The problem, Westwood saw immediately, was that none of those eight women appeared to occupy a position of even the slightest importance intelligence-wise. Most of them were clerks or low-level administrators, and none of them worked for either the SVR or the GRU, which was the information Westwood had been hoping to find.
‘No way they’d do all this for a runaway filing clerk,’ he muttered. ‘She must be somebody else, someone who’s never popped up on our radar before.’
‘Hang on a minute,’ Richards said. ‘There’s something about the dates that doesn’t fit.’
Westwood examined the printout again, and immediately saw what Richards meant. Beside the details for each woman — essentially a mini-biography containing everything known about her — were inscribed two dates. The first recorded when she had initially been identified, and the second the last time any additional information about her had been added to the file.
Beside one of the three identified as ‘Raya Kosov’, the date of the last amendment was over ten years earlier, while the details for all the others had been updated within the last two or three years.
‘Check her age,’ Westwood instructed. ‘What does it say on that sheet your man took off the Russian?’
‘Here.’ Richards passed it over.
Westwood compared the age cited there — no date of birth was given — with the details on the printout. ‘That could be her,’ he said. ‘The age is about right. So what was she up to ten years ago, when she dropped off our radar?’
‘She was a loyal Communist Party member and still at the university in Moscow,’ Richards replied. ‘Studying modern languages and computer science.’
‘That’s her,’ Westwood said decisively. ‘The reason we’ve heard nothing about her since is that she was recruited by either the SVR or GRU around that time, and they made sure she vanished from all public records. A modern languages specialist who’s also competent on a computer — that’s pretty much a definition of the ideal SVR recruit.’
‘So now what do we do? We know her name and what she looks like, but we don’t have the slightest idea where she is, or where she’s aiming to go.’
‘I know,’ Westwood admitted. ‘Let’s assume she was nearly caught by the Russians at Stazione Trastevere. Just remind me again what those eyewitnesses actually said.’
Richards picked up a couple of sheets of text and rapidly scanned them. ‘This is the statement that the Italian police reckon is the most accurate. The witness describes seeing a dark-haired woman running away from someone along a street near the Stazione Trastevere. OK, the Moscow description says she’s got blonde hair, but she could have easily dyed it, or have been wearing a wig. And Kosov would be a fool not to change her hair colour, knowing that Russian security personnel might be looking out for her in Rome.’
‘Which does raise an obvious question,’ Westwood interjected. ‘Presumably the description issued by Moscow was accurate, regarding the way she looked when last seen there, so how did their embassy men know that she now had dark hair?’
‘There must have been an earlier sighting somewhere,’ Richards said, ‘since she arrived in Rome. Somehow they discovered that she’d altered her appearance, and found out what she looks like now.’
‘Makes sense, I suppose. Now, I want to think again about what happened back at the Stazione Trastevere. According to that same eyewitness, the pursuer was closing fast on the girl. Most men can run faster than most women, especially when you consider their choice in footwear, but the fact that they’re still out searching for her means she must have managed to get away. How did she do it?’
‘That’s a very good question,’ Richards said. ‘I doubt if she’d have any accomplices over here in Italy. If she had, they would have arranged to meet her at the airport, and then the Russians would never have caught sight of her.’
‘Agreed. I don’t think anyone was waiting for her here. So about the only way she could have got away from that Russian was to use some form of transport. I don’t mean she hopped on a bus, though a taxi is still a possibility. Why not approach your police contacts and get them to canvas the taxi firms to see if any of their drivers recall picking up a female in that immediate area at the same time the incident happened?’
‘No problem.’
‘And there’s another question you can ask them. Were any vehicles reported stolen locally within the same time frame? If so, what type of vehicle, and if it’s been recovered, where was it found?’
‘You think she stole a car? Would she have had time to manage that, with some Russian thug breathing down her neck?’
‘No,’ Westwood replied, ‘but if some driver happened to stop his car with the engine running, she might have dragged him out and jumped in. Remember, she must have been desperate, running for her life, and a desperate woman is capable of astonishing things. Anyway, just ask the questions.’
Five minutes later, Richards ended a call to his contact in the local carabinieri and glanced across at Westwood. ‘That was a good call, sir,’ he announced. ‘A young Italian girl had her scooter stolen near the Stazione Trastevere, by a dark-haired woman who simply pushed her aside and grabbed it. The girl said a man was chasing the woman, and even fired a pistol at her. So far, nobody’s reported finding the scooter anywhere.’
‘So now we know how she got away from the Russian, but the real trick’s going to be finding out where she’s gone now.’ Westwood paused for a few moments, as if considering, then he nodded. ‘Maybe it’s time to start tackling this problem from the opposite perspective. Perhaps I should call up a few people I know in London, and try to find out what’s going on from their end.’
For the next twenty minutes, Westwood made some calls, and got absolutely nowhere.
‘That’s it,’ he said grimly, hanging up the phone at last. ‘I’ve called in every favour I’m owed, but nobody in London seems to know anything. Or, if they do, they’re not prepared to tell me.’
‘So now all we can do is sit here and wait?’
‘Exactly. But just let your carabinieri contact know that we’re particularly interested in that missing woman, or anything else that might relate to her.’
They’d been making good time, passing Civitavecchia less than an hour after leaving Rome. Having witnessed some examples of Italian driving in the city, Raya was pleasantly surprised to discover that Mario was pretty competent behind the wheel. They’d stayed on the coast road for at least one hundred and fifty kilometres, catching glimpses of the Mediterranean to the left side as they headed north. Finally they abandoned the main road, and followed the signs to Golfo di Follonica.
As they’d approached the tiny coastal town of Piombino, Mario pointed to an island a short distance offshore.
‘That’s Elba,’ he’d said, and explained how Napoleon had been exiled there after his abdication in 1814, but had stayed on the island for only three hundred days. As a sop to his vanity, he’d been allowed to retain his title of Emperor and given sovereignty over the island, accompanied by his personal bodyguard of six hundred men. But that hadn’t been enough, of course, and he’d escaped back to France the following year. Rallying his forces, he was soundly defeated at the Battle of Waterloo, and this time exiled yet again, to a barren island in the South Atlantic.