‘Half an hour.’
Twenty-four
She got in as Purkiss was crawling past the great Victorian façade of St Pancras, adjacent to King’s Cross. One moment he was peering at the pavements, trying to spot her. The next, she was in the passenger seat beside him.
Saburova’s eyes roved clinically over Vodovos in the back seat.
‘They allowed you to take him?’
‘I spun them a yarn,’ Purkiss said. ‘We haven’t got long, though.’
‘What has he told you so far?’ She spoke as if Vodovos wasn’t there.
‘That Mossberg was in on it. He knew the exchange was going to be sabotaged and he was going to be freed. Vodovos believes Moscow set the whole thing up.’
After a moment, she said, ‘No. I do not believe that.’
‘Neither do I, as it happens,’ said Purkiss.
Over the last twenty years, King’s Cross had been cleaned up. While it wasn’t exactly gentrified, it had changed to accommodate the ever-increasing flow of tourists through its station, and the drug dealers and prostitutes had largely been forced north into Camden Town and its environs. But the back streets behind the station retained a lot of their traditional seediness.
Purkiss pulled into an alley off one such street and turned off the engine.
Saburova looked at him, then at Vodovos.
Purkiss said, ‘I know, Saburova.’
Her eyes were watchful.
‘Give me your gun,’ Purkiss said.
‘What?’
He held out his hand. ‘You heard.’
‘I need protection,’ she said. ‘I am still a fugitive.’
‘You are, yes,’ said Purkiss. ‘That part I believe, though I didn’t at first.’ He flicked his fingers. ‘The gun.’
Without taking her eyes off his face, she reached into her coat and produced her pistol. Purkiss took it and dropped it into the pocket of his door.
‘Vodovos was bait,’ he said. ‘I had to bring him along, because if you’d seen he wasn’t with me, you’d have disappeared.’
She said, ‘I do not understand.’
‘It threw you, didn’t it?’ Purkiss murmured. ‘When I got the call to say that Vodovos wanted to speak to me. Because I was supposed to stay up there, in Merseyside. Stay out of the way. While whatever you’ve got planned here in London followed its course.’
On the periphery of his vision, he watched her hands. Watched them, in case they strayed towards her coat or her sleeves or her ankles.
‘And then you had to get back down to London as soon as you could,’ he continued. ‘Because you hadn’t know Vodovos was alive, and you didn’t know what he was going to reveal. You had to get to him urgently.’
Her expression was as warily watchful as before. But she swallowed, once, a tell-tale sign she was unable to suppress.
‘It was all to get me out of the way, wasn’t it? Rossiter knew as soon as I learned he was free, I’d be after him, whether anyone wanted me to or not. He needed time to set up whatever he had planned, and he couldn’t risk my finding him before then. So you were the tool he used. You told me that bogus story about Donovan having associated with Rossiter in the past, when in all probability they’ve never met. You claimed the guards outside Donovan’s house attacked you, when there were no guards, just the ones inside. And you planted that phone on Donovan when you were pretending to search his body. A phone from which you’d made several blank calls to Arrowhead Shipping, to make it seem like Donovan had been in frequent contact with Osip.’
He noticed that her respiratory rate had quickened just a touch.
‘Pyotr Osip is a fall guy in all this. Rossiter arranged for his shipping company to be used to import the dirty bomb. The idea was that the bomb would be intercepted, and Osip fingered as an associate of Rossiter’s. And, while I was tied up helping foil the plot on Merseyside, Rossiter would pursue his real objective here in London.’
In the back seat, Vodovos shifted to ease his leg. The sudden movement caused Saburova to turn her head sharply.
‘A little jumpy,’ observed Purkiss.
Still she said nothing, her silence more damning for every moment it was drawn out.
‘But I started thinking,’ Purkiss went on. ‘Why choose Osip in particular as the dupe? A former KGB man? And then I realised. It was supposed to look to us as if a Russian intelligence officer was responsible for a dirty bomb attack on Britain. The repercussions for relations between our country and yours would be profound. Which is exactly what Rossiter wants to achieve.’
In actual fact, Purkiss had only just begun to consider this. He spoke slowly, organising his thoughts for his own benefit as well as hers.
‘So, if the decoy operation involved the faking of Russian complicity in a terrorist attack… what about the genuine operation? Could it be that an attack of some kind in London is pending, and that the Russians are to be blamed for that one as well? And if so, which particular Russian is going to be the poster boy? Or — girl?’
‘You are deluded.’ Her voice was more than a whisper, but she barely moved her lips.
‘The Liverpool bomb contained a small amount of caesium,’ said Purkiss. ‘It’s early days yet, but it seems unlikely that it would have had catastrophic effects if it had gone off. Serious, yes, but containable, depending on where the blast occurred. But I know Rossiter. He doesn’t do things on a small scale. It isn’t his style. I have to assume that if he can hold of a small amount of caesium, he can get his hands on a large quantity as well.’
Purkiss twisted his torso so that he was facing Saburova fully.
‘Here’s what I think. I think there’s a dirty bomb in this city. A big one, perhaps with enough explosive to produce a blast effect, which will multiply the harm caused by the radiation significantly. I believe you have had access to this bomb, or will have, and there’ll be some way of linking you to it. At some point, after the atrocity, you’ll allow yourself to be captured. And the wheels will be set in motion. An active — not retired — an active member of the Russian FSB is found to be responsible for a nuclear attack in London. Rossiter will achieve what he almost pulled off in Tallinn. He’ll trigger outright war between Russia and the UK, or if not that, then something so close to it the difference won’t matter.’
The alley was shadowed, but there was enough light that her pupils wouldn’t need to dilate to adjust. But they were large within the brown irises.
That meant alertness. Or fear. Or both.
‘What have you been doing, Yulia, since you left Asher and drove down here? Have you been wandering about, waiting for me to call? Or have you been liaising with someone else? Perhaps collecting a delivery?’
Still watching her, Purkiss picked up his phone.
Vale answered.
‘Tell Gar to access the closed circuit cameras at King’s Cross Station,’ Purkiss said. ‘Look at the footage for the last two hours or so. Watch out for a woman named Yulia Saburova. She’s FSB at the Russian Embassy, so SIS will have her photo on record. On the off chance that they don’t, I’ll send one in a moment.’
‘Yes,’ said Vale.
‘In particular, look for any package or rucksack or suitcase she might be toting. Try and see where she’s left it. There’s likely to be a device inside, similar to the one on Merseyside but bigger.’
The tension from Vale’s end was palpable, even though he remained silent.
‘And get Gar to send techs to King’s Cross with Geiger counters. Post haste.’
Purkiss raised the phone and took a photo of Saburova’s face. He texted it to Vale.