Christopher Jones - The Silent Oligarch

He went on. “He’d have done this for Richard. They were friends.”

She sniffed, looked up at him. “So you trade it for Lock?”

“That’s right. If it’s not too late.”

“And after that, what good is it? Lock is alive and Malin is what? The same.” She closed her eyes and breathed deeply. She sat like that for a while, and he didn’t disturb her. “It’s not mine to give,” she said at last.

“It’s the part of him you don’t want to remember. Let it go.”

Nina nodded—once, deliberately—and left the room. When she came back she held a small piece of folded paper in her hand. Silently she gave it to Webster, who took it, opened it, folded it again and put it in his pocket.

“Thank you. Call me on this if anything happens.” He left her another card.

She nodded again. He hesitated, as if there was something more to be said. But he knew there was not, and with a single good-bye he left.

FROM NINA’S FLAT Webster ran east in the direction of the hotel, the cold air rushing against him. He needed a pay phone. How quickly the normal world could fall away and tip you into fear. He offered a brief prayer that Lock was all right; he didn’t often pray, but Lock did. In the dark the snow was still falling, heavily now, leaving a thin layer of powder on the ice all around.

He found a phone on Steinplatz. It was open, a steel column with a small sheet of glass above his head by way of shelter. He pulled himself in under the canopy, put his credit card in the slot and called one of the numbers he knew best. As it rang he looked around the square. On this side a mother was wheeling a stroller toward him; to his left two girls were sliding from long run-ups on the ice. His head pulsed with pain.

“Hello?”

“Ike, it’s Ben. Lock’s missing.”

“Another midnight flit?”

“No. Worse.”

Hammer listened while Webster explained.

“You OK?”

“I’m fine. Terrified but fine. Furious with myself. I need you to reach Malin.”

“Through Onder?”

“Through Onder. Or Tourna. He may have a number for him. Tell him we have what he wants and if anything happens to Lock we’ll send it straight to Hewson at The Times. If he lets us know Lock is safe then we’ll talk again. And talk to Yuri. One of the phones I bought for Lock has GPS. If he still has it we’ll know exactly where he is.”

“All right. What about Gerstman’s stuff?”

“Have a look at it. It’s in a hotmail account.” He read out the details twice. A user name and a password to unlock the big secret. Please let it be good.

“Got it.” Hammer paused. “How did they find him?”

“He called Nina. And Marina. Could have been either. It was stupid. I should have thought.” He sighed. “This is my doing, Ike. I did this.”

Hammer said nothing.

“Would you call the police?” asked Webster.

“I would. Only because if something happens they’ll let you know. If something does, that means they’ll involve you. But that’s OK. You’d probably want them to.”

“OK. Could you call George?”

“To send some people out?”

“Maybe just have them on standby.”

“OK. I take it you’re calling me?”

“Until I get a new phone, yes. I’ll call later this evening.”

Webster put the phone down. His hand was freezing in the evening air. He put it deep in his coat pocket and ran off in search of a taxi.

He had the cab stop two hundred yards short of the Daniel. Scanning both sides of the road he could see nothing suspicious, just empty cars. He walked past the hotel for some distance and found that clear too.

He had decided to enlist the manageress; he needed to get into Lock’s room and preferred not to risk being caught breaking in. Frau Werfel was not a woman to flap; she looked at his head with curiosity but nothing more. He explained, as best he could in halting German, that he had had an argument with Mr. Green and had been knocked over by a moped as he chased after him across a busy road. When he had come to, Green was not there, and this was worrying because he was prone to fits of depression, was depressed at the moment, and may not have taken his medication with him. It was the best he could do. Frau Werfel nodded gravely, as if she didn’t believe him but understood these things all too well. Had she seen him? She had not, but she had been busy this afternoon and had frequently been downstairs in the basement. Would she mind letting Webster into the room? She looked carefully at his face, sizing him up. She would not. Webster thanked her and followed her up the two flights of stairs to Lock’s floor, watching her thick ankles in their sheepskin-lined boots as they went up step by step. As he walked down the corridor, which was gloomy and hot, he had a violent vision of opening the door to find Lock hanging by his neck, his new shoes twisting in space. He shook his head to clear the thought.

There was no one in Lock’s room. Frau Werfel let him in and he made a show of looking in the bathroom for the medication. But the moment the door had opened he had noticed on the desk an envelope he was sure had not been there earlier.

“He seems to have taken it,” he said, coming out of the bathroom, “which is good. Look, I’d go and try to find him but I have no idea where to look. His phone is turned off. I think I’ll wait here for him. I want to be sure to catch him if he comes back.”

“I could tell you when he comes back in.”

“But you’re busy, Frau Werfel. I don’t want to force you to be at your desk all evening.”

She seemed ready to challenge him. But she merely nodded, wished him a good evening and left, closing the door behind her.

The envelope was unmarked, off-white, small—the kind used for personal correspondence. It looked identical to the hotel stationery in the rack next to it. Webster took a sheet of paper from the rack and used it to flip the envelope over. It was not stuck down; the flap had been tucked inside. Webster tore the sheet of paper in two and using the two pieces to cover his fingers carefully pulled the flap back and out. There was a single sheet of paper inside, folded once. Still covering his fingers Webster removed it from the envelope and spread it out on the desk. It was a piece of Hotel Daniel writing paper. Its edges were a little bruised, as if it had been in the room a long time before being used.

The paper was covered with an even longhand in royal-blue ink. The script was regular but showed signs of flamboyance: a flourished tail to the “f,” the “g” looping elegantly up into an “s.” Webster recognized the hand from the signatures on a hundred documents he had recently examined.

Since my friend Dmitry Gerstman died I have been unhappy. I have lost a good friend. I lost my family long ago. In the courts and the newspapers I have lost my reputation. I have nothing. I do not want to continue.

Webster read it again, and a third time, his heart beating heavily against his ribs. He read it once more but it yielded nothing new. He looked around the room to see if anything else had changed. Lock’s things were still in place: his old shoes with their water stains by the radiator, yesterday’s shirt hanging off the back of the chair by the desk. The bed had been made, and the bedside table tidied: on one side the two books, neatly against the wall; on the other the two bottles of Scotch and an empty bottle of gin, tightly together. The bottle of gin had not been there before, he was sure. Pulling his hand up inside the sleeve of his coat he picked it up by the cap. There was a trickle left in the bottom.

Using a pen to dial, he called reception. Frau Werfel answered.

“Frau Werfel, this is Mr. Webster in Mr. Green’s room. Could I ask when you were not at reception over the last hour? I’m sorry but it might be important.”