what Fallon had said, in the basement.
‘Fallon was searching your flat that night when she came home and surprised him. She was a fighter, John, you know that. He did what he had to.’
Fallon had said, and Purkiss had thought he was quibbling self-exculpatingly over semantics, that he’d killed her but not murdered her.
‘It was self defence. She could well have killed him that night.’
A searchlight cut through the haze of slatey smoke, pinning them. Purkiss stood, the boat rocking even as it stayed stationary. He raised the gun.
‘It isn’t true. None of it.’
‘But it is true.’
‘No it isn’t. But this is for suggesting it is,’ said Purkiss.
He fired twice, three times.
FORTY-TWO
He leaned on the rail, watching a freighter lumber its way through the black water. To the left the river curved away from the bleak Essex marshes towards the sea.
The tang of cigarette smoke was what he noticed first. He didn’t turn, not even when he was joined at the rail a few feet to his right. For once Vale had let him choose the meeting place. Purkiss didn’t know why he’d decided on this spot. Claire had liked the Thames. Perhaps that was it.
They stood in silence for a minute, the raw October wind coming down the estuary off the North Sea, bringing with it creaking gulls and the stench of decomposing fish. Vale lit another cigarette and pitched the match into the reeds. Purkiss watched it stick headlong in the mud.
‘You’ll have worked it out, I imagine.’ Had Vale’s voice become coarser since he’d last heard it? He glanced across and yes, the man appeared to have aged, though it was barely two weeks since he’d last seen him.
‘Fallon was your man all along. From before he killed Claire.’
Vale took a long drag, spoke on the exhale. ‘He was my first agent, the first one I ran after leaving the Service. The original Ratcatcher, if you will. I’d set him on the trail of whomever it was that was co-ordinating the hits on Asgari the Iranian and others. He discovered Claire was involved. Obviously she wasn’t the ringleader.’
‘And he agreed to take the fall for Claire’s death, accept a murder conviction, to keep his cover intact. With the promise that he’d be out in a few years.’
‘Correct. We had credible intelligence that the Jacobin was operating in Tallinn –’
‘The Jacobin?’
Vale waved his cigarette hand. ‘Fallon’s nickname for the ringleader, Rossiter as it turned out. You know what a French Revolution buff Fallon was. Burke’s Reflections and all that.’ He drew on the butt again. ‘Rather apt, I suppose, “The Jacobin”. A fanatic, committed to the destruction of the enemy, blind to all else.’
‘Sounds like you had a fair amount of affection for Fallon.’
Vale sighed. ‘Yes, I did care for him. He was a brilliant agent, a brilliant man. You liked him as well, you must admit. Before... well, before.’
‘So after he went to gaol, you needed me as – what? Filler?’
‘Far from it. I needed a replacement for him. You were the best there was.’
‘And once he was out, I’d step back into the shadows?’
‘No.’ It was the first time Vale had raised his voice. ‘I couldn’t run you two as a team, naturally. But you’d be my agents, both superb, each with his own unique talents for particular situations.’
Purkiss watched the water fowl for a while.
‘Seppo and Fallon were sharing the flat in Tallinn.’
‘Yes. Seppo was mainly a backup man. Fallon knew the Jacobin was one of the three, Rossiter, Teague or Klavan. He penetrated Kuznetsov’s crew by getting in with that woman. Then he went missing. I couldn’t very well just send you in to rescue him. You’d never have gone. So I had to create the legend that Seppo had only recently spotted him in the city, that he’d been released from prison without my knowledge.’
‘And when I told you later I was refusing to pull out, broke off contact with you –’
‘I didn’t exactly tear myself apart trying to persuade you otherwise, no.’ Vale made a sound as dry as the leaves in his cigarette. ‘I must admit, I was worried you’d get suspicious then.’
Vale had moved quickly in the aftermath of the downing of the Black Hawk, working with the Embassy in Tallinn, securing the release of Purkiss and Elle and Kendrick. Purkiss himself had been patched up with fair speed. The other two spent several days in hospital with hypothermia before flying back to London. In the meantime, the remaining members