The Zima Confession

Richard realised the expression of doubt that had clouded the girl’s face must be a reflection of his own puzzlement.

“You did know Andrew, didn’t you?” she asked.

“Andrew, yes. We called him Mitchell though. Andy Mitchell. I didn’t know him all that well; only a few months. He was my boss.”

There was a slightly awkward pause.

“So who are you then?” Richard asked.

“I was his girlfriend.” The vague idea they had already met persisted, but it was suppressed by another idea – Richard seemed to remember Mitchell had a wife. Yes, of course he had a wife. Well, it seems he had a girlfriend too. A hell of a girlfriend, in fact.

“You seem quite cheerful for a girlfriend who’s just lost her nearest and dearest,” Richard said bluntly.

“Ah.” Her eyes looked down, showing that she was rather contrite after all. She hesitated a moment and then, after brushing her hand elegantly through her hair, the cheerful look returned to her face and her eyes looked directly up into his. “I was more of a girlfriend experience.”

“A girl…”

“I work at Aphrodite’s Secret.” She snapped open her shoulder bag and took out a glossy card.

“See,” she said, offering the card.

Richard took the card. Out of a vague sense of embarrassment, he didn’t look too closely at it, but a brief glance at the shiny black card with gold lettering was enough to let him know what kind of a girlfriend Mitchell had had.

“Anyway, take this too.” She handed him a padded envelope. “He told me not to open it, and I haven’t. He gave it to me with instructions to pass it on to you if anything happened to him. I had no idea that he had probably already decided to kill himself.”

“Thanks.” Richard felt slightly abashed. For some reason, it seemed like she had acted with the greatest kindness to give him the envelope. Still unopened, too. In fact, such was the level of altruism she had exhibited, it was Richard’s turn to feel contrite; he suddenly realised she needn’t have bothered. He wondered why she had, in fact. Was that suspicious? Am I being set up? he wanted to ask.

“So what’s in it for you? Why have you – ” he blurted out.

She interrupted before he finished asking. “Oh, it’s quite simple. When he gave me the envelope, it reminded me that he was pretty much irreplaceable as a customer. He gave me this.” She showed him her necklace.

“Very nice.” Richard was trying not to make it too obvious that his eyes had decided not to focus on the necklace but to look a little further down the top of her blouse. It wasn’t just his eyes that were enjoying themselves; his nose too was enthralled by her scent. No wonder the poor bastard was in debt.

He couldn’t get over the impression that he’d seen her before somewhere. “Did you say we’ve met before?”

“Yes, don’t you remember? I had dark hair then. I was staying in a hotel with Andrew and ended up in the cocktail bar being chatted up by some nice gentleman.”

Richard was still mystified.

“The Grand Sokos Hotel… I had green eyes too… contacts.”

“Oh my god! Oh it’s…” Richard was going to say “so nice to see you again”, but in the circumstances he wasn’t sure if he should.

“Andrew got me to fly over to see him. That was when he gave me this handbag. It’s Miu Miu,” she explained. “He was always giving me lots of little things like that.”

“So you felt obliged to help him out because of that?” Richard asked, returning to the subject of the envelope.

“Not exactly. I decided it would be a good idea because, I thought that, seeing as we got on so well together in Helsinki, I thought maybe if I helped you with the envelope, you would quite likely be interested in seeing more of me.”

Richard was surprised but delighted with this idea, but before he could express his delight she added: “As a customer.”

9. A Word For Winter

Karl Marx was right. In late capitalism, every human relationship would be based on money. Now that the idea was in Richard’s head, it was pretty much irresistible. The idea of Melanie, that is, not the idea of Karl Marx being cynically correct.

So it seemed Melanie had simply taken the opportunity to advertise herself to a prime potential customer in return for helping Mitchell. Fair enough. He wondered if he’d paid for her services back in Helsinki. He couldn’t remember handing over any money, but then he could hardly remember anything about that night. So maybe that was the explanation, and it hadn’t been romantic infatuation after all, which was a shame. But he wouldn’t mind seeing her again anyway, even on those terms.

Whatever the case, Melanie would have to wait until later. In fact, she might need to wait until he could afford a Miu Miu bag or two. She seemed to imply she thought he could be as good a customer as Mitchell had been in that respect. Unfortunately for her, that was most unlikely; he had a hard enough job paying his normal bills, never mind trying to pay for an expensive ‘girlfriend’.

Anyway, right now, all he wanted to do was open the envelope. He watched Melanie walk off, back in the direction of Knightsbridge. For some reason, he wanted to make sure she wouldn’t see him opening the envelope. That act was going to be too private. It was possibly even dangerous. By the time he judged she was far enough away, he was itching to get it open and have done with it.

Some burka-clad women were waddling towards him, and skaters suddenly appeared and sped off. He would need to head further into the park, into the trees. There he would be alone. Alone, and therefore vulnerable in a different way.

He began walking further into the centre of the park, looking for a quiet bench. He wanted to be sure no one was watching. He also felt he had to sit down to open the envelope. He was so nervous about it; it was worse than getting exam results. He could feel his heart beating. At last he found a quiet park bench.

The burka-clad women were well in the distance now, being overtaken by some joggers. He sat down. With trembling hands, he ended up accidentally ripping the envelope open so clumsily that it burst apart, sending a flash-drive and a smaller envelope spi

He stared at the small envelope, almost as though it was beyond belief. Something that was impossible had finally happened.

The word was clearly marked on the small envelope. The word he had been waiting for. There it was… ZIMA!

“Zima” (in fact, ‘зима’ in Cyrillic) was Russian for “winter”.

It was too good to be true! A wave of relief swept over him, as though he had been trapped, but the trap had sprung open, releasing him. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. He had never felt such a feeling of elation and freedom. Soon the whole world would be free!

He opened the second envelope, but it was almost as though the second envelope was reversing the spell the first had cast. He was already becoming aware that, in reality, the word Zima had not liberated him; not yet. Instead he would be moving, in some intangible way, into a world of shadows and danger.

But at least he now knew. The sense of anticipation had been replaced by a calmness. Now he knew where he stood. He knew for certain he would need to do everything carefully.

The second envelope contained a key and a message from Mitchell.

“Richard, if you are opening this envelope it is because something has gone wrong for me. I left this message with someone I could trust, so they could pass it on to you. This is a copy of the key to my desk (#31). There you will find the remaining instructions. Too bad that we could not work together on this.