Ratcatcher

camera’s field.

Six minutes earlier the man had relayed back that the baggage was now at the carousels according to the information board, and now the first of the passengers from Stansted began trickling down the passage, led by an exhausted young backpacker with a wan smile for her waiting parents. As the video streamed through, the Jacobin’s computer was recording it for playback later.

The voice of the man with the camera murmured through the phone link as though to himself: ‘Fifteen.’

He was keeping a tally of the passengers. Good. They were arriving in clumps now. The passenger list had numbered one hundred and seventy-four, none of the names familiar. The Jacobin examined every face, discarding each one in turn.

Then it flared, the shock of recognition, and the Jacobin watched the figure stride down the corridor and emerge into the crowd and disappear from view. The Jacobin brought up the window with the recording of the footage, rewound it and played it again at half speed, then paused it when the face was turned straight towards the camera.

A tall man, lean. Hair dark and on the long side. Clean shaven. Blue shirt, khaki chinos, duffel coat, a shoulder bag.

‘I’ve seen him,’ said the Jacobin, and gave the description. The two men in the crowd were on the audio connection and acknowledged. The Jacobin kept watching the streaming feed in case a second familiar face appeared, but the crowd dispersed and the flow stopped. The Jacobin shut down the video feed but kept the audio connection with the two men.

‘He’s been to a cash machine. Heading for the taxi rank now.’

‘He’s a professional,’ said the Jacobin. ‘Use especial discretion.’

The instruction wasn’t acknowledged. Probably there was a sneer on the man’s lips. The Jacobin leaned back in the swivel chair and stared at the ceiling.

John Purkiss. Here in Tallinn, at this point in the game.

He was going to be a problem.

Six

He identified the second tag within two minutes of boarding the bus. The initial process was one of elimination: as a rule, discount people in groups, children or obvious teenagers, very old people, and the physically disabled. The bus was crowded, but he soon filtered out everyone except the middle-aged couple he’d approached in the queue, a young woman in a short skirt engrossed in text messaging, and a short man of about forty in a fedora which he kept on his head even in the humid press of the bus. The man had squeezed on at the last minute and shuffled his rump into a tiny space on one of the seats, provoking mutters of annoyance.

Purkiss let his gaze drift over the other passengers. Through the windows the last glimmers of coral had been sucked down past the horizon and darkness had settled, and with it the cold.

The girl in the skirt pushed the bell and got off. The female half of the couple sat down in her place. Purkiss didn’t think they were the ones.

The man in the fedora murmured into a mobile phone, his voice inaudible. Purkiss let his stare settle on the man. He didn’t look up.

That was unnatural. Purkiss knew he was the tag.

After five minutes the bus stopped again and the man got off. Purkiss peered through the window after him but he strode off without looking back.

The bus pulled into what was obviously the terminus and came to a stop. Purkiss stood aside, letting others pass until he was the last person on the bus, then stepped off himself. The road bustled with shops and early evening crowds. He took a moment to locate the man he was looking for, then spotted him walking away into the town: heavy set, bull necked. Purkiss half turned. There he was, the rangy man with the cropped hair from the airport, ten paces behind, his lips moving.

Purkiss understood how they’d done it. As soon as it was clear he was taking the bus, the crop-headed man had gone to get his car and had driven here to the town gate to wait for him. In the mean time the man with the fedora had got on the bus to make sure they didn’t lose him. When he realised Purkiss had made him, he’d rung ahead and got off at a designated stop, and been replaced immediately by the bull-necked man Purkiss had seen lumber aboard and who was now disappearing ahead.

So, they knew he’d spotted the one in the fedora. Did they realise he’d identified his current tags? It was a classic box formation, one ahead and one behind, except that for it to work the person being followed shouldn’t be aware of either component.

Two followers were going to be difficult. If he could isolate one, lose him and then turn the tables and track him, it could lead him to valuable information. Throwing off two tags was possible, but usually involved breaking cover and running, which tended to make it harder to pick up the trail again afterwards. The answer was probably going to be to get behind the rear tag without appearing to be evading pursuit.

Disorientated by the complete unfamiliarity of his surroundings, Purkiss dropped back a pace, letting the bull-necked man round a corner ahead. He glanced across at a mirrored shop window and saw that his plan was going to need radical revision because the crop-headed man had changed tactics and was closing on him fast.

‘He’s made us. Both of us.’

The Jacobin stood and paced, the handset perched on the desk and switched to speakerphone. I told you, damn it. ‘What’s he doing?’

‘Trying to subvert the situation.’

They’d never get back on to Purkiss if he turned the tables. ‘Listen to me. If you lose him now we may never find him again. I want you to move in and apprehend him. Non-lethal force only.’

‘Understood.’

‘How public are you?’

‘Very.’

‘No police.’

‘Of course.’

The Jacobin stood still, breathing slowly, frustrated at the lack of visual contact.

Purkiss, gone from the Service for four years. What the hell was he doing here now?

He looked back and there was no pretence now, a direct hard stare as the crop-haired man bore down. The street was crowded but not enough that an attack would go unnoticed in a press of bodies.

Unless the man had something in his — He reacted even before the thought was fully formed as the man lunged, a fluid sweep of his arm which Purkiss sidestepped feeling like he was defending himself against a fencing sword, except that protruding from the man’s fist was no blade but a needle so tiny that it barely produced a glint. For an instant the man was off balance. Purkiss tried to swat at his back to tip him past his centre of gravity, but he sprang forward and righted himself and stepped aside. He glared at Purkiss across the pavement.

Nobody else seemed to have noticed. It was some sort of tranquilliser, Purkiss assumed, designed for quick action so that he’d go down and the man would support him, full of concern, explaining to the passersby that he was a friend. Then he would hustle him away to whatever fate was planned for him.

The man up ahead, the bull-necked one, would be either on his way back or staying put waiting for his friend to drive Purkiss towards him and so to try to keep the odds as they currently stood. Purkiss backed under the awning of a shop and elbowed open the door and stepped inside, letting the door swing shut. It was a bookshop, deeper than it was wide, not crowded but with a few customers browsing unhurriedly enough that it didn’t seem about to close. Purkiss sidled down the centre aisle, keeping his eye on the door. It opened and the crop-headed man came through. He held back, standing near the door, watching Purkiss, waiting. Again his lips were moving. Purkiss knew he was summoning his colleague. There wasn’t much time.

The fire door was down a passage on the other side of the service counter. Two women sat at the tills, one