Trouble on the Heath: A Comedy of Russian Gangsters, Town Planners and a Dog Called Nigel

Chapter Ten

“But he looked so guilty! He just grabbed the spray and drove off as fast as he could.” Angela was finding it hard to persuade Malcolm that she had only narrowly escaped some sort of attack.

“But it’s just a planning application, for God’s sake!” said Malcolm. “Nobody’s going to attack the wife of the Chairman of the Residents’ Association in broad daylight.”

“I don’t think he was after me,” replied Angela. “I think he was after Freddie. He looked at Freddie in a most odd way.” Angela folded her arms.

“Freddie? No! That’s too absurd!”

“But the phone call,” insisted Angela. “The kid gets it!”

Malcolm frowned and fiddled with the salt cellar. “But even if the person behind the application is a gangster,” he said, “he wouldn’t warn us about what he was going to do. He’d just do it.”

“When he tripped, the man swore in Russian,” said Angela. She had a degree in Russian. That was how she and Malcolm had met. It was on a course in Russian that they’d both attended during one summer vacation.

Malcolm got up and walked to the window and stared out of it. It was raining, and a street light picked out the drops of rain as they burst on the pavement. He heaved a sigh.

“All right,” he said at last. “I’ll do a bit of research.”

After all, he told himself, he was a historian. He was used to chasing up clues, checking facts, following leads, finding out why people said what they said and did what they did. There was nothing different about this. It was just happening now, instead of in the past, and it was happening to him, instead of to someone else.

He booted up his computer.

When he came down, a few hours later, he was looking very smug.

“Well?” asked Angela, although she knew she didn’t need to say anything. The look on Malcolm’s face meant he’d found out something. She’d seen the look before, when he’d come across some letters, written in 1399, between the Chancellor of Florence and the Archbishop of Canterbury. Or when he’d found an unknown 13th-century will or the title deeds to a house that no one had spotted before.

Malcolm sat down at the table and poured himself a glass of wine.

“Right!” he began. “The planning application is in the name of Berners Ltd. OK?”

“I’m following you so far,” said Angela.

“Right!” Malcolm glanced at his notes. It was going to be a lecture. Angela also poured herself a glass of wine.

“Berners Ltd. is owned by Kostroma Investments plc. which is owned by a company called Oprosh Services which is owned by Eva Petrova Koslova. She is married to a man by the name of Grigori Koslov.

“Now, Grigori is an interesting man. In 2003 he was working for the Blackwater Company and ended up in Iraq, doing security work. In 2004 he was involved in the transfer of $1.5 billion by the Coalition Forces in Northern Iraq. The money was in $100 bills, shrink-wrapped on pallets. It filled three Black Hawk helicopters.

“The money came from the UN’s Oil for Food Programme, and was entrusted to the Americans to be spent on behalf of the Iraqi people. The courier company to which the money was handed over on the 12th April 2004 had not been properly checked out by the Coalition Forces. The money vanished. Nobody is sure just how much of it was lost, because the Coalition Forces didn’t keep proper accounts! Can you believe it?

“In 2005 Grigori Koslov suddenly turns up back in Russia, a rich man. With a partner, Ivan Morozov, he sets up various gambling concerns in Romania and the Ukraine. In 2007 he is accused of trying to murder Morozov, but the police halt the prosecution for unknown reasons. In 2008 two of Koslov’s men are involved in a shoot-out with two members of another company, owned by a certain Boris Zolkin, who has many police actions pending against him…”

“In other words,” Angela butted in, “Koslov is a gangster.”

“In other words he is a cold-blooded, ruthless bastard!” replied Malcolm.

“I knew it!” said Angela. “That letter!”

“I don’t get it,” muttered Malcolm. “Why would any gangster write threatening letters? Why would he phone us to warn us that he’s after Freddie? It doesn’t make any sense.”

Angela suddenly rose to her feet. “We’ve got to get out of here!”

Malcolm had the wine glass at his lips.

“Suppose they know where we live? They might do anything!”

“But it’s just a planning application! It’s ridiculous!” said Malcolm, and he took a gulp of wine.

Angela had grabbed a bag, and was running up the stairs. “We’ve got to get Freddie out of here!” She glanced over her shoulder at Malcolm. “At once!”

Some time later, they were bundling the sleepy Freddie into the back of the car. Angela suddenly grabbed Malcolm’s arm so hard he dropped the car keys, and they would have fallen down the drain had Malcolm not kicked them aside as they fell.

“He’s there!” whispered Angela.

“Who?” asked Malcolm picking up the car keys.

“The man who tried to kidnap Freddie…”

“You’ve no proof he was trying to kidnap Freddie…”

“But he’s over there! In the black Volvo,” whispered Angela.

Malcolm turned to see where she was looking. A Volvo was parked a little way up the street. Behind the wheel a dark thick-set man was pretending to read a newspaper. He looked like a gangster and not at all like a concert pianist.

“All right,” murmured Malcolm. “Just act calmly and like we always go out in the middle of the night to find a hotel.”

“I’m scared,” whispered Angela.

“Just take it slowly.”

They got into the car and as soon as Malcolm started the engine, he put his foot down on the accelerator and swung out of the parking spot, making an immediate U-turn. Luckily there was no traffic at this time of night, because he hadn’t checked in his mirror. The only thing he checked was whether the man was following.

He was.

The black Volvo also swung out in a U-turn.

“I don’t believe it!” muttered Malcolm. “He’s chasing us! Here we are in the middle of the night being chased by a gangster, all because of a planning application!” A surge of anger gripped him. He turned and yelled over his shoulder, “Piss off!”

Freddie started crying.

“There, there!” Angela, who was also in the back of the car, put her arm around their son. “Daddy didn’t mean you.”

They sped down Highgate West Hill, and swung left into Swain’s Lane. The black Volvo was still some way behind them. At the top of Swain’s Lane, where it gets narrow, they lost sight of the Volvo because of the curve in the road. So Malcolm made a sudden right into Bisham Gardens.

“What are we doing?” whined Freddie.

“We’re in the middle of an exciting car chase!” said Malcolm through his teeth. “Enjoy!”

As they sped down Bisham Gardens they saw the Volvo speed past up Swain’s Lane. They’d lost him! Malcolm couldn’t believe it was that simple to lose a car that was chasing you. It always seemed much harder in films.

After half an hour of zig-zagging in and out of roads he had never driven down before, Malcolm headed back to Highgate and swung along Hampstead Lane, driving round the northern edge of the Heath. As they drove past the crossroads at Whitestone Pond, they failed to notice a car parked on the other side of the pond.

The car started its engine as they continued down into Hampstead village. It rolled forward on to the main road several hundred yards behind them. Neither Angela nor Malcolm noticed it.

“Well done!” said Angela, patting Malcolm on the shoulder.

“Was that exciting or was that exciting?” replied Malcolm.

“It was exciting!” said Freddie.

Ten minutes later they turned into the Holiday Inn at Swiss Cottage.

They checked into a family room with three beds. Freddie fell asleep immediately. Angela and Malcolm raided the mini bar, but soon followed their child’s example. It had been an exciting night.

The next day, Malcolm phoned the university to say he wouldn’t be coming in for the rest of the week. Then he phoned his sister, who – for some reason he never understood – lived in Leicester.

The three of them had a relaxed breakfast, and then set off, heading north.

Neither Angela nor Malcolm, nor even little Freddie, noticed the black Volvo tailing them, six cars behind, all the way up the M1.