Breaking Cover

51

Kevin Burgess was tired, and his brain, which was never very sharp, was duller than usual. He’d worked the overnight shift at the Patricov estate, then, just as he was leaving for home and bed, Reilly had asked him (told him, really) to come back at noon to work the afternoon shift as well. Apparently some people were coming and Reilly needed the whole security team on duty. Kevin hadn’t got his head down till nine-thirty in the morning as he’d had to take the dog out first as usual, and today of all days she’d rushed off after a rabbit – it had taken him three-quarters of an hour to get her back. So he’d only had an hour and a half’s sleep, and had snatched a cup of tea and a jam sandwich before getting back to work just on noon.

He’d found both the other two security men, Morgan and Webster, already there. Reilly was in his office on the phone, speaking quietly but urgently, and waved the three of them away, out of earshot, indicating they should wait till he was free. When eventually he came out, he allocated a position to each man.

‘We’re about to have some visitors. They’re official – Special Branch and a couple of people from London. Mr Patricov is away, but his wife is here and so is Mr Karpis. I want you to watch the entrances as usual; there may be police officers posted there with you. You are not to let anyone in or out without the officers’ agreement. If anyone tries to rush you, stop them and press the alert on your intercoms. I’ll be in the monitor-room, watching. Is that all clear?’

‘Yes, sir,’ murmured the men, and Kevin asked, ‘Does that include Mr Karpis and Mrs Patricov?’

‘Yes, everybody. No one is to leave without police say-so.’

Reilly gave each man his post. Kevin Burgess was told to take the back gate leading into the woods that bordered the estate.

Standing at the gate, Kevin reflected that he had never liked Karpis. He was a cold fish, arrogant and rude. Kevin decided that he would be more than happy to stop the Russian leaving the estate if he got the chance. He wasn’t quite sure how he’d do it as Karpis was taller than him and looked very fit. Well dressed and polished he might be, but something about him reminded Kevin of the sort of high-class thug you got in some of those TV dramas. He hoped that the arrival of Special Branch had something to do with Karpis rather than Patricov. Kevin liked the oligarch. OK, he was very Russian, but at least he seemed human and always spoke to the outside staff in a friendly way when he came across them, not like Karpis who was always unpleasant.

An hour went by and nothing happened at the back gate. No one tried to come in or leave. Kevin had gone into a sort of standing-up doze when he heard a police siren. He listened to hear if it was approaching the estate but gradually it faded into the distance. He was wide awake now and tensed at the sound of movement outside the gate. Someone was coming along the path through the wood, not trying to hide their approach – he could hear twigs cracking and dead leaves being shuffled underfoot.

He walked up to the gate and saw on the entry-phone camera a large pock-marked face. The gate was rattling as a man tried to open it.

‘Who’s there?’ asked Kevin.

‘Special Branch, mate,’ came the reply, and a warrant card was shoved up against the camera. Kevin opened the gate and was joined by a large man in dark trousers and a leather jacket.

‘Afternoon,’ he said, offering his hand. ‘I’m Tom Parkinson, Detective Sergeant. I’ve come to join you.’

‘Glad to see you. What’s this all about?’

DS Parkinson shrugged. ‘Your guess is as good as mine, mate. Some Russian they want to haul in. Do you know the bloke?’ He lit a cigarette.

‘The owner’s a Russian. Do you mean him?’

Parkinson shook his head. ‘No. They said he’s abroad. It’s some geezer works for him.’

‘That would be Karpis. Nasty piece of work.’

‘Well, I need you to be my eyes then if he tries to scarper. They showed us a photo of the bloke but it wasn’t very clear.’

‘Don’t worry, I know him all right.’

‘The big guns are here,’ said Parkinson. ‘You know, the funnies, from London. And my chief’s here as well. Must be important. They should be in the house by now.’

Kevin Burgess stood with Parkinson and waited. The only sound was a pair of blackbirds in the poplar trees and an occasional car on the far side of the woods. Kevin tried to stay alert, telling himself he had to be ready for something dramatic. But all that happened was Parkinson smoked a cigarette and stood scuffing his feet in boredom.

Then he heard something: approaching footsteps. Someone was walking fast towards them from the direction of the house. Kevin was standing square on the path ready for whoever it might be when Reilly appeared round the bend, looking hot and breathless, with another man – a blond-haired gent in a blazer, presumably one of the funnies from London, though he looked fit and big enough to hold his own in a fight.

Reilly said, ‘Have you seen him?’

‘Who?’

‘Karpis!’

‘No one’s been this way.’

‘What about a woman? Have you seen a woman?’ It was the other man. He had a posh-sounding voice – officer type, authoritative, urgent.

‘Do you mean Mrs Patricov, sir?’ replied Kevin. ‘She’s not been here.’

‘No, I don’t mean her. It’s someone else. English. Raincoat, navy trousers, brown hair tied back, five foot seven.’

‘No, sir. No one’s come this way, man or woman, have they, Sergeant?’

‘Not a soul while I’ve been here,’ confirmed Parkinson. ‘What’s the problem?’

Reilly said, ‘Karpis has disappeared. The housekeeper says he was in the house half an hour ago and so was Mrs P. Neither of them’s there now. I had to answer the bloody door myself when the police arrived. This gentleman’s colleague has gone off the map too. She’s not answering her phone. Anyway, I want you two to stay put. If anybody comes this way, hold them. Even Mrs P. If it’s the lady from London, get her to ring her colleague. Understood?’

‘Yes,’ said the two men. Kevin hesitated. He’d had a sudden thought about where they might find Karpis and Mrs Patricov. But before he could say anything, Reilly had turned away and was heading back swiftly to the house with the other man in tow.

Kevin turned to Parkinson. ‘Listen, watch here for a minute on your own, will you? I’ve got to go up to the house.’

‘What? They told you to stay here. I don’t even know what Karpis looks like.’

‘Sure you do,’ said Kevin, speaking confidently now that he had an idea of what to do. ‘He’s six two, dark hair, posh clothes. And he’s Russian though he speaks English. Anyway, you heard. Whoever comes along, grab them.’

‘What if it’s a funny?’

‘They’re not bloody Russian.’ And before Parkinson could protest further, Kevin had turned and walked away fast towards the house.

He knew he could face the sack for leaving his post, but could see from Reilly’s air of anxiety that something had gone badly wrong. They couldn’t find Patricov’s wife or Karpis; had they left the estate – but if so, how did they get out and why? And what about this woman the other guy was asking about? She’d gone missing too. But Kevin had a theory and he was going to test it, whatever the penalty for leaving his post.

He ran at a fast jog up through the gardens, past the tennis court then the greenhouses, and along the bottom of the terrace. At one end of the house there was a triple garage and a small coach house where Patricov’s mother was supposed to come and live, though apparently she was a stubborn old bird and didn’t want to, so she was still in Moscow.

Then Kevin came to the solarium, where he slowed down to catch his breath. He quietly opened the door to the glass-roofed atrium. On one side were the doors to the changing rooms; on the other the glass door to the swimming pool. He looked through this into the pool. It was still and quiet; there was no one in there. He was just turning towards the changing-room doors when into the silence a voice said, ‘Don’t move. I’ve got a gun in my hand.’

It was Karpis, Kevin was sure of it. But why was he threatening a security guard? ‘Turn round,’ said the voice, and Kevin did, to find himself facing Karpis, who was standing in the open doorway of the men’s changing room.

‘Go inside,’ he said, waving the gun and standing back to let Kevin pass.

There was suddenly a lot to take in. A woman was sitting on a long bench set against one wall, underneath a row of coat hooks. She was wearing a raincoat and had her hair tied back. She must be the woman from London that Reilly and the other man were looking for. On the wall opposite the bench a door stood open to a small room Burgess had never noticed before. It looked like the pump room, with all the mechanics for the swimming pool. There was a woman sitting in there at a table in front of a couple of identical laptops, their screens shining brightly. From the back of her head it looked like Mrs Patricov. She was tapping furiously at one of the keyboards.

‘Sit down there,’ said Karpis, waving his gun at the bench, then poking Kevin in the side. ‘And don’t speak. Put your phone on the floor.’

Kevin threw his intercom phone down on the tiles where he saw another phone lying – presumably the London woman’s.

As he sat down next to her, he glanced at her face and she looked back at him, raised her eyebrows slightly and gave a furtive nod that seemed to him to say ‘Yes, we’re on the same side’.

Just at that moment Mrs Patricov shouted loudly from the little room next door. She was speaking in Russian but it was clear from her tone that something was going wrong. She sounded panicky and desperate as she started tapping on the keyboard of the other machine.

Karpis snapped back impatiently.

Mrs Patricov took her hands from the keys, looked over her shoulder at him and said something else that Kevin couldn’t understand; but in the stream of Russian he picked up the word ‘WIFI’. It was quite clear that whatever she was trying to do on the computers wasn’t working. Had Reilly or the police disabled the WIFI?

Karpis swore. He had the pistol trained on a point between Kevin and the woman; that was no comfort since less than twelve inches separated them.

There was another loud exchange in Russian between Karpis and Patricov’s wife then Karpis took his eyes off the two captives and looked wildly around the room. His eyes fixed on something in the corner – a red glass-fronted box containing the fire emergency kit. Inside was an extinguisher, a fire blanket and a small long-handled axe.

Karpis strode over to it and smashed the glass with his pistol, showering the floor with slivers of glass. Immediately a loud piercing shriek sounded. The fire alarm had gone off. Swinging round, Karpis pointed the gun back at the two figures on the bench. ‘Don’t move or I’ll kill you both,’ he shouted.

He reached into the box and grabbed the axe by its handle with one hand, his other still gripping the pistol. He looked back quickly at his two captives and went to the open door of the little room.

He pushed Mrs Patricov out of her seat, then with a last look over his shoulder at Kevin and the woman, took two steps towards the computers, swinging the axe in one hand. Kevin suddenly realised the Russian was about to destroy evidence – of what, he didn’t know, but he knew it was important.

So the moment Karpis lifted the axe, Kevin sprang up from his seat and threw himself at the Russian’s back with outstretched arms.

He caught Karpis’s arm just before it started to swing down on to the computers. The axe dropped to the floor but Karpis twisted his torso enough to stay on his feet, and as he turned towards Burgess his other arm came round and he fired.

By now the woman on the bench had launched herself at the Russian woman and had got her on the floor. Then the door of the changing room burst open and Reilly and the man from London rushed in. Each had a pistol in his hand, and seeing them Karpis let his own drop.

The noise was deafening. The fire alarm was screeching, Mrs Patricov was screaming and Reilly was shouting. In the middle of the chaos the two laptops sat undisturbed on the table. Kevin was lying on the floor in front of them and couldn’t see what was going on. He struggled to get up but couldn’t get on his feet; he seemed to have no strength. He didn’t know who was shouting and who was screaming. He hoped it wasn’t the woman on the bench. He heard new voices but couldn’t see who had come into the changing room so he missed the sight of Patricov’s wife and Karpis being bundled out in handcuffs. He was very cold and could feel the sticky blood oozing down his arm, then he felt the soft touch of something warm being thrown over him and a woman’s voice said, ‘Just lie there. You are a complete hero but you’ve been shot and the ambulance is on its way.’ And that was when Kevin passed out.