She’d hit him hard with something. He tried to stand upright, struggling to get his bearings. Was the gun still in his hand? For a moment, he wasn’t even sure. And then he saw something again, or heard it, felt the disturbance in the air as she swung a second time. He threw himself back into the blow and knocked her backward, too, and heard the clatter and a visceral crack as he crashed to the floor.
He was up quickly this time, onto his haunches, and the gun was still in his hand, he felt it now, but immediately he stopped and stayed very still. It was the laptop, that was what she’d hit him with, and only as he looked at it on the floor did he feel the trickle of blood, warm in his hair.
Sofi looked unharmed. She’d fallen to the floor, too, her head against the side of the sofa, and it could not have been a heavy fall. She didn’t look damaged in any way, except for the strange angle at which her head was positioned in relation to her body.
He didn’t move for several seconds, still expecting her to groan, to free herself from that awkward resting place, because people didn’t die so easily. Finally, he put the gun in his pocket and moved cautiously toward her, reaching out to the warmth of her neck, searching for a pulse he would not find.
And when he finally accepted that no harm could be done by moving her, he pulled her free and rested her head properly on the floor. He touched her lips, brushed his fingers over the softness of her cheek, stroked her hair, trying to understand that she was dead, that he had killed her, that perhaps she had tried to kill him.
He sat next to her and held her hand, and wanted to cry but could not, perhaps because of the shock, or because he didn’t know what those tears would be for. He was angry, too, that this had denied him a full explanation, that he was left with only the lies and not the hope that some part of her had been true.
He didn’t know how long he sat there. Her hand was still warm when he eventually let it go, though he didn’t know if that was residual or the heat from his own hand warming hers. He looked at her face again, at the beauty that had so easily fooled him, and he knew for sure now that he’d lost everything.
He took out his phone, but was hit with a fresh realization, that until the mess of Sparrowhawk was sorted out he couldn’t even phone Harry, let alone anyone else from the office. But he needed someone to help him through this, and he had only one contact left, so without even thinking, numb and empty, he put in a call to Louisa, and waited.
Chapter Thirty-Four
His plane took off into a clear blue sky, and it remained like that over the whole of Northern Europe. The snow that had fallen across Scandinavia the week before was still evident, the landscape of Sweden white and clearly defined. But the sea was free of ice now, suggesting this had been winter’s parting shot.
It was the same as the plane descended along the Finnish coast into Helsinki. There was still plenty of snow on the ground, but it glistened in the sunlight and he could easily imagine coming back here a week from now to find it all gone. He thought of Harry Simons, and about how depressed he would have been by the thought of the cold weather’s imminent retreat.
Once he got to the hotel, he checked into his room and called Karasek’s number. It rang a couple of times before someone answered. Finn didn’t understand the words but recognized Karasek’s voice instantly—he hadn’t anticipated that Alex might have given him Karasek’s personal cell number.
“Mr. Karasek, it’s Finn Harrington.”
There was a pause before Karasek said, “Who are you and how did you get this number?”
His accent had improved since they’d last spoken. It wasn’t the near-faultless standard of Alex’s English, but a vast improvement on where it had been.
“You know who I am, Mr. Karasek, but let’s speed things up. I got this number because Aleksandr Naumenko gave it to me. We have some matters that we need to discuss with you.”
Finn knew he wouldn’t refuse, the unease of having any dealings with Alex being tempered by the presence of an apparent middleman, a meeting certainly preferable to what might happen if he did refuse.
Once again there was a pause before he said, “Then you ought to come over, Mr. Harrington.”
“No. We meet in a neutral location and I want a private conversation, none of your guys around. How about the bar of the Hotel K?mp?”
“I’ll get back to you.” The line went dead.
It was fifteen minutes before he called back. Finn had no doubt that he’d called Perry during that time. Unless Karasek had outworn his usefulness, Perry would have warned him that Finn might well try to kill him.
“Finn Harrington.”
“The Ateljee Bar on the fourteenth floor of the Hotel Sokos Torni, two p.m. Don’t bring a gun. My men will search you and then leave us alone—we can talk of what we want.”
Finn scribbled it down and said, “I’ll see you then.”