Naumenko answered quickly, suddenly animated, “You know, in all this”—he searched for the right word, savoring it then as he found it—“in all this hullabaloo, that’s one question that hadn’t occurred to me. But you’re right.”
He got up and strolled across the room as though suddenly remembering a piece of business he’d meant to attend to. For a few moments then he talked quietly to one of the flunkies, the guy listening intently, nodding, leaving the room as soon as Naumenko dismissed him. Naumenko came back and sat down then, smiling and saying, “Very interesting.”
JJ said nothing, knowing there was nothing to respond to; and even though he’d thought he was ready for it a slight nausea was inching into his stomach, his chest, because it didn’t look good, the uneasy realization that perhaps Naumenko wasn’t saying what he was thinking, that he wasn’t buying into JJ’s story. There had been no grand pronouncements, no threatening language, but that was how people like Naumenko worked once they’d decided to kill someone, always the same chilling act of disengagement.
They sat there without saying anything, and a few seconds later the door opened again behind where JJ was sitting. Naumenko smiled broadly and said, “Philip, come and join us.”
Berg. JJ didn’t turn but sensed the surprise off Berg as he reached the sofas.
“Hello, Philip,” he said, looking up finally. “I heard you were dead.” If Berg had been shocked to see JJ there he’d recovered his composure quickly enough and smiled now as he sat on the arm of the sofa JJ was sitting on. He was wearing a suit, shirt open like Naumenko’s, looking like one of those new-breed socialist politicians, glossily corrupt. There was no tan, no sign that he’d been out of the hotel, his hair a richer brown than JJ remembered, like it had been dyed.
“Well as you can see, J, I’m still here, thanks in no small part to Alex.”
JJ objected somehow to Berg shortening his name but let it go and then Naumenko said, “JJ’s raised some interesting points, Philip.”
“Oh really?” Berg was curious, not concerned, the master of the stitch-up, in no doubt as to his own position. JJ thought of Aurianne and did a furtive sweep of the room, wondering if when it came down to the wire he could at least take Berg out with him. He felt his body tense slightly at the thought of it, ready for the first solid signal, certain in his own mind that if he was going he’d take Berg too. The hint of nausea had already gone again and he was just taut now, primed for the strike.
“Yes,” Naumenko said, on a roll. “For example, he wants to know why Holden and Viner have been targeted.” Berg looked at JJ, outwardly no different from the way he’d been in professional conversations they’d had before.
“It’s London business, JJ. Viner and Holden have been working with a faction in Russia—not someone I can disclose here, but Alex has seen the photographic evidence.”
“Photographs mean nothing nowadays. Why was Viner killed the way he was? Why were Alex’s men sent after Holden? Why wasn’t it done in-house?” It was pointless; he knew Berg would have answers, and he knew too that Naumenko would have more reason to want to believe Berg. It was a power play and JJ was just a killer, expendable.
“You know how complicated these things are, J. It’s like you. You’re the one person in all of this that I regret, but it’s precautionary, because of you and Viner. I’m sure you’re clean, the fact that you’ve come here only adds to that, but we can’t take the risk. It’s nothing personal.”
“I think you misunderstand, Philip,” Naumenko said. “JJ came here to tell me he killed David Bostridge.”
Berg looked at him and then at JJ again, trying to work out what was going on, unnerved possibly by what he saw as JJ’s recklessness.
“I don’t understand” was all he could find to say, and JJ momentarily wondered if Berg was telling the truth, if it was Holden who’d been lying to him. It just didn’t fit though.
“Philip, you disappoint me. Surely you knew?” Naumenko seemed to be enjoying himself but he was definitely involved in more than his own amusement.
“Oh I knew,” said Berg, and JJ sensed a chink of light, beginning to think he might have misread the situation, that Naumenko wasn’t decided yet on whom he intended to kill. Seeing the opportunity, and suddenly wanting it now more than he’d ever thought he would, he cut in ahead of Naumenko.
“On whose orders? I killed him, Viner gave me the information, but who wanted Bostridge dead?”
“The same Russian faction,” replied Berg, like it was an answer he’d hardly needed to give. “Once again, we have evidence to that effect. We don’t know if Holden was in the loop or not but it’s possible. You know, J, I realize you might have been duped in all of this, and I sympathize, but they were rotten. They were all rotten.”