Ugley Business by Kate Johnson Page B

beam of the torch back on me. “Ambushed, you said? Are you okay?”
    “Better than him. What are you doing here?”
    “Waiting.”
    “Waiting?”
    “I followed a guy on a scooter up here hours ago.” He gestured to a car parked in one of the neighbours’ drives. How thick was I? How didn’t I notice there was actually someone in that car? “He went up the drive but didn’t come back down.”
    “He came with me. Why were you following him?”
    “He works for a guy I’ve been tracking. Dmitri Janulevic.”
    I shook my head. “What’d he do?”
    Harvey made a face. “Nothing yet. But he has before, and he’s gonna this time. I’ve been all over after him.”
    “All over?”
    “China. Russia. Czech Republic. And now here.”
    Aw. I was touched we’d been included in such an exotic list.
    “Well, the biker’s name is Petr Staszic,” I said. “However you pronounce it. I don’t speak Czech.”
    “I do,” Harvey said.
    Hello.
    Five minutes later, I had him blindfolded in the back of the car—the passenger seat still being a little bloody—and on the way to the office. I took him down to the lab and pulled off the blindfold.
    “Ta-da.”
    “This is the SO17 headquarters?”
    “Well, it’s sort of just quarters. We’re very small.”
    Harvey gave me a lightning once-over, a slight smile on his face.
    “Don’t,” I warned. “My ego’s already had quite a bashing today.”
    “I wasn’t gonna say anything uncomplimentary.”
    “Hmm.” I went over to the cage and unlocked the shutters. They clanged back and Harvey stared at Petr.
    “What did you do to him?”
    “Nothing! Well, apart from shooting. But he had a gun on me.”
    “Fair enough.” Harvey, from the Land of the Free, shrugged.
    “Maria knocked him unconscious. We were planning on coming back in the morning.”
    “Is this standard hostage procedure?”
    “It’s standard procedure for people who attack me.”
    “I’ll bear that in mind,” Harvey said, and walked over. “Is there an intercom?”
    I nodded and switched it on. Then I set up the vid camera I’d brought down with me, and said loudly to Petr, “Wake up.”
    He did, with a jolt, and babbled something in Czech.
    “What did he say?”
    “He’s not Czech.”
    “He said that?”
    “No, he said, ‘What’s going on?’ But he said it in Russian.”
    “You speak Russian?”
    “Of course.” Harvey, old-school CIA, gave me a bewildered look.
    “It’s on my to-do list,” I said. “Ask him where he’s from.”
    The answer came back as, “Russia.”
    “So why did he have a Czech passport?”
    “He’s a Czech citizen.”
    “Dual nationality?”
    Harvey paused to remember the word, and when he did there was another pause, this time from Petr.
    “ Da ,” he said cautiously, and Harvey and I looked at each other and shook our heads.
    “Ask him something in Czech,” I said. “Something complex.”
    Harvey rolled out a question and Petr gave a hopeful smile. “ Da ?”
    “He doesn’t speak a word of it,” Harvey said. “I asked him if he was into sado-masochistic sex with foreign lesbians in the basements of Bavarian castles.”
    I couldn’t help laughing. “Well, maybe he is.”
    We looked at Petr, huddled there looking afraid.
    “Maybe not. Okay, ask him why he was following me.”
    “Orders.”
    “What orders?”
    Harvey frowned as he listened to the reply. “To take you to his boss.”
    “Who is…?”
    I didn’t need a translation. “Dmitri Janulevic. Well, you were right. What does Janulevic want with me?”
    Petr kept looking up at me like an abused puppy as he explained. Maybe he thought I’d be a soft touch.
    Ha!
    “Well?” I asked Harvey.
    “Janulevic wanted you,” he said. “That’s pretty much all he’ll say.”
    “Why?” I insisted.
    Harvey repeated the question, but Petr shook his head.
    “Is it to do with Angel?” I said, and Harvey said, “Who’s Angel?”
    “The blonde. Lakeside?”
    His eyes lit up. “Her name