Spy Out the Land (15 page)

Rachel shook her head, and took off her jacket. Tombes was about to walk out the door when something stirred in the back of her mind and she called out to him.

‘Hold on. Where in the Baltic, exactly?’

Dark was thinking of getting another coffee when he looked up and saw a group of men walking steadily down the passage leading to the cafeteria.

There were four of them. They were well built, wearing dark blue woollen uniforms and with thick truncheons hanging from their belts. One led an Alsatian that was struggling against its leash,
and as they made their way down the corridor they glanced each way, studying the faces of the passengers.

Dark’s skin bristled. Kurkinen must have recovered and got the message out. The security crew of every ferry leaving Helsinki tonight would have been provided with his description and told
to comb every inch of their boats looking for him.

He didn’t like his chances. He’d lost the beard, but he was still a dark-haired, middle-aged Caucasian male, around 185 centimetres tall and weighing 80 kilograms, travelling alone.
And if Kurkinen had been clever, he’d have added a description of his own clothes.

He reached for the Browning. It was still secure in his waistband, but using it would be a last resort, as there would doubtless be other crew members and weapons on board, and he was
essentially trapped on the boat. But where to go? He could perhaps find a lavatory, or hide somewhere in the car deck, but he suspected that in the course of the journey these men were going to
search every inch of the ferry, and rather than hiding his only real chance of avoiding them was to stay in plain sight.

He slid out of his seat and walked towards the children’s area: the low cushioned wall shielded it from view unless you were at one of the surrounding tables. The small space contained
about a dozen children, running around, squabbling with each other, crying, or sitting alone preoccupied with a toy. A couple of adults were also roaming the area: a mother trying to cajole her
twins into coming to have some dinner in the cafeteria, another breastfeeding her baby. One wall was taken up with a primary-coloured painting of a ferry in simple geometric shapes, a Finnish flag
on its bow.

Dark glanced behind him and saw that the crew members had now entered the cafeteria, and that one of them was talking to the kitchen staff while the others were walking among the tables. The man
with the Alsatian looked to be heading straight towards him.

Dark stepped into the playroom, bobbing his head as though he were a parent looking for one of his brood. A girl with plaited hair, aged nine or ten, wearing a pink skirt and striped T-shirt,
approached and tapped him on the leg. She said something to him in Finnish, then pointed at a wooden shelf with rows of tiny shoes just outside the room.

Dark quickly took off his shoes. He placed them with the others and walked back into the playroom, narrowly avoiding stepping on the fingers of a crawling toddler. The girl with plaits nodded
approvingly.

‘Do you speak Swedish?’ he asked her. Finland was bilingual and the boat was heading to Sweden.

‘Yes.’

‘What’s your name?’

‘Saga. But my mother said I wasn’t to talk to any grown-ups.’

‘She’s right, of course. Where is she?’

‘She went to the shop. She’ll be back in ten minutes, she said.’

On the way to the cafeteria, Dark had passed a small kiosk selling duty-free cosmetics.

‘Have you seen my son, Ben?’ he said. He hardly knew why he had said it, but he wanted to engage the girl in conversation. The crew would be looking for a man travelling alone, not a
parent.

The girl looked up at him, wondering about her mother’s advice but intrigued by the question.

‘What does he look like?’ she said, finally.

‘He’s younger than you. Three years old. Curly hair.’

The girl’s saucer-like eyes appraised him. ‘You look sad,’ she said. ‘Have you lost him?’

Dark nodded, and something in him nearly cracked as the girl reached out and touched his arm in reassurance.

‘Don’t worry. He can’t have gone very far.’

Dark managed a smile.

‘Can you help me find him?’

The girl nodded firmly.

‘Perhaps he’s in there.’ She pointed at the painting of the ship, and Dark saw that the portholes were small cubbies that had been carved into the wall for the children to
explore.

‘I’ll check,’ said Dark, and dropped down to the floor. Saga laughed as he tried to crawl into the space and butted heads with a small boy in dungarees. He stretched his hand
out and she pulled at it. Dark got to his feet and thanked her. He looked across and saw the man with the Alsatian standing by the entrance to the space, scanning everyone in it. Dark gave a
sheepish smile, a hapless father overwhelmed by chaotic children. The man nodded and smiled back, then pulled at the leash and walked on.

Dark sat on the floor of the playroom and let his breathing return to normal.

A telephone chirruped in the office at the rear of the house in the outskirts of Lusaka. On the third ring, it was picked up by the small, slim man in the black satin dressing
gown reading a newspaper at his desk in the corner of the room.

‘Yes? Matthew Charamba speaking.’

‘Hello, Professor.’

The voice was strangely disembodied and metallic, and Charamba realised it had been put through some sort of machine. But even with the disguise he recognised the flat, terse accent typical of
white Rhodesians.

‘Who is this? How did you get this number?’

‘You don’t know me, but I have something of yours you might wish to see returned safely. Or, rather, someone.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘As you will no doubt be aware, some of your former colleagues will soon be taking part in talks with the Rhodesians.’

Charamba had heard of the South Africans’ plans for a summit from a paid informant within ZIPRA. Evidently someone somewhere – perhaps the same informant – had talked.

‘Who is this?’ he repeated, his voice now more insistent.

‘Patience, Professor. All will soon be clear. I represent a group of men who want those negotiations to take place, and to be fruitful. And we want you to take a leading role in
them.’

‘What? You must know my position – no negotiation with the whites on this. Majority rule is not something to debate—’

‘I’m very familiar with your position, Professor, but we want you to . . .
adapt
it.’

‘And why should I do this for you, a total stranger calling me up at my house?’

‘Haven’t you guessed yet?’ the man on the other end of the line taunted. ‘I want you to dismiss everyone from your house. Your sentries can continue to patrol the
grounds, but there must be nobody in the house when I call you back in precisely one hour from now. Do you understand?’

‘Yes, but why should I—’

‘Because we have your daughter and grandson, Professor.’

There was a clunking sound and then another voice came on the line, its urgency breaking through a field of static.

‘Father, it’s me, Hope! I’m here with my son, Ben. We’re both scared. Please – do whatever these men say.’

There was a click and the line went dead.

Charamba rose from his chair, his face drawn, and opened the door of his office. Phillip Gibo, his chief bodyguard, looked up in surprise.

‘Get everyone out,’ Charamba said quietly. ‘Get everyone out of the house at once.’

Rachel took the paper from the terminal and read the message from the Interpol bureau in Helsinki. It was to the point:

She found the Interpol sheet on top of a filing cabinet and ran her finger down the codewords. There it was. ‘MASEL: We are sending photographs and fingerprints to you by
teleprinter immediately.’

She put the sheet down and reached for the pack of cigarettes and lighter in her purse. She lit one and leaned back on the table, enjoying the rush of nicotine. She had taken three puffs when
the machine started up again, and she crushed out the cigarette in an ashtray and watched as the photograph came through.

Matthew Charamba took a deep breath and picked up the telephone.

‘Is the house clear?’

‘Have you hurt them?’

‘Is the house clear?’

Charamba’s flesh crawled at the menace in the voice.

‘Yes.’

‘Good. No, we haven’t harmed Hope or Ben, and have no intention of doing so provided you cooperate. Would you like more confirmation that we’re holding them, and of their
identities?’

He thought about it. He hadn’t had any contact with Hope since she had left that terrible day, so he hadn’t even known she had a son, but he didn’t doubt it was her for a
moment. Even ten years on, he would have recognised her voice anywhere. He could ask them for some kind of confirmation – the name of her favourite song as a child, perhaps, something like
that – as a way of stalling them so he could make some investigations, but he couldn’t think of anything, and something told him it wasn’t a good idea to try to fool the man
behind the voice.

‘No,’ he said, finally. ‘I believe you.’

‘That is also good. Now understand this, Professor, because it’s very important. You can tell no one about this. Not the newspapers, not your aides – nobody whatsoever. If we
have any indication that you have told anyone, or indeed have even considered telling anyone, your daughter and grandson will die. If you don’t follow our demands to the letter, they will
die. If you don’t agree to all of the conditions we have set out for the summit, they will die. If it becomes clear in the summit or at any other time that others know of this, they will
die.’

Charamba took a tissue from the pocket of his dressing gown and wiped away the sweat from his face.

‘Your idea can’t work. Even if I can arrange to be invited to the summit—’

‘Oh, we think you can, Professor. We think they’ll be glad to have you there.’

‘Perhaps. But only because they know my position. If I weaken it at all, they’ll know at once I have been pressured.’

‘We don’t think so. I think you’ll see that our conditions are more than reasonable. We have even made some concessions from the last round of negotiations, which we think you
can successfully argue for.’

‘The last . . . !’ He tried to contain his anger. ‘You’re crazy if you think I’ll go along with this. The last round of talks put off majority rule for a
century!’

‘We’re not at the negotiating table now, Professor. I’ll call back later to explain to you precisely what we expect. You mustn’t speak to anybody about this,
remember.’

The line went dead.

The telephone rang in the bedroom of the large Georgian townhouse in Mayfair. In the antique four-poster bed, Sandy Harmigan groaned and opened his eyes. He reached for the
receiver on the side table, his mind quickly registering that the call must mean an emergency of some kind. As Chief of the Service, he was rarely woken by the telephone unless it was to herald
death or disaster.

‘Yes?’ he said, glancing at his watch on the table as he did so. The luminous hands told him it was just after three o’clock.

‘I’m sorry to bother you, sir – it’s Reception. I have an urgent call for you from the night desk.’

He sat up with a jolt. Rachel was on duty tonight. He suddenly felt his heart hammering in his chest. On the other side of the bed, a body stirred.

‘Who is it?’

Harmigan looked across at his wife. She was wearing a black silk eye-mask and her skin was very pale without its customary coating of make-up. She looked, it struck him, like an embalmed
corpse.

‘The office,’ he said.

She shifted her weight and turned her back to him. ‘Would you mind taking it downstairs?’

It was a strictly rhetorical question. Harmigan told the operator to hold the line, replaced the receiver on its cradle and climbed out of the massive bed. He slid into his slippers, closed the
bedroom door behind him and padded downstairs, where he picked up the telephone on the dresser in the hallway and told the operator he was ready. There was a brief pause while the signal was
scrambled, and then a woman’s voice came on the line.

‘Sandy?’

‘Rachel – are you all right? What’s going on?’

‘Me? I’m fine.’

Relief surged through him. Nothing had happened to her. He could have dealt with anything at all but that. He realised that he’d been terrified of hearing of her death without his even
being consciously aware of it. Then there was a constriction in his chest again, as he redirected his mind to finding out whatever other emergency was taking place instead.

‘You nearly gave me a heart attack,’ he said. ‘What is it?’

‘I’m sorry to call you at home.’ They had agreed long ago that she would never do that, and there was an awkward silence at her tacit acknowledgement of their affair. Then she
cleared her throat and went on. ‘Something’s turned up – or rather, someone has. I’ve just received a photo-telegraph from Interpol in Helsinki and I’ve compared it to
the ones we have. He’s got a beard now and has aged a bit, of course, but I’m sure it’s him.’

‘Rachel, it’s three o’clock in the bloody morning. You’d better be talking about Lord Lucan or I won’t be very happy.’

‘It’s Paul Dark.’

Harmigan pressed the receiver closer to his ear.

‘What?’

‘The Finns took him into custody a few hours ago after he stole a motorbike and a helicopter, leaving two people dead. He then escaped from custody and Interpol have issued an alert as a
result. I followed up and asked them to send me a photograph, and it’s definitely him.’

‘That’s not possible. The bastard’s dead, frozen solid on some shitty island. As you well know.’

But even as he said the words he knew they weren’t true. Six years ago, Rachel had been insistent Dark might still be alive, but she had no reason to lie to him about the Finns or
Interpol’s photograph. Helsinki was also just a few hours from where Dark had last been seen – but no body had ever been found. He’d even sent Sudbury out to have a look, but
he’d just been met by blank stares from the local fishermen.