‘You?’
‘Of course not!’
‘Kozlov then?’
‘I said I don’t know.’ Walker’s tone was now hard and defiant – a stark contrast to the emotion he’d shown moments before. Walker sat back down in his chair.
‘You’re lying.’
Both men went silent. Ryker’s mind was whirring. ‘How did you and Kozlov meet?’
‘Playing golf. Years ago.’
‘Before you met Kim?’
‘Yes.’
‘And?’
‘And he was a developer, like me. We saw an opportunity to work together, and pool our resources to take on jobs we’d never have been able to do alone. We’ve worked together numerous times over the years.’
‘And when did you first find out that he was bent?’
‘Bent?’
‘Don’t be an idiot, Patrick. Kozlov is a crook. I can smell it a mile off.’
Walker shook his head. ‘You have no idea what you’re getting yourself into here, do you?’
‘You think?’
‘I didn't want this.’
‘Didn’t want what? The nice house? The nice cars? The designer wife?’
‘I loved her.’
‘So you keep saying. To be honest, I don’t care whether you did or didn’t. I just want to know what you’ve got yourself mixed up in. Somebody wants you dead. Somebody who I know won’t stop. What I can’t figure out is why.’
‘You may think you know who sent that note, but I really don’t,’ Walker said. ‘So you’re going to have to help me out here.’
Ryker sighed. ‘You know the saying; the elephant in the room. This elephant is so fucking big it’s about to burst through the roof.’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘That note. I know who it’s from.’
‘You said that already.’
‘I did. But you haven’t once suggested that the note is from the same person who killed Kim. I mean, an outsider looking in might think that’s at least a possibility, if not an obvious conclusion. Wife murdered. Husband threatened.’
Walker didn’t say anything.
Ryker knew his instinct was right. ‘The thing is, you know the note isn’t from the person who killed Kim. Which leads me to only one conclusion.’
‘Which is what?’
‘That you do know who killed your wife. And you also know why.’
CHAPTER 42
Walker held Ryker’s eye contact but didn’t say a word. His response, or rather lack of it, only further cemented Ryker’s belief.
‘I’ll ask you again,’ Ryker said. ‘What is Kozlov up to?’
‘You have no idea what you’re getting yourself into.’
‘You said that already. Kozlov’s got a henchman. Name’s Sergei. You met him?’
‘Sergei? A henchman? What are you on? He’s a dogsbody. A chaperone. He hasn’t got more than two brain cells in his ugly head.’
Ryker had to laugh at that. ‘I’m sure he’s no genius. But he is dangerous. He’s a Vor. You heard of them?’
‘No, I haven’t.’ It was an obvious lie. Even Walker didn’t seem to believe it.
‘Try again. I’m not new to this, Walker. I’m not like the policemen out there. I’ve lived and breathed organised crime for years. I spotted the set-up here almost immediately. Two rich property developers. One is a weed who’d crap his pants at the first sign of trouble, the other is a smug Russian who thinks he’s way more powerful than he really is. So you need to start talking now.’
Walker took an age to reply. Ryker gave him the chance to build up to whatever he was going to say. No point in pushing. He had a good reading of Walker and knew he was trying to think of further ways to bullshit, debating whether it was really worth it. The long, dejected sigh he let out before he spoke suggested the false answer he’d been contemplating was too obvious and too difficult to hold for long.
‘It’s not Kozlov.’
‘What’s not Kozlov?’
‘I thought he was legit. To start with he was. I went into business with him with my eyes wide open. I never expected it to go this way.’
‘And which way is that?’
Walker put his head in his hands. ‘I... I can’t say.’
‘Call it what it is, Walker. The Russian Mafia. The Bratva. That’s who Kozlov is mixed up with, who you’ve got mixed up with.’
Walker looked up and closed his eyes for a couple of seconds. When he opened them again, they were glazed over as though no life lay behind them. ‘Not Russian. Georgian.’
‘Not much difference in my eyes.’
‘You don’t sound surprised.’
‘I’m not.’
‘I was. I still am. Just saying words like that – mafia, Vory – they sound so surreal, like this can’t be happening to me. I’m a good person. I really am.’
‘You think the Georgians had Kim killed?’
Walker sobbed. The answer to the question was clear enough.
‘Why?’ Ryker asked.
‘Money,’ was Walker’s simple response.
‘How much?’
‘Ten million euros.’
‘How?
‘It was bullshit,’ Walker said, for the first time sounding angry. Perhaps he did have some balls, Ryker mused. ‘They saw me as an easy target. Tried to milk me.’
‘When did it start?’
‘About three years ago. I’d been working with Kozlov for years before that. Everything was fine. We were making money. We were friends. Then all of a sudden a silent partner comes on the scene.’
‘Name?’
‘It’s not a person. Just a sham company.’
‘Empire Holdings.’ Ryker recalled the documents he’d seen at Kozlov’s home. There’d been invoices. Correspondence.
‘You know about it?’ Walker asked, confused.
‘Just putting the pieces together.’
‘It’s a bogus company. It’s only there to drain money from the developments.’
‘You didn’t question it?’
‘Of course I did! But Kozlov warned me off, said we had no choice, that we’d still make money.’
‘That’s okay then, as long as you’re still raking in millions.’
‘That’s not it at all,’ Walker spat. ‘I was scared. I didn't know what else to do. To start with, it was small. I thought it might stay like that, I hoped it would, but pretty soon they were skimming so much off there was nothing left.’
‘Hardly a profitable way to run a business.’
‘And therein lies the problem. The projects struggled. There was no profit left for me and Andrei. Soon we were having to put more and more of our own money in to keep projects ticking over.’
‘Let me guess; then they helped you out more and more.’
It was a classic scheme, Ryker knew, making Walker indebted to the mob so he had nowhere to go. Walker looked down at his feet, clearly ashamed – of exactly which part of the mess Ryker wasn’t sure.
‘They became... less silent,’ Walker said. ‘All of a sudden it was Empire Holdings that spotted the opportunities. They would identify and acquire the land, obtain the permissions, set up the contractors. Everything was done in their name. Essentially I became a manager, a glorified employee.’