The hidden man

40

The meeting lasted twenty minutes.

‘I can learn everything I need to know about a man by the way he behaves at breakfast,’ Tamarov said, standing in the foyer of his new restaurant wearing Ray-Ban sunglasses, a button-down Tommy Hilfiger cotton shirt and Armani denim jeans. It was nine o’clock in the morning. ‘I am a busy man, Mark, a very busy man. We have businesses in Moscow, in London, in Paris, in Belgrade. Later this morning I fly to Amsterdam to eat only lunch. So if a person is to do business with me, I want to see the colour of his eyes in the morning. I want to hear him speak to me. I want to know the truth about him.’

It was as if they had never met. Tamarov was suffocating Mark with Russian bluster, the browbeating bullshit of a thug used to getting his own way. They weren’t even eating breakfast: Tamarov was in too much of a hurry. Had it not been for his duty to Randall, Mark would have made his excuses and caught a cab back to Kentish Town.

‘So what business are we exactly doing together, Vlad? You didn’t mention anything specific on the phone. What kind of thing is it that you have in mind?’ Tamarov put the whole weight of his arm on Mark’s back and began walking with him towards the kitchens.

‘Well, I have been thinking,’ he said. Right from the start, Mark had the impression that Tamarov was in a tight spot from which he needed rescuing. ‘I am wondering if you would be interested in a small venture with me?’

‘A small venture.’

‘I am opening up this bar, this restaurant, in less than two weeks and I need somebody to help me out.’

Mark looked around him. The restaurant was a shell of scaffolding and fallen plaster. Despite the fact that it was a Sunday, there were workmen everywhere, architects in hard hats and interior designers poring over colour charts. As they came into the kitchen he could see gas burners and extractor fans still boxed in the centre of the room.

‘Is Tom not your partner on this?’ he asked. ‘You two have been spending so much time together recently and…’

‘No, not on this,’ Tamarov replied firmly. ‘This is not with Thomas any more. I cannot trust him as I could trust you.’

Mark disguised his astonished reaction to this by slackening off his tie.

‘I’m sorry you feel that way.’

‘Don’t be,’ Tamarov said, removing his arm from Mark’s back. ‘I have been hearing good things about you from Sebastian for so long and now we meet in the club and it occurs to me yesterday that this would be a good partnership between us. I have in mind to open a chain of restaurants. But I am always in six cities at once, always doing business. I need somebody to be a director in the same way that you are looking after Libra.’

It didn’t feel like a trap. That was what he told Randall afterwards. For hours they sat around trying to second-guess Tamarov’s motive for making the offer, finally conceding that it had been made in good faith. Kukushkin was expanding into London all the time; Tamarov was the man who had been assigned to make that happen. The Scot he had entrusted to see the restaurant through to completion had either quit at the last minute or failed to come up to scratch. That Mark was Tamarov’s choice to take over was both a reflection of his skills as a manager and a particularly expedient coincidence.

‘But I work for Seb,’ he said. ‘I can’t just quit and run this place. I’m not even looking for another job.’

Mark wondered if that had been the wrong thing to say. If Randall needed him to get close to Tamarov, this was the perfect opportunity. To refuse might jeopardize the relationship.

‘Of course we will offer you equity,’ Tamarov was saying, wrongly assuming that Mark was stalling over money. ‘We can discuss arrangements so that you own a portion of the business…’

‘No, it’s not that. It’s not that, Vlad.’ He didn’t know which way to go. It occurred to him that Philippe had been ensnared in a similar fashion, headhunted out of Libra. ‘I just don’t understand the sudden offer. Is there something I should know about? Everything seems a bit chaotic.’

Tamarov looked offended.

‘Chaotic? I can assure you that all restaurants look like this a few days before they are opening. You know this, Mark, it is normal. Does your club in Moscow seem like it is ready for opening? No. So let me show you our bathrooms. They are completely finished. There is nothing chaotic about this.

Nothing.’

Both bathrooms were indeed completely finished, a mock-Arab nightmare of black tiles and freestanding crimson lamps. Mark continued to waver and Tamarov felt it necessary to force his point.

‘My problem is this,’ he said, and actually pressed his index finger against the lapel of Mark’s jacket, as if retaliating to an insult that had never been landed. ‘People in your country are concerned. They think that we are all gangsters in the East, they think that it is a mistake to trust us, to let us invest in your country. Perhaps you think this, Mark, even though you have been in Moscow, you have been in Petersburg, and you have seen these things at first hand. But let me tell you something, as your friend but also as somebody who knows about how work must be conducted. If you were a Russian, you too would be a gangster.’ He let the observation settle on Mark, digging out the pause. ‘You would have no choice. What does this word “mafia” mean, anyway? Does it mean violence? Does it mean that we are criminals? Of course not, and who is to judge? You think that a mafia did not exist before Mr Gorbachev, before Yeltsin? You think that the Soviet system was not in itself an organized crime? This is naive. At least now the wealth is in the control of the people.’

‘Spoken like a true communist,’ Mark said, but Tamarov ignored him.

‘The difference today is that the people must now fight for this wealth. A clever Russian, a Latvian, a Georgian, understands that today’s world is about sink or swim. If I am to survive, if I am to put food on the table for my wife, for my children, it is necessary to fight. Not with guns, not with violence, but with the mind.’ Tamarov tapped the side of his head to indicate where his mind might be located. Mark knew for sure that he did not have a wife, nor any children for whom he had to put food on the table, but he let it go. ‘I am in competition with other men,’ Tamarov said. ‘If I make a deal, I make the best deal for myself and for my clients. Does this make me a bad man? Does it?’

Mark didn’t answer the question, though he conceded that Tamarov was at least right about destiny. In Moscow he had been obliged to authorize and pay perhaps thirty or forty backhanders just to get the club up and running. It was a question of perspective; in London a businessman had the luxury of morality.

‘So this place is being financed by Mr Kukushkin?’ he asked. ‘Is that what you’re telling me?’

Tamarov physically withdrew from the question. Stepping aside from Mark, he turned and walked back in the direction of the foyer, his voice assuming the lawyer’s cloak.

‘I represent Mr Kukushkin’s interests,’ he said. ‘Mr Kukushkin has many investments.’

Mark followed him and said, ‘Right. I see.’

‘Thomas works with Mr Kukushkin in Moscow. Sebastian has met him on many occasions. Are you seeing this as a problem?’

‘Of course not.’

‘Then good.’

Tamarov stood beside a pile of plastic-wrapped chairs and flattened a hand against the crust of his gelled hair.

‘Look, I do not need a decision now.’ He started to lean against a column of chairs. It rocked dangerously. ‘Everything for the completion of the restaurant is already under way.’ In the street outside, Juris Duchev leaned on the horn of Tamarov’s Mercedes, preparing to drive him out to Heathrow. ‘I have to leave now to catch a flight to Holland. Why don’t we meet for dinner tomorrow? The St Martin’s Lane Hotel?’

‘Sounds good,’ Mark said. But he wondered if he had blown his chance. He had tried not to reject the offer out of hand, but Tamarov now seemed angry. He could surely find someone else to manage and run a restaurant. Then where would Mark be? Most probably their paths would never cross again.

‘I just need twenty-four hours to think things over,’ he said. Tamarov was signalling to the car. ‘It could be that the timing is right for this. It could be that I could find myself interested.’

‘Then I am glad to hear it.’ Out on the street, Duchev was holding the car door open, but he did not acknowledge Mark’s presence. ‘I will call you. And then we will meet on Monday.’

‘Which is when you want my answer,’ Mark said.

‘Which is when I want your answer.’