Final Offer

by Eva Hudson

  “Unless it’s the German police.”

  He turned to face her. “What’ll you tell them?”

  “I was going to try the truth.”

  He looked alarmed.

  “Not the real truth.” Dumbass. “I’ll say, or rather Natalya will, I’m an art broker and he contacted me about a painting I’m selling. I can give them the recording. All it says is I’ve got something he wants and for me to call him. I suggest Natalya hands it over and they move on to the next stage of their enquiry.”

  He stroked his mouth. “Well, I guess so.”

  “But I can’t not answer. They’ll dig. And there are other calls she has to make; otherwise she will generate some heat.”

  He didn’t look so sure.

  “We can reroute her phone through the Gulf, we can mask her IP address, but if she disappears, a lot of people will notice.”

  He didn’t respond.

  Ingrid rubbed her sweating palms on her grubby jeans. “Obviously, for the time being, Natalya can’t be seen—trust me, I’m not looking to join the kill list—but she needs to get back in contact with anyone who could have been the intermediary between her and Aleks Rybkin and hope one of the threads in her web reaches his brother.”

  The muffled sounds of the bull pen filled the silence as she waited for him to give her the thumbs-up.

  “And if Igor Rybkin makes contact?” he asked.

  “It won’t be the man himself, but Natalya will set up a meeting—”

  “You don’t meet anyone without backup, without me. Okay?”

  Exhale.

  “Obviously, I will liaise with you before a face-to-face.”

  He chewed the inside of his cheek. “Yeah, okay. Go ahead.”

  Ingrid stood up. “I want him. I really want him. I am going to go over everything we have on him again and, believe me, I am going to get this bastard.”

  Before she got to the door, Marshall called her back.

  “Um—”

  “Yes?”

  “You know at some point we will have to discuss your position here?”

  Ingrid gritted her teeth. She’d known that was coming. “Sure.”

  “I mean, without your UC work, we might have to talk about… redeployment.”

  “What about my Met liaison duties?”

  He pursed his lips. “We’ll take that into consideration.”

  Ingrid closed her eyes and breathed in deeply through her nose. You fucker. You always wanted to get rid of me. “Of course. That it?”

  “That’s it.”

  Furious, Ingrid left Marshall’s door open and stormed through the bull pen to the Criminal Division office she shared with Jennifer Rocharde. She glanced up at the TV screens: FBI Director Edward Leery’s face was on one of them. She was going to put Rybkin’s face on every damn screen on every channel before the year was over.

  “Hi.”

  “Oh, hi. When did you get here?”

  David Rennie had taken the spare desk next to Jen’s. “Been here since eight. Wanted to check you were all right. You get any sleep?”

  Ingrid’s heart was hammering with fury, but she sat down, breathed in and entered her password on her computer. “Not much.”

  “Not surprised. I would have stayed.”

  Ingrid didn’t know how to answer. Maybe she even blushed a little, but then Jen walked in, making them both jump. Her smile contracted the moment she saw Ingrid. “Hi. How are you?” The concern in her voice made it plain she knew about Natalya.

  “Pissed.”

  “I’m not surprised. You need anything?”

  Ingrid shook her head. “Just to get on with the case. The best link we’ve ever had to Igor Rybkin got three bullets in his back yesterday, so that means we need to pull in every other tenuous, gossamer-thin thread we’ve got.”

  “You want my help?” Jen asked.

  “You betcha.” Ingrid was fighting for her job now. If she couldn’t work as a Russian specialist anymore, she had to make sure everyone knew she could still crack a case. “Not sure what you two had planned for the next few hours, but how about we get some coffees, lock the door and comb through everything?”

  “Ooh, yes,” said Jen. “Like the old days.”

  “I’ll get the coffees,” Rennie said. “Double espresso for you, and for you, Jennifer?”

  “Skinny latte.”

  “Coming up.”

  Ingrid and Jennifer pulled out all the documents they had relating to the Rybkin investigation, and by the time Rennie came back, they were comparing printouts of two photographs.

  “Look at this,” Ingrid said.

  She laid out a traffic camera image from outside the Current Bun café in Burnham-on-Crouch next to the recently arrived CCTV image from Starbucks in Spitalfields. Rennie put down the coffees and looked over her shoulder.

  “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” Ingrid asked.

  “Is it the same guy?” Jen asked. In the traffic camera image was a man in dark trousers and a blouson jacket with a long, graying beard. “He’s a bit overweight, whereas…” She picked up the Starbucks image. “You can’t lose that much weight in two weeks, can you?”

  “Yeah, but it’s such a different angle, isn’t it,” Rennie said. “It could be the same guy. He’s just dressed smarter in the Starbucks photo. Probably in town for a meeting.”

  “You recognize him?” Ingrid asked. “Is he one of the Pelicans?”

  Rennie moved his head from side to side. “Nope, not from the file photos. He’s not on my system.”

  “So we’ve got a new hacker?”

  “Maybe.”

  The three of them stood in silence for a few moments. “You want me to send it off for facial analysis?” Jen asked.

  Ingrid smiled at her. “Like, duh.”

  30

  Ingrid ordered another vodka on the rocks. Her third. She was getting an early start on a long night. She’d spent all day cooped up in the office with Jen and Rennie, methodically reviewing every scrap of evidence they had on Operation Dovetail. When she’d reflexively reached for her phone and opened Tinder, she’d found a message from Tim the architect wondering if it had been something he’d said. She decided it was time they met. She needed the distraction.

  You busy tonight? I should apologize for standing you up the other night.

  Does this mean I finally get to buy you a drink?

  I get to buy you one.

  I’ll have a bottle of Kiwi sauvignon blanc, thanks.

  To share.

  Obvs.

  Down with the kids, me.

  He’d made her smile again, so she sent him the address of a bar to meet in. They’d exchanged enough texts about bikes for him not to be put off by the messenger gear, and she had enough scraps of makeup in a bottom drawer to make herself look presentable.

  The bar—the kind that used to be an old man’s boozer but now sold cocktails in jam jars—was a little too close to the embassy for comfort. She was out of practice: it was a dating rookie’s error, and now she was nervous about someone from work coming in. She downed the shot and gave another awkward smile to the man she’d greeted when she’d entered. She’d thought it must be Tim because he looked so familiar. She apologized, saying she was sure she knew him from somewhere, but he hadn’t spoken a word of English.

  Ingrid didn’t dare count how long it had been since she’d gone on an official date. Ralph, probably, when he was still in his cute, wide-eyed phase. He’d kept saying “This is nice,” out of nervousness. It wouldn’t be long now until his wedding. She wondered if he was still in the ‘this is nice’ phase with his fiancée. She shuddered at how wrong they’d been for each other. He had been way, way too nice for her. Another date and she’d have eaten him alive.

  “One more?” the bartender asked.

  “Sure,” she said.

  And then there had been Nick Angelis, the devil to Ralph’s angel. The bad boy with tattoos and muscles and the ego and the ridiculously good hair.
She picked up her refilled glass and raised it to Nick.

  “What’s happened to you?” she whispered. And why was I such a bitch, she added silently.

  Of all the people in her life to be ill, it seemed preposterous it would be Nick. He was like Apollo—how he would love to be compared to a Greek god—eternally tanned and toned. Except now he wasn’t, and that crushed something inside her. If it was him, then it could be anyone.

  The door opened and she turned expectantly. Two women in party dresses. Not Tim. She hoped he wouldn’t ask too many questions about her dating history. Explaining her ex-fiancé was now her boss should probably wait for a second date.

  “Ingrid?”

  She turned to see a tall, handsome man—rugged features, graying at the temples—smiling at her. He was wearing a buttoned-up lumberjack shirt, just like David Rennie. For a split second she even thought it was Rennie after a shave.

  “Tim?” She’d expected him to arrive through the main door, not the back bar. It wasn’t like her not to check the exits and entrances. That was basic training.

  “Hi.”

  “Hi.” She felt unexpectedly nervous.

  “Shall I?” He indicated the barstool next to hers.

  “Yes, of course. I, um, I believe I promised you a bottle of sauvignon blanc.”

  “I believe you did.”

  There wasn’t a New Zealand wine on this list, so they agreed on a bottle from the Loire Valley and decided the Kiwi tipple would have to be a priority on date number two. She was already hoping that there would be a second date.

  They took the wine and went to sit in a booth. Ingrid’s cheeks felt hot and she couldn’t tell if it was the vodka or the company.

  “So,” he said, “is this your local?”

  “No.” She poured them both a glass.

  “Cheers.”

  They clinked glasses.

  “Cheers. But it’s not far from work. A colleague recommended it.” If it wasn’t for Jen and her status as Ingrid’s willing but unpaid social secretary, Ingrid would have suggested meeting in a Starbucks. “I’ve not been here before.”

  “I think I might have been here about ten years ago. They didn’t have a wine list then. Would have been lucky if they’d had a house white and a house red.” He paused. “Both would have been undrinkable.”

  There was a tiny lull in the conversation, and Tim quickly picked up the baton. “So where is work?”

  “Grosvenor Square. For the time being. We’re moving.” For the first time, Ingrid wondered if she’d still be working at the embassy when they moved to the new building now redeployment was on the horizon.

  “You don’t work at the US Embassy, do you?”

  “Um.” Normally, Ingrid would be circumspect about her exact place of work, but she found herself saying yes. The vodka meant her defenses weren’t properly calibrated.

  “I did a bit of work on your new building.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes, years ago. I worked at Kieran Timberlake when they first got the gig. In Philadelphia.”

  “Well then, I will hold you personally responsible for the overruns and delays.”

  He held his hands up in submission.

  “They’re not even replacing lightbulbs at the moment because it’s not supposed to be worth it.”

  “Ah, the joys of working for the greatest democracy in the world.”

  “Is that what they’re still calling us?”

  “In air quotes.” He took a sip. “So does the election affect you much?”

  Ingrid didn’t know where to start.

  “Or is it business as usual, no matter who’s in the White House? I imagine the diplomatic corps has to be, well, diplomatic.”

  “Well, I’m not on that side of things.”

  “Oh. I assumed you were all employees of the State Department. What’s your job, then?”

  Ingrid, in a moment of recklessness brought on by frustration and alcohol, couldn’t stop herself from offering him the truth. It was fun telling Brits. They automatically thought she was smarter than Scully and tougher than Starling. “I work for the FBI.”

  She stifled a smile as his eyes and mouth expanded. She knew she was acting like a dick but couldn’t stop herself.

  “You’re kidding me?”

  And the next question will be…

  “So, are you armed?”

  Bingo.

  “No, we have to abide by the law of the land. So no gun. No handcuffs either.”

  “Not really my thing anyway.”

  By the time they’d agreed on another bottle of wine and an order of fries because they both needed to line their stomachs, Ingrid knew she was taking him home. She needed the distraction. And the architect from Camberwell was proving to be extremely distracting. If anything could take her mind off Nick and Natalya and redeployment, it was an intelligent, easygoing guy named Tim who looked like he knew his way around a bedroom. Or a kitchen. Or a bathroom floor. Tinder was a hookup app, wasn’t it?

  Their conversation skidded through parents—they’d both lost their fathers when they were ten—the belief that Brexit would somehow be reversed and whether or not Kawasakis were cooler than the Triumphs they were aping.

  “Triumphs are for posers,” he’d said at one point.

  “I ride a Thunderbird.”

  “Oh.”

  “But I didn’t choose it. It was a gift.”

  “Ex-boyfriend?”

  “Presumptuous. No, Truman Cooper, actually.”

  “The actor?”

  And because she could remember that part of the conversation, Ingrid had to guess she must have also told him she had helped the Hollywood star on a case a few years previously, which was massively indiscreet, wildly inappropriate and deeply unprofessional. She also remembered telling him about her mother winning two bronze medals at the Montreal Olympics, and no matter how many times she told that story, there wasn’t any way it didn’t sound like bragging. She wasn’t sure, however, if she’d told him Svetlana had competed for the USSR. Had she given him her entire life story?

  What could she remember about him? Nice eyes. The promise of firm pectorals under a cashmere jumper. Something about Basingstoke. Or was it Basildon? The fact he’d insisted on paying when they stopped at a burger joint for dinner, but had decided to get the food to go because there was somewhere else they had really, really wanted to be.

  She thought it was a black taxi they’d got back to her place. She could just about picture the meter ticking over, but maybe that was a memory from another time. An image of a cardboard flag dangling from a rearview mirror like an air freshener pricked her recollection. It had been a Ryde car.

  And she definitely remembered the kiss they shared in the elevator going up to her apartment. She’d glanced in the mirror and realized she’d never seen herself kiss anyone before. They looked good together.

  But after that, nothing.

  Nothing until the firefighter was standing in her bedroom doorway, yelling at her to wake up.

  31

  “There you are.”

  Ingrid looked up to see Natasha McKittrick’s face poking through the curtains surrounding her hospital bed. “Hey.”

  “You look like shit.”

  McKittrick dumped a John Lewis carrier bag on the floor, put a large paper cup of Costa coffee on the nightstand, and perched on the edge of Ingrid’s bed. “Went to John Lewis. That way you can take back anything you don’t want.”

  “You’re not too famous to go shopping, then?”

  It was the first time the two friends had seen each other in months. Ever since Natasha had been fired from the Metropolitan Police and become the new police expert on Crimewatch, she’d been in demand for speaking engagements everywhere from the University of Southampton to maximum-security prisons in Scotland.

  “I didn’t know who else to call,” Ingrid said. “I didn’t even have your number. I don’t have my phone.”

  “A DS from Maida Vale still
had me in his contacts. What the hell happened?”

  “Was hoping you’d be able to tell me.” Ingrid spoke slowly, uncertainly, as if each word was painful to get out. “You talk to anyone?”

  McKittrick nodded. “Half of all the cops won’t talk to me because of how I left the force, and the other half want me to introduce them to the producers at the BBC. Luckily for you, the lad keeping watch on the guy they pulled out of your place falls into the second category.”

  Ingrid pulled the thin blanket up over her chest, and a swirl of toxins contracted her stomach muscles, pushing vomit halfway up her throat.

  “That bad, huh?” McKittrick asked. “How much did you have?”

  Ingrid couldn’t recall.

  “This is me, remember,” McKittrick said. “Known drug addict. No shame barrier too low.”

  Ingrid pictured the night she’d put Natasha to bed and held a bucket for her. “I know I started on the vodka,” she said sheepishly.

  “Ouch. That’s how you’re supposed to end a night.” McKittrick reached over for her coffee cup and took a sip, then raised an eyebrow. “Um, d’you need to ask them for the morning-after pill?”

  Ingrid hadn’t considered that. “Oh, God, yes. Probably.” She felt even more sick now.

  McKittrick drank her coffee. She had the demeanor of someone who had done a line of coke half an hour beforehand, but Ingrid was in no position to lecture her friend about her substance misuse. “You want to put some of these clothes on?”

  Ingrid was still wearing her pajama bottoms and the sooty T-shirt she’d slept in, but she couldn’t face moving. “Not yet.”

  “Sure?”

  Ingrid didn’t move.

  “Okay. So, all I’ve been able to find out—”

  McKittrick was interrupted by the curtain being yanked back. A young man in a beige uniform wanted to know if Ingrid fancied breakfast.

  “No. Thank you,” Ingrid managed.