Bad Actors полностью

“Because he burned a building down the other night with someone still in it.”

“. . . Let’s start at the beginning.”

“Rasnokov slipped out of the Grosvenor first night he was here. The same night a garden flat off the Westway burned to a cinder. Two empty bottles of whisky were found in the rubble.”

“The Balvenie.”

“Yeah.” Lamb blew a smoke ring. “Rasnokov may be a murdering thug. But he’s not cheap.”

“Who was the victim?”

“Don’t know. But I can guess.”

“So guess.”

“An understudy.”

“Right.” Diana looked at de Greer. “Did you know about this?”

“I don’t even know what an understudy is.”

“Well, there’s a body in a burnt-out flat without an identity,” said Lamb. “Which means that somewhere there’s an identity lacking a body.”

“Rasnokov has a fake identity waiting for him,” de Greer translated.

“More than that. A whole fake life someone’s been living. Probably for years.” Lamb reached for the bottle, and poured a measure bordering on obese. “Some poor bastard with a passing resemblance to our Vaseline, and with Rasnokov’s own face plastered all over his ID, has been decorating a legend. And now it’s ready for Rasnokov to move into. A vacant possession.”

“Rasnokov’s going to disappear?”

“If he’s got any sense, he’ll fake a death. You don’t just walk away from a job like his. Not with Norman Bates for a boss.”

“But he can’t just step into this . . . ready-made life. If the fake Rasnokov’s been creating a whole existence, then people will know him. And they’ll know he’s been replaced. The resemblance can’t be that great.”

Lamb looked at Diana. “Feel free to chip in.”

Diana said, “The resemblance wouldn’t need to be total. When Rasnokov steps into the dead man’s shoes, he’ll be about to relocate, somewhere far away. Somewhere nobody knows him.”

“Couldn’t he do that with a fake passport?”

“Lots of people do,” said Lamb. “Trouble is, it’s all surface tension. Put a little weight on it, your foot goes through.” He held his glass up, and stared into its amber brilliance. “Wherever Rasnokov ends up, he’ll be leaving behind an actual lived life. A quiet one, sure—our fake will have kept himself to himself, no close friends, no family—but with real roots. He’ll have real jobs behind him, real debts and savings, credit history, career map, maybe the odd drink-driving escapade. All of it paper-trailed up the arse.”

“And what about the dead man? What was in it for him?”

“Whatever Rasnokov promised him,” Lamb said. “He must have thought his time was nearly up, that Rasnokov would arrive with money and a clean passport and cut him loose. Or maybe he knew what was coming, because he’d have had to be a fucking idiot not to.” Lamb sucked hard on his cigarette, its lit end a manic glow. “Maybe that was the deal. Maybe Rasnokov plucked him from prison, offered him five years of life and all he could eat, after which . . . pfft. Might not seem so bad if the alternative’s a slow death in an icy cell. But either way, the understudy came to London as arranged, and sub-let a room for cash. And what his name was these past years, and where he lives, all the things Rasnokov plans to slip into sometime soon, no one knows.”

“Battleship Potemkin,” Diana said. “He was laughing at us.” She looked at Lamb. “How much of this is guesswork?”

“Most of it. But Rasnokov’s nickname, and firestarting habits, come from Khan as well as Doctor Toblerone here. She might have her uses after all.”

“And I assume Ho tracked down the fire and the body and the bottles.”

“He’s a treasure,” Lamb agreed. “I plan to bury him someday. Though, point of fact, I haven’t actually spoken to him. Apparently he’s suffering severe mouth burns.” He adopted a pious expression. “Can’t think how that happened.”

De Greer was looking from one to the other. “Why are you telling me all this?”

“So that when we send you back to Moscow,” Diana said, “you’ll be able to let them know your whole operation was a smokescreen. That should make Vassily popular. Not to mention dead for real, if the Gay Hussar has a hangnail that day.”

“I don’t want to go back to Moscow.”

“Too bad.” Diana stood. “I need to make a call.” She had to call Judd, to forestall him dropping any info-bombs on the Park. “And I don’t seem to have a phone.”

“There’s a landline upstairs,” de Greer said. When Diana had left the room, said, “Will she really send me back?”

“Probably.”

“They’ll think I was part of it. That I knew what he was up to.”

“Then I wouldn’t bank on them declaring a public holiday.”

“Can I have a cigarette?”

“No.”

De Greer stared, then looked towards the window. There was no sign of Bachelor returning. Her gaze fixed in that direction, she said, “You forgot for a moment, back there.”

“Forgot what?”

“Forgot to be yourself. You were too caught up in explaining what’s going on. Being clever instead of being gross.”

He sneered.

“I’d have been better off letting Sparrow’s men grab me,” she said. “At least he’d have tried to bribe me.”