“The idea, Steve, is that you tell me what I need to know or I’ll drown you. It’s not torture, it’s more all or nothing than that.” Gibson looked at him, measuring the seriousness of his intent, fear taking shape behind his eyes for the first time. “Who do you answer to?”
“Ed Perry.”
That answer, delivered in haste, made immediate sense. He could imagine a hundred different reasons why Perry might have decided to come after him, not least that Finn had ruined Perry’s career as well as ending his own with a black mark against it.
“And it’s Ed Perry’s company?” Gibson gave a compliant nod. “Why have you been watching me—what’s that all about?”
“For a client.”
Finn nodded. “The client’s name?”
“I don’t know.” Finn leaned into the flow of water and splashed some of it over Gibson’s face. “Karasek.”
Perry and Karasek, still working together after all this time. Somehow, it gave Finn a little more confidence, increasing his chances from potentially suicidal to dangerous—and perhaps even beyond that, to merely foolhardy. And if he were to succeed, there wouldn’t be just satisfaction, but also a line drawn under his past, albeit a dotted one.
“And what’s the purpose of it? A two-year surveillance operation is a pretty serious commitment.”
Gibson looked confused. “But it’s only been a year.”
“Two. BGS had a woman there for a year before you.”
Gibson shook his head. “I don’t even know any women who work for BGS.”
Finn shrugged and said, “Why was I being watched?”
“I don’t know. We were only ever told on a need to know. Half the stuff your friend’s daughter intercepted was notes I’d written to myself, trying to work out what exactly was going on.”
“Had you come to any conclusions?” Gibson shook his head and Finn leaned over. Gibson flinched and then relaxed a little as Finn turned off the flow of water. “What’s the next part of the plan?”
“I don’t know that, either. First there was the hack, then the girl disappeared. Perry got rattled, told us to stand down until he decided on the next move.”
That was believable, and Finn realized that in Gibson he had someone keen to stay helpful and alive.
“Okay, you have a colleague and he gave Monsieur Grasset a business card with the name Harry Simons on it.”
“That was Perry’s idea. He said Simons was someone you betrayed.” That rankled but he let it go. “Look, if it helps, I think a lot of Perry’s determination to go after you, it was about revenge, maybe for Simons or for . . . I don’t know, something that happened between you guys in the past.”
“Was Perry here?”
“He flew out yesterday morning. I don’t know where to.”
“Where does he live?”
“He keeps a place in London, but I don’t think he’s there very much.”
“So your colleague, the one who visited Grasset—what’s his real name?”
“Liam Taylor.”
“And it was Liam who went with you to kill the boy?”
Gibson looked panicked. “What are you talking about? I’m a surveillance expert, that’s all, I don’t—”
“So you’re saying Liam did it on his own?” Gibson stared at him, wide-eyed, unable to formulate an answer. “Because I don’t believe that. Jonas—that’s the boy’s name—Jonas was tall and physically fit, so I think two people would need to be involved in faking his suicide. Liam must have been one, maybe he did most of the work, but you helped him, I’m certain of it.”
Gibson was shaking his head rapidly, recalculating everything, finally saying, “You’re gonna kill me, aren’t you?”
“Yeah, I’m gonna kill you, Steve, not least because he was a good kid, an amazing kid, but you know what, even if he’d been miserable and boring he wouldn’t have deserved that.”
“I didn’t want to. I didn’t kill him, I didn’t even want to help. I can’t stop thinking about it.” He started to cry, not out of self-pity, it seemed to Finn, but because the urgency of his own predicament had allowed him to express whatever emotions the murder had left him with. Finn felt a little sorry for him. “Please . . .” His eyes caught Finn’s and he stopped, realizing the pointlessness of it, then he panicked, kicking out, bucking his body, trying to get out of the bath, hindered by the buoyancy of the water, gently pushed back into place by Finn whenever he did make any progress.
Finn waited for him to wear himself out, then said, “Where does Liam Taylor live?”
“Why should I tell you now? You’re gonna kill me anyway.”
“That’s a good point.” He was angry with himself, for not asking for Taylor’s address before moving on to the subject of Jonas.
He thought through his options, and then he thought about the apartment he was in, about how different it seemed when compared with the apartment in Lausanne where not even a picture had been hung, and he thought about the books lining the study. Was this Taylor’s apartment, he wondered, doubting it only because the guest room had looked unlived in. “Who lives here with you, Steve?”