“Good. I’ve seen careers destroyed by this kind of question mark, and I don’t want it happening to anyone on my watch.”
“Don’t worry, I’ll see to it.”
Ed nodded absently and walked up the corridor. It made Finn realize he’d never really been cut out for this line of work anyway. It had always been too much of a game for him, and seeing the genuine concern Perry had for his team only reinforced how reckless and immature Finn had been.
Finn took a different route home to call in on Harry, conscious at the same time that he didn’t want to pass the church again. Stray flakes of snow were falling from the overcast sky, but it didn’t look as if they’d come to anything.
When he reached Harry’s place and rang the bell, there was a weighted silence before Harry finally answered. He looked perfectly healthy, of course, and ushered Finn inside.
“It’s okay, Katerina.”
She came out of the bedroom, smiling broadly when she saw Finn. She was wearing a new sweatshirt, but Harry had done a pretty good job of matching the style of the previous one.
“Hello, Finn,” she said, shy—either around him or around the language.
“Hello, Katerina, how are you today?”
“Good. Thank you.”
Harry smiled as if he’d performed a magic trick and said, “Actually, her English is pretty good. I think she was just so shocked and afraid when you found her.” Katerina said something in Russian and Harry smiled. “And we speak too quickly.”
Finn nodded, smiling at her but saying to Harry, “So you took the day off.”
“I couldn’t leave her. She was nervous about being left on her own—understandably so at the moment. Maybe tomorrow.”
Finn glanced at Katerina. “You went out to buy her clothes.”
“While she was still asleep.” He gestured to the sofa. “I didn’t have the best of nights.”
Finn looked at the sofa, and at the pillow and folded blankets on a chair in the corner.
He pointed and said, “You should have hidden those just now.”
“Oh wow, yeah, of course.” Harry went and picked them up immediately, taking them into the bedroom. “I can’t believe I left them there.” He sounded distraught at what, after all, was an easy enough slip to make.
Katerina looked at Finn, concerned. He smiled dismissively. “It’s okay.”
“Okay,” she said.
As Harry came back in, he said, “Sorry, Finn, do you want a drink?”
“No, I’m good thanks, I’m gonna head home. But look, I think it’ll be this time next week—is that okay?”
Harry shrugged, as if the question hardly needed asking. “Yeah, don’t worry about us, we’ll be fine.”
“Okay. I’ll call again, but don’t take any more time off. Don’t do anything to raise suspicions.” He got a nod from Harry and raised his hand, saying, “Bye, Katerina.”
“Goodbye, Finn.”
Her voice had that mournful, musical quality he so often found in Russians when they spoke English—it made her seem simultaneously fragile and much wiser than her years. He wanted to say something else, offer some further reassurance, but held back, guessing he was reading too much into it, and that for all that had happened in the last few days, it was nothing more than a matter of inflection.
He made his way home, and as he opened the door to the apartment he caught the smell of meat cooking, onions, and herbs. He’d forgotten Sofi had said she’d be earlier today, that she’d cook, and the combination of the aromas and the gentle clatter filled him with calm.
He saw his summer coat hanging on the rack in the corner of the hallway. He’d dropped the gun into the pocket when he got home the night before, and he reminded himself now that he had to get rid of it. For the time being, though, he didn’t even take off his overcoat, just walked on through.
She hadn’t heard him come in, and he stood in the kitchen doorway for a moment watching her. She was in her stocking feet, wearing her beige woolen dress; he didn’t know what it was called—a sweater dress, perhaps—but he liked the way it looked, the way it hugged her curves. Her hair was pulled back into a simple ponytail, something she only did when she cooked.
There had been some tension between them this last week or so, never spilling over, never descending into blame, but it was still there, the knowledge that he’d quit, that he’d soon have no job to keep him in Tallinn. Standing there watching her, he knew they had to find a solution, because he didn’t want to be without this woman, couldn’t be without her.
Throughout his twenties, he’d feared the prospect of “settling down,” a term that had always seemed possessed of its own claustrophobic menace. He’d been in love before, but in retrospect it seemed that one small part of his psyche had always held back, counting down the days, looking to the horizon.