The Third Woman. Mark Burnell
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But it was her face that emerged from the darkness of the birch forest.
Heilmann clutched the coat over his chest. ‘I hope you know what to do if I have a heart attack.’
Krista Jaspersen stared deep into his eyes and smiled. ‘Don’t worry, Otto. I’ll know exactly what to do.’
He wasn’t reassured.
She was wearing thick felt boots, a great overcoat and the sable hat he’d given her two nights ago at the Landskrona restaurant on top of the Nevskij Palace Hotel in St Petersburg.
He tried to recapture his breath. ‘What are you doing, Krista?’
‘Waiting for you.’
‘Out here?’
‘I remembered your routine.’
An answer of sorts, Heilmann conceded, yet hardly adequate. ‘You could have phoned to say you were coming. Like normal people do.’ He glanced over one shoulder, then the other. ‘How did you get here?’
‘By car.’
‘I mean … here.’
‘The men at the gate let me through.’
‘Just like that?’
‘Just like that.’
She looked the same – long fair hair, dark green eyes, a mouth of invitation – but she was radiating a difference that Heilmann couldn’t quite identify.
‘It’s freezing,’ he said. ‘Let’s go inside.’
‘You have guests.’
‘They’re asleep.’
‘I’m not staying, Otto.’
‘The mystery is why you’re here at all. You should be in Copenhagen.’
Krista reached inside her coat and pulled out a gun. A SIG-Sauer P226. Moonlight glittered on a silencer.
There was no outrage. That surprised her; Heilmann had a notoriously fragile temper. Instead, after a digestive pause, he simply nodded glumly and said, ‘Let me take a guess: you’re not even Danish.’
She shook her head. ‘Not really, no.’
‘Who are you?’
The seconds stretched as they stared at each other, eyes watering in the cold, neither prepared to look away.
‘The stupid thing is, I knew it,’ he murmured. ‘In my head, I knew it. But I let my heart overrule and …’
‘More likely it was another part of your anatomy.’
‘You were too good to be true. That was my initial reaction to you.’
‘I’ve been accused of many things but never that.’
A deep breath deflated slowly. ‘So … what is it?’
‘You’ll never guess.’
‘The ghosts of the past?’
‘That doesn’t narrow the field much, does it? Not after your glittering career with the Stasi. But no, it’s not that.’
His surprise seemed genuine. He considered another option. ‘The S-75s?’
Krista smiled. ‘I knew you’d say that.’
The S-75 air defence missile was a relic of the Soviet era, prominent in conflicts from Vietnam to the Balkans. Hundreds of them had been transported from the nations of the Warsaw Pact to the Ukraine for decommissioning and dismantling. Many had vanished into thin air, leaving no trace, a feat made possible by the astonishing elasticity of the accounting practices at the Ukrainian Defence Ministry.
‘Scrapyard junk,’ Heilmann declared.
‘Maybe. But you know what they say about muck and brass. How much time have you spent in Kiev over the last decade?’
‘I don’t know. Plenty. What is your point, Krista?’
‘Otto Heilmann, store manager at the Ukraine Hypermarket, flogging the decrepit remains of the Soviet arsenal to Third-World psychopaths. A lucrative business judging by the way you live, Otto. And better than pulling fingernails out of old ladies in the damp cellars of Leipzig, I imagine. The gap in the military inventory from the Soviet era – how much would you say it’s worth today?’
‘I have no idea.’
‘The figure I hear most often is $180 billion. But I’ve heard higher. Last year, the Ukraine’s spending budget was $10 billion. In terms of a trading environment I’d say that left plenty of room for manoeuvre. What do you think?’
‘Is that what this is about? Missing missiles?’
‘Two hundred of them.’
‘They’re museum pieces.’
‘There’s value in antiquity, Otto. Even in yours,’ Krista smiled coldly. ‘Actually, that’s not what this is about. But it’s nice to know I was right about you. No, this is a private matter.’
‘Between you and me?’
‘Between you and your bank.’
‘My bank?’
‘You’ve over-extended yourself, Otto.’
‘So here you are? With a gun?’
‘That’s right.’
‘That’s shit. I have business with a lot of banks. Which one?’
‘Guderian Maier.’
Heilmann looked incredulous. ‘You work for them? I don’t believe you.’
‘You made a mistake in Zurich.’
‘And you’re making one here.’
‘Your money’s no longer any good.’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘Most bank managers send you a letter. Yours has sent me.’
Heilmann snorted dismissively. ‘Very funny. But banks don’t shoot people. So no more games, okay? Just tell me. Why are you here?’
Krista Jaspersen raised the SIG-Sauer P226. ‘I’ve come to close your account, Otto. Permanently.’
When she opened her eyes, the face beside her was a surprise. She’d expected to be alone in the bedroom of her crumbling apartment off boulevard Anspach. Instead, she found herself in a room with curtains, not shutters, a room overlooking avenue Louise, not rue Saint-Géry.
Brussels, twenty-to-seven on a bitter January morning. Outside, a tram grumbled on the street below. She’d always liked the sound of trams. Next to her, Roland was still asleep, half his head lost in the quicksand of a pillow. Stephanie pulled on his blue silk dressing-gown, which was too big for her, and rolled up the sleeves. In the kitchen, she poured water into the kettle and switched it on.
Gradually, she recalled a day that had started in Asia. She’d called Roland from the airport at Frankfurt while waiting for her connection to Brussels and again when she’d touched down at Zaventem. Earlier, in Turkmenbashi and then on the Lufthansa flight back from Ashgabat, she’d been aware of the familiar sensation; the seep of corruption that always followed the adrenaline rush. She’d needed Roland because she couldn’t be alone.
His bathroom belonged in a hotel; heated marble floor, marble sink, fluffy white towels folded over a ladder of hot chrome rails, a soap dish full of Molton Brown miniatures. Typical, really; a bathroom at home to remind him