Ratcatcher

by Tim Stevens

  The excitement threatened to keep him further from sleep, so he went back to bed. In his mind he rehearsed the sequence of events over and over until it was smooth as a beach pebble.

  Thirteen

  Between finger and thumb Rossiter held up a SIM card.

  ‘Tracker. We exchange it for the one in her phone while we interrogate her.’

  They were back in the office. Purkiss, not by inclination an early riser, had taken his time responding to Klavan’s gentle shake at seven. His eyes felt knotted and his neck and limbs ached as if he’d slept folded into a crate. Teague had gone out for coffee and hot rolls, and on his return he offered Purkiss a selection of his clothes. Purkiss chose loose ones for running in, chinos and a shirt that was a little big across the shoulders. In the shower he flexed and rolled, trying to work the tightness out of his muscles.

  Teague and Klavan had been up early, working the Web and their phones. They’d achieved the breaks they’d wanted: they had the name of the woman in the nightclub, Lyuba Ilkun, as well as her home address. Teague had phoned the club and said he was a police officer investigating the two bogus detectives who had appeared the previous night and taken away the man suspected of leaving the body in the toilet cubicle.

  ‘That took some nerve,’ said Purkiss. ‘Hats off.’

  Klavan had checked the name of the man in the toilet cubicle, Abram Zhilin, and discovered that he’d had a military career, six years’ service in the Ground Force, the Estonian equivalent of the Army, after his compulsory national service. She’d phoned a contact of hers in the Ground Force’s records office who promised to look up Zhilin’s file once he’d got into work.

  Rossiter put the SIM card on the table. ‘Two of us do the snatch, two the interrogation.’ He looked at them in turn, pale eyes lingering on Purkiss. The anger was there still, livelier, as if sleep had rejuvenated it. ‘You and Chris do the grab. Elle’s an experienced interrogator, and a woman, which Ilkun will find disconcerting.’

  Purkiss shook his head. ‘No use my grabbing her. She’d recognise me. It’s better not to let her know for sure who’s got her, even if she suspects.’

  ‘She wouldn’t recognise you if you took her without her seeing you. There are ways, you know, using hoods.’ Rossiter voice was thin, disparaging.

  ‘No. Besides, I have to meet someone.’

  Even Klavan and Teague stared at him. Rossiter became very still.

  ‘Say again?’

  ‘An associate of mine’s arriving in the city this morning.’ He stood. ‘Oh, for goodness sake. I’m working with you but of course I’m not letting you in completely. I need insurance, some kind of backup in case things go wrong. You’d do the same.’

  ‘And when’s this… associate of yours expected?’

  ‘Late morning.’ Purkiss spread his palms. ‘You lot take the woman – I take it you can do it without my help – and I’ll meet you back here once you’ve got her and I’ve done my business.’

  Rossiter’s eyes moved, calculating; then he said, ‘Fine. And if you’re late, you won’t mind if we start without you.’

  *

  Abby’s text had arrived just after eight, minutes after the sun had come up: I’m boarding now. See you half elevenish.

  Klavan and Teague offered him a lift to the airport on their way to Lyuba Ilkun’s address and he sat in front this time. From the back Teague said, ‘Pissed him off a bit there.’

  ‘But he did understand.’

  After a silence Teague said: ‘He thinks you’re the Ratcatcher, you know.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The Ratcatcher. The outsider, tracks down Service personnel who’ve broken the rules. Emerged in the last few years.’

  ‘Never heard of him, or her.’ Purkiss shook his head. ‘See, that’s one of the reasons I’m glad I left the Service. It’s such a hermetic world you end up losing perspective. Everyone’s either with you or against you, an ally to be exploited or an enemy to be destroyed. Eventually you end up believing in fairy tales. Vast conspiracies, masked avengers smiting wrongdoers. It’s insane. You go crazy.’

  Klavan said, ‘You’ve got to admit, though, that your story’s an odd one. You turn up here on the trail of a renegade agent on the eve of an international summit. And yes, I know you have your personal reasons for wanting Fallon. But the part about this Seppo alerting you and then turning out to share a flat with Fallon... it doesn’t ring true.’ Her face in profile was amiable.

  ‘It doesn’t make sense to me either, as I’ve said. But you need my help, so you have to trust me up to a point.’

  *

  He was at the airport an hour and a half early and he used the time to carry out a complete counter-surveillance routine. He doubted the two agents would have bothered trying to keep tabs on him after dropping him off, but there was no harm in making sure. He booked a hire car at a kiosk, choosing a nondescript Toyota. Afterwards he ordered an enormous all-day breakfast at a restaurant in the arrivals hall, bearing in mind Kendrick’s military dictum that when it wasn’t clear how long it would be until your next meal, it was worth fuelling up when you could. He took his time eating, watching the boards.

  Abby came through fifteen minutes after landing, dwarfed by the rucksack and suitcase she was lugging. He made sure nobody was observing her before catching up with her at the entrance.

  ‘Hope you manage to find a fast enough connection with all this gear.’

  She smiled up at him. ‘It’s one of the most wired cities in Europe.’ Her face fell. ‘You look awful, boss. What happened to your neck?’

  ‘Nicked myself shaving.’

  He helped her with the suitcase and they found the car he’d hired. Abby had booked a room at a chain hotel near the city centre and on the way he told her as much as she needed to know: about the SIS agents, and about Fallon and what they suspected his presence in the city meant. He described Fallon as impersonally as he was able, leaving out what he had done to Claire. As far as Purkiss knew, all Abby was aware of was that he’d lost a girlfriend many years ago just before leaving the Service.

  She rummaged in her rucksack and took out a tiny object and handed it across. ‘What you asked for.’

  He took it and, still driving, glanced at it. It was the size of a pinhead, metallic with a row of minute hooks like an insect’s bristles.

  ‘Terrific.’ In turn he fished out the memory stick he’d found in Seppo’s flat. She slipped it in her pocket.

  At the hotel he offered to help her to her room but she said, ‘No, I’ll manage. Go.’

  ‘One more thing.’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘There are three of them. The agents.’

  ‘Yes, you said.’

  ‘Two of us.’

  She frowned for a second, then got it. ‘Aha. Want to even things up?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I’ll ring him and make the arrangements.’

  *

  He was on his way back into the Old Town when the phone rang. He hit the speakerphone key. ‘Yes.’

  ‘Mr Purkiss, it’s Klavan. We –’

  ‘John.’

  ‘John. We’ve got her.’

  ‘Good. I’m nearly there.’

  He parked several streets away and walked to the office. When he gave his name the door buzzed and he climbed the stairs.

  Rossiter let him in, his expression stone. Neither Teague nor Klavan was in the main area.

  ‘They’ve got her in my office.’ He jerked his head. ‘Took her two blocks from her flat.’

  ‘She resist?’

  ‘Like a cat in a sack. They’re good, though. She didn’t get hurt.’ A flicker of pride in Rossiter’s voice. Purkiss found himself liking the man for it.

  ‘How did they get her up here in broad daylight?’

  ‘There’s a side entrance down the alley.’

  Rossiter tapped on the door of his office. Teague emerged, and Rossiter went in and closed the door behind him. Teague nodded to Purkiss. />
  ‘We can watch and listen here.’

  They moved behind a broad desk where on a computer monitor the woman sat, her head hidden by a canvas hood, on a swivel chair in front of a desk. Rossiter was perched on a corner of the desk, Klavan standing on the other side of the woman. Klavan reached out and pulled off the hood, and the woman’s face worked as though the canvas had been stifling her. Her expression was hard, surly. Purkiss understood why they’d removed the hood, even though leaving it on would have had the advantage of increasing her disorientation and keeping their identities secret. Without being able to see her face they might not know if she was lying.

  Klavan spoke first, her voice slightly tinny through the speakers. She used Russian, fluent though accented.

  ‘We want information about the whereabouts of Julian Fisher, also known as Donal Fallon. We are prepared to use any means necessary to obtain this information, up to and including physical duress.’ She sounded like a flight attendant reciting the safety drill.

  The woman said nothing, sat with arms folded and feet hooked behind the castors of the chair, staring ahead.

  Klavan bent forward, hands resting on her knees, and peered into the woman’s face. ‘No? All right.’ She straightened, walked away; then half-turned.

  ‘Sorry. I didn’t make myself clear. I meant physical duress inflicted on your son.’

  Lyuba Ilkun jerked erect, arms unfolding and hands moving to grip the seat as if to push herself up. Beside her Rossiter shook his head gently and put a hand on her shoulder to stop her.

  ‘Ivan Andreyevich Ilkun. Seven, no, six years old. Lives with his grandmother because you can’t handle the responsibilities of motherhood –’

  ‘That’s a lie.’ The woman was up now and screaming. Rossiter too stood and laid a hand on her shoulder, all that was needed for the moment. Klavan faced her, hands in the pockets of her jacket.

  ‘Where is he, Lyuba? Julian. The man we call Fallon.’

  Purkiss leaned close to the monitor. The camera angle meant the woman’s eyes were slightly averted as she stared at Klavan, her voice a whisper.

  ‘For the love of God, I don’t know. He disappeared a week ago without saying. I haven’t heard from him since.’

  Klavan watched her for a moment, then turned her back and faced the door. ‘What did the two of you talk about?’

  ‘Julian and me?’ She seemed thrown by the sudden change in tack. ‘How shit life was working in that club. How, once we’d saved enough, we were going on holiday together.’ Her eyes drifted off into the corner.

  Still presenting her back to the woman, Klavan said: ‘Did he ask you about your background in the military?’

  Purkiss glanced at Teague who nodded. ‘Elle had an idea to check up on her, found she had a record. Same unit as the man who tried to garrotte you, at roughly the same time.’

  The woman was looking at Klavan’s back again. ‘No. I mentioned it to him, of course, and he asked a few polite questions, but no more than that.’

  ‘Lying,’ said Teague. Purkiss had come to the same conclusion. And he’d thought – couldn’t be sure, but had more than a notion – that she’d been lying when she’d sworn she didn’t know where Fallon was.

  It went on for half an hour, back and forth, leading and loaded questions dropped in among open ones: how long have you known Fisher – three months – did he start asking you about your military career before or after you made plans to go on holiday – I told you, he didn’t ask – what do you do when you’re not working in the bar – I’m looking for work – did Fisher ask you about the work you do away from the bar – as I’ve said, I’m not doing any other work. Throughout, Klavan’s tone was patient. Lyuba struggled to keep hers the same, exasperation creeping in when old ground was gone over. Once, Klavan alluded to her son, and again there was genuine fear in the response. Purkiss noted with interest the woman’s posture. It wasn’t hunched, defensive, the way most people’s were under interrogation, particularly if they anticipated physical violence.

  At last Klavan lifted her gaze to meet Rossiter’s and he nodded, not having said a word. He tapped Lyuba on the shoulder and motioned for her to stand. Klavan fitted the canvas hood back over her head and said, ‘Ms Ilkun, you won’t realise it but you’ve been very helpful. We’ll escort you to a place not far from your home.’

  Klavan and Rossiter led the woman out of the room. Purkiss stepped forward and adjusted the hood where it was folded at the back of her head.

  She said nothing, didn’t ask who they were or why they’d questioned her. Teague placed her phone in her hand and, with a hand on each of the woman’s forearms, he and Klavan walked her towards the fire exit.

  Rossiter watched her go, and said into the silence: ‘Not much.’

  ‘Nothing, is how I’d put it.’

  Rossiter glanced at him sharply. ‘But we didn’t expect much. The tracer’s now in her phone, though.’

  Purkiss was half listening, distracted by what his inner voice was telling him. Ilkun had sat there, almost relaxed, as though she’d been prepared for the questioning. Klavan’s mention of her son had rattled her, admittedly. But even then, she had been able to lie. Almost as if she was confident that no threat against her or her son would be carried out.

  It was as if she’d been primed. Someone had tipped her off that she was going to be interrogated, and about the line the questioning was going to take.

  Rossiter stood, his back to Purkiss, working the computer that was going to be used to track Ilkun. Purkiss watched him.

  It could only have been one of them, one of the three agents, who had primed her.

  Fourteen

  Once outside the Old Town he pulled over in an empty parking slot on a busy commercial street and sat in the car and waited for Abby’s call. It came after a couple of minutes, on the phone she’d given him.

  ‘Got it. Want to listen?’

  ‘Yes please.’

  Her voice was replaced with a burst of static which he realised was probably clothing brushing against the device. He’d slipped it under the collar of the woman’s shirt when he’d fitted the hood over her head, its location making it less likely to be discovered but meaning that audibility might be reduced. The tiny, Velcro-like hooks were designed to attach to the fibres of clothes. It was an audio-monitoring device which was simultaneously trackable in real time using GPS. Abby was relaying the audio feed from her laptop to his phone while at the same time a pulsing beacon against a street map on her laptop indicated the location of the device.

  After the static came a voice, distant but distinct: Elle Klavan’s. ‘Here’s where you get out.’ Another harsher burst of interference and now Klavan’s voice was clearer. The hood must have been taken off. ‘Know where you are?’

  ‘Yes.’ The woman Lyuba Ilkun’s voice, louder, closer by.

  The slam of a door, then footsteps and a confusion of ambient street sounds.

  Into the handset Purkiss said, ‘Abby?’

  ‘Hearing you.’ Her voice cut across the feed from the listening device.

  ‘That’s great, works a charm. Can you identify my position in relation to hers?’

  ‘Sure. Got a GPS track on your phone as well. You’re half a kilometre away. I can guide you towards her if you want.’

  ‘Not just yet. I need to make a call on the other phone. Could you mute the feed but keep my line to you open?’

  ‘Done.’

  With the other handset, the one he’d been using since buying it the previous evening, he called Klavan. She answered before the first ring had finished. ‘John?’

  ‘Just left the office. I’m going to stake out Ilkun’s flat, see if she comes back and then tail her.’ The lies flowed smoothly. ‘There’s no point relying on the substituted SIM card in her phone. She’ll be wise to that and she’ll ditch it.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘Because you treated her with kid gloves in there. I’m not saying rough stuff would have got any mo
re out of her, but it’s what she would have been expecting. Her suspicions will be up.’

  ‘I see. How did Rossiter react to your plan?’

  ‘Hopping mad, as you might imagine.’

  ‘So why are you phoning me?’

  ‘To check if Rossiter’s got a bead on the SIM card. I don’t want to stake out her place if she’s heading in the opposite direction.’

  ‘Hang on.’ Elle’s voice faded to a murmur, then came back. ‘Rossiter on the line to Teague. The signal from her phone has gone.’

  ‘As I predicted. She’s got rid of it.’ He started the engine. ‘I’ll be in touch.’

  He rang off, fitted the earpiece for the other phone and said, ‘Abby, still there?’

  ‘Right here.’

  ‘I’m on the move.’

  She began to direct him like a bizarre living satellite navigation system. He listened and took the turnings she advised. All the while he pondered the discovery he’d made: that one of the agents had tipped the woman off.

  It was at least one of them, or possibly two, but not all three; he was fairly confident of that. If they were all involved then why would they have gone through the charade of the interrogation, just for his benefit? Why not simply say they hadn’t been able to apprehend her? As to which of the three it was, he didn’t think Klavan was likely. She after all was the one who’d responded to his distress call in the nightclub, when she could have ignored it and left him to the Russians. Teague was a possibility. He’d come along for the ride with Klavan when she had rescued him from the club but might have done so to avoid making Klavan suspicious.

  Rossiter was the one he favoured. Rossiter, who’d shown hostility and suspicion towards him from the outset, who’d almost flinched when he had mentioned Fallon’s name. At the time Purkiss had assumed this was because of the ominousness of Fallon’s presence in the city at this point, but now he wondered if it was the reaction of someone who had just felt the carefully constructed edifice of a plan tremble a fraction.