to cut the cord in his jacket.
Even at this distance, I felt the heat on my face.
He looked about him, found the nylon cord that could be adjusted to tighten around his waist, and began cutting. There were loud cracks as the frame of the house was attacked by the flames.
Val looked at the fire as he heard the trunk open. 'Please, Nick, this time inside the car. It's very cold in there.' It was a request rather than a demand. 'And, of course, I'd prefer your company to that of the spare tire.'
Responding to my nod, he settled in the Volvo's rear foot well giving me back the Leatherman and offering his hands. I tied them around the base of the emergency brake with the cord, where I could see them.
We drove out, leaving the fire to do what it had to do. Maybe it wasn't such a bad thing; at least there wouldn't be any evidence of me ever having been there.
There was no sign of Carpenter or anyone else as we bumped our way up to the chain gate. I left it on the ground where I found it, as a warning to Sergei. There was still a chance that he'd got away.
There'd been two Hiluxes in the hotel parking lot; maybe he'd swiped the other one. It was too late now to hope that he might get us over the border, but I still didn't want him to get caught. He was a good guy, but fuck it, I was on a new phase now, and one that had nothing to do with any of them.
I had lost, I had to accept it. Now I had to take my chances with Val.
'I'll drop you off at a train station,' I said as we headed toward Vaalimaa. 'You can deal from there.'
'Of course. My people will extricate me quite swiftly.' There was no emotion in his voice. He sounded like a Russian version of Jeeves.
'May I give you some advice?'
'Why not?'
My eyes were fixed on the road, heading for the highway past the town, seeing nothing but piled-up snow on either side of me. The wind buffeted the side of the car enough for me to have to keep adjusting the steering. It was like having a heavy arctic drive past on a highway.
'You will obviously want to leave the country quickly, Nick. May I suggest Estonia? From there you can get a flight to Europe fairly easily, or even a ferry to Germany. After what has happened at the hotel, only a fool would try to leave Helsinki by air, or cross into Sweden.' I didn't reply, just stared at the snow in the headlights.
Just over two hours later we were approaching Puistola, one of the Helsinki suburbs. Not that I could see any of it: first light wasn't for another four hours. People would soon be waking up to their cheese and meatballs and listening to the radio accounts of last night's gunfight at the O.K. Corral.
I looked for signs to the train station. The morning rush hour, if there was one, would start in an hour or two.
Pulling into the parking lot, I cut Val free of the emergency brake. He knew to stay still and wait for me to tell him when to move. He was so close to freedom, why jeopardize things now?
I got out and stood away from the car, my pistol in the pocket of my down jacket. He crawled out and we both stood in a line of frozen-over cars, in the dark, as he sorted himself out, tucking in his clothes and running his hands through his hair. Still looking ridiculous in Carpenter's snow pants and ski jacket, he clapped his gloved hands together to get some circulation going, eventually extending one of them to me. The only shaking I did was with my head; he understood why and nodded. 'Nick, thank you. You will receive your reward for releasing me. P. P. Smith. Remember the rest?'
Of course I did. My eyes were fixed on his. I considered telling him that if he was lying to me, I'd find him and kill him, but it would have been a bit like telling Genghis Khan to watch himself.
He smiled. He'd read my mind again. 'Don't worry, you will see that I am a man of my word.' He turned and walked toward the station.
I watched him crunch along in the snow, breath trailing behind him.
After about a dozen or so paces he stopped and turned. 'Nick, a request. Please do not bring a cell phone or pager with you to Kensington, or any other electronic device. It's not the way we conduct business. Again, I thank you. I promise that you won't regret any of this.'
I made sure that he was out of the way, then got back into the car.
7
Norfolk ENGLAND Friday, December 10,1999 The bedside clock burst into wake-up mode dead on seven, sounding more like a burglar alarm. As I rolled over it took me three attempts before I managed to hit the off button with my hand still inside the sleeping bag.
The instant I poked my head out I could tell the boiler had stopped working again. My house was a bit warmer than a Finnish snow hole, but not much. It was yet another thing I needed to straighten out, along with some bedding and a bed frame to go with the mattress I was lying on.
I slept in a pair of Ronhill running bottoms and sweatshirt. This wasn't the first time the boiler had broken down. I wrapped the unzipped bag around me and pushed my feet into my sneakers with the heels squashed down.
I headed downstairs, the bag dragging along the floor. I'd spent most of my life being wet, cold, and hungry for a living, so I hated doing it on my own time. This was the first place I'd ever owned, and in winter the mornings felt much the same to me as waking up in the brush in South Armagh. It wasn't supposed to work like that.
The place was in the same state as I'd left it before I went away just over two weeks ago, to RV with Sergei at the lake house, except that the tarp had blown off the hole in the roof, and the 'For Sale' sign had been flattened by the wind. If it had stayed there any longer it would have taken root anyway. There wasn't enough time to sort any of that out today. I had three vitally important meetings in London in a few hours' time, and they wouldn't wait for the boiler man.
The trip back to the U.K. had taken three days. I'd decided to find my own way rather than take Val's advice to get out of Finland via Estonia. It wasn't as if we were sharing toothbrushes or anything, so I wasn't in the mood to trust everything he had to say. I drove to Kristians and in southern Norway, and from there I took the ferry to Newcastle. It was full of Norwegian students. While they got loaded I watched Sky News on the snowy screens. There was footage of the Intercontinental, with police apparently doing a search for forensic evidence, then came pictures of the dead, among them Sergei. A Finnish government spokeswoman gave a news conference, declaring that it was the worst incident of its type their country had witnessed since the 1950s, but declining to confirm whether it was a ROC shooting, and stressing there was no connection with, or risk to, the EU conference.
As far as they were concerned, this was an unrelated matter. I made my way down the bare wooden staircase, trying not to snag the sleeping bag on the gripper tack strip that had been left behind when I'd ripped up the carpet.
The house was a disaster zone. It had been ever since I'd bought it after bringing Kelly back from the States in '97. In theory it was idyllic, up on the Norfolk coast in the middle of nowhere. There was a small corner store, and three fishing boats worked out of the tiny harbor. The highlight of the day was when the local senior citizens took the free bus to the super store eight miles away to do their big shop.
The real estate agent must have rubbed his hands when he saw me coming.
A 1930s, three-bed roomed mess of stone, just six hundred feet from the windy beach, it had been empty for several years after the previous owners had died, probably of hypothermia. The details said, 'Some renovation required, but with magnificent potential.' In other words, a shit load of work was needed. My plan was to gut the place and rebuild it. The ripping out was okay; in fact, I'd enjoyed it. But after a succession of builders had sucked through their teeth when giving me their quotes, and I'd gotten pissed off with them and decided to do it myself, I'd lost interest. So now the house was all bare boards, studwork, and entrails of wiring that I didn't understand sticking out of the walls.
Now that I was responsible for Kelly, it had seemed the right time to fulfill the fantasy of having a real home. But no sooner had I exchanged contracts than it had started to make me feel confined.
I'd called the place in Hampstead, where she was being looked after, as soon as I'd got back last night. They said she was much the same as when I'd last seen her. I was glad she was sleeping; it meant I didn't have to speak to her. I did want to, but just never knew what the fuck to say. I'd gone to see her the day before leaving for Finland. She'd seemed all right, not crying or anything, just quiet and strangely helpless.
The kitchen was in just as bad a state as the rest of the place. I'd kept the old, yellow Formica counter, circa
