‘John. You’ve heard about the car bomb?’
‘I was there,’ said Purkiss.
‘Are you hurt?’
‘No.’
‘What happened?’
‘The target of the bomb was Mohammed Al-Bayati, the London head of Iraqi Thunder Fist, a dissident group possibly involved in insurgent activity in Iraq. Morrow’s notes suggest Al-Bayati was a Service agent, or at least informant. He had a phalanx of bodyguards with him. I wanted to interview him but he was killed first.’
‘How did the killer know you intended to approach Al-Bayati?’
‘They may not have known. He might have been earmarked for assassination and I just happened to take an interest in him beforehand.’
Vale was silent for a moment. Then he said, ‘Difficult to tie all this together. Morrow’s killing, the attempt on your life, and now this.’
‘Tell me about it.’
‘Is there anything I can do?’
‘Yes,’ said Purkiss. ‘Could you run a name through the SIS database? Dennis Arkwright.’
‘I’ll be in touch,’ said Vale. He didn’t ask any more, and rang off.
It was, as Purkiss had said, a long shot. But it was worth checking. If the coded material in Morrow’s notebook related to Iraq, then it was possible this Arkwright existed in the database of the foreign intelligence service, SIS, as well as the domestic Security Service.
Hannah was watching him. ‘You need to fill me in on a few details,’ she said.
So Purkiss did. He told her about the attack at his home, about Kendrick in hospital, and about the access he’d obtained to Morrow’s files. But he avoided mentioning Kasabian altogether, saying only that he’d obtained the files via a “high-placed source”.
She put her hands together, touched her lips against her fingertips. Shook her head.
‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘You’re going to have to tell me everything sooner or later. Who you’re working for. Because if this gunman attacked you in your home knowing you were involved in the case, then there’s a leak somewhere. Whoever’s employing you has allowed the opposition to get wind of the fact.’
‘True,’ noted Purkiss, who’d said as much to Kasabian. ‘But I can’t tell you who’s hired me. Not yet. Not until I know I can trust you.’
He expected her to react with anger, but she just nodded.
Vale telephoned back after twenty minutes. Although he was no longer an official SIS employee, he’d retained high-level connections within the service, as well as privileges to access the databases.
‘We have a match,’ he said. ‘But not much detail. Dennis Kincaid Arkwright, born twentieth February 1964. Did some freelance work for the Service — that’s our Service, SIS — in Turkey in the middle years of the last decade. The nature of that work is not recorded. He’s a former Royal Marine, Three Commando Brigade. Dishonourably discharged in 2002 for brawling and insubordination, narrowly avoiding a court martial.’
‘That’s it?’
‘Yes.’
‘I don’t suppose you have an address for him?’ asked Purkiss.
‘I do, as a matter of fact.’ It wasn’t Vale’s style to sound smug or triumphant, and he didn’t do so now. ‘He draws disability benefit, luckily enough. The Department of Work and Pensions have him living in a village called Dry Perry, in Cambridgeshire.’
He gave Purkiss the exact address. ‘There’s a photo, too. Not a very good one, and a few years old. I’m sending it across.’
Purkiss said, ‘Thanks, Quentin. That’s a great help.’
‘Nine people so far confirmed dead in the car bomb explosion. Seven in the vehicle — I assume that’s Al-Bayati and his bodyguards — and two civilians. Do you think anyone will remember that you were nearby when it happened, John?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Purkiss. ‘In any case, it wouldn’t have looked as though I was involved, if that’s what you’re worried about. I was approaching the Range Rover at the time. Hardly the behaviour of someone who’s wired the vehicle to blow up.’ He paused. ‘There is something, though.’
‘Tell me.’
‘Shortly before the blast, I’d been making enquiries at the Iraqi Thunder Party office, posing as a policeman. I persuaded them to give up Al-Bayati’s home address. That might be why he went to the car when he did — he’d been tipped off, and didn’t want to hang around to be questioned me.’
‘I see,’ said Vale.
‘But it means the ITF staff will suspect me of doing this. One minute they’re giving me their boss’s home address. The next, he’s murdered. I’m just letting you know that there could be fallout from this.’
‘Understood. Thank you.’
Purkiss rang off. A moment later a text message arrived, with an attached photo. It was a blurred three-quarter view of a man’s face. His age was indeterminate, and he had close-cropped soldier’s hair, a truculent jaw, dark eyes. Arkwright, evidently.
Across the table from him, Hannah said, ‘This man you were talking to. Quentin.’
‘Yes.’
‘He seems like a man you can trust.’
‘He’s proved himself trustworthy more times than I can remember,’ said Purkiss.
‘And yet,’ she said.
‘What?’
‘You agreed there’s a leak somewhere. Somehow, the opposition were tipped off about your involvement in this case. It could have come from him. This… Quentin.’
Purkiss shook his head. ‘No, it couldn’t.’
She raised her eyebrows.
Purkiss: ‘It wouldn’t make any sense.’
And as he said it, he saw how it could, indeed, make sense. Vale wanted him to take on the case. Vale could have set him up, just as Purkiss had accused Kasabian of doing.
But he knew Vale, and knew he wouldn’t do such a thing.
Purkiss stood, abruptly. ‘Come on,’ he said. ‘We’re going to talk to this Arkwright.’
Twenty-two
Beyond Stansted Airport the terrain flattened out, fields of wheat and sheep and yellow rapeseed undulating gently towards the horizon. Hannah drove quickly and smoothly, passing the lumbering queue of lorries crawling up the slow lane.
They’d taken her car, a Peugeot saloon which she’d collected from outside her flat in Kilburn, while Purkiss had taken the tube back to Hampstead and his house. His property was cordoned off, police teams still at work inside and in the front garden. But they let him in, to change his clothes and collect a spare set which he packed in a small holdall. He also threw in his passport, because you never knew.
Purkiss glanced at the piano as he left, at the chipped and puckered scars of the bullet holes in its wood.
Hannah picked him up in the car near the tube station. She’d changed, too, into a lightweight jacket and trousers. She nodded at Purkiss’s bag.
‘Do you think we’ll be staying overnight?’
‘I don’t know what to expect at the moment.’
They drove in silence until they reached the M25, the motorway ringing London. The village where Arkwright lived, Dry Perry, was in rural Cambridgeshire, almost two hours north of the city.
Purkiss said, ‘So what’s your story?’
She glanced across. ‘My story?’
‘How did you come to join the Service?’
She smiled faintly. ‘If I tell you, then you’re going to have to be a little more forthcoming about yourself.’
‘Fair enough.’
‘I’m the daughter of a spook. My father was head of the Service’s Manchester office in the seventies and eighties.’
‘You don’t have an accent.’
‘I grew up here in London. Notting Hill, to be exact. My parents divorced when I was three. I still saw my dad, remained close to him. Still do. He’s retired now.’
‘And he persuaded you to join up?’
‘He didn’t need to,’ she said. ‘I was always fascinated by his work, and I knew from the age of about twelve that I wanted to follow him. My mother wasn’t happy with it. She’s an artist and sculptress, and she wanted me to do something along those lines.’