Part 11 (1/2)

'We are,' Shaka said. 'The two of us.' Had she sounded just a little too offhand?

'You and Mr Kuzmin.'

'Right.'

'When was that arranged?'

She shrugged. 'Soon after Mikhail and I got married, wasn't it, Vadim?'

He didn't reply, staring balefully at Kathy. She wondered if he'd learned that stare in the KGB.

'You'll have your hands full trying to sort out your husband's finances, won't you, Mrs Moszynski? I gather they're complicated.'

'He's not even in the ground yet,' Shaka said coolly. 'We're grieving. We haven't thought about it.'

Kathy doubted that.

They heard Alisa's voice somewhere outside and Vadim seemed to rouse himself. He said, 'We haven't shown Alisa the newspaper reports today. She is still very upset. Please be tactful.'

When Alisa came in Kathy went through her questions, and as Moszynski's daughter spoke Kathy was struck by the contrast between Alisa and the other two. At thirty she was actually a couple of years older than Shaka, but seemed much more vulnerable. From time to time she wiped tears from her eyes, recalling something her father had said or done, while Shaka showed no emotion at all. Alisa's husband was fifteen years older than her, and Kathy thought that if she had known nothing about the three of them she might have supposed that Shaka and Vadim were the older generation, more worldly and hardened, and Alisa young enough to be their daughter.

When Kathy was finished she got to her feet and Alisa came over to her, head bowed, and said, 'I don't know what I will do without Papa.'

Vadim, whose impa.s.sive frown had hardly altered throughout the interview, showed Kathy out. At the front door she said, 'Do you trust Freddie Clarke, Mr Kuzmin?'

'What do you mean?'

'You'll be relying on him to access Mr Moszynski's fortune.'

He eyed her coldly. 'Let me give good advice, Detective. Let the experts come up with the theories.' He swung the door open and stepped back into the shadows, watching her go.

Let me give good advice, Kathy thought as she got into her car. It was a phrase from the letter to The Times.

TWELVE.

Kathy was in two minds about phoning Sean Ardagh, expecting a cool response, but he sounded brisk and helpful.

'A chat? Sure. Now?'

'If you can spare the time. Thanks.'

'No problem. Let's meet in Victoria Tower Gardens across the road from my office. Give me an excuse to get out.'

The gardens formed a long thin strip along the Thames Embankment close by Thames House, the MI5 building. Kathy spotted him straight away, on a timber bench, reading the Evening Standard.

They shook hands and he said, 'So, how can I help you?'

'I think you know more about some of the people I'm looking at than I'm finding on the files.'

'Could be. Who are you thinking of ?'

'How about starting with Freddie Clarke.'

Ardagh smiled. 'The boy genius? Oh, they don't come any smarter than young Freddie.'

'What's his background?'

'Cla.s.sic East End barrowboy who turned out to be a financial wizard. Supposed to have a photographic memory, maybe high-function autism. He got a job as a messenger boy in the City and by the time he was twenty he was a star of the trading room, making money big-time. Then something happened, I'm not sure what exactly, probably upset somebody important. Anyway, he headed off to Luxembourg and joined Clearstream, the clearing house. You'll have heard of them.'

'Vaguely.'

'Look them up. At Clearstream he got to manage some of the big accounts of the Russian oligarchs. He did very well, but his mum got cancer and he wanted to come back to London. Mikhail Moszynski got to hear and offered him an exclusive deal to handle his affairs. He bought Truscott Orr for Freddie, who is now, what, thirty, thirty-one?'

Kathy scribbled in her notebook. The late afternoon was balmy, two children further down the park playing tag around their motionless parents. 'So where will Mikhail's death leave Freddie?'

'Whoever inherits will be utterly dependent on Freddie to tell them what's going on.'

'Really? Surely there'll be doc.u.ments, contracts?'

'They say it's all inside Freddie's head. So if you're thinking of going after Mikhail's financial records, forget it. It's been tried.'

'By you lot?'

Ardagh said nothing, face expressionless.

'Well, let's hope Freddie doesn't have an accident.'

'Indeed. It's all immensely complicated, deliberately so. Mikhail was paranoid that the Russian government would try to take his money away from him. That's what Freddie was for, to build an impenetrable financial castle complete with false rooms, dead-end corridors, hidden pa.s.sages and secret chambers.'

'RKF?'

'That's just the gatehouse at the front that everyone can see. Behind it there's a maze stretching from Luxembourg to Bermuda to Labuan to Belize, and on and on.'

'Freddie says Alisa will inherit the controlling share.'

'Makes sense. Keep it in the blood line. Mikhail would have wanted that.'

'He says Shaka will be taken care of. But will she be content with that?'

'From what I've seen of her, I'd say she'll be sensible. She's like Freddie, another tower block kid. Her old mum still sells T-s.h.i.+rts at the East Street Market down in Walworth. And like Freddie, it's the game that drives Shaka, not the money. She wants to be the best, the most famous, the most glamorous.'

'It sounds as if you've done quite a bit of work on these people.'

'Not really. These are just my impressions.' He gave a careless shrug, which Kathy didn't quite believe.

'How about Vadim?'