Ratcatcher

released him. He raised his hands and let them turn and bundle him out the door, Klavan shouting instructions he couldn’t understand over her shoulder.

She pulled up in a mews off the main street. The Turkish restaurant next door was closed and a few people milled on the streets, on their way to or from bars. They took the stairs to the first floor. Through an unmarked door a small office suite greeted him. The main open-plan section brimmed with computer equipment, less chaotically arranged than in Abby’s basement.

‘Living Tallinn,’ she said drily.

She’d forced her way between the rows of taxis and parked right outside the club, swinging into the driver’s seat. The man with her had opened the rear door and pushed Purkiss’s head down as he clambered in, purely because that was what television had taught people to expect from police officers arresting a criminal, and got in beside him.

‘Chris Teague,’ said the man. He was late thirties, big through the shoulders like a former rugby player who’d kept in shape, fair hair short, mouth wry.

‘John Purkiss.’

‘We know.’ Of course they did; they were SIS, and Klavan would have scoured their databases till she’d matched his face.

‘You were quick.’ She’d said fifteen minutes but it had been closer to ten.

‘I happen to live round the corner. Stroke of luck.’

‘Thanks.’

‘Impersonating a police officer. That’s a first for us, wouldn’t you say?’

‘Yes,’ said Teague cheerfully.

Turning her head to address Purkiss she said, ‘I expect you’re wondering why we did it.’

‘Because you want to know what I’m doing here.’

‘Of course.’

He remembered the missed call from Vale earlier and said, ‘Hang on a moment,’ and put the phone to his ear, aware of the stinging of the laceration across his neck. The message was brief. Vale had established that Klavan was not working out of the embassy.

As if by unspoken consent they said no more on the journey. At one point a police car shot past, siren going. Clearly the body had been found in the toilet cubicle. Purkiss wondered how easy witnesses would find it to identify Klavan and Teague, given the darkness in the club. He himself was another matter: the bartender had got a good look at his face.

Another man was waiting in the office and stood as they entered. He was compact, several inches shorter than either Purkiss or Teague and perhaps in his late forties. Unlike his colleagues he was dressed in a suit, though the jacket was slung over the back of a chair and his sleeves were pushed up.

‘Mr Purkiss. Richard Rossiter.’

There was an aura about him, a sense of tightly bound anger. Up close his pale eyes were like taut meniscuses barely holding back a flood of rage. He didn’t offer his hand, just studied Purkiss’s face before waving abruptly at a chair. Purkiss sat. Teague brought him a cup of water from a cooler in the corner and he gulped it. The others took seats themselves.

Rossiter said: ‘No preamble. You, I assume, have worked out who we are. A Service cell, unofficial and operating covertly, without Embassy support. We of course know who you are. John Purkiss, Service until four years ago. We know why you left — rather, what had happened that might have prompted you to leave. You’ve left no trail since then, none that we can discern.’

There were two possibilities, Purkiss had decided. One was that they were who they said they were, and were unconnected to Fallon and looking for him themselves. The other was that they were working with Fallon, that the rescue from the nightclub had been part of a ruse. Either way, there was little point withholding his reasons for being in the city.

He glanced at Klavan, who was leaning forward, elbows resting on her knees, watching him levelly; at Teague, who sat back with his arms spread across the back of his chair and his ankle propped on his knee, expansive as Rossiter was shut in and controlled.

‘I’m here on personal business,’ he said. ‘Donal Fallon was photographed in Tallinn yesterday morning. He was released early from gaol, amnestied, and he’s gone to ground.’

In Klavan’s case it was the slightest hint of an exhalation, in Teague’s a tilting back of the head. Rossiter blinked, once. Each of them, professionals though they were, betrayed their surprise. Now that was interesting, he thought.

Rossiter said: ‘Personal business.’

‘Yes. You know why I want Fallon.’

‘You’re not Service.’

‘No. As you mentioned, I’ve left.’ He took out his phone and brought up the photo of Fallon, watching their faces as they handed it round.

‘Who took this picture?’ It was Teague, sounding amicably interested.

‘A contact of mine. I’ve kept some links going since I left.’

‘Seppo,’ said Klavan. ‘And he wasn’t there when you went to his flat.’

‘Correct. Though I did find him later. In the deep freeze, with his neck broken.’ Purkiss took the phone back and pocketed it. ‘Now. Your turn’.

Rossiter’s face worked. In a moment he said: ‘We’re here because of the summit. The Service’s Embassy presence has been stepped up, of course, but there was felt to be a need for additional covert work, given the significance of the event.’ He looked as if he wanted to stand and pace but was compressing himself into his seat. ‘And perhaps your reasons for being here and ours aren’t unconnected.’

‘No.’

Another pause, then: ‘So. In less than thirty-one hours’ time, the Russian President is going to meet his Estonian counterpart here in the city in an historic gesture of reconciliation. We have to assume Fallon plans to scupper that.’

Coffee had been passed round. Rossiter stood at the flip chart like an incongruously fierce facilitator at a corporate away day.

‘The Russian president arrives ten p.m. tomorrow at a private airfield, the whereabouts of which are unknown. There’s a formal banquet with his Estonian opposite number, then an overnight stay at the official residence in Kadriorg. A working breakfast, then at seven a.m. both parties and their entourages set off to the Soviet War Memorial on the coast road. The handshake and the speeches are to take place there at eight.’

He moved over to a laminated map on the wall. ‘The route is demarcated in red. Needless to say, we’ve gone over it countless times, looking for vantage points that might conceal a sniper. As have the local security forces. There’s very little to find. A sniper would have to be armed with something more powerful than an ordinary rifle, in any case, because the cars are armour plated.’

‘What about at the War Memorial itself?’ said Purkiss.

‘Again, not many places for a man with a gun to hide, and those there are will be heavily guarded. The crowds — and they’ll be huge — will be kept well back, with sniffer dogs deployed in case anyone’s planning to try the suicide bomb thing.’ He paused for a beat. ‘We’re assuming Fallon plans to scupper the meeting. He might try to do that by other means — a terrorist outrage elsewhere in the city, for instance — but he’ll know how much is riding on this summit, that it will go ahead anyway in defiance of any attempts to stop it, so we don’t think that’s a likely scenario.’

‘The airfield where the Russian president’s arriving?’

‘As I said — ’ an edge crept into Rossiter’s voice — ‘it’s a secret. But even if Fallon or anyone else has somehow found out where it is, the security there is likely to be impenetrable. The same goes for the banquet and the overnight accommodation.’

Elle took over. It was clear to Purkiss this discussion was one they’d had before. ‘We’re not going to work out how the attempt’s going to be made, not with the information we’ve got at present. We’d be better served focusing on the lead we do now have, Fallon, and finding him before the event.’