‘Naji, it turns out that I do need to see you,’ he said. ‘Can we meet for coffee near Imperial?’
‘No,’ Naji replied.
‘Why not?’
‘I’m on a plane. I leave now.’
‘In that I case I wonder if you could just explain why you were—’
‘I cannot. The plane is leaving now. I have to turn off the phone.’ It was true. Samson heard an announcement in the background telling passengers to do precisely that.
‘Then when can we speak?’
‘At Mr Harland’s funeral, maybe.’
‘Naji, this is serious, I need to talk to you before next week,’ he said, but Naji had gone.
He sipped his coffee, aware of the throbbing pain in his leg, and considered using one of the three shots of morphine that he’d bought in Turkey. He went to retrieve the emergency medical bag from where Jo had lain bleeding, and noted, by the by, that the kebab had gone and the stains from their blood had combined to ruin both the sofa and the Persian hand-knotted rug which had been purchased with Anastasia’s encouragement. He examined the 10mg morphine sulphate pen injector, saw that it was just shy of its expiry date but decided that, if he used it, he’d be flying for the rest of the day. He placed the little bag that he’d used to treat Jo in the rucksack.
He left messages for Macy Harp and made another call to Vuk, whose voicemail wasn’t working. He took two painkillers with the coffee and waited. A minute later, his phone lit up with an incoming call.
A cackle was followed by a burst of smoker’s cough, then finally some speech.
‘How is English pussy?’ Vuk Divjak asked, before disposing of the phlegm in a way that was all too plain.
‘Vuk, how charming. Thank you.’
‘I have sickness – like snake ’flu.’
‘Vuk, you smoke too much.’
‘No point speaking to English pussy because Vuk knew nothing about men.’
‘Okay, it’s been great to hear from you, Vuk. Shall we talk when you’re feeling better? Let’s catch up on your latest adventures in the Serbian justice system.’
‘Funny fucking English pussy – you joking with poor old Vuk Divjak.’
‘Just a little,’ said Samson. ‘But mostly I mean it.’
‘When I know zero, that was in past.’
Samson’s mind reeled. ‘Sorry, I didn’t get that one, Vuk. What are you trying to say?’
‘Not trying to say. I am saying this to you now, idiot.’
‘Okay, I’m listening.’
‘In past I know nothing. Now I am knowing everything and I am not telling Sonia Fell.’
‘MI6 have asked you about these men?’ He recalled that Vuk had come to him from the UK’s Belgrade embassy, via Sonia. It was natural for her to call him. MI6 and the CIA would be all over the Belgrade criminal community.
‘Yes, they ask me, and I did not tell them because I then know zero. Now is different. I know more than zero – a lot more than zero.’
‘So what do you know?’
‘First we talk business terms.’
‘You’re selling the information!’
‘Yes, this is my lifehood.’
‘Your livelihood! “Lifehood” isn’t a word.’
‘That’s what I say.’
‘What sort of money do you want?’
‘Ten thousand euro.’
Samson coughed. ‘Forget it, Vuk. That’s way too much.’
There was an uncharacteristic silence at the other end. ‘Okay, I sell to Sonia Fell and MI6 Pussies. This is good.’
‘MI6 won’t pay you €10,000, Vuk.’
‘Then CIA.’
‘They might do. And by the way, Vuk, I have absolutely no problem with you selling your information to either agency, so don’t think I’m going to join a bidding war for it. But I thought you liked Mr Harland and would want us to bring justice to his wife, Ulrike. And Vuk, these people have tried to kill me twice.’
Samson told him about being attacked by the Matador and Visser. ‘Look,’ he said eventually. ‘Why don’t you think about it and call me back?’
Vuk grunted and said he would be in touch.
A second conviction born in the middle of the night was that Macy Harp had been stringing him along and knew far more than he’d admitted. That was always the case with Macy, and when you called him on it he ducked and swerved and always managed to avoid telling the whole truth. This time, however, Samson would get it.
He dialled the number again. ‘We need to have a conversation, Macy, and during that conversation you will tell me exactly what the hell is going on. Everything you know.’
‘Come over later and we’ll have a chat,’ said Macy, unperturbed. ‘By the way, I’m terribly pleased to hear your voice. Sounds like a very nasty business. Well done getting through that. You did a heroic job.’
‘We were lucky,’ he said, and before hanging up, added, ‘And Macy, I really want some bloody answers.’
He moved to the steel splash plate above the stove and prised it from the wall. Beneath it were blue tiles from the old kitchen decoration, which he levered out to reveal a safe. In the past, he’d kept tens of thousands of pounds in it, but now there was an envelope containing just £5,000. Also in the safe were two sets of identities, including passports and driving licences. The passports were less use in the age of frontier biometrics but could be helpful in establishing an identity inside a country, and not every border was equipped with biometric readers. He chose the Lebanese passport for Aymen Malek, a long-standing resident of the 14th arrondissement, in Paris, and the possessor of an indefinite carte de séjour linked to an apartment block where a helpful resident forwarded his post for a fee each month. Malek had a liminal presence on professional networking sites as something in banking, a career Samson kept refreshed with posts about minor business triumphs and excruciating messages of thanks to the data, legal or marketing teams in this or that well-known bank. Malek’s tendency to sycophancy amused Samson. He stowed Malek’s passport
