The Increment

EIGHT

The façade of the apartment building dated back to the nineteenth century, one of the magnificent old tsarist buildings that lined the main streets of Kiev. But inside, the apartment had been completely modernised. Its pale blue carpet looked as if it had never been stepped on, and the paintwork was unblemished.

'I've booked this place for as long as we might need it,' said Orlena as they stepped through the door. 'It'll be our base until the job is finished.'

Better than a barracks. We're going up in the world.

Matt had no idea what part of Kiev he might be in. Somewhere near the centre, judging by the ride into the town. They had touched down at Borispol airport ten minutes early after a smooth flight of just over three hours, and a car had been waiting to bring them into the city. Neither Matt nor Ivan had packed much gear. A spare pair of jeans, some shirts, and a leather jacket in case it was cooler in Kiev than it was in London.

Whatever kit we need for this job, we will source it locally.

'When do we start?' asked Matt.

'Tomorrow,' said Orlena. 'Tonight we sleep, then in the morning we get down to work.'

Matt checked out his bedroom. A small double bed, with a plain blue duvet, and a small lamp. There was nothing on the walls, and no books or magazines. We kip, we fight and then we go home.

'Time for a beer, though,' he said, stepping into the sitting room. 'Where can you get a drink around here?'

'Or a game of chess?' said Ivan.

Orlena looked at him with interest. 'You play?'

Ivan shrugged. 'If I was in Spain, I'd go to a bullfight, if I was in America I'd watch baseball. Chess is the national game, right? Ruslan Ponomariov beat Vasilly Ivanchuk to become the youngest FIDE world champion in history last year. He was just eighteen. So I'd say Kiev was the kind of place you might find a game of chess.'

'People think chess is a Russian game,' said Orlena. 'They're wrong. It's a Ukrainian game. All the best players are Ukrainian.' They stepped out into the street. It had just got dark, and only a few cars were making their way down the street: cheap twelve-year-old VWs and Toyotas mostly, broken up with the occasional gleaming new Mercedes.

'Bridge is a far superior game to chess, naturally,' said Ivan. 'People think of chess as an intellectual sport. They're wrong. You need to be good at maths, and have a lot of processing power, but that's about it. Not much in the way of guile, or cunning, or assessing your opponent. No emotional intelligence. That's why computers are good at chess.'

'Bridge?' snorted Orlena. 'A game for grannies. And for a few greasy Arabs.' She started walking more quickly down the street. 'Chess is the greatest intellectual pursuit man has ever devised. What was it Pascal once said? "Chess is the gymnasium of the mind." '

'No, no,' said Ivan, laughing. 'Chess is just chequers, with better PR. The only really great mind in chess was the 1920s world champion José Raúl Capablanca. "In order to improve your game, you must study the endgame." That was his great saying.' He turned towards Matt, his tone turning sly. 'Study the endgame. Good advice, don't you think?'

'Are we ever going to get a drink?' asked Matt.

Orlena looked at him. 'First we settle the argument, then we drink.'

Great, thought Matt. Stuck with a chess fanatic and a bridge fanatic. And Ivan seems to be getting pretty close to Orlena — too close, maybe, despite his misgivings. Looks like a fun time ahead.

Matram looked down at the body. Ben Weston was curled up like a baby, with his arms neatly folded around his chest, and his feet tucked up to his body. A thin line of blood stretched down from the incision cut carefully into his throat, but a scarf had been tightly tied around his neck to staunch the bleeding as much as possible, and his eyes had been closed. He looked at rest.

'A good kill,' he said, looking up towards Turnton and Snaddon.

Both soldiers remained silent. Matram always taught his assassins to say as little as possible, but he could see from their faces they were pleased with the compliment. He drove the Increment hard, and never hesitated to hand out punishments: always when they were merited, sometimes when they weren't, just to remind everyone who was the boss. Every man and woman in the unit had felt the force of his fist against their skin at some point during their tour of duty. Each of them had been threatened with a dishonourable discharge from the regiment. He had told them he would break their careers. But, when it was deserved, he liked to congratulate them on a job well done.

Soldiers are like dogs, Matram sometimes reflected. You have to punish them hard, but it doesn't hurt to praise them occasionally as well. The tougher the punishment, the more they appreciate the praise.

He reached down, holding the wrist of the corpse, just to make sure there was no pulse there. Then he shut the boot of the car. 'Packington landfill site, in Warwickshire, just south of Birmingham,' he said. 'You are to take the body there, and dump it.' He handed them two sheets of paper. 'These are Department of Environment passes. They get you through the guards at the site. They'll think you're there to check for methane emissions. They'll keep out of your way, and you just need to go down to the main dump and chuck the body in.'

Turnton and Snaddon took the passes, tucking them into their jacket pockets.

'Packington is the biggest landfill site in Europe,' continued Matram. 'Nobody will ever find a body there.'

'Who's next?' asked Turnton.

'Something more challenging, maybe?' said Snaddon, her hard green eyes shining brightly. 'These kills are practically civilians. There's nothing to get our teeth into.'

'Don't worry,' said Matram softly. 'I'll have some harder game for you to track down in the next few days.'

The mobile rang six times before Matt answered it. He rolled over in bed and picked up the Nokia. He glanced down at the Caller ID screen. Nothing. It didn't work in the Ukraine. No way of telling whether it was Gill finally calling or not.

'Matt, I'm sorry, I hope it's not too late there.'

He recognised the tone. Urgent, sometimes tearful, always tense.

'Eleanor.'

He sat up in bed, and rubbed the sleep from his eyes. They'd only been out for a couple of hours, hitting one bar for a beer, then grabbing a pizza at Vesuvio Pizza on Vulitsya Reytarska, one of the new American-style restaurants that had opened in the city in the past few years. Beer, food, and then bed. That would be the routine until they could get this mission behind them.

'Yes,' she replied. 'It's just that I couldn't think who else to call.'

'What's happened?'

'There's been another one.'

Matt rubbed the back of his palm across his forehead. Another one? Somehow he knew he didn't need to ask another what. 'Tell me about it.'

There was a pause on the line, enough time for Matt to form a picture of her in his mind. Sitting by the phone, alone, maybe in a dim light, with her hair tied up around her head, and that intense, determined expression written into the skin on her face. For a moment Matt wished he could be there next to her, able to reach out and put a comforting arm around her shoulders.

'A man called Simon Turnbull, down in Esher in Surrey,' she started, her voice gaining in strength as the sentences progressed. 'A year or so out of the forces. A paratrooper. He'd drifted from job to job since he got out, never settling down to anything, living in bedsits and hostels. He was working at Burger King, he'd been there about a month. He arrived at work yesterday morning, same as usual, worked for about an hour, then lost it.'

'What did he do?' asked Matt.

'Took one of the giant vats of fat they use to fry the chips in, and started throwing it over the staff and customers, causing horrible burns. He killed three people, including a child. Then he stood in the centre of the restaurant, poured the rest of the fat over himself and set himself alight.'

We flame-griddle our burgers, thought Matt, stopping himself from saying it when he realised how inappropriate the joke was.

'He went up like a bomb. Caused more damage, and badly injured one of the chefs. By the time they put the fire out, he was burnt to a cinder.'

'That makes four then,' said Matt. 'First two, then Ken, then this guy.'

'In a month, Matt,' said Eleanor, stressing the words. 'All ex-soldiers, all gone crazy.'

'Any link between Turnbull and the other guys?'

'I've got no idea, but I shouldn't think so. Burger King are playing down the whole incident. No surprise there. But so are the local police, apparently. The only reason it came through to the register of psychological incidents is because some of the families of the victims are being treated for post-traumatic stress.'

Matt looked around the room. It was completely silent, and outside the window he could just see the dim glow of a street lamp. 'Another soldier goes crazy, and nobody wants to investigate.'

'It's scary, Matt.'

'I'm going to ask around. If these are the four we know about, then, well, there may be more of them out there.' He put the phone down, then checked his watch. Almost one a.m., they had an early start in the morning. He rolled over and closed his eyes. He would try to sleep, but he knew that it would be tough. Too much was happening for his mind to switch itself off.

I can't see how the pieces fit together.