Lost - Michael Robotham [127]
“I want to talk. No lawyers or police or third parties.”
I can hear him thinking. “Where did you have in mind?”
“Neutral ground.”
“No. If you want a meeting you come to me. Chelsea Harbour. You’ll find me.”
A black cab drops me at the entrance to the marina shortly before ten. I lift my watch and count the final minutes. It’s no use being early for your own funeral.
Spotlights reflect from the whiteness of the motor yachts and cruisers, creating pools like spilled paint. By comparison, the interlocking docks are weathered and gray, with life buoys hanging from pylons anchored deep in the mud.
Aleksei’s boat, draped in fairy lights, takes up two moorings and has three decks with sleek lines that angle like an arrowhead from bow to stern. The upper deck bristles with radio antennae and satellite tracking devices.
I spent five years mucking about on boats. I know they float and soak up money. People with a highly defined sense of balance are more likely to get seasick, they say. I can vouch for my equilibrium but an hour in rough weather on a cross-channel ferry can still feel like a year.
The gangway has a thick rubber mat and railings with bronze pillars. As I step on board the vessel shifts slightly. Through an open doorway I see a stateroom and a large mahogany dining table with seating for eight. To one side is a bar area and a modular lounge arranged in front of a flat-screen TV.
Descending the steps I duck my head, which isn’t necessary. Aleksei Kuznet is sitting behind a desk, his head lowered, reading the screen of a laptop computer. He raises his hand, making me wait. It remains there, suspended. Slowly the hand turns and his fingers wave me forward.
When he raises his eyes he looks past me as though I might have forgotten something. The ransom. He wants his diamonds.
“Nice boat.”
“It’s a motor yacht.”
“An expensive toy.”
“On the contrary—it is my office. I had her built to an American design at a boatyard on the Black Sea near Odessa. You see I take the best from different cultures—American design, German engineering, Italian craftsmen, Brazilian teak and Slav laborers. People often criticize Eastern European nations and say they don’t do capitalism well. But the truth is that they operate the purest form of capitalism. If I had wanted to build this boat in Britain I would have had to pay award wages, workers compensation, national insurance, design fees and bribes to keep the unions happy. It’s the same when you put up a building. At any stage someone can stop you. In Russia or Latvia or Georgia none of this matters if you have enough money. That’s what I call pure capitalism.”
“Is that why you’re selling up? Are you going home?”
He laughs mordantly. “Inspector, you mistake me for a patriot. I will employ Russians, I will fund their schools and hospitals and prop up their corrupt politicians but do not expect me to live with them.”
He has moved across to the bar. My eyes flick around the stateroom, almost waiting for the trap to snap shut.
“So why are you selling up?”
“Greener pastures. Fresh challenges. Maybe I’ll buy a football club. That seems very popular nowadays. Or I could just go somewhere warm for the winter.”
“I have never understood what people see in hot climates.”
He glances into the darkness of the starboard window. “Each man makes his own paradise, DI, but it’s hard to love London.”
He hands me a glass of Scotch and slides the ice bucket toward me.
“Are you a sailor?”
“Not really.”
“Shame. With me it’s flying. You ever see that episode of The Twilight Zone where William Shatner looks out of the window of a plane at 20,000 feet and sees a gremlin tearing off pieces of the wing? They made it into a film, which was nowhere near as good. That’s how I feel when I step on a plane. I’m the only person who knows it’s going to crash.”
“So you never fly?”
He turns over both his palms, as if revealing the obvious. “I have a motor yacht.”
The Scotch burns pleasantly as I swallow but the aftertaste is not like