Death Can’t Take a Joke (12 page)

Romescu gestured down at the dock. ‘Maybe I’m sentimental, but I like to think I’m carrying on the tradition of international trade. Buying and selling real things, not spread betting against numbers on a computer screen.’

Janusz nodded. ‘I couldn’t agree more.’ He swirled the ice in his tonic. ‘So Barbu, I’ve got a pile of euros earning peanuts in a Polish bank account, which I
could
invest in a fancy Docklands apartment or two …’ As Romescu’s gaze flickered towards him, he sensed his promotion up the league table of potential investors. ‘On the other hand, who knows what will happen to the financial sector once the politicians stop handing the banks sackfuls of taxpayers’ money. Maybe the UK isn’t such a good bet any more.’ Although he didn’t believe the sentiment, he felt a stab of disloyalty at thus dismissing his adoptive home.

‘And Germany, France, they’re no better. Old economies, grinding away in the slow lane – like a granny on the motorway,’ chuckled Romescu, mimicking an old codger hunched over a wheel. ‘Young countries like Estonia, Lithuania, Poland, Ukraine … that’s where the new opportunities are.’

‘I hear good things about Turkey as well,’ said Janusz, remembering the spicy smell of fruit tobacco in the Pasha Café, venue for Romescu’s mysterious meetings.

‘Maybe, but it’s too far east for me,’ Romescu declared with a shrug.

Confirmation, as if it were needed, that the guy’s dealings with the owner of the Pasha Café were the kind that had to be kept under wraps. Janusz was reaching the conclusion that this little soirée, the sales pitch, Triangle Investments, it was all just a front, a fiction designed to raise funds from unquestioning investors looking to make a quick buck. And he’d make a confident bet that their cash was destined for investment in the back room of the Pasha Café.

He leaned a little closer to his host. ‘I hope you won’t think me nosy, Barbu, but before I invest, I always like to know the man behind the business.’

Romescu hesitated for a microsecond, then threw his arms open. ‘Go ahead! I have no secrets.’

‘What did you do as a young man, back in Romania?’

‘I trained as an aircraft engineer,’ he said. ‘That’s how I got this,’ he tapped the puckered scar that ran down the side of his face. ‘I was testing a crappy old Tupelov when the turbine exploded. I call it my present from Brezhnev.’

Janusz laughed. ‘And after you escaped? I think Marek said you ended up in Poland?’

‘Yeah. Those union people of yours had just thrown out the Commies, and since my mother was Polish, I knew I’d get a passport.’

‘And did you carry on working as an engineer?’

Romescu eyed him. ‘For a while yes, but then I went to work for Zaleski Corporation – back when our head office was a portakabin on a derelict parking lot.’

‘Really?’ In Poland, Zaleski was a household name, an international conglomerate that had sprung up amid the ruins of the country’s Soviet state industries. ‘They’re a pretty big player now, aren’t they?’

‘Yes,’ said Romescu. ‘I was a director there until … very recently.’ He hesitated, apparently torn between bigging himself up and an instinct for discretion. Vanity won. ‘It’s no exaggeration to say that it was me who got Orzelair off the ground. My knowledge of aircraft came in pretty useful.’

As Eastern Europe’s first budget airline, Orzelair had been the motor that had powered Zaleski’s expansion, and now boasted the region’s most extensive network of routes.

‘Impressive,’ said Janusz, shooting him a look that conveyed the appropriate cocktail of admiration and envy. ‘Your Zaleski shares must be worth a fortune by now.’

Romescu’s lips sketched a tight smile – but it was a poor effort.

Twenty-odd years with the company and no share options?
thought Janusz.
You got shafted,
kolego.

But Romescu had clearly tired of the twenty questions routine. Reaching inside his jacket, he extracted a business card bearing the Triangle logo and handed it to Janusz. ‘If there’s anything more you need to know before you make your decision, feel free to contact me – that’s my personal mobile number and email.’

He put his arm around Janusz’s shoulder and leant towards him, conspiratorial. ‘Now we’ve got the business part over, it’s time for my guests to have some fun.’

Janusz allowed himself to be led off the viewing deck back into the bar. Many of the men who’d been standing chatting in groups had now retreated to dimly-lit seating ranged around the walls, accompanied by one or more of the gorgeous girls. The drunk who’d made a fool of himself during Romescu’s speech was sprawled on a low leather sofa. A girl perched on the arm was leaning over the drunken
dupek
, her long ash-blonde hair brushing his chest.

‘See anyone you like the look of?’ asked Romescu in a low suggestive voice. ‘It’s all on the house.’ His head was so close that Janusz could smell the apple juice he’d been drinking. ‘Or am I barking up the wrong tree?’ He nodded towards one of the waiters, a tall, curly-haired youth who was leaning against the wall, bouncing an empty tray off his thigh. Romescu’s warm sweet breath, the heat of his arm across Janusz’s shoulders … Janusz had to fight down an overwhelming urge to grab him by both lapels and smash him against the plate glass window.

‘I’d love to,’ he said with a regretful grin, shooting the cuff of his jacket to check his watch. ‘But I’m afraid I have to get back. I’ve got a call scheduled with a client on the West Coast.’

‘Are you sure? “All work and no play …” as the English say.’

Seeing Janusz wasn’t to be dissuaded, Romescu released him with a final comradely pat. ‘But before you go, I’d like you to meet someone.’ This was accompanied by an imperious, beckoning gesture over Janusz’s shoulder.

Varenka appeared alongside Romescu, standing almost half a head taller than him.

‘Lukas, may I introduce Varenka.’

Betraying no sign of recognition – nor surprise at the unfamiliar name – Varenka offered Janusz the tips of her fingers and a polite smile.

‘Pleased to meet you, Lukas.’

He made a tiny bow and, straightening, allowed his eyes to meet her amused gaze. Although the look they exchanged lasted less than a second, it was long enough to seal a pact: Janusz’s real name, and the fact that they had already met on a kerbside in Walthamstow, would remain their secret.

‘
Enchanté
,’ he said.

The Romanian’s stubby fingers encircled Varenka’s slender wrist like a manacle. ‘Not
too
enchanted, I hope,’ he told Janusz. The tone was humorous enough but the message in those fierce blue eyes was clear as wodka.

Keep off the grass,
it said.

It took all Janusz’s reserves of self-control not to light up the moment he left the building’s front entrance, but he thought it wise to continue playing the health freak until he’d put a bit of distance between himself and Romescu.

Reaching the end of the dockside walkway, he pulled out his tin of cigars, then threw a precautionary glance over his shoulder … and saw the outline of a man in a leather jacket strolling some fifty metres behind him, looking out over the dock. Was there something a bit
too
casual about the guy’s walk? Or was he just being paranoid? He cursed softly and pocketed his cigar tin. Checking his watch – it was just past ten – he quickened his pace as though there was somewhere he had to be. His intention wasn’t so much to shake the guy off, but to discover whether he really was tailing him. He decided to head, not for the nearest tube, Canary Wharf, but to Mudchute, a little-used Docklands Light Railway stop further south on the Isle of Dogs. If the guy were still behind him then, he’d take it as confirmation he was being followed.

In the event, no such confirmation was needed. His phone, set to vibrate, buzzed in his pocket, signalling the arrival of a text message. It read: ‘
You have company
–
Varenka.
’

Nosz, kurwa!
She must have overheard Romescu sending leather jacket after him.

Ten minutes fast walking later, Janusz saw the turquoise DLR sign for Mudchute station. He reached the steelwork stairway up to the platform but instead of climbing it, ducked into the shadowy void behind the stairs, pressing himself back against the brickwork. Twenty seconds later, through the stairs’ steel grating, he saw the man in the leather jacket ascending, taking the steps two at a time with an easy athleticism. Janusz couldn’t see his face but his impression was one of a young man, thirty tops. As he heard him reach the top of the second flight, Janusz considered his options. Stay hidden and risk discovery? Or make a swift exit while he had the chance?

Deciding that an encounter with the guy could ruin an otherwise civilised evening, he slipped out of his hiding place and headed down East Ferry Road, towards the river. He was starting to regret the route he’d taken. After the bustle of nightlife around Canary Wharf, the outer reaches of the Isle of Dogs felt like another country. On his left lay the silent, darkened greenery of Millwall Park, to his right a council estate, now part-sold to city types judging by the mixed messages sent by the balconies: tubs of bay trees on some, discarded TV sets and drying clothes strung across others. The streets were abandoned: he’d only seen one person since leaving the dockside, an old lady walking her dog with an air of defiance.

Then Janusz heard a sound from behind him that sent a crackle across his scalp.
The sound of boots pounding the pavement.
He threw a quick glance over his shoulder, half hoping to find some skinny neighbourhood mugger. No such luck. Flashing through the pools of carbon light cast by the streetlamps he saw him. Close-cut hair, leather jacket – seventy metres away but gaining fast. The guy was clearly no longer content simply to follow him. Janusz broke into a sprint. Something about the man nagged at his memory. Then he remembered. It was Romescu’s driver – the guy with the snake tattoo, who’d cajoled Varenka into the Discovery so his boss could thump her.

The guy must have realised his cover had been blown, but instead of giving up, had decided to chase down his prey. Janusz had a powerful premonition of what would happen if he let him catch up. A fight was one thing, but a guy like that would almost certainly be packing a blade – or even a gun.

By the time Janusz reached the end of the park, he was breathing hard, a stiletto of cramp jab-jabbing him in the side. Here, a curve in the road briefly hid him from his pursuer’s view. He had two options – head for Island Gardens, the last DLR station this side of the river, or carry on south towards the Thames towpath. Deciding that Island Gardens would be deserted at this time of night, making it the perfect setting for a knifing, he ran on.

Two minutes later, he was jogging down the side of the old Rowing Club, a spot he’d got hammered in countless times with Oskar back in the day, when they’d been working the Docklands building sites. Its windows were darkened now. As the friendly riverine smell of the Thames rose to greet him he suddenly remembered something else. At the towpath he could go west or east, but there was a third option. The Greenwich foot tunnel. A quarter of a mile long, it connected the Isle of Dogs to Greenwich, emerging near the Cutty Sark, which would still be surrounded by gawping tourists even this late in the evening.
Safety.
And there was a good chance that his pursuer wouldn’t even know of the tunnel’s existence.

A small domed redbrick structure marked its northern end. Negotiating his way past a bike lock and a row of motorcycles parked outside, Janusz jogged into the entrance hall. He decided against taking the big wood-panelled Victorian lift down to the tunnel: if leather jacket were still close behind, the motor of the descending lift would act like a guiding klaxon. Descending the badly lit staircase took longer than he remembered, but felt a good deal easier on his aching lungs than running on the flat. By the time he reached the bottom he was still a bit breathless but his spirits were high. Even if his pursuer did stumble across the tunnel entrance Janusz had a good lead on him now. He reckoned he could cover the few hundred yards that stood between him and the Greenwich end of the tunnel in less than five minutes if he had to.

He paused, head cocked for the sound of feet clattering down the staircase.
Nothing
. He set off down the tunnel at a loping run. A near-perfect circular tube lined with white Victorian tiles, it was so narrow that three people couldn’t walk comfortably abreast. The other end lay out of sight and without any distinguishing features to disturb the white tubular continuity Janusz had the curious sensation that he was running on the spot – that the tunnel would never end. After a few seconds, the combination of the fluorescent light overhead and the endless white of the tiles seemed to set up a low whine inside his head.

Then he got it. The whine wasn’t coming from inside his head, but from the lift machinery behind him.

Time to put some distance between him and whoever would be emerging from that lift in half a minute. Janusz upped his pace. With his legs going like pistons, he assured himself he’d covered a good third of the tunnel’s length. There was no way his pursuer could make up a deficit like that. The lift stopped with a clanking sound and he heard its rackety doors opening. Then another sound, quite unexpected in that confined space.

The angry insect roar of a two-stroke engine being gunned.

Kurwa mac! The fucker had stolen a motorbike!
Sweat sprang from Janusz’s pores. He forced himself to run faster, feeling the adrenaline open his blood vessels, powering oxygen into his bloodstream.
Thanks be to all the saints I stayed off the beer.
He considered discarding his heavy, flapping coat, before deciding it might lose him precious seconds.

The scream of the motorbike engine echoed around the tunnel, now getting so close that Janusz felt the skin between his shoulder blades itch, anticipating a blow from a fist or a knife.

He blinked the sweat out of his eyes, trying to make out how far he was from the tunnel end. And saw something, ten metres in front of him, which he’d completely forgotten about. A pair of waist-high parallel bars jutting out from either wall. They were offset so that pedestrians could easily pass through but to anyone on two wheels they might as well be a brick wall.