an uncomfortable coincidence? Was the Australian a spy? A British agent? Fuck!
At 6 p.m. Lugovoi and Kovtun met Litvinenko again outside the Oxford Street branch of Nike. They visited the offices of RISC Management. Daniel Quirke, one of RISC’s investigators, took them into the fifth-floor boardroom.
According to Litvinenko, Kovtun produced a small minidisc. Quirke fetched his laptop. There was a beep. Kovtun inserted the disc and typed in a four-digit access code. This program, apparently, enabled Kovtun to picka telephone number in Russia and to listen in. He played two audio files. The room was filled with the sound of Russian voices; the quality was crisp and clean.
Quirke was surprised. It appeared Lugovoi and Kovtun were keen to monetise information collected by eavesdropping, by selling it potentially to British clients. The legal dimension didn’t feature. ‘When he [Quirke] saw it, his eyes started out of his head,’ Litvinenko said. Kovtun, it appeared, had good technical skills.’ He took out his own computer and demonstrated it himself. Andrei [Lugovoi] doesn’t know how to use this kind of stuff,’ Litvinenko added.
Afterwards, the three Russians took a taxi to Chinatown and went for dinner. Nothing happened to Litvinenko’s tea. Lugovoi paid the bill on his card and they went on to a pub.
Recollecting their conversation, Litvinenko said: ‘They found a place in a corner, ordered some beer and started to order for me. But I said, no, guys, I can’t stay in such dirty places like that.’ Litvinenko told the police he didn’t like the noise or ‘the prostitutes’. He took the 134 bus home.
About 11.30 p.m. Lugovoi rang Litvinenko to say that he was missing out on fun times. He said that he and Kovtun had hired a rickshaw and that they were going on an hour-long joyride through central London – two off-duty assassins enjoying themselves amid the bright lights of Soho. They trundled past red double-decker buses, crowded bars, West End theatreland. Their rickshaw driver was Polish. He spoke ‘not bad’ Russian. Itappears they asked again about girls. The driver recommended a private members’ place in Jermyn Street popular with big-spending Russians.
This was Hey Jo’s, an erotic club founded in 2005 by a former fruit-and-veg stall owner from Essex called Dave West. It featured mirrored walls, frilly pink cubicles, waitresses dressed as naughty nurses, and a bronze phallus. There was a dance-floor and a Russian-themed restaurant, Abracadabra, with silver tables. The bordello theme extended to the bathrooms, where water spouted from penis-shaped gold taps.
Lugovoi and Kovtun spent two hours at Hey Jo’s, leaving at 3 a.m. Detectives were able to piece together where they’d been. They found traces of radiation in cubicle nine – on the backrest and cushions. There were low levels on a bench, a table in the restaurant, and on a door in the gents’. No polonium was found on the phallus, also tested. The floor was clean. Apparently the men from the KGB didn’t dance.
Even in these promising surroundings, their side-mission to pick up women was unfruitful. The next morning, checking out of the Parkes Hotel for the flight back to Moscow, Rondini asked Lugovoi how they had got on.
His reply was uncharacteristically honest. ‘We were not lucky that night,’ he told her.
*
Lugovoi’s conversations back in Moscow following his first unsuccessful attempt to poison Litvinenko can only be imagined. In short, he had failed. ‘Probably the chief yelled at them and said they weren’t good enough. Itmeant they had to go back and get another vial [of polonium],’ Goldfarb suggested.
The upshot was that within days Lugovoi returned to the UK, this time alone, taking with him another container of radioactive poison. He flew on 25 October from Moscow to London, on British Airways flight 875. He sat in business class, seat 6K. He arrived shortly after midnight at the Sheraton Park Lane, a grandly
At 6 p.m. Lugovoi and Kovtun met Litvinenko again outside the Oxford Street branch of Nike. They visited the offices of RISC Management. Daniel Quirke, one of RISC’s investigators, took them into the fifth-floor boardroom.
According to Litvinenko, Kovtun produced a small minidisc. Quirke fetched his laptop. There was a beep. Kovtun inserted the disc and typed in a four-digit access code. This program, apparently, enabled Kovtun to picka telephone number in Russia and to listen in. He played two audio files. The room was filled with the sound of Russian voices; the quality was crisp and clean.
Quirke was surprised. It appeared Lugovoi and Kovtun were keen to monetise information collected by eavesdropping, by selling it potentially to British clients. The legal dimension didn’t feature. ‘When he [Quirke] saw it, his eyes started out of his head,’ Litvinenko said. Kovtun, it appeared, had good technical skills.’ He took out his own computer and demonstrated it himself. Andrei [Lugovoi] doesn’t know how to use this kind of stuff,’ Litvinenko added.
Afterwards, the three Russians took a taxi to Chinatown and went for dinner. Nothing happened to Litvinenko’s tea. Lugovoi paid the bill on his card and they went on to a pub.
Recollecting their conversation, Litvinenko said: ‘They found a place in a corner, ordered some beer and started to order for me. But I said, no, guys, I can’t stay in such dirty places like that.’ Litvinenko told the police he didn’t like the noise or ‘the prostitutes’. He took the 134 bus home.
About 11.30 p.m. Lugovoi rang Litvinenko to say that he was missing out on fun times. He said that he and Kovtun had hired a rickshaw and that they were going on an hour-long joyride through central London – two off-duty assassins enjoying themselves amid the bright lights of Soho. They trundled past red double-decker buses, crowded bars, West End theatreland. Their rickshaw driver was Polish. He spoke ‘not bad’ Russian. Itappears they asked again about girls. The driver recommended a private members’ place in Jermyn Street popular with big-spending Russians.
This was Hey Jo’s, an erotic club founded in 2005 by a former fruit-and-veg stall owner from Essex called Dave West. It featured mirrored walls, frilly pink cubicles, waitresses dressed as naughty nurses, and a bronze phallus. There was a dance-floor and a Russian-themed restaurant, Abracadabra, with silver tables. The bordello theme extended to the bathrooms, where water spouted from penis-shaped gold taps.
Lugovoi and Kovtun spent two hours at Hey Jo’s, leaving at 3 a.m. Detectives were able to piece together where they’d been. They found traces of radiation in cubicle nine – on the backrest and cushions. There were low levels on a bench, a table in the restaurant, and on a door in the gents’. No polonium was found on the phallus, also tested. The floor was clean. Apparently the men from the KGB didn’t dance.
Even in these promising surroundings, their side-mission to pick up women was unfruitful. The next morning, checking out of the Parkes Hotel for the flight back to Moscow, Rondini asked Lugovoi how they had got on.
His reply was uncharacteristically honest. ‘We were not lucky that night,’ he told her.
*
Lugovoi’s conversations back in Moscow following his first unsuccessful attempt to poison Litvinenko can only be imagined. In short, he had failed. ‘Probably the chief yelled at them and said they weren’t good enough. Itmeant they had to go back and get another vial [of polonium],’ Goldfarb suggested.
The upshot was that within days Lugovoi returned to the UK, this time alone, taking with him another container of radioactive poison. He flew on 25 October from Moscow to London, on British Airways flight 875. He sat in business class, seat 6K. He arrived shortly after midnight at the Sheraton Park Lane, a grandly
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