‘My take on it,’ said Purkiss, ‘is that this attacker — the one who killed Arkwright and his sons, the one who came after me at my home — had Arkwright wired. Either him personally, or his cottage. He was holed up close by, and when Arkwright dropped the Strang bombshell, he moved in.’
‘He was well equipped,’ said Vale. ‘Teargas grenades and mask, small arms.’
‘Arkwright was a Royal Marine, remember. And his sons, though they weren’t professional fighters, were experienced brawlers. The attacker knew what he was up against.’
Vale tipped his head in acknowledgement.
‘It bothers me, though,’ said Purkiss. ‘Why would he happen to be holed up just then, when I arrived?’
‘Because he knew somehow you were coming,’ offered Vale.
‘Then why did he wait until Arkwright crossed the line before making his attack? Why not just smoke us all out as soon as he knew I was in the cottage?’
‘Perhaps he wanted to avoid out-and-out carnage.’ Vale shrugged. ‘Perhaps he’d have preferred to wait till you’d left, then pick you off away from the cottage. You forced his hand by getting Arkwright to reveal what he did.’
Purkiss reached for the two-litre bottle of water he’d filled from the tap. Something else was bothering him about the way the whole episode had played out. He grasped at it, but it eluded him.
Kasabian arrived, letting herself in. She looked Purkiss over, noted the dressed arm, the facial plasters and bruises.
Without asking how he was, she got to the point.
‘Quentin here has told me some of it. Earlier he mentioned you were investigating a man named Arkwright, who had SIS connections.’ She took the mug of tea Vale handed her. ‘I’ve searched our files myself, manually. There’s nothing on him.’
‘Nothing,’ said Purkiss.
‘Not a mention of him anywhere. Which is odd. These former high-level military types who get themselves kicked out… they usually come up on our radar. I’m not talking ordinary squaddies who basically joined the armed forces to knock heads together and who’ll have ample opportunity to carry on doing so as civilians. I mean career soldiers. Proud men. They take badly to having their aspirations terminated. Often they set up mercenary groups, and we catch them domestically doing deals with gun runners. Or, they join right-wing extremist outfits. But this Arkwright doesn’t feature at all.’
‘Is it possible all intelligence on him might have been erased from your databases?’ asked Purkiss.
‘Possible, yes.’
That would make sense, thought Purkiss.
She raised her eyebrows, the rest of her pouchy face failing to lift with them. ‘So who is he?’
Purkiss told her.
When he reached the part where Guy Strang was mentioned, her reaction was more conventional than Vale’s had been. She jammed a thumbnail between her teeth and tore it audibly.
‘Fuck me,’ she hissed, her eyes distant.
She took three strides over to Purkiss, seemed about to embrace him, thought better of it and clapped a hand on his uninjured shoulder.
‘Excellent work.’
‘It’s hardly proof,’ Purkiss said, thinking of what Hannah had said.
‘It’s proof enough for me,’ Kasabian breathed. ‘It means I’m right. I knew he was involved.’ She gazed off again, her expression wondering, but also triumphant. ‘It means we’ve got a focus for our efforts.’
Purkiss concluded his account. He described the recording of Arkwright’s last words, and played it back for her. Afterwards she rocked her head.
‘Difficult to tell,’ she said. ‘The two of you are more likely to hear Rossiter than I am, because you’ve had a personal involvement with him.’
‘You know of him, though,’ Purkiss said.
‘Of course. He was very nearly the first person to be tried in this country for high treason since William Joyce in 1946. It would’ve been difficult to keep that secret, though, so the Crown got him on terrorism and murder charges. It’s multiple life sentences either way.’
Purkiss had deliberately been kept from involvement in the proceedings against Rossiter, but he knew the man had undergone due process, in a trial which had been conducted as far as possible out of the public eye.
‘The one thing that does make sense,’ said Vale, ‘is that Arkwright did some freelance work for SIS as well. This would have been later, after the work he alleges he did for Strang. Rossiter was SIS. There might be a connection there.’
‘Okay,’ said Kasabian. She ran a hand through her hair. Purkiss could see she was distracted, her thoughts still on Strang. ‘I’ll see what I can dig up on Rossiter, though I doubt it’ll be much of relevance. He did a pretty good job of covering his tracks. Quentin, maybe you can look at the SIS databases again. See if there’s anything fresh that might link him to Arkwright.’
‘There’s something else we can do as well,’ said Purkiss.
Kasabian looked at him. ‘What’s that?’
‘Get me access to Rossiter.’
They were both silent, Kasabian and Vale.
Purkiss went on: ‘Direct, face to face access. You can swing it.’
Kasabian breathed out, shook her head slowly. ‘There’s no way you’re using duress against him.’
‘I’m not talking about using duress,’ said Purkiss. ‘I won’t be interrogating him at all.’
‘Then… what?’
‘I’ll ask him for his help.’
Kasabian probed his face with her eyes. Vale, on the other hand, looked thoughtful. Purkiss wondered if he knew what Purkiss had in mind.
Purkiss said, ‘Rossiter’s a patriot. A twisted, misguided, delusional patriot, but a patriot nonetheless. He has his own view of what’s best for the country, and he’ll follow that path no matter what. Even at the cost of his own skin. On that boat, in the baltic, he actually asked — begged — me to kill him, rather than bring him in and cast the Service into disrepute.’
Kasabian glanced at Vale, then back at Purkiss. She made a rolling movement with her hand: keep going.
‘If I put it to Rossiter that his cooperation is important to national security, and if I can convince him of it, he’ll play ball. He might try to manipulate me, to play games, but he’ll do it. The hard part will be convincing him of it. Because we don’t know that this does involve national security at all. I’ll have to lie persuasively.’
‘How will you know he’s telling you the truth, rather than feeding you misinformation?’ asked Kasabian. ‘He hoodwinked you before.’
‘I won’t know. I’ll just have to be on my guard.’ Purkiss looked at each of them in turn. ‘Come on. It makes sense. The sooner we do this, the better. In the mean time you can look for connections within the respective services.’
Kasabian was silent for a beat. Then she said: ‘All right. I’ll arrange it.’
‘Thank you.’
‘It’ll be tough,’ she said. ‘Doing it without tipping off Strang… it’ll take some doing.’
‘I’m sure you’ll find a way.’
Kasabian left. Purkiss thought she had a spring in her step.
‘It was risky, telling her,’ said Purkiss.
‘She had to know, John.’
‘Nevertheless.’ Purkiss began to pace again. ‘If she’s not careful, she’ll play straight into Strang’s hands. Make a blunder of some kind.’
Vale said, ‘There’s something else that’s risky. It concerns your meeting Rossiter.’
‘What’s that? If you’re worried I’m going to attack him, finish what I started in Tallinn, forget it. I wouldn’t have the opportunity, anyway. The security around him will be airtight.’
‘It’s not him I’m concerned about,’ Vale murmured. ‘It’s you.’
‘Why?’
‘Coming face to face with him for the first time since… well, since then. You don’t know what it’ll trigger in you.’
Purkiss stopped pacing, faced Vale. ‘I’ve come to terms,’ he said. ‘I’ll be fine.’
‘Very well.’ Vale looked at his watch. ‘I’d better set to work.’