The Room, Vale had informed him on the journey, was the place Richard Rossiter was being detained at Her Majesty’s Pleasure. A former safe house and interrogation facility for Soviet defectors during the Cold War, it had sat disused until almost a year ago, when someone had come up with the idea of turning it into a prison for one man. That man was Rossiter.
It wasn’t house arrest, because The Room was nobody’s idea of a home. But it was a step up from a normal prison, even a white-collar one. Rossiter apparently had a large cell, more like a dormitory but with a single bed. He was allowed a small selection of his own clothes to wear. He was permitted fresh air and exercise, books, and television, though no Internet facilities.
Every inch of the property, indoors and out, was covered by closed-circuit television cameras and concealed audio monitors. The reason, Vale surmised, was not so much to anticipate any escape plans Rossiter might be forming, but rather to pick up the smallest scrap of information he might inadvertently reveal about his former collaborators.
Rossiter had been part of an illegal black-operations project within SIS, one which took it upon itself to dispense with legal niceties and due process and to mete out torture and execution in the interests of British state security. Apart from Claire Stirling, Purkiss’s fiancée, whom Rossiter claimed he’d trained and run as one of his own, it wasn’t known who else was involved in the project. Indeed, it wasn’t clear if Rossiter was in charge, a mere underling, or even a lone wolf.
He’d been questioned, threatened, cajoled, offered deals that would allow him an early release. None of it had worked. Rossiter had flatly refused to answer any questions about anybody else he might have operated with. He hadn’t denied there were others involved, nor had he confirmed it. He simply hadn’t discussed the matter at all.
So the hope was, Vale assumed out loud, that Rossiter might betray the identity of others inadvertently. By blurting out their names in his sleep, perhaps.
‘It’s a long shot,’ Purkiss said drily.
‘Indeed.’
Might Rossiter be willing to open up about a dead person, though? In this case, Arkwright? Purkiss hoped so.
The carbine-laden policemen stepped forwards, one peering into Purkiss’s side of the car, the other approaching Vale’s. Purkiss wound down the window.
‘John Purkiss.’ He held up a special laminated card, replete with his mug shot, which Kasabian had supplied for him. He’d brought along his passport, too, just in case further ID was required.
The officer studied it from behind mirror shades, then nodded. ‘Straight through, please, sir. Stop just inside the gates.’
The gates slid sideways. Inside, Vale was asked to hand over the keys. Four more officers, who had appeared from nowhere, took over, one of them driving the car off towards a smaller building of some kind, no doubt for it to be scanned for explosives, the other three escorting Purkiss and Vale to the main block.
Inside, Vale stood to one side, his journey ended for the moment. Silent, unsmiling men in prison officers’ garb took Purkiss’s watch, wallet and mobile phone. He was expertly patted down, had metal detectors as well as a Geiger counter run over every inch of his outline, then told to walk through another doorframe-style scanner.
On the other side, two prison guards and two policemen led him down a brightly lit, institutional corridor to a door at the end. One of the warders touched his fingers against a scanning pad and pushed the door when it buzzed. Purkiss found himself in an airlock. The warder opened the door on the other side similarly.
‘No physical contact whatsoever,’ the warder intoned. ‘No standing until you’re ready to leave. You’ll be under video but not audio surveillance, so your conversation is confidential. But if there’s any sign that things are getting heated in there, that the prisoner’s temper is being roused, my staff and I have discretion to terminate the interview immediately. Understood?’
‘Yes,’ said Purkiss.
He stepped through the door into a square room lit with fluorescent ceiling panels. The room smelled freshly painted and clean. There was no other visible exit. In the centre of the room stood a metal-framed table with a laminated wood surface. On the table, in turn, stood a plastic jug of water and two beakers.
A man stood behind the table. Short, with close-cropped salt-and-pepper hair, eyes blue chips that stood out against surprisingly tanned skin. The trace of a smile teasing the thin lips.
Rossiter.
Thirty-four
Up until the moment he entered the room, Purkiss hadn’t known how he was going to feel, despite his reassurances to Vale.
He looked into Rossiter’s eyes, and felt nothing. Because this was a different man.
It was Rossiter, technically speaking; but the eyes were different. When Purkiss had seen them before, in Tallinn, they’d been alive, as though fine blue membranes were providing a precarious barrier between the man’s inner rage and the world outside.
Now they were the same blue, but calmer. Resigned looking.
They stood on either side of the table, watching one another. Rossiter was the first to sit. Purkiss followed.
‘John.’
The voice was quieter, again with none of the seething tension Purkiss remembered. Rossiter looked older, too, and had lost a little weight. He must be around fifty, but he could have passed for five years older.
‘Rossiter.’
It was the point at which two old acquaintances meeting for the first time after a separation would start complimenting one another on how well they looked. Purkiss fought an insane urge to laugh.
‘You know why I’m here?’ he asked.
‘I’ve no idea, no,’ said Rossiter levelly. ‘I must admit to being intrigued, though.’
‘I’m here to ask you some questions.’
‘Not this, surely? Not ten months on?’
‘What do you mean?’ asked Purkiss.
Rossiter placed his palms together, rested his chin on his fingertips. ‘I always wondered why they didn’t send you in to interrogate me back then, John. After I was first taken into custody.’
‘Because I would have killed you,’ said Purkiss.
‘You didn’t kill me on the boat, when you had the chance.’
‘That was a crazy, heat-of-the-moment display of mercy. With time to cool off, I’d have done it.’
Rossiter looked faintly amused. ‘So what’s stopping you from killing me now? Or is that why you’re here?’
‘I don’t want to kill you, Rossiter,’ Purkiss said. ‘Not any more.’
‘Why not?’ Now genuine interest had replaced the amusement.
Purkiss waved a hand, glanced around. ‘All this is death.’
‘It’s really quite comfortable.’
‘Comfortable. This from a man who was prepared to trigger a war between NATO and Russia in order to restore the importance of SIS in the world.’ Purkiss smiled. ‘Comfort isn’t your style. And here you are, in a parody of middle-class suburban hell. Good food, reading material, regular exercise. A stress-free environment, designed to allow you to nurture your spiritual side.’ He sat back, aware he’d been leaning steadily forward and not wanting to attract the disapproval of the watching warders. ‘No, Rossiter. I don’t want to kill you. I’m quite satisfied knowing you’re dying in here. And you’ve got thirty or forty years worth of dying ahead of you yet.’
For an instant, for the briefest beat, Purkiss thought he saw a flash of the old expression in the eyes, a bulging; but it was gone even as he registered it. Rossiter chuckled, a cordial sound.
‘Why the hell didn’t you join us, John? You’d have been an enormous asset.’
‘Us. You said that to me on the boat.’ Purkiss paused. ‘There are others, then.’