Listening to Lewis’s questions, Wolfe wondered whether he took any personal interest in the dead man, who had been a member of the dominant West Indian gang in London. “That’s how it began. But he was a mechanical prodigy. If a shipment of guns came from overseas, he inspected them and returned them to working condition. A man with good hands.”
“Looks like he got more than he expected. But at least you have the guns, right?”
Wolfe did not reply. A second later, the scene manager approached, saying that Lewis was needed in the next room. Excusing himself, the pathologist gave her another smile, then headed off. Wolfe watched him go, feeling surprisingly sorry, but instead of following, she crossed to the other side of the bedroom, where a second row of windows opened onto the alley at the rear of the building.
A voice came from over her shoulder. “He must have entered the building through the back. You can’t see it from across the street. We were probably watching the whole time he was here. Rather lucky of him.”
“Maybe.” Wolfe turned to look at Powell, who was standing a few steps behind her. “Or maybe he knew the place was being watched, which means we have a leak. Rather unlucky for us.”
“I know,” Powell said. A faint odor of smoke was wafting off his clothes, and Wolfe suspected she smelled the same way. “But if our man was killed for a reason, he may be more interesting dead than alive. Nice work, by the way, on the potassium permanganate. Lewis says it was a good call. He’s a clever one himself—”
Wolfe accepted the praise, but she still smarted from before. “So what now? You’ve seen these flipping guns. This isn’t the shipment we expected. We were hoping for something big. Abakans. Kalashnikovs. I could go on.”
“I’m aware of that.” Powell removed his glasses and, in a gesture she had come to recognize, polished the lenses one at a time. “But to tell you the truth, I was never particularly interested in the guns.”
He put his glasses back on, smiling slightly, and headed out of the room. Wolfe let him go, then glanced down at their pathetic haul. Picking up the Skorpion, she hefted it expertly, then looked down its sights at the view outside. It was typical, she thought, lowering the gun again. The operation had failed, their best lead was dead, and Powell was returning to the body as if meeting an old friend.
3
From the window of the loft, which stood on the third floor of an apartment building in the Shoreditch Triangle, the flats across the street seemed like a grid of dioramas, opening onto slices of discrete lives. Most were artists’ studios with easels, racks, and shelves of books and journals. In one of the windows, a woman was sculpting something in clay, her profile outlined against the light.
Karvonen looked out at the view for a moment longer, then drew the drapes. A warm, muscled creature was pressing against his legs. He stroked its downy head, then went into the kitchen. As the cat mewed at his feet, its tail beating back and forth, he opened a can of fish and set it on the floor. Then he took a beer from the refrigerator and brought it over to his work area.
The loft in which he resided was carved out into two roomy halves, the work and living spaces separated by a tiny kitchen. The living space was divided by bookshelves into a sitting area and bedroom, while the work area included a computer with two flat-screen monitors, a pair of large printers, and, through a door at the rear of the studio, the darkroom.
Taking a seat at the computer, he brought it out of sleep mode, then opened a file. It was a shot of the models from earlier that week, taken from very close, one girl turned to face the camera, the other with her lips against her double’s throat. He dragged the window onto the larger of the two screens, then put on the music from the shoot: Rave on, John Donne, rave on, thy holy fool—
Karvonen opened his beer and got to work. At this point in his career, when he had been working as a photographer’s assistant and retoucher for many years, he did his work with fluency and skill. He knew that there were elements of the craft that could never be taught, no matter how carefully one trained. Which was also true, as it happened, of the other things he did so well.
He began with a straight print, on matte paper, at one-quarter size. Removing it from the printer, he compared it to the version on the screen, checking the image profile. On the print itself, he circled a number of areas with a grease pencil. Then he began the absorbing work of improving on reality.
Half an hour later, the shadows were sharper, the highlights more intense, giving the women a glossy, inhuman sheen. Karvonen flattened the adjustment layers, then printed a proof on cold-tone paper. He made a few more changes, using a separate curve to account for the qualities of the paper itself, then took out an uncut sheet and prepared to print the full version.
As he was printing the final proof, the bell of his flat rang. Rising, he went over to the intercom. “Yes?”
A female voice came over the speakers: “Let me in. It’s fucking freezing out here—”
Without replying, Karvonen held down a button to unlock the door downstairs. Then he went back to the printer. Removing the finished print, he hung it beside the others, securing it to the wall with refrigerator magnets.
As he stood back to regard the full portfolio, there was a knock on the door. Closing the file on his computer, he went to the door and opened it. Renata stood in the entryway. “Am I intruding?”
“Always,” Karvonen said. As she kicked off her shoes, he took her coat, his hands brushing her shoulders. Underneath, she was wearing a mannish suit with a Hermès scarf knotted carelessly at the neck. The suit was wrinkled and seamed, as if she had retrieved it from a pile on her bedroom floor.
Renata let her bag drop, then reached down and scooped up the cat, which was pushing itself against her legs. Cooing, she held it close, getting gray hairs across the front of her jacket, and went over to the desk, her eyes caught by the posted photographs. “Are these ready?”
“Yes, I just finished the last.” As Renata studied the pictures, Karvonen went into the kitchen and took a bottle of white wine from the refrigerator. He poured two glasses, then went back to the desk, handing one to Renata.
Releasing the cat, Renata took a sip, then turned away from the proofs. “Good. Send me the files by tomorrow. I’ve already shown a few shots to Dior. They’re excited, but they want to see the rest.”
She went into the living area. As Karvonen followed, he wondered whether she suspected how much he knew about her situation, and why she wanted this contract so badly. Using his own considerable resources, he had determined that Renata had gone deeply into debt since her divorce. Her air of glamour had been maintained with multiple mortgages, forcing her to consolidate her debts with an art investment fund, using her portfolio as collateral. At the moment, she owed close to half a million pounds, which, if unpaid after six months, would cost her the rights to her own work.
At her worst, Renata had grown paranoid, accusing her own staff of passing information to her creditors. More recently, her fears had eased, and there were even moments when he suspected that she welcomed her predicament. Debt was a clarifying force, editing away everything that wasn’t essential, like the retoucher’s brush. And he sometimes had the feeling that Renata, wearying of the complexities of her own life, had subconsciously courted this purification.
A bottle of wine later, the cat had been banished to the balcony, and they were in the bedroom together. Renata, her clothes in a heap on the floor, was prowling around like a tiger, stripped down to her panties and bra. “Those fuckers,” she said, her voice slurred. “I can’t believe they bailed on me like this—”
Karvonen removed a key from his pocket and unlocked the lowermost drawer of his bureau. “What did they say?”
“Nothing. They’re like a bunch of little girls.” Renata ran her fingers through her hair, taking a fistful in each hand. “So get this. Two years ago, I did a photo spread of the to
p businessmen in London. A hundred traders in suits—”
Karvonen took a small plastic bag from the drawer. “Yes, I remember that shoot.”
Renata continued to pace. “The next year, the magazine did the same thing, but with a revised list of names. Then, yesterday, they tell me they’re canceling this year’s spread. It was just too hard, they said, to explain to fund managers why they were dropped from the list. It’s fucking ridiculous for them to treat me like this. Like they don’t even know who I am—”
Karvonen laid out two lines of white powder, then said, rather slowly, “It seems to me that this might be an opening.”
Renata came over and lowered her face to the bureau, drawing her hair back. A second later, she raised her head, her fingertips fluttering before her nose. “What do you mean?”
He watched as she breathed deeply through her nostrils, then lowered her head again. “We approach a different magazine. Tell them we want to do a portfolio of the city’s top business leaders. The ones who survived the downturn. Not a group shot, but a series of portraits. Then, after we take the pictures, the magazine throws a party for everyone involved—”
“—and we sell them copies of the prints. I get it.” When Renata came up from the bureau the second time, her eyes were gleaming. “Large format, signed and numbered, five thousand pounds each—”
Karvonen stripped off his shirt and pants. He slid the bag back into the bureau, locked it, and got into bed. “Exactly. A quarter of a million right there. Round it down, and call it two hundred thousand. You see?”
Renata peeled off her panties in one quick movement and straddled him. Reaching back, she unhooked her bra, revealing her small pointed breasts, but seemed caught up in his proposal. “I even know who to ask first. Not just the rejects from this year’s list, but the traders who are still making deals. Like the guy I met last year, James Morley. He’s always had a thing for me—”
Karvonen, his hands on her slender hips, paused. “I don’t think I remember him.”
“Hey, it doesn’t matter. You just leave it up to me, kid.” Renata ran her hands across the hard surface of his chest, her fingers cool against his breastplate of skin. “God, look at you. You’re so perfect. Just a flawless piece of stone. There’s so much that I could teach you—”
Reaching out, she turned off the light. As she sank slowly onto him, he glanced over at the bureau, which was barely visible in the darkness. In the lowermost drawer, in a secret compartment, were the prints from the roll of film he had retrieved. When developed, they had turned out to consist of some documents, a few photocopied diagrams, and the names of three men.
Thinking of these names, Karvonen was struck by the coincidence of a moment ago, but he quickly dismissed it from his mind. There were more important things to consider. The armorer had been easy enough, but the next task would be more difficult. He had already begun acquiring the things he would need, including the construction gear at the back of his closet, next to the box with the gun.
Karvonen looked coldly at the woman above him, her face in shadow, and reminded himself that he had to stay focused. Much remained to be done, and his deadline was only three weeks away.
4
Wolfe began every day on her knees. Mormons were taught to pray for half an hour each morning and night, asking to be opened up to the Holy Ghost, but these days, this meant waiting uncomfortably for a voice that never came. When she was younger, God had spoken to her directly, or so she had once believed. Now the divine had passed out of her life altogether, and she was left wondering why God didn’t just come out and show himself, without all the needless mystery.
After another moment, Wolfe rose from her bedroom floor. They had put her up in a serviced flat in Vauxhall, the space scrupulously clean, almost sterile, its windows looking out onto the dirty sky. She went into the kitchen, where a lump of bread dough covered in plastic was rising on the counter, next to her wallet and keys. Wolfe slid them into her purse, then slung her laptop case over her shoulder, feeling, as usual, the absence of a gun.
Outside, moving past two wings of gray concrete and green glass, Wolfe headed for the river, pausing for a moment to regard the listless ditch of the Thames. A few seagulls were perching on the mud of the bank. At first, she had been excited by the prospect of a river view, but its sodden reality had been yet another case of this city refusing to meet her expectations.
A year ago, Powell’s call had come at a time when she was already hungering for a change. The Bureau’s glass ceiling was no worse than any other, but as in most organizations built on mentorship, it was hard for a young woman to find a sponsor. Powerful men were wary of the rumors that inevitably accompanied such relationships, and while a female patron could sometimes be found, Wolfe, who had never outgrown certain mother issues, had quietly blown several of her best chances. As a result, after a brilliant start out of Quantico, she had been stranded in an endless stream of warrants and wires. Which was why she had jumped so eagerly at Powell’s offer.
And now it had all come to nothing. Walking along the river, she tried to consider the situation as objectively as possible. In less than two months, on completion of her stint as a liaison, she was scheduled to go home. She had hoped to return with a major operation to her credit, and until yesterday she had seemed very close. Instead, she had been left with nothing but a dead armorer and a few reactivated guns, which made it all the more crucial that she find something to use now.
Powell, she knew, would want to press onward with the case, but perhaps it was best to cut their losses and make whatever arrests they could. As she continued along the river, though, Wolfe felt further from a decision than ever. And her mood was not helped by the realization, which had gradually grown over the past few months, that sooner or later she was going to leave the Church.
Her destination was only ten minutes away. Unlike the Metropolitan Police, with its ostentatious building and rotating sign, the Serious Organised Crime Agency kept a studiously low profile. The agency’s headquarters were located in an industrial office park, its three nondescript brick buildings trimmed with aluminum, with a high steel fence surrounding the campus.
Wolfe went inside, giving the guard a smile. Continuing along the concrete walk, she entered the building on the left, its interior walls painted an institutional gray, and took an elevator to the third floor. When she emerged, she found herself in a cubicle farm where rows of other officers, mostly men, were breakfasting on bacon rolls and cups of steaming tea.
Her own workstation, as always, was the neatest desk in sight. Hanging up her coat, Wolfe glanced to either side. The two chairs next to hers were empty. She paused. “Oh, no—”
From behind her came the sound of efficient footsteps. Turning, she found herself face-to-face with Maya Asthana, the officer tasked with tracing the financial side of the weapons trade. Even with glasses and a ponytail, Asthana was a knockout, and the smartest person Wolfe had met here so far, even if she could sometimes be seen flashing a greedy eye at her own engagement ring. “We’ve been wondering where you were. The briefing started ten minutes ago.”
Wolfe, dumping her things on her desk, followed Asthana across the crowded floor. “I thought it wasn’t until this afternoon.”
“Rescheduled,” Asthana said briskly. “Now that our best lead is dead and barbecued, we need to decide what to do next.”
“That’s why I’m here,” Wolfe said, wishing mostly for a cup of cocoa. With a sinking feeling, she realized that she would probably be asked to give an opinion at the briefing, but was still as undecided as ever.
They reached the conference room. Inside the windowless space, eight officers sat at a long table, with others hovering at the edges. Although several empty chairs remained, Wolfe hung back at the doorway.
At the head of the table sat Dana Cornwall, the deputy director of the intelligence directora
te. Cornwall was in her late fifties, her hair layered in silver feathers, and as one of the highest-ranking women at the agency, she was a major reason why Wolfe had asked to be assigned to this division. At her elbow lay a tabloid with a red masthead, the angle making it impossible to read.
Powell, who was seated at the deputy director’s side, glanced up at Wolfe, then continued his briefing. “Firearms have been sent to Lambeth for comparison. We’re working our way through the prints, although smears indicate that the killer wore gloves. Cameras are being checked from nearby estates, but—”
Cornwall interrupted. “So what you’re saying is that we have nothing. We don’t even know why this armorer was murdered. And until we find out who killed him, we all look like bloody idiots.”
She held up the newspaper. On the inside page Wolfe saw an image of the armorer’s garage, along with a smaller photo of the late victim, apparently taken from a police mug shot. The headline, in all capitals: YARDIE ARMORER TORCHED IN STOKE NEWINGTON.
“The case has already hit the papers,” Cornwall continued, throwing the paper down. “In half an hour, I need to explain to the Home Office how a notorious criminal and potential informant was killed right under our noses. Either we were inexcusably careless, or . . .”
Cornwall trailed off. Wolfe knew that she was reluctant to mention the possibility of a leak, although it was clearly on everyone’s mind. At last, she spoke again. “You all know that this agency is facing problems. If we don’t show results, we may not exist by the end of the year. So what do we get if we move now?”
A stocky, balding officer spoke up. This was Arnold Garber, Wolfe’s other desk mate, his sleeves rolled up past his meaty forearms. “A dozen arrests, maybe more. We can shut down the greater part of the arms trade in Dalston and Stoke Newington. If nothing else, we’d get these guns out of the hands of the Yardies—”
Asthana, who had taken a seat on the other side of the table, broke in. “But then we’re just leaving an opening for someone else. If we don’t smash the larger system, there’s no point to any of this.”
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