Final Offer

by Eva Hudson

  She sat on the end of the bed and dropped his backpack on the floor. A half smile curled Ingrid’s lips as she looked at the tidy piles of books: they were his doing, not the chambermaids’. She had a hunch that if she opened a drawer, she’d find neat ranks of folded plaid shirts worthy of a Gap ‘employee of the month’ award.

  Exhausted, her thoughts drifted. Was his neatness the cause of his divorce? Was an appealing characteristic in a roommate a nightmare in a partner? Maybe his obsession with numbers made him impossible to live with, always insisting on having even numbers of forks in the drawer or cans of cola in the fridge. She would never know. She would never get to be his work wife and find out the whys and wherefores of David Rennie from Omaha.

  A low moan emanated from somewhere deep inside her. He was just here, she thought. Right here. Only a few hours ago. Her head started to spin, the vertigo of grief, as her brain wrestled with the unreality of death. In the gap between knowing and understanding, her thoughts trembled with the preposterous permanence of his absence.

  Her nose started to run. She went into the bathroom to find some toilet paper and wash her face. She caught herself in the mirror. The first thing she noticed was her new coat. It felt like a month had passed since she’d bought it. The second thing that caught her attention was her eyes: she’d been crying.

  Ingrid ran the faucet and held her hand under the water, waiting for it to turn warm. She splashed her face, then reached for a towel. The chambermaids had left clean ones. She restyled her hair, now fringed with damp, and left the towel on the countertop next to Rennie’s toothbrush.

  She was about to go back into the bedroom, but stopped herself. She picked up the towel, folded it and placed it on the towel rail. She made herself laugh: it’s what he would have wanted.

  Ingrid stared at the bed and knew she had to resist. She was so tired that ‘just a nap’ could easily turn into being woken by the cleaners the following morning. The bedside alarm clock told her it was 17:46. She had just over an hour to get to Belgravia police station.

  She tipped the contents of Rennie’s backpack onto the bed, hoping to see something that would help her find Igor Rybkin. A wallet, a notebook, a device like the kind border agents use when passengers set off the alarms at the airport, the railway ticket from Burnham-on-Crouch, no doubt kept for posterity, and some peppermint chewing gum. She didn’t remember his breath ever smelling of mint. Perhaps it was in case he got a date on Tinder.

  She gathered up the notebook, a pocket-sized Moleskine imitation. About two-thirds of it had been used, and it was uncharacteristically chaotic. Mostly lists, mostly crossed through, with annotations and marginalia. The lists appeared to be related to cases. One page read:

  Marriott 5pm, then what?

  Connection to Flushing? Tennis? Conference?

  Ask Maryland about receipts for radio.

  Dax on Reddit?

  What’s the size of the prize?

  Without knowing the context, it was meaningless. She flicked through, looking for mentions of Rybkin or the Pelicans.

  She stopped flipping when she saw her name.

  Mike Stiller

  Quantico 2006

  VCAC

  Languages specialist—Russian, French and…

  Skyberg/Claybourne???

  Harley-Davidson

  Pig farm/Minnesota

  London evening paper profile. Google.

  Rennie knew Mike Stiller? And neither of them said? Even the nice ones are in the boys’ club. It read like he’d called Mike up for the lowdown on her. She supposed she should be flattered Mike remembered so much about her. Looking at Marshall’s surname written next to hers made her mouth the words fuck you.

  Her eyes drooped. She shook her head to invigorate herself: she would go through the notebook more carefully in the morning. She turned her attention to the wallet. One hundred and forty pounds in notes, a similar amount in dollars. She pulled out his driver’s license. Allan David Rennie. Date of birth, August 7, 1978.

  “Wow. That explains it.”

  8/7/78. A palindrome.

  The photo showed him without the beard, and he looked so young. It made her think of the people who had known him, people who would receive calls in the coming hours. Were his parents still alive? Did he have siblings? School friends who would be shocked not just at his death, but at how long it was since they’d last spoken. There would be Facebook outpourings and people would light candles because they didn’t know what else to do.

  She looked for a photo of his daughter. There had to be one. Every father had one. And there it was, tucked in behind an Amex card. A smiling, curly-haired rascal holding out a carrot for a pony.

  Involuntarily, Ingrid’s body heaved. The sobs—stuttering, shattering—came from deep within, welling up from a place of pain. She held herself, hands gripping her elbows, and rocked slowly. A wretched, piteous wail howled its way out of her lungs, curling around the room like a ghoul before seeping out into the world beyond.

  The rage at losing her own father simmered inside, and the injustice of another girl growing up without a parent burned like acid in her belly. The elemental loss from her childhood melded with fatigue and anger and pulled her inwards until something cratered and collapsed.

  Nothing could penetrate the dense granite of her grief, and for several desperate minutes she let the pain in, soaked it up, and endured its sting.

  Ingrid wiped her nose with the back of her hand, snot streaming from it like syrup. She needed a tissue. She got to her feet, stepped into the bathroom and cleaned herself up. She hadn’t cried like this for years, but there was a tender, raw part of her who would always be the ten-year-old begging her daddy to wake up.

  There was nothing she could do to avenge her father’s death—you cannot put cancer in jail—but she could damn well make sure Rennie’s killer ended up behind bars. Operation Dovetail might have been shut down, but the FBI weren’t the only ones who had been after Igor Rybkin. She was still the Bureau’s Met liaison officer, wasn’t she?

  Without thinking, she snatched up her bag and left the room. Still wiping her eyes, she thudded down the stairs to the lobby. She marched past the doorman, who offered to get her a taxi. She needed to walk.

  She turned off Park Lane and navigated her way to Belgravia police station. It was starting to snow. Tiny pinpricks of ice flicked onto her face as she marched. Tomorrow she would have to buy a hat and gloves.

  Ingrid wiped the melting flakes out of her eyes and plunged her hands back into her jacket pockets. She picked off pedestrians like they were bonuses in a computer game. Two points for overtaking the man in the overcoat. Ten for beating the cyclist to the lights. She powered on, oblivious to the pinching in her boots.

  The Met were after Rybkin for murdering three people on the streets of London, weren’t they? Fuck Marshall. Screw Usher. If the FBI wouldn’t bring Rybkin to justice for his role in the presidential election, for killing one of their own, then she would do everything she could to help Cath’s team nail the bastard.

  “DS Cath Murray, please,” she said, rasping for breath to the desk sergeant. She ruffled her wet hair. “It’s urgent.”

  “Who should I say is here?”

  “Special Agent Ingrid Skyberg. And if Murray isn’t available, I need to speak with Inspector Faulkner.”

  The woman behind the desk pulled a face. “Special Agent, eh?”

  “Just call them.”

  Ingrid leaned against the reception desk, ready to collapse. Her rib cage heaved.

  “Take a seat,” the receptionist said. “Someone is coming for you.”

  Ingrid staggered over to the visitor chairs, but couldn’t face the prospect of sitting down. She began to pace, her mind zigzagging with everything she wanted to tell Cath.

  Where was she?

  She stared at the lights on the elevators as they counted down to ground level, but when the doors opened, neither Cath nor Faulkner appeared.

  Come on!
>
  A quick check of the clock on the wall. 6:30. Plenty of time. Ingrid’s eye started to twitch. Her teeth were chattering. The elevators went back up and she waited, pacing round the sectional seating like a boxer ahead of a fight.

  Sirens pierced through from the street. Every time the doors opened, the rush of tires through slush surged into the lobby. The diesel thrum of the city was rhythmic and pulsating.

  “You made it,” Cath said. She took in Ingrid’s demeanor. “You okay?”

  “Yeah, fine.”

  “Then why are you shaking your head?” Cath steered her into the elevator, scanned her ID card and pushed the button for the fourth floor. “Mate, you look a bit, well, how can I say this, you look like shite, basically.”

  Ingrid couldn’t stop shaking her head. She felt herself detaching from reality, sinking into a place she rarely visited. A place that frightened her. She grabbed Cath’s arm.

  “Promise me something.”

  “Of course.” Cath’s quiff had that end-of-the-day quality to it, but her eyes brimmed with clarity. “Name it.”

  “I want Rybkin,” Ingrid said. “I really want him.”

  “Then that makes two of us.”

  38

  “They forgot the soy sauce,” Cath said. She took the containers out of the Itsu bag and placed them on the melamine table. “You ordered the ramen, right?”

  Ingrid nodded. “And some gyoza.”

  Cath handed out the food and Asahi beers to DI Faulkner, Ingrid and Detective Constable Iain Dell. Ingrid understood his nickname—Del Boy—was unavoidable and had something to do with an old sitcom. The four of them sat at one end of a long table in a room usually reserved for high-level meetings.

  “Good thing we’re not playing tonight,” Cath gestured at Ingrid. “Our star player doesn’t look like she’s got the energy to lace her boots.”

  Faulkner opened the beers with her key fob. “When’s your next match?” she asked.

  “Week tomorrow,” Cath said. “Old firm derby against the Bermondsey Bombshells.”

  “She any good?” Faulkner asked Ingrid.

  Ingrid swallowed her beer. “What she lacks in height, she makes up for in cunning. We call her ‘Dink’—”

  “Thanks, mate. Not going to live that one down, am I?”

  “Not because she’s short, though”—Ingrid gestured toward her friend—“but because she has a sneaky habit of dinking one in from twenty yards out. She might even be our top goal scorer.”

  “We’ll have to come and watch some time, eh, Del? Get everyone along?”

  Del Boy shoved a whole gyoza in his mouth to avoid answering.

  “Right,” Faulkner said. “We all got something to eat? Drink? Okay, let’s do this.”

  “Before you start, Del,” Cath said, “can I just say I really do need to leave at nine. Nine thirty at the absolute latest.”

  It was a quarter to eight. Ingrid had been fortified with caffeine and chocolate since her arrival at the station, and Cath had made her drink two glasses of water and shoved her under a hand dryer to thaw her out. Now, with some reasonably nutritious food, Ingrid was hoping to last the distance.

  “I’m forgoing dinner with the in-laws—”

  “I don’t remember getting a wedding invitation,” Del said.

  “Me either,” Ingrid said. “You could have had us all as bridesmaids in our soccer strip.”

  “Out-laws, then, but I can’t not show up at all. I have to make the drinks after. It’s Suzy’s parents’ fiftieth.”

  “All right, Dink, I’ll make sure you’re out of here by then,” Faulkner said.

  Cath poked her tongue out at Ingrid. Thanks, she mouthed.

  “Over to you, Del.”

  DC Dell—a tall and broad thirtysomething who was rapidly burying boyish good looks under a beer belly and a full English jowl—tapped his iPad. “Yelena Rybkina,” he started. “Second PM, you’ll recall, revealed her death had been caused by spider bites. Brown recluse spiders were found in both shoes, and it is still our suspicion the person who killed her was her pedicurist. This—” he tapped his screen again, and an image appeared on a screen at the end of the conference table “—is a photofit—”

  “Old school,” Faulkner interjected.

  “E-fit,” he corrected, “based on interviews with other employees at the nail bar on Sydney Street. And this is CCTV footage of the suspect on the Kings Road the day Rybkina died. Not much use, but it’s the only actual photo we have of her.” He took a sip of beer. “What else can I tell you… She showed her employer a Bulgarian passport, but he didn’t take a scan of it. The name she gave was Evelina Demova, but needless to say the real Evelina had her passport stolen while on holiday in Turkey in 2014. The good news—” he paused “—is that we do have DNA and fingerprints from the nail bar, so if she gets arrested for anything else, hopefully we’ll get her.”

  Ingrid dabbed her mouth with a paper napkin. “What about her home address? Flatmates? Boyfriend?”

  “Everything she told the other workers at the nail spa was a crock of shit. Nothing checked out.” He looked at Faulkner. “Shall I move on?”

  Faulkner, sucking up a noodle, nodded for him to proceed.

  “Yvgeny Kashlikov.”

  Ingrid’s ears pricked up. Hearing the name Kashlikov would always make her think of her mom. A yellowed cutting from the New York Post surfaced in her addled brain. ‘It’s Kashlik-over! Russian Gymnast Defects.’

  Dell continued. “Pushed out his office window onto railings below. Suspect, Oleg Tarlev, in custody and pleading guilty. Refuses to give up the name of his employer. Colleagues in Moldova don’t seem super helpful in providing background, so myself and DS Murray are planning to go out there on Monday to move things along.”

  “Let me stop you there,” Faulkner said. “What evidence have we got that points at Rybkin?”

  He shoved another dumpling in his mouth. They all waited while he chewed. “Shall I come onto today’s murder first; then we can go through the suspects?”

  “Sure.”

  “So, Allan David Rennie.”

  Ingrid let out a little gasp. Cath reached out and gave her forearm a squeeze. “FBI agent in London specifically to investigate Igor Rybkin. Run over by a black BMW 7 Series, registration AG06 6FY, at approximately two-oh-five this afternoon, pronounced dead at the scene in what appears to have been a deliberate act. Driver abandoned the vehicle in Fitzmaurice Mews and ran off in the direction of Berkeley Square. No prints—witnesses say he was wearing gloves—but samples were obtained from the car, which was rented from Hertz this morning, are likely to provide a DNA profile. Uniforms are obtaining the details given to the rental firm, CCTV et cetera.”

  Faulkner looked at Ingrid. “I think we’re all reasonably confident of finding this individual.”

  “Thank you.”

  “But I am not clear on why we didn’t know Agent Rennie was also looking for Igor Rybkin. That’s the sort of thing that, as a courtesy, it would have been really nice to know.” Her tone was icy. “It’s bad enough we’ve got the spooks all over us—they’re probably bugging this room right now—but finding out you were keeping something back, Ingrid, when I thought we had a good working relationship… Well, let’s just say it has the potential to undermine future collaboration.”

  Ingrid gulped her beer. “I appreciate that, Terri, and I apologize if you feel misled. Rennie’s investigation into Igor Rybkin’s finances relates, related, to a matter of national security, and I was just not allowed to reveal he was also pursuing him.”

  “Can you tell us why, now that he’s dead?”

  Ingrid considered if she could tell the truth. “Rennie’s investigation has been deemed politically sensitive in the current climate and has been shut down.”

  “That’s a ‘politically sensitive’ answer, Ingrid.”

  “I know. I’m sorry. I don’t want to be a jerk about this, but I am willing to do everything possible in my capacity as the Bu
reau’s Met liaison officer to help you get him.”

  Faulkner pressed her palms together. Her eyes narrowed.

  “If I may, boss,” Cath said, desperate to raise the temperature in the room, “there was one word in Del Boy’s summary we need to keep in mind. Or rather—” she counted out on her fingers “—four words. ‘What appears to be.’ We cannot discount the possibility of an accident, or that someone else was the target. And given you were walking beside him, Ingrid, we need to discuss if you were the intended victim.” She paused. “Can you think of any reason why that might be the case? Have there, for instance, been any events in your life recently that would indicate someone wished you harm?” She sounded like the epitome of a London copper.

  An image of her smoke-damaged apartment and her warped oven flicked through her thoughts: she was doing a good enough job with self-sabotage without anyone else trying to kill her. “No,” she said with confidence. “And there’s a very good reason I know it was murder: it was the second attempt on Rennie’s life in a little over a week.”

  “Really?” Cath put down her chopsticks. “When?”

  Ingrid told them about the incident on the Tube, how Rennie was so close to the man who was pushed it could have been him. DC Dell pulled up the incident report.

  “Okay,” he said, scanning the document. “Suspect was apprehended at the scene by other passengers, who detained him until British Transport Police arrived. Um… taken into custody. Greek tourist who says it was an accident—”

  “Rennie was sure it was deliberate,” Ingrid said.

  “Several eyewitnesses also claimed it was deliberate… CCTV almost useless because the platform was so crowded…”

  “What about the victim?” Faulkner asked.

  “Let me see… Hector Maltby, thirty-four, from Turnham Green. IT engineer…”