But Lesley-Jane’s remonstrations were ignored. Her boyfriend’s mind was now focused on only one thing: proving his seriousness as an actor to Charlie Fenton.
And to do that he had to infiltrate a London gang. Which actually turned out to be surprisingly easy. He didn’t have to hang around Shepherd’s Bush Green for long before he was approached by someone with a heavy Russian accent and asked if he wanted to buy drugs. After a couple of weeks of making regular purchases of heroin (which he didn’t use but stockpiled in his bathroom cabinet), he only had to default on payments twice to be hustled into a car with tinted windows, blindfolded and taken off to meet the organization’s frighteners.
They didn’t have to hurt him to get their money. Kenny Mountford had the cash ready with him and handed it over as soon as his blindfold was removed. He found himself seated on a chair in a windowless cellar, loomed over by the two heavies who’d snatched him and facing a thin-faced man in an expensive suit. From their conversation in the car, he’d deduced that his abductors were called Vasili and Vladimir. They addressed the thin-faced man as Fyodor. All three spoke English with a heavy accent from somewhere in the former Soviet Union.
“So if you had the money all the time, why didn’t you pay up?” asked the man in the suit, whose effortless authority identified him as the gang’s leader.
“Maybe he enjoys being beaten to a pulp,” suggested the heavy Kenny was pretty sure was called Vasili.
“Maybe,” said Kenny Mountford with a cool that he’d spent three years at drama school perfecting, “but that’s not actually the reason. I just thought this was a good way of getting to meet you, Fyodor.”
“Do you know who I am?” the man asked, intrigued.
“I only know your name, but it doesn’t take much intelligence to work out that you’re higher up this organization than the two goons who brought me here.”
Kenny felt the men either side of him stiffen and was aware of their fists bunching, but he remembered his concentration exercises and didn’t flinch.
Fyodor raised a hand to pacify his enforcers. “You are right. I control the organization.”
“And am I allowed to know what it’s called?”
He smiled a crooked smile. “The Semfiropol Boys. From where we started our operations. Do you know where Semfiropol is?” Kenny shook his head. “It is in the Crimea. Southern Ukraine. Near to Yalta. I assume you have not been there?” Another shake of the head. “Well, we did what we could over there, but the pickings were small, and there were a lot of… entrenched interests. Turf wars, dangerous. In London our life is easier.”
“And how many are there in the Semfiropol Boys?”
“Twenty, maybe thirty, it depends. Sometimes people become untrustworthy and have to be eliminated.”
Kenny was aware of a reaction from Vasili and Vladimir. Clearly elimination was the part of the job they enjoyed.
“And do you just deal in drugs?”
Fyodor spread his hands wide in an encompassing gesture. “Drugs… prostitution…protection rackets…loan sharking…The Semfiropol Boys are a multifunction organization.” Then came the question that Kenny knew couldn’t be delayed much longer. “But why do you want to know this? Curiosity?”
“More than just curiosity.”
“Good. If it was just curiosity, I think Vasili and Vladimir would have to eliminate you straight away.” The gang boss smiled a thin smile. “They may well have to eliminate you straight away, whatever the reason for your enquiries. You could be a cop, for all we know.”
“I can assure you I am not a cop.”
“But that’s exactly what you would say if you were a cop.”
“Well, I’m not.”
“Mr Mountford, I am not here to chop logic with you. I am a busy man.” He looked at his watch. “I have a meeting shortly with a senior civil servant in the Home Office. He is helping me with some visa applications for members of my extended family in Semfiropol. Now please will you tell me why you are here? And why I shouldn’t just hand you straight over to Vasili and Vladimir for elimination.”
Kenny Mountford took a deep breath. There was no doubt that he had put himself in very real danger. But, as he had that daunting thought, he couldn’t help also feeling a warm glow. Charlie Fenton would be so impressed by the lengths he had gone to in his quest for authenticity.
“I’m here because I want to join your gang.”
“Join the Semfiropol Boys?” asked Fyodor in astonishment. Vasili and Vladimir let out deep threatening chuckles at the very idea.
“Yes.”
“But why should we let you join us? As I said, you could be a cop. You could be a journalist. You could be a spy from the Odessa Reds.” The reactions from Vasili and Vladimir left Kenny in no doubt as to what Fyodor was talking about. They might sound like a breed of chicken, but the Odessa Reds were clearly a rival gang.
“How can I prove to you that I’m none of those things? What are the qualifications for most of the people who join your gang?”
“Most of them have family connections with me in Semfiropol which go back many generations. At the very least, most of them are Ukrainian.”
“I can sound Ukrainian,” said Kenny, demonstrating the point. (He had made quite a study of accents at drama school.)
His impression didn’t go down well with Vasili and Vladimir. They clearly thought he was sending them up. Two giant hands slammed down on his shoulders, while two giant fists were once again bunched.
But again a gesture from their boss froze them before the blows made contact.
“Anyone who wants to join the Semfiropol Boys,” said Fyodor quietly, “has to pass certain tests.”
“A lot of tests?” asked Kenny Mountford, maintaining his nonchalance with increasing difficulty.
The gang boss nodded. “The big one’s at the end. Not many people get that far. But if you want to have a go at one of the starting tests…”
Kenny nodded. Fyodor leaned forward and told him what the first test was.
Like most actors, Kenny Mountford always felt a huge surge of excitement when he got a new part. However trivial the piece, hours would be spent poring over the script, making decisions about the character’s accent and body language. The part that Fyodor had given him prompted exactly the same adrenaline rush, though in this case he had no text to work from. Kenny started reading everything he could find about the Crimean region, and Semfiropol in particular. He also tracked down recordings of Ukrainians speaking English and trained himself to imitate them.
The new direction his career was taking still failed to raise much enthusiasm in Lesley-Jane. From an early age her main aim in life had been to be the centre of attention, so she didn’t respond well to being totally ignored by the man she was living with. But Kenny was too preoccupied with his new role to notice her disquiet.
The first test he had been given by Fyodor was relatively easy. All he had to do was to sell drugs in Shepherd’s Bush, just like the dealer who had served as his initial introduction to the Semfiropol Boys. Apart from the work he was doing on his accent, Kenny also spent a considerable time sourcing clothes for the role, and was satisfied that the hoodie, jeans and trainers he ended up with had achieved exactly the requisite degree of shabbiness. He found it a welcome relief to be selecting his own clothes for a part, rather than having to follow the whims of some queeny Costume Designer as he would in television.
He needn’t have bothered, though. The kind of lowlife he was peddling the drugs to didn’t even notice what he looked like. The only thing they thought about was their next fix. But for Kenny Mountford as an artist – and a potential participant in a Charlie Fenton production – it was very important that he should get every minutest detail right.
After his first successful foray as a drug dealer, he got home early evening to find a very impatient Lesley-Jane Walden, dressed up to the nines and in a foul temper. “Where the hell have you been?” she shrieked, almost before he’d come through the door. “You know we’re meant to be at this Tom Cruise premiere in half an hour.”