“When I was leaving six years ago, you offered me an opportunity to go out in style, with Sparrowhawk—I’d be considered a traitor by many, I’d leave under a veneer of disgrace that only a select few would know to be unjustified, but the prize was the downfall of Karasek and the exposure of Ed Perry as someone who’d been working against this country’s interests.”
“Not every operation succeeds, Finn. If it had, it would’ve been a great achievement, and I wish it hadn’t failed in quite the way it did and at quite the cost, but that wasn’t your fault, either.”
“You’re missing the point, Louisa.” She looked mockingly intrigued. “It’s too late in many respects—clearly the world’s moved on—but I’m flying to Helsinki early in the morning, where I intend to pay Karasek a visit and finish what should have been finished six years ago.”
She raised her eyebrows, still smiling a little. “So those are your plans. I could stop you doing that, of course.”
“Indeed, you could, but you won’t. The question you have to ask yourself is whether you want to help me or not. Give it some thought.”
“No, and I won’t condone such stupidity, in either a personal or professional capacity. Not that anything I say will stop you going.” She stood up and moved around her chair, then looked at him again. She sounded more conciliatory as she said, “It’s been a while since I was in Helsinki. Will you stay at the K?mp?”
“Yes, for old times’ sake. Harry and I had some riotous nights in the bar of the K?mp.”
“I can imagine.”
“Where’s Perry, Louisa?”
“You’re a fool even to ask.”
“I don’t think my foolishness has ever been in doubt.” She smiled. “Just do me one favor—do a check on Jonas Frost. He was the boy they killed, and I only just met him but he was one of the best people I’ve ever known. Do a check, and see the real cost of our failure to fence Perry in.”
She gave a little nod. “Okay, I’ll do that much. And do be careful, Finn. One day very soon, you and I will sit down and have a proper conversation.”
She turned and walked purposefully out of the bar. He could imagine her going back to the table, and depending on the identity of her fellow guests, dismissing the interruption and the reasons for it as gracefully and succinctly as she’d dismissed the barman a short while before.
Finn was left wondering what he’d come to London for. He’d found out the galling truth of Perry’s survival, and something of what BGS was about. But he still had nothing more than Gibson’s talk of revenge or Alex’s speculation about money to explain why they’d come after Finn, or what they wanted from him.
He’d laid down a marker with Louisa Whitman, letting her know what had really happened in Switzerland. He’d also let her know what he intended to do, gambling that she wouldn’t put obstacles in his way. And he’d received Karasek’s contact details from Alex, but all together these things hardly justified the trip.
Perhaps nostalgia had brought him here, a desire to meet Alex and Louisa again, to immerse himself once more in the world of information. But above all, he suspected it was uncertainty that had propelled him. He had no idea what would happen in the next few days or whether his luck would hold, and he wanted someone—even someone who would never talk about it—to know what his purpose had been.
He’d made it clear to Louisa that he was going to finish what should have been finished six years ago, or at least his part in it. Because for all that time, without even realizing it, he’d been living on edge, pushing away the people closest to him, and he wouldn’t live like that anymore—the cost was far too high.
History
He got a flight after lunch. From the moment he’d left the museum until after takeoff, his mind sifted again and again through the things Alex had said about Sofi and what it meant, searching for innocent explanations or mitigating factors. The best he could hope for was that she’d betrayed him and loved him at the same time, and that was his final defensive line, the belief that she could not have faked what they’d shared this last year.
Only as the plane flew high above the Baltic did he think of Kaliningrad and all the things he’d feared until a few hours before, things which now seemed like a sideshow because he no longer had much of a future left to lose.
But he would lose it all the same, because if Karasek had survived, and if the subsequent investigation also failed to produce enough concrete evidence to end Perry’s career, then the only thing to really come out of it would be proof that Finn had handed sensitive documents to a known gangster.