Ratcatcher

by Tim Stevens

  In the next picture Purkiss, whose head was now turned slightly to the left, was looking at a human figure in the sparse trees over to his left, a black-clad man with a rifle gripped in his hands, not Kendrick. In the corner of his vision was Abby’s small figure.

  In the third picture the man among the trees had lifted the rifle and was taking aim at a point off to Purkiss’s left, while a second man beside him held a pistol in a two-handed grip and aimed in the same direction. Still on the periphery of Purkiss’s visual field, Abby’s leg was extended behind her in the first thrust of a running movement.

  Picture number four: Purkiss was in the middle of a lunge towards the trees and the men among the trees were larger and one, the man with the handgun, was facing Purkiss, his mouth an O of surprise and anger, his gun arm lagging and still pointed away. In the left corner of the visual field Abby was several yards further with her run. On the right, one of the two gunmen towards whom Purkiss had been walking was airborne, diving towards him at an angle to head him off.

  In the fifth picture, Purkiss was half-turned towards the man diving from his right, his fist inches past the man’s jaw. The man’s head was snapped sideways, while among the trees the men were looking back in Abby’s direction.

  In the sixth picture Purkiss was almost at the trees. The man with the rifle was ducking and looking askance at the other man, the one with the handgun in the two-handed grip, whose head was shearing in a fan of blood and bone.

  In the seventh picture Purkiss was on the ground, felled, and looking with his head to one side along the expanse of lawn and path away from the tower. Far on the edge of the pool of light was Kendrick, tiny and beetly at this distance, his mouth stretched wide, the flash from his gun’s muzzle a bright star above his hands.

  In the eighth picture Purkiss, still on the ground, saw beyond the towering forest of lawn grass Abby’s shape suspended in the air, legs buckled and hands still trussed behind her.

  In the ninth and final picture: the same landscape of grass blades made huge by nearness, but no people.

  No Abby.

  *

  The Jacobin wanted to seize him by the lapels.

  ‘What are you doing?’

  Kuznetsov ignored him, shouted an order. Two of the men, running at a crouch, moved in, the others provising covering fire.

  ‘Shoot him there.’

  Again Kuznetsov ignored him. The Jacobin backed away several steps around the curve of the tower, away from the crashing of the guns, the screaming. He kept his eyes on the tableau. Elle was out of sight, having retreated over the crest of the hill, driven back by the barrage of gunfire. The man, Purkiss’s other friend, was somewhere over to the right, lost in the trees. The Jacobin had seen the man’s shot take down Kuznetsov’s man, had watched the concentrated fire sent in return.

  The girl, Abby, had been lifted impossibly high into the air by the burst from Kuznetsov’s man’s rifle, so high that a ripple of awe, of disbelief, had spread among even these battle-hardened men. The sound of her body hitting the ground had been audible even through the gunfire and the rain. She hadn’t moved after that.

  The rifleman had shown himself too soon. Yes, the girl had had to die, they’d agreed on that. She couldn’t be allowed to reveal what she knew, had seemed to be trying to pass the information on to Purkiss himself when she passed him during the exchange. But if they’d waited until they had Purkiss, they could have taken her out with ease, then dealt with Elle and Purkiss’s other sidekick at their leisure. Instead, Elle had shouted a warning, having seen the rifle emerge from the trees. Purkiss had tried heroics, had managed to knock down one of the gunmen.

  They should have shot him where he lay. What was to be gained by taking him prisoner? The Jacobin stared at Kuznetsov’s back, thinking of Churchill’s description of Russia: a riddle wrapped inside an enigma.

  *

  The roaring in his ears continued, even when he closed his mouth. He realised it wasn’t him but the aftershock of the gunfire. He tried to move his arms, but they were pinioned behind him, something slicing into his flesh. He couldn’t move his legs because he was kneeling with his torso forced down over his lap and a gun muzzle at the back of his neck. His back hurt from the blow that had dropped him.

  He raised his head just enough to see the dark shape on the grass.

  Abby, gone. Failed. But, worse than that, gone.

  From above and behind him he heard a voice, one steeled with authority: ‘Forget them. Let’s go.’

  Men swarmed back across the lawns and the paths, one or two walking backwards with their guns trained into the distance. The ones who reached Abby’s body stepped around it, ignoring it.

  They were going to leave her there for the dogs and the rats.

  Hands jerked him to his feet. He registered a face in front of him, dimly familiar as the bull-necked man who’d stalked him on the streets and in the night club. The man was laughing, his mouth a grotesque gargoyle’s rictus in the harsh rainy lamplight.

  From a place deep within him that he’d never be able to find if he looked for it, Purkiss summoned something terrible and brought his forehead hammering into the laughing maw.

  The blows came, then, to face and belly and the backs of his legs. On his knees once more he continued fighting, shaking his head like a dog resisting a collar so that one man had to brace a knee in the small of his back while another two gripped his head to keep it still. Yet another man pulled the canvas hood over it.

  Darkness. A last shattering blow full into his face made the roaring stop as well.

  Thirty-One

  Venedikt sat in the front passenger seat, Leok driving. He watched the sparse night traffic dwindling as the city receded and they wove through the slumbering fields and flatlands to the west. Full sunrise was nearly four hours away. Even the first flames of light would not light the horizon for another three. Behind his car was another with Dobrynin and two of his men. In front, the nondescript van with the windowless rear compartment, containing four armed men and their prize. Venedikt’s prize.

  It was a risk. A calculated one, but a risk nevertheless. The Englishman had stood back, watching silently, saying nothing after his initial protests. Venedikt did not need to explain himself to anyone, least of all a turncoat Angli. But he understood the Englishman’s puzzlement and frustration. Perhaps it would have been better to have offered a reason for keeping Purkiss alive. Venedikt assumed the reason would be guessed: Purkiss had killed or left dead in his wake six of Venedikt’s men, and would be made to pay the price for this before he himself was dispatched.

  The risk was that the Englishman would work out Venedikt’s true intentions. Venedikt thought this unlikely. Even if by some leap of the imagination the Englishman did make the connection, what would he do with the knowledge? Inform the police? Venedikt despised the Englishman – knew his feelings were reciprocated – but had always had a good nose for commitment in another person, and had noticed this quality in the Englishman in abundance. Also, if Kuznetsov went down, the Englishman knew he would go down with him.

  The car’s heater needed to be on because of the cold, but the air was stuffy. Venedikt pressed the button to lower the window on his side, breathed deeply through his nose, savouring the bright aromas of wet fields and woodsmoke. A year of planning, then the frustration of major complications in the last two days. But here he was, six hours from his goal, the path ahead cleared.

  He was going to pull it off.

  *

  The Jacobin let himself into the flat, pulled up one of the chairs around the dining table. He preferred it over the armchairs: they were too low and rising from them would be difficult before long. He needed rest, badly, and sleep, but could afford neither. The usual stroll through the night-time streets was of course out of the question now.

  He made the necessary phone call, then folded the handset away, surprised at how difficult he had found the exchange. It must be the tiredness. Sentimentality, emotional weakn
ess in general, always showed through like a garish undercoat when the outer layers got rubbed thin by fatigue. It wasn’t a matter to dwell on because he needed to think about what to do about the Russian.

  Up until the Jacobin had impersonated Fallon’s voice on the phone to Purkiss, he’d considered the far-fetched notion that Purkiss was somehow in league with Fallon, that his stated pursuit of the man was a smokescreen of some kind. But Purkiss’s reaction to hearing “Fallon”‘s voice – immediate, unquestioning hatred – convinced the Jacobin. Purkiss was hunting the man, wanted him as badly as he said. This validated the Jacobin’s earlier plan, told him he’d been right to play Purkiss along in the hope that he’d find Fallon. But he’d failed, and now he, Purkiss, was in Kuznetsov’s hands.

  Had Kuznetsov killed Fallon? Tortured him, gone too far and lost him, and now taken Purkiss as a replacement? But why torture either man, unless out of wanton cruelty, something the Jacobin thought unlikely? Perhaps Kuznetsov entertained delusions about being a spymaster, and had decided to kick off his career by beating as much information as he could about the British SIS out of two of its former agents. Again, possible, but implausible.

  The problem was, the Jacobin had no idea where Kuznetsov had taken Purkiss, where the new base was. Kuznetsov had mentioned earlier during the planning stages of the operation that there was a second base, as an alternative should the farm be compromised, but he’d kept quiet about its location and the Jacobin hadn’t pressed him, assuming the farm would remain secure. With hindsight it had been a mistake. He had tried phoning Kuznetsov earlier, just before reaching the flat. The number was no longer in service. Kuznetsov was cutting all ties, getting rid of his phone so that he couldn’t be tracked.

  The Jacobin rose uncomfortably from the chair and went into the bathroom and splashed water on his face, then filled a tooth glass and drank. In the bath the body looked cramped, its face turned downward so that only a quarter was visible. There would be plenty of time to move it later on, after eight o’clock had come and gone.

  He stood at the sink, finishing the water, gazing at the huddled mass, and was reminded of the much smaller crumpled figure of the girl on the lawn. In mid-swallow the thought struck him.

  Purkiss had gone into the exchange knowing there was no escape for him, that if he wasn’t killed immediately he’d be taken captive. In which case, what precautions had he taken to allow his colleagues to track his whereabouts after his capture?

  The Jacobin put down the glass, took out his phone.

  *

  Down the steps he was shoved, vertigo and the lack of visual cues making them seem steeper than they really were. His shoulders bashed off the walls. At the bottom he finally lost his balance and tipped forwards, unable to use his trussed hands to break his fall, colliding face-first with something wooden – a door, he guessed – that was like yet another punch to his swollen nose and lips, sending a surge of pain all the way through his head to the back of his neck.

  Hands steadied Purkiss and he heard the faint whine of hinges and another shove propelled him into a wider space, judging by the slight echo. He regained his footing and stood and a heavy scrape behind him was followed by the jarring of some hefty object against the backs of his knees and now the hands were on his shoulders pressing him down on to the chair and he felt something like plastic cord being lashed around his torso and binding him to the back of the seat. He drew a deep breath, held it as long as he could, inflating his chest so the cords would be looser when he exhaled, trying to ignore the screaming of his bruised and cracked ribs.

  The hood was pulled off abruptly, the scab gumming the wet stiff khaki to his nose torn away. The sudden return of vision after an hour or more of varying shades of darkness was shocking as a car crash. To turn his head hurt too much, but he was aware of three men surrounding him. One of them squatted before him and brought hot sour breath close to his face. It was the bull-necked man he’d headbutted earlier, his rotten teeth bent and bloodied in his mouth. The man stared into his eyes for a long minute, then hawked and spat blackly into one of them before Purkiss could blink.

  The man stood and looked down at him and Purkiss prepared himself for the beating to start again, but the man muttered something Purkiss didn’t catch and he and the other two went through the door to Purkiss’s left and closed it. He heard a key being turned in a lock and their footsteps echoing rapidly up the steps. He squeezed his eye, trying to force out as much of the phlegm and blood as he could, blinked several times and peered around.

  It was a basement, almost exactly square, the grey walls plastered but unpainted Two strips of blue-yellow fluorescent lighting in the ceiling provided illumination. The only exit was the door he’d been pushed through. There were no windows or skylights. Purkiss was secured to a chair with plastic flex around his torso from chest to hips. His hands remained fastened separately behind his back. The chair was a solid steel one of the sort used in prisons and secure psychiatric units, too heavy to be picked up and used as a projectile.

  The three men had left, but he wasn’t alone.

  Sitting opposite him, ten feet away on a similar chair, was a man, shorter and slighter than Purkiss, his head lowered but his eyes watching him.

  The pain in Purkiss’s face, the stabs of his ribs with each respiration, the ache throbbing at his kidneys, all faded like a radio signal being tuned out. All sensations, not just sight and sound but those of smell and touch and even taste, seemed focused of their own accord on the man in the chair.

  Purkiss had taken a kick to his throat but the word emerged clearly enough, the harshness due to reasons other than injury.

  ‘Fallon.’

  Thirty-Two

  The laptop was where he’d left it, in the back of the car, and the Jacobin took his time ascending the stairs back up to the flat. He opened the computer on the dining table and typed in the wi-fi key. In a few seconds the internet connection was established.

  The girl, Abby, hadn’t had time to shut down the sites she’d been connected to when he’d surprised her in the hotel room. They sprang up in a series of windows: Google Earth, which he closed, and another, a GPS tracking site which informed him that the session had expired and inviting him to log in again. He chose this option and was immediately prompted for a user name and password. The user name was already filled in: Abbyholt53.

  He sat, elbows on the table and hands folded at his lips, chin propped on his thumbs. He knew nothing about the dead girl, hadn’t the faintest idea what she might use as a password.

  Before taking her from the hotel room – he’d marched her straight past the reception desk and she’d been calm about it, possibly because of the knife at her back – the Jacobin had grabbed her rucksack as well as the laptop. Now he emptied the rucksack on to the table. Computer disks, an MP3 player with headphones, toiletries which she hadn’t got around to unpacking, a wallet.

  He gutted the wallet swiftly. Banknotes and loose change, British and Estonian. Credit and debit cards, one each. A clutch of photographs in plastic windows: two people he took to be her parents.

  And one of Purkiss, a clear shot of his face even though he wasn’t looking at the camera, didn’t even seem aware he was being photographed.

  The Jacobin frowned at it, then put the wallet aside and pulled the laptop back in front of him and in the space marked password he typed purkiss and hit enter.

  Password incorrect.

  He typed johnpurkiss.

  For a moment the screen went blank. Then a telephone number appeared, and beside it the words: signal lost.

  He sat back. So, he had access, but no signal, which meant that either Purkiss hadn’t taken along his phone, or Kuznetsov had taken it from him and destroyed it.

  The Jacobin kept the laptop open on the off chance that the situation changed.

  *

  Fallon remained motionless, continuing to watch Purkiss from beneath a lowered brow.

  Purkiss had wondered what his reaction would
be, seeing him for the first time. Would he feel overwhelming fury, be swamped by grief? But all he found himself thinking was, it wasn’t him on the phone.

  There was nothing to say as an opening gambit that wouldn’t sound hopelessly melodramatic, so Purkiss said nothing. The silence was boken only by his breathing, harsh and loud through his swollen throat, by intermittent far-off bangs and echoes, and the faint buzzing of the fluorescent strips.

  In the end it was Fallon who spoke first. ‘What time is it?’

  The voice… Last heard in the courtroom, where he’d barely spoken, it now caused time to telescope so that to Purkiss days rather than years had passed since they’d last encountered each other.

  All he was able to reply was, ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘No, of course not. I mean, what time was it when you last looked, and how long ago was that, do you think?’

  There was something off about the voice now that he’d spoken for longer, a mushiness in the sibilants, and in a moment Purkiss got it. Several of the man’s teeth were missing. Without stopping to wonder why he was answering in so conversational a way, Purkiss said, ‘Four o’clock, and it was about an hour ago, I’d say.’

  ‘Four o’clock in the afternoon?’

  ‘The morning.’

  ‘Jesus.’

  When they’d been friends, Fallon and Claire and Purkiss, Fallon had used to pronounce the word with a deliberately exaggerated Irishness – Jaysis – for comical effect, but he didn’t now. It came out quiet, heartfelt.

  ‘How long have you been here?’

  ‘I’ve no idea.’

  Fallon was lashed to the chair just as Purkiss was to his, if anything more securely so, his legs bound one to each chair leg. He wore an open-necked shirt filthy with old dried blood. The whites of his eyes were webbed red and a cut beneath one eye gaped stickily. His nose appeared intact, but his lower lip was a swollen wedge of meat.