The Wolf at the Door

The garden was beautiful—rhododendron bushes, cypress trees, plane trees, more bushes surrounding a lovely curving lawn. As he advanced towards the conservatory, Bounine stepped out of the bushes, wearing overalls, a baseball bat menacingly in his hand.

‘It’s General Ferguson, you idiot.’ Kurbsky emerged from the trees, a sad, gaunt figure with the skull and the haunted face of someone on chemotherapy, although in his case, he took drugs to make him look that way.

‘What’s up?’ Ferguson asked.

‘We’ve had an intruder,’ Kurbsky said. ‘Yesterday, after supper, we were going to watch television with the ladies. I stepped out of the conservatory to have a smoke and thought I heard something over by the garage, so I went to investigate. Someone jumped me, a man in a bomber jacket and jeans. It was closer to the garage and made the security lights come on.’

‘What happened?’

‘He pulled a flick-knife and sprang the blade, so I smacked him about a bit. He was on the ground after I took the knife, so I relieved him of his wallet and I moved over to the garage security lights to inspect it. Bounine came out on the terrace and called, which distracted me. The guy scrambled up, ran like hell and got over the wall.’

‘Were the ladies disturbed?’

‘Obviously. The security alarms sound inside the house. But they were easily reassured. Russian women are tough as nails.’

‘The wallet, were the contents interesting?’

‘Not particularly. Fifty-four pounds, a Social Security card and a credit card, all in the name of Matthew Cochran.’

‘Did he live in Kilburn?’

‘No, close though. Camden Town. Sixty Lower Church Street.’

‘And that’s it? Nothing like: Holy Mother of God, pray for us now, we who are ourselves alone?’

‘The prayer card,’ Bounine said to Kurbsky. ‘You forgot that.’

Kurbsky frowned and said, ‘Why, is it important?’

‘It means you are all in great danger. Let’s find the ladies and I’ll spell it out for you,’ and Ferguson led the way along to the terrace and the conservatory.

In the Victorian conservatory, crammed with plants, there was silence when Ferguson finished talking. Kurbsky had produced Cochran’s wallet and taken out the prayer card, which lay on a small iron table beside it.

Svetlana Kelly, Kurbsky’s aunt, sat in a wicker chair. Katya Zorin, Svetlana’s partner, a handsome forty-year-old with cropped hair, who was an artist and theatrical scene designer, sat close to her, holding the older woman’s right hand.

‘These are terrible things you tell us, General. Such violence is too much to bear.’

‘But it must be faced, my dear. The prayer card was involved with all these attacks I’ve just discussed, except for the business involving Monica Starling. It’s hardly a coincidence, and when I come here, I find this.’ He picked up the prayer card and held it high. ‘I repeat, you are in great danger if you stay here, or stay in London for that matter. I think you should take the Americans’ offer of sanctuary.’

‘To leave my home is a terrible prospect. All my beautiful things. The world is so untrustworthy these days.’ Svetlana was distressed.

Ferguson threw down the card. ‘You’ve heard the full story. Blake is in the hospital badly wounded, four of the cardholders are violently dead, the attempt to burn down Salter’s pub could have killed everybody in it.’ He turned to Kurbsky. ‘Please, Alex, just go, and take them with you, and leave us to hunt down whoever is behind this.’

Kurbsky bent down and kissed Svetlana on the head. ‘He’s right, babushka, my decision. We go and we go tonight, is this not so, General?’

‘You’ll take the Gulfstream from Farley Field. Nobody will know you have gone.’

Svetlana was weeping now and Katya kissed her on the cheek. ‘All will be well, my love. Alexander is right. We must go.’

Ferguson said, ‘I’ll make a deal with you, Svetlana. It’s important for Alex to go if there are strange and wicked people stirring, but you needn’t worry about your paintings or your antiques. I’ll arrange for a caretaker to live here and take care of them, all right? Now I must go.’

Kurbsky walked to the gate with him. Ferguson opened it and turned. ‘It really is the smart move until we get to the bottom of all this.’

Kurbsky said, ‘I’m sure you’re right. It’s just that I’ve never been very good at running away.’

‘On this occasion, you must think of the women. I’ll see you off from Farley. Roper will be in touch to confirm the timing.’

As Martin got out of the Daimler, Ferguson said, ‘I’ll sit beside you.’ Martin got the door open, it started to rain and Ferguson scrambled inside. The big man slid behind the wheel and drove away.

‘Thank God that’s sorted,’ Ferguson said.

‘Things looking a bit better, General?’ Martin enquired.

‘Not really,’ Ferguson said. ‘Actually the road ahead looks pretty bloody stony, but there it is.’ He leaned back, called Roper and filled him in. ‘So the intruder at Belsize Park definitely makes their departure a top priority.’

‘I’ll organize it at once. And that man Kurbsky tangled with, Matthew Cochran, wasn’t it? Camden Town, Sixty Lower Church Street. We should check on him, too.’

‘You’re right. See to it.’

When Roper made the call, Dillon and Billy were in a bar on Camden High Street. Dillon had suggested a luncheon sandwich, but the truth was he was thinking ahead, about what was waiting for him in Kilburn. Billy suspected that Dillon needed a drink and went along with the suggestion, though Billy never drank. He was a bit alarmed, though, when the Irishman downed his second large Bushmills. Then Roper called.

Dillon obviously couldn’t put it on speaker in the pub, so he listened, then said, ‘OK, we’ll handle it. We’re in Camden High Street now.’ He relayed to Billy what Roper had just told him. ‘We’ll go and look this guy Cochran up. Do you know the address?’

‘No, but the sat-nav will,’ Billy said. ‘So let’s move it.’

They twisted and turned through a number of side streets, finally reaching one called Church Street. There was no number sixty, and beyond the street was a vast empty site, obviously cleared for building. There was a convenience store on the corner called Patel’s, freshly painted, incongruous against the old decaying houses.

‘Wait for me,’ Dillon said, and got out of the Cooper.

The store was crammed with just about everything you would ever need and the stocky Indian in traditional clothes was welcoming. ‘Can I help you, sir?’

‘I was looking for an address—Sixty Lower Church Street.’

‘Ah, long gone. Many streets were knocked down last year and Lower Church Street was one of them. They are to build flats.’

‘I was looking for a man named Matthew Cochran who used that address.’

‘But I remember number sixty well, it was a lodging house.’

‘Thanks very much.’ Dillon returned to the Cooper.

‘No joy there. Lower Church Street was knocked down last year and the address was just a lodging house. Let’s move on.’

Like many areas of London, Kilburn was changing, new apartment blocks here and there, but much of it was still what it had always been: streets of terrace houses dating from Victorian and Edwardian times, even rows of back-to-back houses. It was the favoured Irish quarter of London and always had been.

‘It always reminds me of Northern Ireland, this place. We just passed a pub called the Green Tinker, so that’s Catholic, and we’re coming up to the Royal George, which has got to be Protestant. Just like Belfast when you think about it,’ Billy said.

‘Nothing’s changed,’ Dillon told him. He thought back again, to his mother dying when he was born, his father raising him with the help of relatives, mainly from her family, until his father, in need of work, moved to London and took Dillon with him. He was twelve years old and they did very well together right here in Kilburn. His father earned decent money because he was a cabinet-maker, the highest kind of carpenter. He was never short of work. Dillon went to a top Catholic grammar school, which led him to a scholarship at RADA at sixteen, on stage with the National Theatre at nineteen—and then came his father’s death, and nothing was ever the same again.