By then, her head was on Gail’s shoulder, and the rest of what she said was in Russian.
Dusk was falling over the cornfields and it was dusk in the BMW hire car as well, because by mutual consent they were allowing themselves no lights, inside or out. Luke had provided a bottle of vodka for the journey and Dima had drunk the half of it, but Luke wasn’t giving himself as much as a sniff. He had offered Dima a pocket recorder to record his memories of the Berne signing while they were fresh, but Dima had brushed it away:
‘I know all. Got no problem. Got duplicates. Got memory. In London, I remember everything. You tell that to Tom.’
Since their departure from Berne, Luke had used only side roads, driving a distance, finding a place to lie up while his pursuers if they existed went ahead of him. There was definitely something wrong with his right hand, he still seemed to have no feeling in it, but provided he used the strength of his arm and didn’t think about the hand, the driving wasn’t a problem. He must have done something to it when he coshed the cadaverous philosopher.
They were talking Russian in low voices like a pair of fugitives. Why are we keeping our voices down? Luke wondered. But they were. At the edge of a pine forest he again parked, and this time handed Dima a labourer’s blue tunic, and a thick black woollen ski cap to cover his bald head. For himself he had bought jeans, anorak, a bobble hat. He folded Dima’s suit for him and put it in a suitcase in the boot of the BMW. It was by now eight in the evening and turning cold. Approaching the village of Wilderswil at the mouth of the Lauterbrunnen Valley, he yet again stopped the car while they listened to the Swiss news and he tried to read Dima’s face in the half-darkness because to his frustration Luke had no German.
‘They found the bastards,’ Dima growled in a Russian undertone. ‘Two drunk Russian assholes had a fight at the Bellevue Palace Hotel. Nobody know why. Fell down some steps and hurt themselves. One guy in hospital, the other one OK. The hospital guy pretty bad. That’s Niki. Maybe the fucker choke. Told a bunch of stupid lies the Swiss police don’t believe, each guy different lies. Russian Embassy want to fly them home. Swiss police are saying, “Not so goddam fast, we want to know a couple more things about these assholes.” Russian Ambassador’s pissed off.’
‘At the men?’
‘The Swiss.’ He grinned, took another pull from the vodka bottle and waved it at Luke, who shook his head. ‘Wanna know how it works? Russian Ambassador calls the Kremlin: “Who are these crazy fucks?” Kremlin call the bitch Prince: “What the fuck are your assholes doing beating the shit out of each other in fancy hotel in Berne, Switzerland?”’
‘And the Prince says?’ Luke demanded, not sharing Dima’s levity.
‘The bitch Prince call Emilio. “Emilio. My friend. My wise advisor. What the fuck my two nice guys doing, beating the shit out of each other in fancy hotel in Berne?”’
‘And Emilio says?’ Luke persisted.
Dima’s mood darkened: ‘Emilio says: “That shithead Dima, world number-one money-launderer, he disappeared off the fucking planet.” ’
No great intriguer himself, Luke was doing his sums. First the two so-called Arab policemen in Paris. Who sent them? Why? Then the two bodyguards at the Bellevue Palace: why had they come to the hotel after the signing? Who sent them? Why? Who knew how much when?
He called Ollie.
‘All quiet, Harry?’ – meaning, who’s arrived up there at the safe house and who hasn’t? Meaning, am I going to have to deal with a missing Natasha too?
‘Dick, our two stragglers clocked in just a couple minutes back, you’ll be pleased to hear,’ Ollie said reassuringly. ‘Found their own way here without any bother much, and everything hunky-dory. Tenish over the other side of the hill about right for you? Nice and dark by then.’
‘Ten o’clock is fine.’
‘Grund Station car park. A nice little red Suzuki. I’ll be first right as you drive in and as far from the trains as we can get, then.’
‘Agreed.’ And when Ollie didn’t ring off: ‘What’s the problem, Harry?’
‘Well there’s been quite a police presence at Interlaken Ost railway station, I’m hearing.’
‘Let’s have it.’
Luke listened, said nothing, returned the mobile to his pocket.
By
But Luke was determined – as Ollie was – that Dima, in whatever garb, should not be subjected to the glances of railway officials, ticket inspectors and fellow passengers as he approached the place of his concealment: least of all at this late hour of evening, when railway passengers were fewer and more conspicuous.
Reaching the village of Zweilutschinen, Luke took the left fork that led by a winding river road to the edge of Grindelwald. The Grund Station car park was packed with the abandoned cars of German tourists. Entering it, Luke saw to his relief the figure of Ollie in a quilted anorak and peaked cap with earflaps, seated at the wheel of a stationary red Suzuki jeep with its sidelights on.
‘And here’s your rugs for when it gets nippy,’ Ollie announced in Russian as he bundled Dima in beside him, and Luke, having handed Ollie the luggage and parked the BMW under a beech tree, settled himself in the back. ‘The forest track is forbidden, but not for locals with business to do, like plumbers and railway workers and such. So if it’s all the same to you, I’ll do the talking if we’re checked. Not that I’m a local, but the jeep is. And its owner told me what to say.’
Which
A narrow concrete road led upward into the blackness of the mountain. A pair of headlights descended towards them, stopped, and pulled back into the trees: a builder’s lorry, unladen.
‘Whoever’s coming from the top reverses,’ Ollie pronounced approvingly under his breath. ‘Local rule.’
A uniformed policeman stood alone in the centre of the road. Ollie slowed down for him to peer at the triangular yellow sticker on the Suzuki’s windscreen. The policeman stepped back. Ollie raised his hand in leisurely acknowledgement. They passed a settlement of low chalets and bright lights. Woodsmoke mingled with the smell of pine. A fluorescent sign read BRANDEGG. The road became an unmade forest track. Rivulets of water ran towards them. Ollie turned on the headlights and shifted gear levers. The engine took on a higher, plaintive drone. The track was pitted by heavy lorries and the Suzuki was hard-sprung. Perched on its back seat with the luggage, Luke clutched the sides as it bounced and swung. In front of him rode the swathed figure of Dima in his woollen hat, the blanket flapping like a coachman’s cape round his shoulders in the wind. Beside him, and scarcely any smaller, Ollie leaned tensely forward as he navigated the Suzuki across open meadow and set a pair of chamois scampering for the shelter of the trees.
The air turned thinner and colder. Luke’s breath came faster. An icy film of dew was forming on his cheeks and brow. He felt his eyes glistening, and his heart quickening to the scent of pine and the thrill of the climb. The forest closed round them again. From its density, the red eyes of animals flashed at them, but whether they were large or small Luke had no time to find out.
They had passed the tree-line and again broken free. Light cloud covered a starry sky, and at the very centre towered a black starless void, pressing them into the mountainside, then squeezing them out on to the world’s edge. They were passing beneath the overhang of the Eiger North Face.
‘You been to Ural Mountains, Dick?’ Dima yelled at Luke in English, swinging round.
Luke nodded vigorously and smiled yes.
‘Like Perm! Perm we got mountains like this! You been Caucasus?’
‘Just the Georgian part!’ Luke yelled back.
‘I love this, hear me, Dick! I
