village. There you can take a ride and get a train to Helsinki.’
‘And you?’ I said at last.
‘Goodbye, Anna.’
He turned and stepped into the car. It reversed over the rough ground and the dry twigs snapped under the wheels. Then I watched as he turned back towards the Russian border.
‘Goodbye,’ I said. But he had gone.
31
FINN CAUGHT THE TRAIN to Frankfurt, with or without the blonde Karin, on the night I left Switzerland for Moscow. He arrived around midnight and checked into a seedy hotel in one of the few remaining old parts of the city that hadn’t been destroyed in the war.
On the following morning, he walked down Berndtstrasse to a workman’s cafe, buying several German newspapers on the way. As I’d seen it at the Savoy Hotel, he sees the Naider story on the front page of a German paper, also with the addition of the name ‘Robinson’ that the police had released.
He read through the stories and came to the same conclusions that I had: the Forest was trying to frame him for the murder. Despite his care, there was a possibility that he, as Robinson, existed somewhere on the bank’s or hotel’s CCTV film, but it was unlikely. He knew better than to show his face to a camera.
Finn drank two black coffees and ate a stale cheese sandwich that looked as if it had been on sale from the day before. He was ordering a third coffee when the little bell that hung on the cafe door tinkled loudly and a short man entered.
He was dressed in a black donkey jacket, like a workman, but incongruously wore a green felt hat that was too large for him, so that it came down over his ears. Finn couldn’t see the man’s face completely. He wore cream- coloured loafers. The man walked slowly until he was next to Finn at the counter and, in German that was as poor as Finn’s, addressed the Turkish woman who was spooning coffee granules into a mug from an unlabelled tin.
‘I’ll have a large black coffee too,’ he said.
Finn recognised the voice and turned. He saw the neat moustache visible beneath the low hat brim.
‘What on earth are you doing in that silly hat?’ he said.
‘It seems I have a small head,’ the man said in heavily accented English. ‘At least by German standards,’ he added in the morose tone Finn knew.
‘Don’t they sell hats in Israel? You look like you’ve just arrived.’
‘Just off the flight from Tel Aviv,’ the man replied.
Finn paid for their coffees and returned to his table by the window, where a thin June light filtered in and he could see the newspapers better.
‘How did you know to find me here, Lev? Your people, the Russians, who else is following me around? Maybe you should all divvy up the cost and hire a bus.’
‘We’re better than the Russians, Finn. Luckily for you.’
They sat down at a table by the window.
‘What are you doing here, Lev? I’m not in Mossad’s bad books too, am I?’
‘Let me drink this first, for Christ’s sake.’
‘How did you know I was here?’
‘What does it matter, Finn? I’m here. And I have a message for you. From our side.’
‘Your side? Is that the same side as my side?’
‘The sooner I can be out of this damn place, the better,’ Lev said, ignoring the question.
‘Twenty years in Israel and you’ve forgotten the charms of a north German summer,’ Finn said.
Lev put his hands around the hot mug of coffee and warmed them.
‘I could do with your help, Lev.’
‘First of all, there’s nothing I can do to help you. In Tel Aviv we know all about what you’re up to. Adrian, as far as I know, doesn’t know. Yet.’
‘Long may it stay that way,’ Finn said.
‘We think the same way as you about Putin,’ Lev said. ‘We’re following the same trail. That’s why we’ve been keeping in step with you. In a few years’ time one-sixth of our population will be of Russian origin, so Russia and the Russians who come to our country are of national interest.’
‘You were Russian once, Lev.’
‘That was a long time ago. These are the new Russians,’ Lev replied. ‘They’re different from us thirty years ago.’
‘So. Why? What have you got for me?’
‘I’ve come to this damn country to give you a message, that’s all.’
‘Are you with me or against me?’
‘Could be either. It depends. I don’t know. That’s up to you, I guess. All I can say is that we’re interested in what you’re doing.’
‘Well?’
‘Someone–not us- wants you to stop your inquiries. They say they’ve gone far enough. Time to back off.’
Finn leaned back on the plastic bench and lifted the coffee to his lips.
‘I wonder who that could be,’ he said sarcastically.
‘You’re being offered ten million dollars to go away,’ Lev said.
Finn slowly put the mug down on the table. He looked in blank astonishment at his old friend. Lev was now casually engaged in stirring another spoon of sugar into his coffee. He still hadn’t removed his hat.
‘You’re kidding, Lev,’ he said. ‘Aren’t you?’
‘Like I said, it could be very helpful to you, I’d have thought,’ he said drily.
‘Who’s offering me that kind of money?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Come on! For Christ’s sake, Lev.’
‘I tell you, I don’t know. That’s the truth, Finn. I’m just the messenger. Presumably someone up high in Tel Aviv knows, General this or that, I don’t know. The message was parlayed to Tel Aviv from God knows who and I just have the job of passing it on, that’s all.’
‘Ten million dollars.’
‘I don’t know what the exchange rate is, but it seems generous, yes. Unusually generous. Whatever you’re up to from now on, I’d drop it. Take the money. Marry your Russian.’
‘The Russians really are entering the modern world,’ Finn said.
‘It looks like they’re treading carefully, I’d say,’ Lev said. ‘If it is the Russians. But whoever is offering you this kind of money is making you a decent offer. On the one hand you have this little incident in Geneva the Russians are trying to hang around your neck. On the other, you have ten million dollars. It looks like an easy choice to me. I know which one I’d take.’
‘You think so?’ Finn said. ‘If they’re offering me ten million bucks, it looks to me like they’re worried they can’t frame me for Naider’s murder.’
‘I wouldn’t risk it,’ Lev said. ‘Here’s a number where you can get me.’ He handed a card across the table with a name Finn had never heard of printed on it, and a company title underneath. ‘Don’t take too much time deciding,’ Lev says. ‘Apparently they want to know soon.’
‘The Russians?’
‘I repeat, I don’t know. My bosses in Tel Aviv tell me “they”, that’s all. Presumably you know who “they” are. If you know what you’re doing that is,’ Lev added.
‘More coffee?’ Finn said.
‘Yes, why not. It’s delicious,’ Lev replied facetiously, now apparently sunk into a permanently disenchanted alternative world where words had become the opposite of their meaning.
Finn got up and went to the counter and got himself a glass of water and a coffee for Lev. When he returned to the table, Lev leaned across to him.
