‘Where did these come from?’ asked Jones.
‘Mayfair Ladies, a message group that operates in my street. The casino across the way from my place uploaded them to the group.’ He laid the phone on the bedside table. ‘Both these men tried to kill me in the last few days, so the idea that I exercised unreasonable force when confronted with Visser in my own home is simply stupid.’ He touched his leg. ‘If the knife had entered a little to the left, I wouldn’t be here.’
‘We take your point,’ said Jones.
‘So, unless there’s something else, I am going to pick some things up at my flat, because while this character is at liberty, I obviously can’t live there.’
‘It’s a crime scene,’ chirped Taylor.
‘I’m sure you have everything you need by now,’ said Samson. He stood up and reached for the cane the hospital had provided. He didn’t propose to use it for long, but when he put pressure on his foot the pain in his thigh was considerable. He bent down to get his bag. ‘There’s one other thing, which you should be aware of,’ he said, his face popping up. ‘Visser’s phone may be the crucial lead in several investigations worldwide. You should give it to the security services – they’ll know what to do with it, even if you don’t.’
Samson made his usual exit from an interview, which is to say that he rose and walked out before he was told he could go. And, as usual, they didn’t try to stop him.
Chapter 14
Sex, Venice and a Bullet
The door of his flat was open and police tape was stretched across it. He lifted the tape and walked in. A member of the forensic team in a white suit was packing up equipment in the sitting room. She looked embarrassed and called out. Two men, neither of whom were dressed in overalls, nor looked very much like forensic officers, emerged from a spare bedroom, where Samson kept personal accounts and some family records. They had the smell of MI5.
‘What are you doing in there?’ he demanded. ‘Everything happened out here, as you damn well know.’
‘We have to make sure that we haven’t missed anything, sir,’ replied one.
‘Well, now you’ve checked, you can get the hell out.’
‘This is a crime scene, sir.’
The forensic officer looked away. She wasn’t having anything to do with them.
‘I think you’d better leave before you embarrass yourselves,’ said Samson, perching on a kitchen stool. ‘You know no more about forensics than I do. No suits, no gloves, no shoe covers. Out!’
He shook his head and glanced at the woman.
‘We’re all done here, sir,’ she said to him, with a tiny note of solidarity.
When they’d left, he checked over the rooms at the back of the flat and noticed one or two things out of place but nothing seriously wrong. MI5 were on a fishing expedition. He went to his bedroom and worked quickly, packing clothes he’d need for the next two weeks, which included a dark blue suit and tie, a new pair of hiking shoes, T-shirts, jeans, shirts and a sweater. All this was compressed with skill into a medium-sized bag, which airlines sometimes let him carry on with a rucksack. He was proud of his technique for folding a lightweight, tailored suit, which emerged more or less wearable, and to this he added a slender pair of black brogues, made for him at a time when he had money and cared more about these things than he did now. Into the bag’s side pockets he placed the Zeiss binoculars he’d used at the Junction, a head torch and a multi-purpose tool.
He went to the wardrobe and unhooked the leather jacket, his companion in Syria, the Balkans and on the Russian border, where he had been shot, damaging the jacket. This had necessitated a repair by a leather workshop in Brick Lane, which had finally returned the jacket three weeks ago. Samson felt its weight and smiled to himself. The patches where the bullet had entered his shoulder, passed through his body, ripping a much larger hole before slicing into Anastasia’s arm, were coloured and aged to match the rest of the jacket and were virtually invisible. He couldn’t help but remember the remark made by one of them – he didn’t recall whether it was him or Anastasia – to the effect that the only things they had in common were Venice, sex and a bullet. As they watched a figure make his way across the beach in front of Harland’s seaside cottage in Estonia nearly three years before, they had realised there was something else they shared – a profound affection for Naji Touma, whom she’d first encountered in a refugee camp on the Greek island of Lesbos.
He took everything and dumped it at the base of the kitchen island, turned on the coffee machine to make an espresso, then thought for a few moments before calling Naji. There was no point in confronting him with his discovery in a phone call, although he urgently needed to find out what Naji was
