by L. A. Larkin
Butcher squints into the drizzle, beyond a neat circular patch of grass around which the drive sweeps and down the road, lined with barren, leafless poplars standing to attention like sentinels. Everything feels damp - even his mac seems to hold him in a wet embrace. He stamps his feet, which are numb with cold. Organ music pulsates through the open door, which reminds him of the Dracula films he saw as a boy, then immediately he feels guilty. He is being disrespectful. A pallbearer pokes his head out and nods at Butcher.
‘Service is starting.’
‘I’ll stay here for now.’
The doors shut with a clunk.
After thirty years in the force, Butcher thought he’d seen everything. Some cases were worse than others, child murders the most harrowing. But he’d always kept his emotions under control, always stayed focused. That was his job and the best way to bring some resolution for the grieving relatives. But when he heard about Olivia’s bravery and the shooting, he realised how deeply he loves every rebellious, impulsive, adventurous, argumentative bit of her.
A car races along the crematorium drive, gravel flying. It takes a right turn before it reaches the chapel and heads for one of two car parks. He drops his stub and stamps it out. If he leaves it there, he’ll get an earful, so he picks up the crushed stub and places it inside the cigarette packet. He hears the crunch of boots on gravel, his view of the late arrival hindered by a tall, manicured yew hedge, so smooth it resembles a vertical carpet.
‘Traffic was a nightmare. Has it started?’ she asks.
‘Just. We can probably sneak in the back.’
She is at the door, twisting the horseshoe-shaped doorknob.
‘Olivia?’
‘Yes?’
She glances at him, impatient to get inside. She’s wearing a long black coat, her biker boots protruding under the hem, and a black felt 1930s-style bell-shaped hat. He’s never seen her wear a smart hat before.
‘How’s the head?’
‘Throbs.’ She touches the white dressing, partly hidden by the hat sitting low on her head. ‘They had to shave above my ear. Looks like Edward Scissorhands got me.’ Wolfe grins.
Butcher doesn’t move. He looks back down the drive and watches a blackbird swoop low. ‘I thought I’d lost you.’
Wolfe steps away from the door and squeezes his arm. ‘But you didn’t.’
‘You were lucky. Another millimetre or two, and that bullet would’ve shattered your skull.’
‘We should go in,’ she says.
Butcher still doesn’t budge. He wants to say more, but can’t find the words.
He looks beyond the hedges and cars and can just make out the cemetery, like a meadow full of neatly placed white mushrooms.
‘Come on,’ Wolfe says.
She takes his gloved hand in hers and twists the handle. The door opens and they step inside to bid goodbye to a man reviled.
76
Wolfe is packing boxes in her flat when Casburn rings the bell. She knows it’s him because, for once, she invited him. Most of her fragile and precious possessions are already packed, including the framed photos that normally hang behind her desk. She moves tomorrow and has told nobody where she is going.
Wolfe lets Casburn in and leads him into her sitting room in silence. She has no interest in attempting their usual banter. Gesturing for him to sit, she takes the sofa, he the armchair. She anticipates he will try to take control of the conversation, and she’s happy to let him: he has something, or rather someone, she wants.
‘I can’t free him,’ Casburn says.
‘We both know he’s innocent.’
Casburn sighs. ‘What do you want, Olivia?’
‘A deal. I persuade Vitaly to hand you Kabir Khan. You give him a new ID, a new start. No record.’
‘I’m here because of what you did, but I have no intention of trading Yushkov.’
Wolfe leans forward so her elbows rest on her thighs, hands clasped so he can’t see them tremble. ‘I made you look like a hero, Dan. You owe me. The President owes me. Do I have to talk to Garriola? Or the President himself?’
Casburn’s eyes narrow. ‘Yushkov claims he has no idea where Kabir is.’
‘And I believe him. But he can find him for you.’
‘How?’
‘He puts it out he’s turned. Wants to join their cause. I suspect he has enough hatred for you and this country to be thoroughly convincing, and his injuries will leave Kabir in no doubt he’s been tortured.’
Casburn lifts his chin a fraction and blinks once - his tell. The confirmation sends her heart rate into overdrive.
‘Kabir will suspect a trap. He’ll kill Yushkov.’
‘If Vitaly is prepared to take that risk, what have you got to lose?’
‘I can’t risk him disappearing.’
‘Put a tracking device on him. It’s not like you’ve got any other options, is it?’
‘Yushkov won’t do it. He’s protecting him.’
‘He’ll do it for me.’
Casburn snorts derisively. ‘You think he gives a shit about you?’
Wolfe flushes with anger, but she keeps her voice level. ‘He’ll do it for me because I have proof of Kabir Khan’s guilt.’
Wolfe is escorted into Belmarsh Prison’s high-security unit; a gaol within a gaol, for those deemed an escape risk or too dangerous to mix with other offenders. It has housed IRA prisoners, KGB agents and 9/11 terror suspects. Now, Vitaly Yushkov is an inmate in this special unit.
Her boots and belt removed, she has been through a metal detector, had her fingerprints taken, and passed through fifteen security doors, monitored at all times by CCTV. Each time a door clanks shut, it chills her. The guards eye her with curiosity and suspicion.
‘Don’t know what strings you pulled to get here,’ the guard says. ‘Hope it’s worth it.’
She’s shown into a surprisingly large exercise yard, surrounded by high fences, topped with barbed wire.
‘I’ll stay close by.’ He leads her in. ‘You have ten minutes. And no touching.’
There is only one man in the yard, watched by two more guards. In polo-neck jumper and jeans, his hands are cuffed in front. Yushkov walks towards her, smiling, but his movements are slow and he leans forward slightly. When they are but a few feet apart, he stops. She doesn’t. Her escort moves between them and tells her to step back. She obeys.
‘I want to wrap my arms around you,’ Yushkov says, ‘Kiss you. But they will take you away if I do.’
All that remains of his black eye is some yellowing skin, but the cut along his cheekbone will take longer to heal. He finds it hard to catch his breath. She guesses broken ribs.
‘I miss you,’ she says.
Wolfe wants to ask a myriad of questions but the clock is ticking. ‘We only have ten minutes. I’m here to help you. To get you out.’
Yushkov shakes his head. ‘That will never happen. But I thank you.’
‘Let’s walk,’ she says.
They head off slowly, the guard close behind. ‘Casburn is offering you a clean slate. A new identity, no record. In return, you will be fitted with a tracking device. Contact Kabir Khan. Ask for his protection. Tell him you want revenge for what SO15 has done to you.’
‘Betray a friend? A man who saved my life? Showed me forgiveness? I will not do it.’ He stops walking and faces her. ‘I cannot believe you ask me this.’
‘Vitaly, please listen. Kabir Khan is not the boy you once knew. In Pakistan he was radicalised, filled with hatred. He’s funded by a man I’ve spoken to you about: Colonel Lalzad.’
‘Olivia, please stop! My freedom has been taken; my sister has been taken; I cannot be with you. I have nothing left but my integrity. I will not betray an innocent man.’
‘He’s not innocent, Vitaly. I can prove it.’
Wolfe turns to her escort. ‘Can I have my phone, please?’
He hands it to her. ‘No photos, no recording. Just play the audio, as agreed.’
Wolfe
faces Yushkov. ‘Remember I told you about a young Afghani girl who was murdered by Lalzad’s lieutenant in Kabul. Nooria Zia was her name.’
‘I remember.’
‘She was murdered to protect Khan and his terror cell. I recorded our conversation. Listen to it. Please.’
Wolfe holds up her smartphone; the chip inside it is from the phone that was in her dress pocket when Nooria died. She plays the audio recording.
The squeak of a gate opening.
‘You must leave,’ a woman says with urgency, her accent thick. ‘Mina is watching.’
‘Can you meet us at the market later?’ Wolfe asks.
There is a loud crack. A gasp. Then a thud. Wolfe remembers shoving Shinwari to the ground.
‘On the roof opposite,’ Wolfe pants. ‘Sniper.’
The crunch of snow underfoot.
‘Help me!’ Wolfe calls. Then a scraping sound as Wolfe drags the fatally wounded Nooria behind a pillar.
‘What do we do?’ screams Shinwari, terrified.
A pause, then the girl speaks. Yushkov turns his head to hear better.
‘Kabir . . . Kabir Khan . . . ’
The girl chokes.
‘Nooria!’ Wolfe says.
‘ . . . bomb London.’ A pause. ‘Da’ish,’ she says. Another shot booms out.
Wolfe stops the audio recording and studies Yushkov’s face. He backs away.
‘Vitaly?’
Yushkov bends over as if he’s been punched in the stomach, then stands tall and roars, ‘No!’
The guard nearest Wolfe steps in. ‘Time to leave.’
‘Wait!’ Wolfe says.
‘Please,’ says Yushkov, putting out his hand. ‘A few more minutes.’
She pulls away from the guard. ‘I’m sorry you had to hear it from me, but Khan has been recruited by Isil. He’s Da’ish. He’s planning an attack in London, but we don’t know where or when and we need your help.’
‘We? You work for them now?’
‘If you help them, you will be free.’
‘I do not want to help the people who tortured me.’
‘Then do it for a young girl who made a stand against Isil.’
‘Nyet.’ He shakes his head slowly. ‘I will do it for you.’
‘Thank you.’
But her elation is short-lived.
‘There’s a catch,’ Wolfe says. ‘You’ll be a free man but . . . you can’t stay here. You’ll get safe passage to wherever you choose. But you must leave England and never return.’
She looks down so he cannot see her pain.
77
It is a cold blustery Christmas Eve and Wolfe looks through a mesh security fence at the London Gateway Container Terminal, a deep-water port in Essex that handles the largest container ships in the world. She peers up at a 398 metres long, black, white and red monster that sits low in the water, fully loaded. Enormous grey cranes tower over the vessel. But they are still, their booms lifted high into the air and clear of the ship, their job complete.
Further down the quay another ship is still loading. The crane booms extend over its deck, the trolleys trundling back and forth with a lumbering grace, spreaders locked on to brightly coloured steel containers, piling them on the deck like a toddler’s brick set. Yellow straddle carriers, like fifteen metre-high mechanical insects, trundle around at the feet of the giant gantry, incessantly ferrying the containers back and forth between the quay line, the storage yard and waiting trucks. The machines on the quay are a mechanical marvel, an engineered dance devoid of people.
The wind buffets Wolfe’s face and the intense cold makes her eyes sting. The air is thick with salt blown off the sea and brings with it the distant metallic thunk of container touching container, the constant burr of engines and the stink of bunker fuel and diesel. Wolfe wears the black bell-shaped felt hat and long coat she wore to Sinclair’s funeral a week ago. She has said her goodbye to Sinclair. Now she must say goodbye to Vitaly Yushkov.
He walks down the metal stairs from the terminal’s control room, wearing an all-in-one blue boiler suit and dark blue beanie. He waves, his smiling eyes never leaving hers. She waits, hands in pockets, on the other side of a full-height security turnstile, listening to the clomp of his boots. She knows they don’t have long. The crew is aboard, and a HiLux waits for the newly appointed ship’s engineer.
Vitaly swipes his security pass over the reader and the cumbersome turnstile clicks as he pushes through. Wolfe closes the distance between them and he wraps his arms around her. His broad back shelters her from the wind and his body emanates heat through his overalls. She listens to the quickening beat of his heart.
‘I have missed you,’ Yushkov says.
Wolfe looks up. His split lip has healed well but the cut across his cheekbone has left a vivid scar.
She takes his face gently between her hands and lightly kisses his lips.
‘Thank God you’re now safe,’ she whispers.
‘I have you to thank, not God.’
His tongue parts her lips, his grip around her body tightening, and he kisses her with a passion more intense than the pain he must feel from his slowly healing ribs.
‘I want you,’ Yushkov whispers.
‘I wish we had more time.’
He strokes her cheek then touches the white dressing partially visible from beneath her hat. ‘Does it heal okay?’
‘I’ll be fine.’
Yushkov looks around him, wary. ‘Let’s walk. I don’t have much time and who knows who may be listening.’
He takes her hand and they follow the line of the perimeter fence, the wind behind them. ‘You are like a cat, Olivia. Many lives,’ he says, smiling. ‘Please do not run out of them.’
She stops. ‘Vitaly, there must be another way? I’m a journalist. I can work anywhere in the world. Surely we can be together.’
‘I would like this very much, but it is not possible, Olivia. The work you do makes you easy to find and, if you are with me, you will always be in danger. If I stay away from you, don’t contact you, then you will be safe. It is the way it works.’
‘I’m prepared to take the risk.’
Yushkov hugs her again. ‘It does not matter where we are, my enemies will find us and they will kill us. You first, so I see you suffer. I will not place you in this danger.’
Wolfe is silent for a while, her mind searching for a solution she already knows doesn’t exist.
‘So when you reach Durban, will the SVR be waiting?’
‘Perhaps. I will be careful.’
A seagull screeches overhead. ‘How can I contact you?’
Yushkov takes her hand as they head back to the turnstile.
‘Just keep walking and look straight ahead. I have dropped a phone in your pocket. There is just one number in the directory. Only use this phone to call me and nobody else, and only if it is an emergency.’
‘That makes long-distance dating kind of hard,’ she jokes.
But she feels crushed. She wants to beg him to stay, just as she had begged her dad to stay when she was young. But she knows the words are futile. Wolfe stares down at the wet concrete. For once in her life she is lost for words. He lifts her chin gently, his brow creased with concern.
‘I will see you again one day. I promise.’
‘I know,’ she says, ‘but right now one day seems like infinity.’
Yushkov tilts his head to one side. ‘I think it is best if I go now.’
He kisses her one more time and walks away.
‘Vitaly!’ she shouts.
He turns.
‘Happy Christmas!’
‘And you!’
He waves, then turns into the wind.
‘Vitaly!’
He looks over his shoulder.
‘You’re a man of integrity and never forget it.’
He nods once. She watches him go through the turnstile. He doesn’t look back again. He gets into the waiting vehicle and a flashing orange safety light on the cabin roof
switches on when the engine starts.
Wolfe makes her way through the car park. Her walk becomes a run, and she keeps running until she is inside her grandmother’s car, tears streaming down her face.
Her mobile rings, and for one silly moment she wonders if it might be Yushkov. She checks her pockets and finds the mobile phone he gave her. But it is not ringing. She rummages through her bag and finds her smartphone. It’s Casburn. She hesitates.
‘Yes?’ She sounds weary.
‘Thought you might like to know we’ve got enough to put Kabir Khan away for life.’
She holds the phone away and covers it with her hand so she can sniff back a tear without him hearing.
‘Hello?’ she hears him say. ‘You there?’
When she’s ready, she replies. ‘That’s great news.’
There is an awkward silence. She is waiting for the real reason for his call.
‘I’m changing jobs. Heading up a new command.’
‘Congratulations. Don’t suppose you’ll tell me what you’re doing there?’
‘It’s classified.’
‘Of course it is.’
Another pause.
‘Don’t I get any thanks?’ Casburn asks.
‘For what, dropping the charges? I was innocent.’
She can hear him chewing gum. ‘I saw you at Sinclair’s funeral.’
‘You were there?’ Wolfe immediately wonders if he is at the port too. ‘Why, for Christ’s sake?’
‘Just dotting i’s and crossing t’s.’
‘Don’t be so irritating, Dan. Why have you really called?’
‘Now, now, no need to be like that.’
‘Why don’t you just tell me what you called about?’
‘Thought you’d be interested to hear that a certain SVR agent has been found dead, floating in the Thames near Battersea Bridge.’
‘Sergey Grankin?’
‘Yes, Sergey Grankin, with a bloody great big cut across his throat.’
‘You think the SVR did it?’
‘No, I don’t, and nor do you. We both know who did it, but the body’s been in the water too long. Forensics could find nothing useful.’
Wolfe touches the pocket holding Yushkov’s mobile phone, her only connection to the man.
