Tim Stevens - Ratcatcher

Twenty minutes passed until the door buzzed open and a couple stepped out, dressed for a night on the town. The man held the door open automatically. Purkiss smiled his thanks and hauled the chest into the lobby. He thought: taking advantage of simple human courtesy. What a life we lead .

He worked quickly and methodically, starting with the living room and dining area — the stain on the carpet was damp, he noted — and moving on to the bedrooms. Two of them, men’s clothes of different sizes in each. Vale hadn’t mentioned anything about Seppo’s having a flatmate, but perhaps he hadn’t known.

In Seppo’s room — Purkiss deduced it was his from the size of the clothes in the cupboard, Vale having described Seppo as a small man — he noticed the slightest protrusion of the lower of two drawers in the bedside table when he closed it. He lifted the drawer off its rollers and pulled it out. Taped to the back was a memory stick. He pocketed it and replaced the drawer.

The drawers in the other room, the mattress, yielded nothing. He peered behind the row of paperbacks on the room’s only shelf, then glanced at the books themselves. Estonian titles, some of them translations of popular novels by British and American authors. He turned away before a delayed realisation caused his head to snap round again.

Wedged in between two doorstop novels, its spine furrowed through repeated use, was a paperback he recognised.

He pulled it down. Reflections on the Revolution in France . The same edition. He riffled the pages against his thumb and checked inside the covers. There were no identifying marks, but it was the one.

Fallon’s totem.

Purkiss sagged on the bed, gripping the book in both hands, staring at the cover. The memories were rising.

Claire, in a montage of images and smells and tactile traces, vivid as phantom limbs. Looking back over her shoulder at him while she dressed, grey eyes mischievous and smile gently mocking. Walking towards him in the rain in her turtleneck and the boots he’d bought her which were ruined on the first day she’d worn them. Pressing her small head with its short blonde hair scented with her lemongrass shampoo back against his face on the balcony of the Marseilles flat, his arms around her from behind as they stood and drew on the heady tang of the sea. Arching her back beneath him as he pressed his mouth against the hot musk of her neck.

Dropping sack-like to the carpet, eyes suffused and starred crimson, tongue like lolling liver, neck efficiently dislocated.

Claire, dear sweet Jesus. Claire.

He turned the book over and found that his nails had driven deep crescents into the cover.

He held off calling Vale, because although the shaking in his hands had stopped he wasn’t sure his voice would be as steady. Also, he needed some time to process the new information. Suddenly nothing made sense.

He used the time to work through the rest of the flat. The bathroom contained nothing of note. Last of all he went into the kitchen. Having checked the cupboards and the fridge, he opened the freezer.

The Jacobin leaned close to the monitor, trying to identify what was different. Purkiss had disappeared from view several minutes earlier, doubtless to search the rest of the flat, but when he returned there was a change in his posture, in his facial expression. A tightening, something suggestive of a coiled whip. Had he found something the Jacobin had missed?

He disappeared again in the direction of the kitchen and emerged in due course, his face betraying nothing. Purkiss had his phone in his hand and was thumbing a number in when he stopped, looked slowly around the room, at one point staring directly at the camera before his eyes roved away. Then he went out into the entrance passage, closing the door behind him.

Clearly he’d considered that the room might be wired. It didn’t matter, because when the Jacobin opened the other window and saw the slow movement of the icon across the screen, it became clear that Purkiss had taken the bait.

‘It doesn’t make sense.’

‘Tell me about it.’

He was on his way down the hill again, glad to be outside. Purkiss had seen death before, but the sight had unnerved him, coming as it had after his memories of Claire: the small frame cramped sideways on its bed of frozen goods, the face twisted up at an unnatural angle so that it seemed to peer at him through cracked eyes. He had hauled Seppo out, noting the absence of lividity and of ice formation as he turned him over. Less than six hours, he estimated. There was no wallet or phone. Purkiss hoisted him back into the freezer, closed the lid.

Vale said: ‘Why would Fallon leave his book in Seppo’s flat after killing him?’

‘He didn’t. I mean, he lives there too. That was his room I found the book in. The clothes in the cupboard are his size. Seppo and Fallon were sharing that flat.’

The silence grew. ‘John, this has got me. I’ll need to think about it.’ The rustle, as always, of cigarette paper. ‘I do have something for you, though. Elle Klavan. She’s an active agent.’

‘Doing what?’

‘I haven’t got that sort of information yet. All I have is confirmation that she’s with Little Sister, as in not ‘ex’. I can make discreet enquiries at the Embassy over there.’

‘That’s useful.’ Most SIS personnel operated out of the embassies or consulates in the host country. He was walking fast to burn off adrenaline. ‘What do you want me to do with the body?’

‘Leave it. It’ll keep for a few days.’

It made sense. Tipping off the police now could be awkward, especially as Purkiss’s DNA was all over the flat.

‘Also,’ said Purkiss, ‘there’s video surveillance in the flat.’ He’d spotted the tiny lens at the back of the fireplace just before leaving, hadn’t seen it the first time he’d searched the place because he hadn’t been looking for it. ‘I’m assuming Fallon set it up to see who came looking for Seppo.’

He told Vale he’d call back later. After reaching the Old Town square, he spent a few minutes in the side streets, trying to find the internet cafe he’d spotted on his way earlier. Inside it smelled of coffee and tourists. When a machine was free he sat and slotted the memory stick into one of the ports. The box that came up told him the entire stick was password protected.

Purkiss bought a paper cup of coffee the size of a small bucket and left the warmth of the cafe. He phoned Abby.

‘How soon can you get here?’

‘There’s a six a.m. flight, so, eleven tomorrow morning your time? I’ve already booked it.’

He shook his head. ‘What if I hadn’t needed you to come?’

‘You always need me. Anyway, I’d have put the cancellation fee on expenses.’ Her voice dropped a notch. ‘Anything the matter, boss? You sound… I don’t know.’

‘I’m all right.’ He checked his watch. Ten forty-five. ‘Could you do something else for me?’

She called back within the hour. He’d wandered about the town, frustration gnawing at him, unease flickering on the periphery of his sensory fields. The face staring at him turned out to be somebody trying to read a restaurant menu near his head. The man who stumbled spraying red onto the cobbles hadn’t been stabbed, but had simply spilled a bottle of red wine after a glass too many. When the phone vibrated he tensed.

‘We’re in luck. All the flats in the block are owned by the same landlord.’ She gave a name and address. ‘It’s walking distance from where you are.’

‘I don’t suppose you found out if he’s at home this evening, did you?’

She paused. ‘No, but I — ’

‘Only joking. Great work, Abby.’