The Third Woman. Mark Burnell

Pigeons fluttered at her feet.

      The address was five storeys of peeling plaster and broken windows. There were commercial premises at street level. Not that many looked very commercial. Rusting shutters hid half of them. The rest were not busy; discount stores peddling cheap clothing, Chinese luggage, basins and toilet bowls in avocado and salmon pink. There was a bar-nightclub at one end. Coral was the name stencilled on to the dirty red canopy beside a cream silhouette of two entwined women.

      Stephanie walked through an archway into the untended courtyard behind. Swing doors led to a staircase; unlit, cold, damp. The graffiti was as original as ever: Marie Z, I love you, Antoine; PSG are shit; Jim Morrison 1943–1971; Marie Z is a fucking slut. The apartment was on the third floor at the end of the corridor. From each door she passed came a different sound, a crying child, Arab rap, a barking dog. She smelt fried meat, sour tobacco, a pipe in need of a plumber.

      The door had been recently replaced. The scratches on the frame hadn’t been filled or painted. Both locks were still shiny. She knocked twice then tried the keys she’d found in Golitsyn’s attaché case.

      ‘Hello?’

      No answer. She stepped inside. It was dark. Instinctively, she withdrew the Smith & Wesson from the pocket of her MaxMara coat.

      There were two main rooms, the curtains partly drawn in both. A cramped living area overlooked the street, the bedroom overlooked the rail-tracks. There was a tiny shower cubicle next to a toilet and sink. The woman in the agency had already mentioned that; a real luxury in that place – no communal toilet. A greasy film of green mould was colonizing the shower curtain. In the living area, a portable gas stove sat on the floor beside a small fridge. In the sink was a cracked glass, cutlery and a dirty plate. Two cockroaches crawled over a sauce that had dried to a dark brown crust.

      The air tasted stale. She examined the receipt again. Ten days old.

      Into the bedroom; an olive-green canvas hold-all lay beside the bed. She rummaged through it. Women’s clothes – two tatty jerseys, underwear, sneakers – a portable radio, a battered French copy of Donna Tartt’s The Secret History. In the bathroom, a toothbrush sat in a plastic tangerine mug. There was a box of tampons on the floor by the toilet.

      No sign of a man anywhere.

      She peered through the bedroom curtains. A TGV emerged from beneath the bridge. In the living area, she checked the fridge: a plastic bottle of Orangina, a tube of tomato paste, three bottles of Amstel beer. On the table at the centre of the room was an old copy of France-Soir – 23 December – an empty box of cereal and a Samsung portable CD-player beside a few disks; Colour of Spring by Talk Talk, Achtung Baby by U2, Bob Dylan’s Blood on the Tracks. Nothing recent, nothing French.

      A woman, then. In an apartment paid for by Golitsyn, since the receipt was in his attaché case, despite Medvedev’s signature. Golitsyn floats above the world. Wasn’t that what Stern had said? Whatever that meant it presumably included not having to bother himself with signatures of this sort.

      But what kind of woman? A lover? Not here. Money being no object, wouldn’t he keep her in a discreet apartment in a classier area? Then again, perhaps Golitsyn liked to slum it. What do you give a man jaded by plenty? A taste of what it’s like to have nothing, perhaps. Why not? A dip into the gutter to confirm and fortify the sweetness of his life.

      She collected the Smith & Wesson, put it back in her pocket and let herself out. She double-locked, leaving the door as she’d found it.

      ‘You’re back.’

      There were three of them blocking her path to the staircase. Clad and cropped in the homogenized uniform of the disaffected – Nike, Donnay, a scalp of fuzz – they were hard to source. Asian, perhaps. Two of them, anyway. The shortest of them, muscle-bound beneath the tight white T-shirt worn under his unzipped Adidas tracksuit top, might have been Arab. He had two zigzags shaved into the stubble above his left ear.

      ‘You weren’t here,’ he said.

      He was staring at her with matt eyes. She wondered how old he was. It was hard to tell. Somewhere between fifteen and twenty-five, she guessed. With an attitude somewhere between menace and slouching insolence.

      ‘When?’

      ‘When they came.’

      ‘Who?’

      ‘Want to fuck?’

      The tallest one laughed, took a drag from a joint and passed it to the third of them, who was attempting to cultivate a moustache. He wore a baseball cap with 50 CENT picked out in gold thread.

      Stephanie said, ‘When who came?’

      The short one looked her up and down, trying to make her nervous. ‘You know who.’

      Stephanie smiled coldly. Of course I know. ‘What did they want?’

      ‘To speak to you.’

      ‘What about?’

      ‘Get on your knees and I’ll tell you.’

      Another snigger from the tall one.

      She returned the stare with interest. ‘When was this?’

      ‘Yesterday.’

      Stephanie said, ‘I haven’t seen you around.’

      ‘So?’

      ‘How do you know I’m the one?’

      ‘They had a photo.’

      ‘Of me?’

      ‘Who else?’

      ‘You sure it was me?’

      He nodded. ‘What did you do?’

      ‘Nothing. What else?’

      ‘They said to call them if we saw you. Said there’d be money for us.’