Better Off Dead: (Victor the Assassin 4) (8 page)

Victor’s hotel was located only a few minutes’ drive from the airport. Dmitri drove fast, but not fast enough to draw attention. He was urged on by purpose but not to the detriment of caution. He may have been looking for his boss’s daughter, but he was still a career criminal. Victor ignored protocol and sat beside him in the passenger seat, instead of in the back. It gave him less protection and fewer options should Dmitri’s animosity take on a darker hue, but he wanted the Russian to work with him, not against him, and the less he did to potentially antagonise the man, the sooner he could effectively use him.

Victor spent the short journey asking questions and paying close attention to the answers Dmitri gave. Much of the information he had already garnered from Norimov. The hunt had not produced any leads. Dmitri had canvassed the local area, stopping people in the street to show them an old photograph of Gisele and to ask if anyone had seen her. They hadn’t.

‘The rest of the time I’ve been driving around, trying to spot her. I didn’t know what else to do.’

Victor nodded. ‘Has anyone else been looking for her? Other Russians?’

Dmitri shook his head. His neck was so thick Victor was almost surprised he was capable of even the slightest rotation. ‘I haven’t seen anyone. What does that mean?’

‘If they’re coming after Norimov, they have strength and resources. It wouldn’t be hard for them to find out that Gisele lives in London. So either they’re here looking for her too and you didn’t see them, or they’ve found her already.’

Dmitri sighed and chewed on his bottom lip. ‘Bad times.’

‘Have you checked her home?’

‘She’s not there.’

‘I know. I mean have you been inside?’

Dmitri shook his head. ‘It’s a flat in a building. People are there. We’d have to break the doors down. No keys. Norimov said not to. He said keep the profile low.’

Victor nodded again.

‘What do we do first?’

‘I’ll check in and take a quick shower. After that, we start looking for Gisele.’

The hotel was located in a cluster of other hotels, all serving the nearby airport and a huge exhibition centre. Dmitri pulled up outside the front entrance.

Victor said, ‘I’ll be about half an hour. Use that time to get me a good quality multi-tool and a box of big paperclips.’

Dmitri stared, confused, but decided against asking why. He shrugged. ‘Sure. Whatever you want. Multi-tool and paperclips. Big ones.’

Inside, the hotel was as spare and modern as its glass and steel façade suggested. Victor checked in, declining the offer of having someone take his suitcase to his room, and took the stairs up to the third floor. He’d only required a standard room to sleep in, but he had other requirements that necessitated a junior suite. He placed his suitcase on the floor next to the bed, examined the suite briefly to make sure it fulfilled his needs, and went into the bathroom to turn on the shower. He unwrapped a packet of soap and dropped it into the bath beneath the flow of water. He unscrewed the tops of the mini bottles of shampoo and shower gel. He poured a quarter of each into the bath. He left the shower running and took the freestanding magnifying mirror from the bathroom. He opened the curtains and placed it on the window sill, adjusting its position so it sat exactly where he needed it and with the mirror at the required angle.

His suitcase contained some clothes and other effects, which he distributed throughout the room – a suit and shirts hanging from the door of the walk-in wardrobe; shaving kit, toothbrush and toiletries in the bathroom; underwear on the bed.

He unfolded a bath towel and briefly held it underneath the shower’s flow. He dropped it on the tiled floor. He shook a can of deodorant, pointed the nozzle upwards at the ceiling and sprayed for a count of six.

Aside from the items he’d already taken from his suitcase, it contained an attaché case, which he removed. He positioned the suitcase on the bed and zipped it closed. He took the attaché case with him as he left the suite.

By the time he’d reached the ground floor he still had twenty minutes of his half an hour remaining. He headed away from the main entrance on its east side and walked to the hotel’s business centre, passed it, and carried on past the fitness suite. He pushed open an exit that took him to the hotel’s south side, where a trio of hotel employees on a break were smoking cigarettes and drinking hot drinks in the chill sunshine. An elevated railway with a road underneath lay before him.

He crossed the road to the other side and walked between the sparse line of trees that marked the boundary to another hotel. He went inside via its north entrance and made his way to the lobby where he smiled at the thin gentleman behind the front desk.

‘I’d like to check in, please.’

His room was on the fourth floor. It was a pleasant enough guestroom but nowhere near the standard of the other hotel. He spent a minute familiarising himself with its layout and then he opened the curtains. The view was a poor one. He looked out at the elevated railway to the north. Between its tall concrete supports he could see the south façade of the first hotel. Directly in his eyeline lay the hotel’s third-floor windows. Some had their curtains open. Others were closed.

Only one had a freestanding mirror positioned on the window sill.

The warehouse used by Norimov’s men as a safe house was located in an industrial park in East London. It was a dirty building with decades of grime and pollution staining the brickwork. It contained over sixteen thousand square feet of space that had once been used to store plumbing and heating equipment and goods. According to Dmitri, it had been empty for some years. He didn’t know if Norimov owned it or rented it, or if they were there illegally. A huge corrugated steel gate stood on the south façade, high and wide enough for lorries to back into. Next to the gate were two storeys of offices that protruded from the otherwise square warehouse.

The second of Norimov’s men introduced himself as Yigor. He wore synthetic sports trousers and a worn sweatshirt. His shoes were big white trainers that glowed in the light. He was a weightlifter, like Dmitri, like all of Norimov’s men. But he was the biggest of them. His arms were as thick as Victor’s thighs. His hair was long and greasy and his face was pinched and fat. Eyes the colour of the Baltic Sea stared out from hooded, half-closed lids. He smelled as bad as he looked, but was always smiling. It was a happy but half-crazed grin that showed an upside down mountain range of uneven teeth.

‘You the bad man, yes?’ he said in broken English, his South St Petersburg accent thick and coarse.

Victor said, ‘That’s me.’

They shook hands. Yigor’s hands were massively broad, making his fingers seem short and stubby. They were rough and calloused from years of lifting heavy weights.

‘I heard all about you,’ Yigor said. ‘Dmitri and Sergei say you baddest mother.’

‘You shouldn’t believe everything you hear.’

Yigor’s grin widened. ‘I like you. I can tell you are the bad man. Like me. Bad men together, yes?’

‘We’ll be best of friends in no time.’

The warehouse’s office annex had its own entrance – a glass door set perpendicular to the steel gate. A reception area stood on the other side with a long fixed counter topped with glass. The carpet had once been blue but was now stained with dirt and oil. The polystyrene ceiling tiles were stained yellow with nicotine from the days when smoking was allowed in the workplace. Downstairs, the interior office walls were wallpaper-covered aluminium, fronted by plate glass and glass doors. Some had strip blinds lowered. Most offices were kitted out with desks and chairs and filing cabinets – all cheap furnishings that had been well used in their time. There were a number of old computers, printers and other obsolete and worthless pieces of electronic equipment, and a telephone landline in every room, discoloured from age and use. The ground-floor offices had been left untouched, but Dmitri and Yigor had occupied the first floor. The offices there were similar to those below, except much larger and therefore less numerous. There was also a boardroom and kitchen. Norimov’s men had claimed an office each to serve as a bedroom, complete with folding cot, sleeping bag and other small luxuries. What had once been a boardroom now served as a communal area for Dmitri and Yigor. One half of the large oval table was covered in soiled pizza boxes, greasy takeaway containers, empty cigarette packs and crushed cans and warped bottles of soft drinks.

‘You can have that one,’ Yigor said, pointing to an empty room. ‘No need to pay for hotel. Save your money. I will get you a bed. Norimov pays for everything. Then you have more of the cash to spend on the women. This town is full of it. Buy them fancy cocktail that tastes of kids’ sweets; they like you lots. Good deal, yes? Norimov pay you plenty of the money, yes?’

Victor shook his head. ‘There is no payment. This is not a job.’

Yigor pulled a face. ‘Then you crazy. This war is going to be danger everywhere. Norimov’s enemies going to kill everyone he knows. They kill you too, if they can. You should ask for lots of money. So, you want a bed?’

Victor said, ‘I’ll pass.’

‘Suit self. Waste all your money on that hotel.’

Two hotels
, Victor thought.

They kept their outside jackets on inside the warehouse because there was no heating. There was electricity so there were at least lights. Most of the bulbs and fluorescent tubes were missing or burnt out, however, leaving many offices unlit and large areas of the warehouse floor in darkness. One corner had a collection of crates, pallets and chains that served as makeshift weights for the two Russians to work out with.

Yigor said, ‘What do we do first, Mr Bad Man?’

‘Take me to where she works.’

Norimov hadn’t spoken to his daughter in years, but he kept track of her life as much as he was able. She went by her mother’s maiden name: Maynard. Gisele was twenty-two years old and had studied law in London and was a couple of months into her year-long pupillage at a law firm prior to qualifying as a barrister. The firm was located in the heart of the city’s financial district. Dmitri drove. Victor opted to sit in the back seat because he didn’t want to be surrounded by giants. The drive was short and Yigor told jokes for the entire journey. He was the only one who laughed at them.

‘I’ve already tried here,’ Dmitri said as he found a spot to pull into.

‘That’s good,’ Victor replied. ‘When?’

Dmitri shrugged as he applied the handbrake. ‘Soon as I arrived in London.’

‘A lot can change in a week. Wait for me.’

‘Sure.’ He relaxed in the seat and set the back of his head into the rest. ‘I sleep.’

‘Don’t get a ticket.’

Dmitri didn’t respond. Victor climbed out of the relative quiet of the car interior into the noise of London: traffic and people creating the urgent breaths of the city around him. He didn’t like London but he didn’t dislike it either. Its ancient identity had been warped and changed and divided into many disjointed pieces. It was huge and dense but low and suffocating. There was so much to enjoy but so much not to. From an operational perspective, he couldn’t ask for a better metropolis. It was always busy, always congested with crowds to hide among, and intercut with irregular alleys and side streets. The saturation of CCTV cameras was far from ideal, but British police officers did not carry firearms as standard.

He crossed the street, passing slow-moving cars and rounding a red bus collecting passengers. The buildings were all grand and centuries old, adding an air of importance, respectability, but also wealth. He walked at a leisurely pace, taking a circuitous route through neighbouring throughways, searching for watchers. A tall order in such a busy area, but if Norimov’s enemies had put her workplace under surveillance, those watchers would be Russian gangsters. Every person in this part of the city was either a suited professional, overworked and always rushing, or a tourist, walking slowly and taking photographs. Watchers would stand out.

He saw none. He wasn’t sure what that meant. If they already had Gisele, they wouldn’t need to look out for her at her place of business in the hope of kidnapping her on her way to or from work. But after making Norimov aware of the threat, they would expect his forces to mobilise. If their intention was to wipe him out, it would be smart to ambush anyone he had sent to look for his daughter.

Low stone steps led up from the street. Victor used his knuckles to push through the revolving brass-and-glass door. The lobby was vast and high-roofed and starkly modern. He approached a curved counter and explained to the receptionist he was a visitor to Gisele’s law firm. After using his left hand to sign the guestbook, he was given a pass and used it to get through the electronic turnstiles that shielded the elevators. A big security guard nodded at him.

On the second floor, he approached the law firm’s reception area. Both receptionists – one male, one female – smiled at him as he approached the boomerang-shaped desk. The smiles were good, if false. The smiles said:
So lovely to see you again
. They had been well trained. In his good suit he looked like a client, maybe even an important one.

‘Good afternoon, sir,’ the male receptionist began. ‘How are you today?’

‘Tremendous, thank you. What about yourself?’

‘Wonderful. How might I be of service?’

Victor said, ‘I have a four p.m. appointment with Gisele Maynard. I’m sorry to say I’m a little late.’

The receptionist didn’t check the system for the appointment. He didn’t break eye contact. ‘I’m sorry, sir. Ms Maynard isn’t in the office today.’

Victor made sure to appear taken aback. ‘Oh,’ he said. ‘That’s terribly disappointing.’ He sighed and drummed his knuckles on the desktop. ‘I’ve come into the city specifically to see her. I’ve wasted a lot of time.’ After checking his watch, Victor added, ‘Are you expecting her back tomorrow?’

‘I’m afraid I don’t know.’ The receptionist did a reasonable job of looking sympathetic. ‘I really am terribly sorry for your inconvenience.’

‘Is she unwell?’

The receptionists looked at one another. The woman said, ‘She hasn’t been in the office since last week.’

He pretended to think; to remember. ‘I spoke to her last Wednesday and we agreed to this meeting then. When was she last in? If she had planned to go away, why would she arrange to see me?’

‘I don’t think it was planned,’ the male receptionist said. ‘It’s probably just the office bug.’

The woman added, ‘She was in on the Thursday, but we haven’t seen her since then.’

Victor made a big deal of sighing. ‘This is extremely frustrating.’

The man said, ‘Sir, I am very sorry. When she does come back to the office I’ll of course let her know you came in today. Can I take your name?’

He said the alias he’d signed in with.

The receptionist made a note of it. ‘Is there anything else I can do for you?’

Victor raised an eyebrow. ‘Anything
else
? No, that’s everything.’

The receptionist’s smile never faltered. ‘You have yourself a lovely day.’