‘Toombs – so that’s the name of the man who came to see me in the hospital.’
‘Grey hair, dark moustache, rude manner?’
‘The same.’
‘How’s Denis?’
‘No change,’ she said, dissembling. She hadn’t called in a day.
‘Sorry to hear that. I can’t stress too much that you are both in danger. You need to leave the farm now. Send me a text if you get anything interesting and call if you need to.’
She heard him drop his phone and curse before the line went dead.
The smaller man spoke. Darko translated. They had been hired thirty-six hours before in Belgrade and told to find out if a young Arab man was staying at the farm. If he was there, they were to phone a number for further instructions. They didn’t know his name or what he looked like. They were paid well – €4,000 each. Did this include a fee for a murder? Was this a wet job? Both of them shook their heads vigorously. They were scouting things out – that was all.
Both men were now looking at her; they had judged, correctly, that their fate lay in her hands. ‘We know about Mr Oret because he employed your friends Drasko and Rajavic,’ said Anastasia.
This really surprised them, and they exchanged looks. ‘And we know that Mr Oret was killed, probably by the man who hired you.’ She waited for Darko to translate this and moved a few paces towards them. ‘Anatoly Stepurin,’ she said to the barn, ‘the big man from Cyprus, the Russian who paid you to come here and kill everyone.’
The taller of the two, whose eyebrows met in the middle, shook his head and said in English, ‘No killing, just looking.’ He pointed to his eyes with two fingers.
‘Then why bring guns?’
‘For protection.’
‘You don’t need a silencer for protection. A silencer is for killing.’
They had no answer to this. ‘Thank you for confirming that Mr Stepurin hired you. By the way, do you know who I am?’
They looked blank and shook their heads.
‘I’m the person who just saved you arses. These good people wanted to kill you and bury your bodies in the woods, where they’ll never be found.’ Darko translated and signalled his enthusiastic endorsement. ‘But, instead, some Americans are coming to talk to you. If you answer their questions, they may let you live.’
She nodded to Darko and went to the top of the yard and texted Samson. ‘You scored a bull’s eye with Anatoly,’ she wrote.
He replied, ‘Will tell US friends now. They will come by chopper within 1 hr. Make yourself scarce.’
She wrote, ‘They were going to kill N!’
‘GO NOW!’
She turned to Naji. ‘Samson says we need to leave now. I’ll get Luka up here.’
By the time the helicopter’s lights appeared from the north, they were making their way down to Pudnik, where they would take the road to the Bulgarian border.
Chapter 20
The Peacock
Sometime in the early hours, Harland’s widow, Ulrike, left an envelope containing the key to their cabin on Karu Saar – Bear Island – and a map reference at Samson’s hotel in Tallinn. She’d said nothing on the phone but simply asked where he was staying. He told her, ‘the usual place’, which was a discreet little establishment near the Maritime Museum in the old town, and under the usual name, Norbert Soltesz, a name belonging to a deceased Hungarian national. This was one of Samson’s least developed identities, but consistency was necessary and, recognising the name and face from his visits over the last two and a half years, the manager awarded him an upgrade.
At 8 a.m. he picked up the envelope and walked through the back streets, thinking about Harland. It was odd to be in Tallinn without him. He was immediately drawn to the old spy, though he was remote and as dry as dust and didn’t give a damn whether you liked him or not; he was never interested in saying what he felt, or hearing what others felt. He cherished facts and rigour, not opinion. Only later, as Harland began to trust him, did Samson see the wisdom and humour, but they were never on show, his most pronounced quality being reserve.
At the car-hire outlet in the modern suburbs Samson used the Malek identity and gave the name of another hotel – they’d never check – to acquire a fast little hatchback. He drove west for three hours through forests, huge fields sown with cereal crops and marshlands drained for agriculture that nature was reclaiming. Realising he hadn’t eaten a solid hot meal for a while, he stopped at the only roadside café he saw and ordered sausage with an onion, cabbage and potato mash that had been lightly fried. It was a dish of the cook’s own devising, she told him, and it was the paprika that made the difference. She recommended he wash it down with a particular brand of beer, which he did. He began to feel much better – Samson wasn’t good without food – and found himself in the mood for a cigarette. The cook provided one from a pack of Prima, a Russian brand, left by a couple of gentlemen two days before. He handed the red packet back and asked if there were many Russians still living in the west of Estonia. No, she said, it was just five to ten per cent now, and even less on the islands. These gentlemen were on a fishing expedition; she assumed they were from the east of the country. She told him to keep the pack, but after a moment’s hesitation he declined, paid and bade her goodbye.
The spring weather was glorious and he enjoyed being on the road. He thought about Ulrike and her manner in the short phone call of the previous evening. It hadn’t even been necessary for him to ask about the cabin. She had immediately understood what
