How long would it be before Kostya called? More than once she caught her two companions exchanging furtive glances, Ilia licking those thick lips of his as if she had induced some saliva reaction. At the student party, in the squash of bodies, she had felt him squeeze past her on his way to a refill at the kitchen bar. It had irritated her then, much as they both irritated her now. She would not have felt safe alone with either of them.
The strangled tink-tink of the public payphone made her jump. Lev cocked his head, doglike.
‘That will be him,’ he said.
Viktoriya picked up the receiver.
‘Kostya?’
Konstantin asked her to pass the phone to Lev. There was a lot of head nodding and ‘Yes, boss’. Finally, Lev replaced the receiver in its cradle.
‘Mikhaylovsky Palace,’ he said to his partner. ‘The Palace Bar.’
This time Viktoriya was not in-the-know. Lev made no attempt to enlighten her, and she wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of asking; she just had to trust Kostya… that was all she had to do.
It was good to be on the move again. Fifteen minutes later, under the towering walls of the palace, they stood across the street from the bar of the same name, whose grey shabby exterior matched its dilapidated surroundings. Only the wooden facia board above its door, lit by a single fluorescent tube, distinguished it from the entrance to any number of anonymous apartment buildings.
‘The boss says you are to wait out here,’ said Lev, and with that he and Ilia crossed the road and shouldered open the heavy door.
Light was beginning to fail. Viktoriya stared across the wide prospect at the bar door. Two men staggered out into the Arctic freeze. Morning time, drunks would be found frozen in doorways or curled up on the pavement, petrified, under a blanket of frost. Viktoriya shivered. How long would she have to wait? Standing there stomping her feet she felt exposed, and not just to the cold.
Two policemen rounded the corner and, seeing her, stopped. The taller of them said something she didn’t hear to his partner, caught her eye and smiled.
‘Papers,’ one asked, as the other circumnavigated her.
This was the last thing she needed. Antyuhin might exit the bar at any second.
He studied her photo. ‘ID photographs make us all look like criminals, don’t you think?’ he said wryly.
Viktoriya replied with a simple ‘Yes’, casting her eye across the street. She turned to look at the other policeman and caught him exchanging a sly smile with his partner.
A cough made them start. Kostya materialised as if from thin air and sprung onto the pavement. The policemen were no less startled than she was. Konstantin placed a proprietorial arm around her shoulders. She noticed one of the policemen place his hand reflexively on his revolver.
‘Trouble, comrades?’ said Konstantin, a broad grin on his face, more a challenge than a greeting.
The officer handed Viktoriya back her papers.
‘I’d keep my eye on her if I were you. Leaving a pretty girl out in this cold is not too smart,’ he said, directing his comment at Konstantin.
‘I am sure that is good advice, comrade officer.’
The officer stared at him, twitched a grin and turned to his partner.
‘Let’s leave these lovebirds.’
‘What was that about?’ Konstantin asked her when they were gone. Viktoriya shrugged.
‘Come, you’ll freeze out here. There’s a place you can sit out of sight. Your friend is busy at the bar.’
Chapter 4
The space was larger than she had imagined from the outside. A series of interconnecting smoke-filled rooms, each defined by a bare brick, high-vaulted ceiling, rolled towards a packed bar that extended along the back wall’s full length. It was busier than the Muzey and much louder. Locals shouted at each other to be heard above the background babble.
Viktoriya took the seat next to Konstantin, who pointed at a heavily patinated mirror. At first she didn’t recognise them; it was only when Konstantin pointed again that she made out the small group of men leaning against the bar. Ilia faced outward, with the other two turned half towards him. They were all laughing at some bad joke he was no doubt making. Antyuhin, vodka shot in hand, slapped him on the back and emptied his glass in one before turning back to the bar for a refill.
They made an unlikely threesome: Antyuhin, Ilia and Lev. Antyuhin, more and more drunk, shouted impatiently at the barmaid to refill their still half-full glasses. Viktoriya caught her rolling her dark eyes at someone out of view, as much to say, ‘another night, another customer who will no doubt feel regretful in the morning’. Give them their due, Viktoriya thought, Konstantin’s two enforcers managed to restrict their intake to a quarter of their new-found companion’s.
Thirty minutes later, Viktoriya heard Lev shout ‘Let’s go’ and slap his newly acquired friend resoundingly on the back. They split the bill. Lev tossed some roubles onto the bar and with Antyuhin between him and Ilia made their way out onto the street.
‘Don’t worry, I know where they are headed,’ said Konstantin in response to her questioning look.
The two of them followed the tightly knit threesome at a short distance, Viktoriya with her hood up and scarf tightly around her face and Konstantin with his arm around her. Ilia led them left along Inzhenernaya Street under the grey and yellow façade of the palace towards the Griboedova Canal. It was ten thirty and well below zero.
‘We can walk it from here. We need to wake up, get some fresh air, before the fun starts,’ Ilia said loudly. Icy breath traced their path along a now deserted street.
‘When you come to Moscow, you’ll see. I’ll introduce you to some really beautiful women,’ Antyuhin bragged.
They crossed over to Mikhaylovsky Sad and entered the park by its southern gate.
‘We can cut through here,’ said Lev, ‘it’s not far.’
Their hanger-on followed them willingly enough, his alcohol fogged mind, she thought, no doubt focussed on the promise of young, willing, or unwilling, Leningrad girls. The park was empty. Benches placed along the gritted path stood forlorn, perfectly white, bounded by iced topiaries of yew. Ilia led the way, pausing occasionally for Antyuhin and Lev. At one point their companion slipped and nearly fell, saved only by Lev reaching out to grab him. Two hundred metres in, just short of the canal, Lev and Ilia stopped. Viktoriya’s assailant staggered to a halt, confused by their lack of direction.
‘Lost?’ he asked, laughing.
‘No, I don’t think so.’ It was Konstantin who spoke.
Antyuhin grappled with a voice he did not recognise, no doubt trying to fathom what it meant, when Viktoriya stepped into view. He appeared startled, bemused. He looked at his two escorts, who no longer appeared so friendly, and back to Konstantin and Viktoriya. She walked right up to him and pulled her scarf away from her face.
Terrified, he tried to force his way past, only to be sent sprawling on the path by Ilia’s outstretched foot.
Grazed, covered in grit and ice, he begged to be let go.
‘I have money…’ He took out his wallet and waved it at them.
‘I don’t think Vika is interested in being compensated, are you, Vika?’ said Konstantin with a smile on his face.
Viktoriya shook her head.
Lev and Ilia grabbed Antyuhin by the arms and pinned him roughly to the ground as Konstantin extracted a razor-sharp flick knife from his coat pocket and slashed open Antyuhin’s coat.