Private Moscow (Private 15)

I opened the diary and leafed through the pages. They were all blank, not a single entry anywhere. What was it for?

I pulled open the top drawer of the desk and found a laptop. There was a note stuck to the lid that read, “I did what I had to.” I recognized the writing from the UPS package. It was Karl’s.

I was about to open the laptop when I heard footsteps in the workshop. I kicked myself for not closing the trap door behind me, but without brushing the dust over it, the outline would still have been visible anyway. I switched off my torch, hurried to the steel door and positioned myself behind it.

I tensed as someone came down the stairs and crept toward the open doorway.

“You’d better not be hiding behind that door, Jack Morgan,” Mo-bot said, and I stepped out, relieved to hear a friendly voice. “You could have given me a heart attack,” she added. “I told you I’d be here in five. Took me a little longer than I expected to pick the lock on the shutter.”

She shone her torch around Karl Parker’s lair, and whistled loudly. “What the heck is this place?”

CHAPTER 24

“LUXURY COMMUNISM,” LEONID sneered as he and Dinara climbed the chipped concrete steps that wound up the dingy staircase. The place reeked of failure and as they headed up to the fourth floor they heard the sounds of a quarrel echo off the walls.

“We don’t want to know about your money problems,” Leonid yelled up the stairs, and the argument stopped for a moment before resuming, except instead of fighting about their finances, the unseen couple were now rowing over who was to blame for starting disputes the neighbors could overhear.

Leonid sighed. “You’re too young for communism, but I caught the end of it. Hard to believe there was a time”—he gestured at their surroundings—“when this was considered the height of luxury.”

“My parents remember the Gorbachev years fondly,” Dinara replied.

“Were they Party members?” Leonid asked as they reached the fourth-floor landing.

Dinara nodded. “Loyal. They truly believed in equality.”

“Equality?” Leonid scoffed. “I don’t remember Gorbachev or his cabal living somewhere like this.”

The apartment building was one of many charmless, functional five-story blocks that had been thrown up around Moscow in the seventies and eighties. Poorly mixed concrete, terrible plumbing, shoddy electrics and a sense of neglect that was present from the day their doors opened. Buildings like these were some of the least desirable in the whole city, refuges for the poor, downtrodden and criminal. Dinara wondered why a Moesk customer-service agent would choose to live here.

They entered the central corridor on the fourth floor. The place stank of rotten fruit and most of the lights were out, casting much of the corridor in shadow. They found apartment 418 and Dinara used lock-picking tools to gain entry.

“I could have done it faster,” Leonid said when she pushed the door open.

“Are you really that insecure?” Dinara replied as they crept inside.

According to the property records, Yana Petrova lived alone, but official documents didn’t always tell the whole story, so Dinara and Leonid donned surgical masks and latex gloves and conducted a cautious sweep of the small two-bedroom apartment before relaxing their guard.

The police hadn’t identified Yana Petrova as a victim of the Boston Seafood Grill blast, so Dinara and Leonid were a step ahead of the authorities and had free run of the place.

“I’ll check the bedroom,” Leonid said.

He walked down a short corridor that ran off from the living room. Taking care to leave no trace of her presence, Dinara searched the cupboards in the small kitchenette, looking for the slightest clue that might hint at why this seemingly unremarkable woman had been targeted for such an ostentatious execution. Dinara found nothing but evidence of a sad, solitary existence. There were meals for one in the fridge, and three sets of plates and cutlery. One set in the cupboard, one in the sink and the third drying on the draining board. A calendar of famous Moscow scenes listed only one appointment; the word “Mickey” was scrawled beneath yesterday and had been circled by two love hearts. Had Yana been at the Boston on a date?

Dinara found tinned food and a half-empty vodka bottle in another cupboard. There was nothing on top or underneath the kitchen units, and, satisfied the tiny room had no secrets to reveal, Dinara moved into the living room. Leonid emerged from the bedroom corridor before she’d had a chance to get started.

“I think someone has already been here,” he said. “Someone who can search without leaving a mark.”

“Then how do you know?” Dinara asked.

Leonid gestured at her to follow and they went along the corridor that fed into two small bedrooms and a tiny bathroom. He took her into the main bedroom, a simple space that overlooked the neighboring block. Leonid went to a chest of drawers that was covered by jewelry, makeup and skincare products.

“She wasn’t house proud,” he said, signaling the thick dust. “Look at the marks.”

Dinara saw clear circles in the dusty surface.

“The dust build-up suggests she always put things back in the same place. Apart from today. These bottles have been placed wrong. And look at the jewelry tree,” Leonid said.

Rings, necklaces, earrings and bracelets had been hung in tangled clumps. It was not the arrangement of a woman who wanted easy access to her jewelry.