‘You smell lovely though,’ says Viktor. ‘Eucalyptus.’
Pauline had originally painted on the bullet wound in the comfort of Joyce’s flat. The situation had been explained to her, by Ron, and she had taken it in her stride. She had asked if what they were doing was illegal, and Elizabeth had said ‘define illegal’, and that had been good enough for Pauline. She had also caked his face in powder, making him paler and paler, thinner and thinner, until they all agreed they were staring into the eyes of a ghost. They had then bundled Viktor back into his familiar holdall, and Bogdan had carried him out to a quad bike and driven him up to the woods. The others had followed, at a discreet distance, in the event that the Viking was somehow watching.
‘And we’re done,’ says Pauline, with a final flourish. She gives Viktor a last once-over, looking from every angle. ‘You look terrible.’
It was Joyce who had spotted the original mistake. Pauline had first painted an entry wound on Viktor’s forehead. The recording heard by the Viking would leave him in no doubt that Elizabeth had shot Viktor from behind. Which is why Pauline was now kneeling beside him in a grave, turning an entry wound into an exit wound. If Pauline had been surprised at how accurately both Viktor and Elizabeth could describe the exit wound of a bullet, it didn’t show in her face.
Ron and Bogdan help Pauline out of the hole. Mainly Bogdan, Viktor notices, but done in such a way as to make it look like Ron is doing most of the work. Viktor sees the faces peering down at him.
Bogdan is now throwing down more earth onto Viktor’s body. The idea is to give him a ‘just-dug-up’ look. Ibrahim has his phone out, and now trains it on Viktor at the bottom of the hole. ‘Landscape or portrait?’
‘Landscape,’ says Viktor. ‘Is grittier.’
‘Portrait,’ says Elizabeth. ‘I’m taking the photo, and I prefer portrait.’
‘You are insufferable, Elizabeth,’ shouts Viktor from the bottom of the hole.
Ibrahim has another question. ‘Close-up of the face, or the whole body?’
‘Both,’ says Elizabeth. ‘But not too close to the face, just in case.’
‘Just in case what?’ says Pauline. ‘You zoom in all you like, Ibrahim, that’s good work.’
‘Yeah, zoom in,’ says Ron, and squeezes Pauline’s hand.
‘Of course we will need to talk about filters,’ says Ibrahim. ‘Personally I think Clarendon would be perfect, because of the earthy browns.’
‘If it is not too much bother,’ says Viktor. ‘Perhaps we discuss this after?’
Ibrahim nods. ‘Hypothermia, I understand completely. I also want to speak to you about Heather Garbutt’s poem, but that can also wait until you are clothed.’
Viktor looks up at the faces peering down. Elizabeth, his great love, how happy he is to spend a little more time with her. People drift in and out of your life, and, when you are younger, you know you will see them again. But now every old friend is a miracle.
Ron and Pauline. They are holding hands now. Viktor remembers Ron’s name from many years ago. He was on a list. It was a long list, but he was on it. Someone, at some point, would have spoken to him, ‘sounded him out’, seen if he was sympathetic with the Soviet way. Meeting him now, Viktor wouldn’t fancy their chances. Bogdan, leaning on his spade, waiting patiently to fill the hole back in. Ibrahim, trying to find the perfect angle. Joyce, his flat-mate, his new protector, currently trying to stop Alan jumping into the hole.
Looking up, Viktor realizes just how lonely his penthouse is. How lonely his life has become. Young, beautiful people taking photos in a pool that everyone could see, but no one could visit. Where were his friends?
Perhaps he could just stay here? Perhaps this photo will be enough to satisfy the Viking, and Viktor can just change his name, leave his old world behind and move down to Coopers Chase? Nothing like lying in your grave with a bullet hole through your head to make you think about your life.
Did he really need multibillion-pound deals, when there was Joyce and Elizabeth and Alan, and a whole gang to be a part of? Perhaps they will solve this murder? Perhaps he can walk Alan through the woods? And Ron had mentioned snooker. Viktor had no one to play snooker with any more. He used to play with an old Kazakh who had a jeweller’s in Sydenham, but he had died, what, three years ago. He looks up at the faces above him once more. Maybe he just got lucky.
‘For God’s sake, Viktor,’ says Elizabeth. ‘Stop smiling and shut your eyes. You’re dead.’
I think I was dead, yes, I think I was. Viktor shuts his eyes and, with some difficulty, stops smiling.
43
The others are warming up somewhere, with cups of tea and blankets and gossip. But Ibrahim has work to do.
He has Heather Garbutt’s poem spread out in front of him. There is a secret in these pages, no doubt about that. A hidden message, artfully concealed. Who was Heather Garbutt afraid of? Who was going to kill her?
Deciphering Heather Garbutt’s poem and discovering that secret will take some time, Ibrahim is sure of that. He had wanted to talk the whole thing through with somebody, but Elizabeth, Joyce and Ron are not biting. They see it as a red herring.
He even tried Viktor, after they had dug him up again. You don’t get that senior in the KGB without knowing a few things about cryptography. But Viktor had taken a look, with dirt-stained fingers, then handed it back, saying, ‘No message here. Just a poem.’
As so often, Ibrahim’s is a lone voice in the wilderness. So be it, that is his cross to bear. The prophet is often unheralded in his own land. There will be apologies aplenty when he uncovers Heather’s message. He will nod, magnanimously, head bowed a little perhaps, as the plaudits rain down on him. He imagines the scene: Elizabeth is congratulating him (‘I was quite wrong, quite wrong’), Joyce is handing him a plate of biscuits, while Alan sits in quiet, proud respect. Even Viktor will have to admit that Ibrahim has bested him.
He is lost in this reverie for a moment, and then the thought strikes him. Ibrahim knows exactly whom he should talk to. Someone who never judges him, someone who is always full of ideas. Someone who will help.
He looks at his watch. It is four thirty, which means that Ron’s grandson, Kendrick, will be out of school, but won’t yet be having his tea. The golden hour for any eight-year-old boy.
Ibrahim FaceTimes Kendrick. He is remembering the happy time the two of them spent together, spooling through hours of CCTV, looking for a diamond thief and a murderer.
‘Uncle Ibrahim!’ says Kendrick, and bounces on his chair.
‘Are you quite well?’ asks Ibrahim.
‘I am quite well, yes,’ confirms Kendrick.
Ibrahim outlines the task at hand. That there had been a murder a few years before Kendrick was born (‘Not another one, Uncle Ibrahim’) and more recently another murder in prison (‘Millie Parker’s mum is in prison, she was off school’). The lady in the prison, Heather Garbutt, not Millie Parker’s mum, had left a poem, which Ibrahim believes to be in code (a low, impressed whistle at this) and if Kendrick and he could decipher the code, they might find out just who had murdered her, and the whereabouts of a great deal of money stolen in a VAT fraud (a brief sidebar here, as Ibrahim explains VAT, having to start Kendrick off with the basic principles of universal taxation). They are now hard at it. Ibrahim has a brandy and a cigar; Kendrick has an orange squash (‘It’s less sugar, but you don’t even know when you drink it’).
Ibrahim reads:
My heart needs to reel like the eagles at wing
It wants to be heard, like the blackbirds that sing
But my heart she is broke, cleft in two ’round the wheel
The eagle can’t fly, still my heart needs to reel.