Private Moscow

Chapter 67

The basement was a vast, damp, dingy space which was accessed through a heavy locked door and a staircase that ran down from the kitchen. The place was ripe with decades of rot.

“You see?” Agafiya said. “Nothing.”

Knotted old floorboards and exposed stonework formed the outer shell of the basement. The house above was supported by rows of stone columns, which had been half encased in wood cabinets. There was nothing else in the room.

“Does anyone else have a key?” I asked.

Agafiya shook her head. “Me and Ernst.”

“Who put the cabinets around the columns?” Dinara asked.

“Ernst,” Agafiya replied. “He told me it was to protect them.”

Dinara and I shared a look of excitement. The structural supports were slightly larger than the safe we were looking for.

“How many are there?” I asked.

She looked bemused. “You Americans can count, surely?”

“So you don’t know?” I said.

“There are thirteen,” Dinara remarked.

“Thirteen,” Agafiya repeated emphatically.

I stalked through the basement, examining the floorboards around the supports, looking for any sign of disturbance.

I found it in the heart of the room. I crouched down and touched a scuff mark beside a column. Scored lines arced across the floorboards. I checked the cabinet around the support and was gratified to feel a catch at the top. I pressed it and the panel directly in front of me swung off a latch and eased open a little. I pulled it wide to reveal a Kaso safe inside the cabinet. I tapped the stonework directly above it, and heard a hollow sound. The stone rising above the safe was a façade designed to fool people into thinking this was just another structural support.

“What is it?” Agafiya asked, hurrying forward. “A safe? Why would Ernst need a safe?”

I produced the key I’d found in Fisher’s apartment, and pushed it into the lock. I felt the satisfying clunk of the cylinders disengaging and the bolts drawing back.

Agafiya whistled when I opened the door. Like Karl Parker, Fisher had a stash of guns, documents and a huge amount of cash.

“For escape,” Dinara observed.

I nodded.

“Why didn’t he use it?” she asked.

I nodded toward a drill that was wedged between the safe and the surrounding panels. There were circular scores near the lock.

“I think he forgot his key,” I replied. It was a mundane mistake, the kind that littered most people’s lives. Unfortunately for Ernie Fisher, he had paid the ultimate price for it. “I think that’s why he went back to his apartment.”

“He was getting very forgetful,” Agafiya said. “And sad. He drank too much.”

“Do you know why?” I asked.

She shook her head.

“We’d better search it,” Dinara said.

She crouched beside the safe and started sifting through the contents.

“What will happen to the money?” Agafiya asked.

“This is your house,” I replied. “How you handle this discovery is up to you.”

Agafiya brightened. “For the first time in many years, fate gives me pleasure.”

I was only half listening. Dinara’s shoulder had brushed against something that had been stuck to the inside of the door, and dislodged it. As it floated to the floor, I realized it was a Polaroid photograph. It landed face down, and when I picked it up and turned it over, I almost recoiled in shock.

The faded old image was of Ernie Fisher, Elizabeth Connor and Karl Parker as smiling teenagers, arms around each other’s shoulders, the familiar pose of close friends caught in a moment of pure joy.