The Trinity Six - Charles Cumming [58]
Chapter 20
Gaddis was certain that he had seen Ludmilla Tretiak’s name in Charlotte’s files. Back in London, he called Paul, went round to the house in Hampstead and rummaged through her office. Sure enough, after searching for less than fifteen minutes, he found a listing for Tretiak under ‘T’ in one of her Moleskine notebooks, complete with an address and telephone number in Moscow. Later that evening, Paul remembered that Charlotte had been booked on a flight to Russia six days after her heart attack and called Gaddis to tell him. In her diary for that date, she had written the initials FT/LT and SU581, which turned out to be an Aeroflot flight number. Gaddis was convinced that the two women had arranged to meet, although there was no trace of an email correspondence between them on any of Charlotte’s accounts.
It took him forty-eight hours to arrange a flight and emergency visa to Moscow via his usual travel agents in Pembridge Square; the publication of Tsars had clearly made no impact on Gaddis’s status at the Russian Embassy. He arrived at Sheremetyevo late on a Monday evening, endured the traditional chaos at passport control and found his suitcase in a corner of the baggage area fifty metres from Aeroflot’s advertised carousel. Gaddis had arranged for Victor, the driver that he always used in Moscow, to pick him up outside the airport and they shunted along a five-lane highway in permanent gridlock towards the Sovietsky Hotel, assaulted by smells of cigarettes and diesel.
The following morning, after breakfasting on an omelette and two cups of metallic black coffee, he took the Metro three stops from Dynamo to Voykovskaya, emerging two blocks from Ludmilla Tretiak’s apartment. Whenever he was in the centre of Moscow, Gaddis felt that he had a memory for almost every building and street that he passed. But Voikovskaya was beyond the Garden Ring, a grey and sunless neighbourhood that he knew only by name. Tretiak’s apartment turned out to be on the ninth floor of a typical panel-built, twenty-storey, post-Soviet tower finished in three shades of beige. It was on a busy street characterized by erratically parked cars and kiosks selling pirated DVDs and cheap make-up. To ensure that Tretiak was in the city, Gaddis had called her number from a phone box in Shepherd’s Bush, pretending to be a telesales assistant offering cheap rates on wireless broadband. She had politely informed him that she did not use a computer and wished him a good day.
Residents were coming in and out of the building all the time and Gaddis was able to enter without pressing the buzzer. He had decided to make his approach at lunchtime, when Tretiak was most likely to be at home, and had written a short note in Russian which he now passed under her door in a sealed envelope.
Esteemed Ludmilla Tretiak
Please excuse this method of contacting you. I am an historian from University College in London. I was also a friend of Charlotte Berg. I am aware of what happened to your husband in St Petersburg in 1992. For reasons that I am sure you will appreciate, I do not wish to put your safety at risk by telephoning you or even by introducing myself to you in person at your home.
I have information about the events leading to your husband’s death. If you would like to discuss this matter further, I will be sitting in the branch of Coffee House opposite this building for the rest of the day. I am wearing a blue shirt and will have a copy of The Moscow Times on the table in front of me. Alternatively, if you would prefer to contact me by email, I have left an address at the bottom of this page.
With my respect
Dr Samuel Gaddis
When he had pushed the envelope inside the apartment, Gaddis rang the bell twice, in quick succession, then took the lift back down to the ground floor. He wondered if he had sounded the right tone in the letter. Tretiak had been courteous and polite over the phone, but he could not be sure of her age and had perhaps pitched the letter too formally. Would