At worst, Stepanin feared that she would try to oust him entirely. The housekeeper was responsible for hiring the maids, the gardeners, the house attendants and the driver. The security men came from he didn’t know where. He himself had come by his job through a connection of an in-law of one his cousins, who had some kind of relationship with one of the lawyers at the firm in Petersburg which was responsible for disbursing the funds that paid for Vladimir’s staff and living expenses. Stepanin had met the lawyer, a pale man with a mop of red hair called Lepev, only once, after which he had paid fifteen thousand dollars – every last cent of his savings, plus a hefty advance from a local loan shark – to a numbered bank account, and the job was his. He sent the lawyer a box of cakes as well. Barkovskaya, he assumed, had come by her job through a similar route, although who her patron was and how much she had paid him, he had no idea. Depending on the situation between Lepev and Barkovskaya’s supporter, and who was stronger than whom – and which of them, if either, even cared – she might try to use her patron to push him out. Stepanin didn’t know how far he could trust Lepev to back him. As a precaution, to remind him of his existence and the fact that he had paid good money for this job and the right to the plunder that came with it, he sent Lepev another box of cakes, and then, in what he thought was a masterstroke of irony, a box of chicken pies made from a delivery from Barkovskaya’s cousin.
Still, his fears weren’t assuaged. Chicken pies, he knew, would go only so far, and he wondered whether another helping of cash would be required. And even if Barkovskaya didn’t try to oust him, would the lawyer do anything about the money Stepanin had already lost or the other revenues that the housekeeper, in her insatiable greed, probably coveted?
Each night, as Elena, who never seemed to have any trouble sleeping, lay snoring beside him, the cook’s mind ran away with anxiety and frustration. Why had Barkovskaya come? Why her? Why now? The fifteen thousand that he had invested had been repaid many times over through the arrangement with the previous housekeeper, but he needed still more. Why couldn’t that thoughtless bitch Pinskaya have stayed for another two years, by which time he would have had enough money for his restaurant? But no, all she could think about was running off to Cyprus with that fat turd of a husband who drank so much it was a marvel he hadn’t killed half of Russia from behind the wheel of his truck. Two more years, that’s all he needed, and then he would be off. Two years, and the restaurant would be his.
STEPANIN, NORMALLY SUCH a talker, was in no mood for conversation when Sheremetev found him drinking in the staff dining room that night. Sheremetev was in no mood for conversation either, depressed by what he had discovered about the reason for Stepanin’s fight with Barkovskaya and by the thought of Pasha being locked up while he was unable to do anything to help him. Stepanin pushed a glass towards him and silently poured him a vodka, then sipped glumly on his own.
The two men brooded in silence.
‘Vladimir Vladimirovich liked the fish pie tonight,’ said Sheremetev eventually.
‘It wasn’t my best.’
‘Well, he liked it. He ate more than normal.’
Stepanin nodded. Not even that piece of information, which would normally have put a smile on his face, could cheer him up.
‘Eleyekov told me about your arrangement with Pinskaya,’ said Sheremetev after a while.
‘My arrangement?’ Stepanin turned towards him. ‘Well, he’s one to talk, isn’t he? The gangster. Let me tell you about Eleyekov. How often are the cars needed for the boss, huh? What do you think Eleyekov does all day, Kolya? Sit there and polish them?’
‘Well, actually, he was—’
‘No,’ continued Stepanin, who had apparently meant the question rhetorically. ‘Our friend Vadim Sergeyevich Eleyekov has a nice little business, him and his son, driving bigwigs around in two very fine cars that would cost two hundred thousand dollars each if he had to buy them. Cars which he could never afford to buy even if the Kazan Cathedral fell on his head. But does he have to buy them? No. Because they’re sitting here in the garage all day and he can do what he likes with them. And he does! He’s booked out every day two weeks in advance.’
‘Not every day,’ murmured Sheremetev. Suddenly the performance with the notebook made sense.
‘Close enough. But can Barkovskaya get her claws on his business? No, because he takes the cash and she has no way of knowing how much it is. All she can do is demand thirty percent. He’ll give her ten percent, maybe five, and tell her it’s thirty, and how will she know the difference? She knows that herself. Whereas with me…’ Stepanin stopped, gazing at Sheremetev, the vodka loosening his tongue by the minute. ‘You really don’t know, do you? Everyone around you is taking, Kolya. It’s a fuckery, a grand fuckery with a cock on top. The maids steal whatever they want – linen, soap, towels, even furniture goes missing. Pinskaya never cared. The more they stole, the more she had to buy. The more she had to buy, the bigger a cut she took. The only things off limits are the boss’s things. Fair’s fair. We all agreed those were your domain.’ Stepanin laughed. ‘Like you’d steal, huh? And what’s he got to take, anyway? A few old suits.’ He laughed again. ‘You really got the short end of the stick, Kolya!’
‘I’ve never stolen a thing in my life,’ muttered Sheremetev.
‘I’ve heard people say that before,’ said Stepanin, raising his glass, tossing down the vodka and then grimacing, teeth clenched, with a shake of the head. ‘But you, Nikolai Ilyich Sheremetev, I believe. Look around you, Kolya! Have you seen the greenhouses outside? Do you remember when they bulldozed the grounds and built them? What do you think they’re for?’
‘To supply the house?’ said Sheremetev hesitantly, knowing, even as the words came out, that his answer was going to be as wrong as it was the time one of his fellow conscripts, stifling his laughter, had asked him what he thought they were actually building when they were bussed to an unfinished apartment block each day in the middle of Omsk, and he had replied that surely they were building an army barracks.
‘You’re too funny! Do you think for this one dacha you need greenhouses big enough to supply half of Moscow? Look at it! The whole fucking estate. It’s like a farm!’ Stepanin shook his head. ‘Listen, this is what happened. A couple of years ago, the gardeners go to Pinskaya and say, look at all this land. It’s pretty but a waste. We’ll build greenhouses, we’ll grow vegetables, and we’ll sell them. You’ll get ten percent, like everything. She says okay. They find the contractors to build the glasshouses. Naturally, the gardeners get ten percent of the contract. So does Pinskaya – even better. She gives the lawyers in Petersburg the same story you got, that we’re building greenhouses to supply the house. They say okay. Listen, Kolya, the lawyers are probably taking ten percent of everything as well. The more we spend here, the more they take. So the greenhouses get built, and now the gardeners have a business.’
‘Goroviev also? Is he involved?’
‘Goroviev also,’ affirmed Stepanin.
Sheremetev groaned. He would almost have expected it of the other gardeners, but not of Goroviev, the soft-spoken gardener who always seemed so genuine in his interest in Vladimir and appeared to be such a decent man. ‘Is there no one who isn’t taking?’ he cried.
‘Of course there is. You! Only you, Kolya.’ The chef poured himself another vodka and refilled Sheremetev’s glass. ‘Everyone was happy and now this bitch Barkovskaya has to poke her head in. What fuckery! Whatever Pinskaya took, Barkovskaya wants more.’