Ratcatcher - By Tim Stevens Page 0,8
much as you do. But… I have a feeling.’
*
Abby’s office, or “command centre” as she was pleased to call it, was a basement flat in Whitechapel which had been converted into one large room with a kitchenette, miniature bathroom and shower and fold-out bed. Two L-shaped desks dominated the floor, straining under an assortment of desktop computers, laptops, printers and scanners in various states of physical integrity. A gigantic plasma screen television had conquered one wall and was tuned to a news channel Purkiss didn’t recognise. A pile of lesser TV sets in the corner displayed a cornucopia of what Purkiss assumed was real-time footage of mundane scenes: empty streets, the interior of a shopping centre, a busy motorway.
She had met him at the door with a screwdriver in one hand and a motherboard in the other, dark and untidy, a tiny pixie with a wild mess of hair.
‘Hi, boss.’ Her accent was broad Lancashire, unleavened after five years in London.
‘I wish you wouldn’t call me that. It makes me feel old.’
‘You are old, Mr Purkiss, sir.’ She stood aside for him. ‘You’ve shaved off the goatee. Pity. I rather liked it.’
He declined her offer of tea – there’d been semi-dried paint in the mug once before – and dumped a sprawl of papers on the floor to make some room on one of the armchairs. Purkiss nodded at the pile of TV screens. ‘That looks a bit dodgy, legally speaking.’
‘Testing out some new surveillance gear. For professional use only.’ She gazed at the images, rapt. ‘Beautiful, isn’t it? The resolution.’
‘I won’t ask where you got this stuff.’
‘Best not, no.’
He employed Abby as both researcher and technological wizard. She had done the background work for Purkiss on the Rijeka case, tracking down Hoggart’s address, rooting out the intelligence on Spiljak and his crew, even producing false credentials for Purkiss which were accurate down to the minutest detail. One of the things she did was generate a constant supply of fake passports for use at short notice.
She handed him a couple and he studied them, marvelling. They even smelled used. He chose a British identity: Martin Hughes. In the picture he was clean shaven, slightly amused looking. Affable was the word he’d most often heard used to describe his features. Even Claire had used it, among many others besides.
‘Good choice,’ she said. ‘The alias all the best-disguised spies are using this year.’
‘Stop calling me a spy.’
‘Will sir be requiring any accessories? A driver’s licence?’ She handed him a plastic card. ‘No endorsements – you’ve been a good boy.’
He pocketed passport and licence. ‘The flight –’
‘Booked for quarter past two, Stansted. You’d better get a move on.’
Purkiss planted a kiss on her cheek. ‘Abby, you’re a diamond.’
‘Tallinn. That’s where that meeting’s taking place, isn’t it?’
‘Day after tomorrow.’
‘Is your trip anything to do –’
He made a zipping motion at his mouth and she held up her hands in defeat. ‘Anything else?’
‘Be on standby. I might need your help later.’ He headed for the door, then paused. ‘Oh. Check on Kendrick, would you?’
‘I already gave him a ring. He’s back at home, they didn’t keep him in. I gave him your best wishes.’
‘And?’
‘Apart from his usual dismal takeoff of my accent, he said, “Tell him to stick his best wishes in his arse, and I hope the corners hurt.”’ Her eyes were huge, her smile bright.
*
By the time he reached the airport his spirits had sunk again and he’d begun to brood. The last time he’d seen Fallon was in the courtroom receiving his life sentence. He’d been caught four days after Claire’s murder coming off a chartered flight in Hamburg; his trial had been fast-tracked and swiftly conducted. After the judge had pronounced, Fallon had looked over at Purkiss, briefly, but there’d been nothing in his expression; no arrogance but no contrition either. The perfect agent, hidden, inscrutable.
And now a string of cockups and unanswered questions. The cynicism involved in his release was breathtaking but Purkiss found, unsettlingly, that he wasn’t surprised. Fallon was a superb agent and the Service had obviously had big plans for him at the time he murdered Claire. The fact that he had pleaded guilty was no doubt considered in mitigation. He’d denied involvement in the Asgari killing but had confessed to corruption, on which charge he received a concurrent sentence of twelve years.
Vale had said: ‘Of course it’s personal for you. But you have to look on this as a job, if not quite like any other