‘No,’ Iagin said, and his tone gave the man pause. ‘You won’t. You’ll point me to his room and then you’ll keep your fucking mouth shut.’
‘Top of the stairs,’ the man said, and he swallowed. The look on Iagin’s face told him all he needed to know about which way the wind was blowing that morning. ‘The royal suite. It’ll be locked, but here’s a key.’
Iagin nodded and took it, and up we went behind him. Anne directed Emil to stay there with the man on the desk, to make sure he kept his mouth shut.
We went up two flights of wooden steps, past the hostesses’ rooms, and up to another landing where the royal suite apparently took up most of the top floor. There was little enough there for royalty, I was sure, but it was certainly fancier than any other whorehouse I had ever been inside. The door was fine carved oak, secured with a big iron lock. Iagin slotted the key and it turned with a click, and he threw the door open.
A massive bed dominated the room, canopied and curtained and wide enough to sleep eight with comfort. The curtains were drawn back and I could see there were only three in there, white and brown and black bodies entwined in the morning sun that streamed through gaps in the closed shutters.
The white was Grachyev, naked and pale like a slug. The other two were obviously hostesses. All of them were sound asleep and snoring, passed out on wine or brandy or poppy resin. I didn’t know which, and I really didn’t much care.
‘Get the women out of here,’ I said, and Anne stepped forward without hesitation and gave each of them a hard slap across the face.
‘Fuck off,’ she told them, as their eyes opened in groggy indignation. ‘Right now. I fucking mean it.’
They fled, naked and uncaring. Anyone waking up to see that much fury on Anne’s scarred face above them would have done the same.
That just left Grachyev, then. He rolled over into the warm place left by one of the fleeing whores and let out a slow fart.
‘Wake him up, Beast,’ I said.
Beast walked over to the massive bed and stood there for a moment looking down at Grachyev. I had explained to him on the way there who this man was, and what he had done. Beast took a long breath, then he punched Grachyev in the balls, as hard as he could.
Grachyev woke with a strangled gasp, sat bolt upright in the bed and vomited explosively all over his bare chest and stomach. He rolled over onto his side with both hands clamped to his crotch, sobbing pathetically.
‘Good one,’ Anne said, with a nod of approval.
We waited a moment for Grachyev to get himself under some semblance of control.
‘Morning, boss,’ Iagin said, his voice flat and emotionless.
Grachyev threw up some more, then crawled to a dry bit of the bed and attempted to cover himself with one of the many quilts that were strewn across it.
‘What . . . what is this?’ he wheezed. ‘Iagin? Piety? I . . . I have no quarrel with Ellinburg!’
‘Perhaps not,’ I said, ‘but I have a fucking quarrel with you, Mr Grachyev. My friend Beast here has a bigger one.’
Grachyev blinked at Beast, and it was clear that he had absolutely no idea who he was.
‘I don’t understand,’ he said, his voice coming out in a pitiful whine that made me want to stab him right there and then. ‘We . . . we are all businessmen, here.’
‘No,’ I said, ‘we’re not. You think you’re a businessman, but you ain’t one. Iagin and me, we’re Queen’s Men.’
I gave him a moment to take that in, watched the storm of emotions that crossed his face as he thought on what I had just said.
Disbelief, fear, denial, anger.
Terror.
‘You . . . you can’t be.’
‘I’ve been taking you for a cunt for a very long time,’ Iagin explained, and his tone was almost kindly. ‘But it seems you tried to do the same thing to me. I’m not having that, you see.’
‘The Spring of Mercy,’ I explained. ‘I went there, last night. I didn’t like what I found out the back. I didn’t like it one fucking little bit.’
‘It . . . it serves a need,’ Grachyev said. ‘A gap in the market. There are people, important people, who—’
‘I know there were,’ I said. ‘I killed most of them last night, and by now the rest of them are in the house of law and are probably fucking wishing that I had.’
‘You’re a fucking puppet, Grachyev,’ Iagin said. ‘You always have been. If you had just danced on your strings like you were supposed to, you could have kept being a big man for the rest of your life, rich and protected. You fucking idiot. Now I’ve got to start all over again with some other prick.’
‘We can negotiate,’ Grachyev said. ‘Let’s do business. Let us find our way to a mutually beneficial arrangement. I can be quiet. I understand how business is done.’
I shook my head slowly.
‘No,’ I said. ‘You really don’t.’
This pointless arsehole had no fucking idea how business was done. He might be able to trot out the right words when it suited him, but he was no more of a gangster than Hanne was.
‘Iagin, please.’
‘No,’ Iagin said. ‘You’re done.’
‘Beast,’ I said.
That was all he needed to hear.
Beast was a long way from recovered to his former strength but he was still the man who had got to eat more days than not, back in the pits. He was the man who had survived, through sheer determination and bloody ruthlessness. Beast had beaten Lady only knew how many men to death with his bare hands, and now he took the three steps he needed towards Grachyev’s bed, and he started.
He started his road to recovery right there, at the bedside of the man
