayman, one in the BVI, one in Bermuda. Then the detective began to concentrate on which international banks those banks used to hold and transfer money for them. This was new to Lock, and to Griffin; in fact, neither knew. The final question was whether Lock knew if any of his banks had correspondent relationships with U.S. banks. Again, Lock said he didn’t know. After some final formalities, Lock and Griffin left.

Outside the police station, Lock breezily suggested that he and Griffin go to get lunch and a beer. He couldn’t remember the last time he had felt relieved about anything. He might even buy a drink for his bodyguards, if they’d take it. But Griffin was preoccupied.

“Why do you think they asked you about the banks?”

“I have no idea,” said Lock, squinting at Griffin in the sun. “Maybe they always ask about the banks. They are the financial crimes unit. Maybe they can’t help themselves.”

Griffin didn’t say anything. Lock started to steer him up the street toward a bar he knew. God, it was a beautiful day, hot, enough breeze.

“Wait,” said Griffin. “I think it meant something. That thing about the U.S.? My guess is that either they’re hoping to get the Bureau involved because they know they can’t crack this, or the Bureau’s already expressed an interest. That would explain why we had it so easy in there.”

Lock looked down at the ground and shook his head. “Fuck, Lawrence. You are a tonic. You could at least have let me have my beer. What do you mean? Why the fuck would the FBI—you mean the FBI, yes? Why would the FBI be interested, all of a sudden, in Cayman companies and Russian oil? For crying out loud. I thought that went well, for once.”

“Because the money flows through the States. All money flows through the States, just about. Let me tell you something. In Manhattan, southern district, on an ugly stretch of wall in the Assistant U.S. Attorney’s office, there’s a big poster showing the Milky Way. And underneath, it reads, ‘Jurisdiction of the Southern District of Manhattan.’” Griffin looked at Lock, who was staring up the street and out to sea. “They can go anywhere. They’d love this.”

FBI. Those three letters followed Lock all the way back to London. They wouldn’t leave his head. He saw men in dark suits and white shirts coming for him in the night, locking him in a dark room under a bright light and refusing to believe that he didn’t know enough to convict Malin. He needed a lawyer. How on earth was he going to find a lawyer with his constant escort?

A prisoner in Claridge’s. At least that was funny. Quite funny. He was tired of the constant attention. How could the politicians and the oligarchs stand it? Apart from anything else they were so big, his two henchmen; at every moment they seemed to occupy most of the space around him. He felt small and airless in between. And still he didn’t know whether they were there to stop him from running, or to keep him out of trouble.

Someone knocked on the door. “Housekeeping.”

“Wait a moment. Hang on.” Lock went to the bathroom for a dressing gown. Wrapping it around him he went and opened the door.

“Housekeeping. Turn-down service. May I come in?” A maid in a white pinafore and pale-blue housecoat was standing there, a pile of fresh white towels in her arms.

“Yes. Yes, come in,” said Lock automatically, standing out of the maid’s way. She closed the door. “But the bed’s already turned down.”

The maid adjusted her grip on the towels and pulled an envelope from in among them. “A gentleman asked me to give you this,” she said, handing it to Lock and taking the towels into the bathroom. He looked at it for a moment, front and back, and then opened it. The maid came back into the room, said good night, and left. Inside the envelope was a card: Benedict Webster, Principal, Ikertu Consulting Ltd. Nothing else. He threw it into a wastepaper basket and then thought better of it. He didn’t want someone finding it there. As he retrieved it he saw that there was writing on the back: I meant what I said .

Taking his whisky from his bedside table Lock sat down on the bed and flicked the card in his fingers. He found his phone, keyed in Webster’s number and added it to the memory under his father’s name. Then he took the card and inserted it in between a chest of drawers and the wall, letting it drop down out of sight.

For a moment he stood and thought. Then he put his trousers on, his socks and shoes, grabbed his coat and a sweater from his suitcase and left the room.

“I’m going to see my wife,” he said to the bodyguard. This one was called Ivan. Lock had tried talking to him on the flight back from Cayman but conversation hadn’t flowed. “Are you coming?”

He set off toward the stairs. Ivan, taken aback for a second, followed him at a run, reaching into his pocket for his phone and snapping Russian into it as they waited for the lift. Downstairs they walked together through the lobby, Lock a few paces ahead and walking quickly.

“Arkady is bringing the car,” said Ivan, as Lock slipped through the revolving doors.

Arkady was clearly annoyed at being disturbed, perhaps at being woken, and he drove fast through the wet streets, Lock giving him directions. At Holland Park Lock told them that he didn’t know how long he would be and that they could go back to bed if they liked. Neither said anything. Lock walked up the broad white steps to Marina’s porch and rang the buzzer. He looked at his watch; it was nearly eleven. It was possible she was in bed. He waited for a full minute, conscious of Arkady watching him from the car. Then the intercom clicked.

“Hello.”

“Hi. It’s me.”

“Richard? Richard, why…” She let the sentence die away and buzzed him in.

Halfway up the stairs Lock heard Marina’s door open on the landing above. When he reached it she wasn’t there—he gave a delicate double knock and went in. She was in the kitchen, wearing a pale-green cotton dressing gown printed with lilies. As Lock entered, she was at the sink pouring herself a glass of water, half turned away from him. A large pine table was between them, and on it a small crystal vase full of blue and purple anemones. Lock could smell onions and coffee.