THIRTY-ONE
Venedikt sat in the front passenger seat, Leok driving. He watched the sparse night traffic dwindling as the city receded and they wove through the slumbering fields and flatlands to the west. Full sunrise was nearly four hours away. Even the first flames of light would not light the horizon for another three. Behind his car was another with Dobrynin and two of his men. In front, the nondescript van with the windowless rear compartment, containing four armed men and their prize. Venedikt’s prize.
It was a risk. A calculated one, but a risk nevertheless. The Englishman had stood back, watching silently, saying nothing after his initial protests. Venedikt did not need to explain himself to anyone, least of all a turncoat Angli. But he understood the Englishman’s puzzlement and frustration. Perhaps it would have been better to have offered a reason for keeping Purkiss alive. Venedikt assumed the reason would be guessed: Purkiss had killed or left dead in his wake six of Venedikt’s men, and would be made to pay the price for this before he himself was dispatched.
The risk was that the Englishman would work out Venedikt’s true intentions. Venedikt thought this unlikely. Even if by some leap of the imagination the Englishman did make the connection, what would he do with the knowledge? Inform the police? Venedikt despised the Englishman – knew his feelings were reciprocated – but had always had a good nose for commitment in another person, and had noticed this quality in the Englishman in abundance. Also, if Kuznetsov went down, the Englishman knew he would go down with him.
The car’s heater needed to be on because of the cold, but the air was stuffy. Venedikt pressed the button to lower the window on his side, breathed deeply through his nose, savouring the bright aromas of wet fields and woodsmoke. A year of planning, then the frustration of major complications in the last two days. But here he was, six hours from his goal, the path ahead cleared.
He was going to pull it off.
*
The Jacobin let himself into the flat, pulled up one of the chairs around the dining table. He preferred it over the armchairs: they were too low and rising from them would be difficult before long. He needed rest, badly, and sleep, but could afford neither. The usual stroll through the night-time streets was of course out of the question now.
He made the necessary phone call, then folded the handset away, surprised at how difficult he had found the exchange. It must be the tiredness. Sentimentality, emotional weakness in general, always showed through like a garish undercoat when the outer layers got rubbed thin by fatigue. It wasn’t a matter to dwell on because he needed to think about what to do about the Russian.
Up until the Jacobin had impersonated Fallon’s voice on the phone to Purkiss, he’d considered the far-fetched notion that Purkiss was somehow in league with Fallon, that his stated pursuit of the man was a smokescreen of some kind. But Purkiss’s reaction to hearing “Fallon”‘s voice – immediate, unquestioning hatred – convinced the Jacobin. Purkiss was hunting the man, wanted him as badly as he said. This validated the Jacobin’s earlier plan, told him he’d been right to play Purkiss along in the hope that he’d find Fallon. But he’d failed, and now he, Purkiss, was in Kuznetsov’s hands.
Had Kuznetsov killed Fallon? Tortured him, gone too far and lost him, and now taken Purkiss as a replacement? But why torture either man, unless out of wanton cruelty, something the Jacobin thought unlikely? Perhaps Kuznetsov entertained delusions about being a spymaster, and had decided to kick off his career by beating as much information as he could about the British SIS out of two of its former agents. Again, possible, but implausible.
The problem was, the Jacobin had no idea where Kuznetsov had taken Purkiss, where the new base was. Kuznetsov had mentioned earlier during the planning stages of the operation that there was a second base, as an alternative should the farm be compromised, but he’d kept quiet about its location and the Jacobin hadn’t pressed him, assuming the farm would remain secure. With hindsight it had been a mistake. He had tried phoning Kuznetsov earlier, just before reaching the flat. The number was no longer in service. Kuznetsov was cutting all ties, getting rid of his phone so that he couldn’t be tracked.
The Jacobin rose uncomfortably from the chair and went into the bathroom and splashed water on his face, then filled a tooth glass and drank. In the bath the body looked cramped, its face turned downward so that only a quarter was visible. There would be plenty of time to move it later on, after eight o’clock had come and gone.
He stood at the sink, finishing the water, gazing at the huddled mass, and was reminded of the much smaller crumpled figure of the girl on the lawn. In mid-swallow the thought struck him.
Purkiss had gone into the exchange knowing there was no escape for him, that if he wasn’t killed immediately he’d be taken captive. In which case, what precautions had he taken to allow his colleagues to track his whereabouts after his capture?
The Jacobin put down the glass, took out his phone.
*
Down the steps he was shoved, vertigo and the lack of visual cues making them seem steeper than they really were. His shoulders bashed off the walls. At the bottom he finally lost his balance and tipped forwards, unable to use his trussed hands to break his fall, colliding face-first with something wooden – a door, he guessed – that was like yet another punch to his swollen nose and lips, sending a surge of pain all the way through his head to the back of his neck.
Hands steadied Purkiss and he heard the faint whine of hinges and another shove propelled him into a wider space, judging by the slight echo. He regained his footing and stood and a heavy scrape behind him was followed by the jarring of some hefty object against the backs of his knees and now the hands were on his shoulders pressing him down on to the chair and he felt something like plastic cord being lashed around his torso and binding him to the back of the seat. He drew a deep breath, held it as long as he could, inflating his chest so the cords would be looser when he exhaled, trying to ignore the screaming of his bruised and cracked ribs.
The hood was pulled off abruptly, the scab gumming the wet stiff khaki to his nose torn away. The sudden return of vision after an hour or more of varying shades of darkness was shocking as a car crash. To turn his head hurt too much, but he was aware of three men surrounding him. One of them squatted before him and brought hot sour breath close to his face. It was the bull-necked man he’d headbutted earlier, his rotten teeth bent and bloodied in his mouth. The man stared into his eyes for a long minute, then hawked and spat blackly into one of them before Purkiss could blink.
The man stood and looked down at him and Purkiss prepared himself for the beating to start again, but the man muttered something Purkiss didn’t catch and he and the other two went through the door to Purkiss’s left and closed it. He heard a key being turned in a lock and their footsteps echoing rapidly up the steps. He squeezed his eye, trying to force out as much of the phlegm and blood as he could, blinked several times and peered around.
It was a basement, almost exactly square, the grey walls plastered but unpainted Two strips of blue-yellow fluorescent lighting in the ceiling provided illumination. The only exit was the door he’d been pushed through. There were no windows or skylights. Purkiss was secured to a chair with plastic flex around his torso from chest to hips. His hands remained fastened separately behind his back. The chair was a solid steel one of the sort used in prisons and secure psychiatric units, too heavy to be picked up and used as a projectile.
The three men had left, but he wasn’t alone.
Sitting opposite him, ten feet away on a similar chair, was a man, shorter and slighter than Purkiss, his head lowered but his eyes watching him.
The pain in Purkiss’s face, the stabs of his ribs with each respiration, the ache throbbing at his kidneys, all faded like a radio signal being tuned out. All sensations, not just sight and sound but those of smell and touch and even taste, seemed focused of their own accord on the man in the chair.
Purkiss had taken a kick to his throat but the word emerged clearly enough, the harshness due to reasons other than injury.
‘Fallon.’