He had once been very tall. Even with the stoop of old age, he had a few centimetres on Samson and now looked down at him with watery blue eyes that had the playful, lunatic energy of a gun dog. His nose was long and bony; his cheeks were hollow and creased from a lifetime of manic grinning. On his scalp there was a light covering of sandy-grey hair that received no attention whatsoever. He was deeply tanned with liver spots on his hands and wrists, and on his forehead was evidence of the removal, by surgery, of at least one troubling lesion. He took Samson’s hand in an iron grip and, for a moment, his eyes stopped moving and he studied him with professional interest. Then he made a noise that was halfway between a bark and a laugh and managed to convey both pleasure and warmth.
This turned out to be Cuth Avocet, a contemporary of Robert Harland and Macy Harp’s in SIS and an early partner in Hendricks Harp, though, for one reason or another, he had found it necessary to remove himself to a ranch fifty miles from the town of Broom in Western Australia, where he’d remained for three decades, building a nature reserve and bringing up a second family. He was known as the Bird. Most people assumed that the Bird was dead, and that was the way he liked it. Looking at this SIS dinosaur, with his bush jacket, silver snake bangle, and enormous feet shod in giant-sized trainers, Samson decided he was one of the upper class’s natural killers, a man who’d blow up a bridge or slit a throat with the same ease as casting a trout line on some posh friend’s stretch of water.
Before they sat down, he told them that the police were about to arrest him and he had very little time. ‘Won’t your friend be bored by all this? It’s going to be detailed, I’m afraid,’ he said to Macy.
‘Cuth is up to speed and has some things to tell you,’ said Macy.
‘I want more on Zoe Freemantle, Macy, and no bullshit. My assumption is that she was hacking GreenState’s system. She never left the office without her laptop, always took it with her to the washroom or a meeting. It was never out of her sight. Do you know whether she had any help on the inside?’
‘No.’
‘You weren’t protecting anyone else and you’re not aware of any other part of operation Harland and Hisami?’
‘No, though I was aware that Denis and Bobby were working on a broad canvas.’
‘But you know nothing of that.’
‘No.’
‘Who was Zoe reporting to?’
‘Ultimately, Denis. But there must have been an intermediary.’
‘And you didn’t know who that was?’
Macy shook his head.
Samson didn’t believe him. ‘But we can assume,’ he continued, ‘that GreenState is the vital part of this investigation and that there was reason to believe Zoe was at increased risk, which is why I was employed. But instead of pursuing Zoe, who was, after all, working for Denis and Bobby, they twice tried to kill me. How does that make sense?’
‘I think it may simply be a mistake. Your connection with Bobby and Denis is known. When you showed up at GreenState, it was assumed that you were the person they had to fear.’
The Bird’s leg was jigging. He cleared his throat and looked at Macy mischievously. He had already got there.
‘You put me in as a decoy,’ said Samson.
‘That may have been their plan,’ said Macy, ‘but I had no idea. They assumed you could look after yourself, and it was for a very short period of time. And let’s not forget, you were being handsomely rewarded.’
‘You put me in as a bloody decoy,’ Samson repeated, only just keeping his temper, ‘and ever since I have been taking the heat. Two attempts on my life, my friend was nearly killed, and now the police and both the Bureau and the Agency are on my case, while Zoe Freemantle freely flits here and there without the slightest problem. I have to admit, it worked very well.’ He stopped and examined them both with some irritation, then, to Macy, he said, ‘Are you going to give me a drink?’ The wine he’d had with his meal had eased the pain in his leg, but it was now returning. Macy got up and poured them each a whisky, which in the Bird’s case was downed in one.
‘Then there is Naji,’ said Samson, studying Macy closely for a reaction. ‘What do you know about his involvement?’
‘The boy you chased around Macedonia? I know nothing of his involvement. Is he here, in London?’
‘He was working in the place that Zoe visited in east London. They’ve cleared it out now, but I saw him there, and that would fit with the level of sophisticated communications that GCHQ had traced coming from the area. Harland and Naji got on well. He spotted the talent and bloody well groomed him for the job.’
The Bird nodded. That evidently sounded like his old friend. A silence ensued as Samson thought. The two older men watched him. ‘Maybe,’ he said at length, ‘we’re looking at something that’s a rushed job. Maybe the person who ordered these killings was moving very rapidly because they were trying to stop something from happening. The best way of doing that was immediately killing the people they considered were the principals. Is that a fair conclusion?’
Macy nodded.
‘So,’ continued Samson, ‘they were trying to
