Final Offer

by Eva Hudson

  “That’d be helpful,” Rennie said. “I mean I understand their need for privacy, but isn’t part of the deal, the cheap rent, that they have to put up with real estate agents showing buyers around?”

  “I can ask one of our maintenance team to come round. With bolt cutters. I completely agree it’s important that you see every room.”

  “Don’t worry about it, the dimensions will be plenty. I’ll be remodeling anyways.”

  Ingrid had stopped paying attention to the footage. “Jen?”

  “Yes?”

  “Could you input something into the database for me?”

  “Sure.”

  “Could you cross-ref all the known IDs we have for the Pelicans with users of, or visitors to, websites about spiders. Especially poisonous ones.”

  “Oooh. Intriguing. Sure thing. I’ll do it later.”

  Jones stood up suddenly and jabbed the screen. “That’s it. That’s what we needed.”

  “What? What did I miss?” Ingrid said.

  Jones started pacing round the office, his heavy workman’s boots clomping loudly. “It’s not ideal.”

  “What isn’t?”

  He stopped and looked Ingrid dead in the eye. “The security guy just told your boy that—for privacy reasons—old Shevvy doesn’t have CCTV on the fourth floor. Doesn’t trust the hackers. Can’t risk images of his wife or daughters in their nighties ending up on Pornhub.”

  “He said that?” They’d only been distracted for a moment. They couldn’t have missed that much.

  “Not in so many words.”

  The conversation from Bolton Square continued to dribble out of the computer speakers.

  “How does that help you, though, if there’s no CCTV on one of the upper floors?” Ingrid asked. “The Picasso is on the second floor. I mean first floor, if you’re British.” She felt a wave of relief she wasn’t about to find herself in a disciplinary meeting explaining how the operation went wrong because the Brits insisted on calling the first floor the ground floor.

  “Well, that’s simple. You find a way of getting it onto the fourth floor, and I’ll find a way of getting it out of the building.”

  Ingrid’s head fell into her hands: this operation was getting more ridiculous every day.

  18

  Dr Ives’s teenage daughter opened the door expectantly but without a greeting. She had painted her face red and was wearing what a costume shop would label a ‘sexy devil’ outfit. Surely she was too old for trick-or-treat?

  When the girl realized the motorcyclist on the doorstep was her mother’s client and not from Domino’s, she slouched back down the hallway. Ingrid closed the door behind her and gave thanks that—however annoying Carolyn was—she wasn’t a sullen, moody teen. Or if she had been, Ingrid had missed out on those years. If anything, Carolyn was too eager, somewhere between a puppy and a cheerleader.

  Almost every day she texted Ingrid, asking for updates on her Tinder progress. Messaging all the men was time consuming enough without giving Carolyn a running commentary on how sleazy and presumptuous most straight, single men over thirty were. Except for a certain architect in Camberwell called Tim with a Kawasaki w850 and the right mix of wit, intrigue and charm, who she was probably, almost certainly, going to meet up with. She knocked on Dr Ives’s office door.

  “Come in.” Dr Ives was finishing up notes on her previous client. “Sorry, I’ll be with you in two ticks.”

  Ingrid sat down in her usual chair and placed her helmet on the floor. How fitting, she thought, I should be spending Halloween with an actual witch.

  She took her phone out, quickly checked her emails and switched it to silent. Then she went through Natalya’s phone. One message stood out. Your order is ready for collection. If she moved a few things around, she could collect it tomorrow. It wasn’t the sort of thing she wanted left lying about. She messaged back and said they were to expect her by lunchtime.

  Dr Ives cleared her throat.

  “Just switching it to silent,” Ingrid said.

  “So how have you been?” Dr Ives said, crossing her legs and pushing her glasses up onto the bridge of her nose.

  Ingrid took a moment, suppressed the desire to tell her to jump off the nearest overpass, and smiled. “Good, thanks.”

  “And how’s Natalya?”

  Always the same damn questions. “Being jerked around left right and center, but still keeping her govno together.”

  “Govno?”

  “Shit.”

  “Ah.” She smiled weakly. “And who is doing the jerking?”

  “Your paymaster and mine.”

  “The Bureau?”

  “Sure.”

  Dr Ives leaned back and tucked her graying bob behind her ear. “Then that is exactly why you’re here. To unload to me, safely and without consequence, rather than letting frustration surface when you are undercover.”

  Thank you for talking to me like a grade school teacher. “I know.” Ingrid crossed her legs, aware her body language was hostile. “The thing is, you can’t do anything about it.”

  “True. But a sounding board can be useful. Maybe there’s something you can do.”

  This was why Ingrid hated therapy as a concept: all the answers had to come from within when all she wanted was a bit of advice every now and then. The kind of perspective she might get from Cath if she wasn’t so wrapped up in her new relationship, or her old friend Natasha McKittrick if her life hadn’t gone into overdrive as the new presenter of the BBC’s Crimewatch program. Ingrid looked at the clock on the wall. Five ten. She had another fifty minutes of this. What the heck. She might as well get a few things off her chest. She took a deep breath and began.

  The first problem, she told Ives, was the utter illegality of the Bureau’s plan to lure Rybkin out of hiding. She agreed he wouldn’t be able to resist the chance to get his hands on the Picasso at a knockdown price, but Ingrid was concerned her superiors hadn’t fully considered other ways to find and prosecute the man trying to influence the US election.

  “I reported back to my bosses, Marshall here in London, though it doesn’t really have much to do with him, and Frank Usher in DC—who, for the record, is an agent I really do admire—that the plan to steal the Picasso, and I think that’s worth repeating, steal the Picasso, which was already a preposterous idea, is a whole lot more complicated than they originally envisaged—”

  “How?”

  Thrown by the interruption, Ingrid took a beat to answer. “A Beretta M9 and a GPS tracking device. I mean the chance of this thing panning out is so unlikely. But the guy we’re after, man, if we can get him, it will be the trial of the century. It’ll be the biggest collar of everyone’s careers. Rybkin is trying to steal something that belongs to every American citizen. He might not be killing babies with mustard gas in the suburbs of Aleppo, but he’s committing one of the worst crimes you ever heard of.” Ingrid knew she was ranting, but also knew Ives was paid to listen. “So, believe me, I want to get him. I want him all over the news networks, and I want the Bureau to get the credit, but—” She halted, not sure what words should come next. She fell back against the leather upholstery and exhaled. “The thing is, I’m good at what I do. I’m making progress. The intel Natalya finds out has led to three prosecutions and seven ongoing investigations.”

  “Yes?”

  Ingrid hated the feeling that was welling up inside her, the one that realized therapy could actually make a difference. “If this all goes wrong—when it does—Natalya’s over. Might as well push her off Waterloo Bridge. This is a couple of years’ work. This was going to be what I did for the next decade. I’m good at it, and you might have noticed I don’t have much else going on in my life. My career matters to me, probably more than it should. But this Picasso heist… Jeez.” Ingrid dug her fingers into her thighs. “When I told my boss about the tracker, about the sensors and the guards who are without a doubt armed, about how there is zero percent chance this is going to work, you know what he tol
d me?” Her lip snarled as she remembered Marshall’s posturing. “Figure it out. That’s what he said. Figure it out. So I’m really not feeling like the Bureau’s got my back at the moment.”

  Dr Ives let Ingrid’s anger dissipate, then said carefully, “I wonder if part of what you fear is losing your Russian identity and that, while inhabiting Natalya, you have felt closer to your mother? Perhaps what your bosses are really jeopardizing is your relationship with your mother?”

  Ingrid’s jaw fell open. She raised an eyebrow. “Really? You really think that’s what’s going on here?”

  “Do you?”

  “You want to make this about my mother? See, this is why therapy is so frustrating. I’m finally getting something out of these sessions and you want to talk about Svetlana!” She threw her hands up, grasping at the air.

  Dr Ives was implacable. “Your reaction suggests I have hit a nerve.”

  Ingrid’s fury roiled and simmered for the next forty minutes. By the time she got to soccer practice, she was in no mood to play nice. Whenever a teammate took too long on a throw-in or let the ball go out of play because she didn’t have the drive to run faster or work harder, Ingrid screamed at her in frustration.

  “Some of us are playing for fun,” Cath had to remind her.

  Still burning with rage when she got home, Ingrid pulled on her running shoes and attempted to burn off her heat with an eight-mile run round north London, taking her beyond Hampstead Heath and back again.

  Even that wasn’t enough. With sweat still dripping from her brow, she reached for the bottle of Stolichnaya in the icebox of her refrigerator. She was on her third shot when she flicked on the TV to see Natasha McKittrick. She couldn’t even be happy her best friend, a former detective inspector whose Met career had ended with a tribunal for substance misuse, had resurrected herself as the police expert on the BBC’s highest rated crime show. Ingrid shoved a knuckle between her teeth and bit down hard.

  Her need to feel pain, her urge to mete out punishment on herself, meant her hand reflexively reached for her phone. She despised herself for doing it, but the dopamine hit of the little red circle on the Tinder logo quelled the self-loathing.

  The new message was from Tim in Camberwell, just as she’d hoped. He wanted to know when they would meet. They messaged back and forth as Ingrid carried on scrolling through the available men while McKittrick burbled in the background.

  Fat. Football shirt. Kids. Neck tattoo. Left, left, left. Ingrid was about to swipe left again, but she stopped herself. Her finger made a tiny circle on the screen, causing the face beneath it to gyrate. The familiar face. Buttoned-up check shirt, hipster beard, cute smile. It was David Rennie. She dropped her phone into her lap just as it vibrated with another missive from Camberwell. Her jaw tightened. Her skin flashed with cold.

  She walked over to the fridge and pulled out the vodka. She poured herself a decent measure. Hadn’t he mentioned a wife? She took a slug. Wow, even the nice guys are cheaters. She wanted to drive her fists into his face. The alcohol lined her throat with fire and she swallowed hard.

  “Oh shit.”

  If she had seen his profile, then he had seen hers, right?

  “Oh, god. No.”

  Had he swiped right? Should she? What was the etiquette when you saw a colleague on a dating site? Ingrid slumped back on the sofa and stared at the reconstruction of a carjacking in a rainy northern town on her TV. She tapped her phone. The profile picture of Rennie was still there. She wouldn’t be offered any more men to play with until she swiped. One way or the other.

  His brief bio revealed he was thirty-eight and in London for work. Interests included woodworking, hiking and skiing. It was one of the dullest profiles she’d seen. She looked at his other photos. One of him in a puffer jacket in snow-covered mountains and another of him holding a balloon with the number 4 on it. Did he have a kid? A four-year-old he hadn’t mentioned? She drained her glass.

  Unsettled, she started pacing round her apartment. Bare floorboards, bare white walls, and bland catalog furniture supplied by the corporate letting agent. She didn’t even have a side lamp. Or a cushion. If she did ever bring a Tinder date home, he’d assume she’d just moved in and was waiting for her stuff to be delivered. But there was no stuff. Apart from the vodka in the icebox and the weights under the bed, the only thing other than clothes Ingrid possessed was a box of mementos from her childhood friend who had been murdered.

  She strode over to the glazed doors that led out onto her balcony. She needed the cold air to scour her skin and to cast out her rage into the harsh night. Ingrid reached up for the key she kept on top of the door frame. She moved her hand round. It wasn’t in its usual place. She moved her hand, tapping every few centimeters for the sensation of loose metal, eventually flicking it onto the floor. She bent down to pick it up and noticed a piece of card protruding from between the sanded floorboards. Puzzled, she retrieved it and let out a groan when she recognized it.

  It was the business card of Flossie Reynolds, an artist in Ramsgate Natalya used to create extremely convincing forgeries for her clients.

  Ingrid sank to her knees.

  What the hell was Flossie’s card doing in her apartment? There should be no blurring between Natalya’s life and hers. She shook her head as Crimewatch flickered blue light across the room. The card should not be there. She’d always been so careful. She had always made absolutely sure.

  Or thought she had. She gripped the card, the words shifting as her gaze sharpened and blurred. This should not have happened.

  She was slipping up. Fucking up. She felt sick.

  19

  Driving in four-inch heels was a skill Ingrid hadn’t taken to, but she couldn’t wear sneakers as Natalya Vesnina. The combination of an unfamiliar car—a Range Rover Vogue SE—and the tricky footwear meant she was driving like a harassed parent on the school run.

  “Govno!”

  She slammed the brakes hard, jerking the carefully wrapped package in the passenger footwell. Still, at least she’d avoided an accident while undercover and in a rental car. She’d also, she reminded herself, not killed anyone.

  Ingrid scanned the unfamiliar dashboard for the clock: it was twelve ten. She needed to be at Natalya’s Mayfair apartment by twelve thirty to take delivery of the Maleviches. The satnav told her she was nineteen minutes from her destination.

  The FBI had decided not to supply Ingrid’s undercover alter ego with her own car. They deemed the risk too great: if the oligarchs she was keeping tabs on suspected she had ulterior motives, it would be too easy to tamper with her brake fluid or leave a tracker under a wheel arch. Instead, when Natalya needed a vehicle that wasn’t a black cab, she used a discreet concierge service that arranged for a suitably expensive car to be dropped off and collected from her undercroft parking lot. The trip out to Flossie Reynold’s studio in Ramsgate required a level of secrecy that ruled out using a driver or a courier. Some jobs you had to do yourself.

  A phone rang from inside Natalya’s Hermès bag. She’d snatched it before she’d realized it wasn’t Natalya’s phone, but hers. Unknown number. She dropped it on the passenger seat and carried on driving, letting the call go to voicemail. She couldn’t answer dressed as Natalya.

  The phone rang again. She looked over. Still an unknown number.

  It rang a third time, but now the caller ID said Cath Murray. Ingrid’s instinct was to let voicemail take it, but she was all alone in a soundproof vehicle. No one to hear her. No one could interrupt. She could answer her own phone in these circumstances, couldn’t she? She tapped the green button and put it on speaker. Ingrid immediately pictured the business card poking up through her floorboards: was taking the call another sign she’d blurred her worlds?

  “Cath, hi.” It felt odd to be speaking English while wearing nail polish and earrings.

  “So you are picking up, then?”

  “Those anonymous calls were you?”

  “Yep. Sounds like you’re driv
ing.”

  “You going to arrest me? I’m using hands-free.”

  Cath didn’t reply.

  “You going to ask me to pull over? Because I’m on a tight schedule.”

  “Nah, you’re all right. Just don’t have an accident while we’re talking. Wouldn’t look good.”

  That isn’t even the half of it. Ingrid approached a junction with a road layout as preposterous as its name: Elephant and Castle. She maneuvered into the correct lane.

  “I thought I’d better check up on you,” Cath said. “You were, how can I put this, a bit agitated at football last night. Figured something was up?”

  “Oh.” What was she supposed to say?

  “Just wondered, you know, if everything was okay? I mean that goal you scored was pretty special, but it might be a week or two before Katie’s shin recovers.”

  “Was I that bad?” Ingrid asked, remembering the foul mood she’d been in when she’d left Dr Ives.

  “Let’s put it this way, I’m glad I was on your team and not the opposition. You play like that when we meet the team from Lewes in a couple of weeks, nobody will mind.”

  “Maybe I should do some kickboxing before soccer training next week. You think I upset anyone?”

  “Nah, not properly. But something’s up with you though, isn’t it?”

  You should have seen me after I got home. “Just work. You know how it is.”

  “Sure do. And talking of work, I’ve got some more for you if you’ve got time.”

  Ingrid braked for a red light, juddering the package in the footwell. “Oh yeah?”

  “Remember last night I said we’d picked up the guy who pushed Kashlikov, Rybkina’s lawyer, out the window?”

  “Of course. He started speaking yet?”

  “He’s not exactly been forthcoming, but we’ve finally got an ID for him. His fingerprints were on Europol’s system. His name is Oleg Tarlev. From Moldova.”