Café Boris removals

It was just another day in Café Boris. Outside the last remnants of the previous week’s snow slowly melted into an unpleasant slush, covering a layer of ice dangerous to those unused to the Ukraine climate.

 

Dmitri was finishing a breakfast consisting of scraps of meat mopped up with bread and a strong coffee. In his notebook he was jotting down the obituary that he would phone through to the Luhansk Ekspress: ‘Aleksander Maykin, aged 56, died following an injury caused by an eagle dropping a tortoise onto her head. Boris, the proprietor of Café Boris, rushed to her aid, and took her into the café, which sells a range of good quality, reasonable priced refreshments, but it proved too late to save her.’

 

Sergei looked over his shoulder, read the piece and laughed.

 

“Dmitri, you get worse. Boris the hero rushing to the aid of tortoise victims.”

 

“The truth is Sergei I get bored. I had ambitions once to be a proper writer. Now I’m 49 years old, and the only things I ever have published are the daily obituaries I write in order to plug the café. Every day they would be the same; a person dies after enjoying a last meal at Café Boris. I might as well make it interesting. They tell me that the Café Boris obit is one of the most read features in the paper.”

 

“I am glad that you have finished your piece, though, Dmitri. I have other work for you.”

 

“Other work? You have a teaching job?”

 

“Not teaching, no. It is working for me, and my friend Danya, we have a small furniture moving business and we need your help. It is just a few hours work and we’ll pay you 100 hvennas.

 

“Furniture removal, at my age? It is the furniture that should be antique, not the staff.”

 

Sergei laughed. “You are still fit Dmitri, and barely 50. The people we’ve had recently, all too young, turning up to work after a night’s drinking, or several hours late, that’s if they turn up at all. You’re the sort of person we need: not too hasty, will think about how you’re going to get furniture out before you start to move it.”

 

Dmitri decided to let the ‘barely 50’ pass.  “Okay, why not, there’s nothing better to do and my landlord will appreciate some rent.”

 

“And if it goes well there’ll be repeat business I’m sure.”

 

Dmitri finished his coffee, phoned through his obituary and followed Sergei outside, to a big blue van parked just outside.

 

“You know Danya I think,” Sergei said.

“I’ve seen you on football days, haven’t I?” Dmitri said.

 

Danya smiled, opening his coat to show that he was wearing a Dynamo Luhansk shirt.

 

“Never miss a game.”

 

“I’m Dmitri.”

 

Danya laughed as he pumped Dmitri’s hand. “Oh I know all about you, the guy who writes the obits.”

 

“So what’s the job?”

“Just a house clearance in the Leninski province.”

 

“Where we taking the furniture?”

 

“To my warehouse.”

 

“Your warehouse? I thought it was a removal.”

“This is a house clearance. I do removals as well, but most of my money comes from the second hand trade. Buy it cheap, sell it cheap. That is how to make money in Ukraine.”

 

The journey to Leninski province took just a few minutes. Dmitri sat next to Danya in the front of the van, with Sergei sitting in the back, perched against a wheel arch.

 

The ‘house’ was in fact just a small first floor flat. Sergei found the key under the flower pot by the front door and let them in. There was a pile of unopened mail on the floor, which Sergei pushed to one side.

 

The three men paced out the flat, getting a feel for what they had to move. Not much. The flat was sparse, with just a few scraps of furniture, as if it had already been cleared of the non-bulky items.

 

“You bring three men for this work?” Dmitri said. “How do you expect to make a profit? There is nothing here.”

 

“It’s good furniture Dmitri,” Sergei replied, “practical, every family in Luhansk needs furniture like this. We only buy what will sell.”

 

“Every family in Luhansk already has furniture like this. Oh, what do I know, I’m just an out of work teacher. I will take you at your word and take your money. It’s your loss.”

 

 The men’s initial tour of the flat had concluded and they were back by the front door.  “What’s happening to the post?” Dmitri asked, tapping the pile with his foot. “Have you got a forwarding address?”

 

“If you know how to redirect letters to heaven, go ahead. We may as well check to see if there’s anything interesting though.”

 

“There is no family to forward the mail to?”

 

Sergei shook his head. “There is no-one. He had no family, no friends, no nothing. The man is gone, soon his things will be gone too.”

 

“Who is paying you? You could ask them about the mail.”

 

“Paying? Nobody is paying, we’re clearing out the flat for the new owners, we’re free to sell what we find here.”

 

Dmitri picked up a letter from the pile, for no real reason, just to demonstrate his point, or maybe just natural nosiness.  

 

“What’s this? This is addressed to Dmitri Stodnik!” Dmitri’s surname was also Stodnik.

 

Sergei laughed. “It’s your mail then. You can open it.”

 

Dmitri quickly flicked through the other letters in the pile. “All of this mail is addressed to Dmitri Stodnik. You knew that, that’s why you’ve asked me here. I knew you didn’t need a third man, you’re hoping to find a cheque something in his mail you can use me to help you steal.”

 

“Dmitri, what do you take me for? Some cheap thief or gangster? I had no intention of touching his mail, if you hadn’t mentioned it I wouldn’t have noticed it. As for cheque, who sends cheques any more? Not to dead men, that’s for sure.”

 

“So it’s a pure coincidence that for the first time in the six years’ you’ve known me you decide to offer me work, and it turns out to be in a house owned by someone with the exact same name?”

 

“What could I possibly hope to gain by that Dmitri? What would there be in the post so valuable. Nothing but bills, I am sure.  Now help me shift the wardrobe. Or are you not here to work, just to steal a dead man’s mail?”

 

Dmitri helped Sergei lift the wardrobe. Although it was his first day and Sergei had been doing this work for years, Dmitri immediately found himself taking charge, determining how they should work the wardrobe through the door, how they should tackle getting it downstairs and where to position it in the van.

“You see Dmitri, this is the reason I hired you, you are strategic, you think things through, no broken backs with you.”

 

Danya carried the smaller items by himself, small chests of drawers, a little bookcase. 

 

The next big item was the bed, a king-sized bed. The mattress at least had seen a lot of use.

 

“Funny,” said Dmitri, “you say he was a single man with no family, yet he had a double bed, and by the looks of the mattress both sides were used.”

 

“You belong in a detective novel, Dmitri, not real life. Relationships end, some women, well they are transactions, or brief encounters, not wives. We are not all like you.”

 

“I’ll get the mattress,” said Danya.

“Are you sure? It’s quite big.”

 

“I’m used to this, don’t worry about me.” So saying Danya grabbed the mattress in a bear-like grip, squeezed it until it was of portable size, and danced it through the door and down the stairs.

 

Dmitri and Sergei took the bedframe. As before Dmitri immediately found himself issuing instructions and taking charge, but as the approached the door to the bedroom Sergei suddenly called for him to stop.

 

“Hang on Dmitri. There’s something odd here.”

 

They rested the bed against the wall.

 

“What is it?”

 

“It’s these floorboards. They look like …” without finishing his sentence Dmitri started to claw at the boards. Having no success he took a piece of metal out of his pocked, a thin piece of metal with a curve, which looked as if it could have been designed for pulling up floorboards, which is precisely what Sergei began to do.

 

“Sergei, what are you doing? A house clearance doesn’t mean pulling up the floorboards as well. This isn’t Moscow. Leave the place standing.”

 

“The boards look like they’ve been moved, can’t you see it? Think about it, floorboards under a bed, why would they ever get wear and tear? Unless someone was using them to hide something.”

 

“Now who’s living in a detective novel?”

The first boarded lifted up, and Sergei placed it on one side. He gently cupped the underside of the board next to it and it lifted as easily.

 

“You see Dmitri, this is loose, it isn’t a normal floorboard. It’s a hiding place.”

 

“What are you looking for? Dmitri’s corpse.”

 

Sergei’s face was serious with concentration, and there was barely room for a flicker of a smile, as he set about lifting the third board.

 

“Here, Danya, bring that torch over here.” Danya had returned from his trip with the mattress and was standing in the doorway watching Sergei with interest. He reached into his pocket and retrieved a torch, which he passed to Sergei.

 

Shining the torch into the hole, Sergei felt around for a few moments. “There’s something in here, here, Dmitri, take the torch. That’s right, shine it down here.”

 

Using both hands, Sergei lifted up a metal chest, roughly a foot by 18 inches. He twisted it to fit it through the gap.

 

“Treasure.”

 

The lid was locked and Sergei fiddled with it, trying to force it open with is bare hands.

 

“Don’t break it if you don’t have to,” Dmitri said. “The key might be in the same place, have a look for it.”

 

Sergei was about to protest, before he realised it was a sensible suggestion. At the very least there was nothing to lose by looking, and he took the torch from Dmitri and began to feel around inside the hole.

 

A broad grin suddenly crawled onto Sergei’s face as he lifted a key from the hole. “You were right Dmitri, what a hiding place, in the same place as the box.”

 

The key fitted and the lid lifted. Inside the box was crammed full of papers. Sergei lifted the top one.

 

“It’s a share certificate,” Dmitri said, reading over his shoulder. “The writing’s in Russian.”

 

“It is. A share certificate for 137,239 shares in Misha Electronics. Danya,” he shouted across the room, “fetch the Vesti from the van and have a look at the share price for Misha Electronics.”

 

“Why should you care …” Dmitri began to say, then halted, suddenly realising what this entire ‘house clearance’ had been about. “What name is that certificate made out to?”

 

Sergei grinned, the grin of a fisherman who had just hooked a big fish. “Oh, I didn’t think to look. Here, let me see. Oh, it says Dmitri Stodnik That’s a coincidence, isn’t it, that’s your name too.”

 

“No Sergei. Whatever you’re going to suggest, no I won’t.”

 

At this point Danya came running up the stairs, a little out of breath. “It’s a Russian company. Two hundred and thirty seven hvennas a share.”

“That’s a lot of money. You’re the mathematician Dmitri, what does that work out at? Over two million hvennas. It’ looks like you’re about to become a rich man.