The Old Enemy

by Henry Porter

  ‘Of course not.’ She took his hand, brought it up to her lips and kissed it. ‘Goodbye, dear Samson. And for fuck’s sake, try to stay alive.’ She got up and left with a look of heartfelt regret.

  An hour later he was told he could leave, but two police officers, an inspector named Glynn Jones and a Sergeant Taylor, arrived with more questions. They were puzzling over the motive of the dead man, who they identified to Samson as Pim Visser, not knowing that he was already familiar with the name. Jones declared himself mystified. What was a face from Rotterdam’s underworld doing in Samson’s flat? What had Samson done to earn the attention of the people who paid Visser and Miroslav Rajavic? In their questioning, Samson saw an obvious conflict and waited for the moment when Taylor, a short, wheedling individual with a cowlick and not the brightest look in his eye, asked again and again about the blows he’d delivered to the man’s head, as though Samson had intended to kill him.

  ‘On the one hand, you’re telling me that these two men were extremely dangerous individuals, yet, on the other hand, you seem to be saying that I used excessive force and ask why I couldn’t have immobilised Visser, sat him down, offered him a drink and reasoned with him.’

  ‘There’s no need for sarcasm, Mr Samson.’

  ‘Tell me what you would have me do in those circumstances. Seriously! I knew Inspector Hayes was in the flat because I heard her phone, yet it was dark and there was no sound from inside. I knew she was in trouble and my only thought was to rescue her. As it turned out, he’d stabbed her and was about to rape her. He had already lowered his trousers – right? So this was not a normal break-in. He would have killed us both, after having raped a senior police officer.’

  ‘But you didn’t know this when he came at you, sir,’ said Sergeant Taylor.

  Samson gazed at him. ‘Of course I bloody didn’t know that, but it was lucky I hit him with all the force I could muster, or we might both not be here.’

  ‘And you hit him again.’

  ‘Yes, but I was being stabbed at the time, remember?’ He looked down at his leg.

  ‘And you grabbed a kitchen knife, which you intended to use.’

  ‘Of course! What’s your point? This was a life-or-death situation. I’d have had no problem using that knife. No problem at all!’

  ‘We have to consider that you used unreasonable force.’

  ‘I’d like to see you make that case in court. And, with Inspector Hayes as a witness, forget it. Have you looked into Pim Visser’s background? How many people is he suspected of killing?’

  ‘We are simply doing our job, sir.’

  ‘You’re doing your job – exactly! So you know the man’s movements before he went to my home. You have his phone, so you can find out who he was speaking to from the flat. You can find out when he arrived in this country, because his face will be on CCTV at Harwich or somewhere. You know all this, right, and you don’t need me to tell you that this was a murderous psychopath with a lifelong history of violence.’

  ‘We are working on all that.’

  ‘What transport did he use to get to my flat?’

  ‘We assume a motorcycle.’

  ‘But you haven’t located that motorcycle. Is that correct? So that might lead you to conclude he was dropped off near my place. But he brought his own supper with him, so maybe there was a stop on the way.’

  The officers looked mystified.

  ‘There was a half-eaten kebab in the flat. The only place he could have got that near my flat was at Jimmy’s Kebab on Edgware Road. Jimmy’s is bound to have CCTV, so you can see what time he got there and whether he was accompanied by anyone, which he must have been, because no one is going to walk from Jimmy’s to my flat and wait to eat their takeaway.’ He stopped. ‘He would eat it on the way, no?’

  There was no need to make them look any more foolish, but he continued. ‘We know he forced his way into the flat after Inspector Hayes arrived by cab. He held a knife to her throat and compelled her to open the flat door. But how did he know that she was a friend of mine? Maybe they had the place under surveillance the night before. And why wasn’t his partner with him? I’ll tell you why, because he was outside my restaurant in Mayfair.’ He took out his phone and showed them a photograph of a CCTV still provided by Ivan in the early hours of the morning. It showed Rajavic standing in the street with his hands in the chest pockets of a hoodie. A second, from a different angle, was of him on the phone. The front wheel of a bike could be seen in the background ‘Maybe he was talking to Visser at that very moment,’ he said.

  ‘Where did these come from?’ asked Jones.

  ‘Mayfair Ladies, a message group that operates in my street. The casino across the way from my place uploaded them to the group.’ He laid the phone on the bedside table. ‘Both these men tried to kill me in the last few days, so the idea that I exercised unreasonable force when confronted with Visser in my own home is simply stupid.’ He touched his leg. ‘If the knife had entered a little to the left, I wouldn’t be here.’

  ‘We take your point,’ said Jones.

  ‘So, unless there’s something else, I am going to pick some things up at my flat, because while this character is at liberty, I obviously can’t live there.’

  ‘It’s a crime scene,’ chirped Taylor.

  ‘I’m sure you have everything you need by now,’ said Samson. He stood up and reached for the cane the hospital had provided. He didn’t propose to use it for long, but when he put pressure on his foot the pain in his thigh was considerable. He bent down to get his bag. ‘There’s one other thing, which you should be aware of,’ he said, his face popping up. ‘Visser’s phone may be the crucial lead in several investigations worldwide. You should give it to the security services – they’ll know what to do with it, even if you don’t.’

  Samson made his usual exit from an interview, which is to say that he rose and walked out before he was told he could go. And, as usual, they didn’t try to stop him.

  Chapter 14

  Sex, Venice and a Bullet

  The door of his flat was open and police tape was stretched across it. He lifted the tape and walked in. A member of the forensic team in a white suit was packing up equipment in the sitting room. She looked embarrassed and called out. Two men, neither of whom were dressed in overalls, nor looked very much like forensic officers, emerged from a spare bedroom, where Samson kept personal accounts and some family records. They had the smell of MI5.

  ‘What are you doing in there?’ he demanded. ‘Everything happened out here, as you damn well know.’

  ‘We have to make sure that we haven’t missed anything, sir,’ replied one.

  ‘Well, now you’ve checked, you can get the hell out.’

  ‘This is a crime scene, sir.’

  The forensic officer looked away. She wasn’t having anything to do with them.

  ‘I think you’d better leave before you embarrass yourselves,’ said Samson, perching on a kitchen stool. ‘You know no more about forensics than I do. No suits, no gloves, no shoe covers. Out!’

  He shook his head and glanced at the woman.

  ‘We’re all done here, sir,’ she said to him, with a tiny note of solidarity.

  When they’d left, he checked over the rooms at the back of the flat and noticed one or two things out of place but nothing seriously wrong. MI5 were on a fishing expedition. He went to his bedroom and worked quickly, packing clothes he’d need for the next two weeks, which included a dark blue suit and tie, a new pair of hiking shoes, T-shirts, jeans, shirts and a sweater. All this was compressed with skill into a medium-sized bag, which airlines sometimes let him carry on with a rucksack. He was proud of his technique for folding a lightweight, tailored suit, which emerged more or less wearable, and to this he added a slender pair of black brogues, made for him at a time when he had money and cared more about these things than he did now. Into the ba
g’s side pockets he placed the Zeiss binoculars he’d used at the Junction, a head torch and a multi-purpose tool.

  He went to the wardrobe and unhooked the leather jacket, his companion in Syria, the Balkans and on the Russian border, where he had been shot, damaging the jacket. This had necessitated a repair by a leather workshop in Brick Lane, which had finally returned the jacket three weeks ago. Samson felt its weight and smiled to himself. The patches where the bullet had entered his shoulder, passed through his body, ripping a much larger hole before slicing into Anastasia’s arm, were coloured and aged to match the rest of the jacket and were virtually invisible. He couldn’t help but remember the remark made by one of them – he didn’t recall whether it was him or Anastasia – to the effect that the only things they had in common were Venice, sex and a bullet. As they watched a figure make his way across the beach in front of Harland’s seaside cottage in Estonia nearly three years before, they had realised there was something else they shared – a profound affection for Naji Touma, whom she’d first encountered in a refugee camp on the Greek island of Lesbos.

  He took everything and dumped it at the base of the kitchen island, turned on the coffee machine to make an espresso, then thought for a few moments before calling Naji. There was no point in confronting him with his discovery in a phone call, although he urgently needed to find out what Naji was doing at the Junction and the nature of his connection to Zoe Freemantle, and the only way he could do that was to see him in person. Naji answered on the first ring.

  ‘Naji, it turns out that I do need to see you,’ he said. ‘Can we meet for coffee near Imperial?’

  ‘No,’ Naji replied.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘I’m on a plane. I leave now.’

  ‘In that I case I wonder if you could just explain why you were—’

  ‘I cannot. The plane is leaving now. I have to turn off the phone.’ It was true. Samson heard an announcement in the background telling passengers to do precisely that.

  ‘Then when can we speak?’

  ‘At Mr Harland’s funeral, maybe.’

  ‘Naji, this is serious, I need to talk to you before next week,’ he said, but Naji had gone.

  He sipped his coffee, aware of the throbbing pain in his leg, and considered using one of the three shots of morphine that he’d bought in Turkey. He went to retrieve the emergency medical bag from where Jo had lain bleeding, and noted, by the by, that the kebab had gone and the stains from their blood had combined to ruin both the sofa and the Persian hand-knotted rug which had been purchased with Anastasia’s encouragement. He examined the 10mg morphine sulphate pen injector, saw that it was just shy of its expiry date but decided that, if he used it, he’d be flying for the rest of the day. He placed the little bag that he’d used to treat Jo in the rucksack.

  He left messages for Macy Harp and made another call to Vuk, whose voicemail wasn’t working. He took two painkillers with the coffee and waited. A minute later, his phone lit up with an incoming call.

  A cackle was followed by a burst of smoker’s cough, then finally some speech.

  ‘How is English pussy?’ Vuk Divjak asked, before disposing of the phlegm in a way that was all too plain.

  ‘Vuk, how charming. Thank you.’

  ‘I have sickness – like snake ’flu.’

  ‘Vuk, you smoke too much.’

  ‘No point speaking to English pussy because Vuk knew nothing about men.’

  ‘Okay, it’s been great to hear from you, Vuk. Shall we talk when you’re feeling better? Let’s catch up on your latest adventures in the Serbian justice system.’

  ‘Funny fucking English pussy – you joking with poor old Vuk Divjak.’

  ‘Just a little,’ said Samson. ‘But mostly I mean it.’

  ‘When I know zero, that was in past.’

  Samson’s mind reeled. ‘Sorry, I didn’t get that one, Vuk. What are you trying to say?’

  ‘Not trying to say. I am saying this to you now, idiot.’

  ‘Okay, I’m listening.’

  ‘In past I know nothing. Now I am knowing everything and I am not telling Sonia Fell.’

  ‘MI6 have asked you about these men?’ He recalled that Vuk had come to him from the UK’s Belgrade embassy, via Sonia. It was natural for her to call him. MI6 and the CIA would be all over the Belgrade criminal community.

  ‘Yes, they ask me, and I did not tell them because I then know zero. Now is different. I know more than zero – a lot more than zero.’

  ‘So what do you know?’

  ‘First we talk business terms.’

  ‘You’re selling the information!’

  ‘Yes, this is my lifehood.’

  ‘Your livelihood! “Lifehood” isn’t a word.’

  ‘That’s what I say.’

  ‘What sort of money do you want?’

  ‘Ten thousand euro.’

  Samson coughed. ‘Forget it, Vuk. That’s way too much.’

  There was an uncharacteristic silence at the other end. ‘Okay, I sell to Sonia Fell and MI6 Pussies. This is good.’

  ‘MI6 won’t pay you €10,000, Vuk.’

  ‘Then CIA.’

  ‘They might do. And by the way, Vuk, I have absolutely no problem with you selling your information to either agency, so don’t think I’m going to join a bidding war for it. But I thought you liked Mr Harland and would want us to bring justice to his wife, Ulrike. And Vuk, these people have tried to kill me twice.’

  Samson told him about being attacked by the Matador and Visser. ‘Look,’ he said eventually. ‘Why don’t you think about it and call me back?’

  Vuk grunted and said he would be in touch.

  A second conviction born in the middle of the night was that Macy Harp had been stringing him along and knew far more than he’d admitted. That was always the case with Macy, and when you called him on it he ducked and swerved and always managed to avoid telling the whole truth. This time, however, Samson would get it.

  He dialled the number again. ‘We need to have a conversation, Macy, and during that conversation you will tell me exactly what the hell is going on. Everything you know.’

  ‘Come over later and we’ll have a chat,’ said Macy, unperturbed. ‘By the way, I’m terribly pleased to hear your voice. Sounds like a very nasty business. Well done getting through that. You did a heroic job.’

  ‘We were lucky,’ he said, and before hanging up, added, ‘And Macy, I really want some bloody answers.’

  He moved to the steel splash plate above the stove and prised it from the wall. Beneath it were blue tiles from the old kitchen decoration, which he levered out to reveal a safe. In the past, he’d kept tens of thousands of pounds in it, but now there was an envelope containing just £5,000. Also in the safe were two sets of identities, including passports and driving licences. The passports were less use in the age of frontier biometrics but could be helpful in establishing an identity inside a country, and not every border was equipped with biometric readers. He chose the Lebanese passport for Aymen Malek, a long-standing resident of the 14th arrondissement, in Paris, and the possessor of an indefinite carte de séjour linked to an apartment block where a helpful resident forwarded his post for a fee each month. Malek had a liminal presence on professional networking sites as something in banking, a career Samson kept refreshed with posts about minor business triumphs and excruciating messages of thanks to the data, legal or marketing teams in this or that well-known bank. Malek’s tendency to sycophancy amused Samson. He stowed Malek’s passport and driving licence in his rucksack, together with a wallet that included memberships of the Automobile Club de France, a gun club in Créteil, charge cards in his name and, crucially, up-to-date bills and, finally, the envelope of cash. For good measure, he included the passport of Belgian national Claude Rameau, and the Hungarian identity card he’d used in Estonia in the na
me of Norbert Soltesz. Neither of these two identities was worked up nearly as well as Malek’s.

  He rested his leg for a while and looked around the flat. He tended to be practical and unsentimental, but over the years he’d become fond of the building and the neighbourhood. After Anastasia, he’d thought of selling both flats but feared he’d lose the money in his gambling binge, so his home had become an anchor of stability, something he wasn’t prepared to lose. Now, while there was a threat to his life, he obviously couldn’t live here, but in a more general way it had suddenly soured for him. The man he’d killed had apparently expired in the flat just a few feet from where he now sat. Blood was all over the place; Jo would no longer bring her uncomplicated companionship to Maida Vale; and MI5 had crawled through his possessions, leaving a vague sense of violation. Right then he decided he would sell up. He’d keep the smaller flat until Derek and Jericho, who had, after all, saved his life, wanted to move on.

  He rose with the image of Remy in his mind, and dialled Jo. This was breaking some kind of agreement, but his encounter with Remy had prompted a question and no one else could answer it. He recorded a message saying he wouldn’t be contacting her unless it was important. Then he left the flat. As he descended to the street, he received a text from Jo. ‘They are pressing me to change my statement. You know what that means. If you’re going abroad, as you said, leave today. They are going to fucking well tie you up so you can’t move. Speak later. X’

  Chapter 15

  Live Frog

  It was a warm day in Washington. Across the capital, puffs of white and pink blossom were evidence of an accelerating American spring, the pace of which Anastasia had never quite got used to. The spring of her childhood in the Pindus Mountains in Greece crept slowly across the landscape with several distinct stages. Here, it came and went in one gaudy flash. She was packing, or rather sorting the clothes which had been sent from New York by FedEx, and, like Samson, she included one piece of formal wear in the bag. The rest were practical clothes she used for travel and her work – boots, jeans, sweaters, an olive-green thermal jacket and several versions of a white shirt that allowed the wearer to secure rolled sleeves with a tab. Denis commented that her style increasingly tended towards the military and said he wished she’d sometimes make a concession to femininity, which is why she had worn a plum-coloured shirt and a silver necklace with her suit to the hearing.