He’d tipped his head back to stare at the ceiling as he mused, and something caught his eye. The ceiling was made up of a pattern of fibreglass tiles, laid onto a metal lattice. Purkiss pulled the chair away from the wall and stood on it and touched one of the tiles. It lifted away freely.
He gripped the metal frame of the ceiling lattice and hauled himself upwards so that his head was through the gap. Between the lattice and the roof, a low crawlspace extended into darkness in every direction. It was wide enough to fit a man of Purkiss’s size, lying prone.
Purkiss climbed back down and replaced the ceiling tile. This was useful knowledge. If he could find out the exact location of Wyatt’s room, he might be able to gain access from above. It would have to wait until tomorrow.
He lay on his back in the darkness, the fragments of what he’d learned shifting around each other as in a kaleidoscope but failing to coalesce into a coherent picture.
Nisselovich’s disappearance.
Keys’s addiction and his terror of naming the other person or person who knew about it, presumably Wyatt.
The sabotage of Purkiss’s snowmobile.
They were all connected with Wyatt’s presence at the station, but there was no clue yet as to how.
Frustration gnawed at Purkiss as he drifted in and out of sleep.
Once, in the night, he woke and raised his head. A far-off noise had alerted him. He waited, holding his breath, straining his ears through the sudden silence. There was nothing more.
He was on his way to the dining room at seven thirty the next morning when the yell came echoing through the corridors.
Ahead, he saw Budian emerge from the dining room, followed by Haglund, his hand securely bandaged. They looked perplexed.
Avner’s voice came again, louder, edged with panic and approaching rapidly round the corner.
‘Oh, my God. Oh shit.’
Purkiss broke into a run.
He reached Haglund and Budian and passed them, shouldering past the engineer. Beyond the corner Avner was running in the opposite direction towards him, his eyes wild with fear.
‘What, Avner? What is it?’
Avner stopped, slumped against the wall, clamped a hand across his mouth. He stared at Purkiss.
‘Efraim. Come on. What’s wrong?’ Purkiss reached him and grabbed his shoulder.
Avner lowered his hand. He whispered: ‘It’s the doc, man. Doug Keys. He’s… ah, Christ.’
He leaned into the corridor and retched, his thin empty stomach contents spattering the linoleum floor.
Purkiss barrelled past, reaching the intersection which led to the west wing. Haglund caught up with him. He saw Medievsky ahead, also at a run in the direction of the infirmary.
The station leader reached the infirmary door first and stared in. His profile clenched into an expression of utter horror.
As Purkiss approached, he saw Medievsky cross himself and mutter something, before stepping into the room.
Purkiss took in the harsh, clinical lighting, the sour meaty stench, the abattoir the room had become.
On the bed furthest to the left, Keys lay supine. His pyjama-clad legs were hooked over the sides, his arms stretched into space in a grotesque and clumsy parody of a crucifixion.
His left arm, the one visible from this side, was sleeved up to the elbow in gore. The blood had jetted so far it had stained the wall behind and the adjacent bed. The floor was pooled with a red so deep it was mahogany.
Purkiss stepped past Medievsky’s shoulder and moved into the room, ignoring the man’s warning growl. He walked carefully round so that he could view the bed straight from its foot.
Keys’s pallid, extended right arm was intact. On the floor below it, a surgical scalpel lay in a spattering of rusty stickiness.
Beside Purkiss, Haglund brought a knuckle up to his mouth.
Purkiss felt Medievsky moving in close. He half turned his head.
At his ear, Medievsky hissed: ‘You knew he was going to do this.’
Eleven
On most working days, Lenilko was accustomed to phoning home at four in the afternoon. He’d ask how the twins’ school day had gone, speak to each of them in turn, listen to their excitement and their various disgruntlements, take nourishment from their unfettered ebullience. And he’d chat with Natalya, tell her in the blandest terms of his own quotidian activities, share his own frustrations and sympathise with hers.
Today was Saturday. The twins weren’t at school, and while an FSB officer of Lenilko’s seniority was never officially off duty, leaving aside vacations, he didn’t as a rule spend the whole day at the office. Today was an exception, because of the Yarkovsky Station project. And since it was exceptional day, Lenilko didn’t think to call home at four o’clock.
At five-ten pm, he remembered that Olga had her ballet exam today. It had been scheduled for ten in the morning. And he hadn’t called.
Lenilko muttered a few words of advice to the staffer over whose shoulder he was looking and strode to his office.
The phone rang three times, four, Lenilko’s guilt growing steadily. He was about to give up and call Natalya’s mobile instead when she said: ‘Hello?’
‘The ballet exam,’ he said. ‘I’m so sorry. How did it go?’
‘It went very well, Semyon Vladimirovich.’ She never used his patronymic except when she was angry with him, but her tone would have been enough on its own. ‘She wanted to tell you all about it herself, but she’s playing now with friends.’
Lenilko closed his eyes.
‘I’ll make it up,’ he said. ‘Tomorrow I’ll take them to the Park.’ Gorky Park’s centre was transformed into an enormous ice rink during the winter months.
‘Really,’ Natalya said. ‘You can guarantee that?’
No, of course he couldn’t guarantee it. The situation at Yarkovsky Station demanded that he be available round the clock, at the drop of a hat.
‘Is she there at home?’ he asked quietly.
‘Yes. But as I said, she’s playing —’
‘I’m coming round,’ he said, and put the phone down before she could respond.
In the main office he pulled on his overcoat. To his secretary he said, ‘I’m going home for an hour.’
One hour he could definitely afford.
Lenilko headed for the elevators at a brisk pace. As he approached, the doors slid open and two men stepped out. They halted, as though taken aback at seeing him. Lenilko recognised them both.
‘Mr Lenilko,’ said one of them. ‘Mr Rokva wishes to speak with you.’
Lenilko felt his breath catch in his chest. Nikoloz Rokva was the head of the Directorate of Special Activities. He frequently summoned Lenilko, but it was always by telephone call to the office. This was the first time anyone had been sent to collect Lenilko in person.
It wouldn’t do to show unease in front of the two men. Lenilko allowed a flicker of natural frustration to pass across his face before he nodded.
‘Okay.’
The elevator rose in near silence, the men on either side of Lenilko watching the floor numbers tick off. When the doors opened, one man stepped out first while the other ushered Lenilko ahead of him. One in front and one behind. He was being escorted, and he didn’t like it.
The office suite was far quieter than Lenilko’s own, only a handful of secretarial staff working this Saturday afternoon. None of them raised their heads as Lenilko walked with the two men across the floor space to the heavy oak door at the far end.
One of the men knocked. A voice said: ‘Come.’
Lenilko had been in Rokva’s office countless times. He’d been awed on the first few occasions, not because it was particularly grand — it wasn’t — but because it struck him anew each time that he was standing in one of the FSB’s inner sancta.