Читать книгу From Russia with Blood - Heidi Blake - Страница 12

iv

Wentworth Estate, Surrey, England, 2001

Scot Young was easing his Porsche up the gravel drive of his magnificent new mansion in Surrey on a breezy summer evening when Michelle came running through the topiary.

“There’s a strange man inside, and I can’t get him out!” she said. “Shall we call the police?”

Young marched through the grand columned entrance to find a small black-eyed man settled comfortably in an armchair.

“Welcome to my home!” the intruder boomed in a thick Russian accent, throwing his arms wide. “How much do you want for it?”

Later, Young liked to tell his friends that this was the first time he had ever laid eyes on Boris Berezovsky. The story appealed to him both because he was a great raconteur who loved to spin a good yarn and because it happened to be more convenient than the truth. Its punch line was that he hadn’t known the man was one of Russia’s richest tycoons, so he told Berezovsky to “fuck off.” But of course Young knew exactly who Berezovsky was.

Years later, private detectives hired to delve into Young’s association with the oligarch would uncover evidence that he had actually met Berezovsky’s people a few years earlier on a trip to Moscow and had been secretly operating as his point man in the UK ever since, helping him stash the money he was siphoning out of Russia in spectacular British properties and investments. Since Berezovsky fled, the previous year, Young had also been visiting Moscow regularly on his behalf, handing out a business card billing himself as a consultant to Channel One. It didn’t take long for the FSB to develop what the spooks called a “long-term interest” in the British businessman. The FSB surveillance team built up a picture of Young as a high-class fixer providing highly confidential assistance to the oligarch and being pampered in return. He had drunk and dined lavishly on Berezovsky’s ticket at Moscow’s exclusive Café Pushkin, Vogue Café, and Vanille—and he liked to end the night at Private Club Bordo, a brothel frequented by the city’s political and business elite.

The Youngs had sold Woodperry House for £13.5 million earlier that year—more than double what Young had paid for it—and in turn had bought the main manor house on the celebrity-studded Wentworth Estate, in Surrey. After many months luxuriating in his vast Italianate villa on Cap d’Antibes, Berezovsky had tired of soaking up the sun and moved to England to start building his new life in earnest. The oligarch was putting down roots as he settled into a long exile—and he had set his heart on his fixer’s home.

Berezovsky produced a case of exquisite red wine from behind the armchair and pulled out a dusty bottle. The two men spent a raucous night demolishing the offering as the Russian regaled Young with rip-roaring tales of the Wild East, and before long Berezovsky’s offer of £20.5 million had been accepted. Young would always tell friends the true price was £50 million, the lion’s share of which had been hidden offshore, but whatever the cost, Berezovsky had made Wentworth Estate his home.

The godfather moved into his new mansion with his wife and young children, displacing the Youngs to another spectacular property across the estate, and with that a new enclave was established. This lush corner of Surrey, with its follies, lakes, and roaming deer, was to become the seat of some of Russia’s richest men as they waged a long-distance war on the Kremlin.