personal privacy. But this performance of Yuri’s was designed to unnerve.
He picked them out one by one and placed them in turn on the desk in front of me. The first photograph was a shot of Finn and me boarding a train.
‘Where’s that?’ Yuri said.
‘Bourg-en-Bresse in France,’ I said.
‘What were you doing there?’
‘Finn was meeting a contact. Then we changed trains for Geneva.’
‘Who was the contact?’
‘I didn’t meet him. Or her,’ I added.
It wasn’t the start I was hoping for and Yuri made a great play of allowing an expression of deep doubt in my story to settle on his face.
The pictures came in quick succession, sometimes pausing over one for further examination and extrapolation from me. They were external shots of Finn and me, travelling, until we came to a picture of Finn, Frank and me, sitting in a cafe in Luxembourg.
‘Who’s that?’ Yuri demanded, pointing at Frank.
‘His name’s Frank. He’s in my reports.’
‘Frank what?’ Yuri said, implying I was withholding information.
‘I don’t know. I was introduced to him as Frank. If you have a picture of him, presumably you know.’
‘What’s he doing?’ Yuri snapped, ignoring me.
‘He’s a private investigator. Specialising in banking, particularly in his home town in Luxembourg. He seems to be an old contact of Finn’s. More than that. A friend. Finn admires him a great deal. There’s a bond between them.’
There were two pictures of Willy, taken perhaps on a trip to Marseilles which the three of us had gone on, but these seemed to be the only pictures they had of us together. Then we came to pictures from the day before.
They weren’t taken at the Baren Inn, but at the railway station in Basle, Finn and I embracing, saying goodbye.
‘Two lovers,’ Yuri smirked.
‘That’s the idea,’ I said and he shot me an angry look.
‘It looks real enough to me,’ he said, and laid out the four shots of our parting on the desk.
‘Then I’m pleased,’ I replied.
‘Where was Finn going after he left you?’
‘He was taking a train north to Germany. To Frankfurt.’
‘What for?’
‘To meet a contact. A German. I’ve never met him and Finn has never mentioned his name.’
The more I tried to banish it, the more the name Dieter forced its way into my mind.
‘There’s quite a lot you don’t know, isn’t there, Colonel? After God knows how long with him.’
‘It’s a long game.’
‘It certainly is. The way you’re playing it.’
‘Those were my orders.’
‘You’re taking for ever to find simple facts.’
‘There are plenty of facts in my reports,’ I said, and I felt anger rising up in me. ‘We’ve learned a lot. Without me, there’d be no Exodi.’
‘What makes you think that’s so important?’
‘Because Finn does. That’s why I’m there, isn’t it? To find out what Finn’s doing. Exodi has been Finn’s main achievement.’
‘That you know of,’ Yuri added.
And then Yuri threw one of the few remaining pictures on the desk in front of my face, just as he’d done with the others.
‘Who’s that?’ he said.
I looked at the picture with the same care I’d looked at the others, but I knew when I saw it that I could not conceal the colour draining from my face. I felt the eyes of the four men in the room boring into me. I couldn’t change the feelings I felt rising up in my eyes and throat.
‘She’s called Karin,’ I said, trying to put some strength in my voice. ‘She’s a Swiss journalist.’
‘No,’ Yuri responded triumphantly. ‘She’s called Brigitte and she works for Swiss intelligence.’
The picture showed Finn and Karin, or Brigitte, boarding another train. Finn was wearing his old oiled coat, the one whose lining had concealed the camera. He carried in his hand a holdall he’d bought the day before we left the Baren Inn. He had his arm around Karin’s shoulder and they were laughing.
‘It was taken last night just before the train departed from Basle to Frankfurt,’ Yuri said, his eyes gleaming with vicious pleasure. ‘You were right about Frankfurt at least.’
I looked blankly at Finn with the Swiss girl.
Then Yuri moved relentlessly on to Clement Naider.
‘Finn shot Naider,’ he said bluntly. ‘When did Finn meet Naider? Finn met him and extracted the Dresden file, didn’t he?’
Something in his insinuating tone gave me the tiny hope I so desperately needed. They weren’t sure- they didn’t know- that Finn had met Naider at all. It was a glimpse into their doubt or ignorance of the fact and it was vital for my own story, my fiction. If they didn’t know for sure about the meeting between Finn and Naider, then I could keep to the story Finn and I had worked out. My feelings were numb from the photograph and that played into my hand. It had the opposite effect they’d no doubt hoped for.
I told them that Finn and I had been in Geneva- which they knew anyway from my reports. I said that I had no knowledge that he had met with Naider. That I would surely have known, even if he had kept it from me. I told them that Finn couldn’t have killed Naider, as he was with me outside Geneva, on the day when it had taken place.
‘Besides,’ I said. ‘This isn’t just Finn. The British and, for all I know, the Americans and the European agencies are crawling all over Exodi by now. They know how important Exodi is to their own security. Finn is just one individual. He’s not everywhere, all of the time.’
And then Yuri leaned in towards me.
‘He shot Naider, if you say he did,’ he said. ‘You are the witness.’
‘I see,’ I said.
Ever since I had read the newspaper reports I had guessed that the Forest was attempting to frame Finn for Naider’s murder. Naider’s murder removed a traitor and would now, perhaps, remove the unwelcome investigation of Finn’s into Exodi, and send a warning, as they believed, to British intelligence. They wanted to kill both birds with one stone.
The letter the Geneva police had found no doubt implicated ‘Robinson’, as it was intended to do. But one thing I hadn’t anticipated was that they might wish to use me to bear false witness in the framing of Finn. My final job for the Forest, perhaps.
Why didn’t they murder Finn now as they’d murdered Naider and assassinated countless others? Why the need to frame Finn so elaborately? I believe, for their own reasons, they were reluctant to assassinate a British citizen who they believed worked for MI6. That was a last resort.
After nearly eight hours in this room I was allowed to leave the Lubyanka. But they had sown their seeds of doubt and discontent well. Half consciously, I had left the file Patrushev had given me on Yuri’s desk. But it was restored to me before I was able to leave. I had this file, with its supposed evidence of Finn’s ‘real’ childhood, I had the image in my mind of Finn and Karin boarding the train for Frankfurt the night before, and I had Yuri’s unmistakable suggestion that, if the circumstances arose, I would make a fine witness in the framing of Finn for Naider’s murder.
What did I feel about these revelations of Finn’s childhood and the picture of him and Karin? In my head, I knew them to be untrue. I knew that the whole purpose of the day had been to undermine my trust in Finn. The file, which I hadn’t read, would surely be one of their forgeries. The photograph of Finn and Karin technically could be a forgery.
Yuri had gathered all the pictures up off the desk after showing me this one. He had not wanted me to dwell
