2. London. Saturday 9 November 2013.
Kaspgaz Oil Headquarters, Level 26, The Shard, 32 London Bridge Street. 13:25
Ilya checked his watch – an understated Patek Philippe that he'd had for years – for what seemed like the thousandth time in this meeting. The day had been long enough already before this one, the last of the day, on the important but dry as dust subject of their international balance sheet. Most of the time now he could avoid such discussions, leaving it to his management team, but every quarter he, as the majority owner of the corporation, had to put in an appearance whether he felt like it or not. Having the presentation scheduled after lunch, as it was today, didn't help as almost everyone, including himself, was feeling at least a little somnolent after the meal, even though he had been his usual abstemious self and had kept away from the wine.
In the early days he had positively enjoyed all of this as he had built his company up from nothing to the international giant it now was and for the past two and a half years he had buried himself in the day-to-day minutiae to drown any thoughts of what had happened that day in the dank, cold-war bunker on the Thames Estuary, along with the revelations that had gone with the events, but today he was unsettled, his thoughts elsewhere. The view outside the meeting room window wasn't helping: it was a rare day of Autumnal sunshine, the golden light limning the ancient buildings far below his glass-shelled eyrie in brightness under a sky of an exquisite cerulean that was only marked by gossamer silver traces of aircraft con-trails in the stratosphere. The appointment that was coming up soon was the cause of his distraction. For the first time since his former wife's perfidy he was actually looking forward to catching up with someone on a social basis.
After his return to Moscow with the remnants of his shattered family – one dead, one injured and temporarily insane – his social life had disappeared. Beforehand there had been an almost continuous series of brunches, lunches, dinners, banquets and other events to fill their calendar but afterwards no-one but his very oldest friends would touch him. He hadn't noticed at first, grateful for the isolation from almost everyone apart from his brothers and their families and by the time he did notice he no longer cared. Elena Platonovna had been the driving force behind most of their social activities for political reasons that he how knew and despised so most of those involved had been her friends, not his, and he had been happy to see the back of them. Most of them were too busy covering their own arses, where they could, anxious to distance themselves from her and from RussiaFirst; of them, he knew at least some of them had probably worked out exactly how she had died, not swallowing the concocted story of her suicide from shame, and were now too scared to come anywhere near him. That suited him right down to the ground…
His surprise had been total when he had arrived at the up-market hotel the previous late afternoon to find himself a wedding guest and he had been almost tempted to demur but good manners, his friendship with the bridal couple and curiosity had made him stay and the evening had been entirely enjoyable. Then Rosie had turned up, followed by Jean, and he had realised afterwards, on the way home, that he had relaxed more in their company than any others. The innocence of true ignorance, he supposed: the child accepting him at face value and the grandmother doing much the same, despite probably having worked out at least part of the truth of his past. It would be interesting to see how it went today, if he ever got there.
District Line, 13:50
Jean left the house she shared with her family and made her way to Stamford Road Tube station, where she had to wait a few minutes before the singing rails preceding the train's arrival drew her attention from the couple of sparrows pecking at crumbs underneath a nearby bench. Taking a seat in a half-empty carriage she considered what she had learned earlier in the morning. Realising Erin was highly unlikely to answer any questions – all she had said the night before was that the Russian was bad news, very dangerous and should be steered clear of – and not wishing to tip her off to this afternoon's assignation, Jean had finally succumbed to temptation and asked Dr Google about the mysterious Russian Minister.
Ilya Andreivitch Gavrik, long-established oligarch, Minister for International Development, personally appointed by Dmitry Medvedev (although believed to be at Putin's behest) to the post in early 2010, to be precise. There was plenty of generic stuff out there, particularly about his business interests (Kaspgaz Oil was the major but far from the only company the man owned, he had interests not only in traditional energy but also alternative energy sources, telecommunications, unusual mining commodities, pharmaceuticals and military high-tech, mostly drones and other automated weapons systems) and philanthropy (to her surprise he and his company seemed to be big in supporting both the arts, particularly dance, and scientific research) but curiously little about the man himself. Ex-Soviet Army veteran of Afghanistan (she already knew that) where he had earned a Hero of the Soviet Union award, among his chest-full of other medals (she hadn't known that), occasional member of the politburo, long-time personal friend of President Putin, rumoured to have spent many years as a senior officer with Soviet intelligence although there was nothing to substantiate the rumours (surprise, surprise!) and some thought he still was part of that particular machine, he had only come to the attention of the West since the turn of the millennium when Kaspgaz had come out of nowhere and started making very savvy business deals over more than half the planet. He was currently believed to have a personal net worth of somewhere upwards of £400 million; including the privately owned corporation in the equation bumped it up to four or five times that. There had been a wife and a son: the wife had died some time ago, she had found nothing more than a name (Aleksandr) for the son.
The deceleration of the train and it's shuddering, slightly squealing halt at South Kensington Station broke the trend of her thoughts. None of it mattered, anyway, because this was likely to be a one-off, she was aware of that: mega-rich international businessman and part-time lecturer in the psychology of education weren't jobs that were likely to be of much interest to each other for long. She would just enjoy the conversation and leave it at that.
Victoria & Albert Museum, 14:20
Jean moved at a fair clip through the corridors of the hallowed museum towards the inner courtyard and café, glancing at her watch as she went. Her original plan had been to attend the Treasures of the Royal Courts exhibition and she had suggested meeting Ilya at the café afterwards but the first part of the plan hadn't worked out: Erin had been called in to work unexpectedly and Dimitri had already had a meeting with an asset somewhere so Jean had stayed home to look after Rosie. Dimitri had returned at lunch time but Erin still hadn't come back by the time Jean had got away, now leaving her with no time to go through the show: it was a pity but not a disaster, the exhibit was still on for another week or so and if he didn't front, as she expected, she might just go through it this afternoon anyway. At least she wasn't late.
The lunchtime crowds had thinned by now in the interior of the café although the brief interval of warmth in what was otherwise turning into a damp, cold month meant that there were still a lot of people in the courtyard. Having quickly glanced into all the internal rooms and not spotted him, she went outside to take in some of the unexpected sunshine and was stunned to see a tall, immaculately dressed figure standing by the oval pool. God, he was here already…
He heard her approach and turned with a smile as she breathed apologetically and slightly anxiously,
"Ilya, I hope you haven't been here long?"
He shook his head.
"No, perhaps five minutes. No more. In fact, I must thank you for giving me the perfect reason to call a halt to an interminably tedious meeting!" He had, in fact, done exactly that: having got through all the important factors the presentation had descended into the mind-numbing boredom of statistics and when it looked like it was going to go over time he had used his next 'meeting' as the excuse to end the current one. "How was the exhibition?"
The woman sighed as they turned to move back inside.
"Sadly, I can't tell you that because I've only just got here – Erin was called into work and Dimitri was already out so I stayed home to look after Rosie. You made an impression there, by the way, she can't quite believe that she met a man who knew about ballet and is Russian!"
"I am not so unusual in knowing about ballet in Moscow," he demurred truthfully. "She is an intelligent child, it was a pleasure to talk to her." As he held the door open for her he added, "Would you still like to go through the exhibition? We have the time."
That was a surprise but she wasn't going to say no. Not when a large part of the exhibit revolved around the Tsarist court.
Neither of them noticed the middle-aged tourist leaning against a wall and chatting quietly on his mobile phone as they passed down the corridor. The man's eyes followed them as he murmured,
"Well, that explains it. He's met a woman and they look like they're making for one of the special exhibits."
"A woman?" The voice at the other end sounded surprised. "That's a first since he offed that red-headed bitch of a wife of his."
"We don't know he actually did that," the younger man glanced over at a marble bust that had been watching him for the entire conversation, some Greek or Roman big-wig whom no-one remembered any more. The other man gave a dry, scratchy laugh.
"You haven't seen what Director Coaver had backed up to the network about her before she had him kidnapped out of Five's hands and killed. She wasn't the type to top herself and he would've had to be superhuman to not put her out of her misery, assuming he found out even the half of it. Something sure as hell happened in that bunker. Anyhow, if he hadn't done us all a favour Harry Pearce would have and if neither of them had we would have, for what she did to Coaver. Gavrik probably realised that at some level." A sudden cough interrupted the words for a moment as the listener glanced back up the corridor to where the pair had stopped in front of a painting and were discussing it. Getting back to the point he asked, "Who's the new broad?"
"Got no idea. His age group, white, dark hair, average height or a bit more, conservative dresser, that's all I can say."
"Did you get any vision?"
"No."
"See if you can. Meantime I'll hack into the CCTV and try to find them and ID her. She might be useful leverage."
The man in the museum heaved himself off the wall and began to follow the other pair at a discrete distance.
"You're assuming she means anything to him."
"A reasonable assumption, he hasn't met any female for anything apart from business, anywhere, for over two years, as far as we're aware. There's only one way to find out so keep on them, see what happens when they leave."
"Will do."
Jean's Diary:
The coffee was nice, as was the company, the discussions and the visit to the latest exhibition at the V&A that I was going to go to anyway – the Treasures of the Royal Courts show, so it was handy having a genuine Russian to attend with! Especially one who is so erudite, intelligent, gentlemanly and charming. We almost got through the thing without him being recognised, until a couple of Russian tourists saw him. I gather he's rather well known over there. He handled it well, though, for all I couldn't understand a word that was said, and we were soon left in peace. We had a good time, anyway, and he said he's going to be back in town some time over the next month (he's heading home on Tuesday morning) so he'd let me know when and we could organise lunch or something. Swapped emails to go with the phone numbers but I'll believe it when I see it: I Googled him this morning and he moves in realms far removed from my own so I don't really expect anything. It was nice having some different company for a while and I guess I will have to leave it at that. Erin did her lolly when she overheard me mentioning him to Rosie and she realised I'd gone to the museum with him so I told her to relax and that I'd probably never clap eyes on him again (although I didn't tell her about the phone number and email swap). Her job makes her far too suspicious.
Erin's Diary:
I can't believe she did that. Went out with Gavrik. Fortunately I don't think she's aware of quite who he is, or was, more to the point. Nothing about that comes up on the internet and I know she googled him because I checked the computer records. Thank god the bastard's out of the country on Tuesday. Hopefully that will be an end to it.
Ilya's Journal:
After the business of the morning was concluded I spent a very pleasant afternoon with Jean Watts. She is in fact every bit as intelligent as she appeared last night and very pleasant company. We attended an exhibition and then went for coffee elsewhere and I was surprised by the depth of knowledge she displayed with her questions on Russian history but perhaps I should not be; she is a clinical psychologist, a lecturer at University College London and an established authority on applying that science to historical figures and also a published author, according to my research this evening. I enjoyed myself more than I have done for several years so I will be contacting her when I return shortly after the next round of talks, although no doubt her daughter would wish otherwise.
