I shook my head. Then I thought about Dave’s suspicion that Eduardo was tapping his phone. Oh, no.
‘Well, make sure he doesn’t find out,’ Jamie said. ‘I don’t know whether there is anything in this money-laundering stuff. And I don’t want to know. But I do know that Ricardo is angrier than I’ve ever seen him. It’s scary.’
‘Can you keep your eye out for anything suspicious?’
‘No, Nick, I can not. I will keep my head well down on this one. Here, let me get you another beer.’
23
I was woken by the sound of glass shattering and wood splintering. I sat up in bed, and tried to get my bearings. There was loud banging from the sitting room. I threw myself out of bed, and lurched through the door, still wearing only my underpants.
There were three of them, big, hard men dressed in T-shirts and jeans. I threw myself at the nearest one, sending him crashing into a bookshelf.
‘Get him!’
Strong hands pulled at my arms. I clung on to the man underneath me, trying to force my arm round his throat. He bucked and kicked. The two others broke my grip free, and hauled me to my feet. The man I had jumped on, staggered upright and kicked me hard in the balls. I cried out, and felt sick. Then there was a blow to my back that just missed my kidney, and a knee came smashing up into my face. My cheek stung and I tasted blood, but it was my groin that still hurt most. I tried to double up but they wouldn’t let me. Then something hard hit me on the side of the head and it all went black.
‘Ambulance! Quick!’
The crackle of a police radio. Someone kneeling down next to me. ‘He’s breathing. Hit on the head. Check the bedroom!’
I lay there, playing dead. I didn’t have the energy to move, even to open my eyes. My body hurt all over. There was the continued sound of movement around me, the gentle weight of a blanket laid over my semi-naked body and then the wail of a siren. Strong arms lifted me on to a stretcher. I felt cold air against my face. I opened my eyes.
I was in the street outside my flat. Although it was night, there seemed to be lights everywhere, orange from the street lamps, flashing blue from the ambulance.
A man dressed in bright green overalls leaned over me. ‘Hang on. You’ll be all right, son.’
They slotted me into the back of the ambulance. The pain screamed throughout my body. I was enormously tired. Everything went black again.
My second visit to hospital was briefer than my first. I was let out late the next morning with instructions to come back if my headache got worse. There was a sore spot on my skull, but my head felt fuzzy rather than in pain. I had bruises all over me; one in my back and one in my thigh really hurt.
I took the taxi home with trepidation. The flat was a mess. They had stolen a couple of things, some gold cuff-links my parents had given me for my eighteenth birthday, and the video recorder. And my Apple Mac.
Oh, shit! There was three years’ worth of unfinished thesis on that. I fell into the sofa and stared at the space on the desk where it had sat. Now, think. It can’t be that bad. Under the desk were three cardboard boxes. My notes. Please God, let me have kept the rough printouts!
I rushed to the boxes and tore them open. My notes were all there and drafts of three of the chapters. But the rest? All gone. I put my head in my hands. It would take months just to re-create what I had written.
I sat on the floor, surrounded by the debris of the attack. Books were everywhere, drawers were opened. My body hurt, my head was befuddled. I had no job. I had months of boring rewriting ahead of me. And Isabel was either dead or shut up in some flea-pit thousands of miles away.
The phone rang. I crawled over to the patch of floor where it lay, and picked it up.
‘Hallo.’
‘Nick?’
I felt cold. I recognized the deep voice. It was Eduardo.
‘Yes?’
‘How are you getting on?’
‘You know damn well how I’m getting on. You just had me beaten up and my flat wrecked!’
‘You’ve been attacked? Oh, I’m so sorry to hear that.’ Eduardo made no attempt to hide the mockery in his voice. ‘There was a very unfortunate piece in the Brazilian press yesterday. Very unfortunate. Now, remember, I’m watching you. And I want you to keep quiet, do you understand me?’
‘Fuck you!’ I shouted, and slammed down the phone.
Tidying up took me a long time. I was dispirited, stiff and slow. I was interrupted by a police constable, who came round to take details of what was missing. I told him. I also told him about Eduardo’s phone call. Why the hell not? I doubted very much that they would be able to find any evidence to link him to the attack, but it might make his life a bit difficult. The constable treated me a bit like a paranoid ex-employee, which of course I was, but he promised to look into it further.
I finally finished clearing up and rang Russell Church, the head of my old department at the School of Russian Studies.
‘Nick, how are you? I was just about to phone you to thank you.’
‘Oh, really?’ What the hell was he talking about?
‘Yes. For the Dekker Ward sponsorship.’
My heart sank. Bloody hell! ‘What sponsorship?’
‘I’ve just been on the phone with a man called Ross. He says that Dekker Ward would like to provide substantial commercial sponsorship to SRS. They’ll start with a trial period of a year, and then see how it goes from there.’
‘In return for what?’
‘Well, they will want access to some of our people and our contacts. They say they’re planning to do more business in Russia. But they’re willing to pay good commercial rates for any consulting work they commission. It’s perfect. It’s just the sort of external funding we need! Well done.’
‘Actually, I knew nothing about it.’
‘Oh. I rather assumed you were responsible. You must have made a good impression at any rate. So, how are things going there?’
‘Well, they’re not.’ I tried not to let my voice sound sulky, but I couldn’t help it. ‘I’ve left. You said I should give you a call if I decided the City wasn’t for me.’
Russell was full of enthusiasm. ‘Well, now we might be able to find something for you here. We haven’t thrashed out the details of the sponsorship deal yet but perhaps you could take up some sort of liaison role.’
I stopped him. ‘Wait a second, Russell. I’m not sure that would work. Dekker and I didn’t see eye to eye when I left.’
‘Oh.’
‘What would be useful for me is if we could carry on our conversation about openings at other universities. And I’d like to use you as a referee, if I may.’
It clicked. Russell’s voice became more cautious. ‘OK. Let’s have a chat.’
‘Tomorrow?’
‘All right. Say eleven? See you then.’
I was nervous as I knocked on Russell’s half-opened door; as nervous as I had been the first time I met him for that interview five years before.
‘Come in.’
I could see that Russell had spoken to Dekker as soon as I entered. Neat, with thinning grey hair, he usually greeted me with a beam. This time he rose awkwardly from his desk and shook my hand, not meeting my eyes.
‘Oh, hallo, Nick. Have a seat.’
It was almost as though he wasn’t expecting me. I perched on the small chair crammed against his desk. I recognized much of the debris that cluttered it. Most of it was under the School of Russian Studies headed memo paper. Admin. Piles of it. There was not a single page of Cyrillic script to be seen.
He removed his glasses, and wiped them, frowning. ‘Now, what was it you wanted to talk about?’
‘I need a job. I wondered if you knew of anything?’
‘I haven’t heard of much since you left here. I think the post at Sheffield might still be open. There’s a chance something might come up soon at the University of Surrey. Apart from that, not much.’