Ratcatcher (25 page)

‘An ethnic Russian group planning to kill the leader of what presumably they regard as their home nation,’ said Elle. ‘Two possibilities. Either they see him as too conciliatory, too liberal, or it’s meant as a provocation, intended to harden Russian attitudes towards the Estonian government and people.’

‘I’d go for the second,’ said Purkiss.

In the back Kendrick was agitated, shifting about in his seat as if it were heated, hands playing over the AK-74. He said, ‘What’s on the agenda?’

Elle answered. ‘We hole up, take stock. I’ve a safe house a couple of miles away.’

Purkiss knew it was standard procedure. Every agent in the field arranged his or her own safe house, the whereabouts of which was unknown to anybody else, even trusted colleagues. They couldn’t return to her usual flat in case Teague showed up.

‘So he hates the Russian president too,’ said Purkiss. ‘Teague.’

She shook her head, her eyes weary. ‘Not that he ever mentioned. But I don’t know. God. Nothing’s certain any more.’

The safe house was a second-floor flat in a nondescript suburban area. Purkiss had a notion they were west of the Old Town. He trooped upstairs with the others two, fatigue pulling at his limbs.

The living room was barely furnished and cold as only a room left unheated for months can be. Elle flicked the boiler into life, went into the kitchenette. Purkiss sank onto a reconditioned sofa and Kendrick seated himself at the tiny dining table. He placed the rifle across it and began to strip it.

‘Thing about these old Soviet weapons,’ he said, ‘you can treat them like shit. Leave them out in the rain, drag them through swamps, bury them under an avalanche. They go on working like loyal old mutts.’

The aroma of coffee began to replace the mustiness. Purkiss put his hands round the mug Elle handed him and drank gratefully. She’d provided sandwiches as well, huge doorsteps of granary and ham and cheese.

Purkiss’s phone vibrated. He snatched it from his pocket.

Caller’s number blocked.

‘John. It’s me.’

‘Fallon.’

He felt Elle stiffen beside him on the sofa, saw Kendrick sit up in the chair.

‘Here’s something to establish good faith.’ The voice was low and grating.

An instant later another voice, so close to the mouthpiece it was distorted, whispered:

‘Mr Purkiss. He’s –’

‘
Abby
. Are you hurt –’

Fallon’s voice came back, Abby’s having ended so abruptly it must have been clamped off by a hand or a gag of some sort.

‘She’s fine, at the moment. This is the deal. Listening?’

‘Yes.’

‘You for her. You come in, and she walks.’ A pause. ‘What time do you have?’

‘One thirty.’

‘Four a.m., Kiek in de Kök.’

He was gone.

TWENTY-EIGHT

The rain was becoming more determined, as if claiming the streets now that so few people were about any longer. The Jacobin worked as quickly as he could, making sure the boot was locked, and doing a routine sweep for bugs under the bonnet and the chassis even though the likelihood was remote.

He hadn’t expected Purkiss to return to the hotel. He’d told Kuznetsov about the hotel to get the man off his back. The Russian had of course wanted to use the woman immediately as bait to draw Purkiss in, but the Jacobin had held off, still clinging to the hope that Purkiss might lead him to Fallon. He’d known Kuznetsov would stake the hotel room out, but assumed he’d post a couple of men at most, not mount an eight-man surveillance operation. As it turned out, Kuznetsov had been right. Purkiss
had
gone back, and now Kuznetsov had lost a third of his personnel, and the police were involved. All in all, a chaotic couple of hours.

Now the Jacobin was forced to agree with Kuznetsov. It was time to bring Purkiss in, and his friend, Abby, was the lure. He’d agreed the venue with Kuznetsov, Kiek in de Kök, as well as the time. Two and a half hours from now, which would give Kuznetsov’s depleted crew time to finish the transfer to the new site and the securing of the base, and to set up position at the venue. The delay wouldn’t give Purkiss a significant advantage because he didn’t have vast reserves on which to draw. Just that sidekick of his, and Elle.

Elle
. As the Jacobin went back indoors for his coat, he reflected that it was a pity she was probably going to die. He had cared for her, of course. Had he loved her, even, once? He supposed the flicker of loosening that her voice, her presence, had stirred in his chest could be interpreted as love, or as close as he had ever come to experiencing it. But that had been some time ago, and when he’d feared the feelings might get in the way of what he needed to do, he’d rooted them out. Now he felt nothing.

Less even, perhaps, than the body face down in the empty bath, invisible from where he stood at the front door of the flat.

He dragged on his coat and killed the lights and went out to the car.

*

‘Kiek in de Kök.’ Kendrick had stripped and cleaned and reassembled the gun and he sat at the table, practising his aim. ‘It sounds like –’

‘Yes, I know what it sounds like.’ Purkiss mopped sandwich crumbs from the table with his finger, caught Elle watching him.

Kendrick said: ‘Craziest idea I’ve ever heard.’

‘No. I’ve come up with crazier.’

There really weren’t any other options. If they simply didn’t turn up at the venue, Abby would be killed. If they turned up but Purkiss didn’t hand himself over, she’d be killed. If he gave himself up as Fallon was asking, he’d probably be killed. But if he wasn’t, if they kept him alive even an hour, then Abby, back in action again, might be able to work her magic.

Purkiss asked Elle, ‘Do you have anything to wrap it in? Cling film, a small zippable sandwich bag?’

She emerged from the kitchen with a roll of plastic wrap. He tore off a small rectangle and put it in his pocket.

He’d explained his plan to them. ‘Abby was tracking my phone via a website which she had password-protected access to, so you two wouldn’t be able to use it. If they swap her for me, she’ll be able to track me and find out where they’ve taken me, assuming they don’t kill me immediately.’

‘But they’ll anticipate that and get rid of your phone as soon as they’ve got you,’ said Elle.

‘The tracking’s done through the phone’s SIM card,’ he said. ‘If I take that with me and manage to install it in another phone, she’ll be able to track that phone.’

‘So how will you get the card in a new handset?’

‘Smuggling the card in with me is the easy bit.’ He pointed at his open mouth. ‘Getting it into a handset’s going to be tricky.’

He had no idea if a SIM card would be damaged by stomach acids, but assumed it might be, so he asked for the plastic wrap. He’d have to remove it from his phone and swallow it at the last minute, since he needed to keep his phone on standby in case Fallon rang again.

Two a.m. The safe house was in the Old Town. The rendezvous point, Kiek in de Kök, was ten minutes’ drive away. Even though they planned to get there early, there was still an agony of time to kill.

Kendrick did a rapid strip and reassembly of the rifle again. He said, ‘Can’t stand this. I’m going for a walk.’ He stood and pulled on his jacket.

Elle raised her eyebrows, looked at Purkiss. Purkiss said, ‘He’s always like this before a job. Best we let him walk off some steam or he’ll be unbearable to be around.’ To Kendrick he said, ‘Go easy.’ His eyes flashed a warning. Kendrick nodded distractedly and banged out of the flat.

‘A bit worked up,’ said Elle.

‘He’ll be fine.’

Purkiss hoped he would be, that he didn’t overdo it. Since leaving the Army Kendrick had developed a tendency to enhance his natural edginess with amphetamines at times when added alertness was needed. When he’d first discovered this, Purkiss had been alarmed, but Kendrick wasn’t to be told, and the extra stamina he derived from the stimulants did, Purkiss had to admit, seem to give him an advantage.

Purkiss and Elle sat in silence for several minutes, listening to the distant nighttime sounds, the flat’s creaks and echoes.

‘She’s a close friend.’ Her glance was questioning even though the words came out as a statement.

‘Abby. Yes. Salt of the earth.’

He’d known Abby three years, encountering her first on a web forum where he was seeking technical advice, back in the early days of his work with Vale when he was still doing his own searches and becoming frustratingly aware that his skills as a computer geek weren’t up to par. After she proved helpful with more than one of his enquiries, he suggested they meet to discuss possible employment options. He discovered that she worked freelance for the Metropolitan Police, among other organisations. Eventually she came to take on jobs exclusively for him. The rates he paid made this worthwhile. Despite their close association he knew very little about her. She’d mentioned parents back in Lancashire, but that was about all.

‘And Kendrick. There’s a rapport there. The kind we develop with other Service colleagues, if we’re lucky.’

‘Yes.’ She'd sounded wistful. He was about to say that Abby and Kendrick were the closest thing he had to friends, but the suddenness of the realisation brought him up short.

To change the subject he said, ‘Teague being the traitor. That’s got to be difficult for you.’

She shrugged. ‘To be honest, I wasn’t convinced he wasn’t, even when I told you otherwise. What bothers me more is Rossiter. Seeing him there, stabbed, bleeding… he can be a difficult sod to work for, but my God, he didn’t deserve that.’

‘He’ll be all right. They’ll put a drain in his chest for a couple of days.’

She shifted closer, her legs tucked under her on the sofa, and put a shy hand on his arm. ‘He thanked you, but I haven’t yet. So, thanks.’

Purkiss looked at her eyes, dark in the pale, drawn face. At her mouth, her throat. Through the layers of fatigue he felt a stirring.

Somehow she was closer still. He leant his face in and kissed her forehead, then her mouth. Her lips yielded at first, then responded, pressing back. His hands slid round across her back and up to her hair, drawing her head towards him. Her own arms came up and her hands grabbed at his back, his shoulders, and he broke the kiss to pull at her sweater and drag it off in a cascade of hair which she shook out of her face. Then his hands were on her breasts through her thin blouse and hers clasped his face. She said, ‘Wait,’ rose and tugged on his arm.

He half followed, half propelled her towards the door of the solitary bedroom. Once inside he kicked the door shut and they were clawing at each other’s clothes, tumbling and rolling on the cold bedspread, enveloped in each other’s heat in a raging joy that was so complete it made time cease for hours.

*

She lay naked against his side, her breast pressed against his chest, her hair pushing up under his chin every time he breathed in. Purkiss watched the ceiling, letting the night vision work its way into his retinas.

He hadn’t been expecting it, wondered if she had. The nearness of death no doubt had something to do with it, the need to respond by engaging in the most life-affirming act of all. There had been other women, since Claire, including one with whom he’d become very close until she’d come up against the impenetrable bedrock of his grief. Usually the women ended it, saddened by his distance.

The evenness of her breathing made him wonder if she’d fallen asleep. He said, ‘We should get ready.’

‘No. Not… all that, out there, yet. Not for a few minutes. Let’s be normal for a while.’ She shifted against him, easing herself. ‘Ask me something normal.’

‘All right.’ He thought for a moment. ‘Elle. Not the commonest name nowadays.’

‘A long story. Well, not long so much as dull.’

‘Try me.’

‘First week at university. I was registering for a class. I was asked for my name, and for some reason instead of Louise Klavan – Louise, that’s my name – I said “L. Klavan”. The woman wrote down “Elle”. It sort of stuck.’

‘I prefer Louise.’

‘That’s too bad.’ She pinched his arm. ‘Your middle name. Rutherford. I noticed it when I did the background search on you. What’s that all about? It wasn’t your mother’s maiden name.’

‘My father was an amateur scientist. He wanted me to pursue a career in physics. Like Ernest Rutherford.’

‘You must have been a great disappointment to him.’ He felt her smile against his shoulder.

‘You don’t know the half of it.’

After a pause she said, ‘Now comes the part where I ask you how, or why, you came to join the Service.’

‘And where I give you the usual reasons. A young man’s restlessness and desire for adventure. A bookish intellectual’s wish to serve abstract ideals of freedom and justice. Or the self-indulgence of an immature existentialist who lacks the imagination to seek out normal ways to live a worthwhile life, and chooses a life of danger as a tragic gesture against the void.’

She sat up and drew the covers around herself and stared at him, still smiling, genuine interest in her eyes. ‘I don’t believe any of those apply to you. But clearly you’ve considered them.’