say, if it is him – knows you have another contact in the city, the person you met at the airport. He knows you’ll have told them where you’re going. If you disappeared on the premises of Rodina Security your contact would raise the alarm immediately.’
‘Right.’ He had in fact sent Abby a text message shortly before they’d set off, telling her where he was heading and asking her to dig up whatever she could on the security firm.
She said, ‘But it also means we’re not likely to get much out of them. They’ll be shut up tighter than a clam.’
‘Still worth a visit. It’ll give us a feel for them. Numbers, whether or not the whole firm’s involved, how jumpy they are.’
*
The offices of Rodina Security occupied the entire second floor of a block near what Elle informed Purkiss was the Central Bus Station. Behind the desk in the lobby the security guard looked bored beyond endurance.
Purkiss said in Russian: ‘Second floor. Rodina.’
The guard pushed across a book with removable slips of paper. They filled in their names, Purkiss using the Martin Hughes alias from his passport. The guard tore out the slips, folded each into a plastic badge holder with a metal clasp on the back, and handed them across.
The lift opened on to a corridor with marble-effect walls and a maroon carpet. Glass doors led into a waiting room and a young woman behind a reception desk looked up: austere, hair pulled sharply back, pale lipstick.
‘Good afternoon.’ Purkiss took the lead. ‘We’re here to see Mr Kuznetsov.’
‘Do you have an appointment?’ Her Russian was that of a native speaker.
‘No. But he’d want to see us. We have a business proposal he’d be very interested in.’
Her eyes and mouth were sceptical. ‘Mr Kuznetsov isn’t here now.’
‘Where might he be contacted, please?’
‘He’s out of the country on business.’
Elle spoke: ‘Is Mr Dobrynin available?’ Dobrynin was named on the website as the deputy director of the company.
The receptionist hesitated a second and Purkiss pressed the advantage, leaning in a little. ‘Please. Do us a big favour and bend the rules for us. Fifteen minutes of his time. He’ll be grateful to you once he’s heard what we’re offering, believe me. Very grateful.’
She held his gaze and he was glad he hadn’t offered a bribe. She looked as if she would take serious offence. He said, his voice low: ‘Tell Mr Dobrynin it’s about tomorrow.’
The receptionist sat back a little, her face betraying nothing. Keeping her eyes on him she picked up her phone and pressed a button and a man’s voice came in a tinny syllable through the receiver: ‘Da?’
She turned away and, still maintaining eye contact with him, murmured quietly enough that Purkiss couldn’t make out the words. After ten seconds she replaced the receiver and said, ‘Please take a seat. Mr Dobrynin will see you shortly.’
They didn’t sit, moving instead back towards the glass doors and out of earshot of the receptionist. Elle stepped in close and looked up at him, eyes taut. ‘What’s the plan?’
‘Direct confrontation. There’s no point pussyfooting. He knows who we are and that we know who he is. He’ll deny it all, of course, but it’ll spook him. It might shake them enough to make them slip up somewhere.’
‘What if he doesn’t deny it?’
‘Then we won’t walk out of here. But as you said before, that’s unlikely to happen.’
A man appeared at the reception desk, mid-fifties, trim in a tailored but plain charcoal suit. ‘Mr Hughes and Ms Klavan.’
They approached. In his gaze Purkiss saw a mild curiosity but otherwise almost friendliness. The man shook his hand. ‘Anton Dobrynin.’
The hand felt odd, knuckly and too narrow, and as it was withdrawn Purkiss glanced at it and saw its deformity, one third of it missing including the ring and little fingers.
Dobrynin gestured for them to precede him down a corridor at the end of which a door stood ajar. Purkiss went through first, saw a medium-sized conference table, windows darkened by drawn blinds, a connecting door opposite the one by which they had entered. It wasn’t until Dobrynin had closed the door behind them that the connecting one opened and two men in shirtsleeves came through, handguns drawn but held pointing down at their sides.
Dobrynin said, ‘Sit.’
NINETEEN
‘A business deal.’
‘Correct.’
Dobrynin watched him, seated opposite him at the table, the fingertips of his good hand supporting his chin. Elle sat beside Purkiss and the gunmen had taken up position on either side of Dobrynin, their pistols