Ratcatcher - By Tim Stevens Page 0,37
door, then footsteps and a confusion of ambient street sounds.
Into the handset Purkiss said, ‘Abby?’
‘Hearing you.’ Her voice cut across the feed from the listening device.
‘That’s great, works a charm. Can you identify my position in relation to hers?’
‘Sure. Got a GPS track on your phone as well. You’re half a kilometre away. I can guide you towards her if you want.’
‘Not just yet. I need to make a call on the other phone. Could you mute the feed but keep my line to you open?’
‘Done.’
With the other handset, the one he’d been using since buying it the previous evening, he called Klavan. She answered before the first ring had finished. ‘John?’
‘Just left the office. I’m going to stake out Ilkun’s flat, see if she comes back and then tail her.’ The lies flowed smoothly. ‘There’s no point relying on the substituted SIM card in her phone. She’ll be wise to that and she’ll ditch it.’
‘How do you know?’
‘Because you treated her with kid gloves in there. I’m not saying rough stuff would have got any more out of her, but it’s what she would have been expecting. Her suspicions will be up.’
‘I see. How did Rossiter react to your plan?’
‘Hopping mad, as you might imagine.’
‘So why are you phoning me?’
‘To check if Rossiter’s got a bead on the SIM card. I don’t want to stake out her place if she’s heading in the opposite direction.’
‘Hang on.’ Elle’s voice faded to a murmur, then came back. ‘Rossiter on the line to Teague. The signal from her phone has gone.’
‘As I predicted. She’s got rid of it.’ He started the engine. ‘I’ll be in touch.’
He rang off, fitted the earpiece for the other phone and said, ‘Abby, still there?’
‘Right here.’
‘I’m on the move.’
She began to direct him like a bizarre living satellite navigation system. He listened and took the turnings she advised. All the while he pondered the discovery he’d made: that one of the agents had tipped the woman off.
It was at least one of them, or possibly two, but not all three; he was fairly confident of that. If they were all involved then why would they have gone through the charade of the interrogation, just for his benefit? Why not simply say they hadn’t been able to apprehend her? As to which of the three it was, he didn’t think Klavan was likely. She after all was the one who’d responded to his distress call in the nightclub, when she could have ignored it and left him to the Russians. Teague was a possibility. He’d come along for the ride with Klavan when she had rescued him from the club but might have done so to avoid making Klavan suspicious.
Rossiter was the one he favoured. Rossiter, who’d shown hostility and suspicion towards him from the outset, who’d almost flinched when he had mentioned Fallon’s name. At the time Purkiss had assumed this was because of the ominousness of Fallon’s presence in the city at this point, but now he wondered if it was the reaction of someone who had just felt the carefully constructed edifice of a plan tremble a fraction.
‘Mr Purkiss.’ Abby’s voice cut across his thoughts. ‘She’s stopped moving and there’s something coming through on the audio.’
He pulled over when he spotted a clear stretch of pavement and kept the engine running and listened. The scrabble of material against the bug again and a loud noise – another slammed car door – and then a man’s voice in Russian.
‘They hurt you?’
‘No.’ Even the suboptimal sound failed to disguise the fear in her voice. ‘They knew about Ivan.’
‘Your son is in no danger.’ The voice was raspy, middle-aged. ‘You told them nothing?’
There was a prolonged blast of static that made Purkiss wince, then a muffled rumbling. When it continued beyond ten seconds Purkiss said, ‘Damn.’
Abby: ‘It fell off.’
‘Must have. It sounded like she got in a car. Her seatbelt probably pulled the bug off.’
‘But it’s still in the car. That sound is the rumble of the engine. And the signal’s moving again, more quickly now.’
‘Okay. Guide me again. And if there’s a change in the audio, voices or anything, patch it through to me.’
*
It was more difficult this time because he was chasing an unseen target moving at a car’s speed, with only Abby’s directions to give him a sense of where to go. Always the other vehicle managed to stay several blocks ahead, so that he couldn’t begin to work out which car it was.
‘Hang on,