‘So have you had any contact with him in, say, the last six months?’
‘Absolutely not.’
‘That’s his cousin behind him, Barbaros Kaya. Do you know him?’
‘More by reputation. Bit of a tough guy, I’ve heard. But I haven’t had any personal dealings with him.’
Bren nodded. ‘Did you know Sir Nigel’s previous driver then, the one who died?’
‘I’d seen him around, yeah. I think his name was Bernie.’
‘That’s right, Bernie. And he had a son and daughter called Kenny and Angela. Remember them?’
‘I believe I do. Kenny went up to Scotland, I seem to remember.’
‘He did. Did you keep in contact with him?’
‘No.’
‘What about Angela? She inherited Bernie’s house. Have you visited her there?’
‘No. I wouldn’t have a clue where it is.’
‘Hackney, 13 Ferncroft Close. You quite sure you’ve never been there?’
‘Quite sure.’
‘You didn’t maybe take Sir Nigel there?’
‘Not to Hackney, no, never.’ Everett was looking disconcerted now. ‘I don’t get it. What’s this all about?’
‘The thing is, Wayne, with two recent homicides associated with Chelsea Mansions, we need to make quite sure that Sir Nigel’s suicide wasn’t, shall we say, assisted in any way. And we’re also interested to trace Freddie Clarke and make sure his video was above board. You can appreciate that.’
‘Yeah, okay.’
‘But you knew Sir Nigel, you drove his car, were in close physical contact with him, shook his hand, may have touched his clothes. You see my point?’
‘No, frankly, I don’t.’
‘Your prints and DNA may crop up in the course of our forensic examinations, along with those of other people we’ll want to trace. So we need samples of yours in order that we can identify and eliminate them. You’ll agree to that, won’t you?’
‘Oh.’ Everett looked troubled. ‘Sir Nigel spoke to me about this. He had very firm views on the subject, and told me I should never agree to it unless it was absolutely unavoidable. He said there had been mistakes, miscarriages of justice.’
‘It really would help us, Wayne, and I can assure you…’
‘No, sorry.’
Bren sighed patiently. ‘That’s a pity. We’ll just have to do it the slow way. Now I’m going to need details of every occasion you and Sir Nigel came into contact during the past six months…’
‘Can you throw any light on Mr Clarke’s confession, Mr Kuzmin?’ Brock asked. The two men were sitting in the library in Chelsea Mansions in which Brock and Kathy had first encountered Hadden-Vane and Freddie Clarke on the night Moszynski died, over three weeks before. In front of him, Vadim Kuzmin seemed tense and preoccupied.
‘That’s funny.’ Vadim gave a chilly smile and lit a cigarette. Apparently Shaka’s prohibition no longer applied.
‘Funny?’ Brock said.
‘Yes.’ The Russian inhaled deeply. ‘I thought you might be responsible, Chief Inspector. I understand you and Sir Nigel were old enemies.’
‘You must have had dealings with Mr Clarke recently, in connection with Mr Moszynski’s business affairs. How did he seem?’
‘Uncooperative, secretive, devious. My wife is an executor of her father’s estate and the chief beneficiary. She was entitled to have full information about his assets and liabilities. I was trying to get Freddie to set down on paper all the details, but he seemed reluctant. He said it was very complicated.’
‘You argued over this?’
‘Sure, we argued. It was intolerable.’
‘But you used to be a member of the FSB Sixth Directorate, Mr Kuzmin,’ Brock said with a quiet smile. ‘You would know plenty of ways to get such information from a reluctant witness.’
Kuzmin looked at him sharply. ‘I had nothing to do with that video.’
‘Really? I wondered, you see, because it struck me that the background to the film, the setting in which it was shot, reminded me of the cellars underneath this house. We’re working on sharpening those background images.’
Kuzmin shrugged, sucked again at his cigarette. ‘Good luck. Have you any idea where Freddie is now?’
‘He took a flight to Athens yesterday morning. We don’t know where he went after that.’
‘He’s done this before, several times. He sits at his figures day after day until something snaps and he takes off. He has always come back before, but things are a little different now.’
‘You mean he might feel responsible for Sir Nigel’s suicide?’
Vadim gave a derisive snort. ‘Who cares about that? No, I mean that he is now the only one who can lay his hands on half a billion dollars’ worth of Mikhail’s money.’
This thought hung in the air for a moment, then Brock said, ‘We’d like to have access here to carry out a thorough search of the house, to make sure we didn’t miss anything before.’
‘Sure, be my guest, take the place apart if you want.’
Brock made a call to the team waiting outside in the square, then said, ‘It looks as if someone’s been digging up the floors in the cellars. Do you know why?’
‘Oh, that was Mikhail’s next project, a huge swimming pool in the basement. They had to investigate the drains, to see how it could be done.’
‘Is Mrs Marta Moszynski here?’
‘No, she’s with Alisa at our house. She doesn’t like it here any more. It reminds her of Mikhail. It is painful for her. She is talking about going back to live in St Petersburg. Is that everything?’ He began to get to his feet, but Brock stayed where he was, watching the other man. He seemed as anxious as Marta to leave Chelsea Mansions.
‘Not quite. In the old days, when you were all living in St Petersburg, you knew Mr Moszynski’s father, Gennady Moszynski, didn’t you?’
‘What is this, family history time?’
‘In a way, yes, it is.’ Brock reached into his pocket and pulled out the photograph. He handed it to Kuzmin, who, just for a brief moment, gave a look of recognition, Brock thought.
‘What’s this?’
‘That’s Gennady standing there behind the girl, isn’t it?’
Kuzmin’s eyes darted to Brock’s face, then back to the picture. ‘Maybe.’ He said the word carefully.
‘The girl is Nancy Haynes, the other two people are her parents, the building in the background is this building, and the date is the twenty-sixth of April 1956.’
‘Before my time,’ Kuzmin said dismissively and handed the picture back.
‘You’re not curious? Or do you already know what it means?’
‘What are you talking about? What does it mean?’
‘It means that, contrary to what everyone has been telling us, Nancy Haynes had been here before, she knew Mikhail’s father and would surely have approached Mikhail.’
‘And you think this has something to do with their deaths? That’s crazy.’
‘Gennady had met Nancy’s mother before, in San Francisco in 1939. They became lovers. Gennady was Nancy’s father, Mikhail was her half-brother.’
Brock watched the man’s impassive face. ‘You knew this?’ Brock persisted. ‘Mikhail told you?’
Kuzmin shrugged.
‘Nancy had recently lost the money she needed for the lifestyle she was used to. Did she ask for money from Mikhail to keep quiet about this family scandal?’
Kuzmin shook his head indifferently. ‘I don’t know.’
‘What about Marta? How would she feel? Her revered husband, Hero of the Soviet Union, the father of an American woman. Would she have wanted rid of her, before she sold her story to the newspapers?’
That seemed to register with Kuzmin. ‘That old witch,’ he growled. ‘Who knows what she would have done?
